What did we learn from Morgan McSweeney's evidence into the Mandelson vetting row? — BBC News

[0:00] hello it's adam in the newscast studio and it's alex in the westminster studio and it's joe pike [0:04] in a different studio in westminster but in the same building on the same floor this is true [0:09] just to add confusion to a very confusing day um so we're recording this episode of newscast [0:14] on tuesday evening at five to seven and as all aficionados of the house of commons will know [0:18] this is prime voting time on a midweek day in in the house of commons so joe we've just had this [0:24] vote on the tory motion to refer keir starmer to the privileges committee so they could investigate [0:30] him for the misled parliament about his statements about the whole mandelson affair and the result was [0:36] uh the eyes to the right 223 the notes left 335 so labour the government have comfortably won that [0:45] vote it looks like there are 15 labour rebels the size of the labour rebellion is probably [0:52] perhaps more interesting than the fact that keir starmer and his team have successfully blocked [0:57] a privileges vote that privileges investigation sorry that always seemed likely um and i'm told [1:05] there is real relief in downing street today they started the day i think really nervous because [1:10] a lot of this was out of their hands both those committee appearances from morgan mcsweeney and philip [1:15] button but also what could have happened in the the commons chamber they pulled out all the stops [1:20] yesterday and this morning and it seems to have worked even though as we discussed yesterday adam [1:25] some think this makes the pm look a little bit weak and nervous and alex just in terms of crunching [1:31] the numbers i think we are saying there were 14 kind of official labour rebels yeah it looks like [1:38] it because it looks like so basically when a vote like this happens parliament number crunchers do some [1:42] crunching of numbers and then it all pops up on a website and you can look at the way each mp voted [1:47] and on the face of it as joe said initially it looked like 15 labour mps had voted against the [1:53] government but it now appears one of those labour mps voted both ways which cancels them out so it's [1:58] 14 proper rebels from as far as we can tell um and most of those are people who have been critical [2:07] of the government in the past but obviously you shouldn't ignore the fact that you have got [2:13] 14 labour mps openly and publicly disagreeing with the government about this issue which is [2:18] significant and what were some of the arguments that they used for for why they were going to vote [2:22] with the opposition yeah so i mean it's worth just remembering what the opposition were trying to do [2:26] which was get the prime minister referred to the privileges committee which is a committee of [2:31] seven mps to look into whether he was totally up front and honest in everything he said to parliament [2:36] about peter mandelton's appointment and when you listen to the debate there were some interventions from [2:40] some of those who did end up voting against the government who were basically saying things like [2:44] you know well why if there's nothing to hide why don't you refer yourself to this committee [2:49] one of the mps expressed a bit of anger about the way that downing street had managed this vote because [2:54] downing street whipped labour mps which basically meant means it told them they had to back the [2:59] government on this and i think that caused a bit of anger among some labour mps who felt that perhaps [3:05] this should have been one of those votes where they got to choose the way that they voted and so [3:10] there was that expression coming out but ultimately that big operation that joe described where downing [3:15] street was chucking everything at trying to get the labour mps to back it rolling out the big dogs and [3:20] phoning around the cabinet and calling people back from scotland campaigning to get them on the labour [3:24] benches to take part in this vote ultimately that has paid off and i think part of that might be the [3:30] fact that this was obviously a motion that was put forward by the conservatives but also backed by other [3:34] opposition parties so the snp the dup the liberal democrats and i think that naturally mps don't [3:41] love voting for something that's been put forward by the opposition so it sort of gave them something [3:45] to coalesce around having said all of that that doesn't mean that there's still not an awful lot [3:51] of disquiet anger and frustration on the labour benches about where they find themselves right now [3:55] to be discussed and also joe it's worth just pondering the counterfactual here isn't it of of what [4:01] would have happened if this vote had gone the other way and starmer had been referred to privileges [4:06] committee because we've got recent history of an example of that and it's boris johnson and party [4:10] gate and we all remember the months of wrangling the prime minister of the day having to give evidence [4:16] his him having to hire a qc at the time to deposit a massive document with the committee and then of [4:23] course the outcome of that of that committee which found that boris johnson had misled parliament [4:27] yeah pick your cliche adam is it kind of worms is it pandora's uh box the problems that akir starmer [4:36] could have faced i suppose would coalesce because he believes he's not misled parliament around the [4:42] fact that you're just dragging out this madison saga day by day with more committee appearances more [4:50] evidence uh more um opposition uh politicians getting a chance to uh criticize him and highlight [5:00] that fateful decision to appoint lord mandelston uh in the in the first place and i think they just [5:05] really worried if if it went to the next stage and the privileges committee where there is a labour [5:11] majority on that committee uh four two uh three even though the the chair is a conservative that it [5:17] would be out of their hands like so much of this has been and that they just would never ever escape [5:22] him and then in terms of other things that are happening today i hinted at this at the start of [5:27] the podcast the blockbuster session of the foreign affairs select committee where dame emily [5:32] thornbury and her colleagues are looking into the whole peter mandelson vetting thing which has [5:36] now been expanded to was it right for the prime minister to sack ollie robbins um and alex this [5:42] was it ended up being about four and a bit hours wasn't it i love that you say blockbuster i think [5:46] blockbuster if you're into that kind of thing like maybe blockbuster in kind of westminster terms but [5:51] yeah there were two different sessions so the first one up was sir philip barton now he was the [5:55] boss at the foreign office at the time downing street announced that peter mandelston was going [6:00] to be made us ambassador but he left pretty soon after that so he gave his evidence first was told to [6:06] leave to be replaced by ollie robbins yes basically and he said that during the committee hearing he was [6:10] up first and i think that was about an hour and 45 minutes and then he was followed by morgan mcsweeney [6:16] who is the prime minister's former chief of staff and i think while lots of people were interested in [6:20] what sir philip barton had to say i would suggest maybe morgan mcsweeney was the one that a lot of [6:25] people were looking out for and part of the reason for that is because you know he's been absolutely [6:30] instrumental into getting keir starmer into downing street and then he was by the prime minister's side [6:36] for you know that kind of initial period in government this really really key figure who often isn't seen [6:41] or heard from publicly you know so a lot has been written about him a lot has been out there [6:47] describing him as this sort of softly spoken irishman but not many people have actually heard [6:51] him speak so i think a lot of people were tuning in to see that and of course to see his take on this [6:57] whole process around peter mandelson and i'm sure we'll get into the detail of what both of them said [7:01] well yeah um let's do it in reverse order from what happened in real life then and we'll start with [7:06] morgan mcsweeney because yeah that was the kind of more exciting kind of viewing opportunity if i [7:12] could put it that way and he started off with a big apology uh for which he's kind of done already in [7:19] print when he announced his resignation as the prime minister's chief of staff he said that he that [7:23] appointing peter mandelson one of the reasons it happened was because he'd advised the prime minister [7:27] to do it and he was taking responsibility for that error of judgment and then a bit later on in the [7:32] hearing mps were sort of getting to what his reaction was in september last year when bloomberg [7:39] the news agency uncovered those emails that basically led to peter mandelson sacking as the [7:45] ambassador in washington and this is what morgan wick sweeney said in a quite sort of emotional [7:49] sounding bit of his testimony to the committee the nature of the relationship that i understood he had [7:54] with epstein was not a close friendship how i understood it at the time was a passing acquaintance [8:00] that he regretted having and that he apologized for what has emerged since then was way way way [8:09] worse than i had expected at the time and it was when i saw the pictures when i saw the bloomberg [8:15] questions in september 2025 i have to say it was like a knife through my soul i did not expect that [8:23] level of connection that he was talking about there and yeah alex it's just worth going through the [8:28] timeline of that again so uh there was the decision in downing street to appoint peter mandelson as [8:34] the ambassador so a political appointment rather than somebody from the from the diplomatic service [8:38] then there was the the fact that there was the due diligence report but then morgan mcsweeney [8:44] made his own inquiries with lord mandelson about his relationship with jeffrey epstein and that was [8:49] him there saying that by the time the the new epstein files came out in september he realized that [8:55] mandelson's relationship with epstein was very different from the one that he'd he'd been [8:59] presented with yeah and the timeline is important because it's worth remembering that in that due [9:04] diligence report which was shown to the prime minister and morgan mcsweeney said he'd seen it [9:09] it did set out in that as part of a series of reputational risks that were listed about peter [9:14] mandelson the fact that he had a relationship with epstein who at the time had been convicted of [9:20] child sex offenses so that was known but the morgan mcsweeney argument of today was very similar to [9:26] the argument that we've heard from sir keir starmer is that they didn't he didn't know the extent of [9:31] that relationship with peter man between peter mandelson and jeffrey epstein and you're right [9:36] morgan mcsweeney referred to the fact that when that due diligence was going on and they were [9:41] considering peter mandelson for this job as u.s ambassador he asked a series of in writing follow-up [9:47] questions to peter mandelson about that relationship now morgan mcsweeney said at the [9:51] committee today and we we knew this already but he said he couldn't tell us the detail of those [9:55] questions or the responses because that was now part of the police investigation that's going on and [10:00] he'd effectively said that when he was in government he was advised not to share it [10:03] but the central argument he was making is the one the prime minister's made which was that they claim [10:08] they didn't know just how far this relationship between mandelson and epstein went and when they found [10:15] out well you heard what morgan mcsweeney said it was like a knife through his soul in his words which [10:20] was probably one of the standout moments from this committee but of course the question that persists [10:25] the question that's really at the heart of all this for so many critics of what has happened is that [10:30] question of judgment in making that appointment in the first place and joe the other thing that morgan [10:35] mcsweeney really wanted the committee to get was that he hadn't put pressure on whoever was in [10:40] charge and the foreign office at the time to uh kind of wave through the vetting process he said [10:47] he wanted it to be done within a time frame because in an ideal world they would have got [10:52] mandelson sent out to washington in time for the inauguration and trump becoming president for the [10:56] second time but he wanted to stress that he had not been meaning that there should be any kind [11:01] of shortcuts taken or any blind eyes turned to things exactly adam and that did fit with what [11:07] philip barton also said there was no pressure on the substance of the security vetting the result [11:15] of of what those security teams were doing did not change but he did concede as others have that [11:22] there was a bit of a rush and trying to get a lot of this sorted that though he argued was about the [11:27] fact they didn't want to make a decision over which ambassador to put in that lovely residence [11:34] in washington before they knew who had been elected a president in november of that year and they as [11:41] you say wanted it sorted and wanted the person in post by inauguration now peter manelson was not in [11:45] post by inauguration it was two to three weeks after that he arrived in the states and therefore i suppose [11:51] that uh backs up uh morgan mcsweeney at least argued it backs up uh the uh claim that that the foreign [11:58] office didn't move too fast because they didn't actually meet the deadline that ideally number 10 [12:03] would have wanted i think that particular part over pressure because pressure was mentioned in the [12:10] privileges committee motion later uh pressure is something that kemi badenock and other opposition [12:14] leaders have mentioned that i think was a useful bit of evidence alongside what philip barton said for [12:21] number 10. you talk about being a blockbuster set of appearances i do think it was but there were no [12:29] uh bombshell revelations and in fact one thing that promote provoked uh humor and laughter a rare bit of [12:37] laughter in the committee room with morgan mcsweeney was when he was asked by conservative john [12:41] whittingdale whether he'd come up with the idea of appointing peter mandelson ambassador and in fact to [12:48] guffaws from mps and others there he said no the first person to suggest lord mandelson was lord mandelson [12:54] i think i've been using the word blockbuster incorrectly today because i think what i really [12:59] mean is like it was it was long so it was like it was like like lawrence of arabia rather than like [13:05] i don't know an actual block like jurassic park or like bohemian rhapsody when it hit the cinema or [13:10] whatever it was how do you mean like you know like one of those movies that like lands and gets like [13:15] big takings in the box off is that to me is a blockbuster yeah i think that's a huge hollywood movie that [13:20] kind of lands and everyone rushes off to go and see it i don't even know if that was true of bohemian [13:24] rhapsody i also did well we can we can do a fact check on that later get people to verify onto that [13:29] um also i did just check and actually this morning's hearing at the foreign affairs committee was [13:34] actually longer than lawrence of arabia well there you go film is three and a half hours long it was [13:38] about four and a half hours all up by my reckoning and i was trying to listen to the first bit on the [13:41] train which meant kept releasing signals having to go back to listen again so my watching was even longer [13:46] i'm not sure we'll be talking about this though in in decades as a great work of sort of uh parliamentary art [13:52] certainly uh it was no ollie robbins the prequel was better well you could you definitely argue [13:57] that i talking to allies friends of morgan mcsweeney they seemed pretty pleased with how he'd done [14:04] partly because as alex said he's never really appeared in public before he he did speak last [14:09] week at this security conference in kiev in ukraine but before that it was impossible for us to even find [14:16] a recording adam of this man's voice that is how low profile he has kept his position and it's not [14:22] just the fact he was chief of staff to the prime minister but he also was running this this uh [14:27] election campaign successfully for labor such an influential figure arguably who picked uh keir [14:33] starmer for the job as as a candidate for labor leader rather than the other way around so strange that [14:40] we suddenly hear that voice and see his style of communication and his allies say look he was [14:46] detailed he was calm and he was consistent and with this story which has been so dangerous for the [14:54] government i think the consistency was one thing that they seemed pleased with what was really [14:59] interesting to note was that he did also use his performance at the select committee or appearance i [15:05] should say at the select committee to try and sort of set out the or distance himself and the labor [15:12] party from peter mandelson's influence you know because it's sort of he's often was described as [15:16] a sort of peter manderson was his mentor and that was how it was written up and he was saying no no [15:21] actually look he was a confident i did seek his advice but there were lots of other people i spoke to [15:26] so it was i mean he was asked about this and he was responding it's not like he naturally volunteered [15:30] it to be fair to him but he took that opportunity to try and suggest that the influence that peter [15:36] mandelson has had over keir starmer's labor party perhaps isn't as great as it's been portrayed in some [15:42] quarters of the media which i just thought was interesting in and of itself and also emily [15:45] thornbury went back to as far as 2001 when morgan mcsweeney was i think an intern in the labor party [15:52] so you can tell that there's been beef that's been going on for a long time inside that party that was [15:57] kind of on display here um also just in terms of other episodes of morgan mcsweeney's life um [16:02] we learned more or we got a little bit more insight into when his phone was snatched in westminster [16:07] in october last year we learned about what sort of parties he went to with them labor grandees and [16:14] also joe we got a sort of slightly um cringe insight into what it must have been like for him when he [16:20] was having to sack matthew doyle his colleague who was director of communications in downing street [16:25] yeah this was the controversy revealed last week by ollie robbins about the fact that matthew doyle [16:32] who was being uh shoved out moved out delicately eased out some might say eased out so that's a [16:37] better way of putting it exited was what he said wasn't it exited what a verb is exited he also used [16:42] the verb adrenaline adrenaline he said he was adrenalized around when his phone phone was stolen [16:48] all the interesting sort of corporate verbs are used by morgan mcsweeney but effectively matthew doyle [16:53] was on his way out of number 10 and morgan mcsweeney was the one who had to have that probably quite [16:59] awkward conversation we think you need to go now um matthew and what uh he also revealed was that there [17:07] was a discussion seemingly between uh him and keir starmer maybe about what job in government a [17:15] different sort of less influential job uh matthew doyle could do the possibility of course of some sort [17:22] of mid-level ambassadorial post morgan mcsweeney wanting to stress that he did uh discuss this [17:30] uh mentioned it to the foreign office the reason he didn't want the then foreign secretary to know [17:36] about it and and he told officials please don't tell the foreign secretary it's because he argues it [17:39] was a a sensitive hr matter matthew doyle wasn't he said interested in that sort of job so it wasn't [17:47] perceived and he said that if he had been interested he still would have needed to apply for the job [17:51] as a civil servant would have done but of course it is a bit awkward getting an insight to those [17:58] conversations where you're taking someone to a side who has worked for many years on the starmer [18:04] project saying you know what we don't think your your work is up to scratch we want someone else to [18:09] do it how can we uh you know help you leave in a in a positive way as possible of course ultimately [18:16] matthew doyle did get a peerage questions over him keeping that peerage because of further [18:22] revelations about his conduct and relationships before he was involved in in team starmer i think [18:29] i thought two big things about morgan mcsweeney's appearance one specific to this story and one a [18:34] bit more general about politics the specific thing was he was obviously thinking that that the vetting [18:42] process this famous dv done by uk sv should have turned up peter mandelson's associations with epstein [18:51] or kind of got to a greater truth about who peter mandelson was that he or the civil servants in the [18:58] cabinet office or keir starmer had been able to and i wonder is that is that a sort of a psychological [19:05] response to if you've made a massive error of judgment you then look around for sort of sliding [19:10] doors moments where you might have been saved from your own decision making or actually is there [19:17] a real issue with the extent to which we do vetting of people like peter mandelson and then my more [19:23] general points was the sadness of the hatchet man alex i thought he talked a few times about just the [19:30] number of times in his career he's had to fire people or not give people jobs and it just seemed [19:35] like actually that takes a bit of like a like a psychic toll on a person yeah and i think he says [19:40] something like you know that's politics or that's the nature of politics but he did speak about it [19:44] at some length that that kind of what you sometimes have to do all the decisions that you have to take [19:49] when you get to the position that he's in and on your former point i i actually think that was really [19:53] interesting because what he did say also was that he regretted that when he was asking follow-up [19:59] questions to peter mandelson that he had done that he wished it had been the what's called the pet teams [20:04] the propriety and ethics team so a sort of official government process instead of him doing it and [20:10] we've also of course had the prime minister say that he thinks that the vetting process [20:14] needs to be looked at again and changes made to it now of course critics of the prime minister and [20:21] all of the things that have happened with the appointment of peter mandelson would suggest that is [20:25] you know looking for somewhere else to park some of the blame for all of this and it is interesting to [20:31] note that there's still this ongoing discrepancy between some of the senior civil servants who've [20:36] given evidence that talked about that developed vetting should have been done before the appointment [20:40] was announced of peter mandelson whereas people like morgan mcsweeney today who said it didn't jump [20:45] out to him that it hadn't been done before he thought it was sort of okay that it was done after because [20:50] that happened in other situations so i think there are still some questions about that that kind of [20:54] the detail of the process and i guess if you're watching all of this it might feel a little bit at this [21:00] stage like people are sort of dancing on the head of a political procedural pin around some of the [21:06] detail but the point is i think to parliament the detail can really matter and that is why we're [21:12] seeing a continuation of the examination of the process i think the real question that sits behind [21:18] that is that going to really change the verdict of people out there in the real world voters the [21:22] public who might have already decided what they make of this whole peter mandelson appointment and all the [21:27] consequences and crucially is it really going to change the verdict of labour mps who again [21:32] many of them have probably already reached a conclusion about where this leaves keir starmer [21:37] i do think it's interesting though that this whole process seems to have now become [21:41] was keir starmer right and justified and fair in sacking ollie robbins when this story about the [21:47] vetting first emerged in the guardian um thursday of the week before last now i don't know if that's an [21:53] original thought or actually just henry zeffman said that on the radio at lunchtime and i've just [21:56] copied it but i think he's definitely well henry's definitely onto something i think with that that [22:03] that thesis that it does sort of feel how it felt today and also from a prime minister that you know [22:08] by his own admission leans quite heavily on process and this idea that a very senior civil servant was [22:15] sacked kind of on the spot i think there's a sort of question that kicks around about that for some [22:20] in parliament as well also we now have um joe the sort of to some people quite bizarre spectacle [22:26] of a lifelong labour man morgan mcsweeney saying actually they were quite tempted to hire the [22:32] architect of tory austerity and one of their biggest bogeymen george osborne as the ambassador [22:38] because he was the second person on the shortlist of two he was the second person on the shortlist [22:43] and uh not developed vetting but uh the earlier cabinet office um uh sort of smaller probe into [22:52] him had a taken place so they were clearly quite serious about george osborne being a possibility [22:59] um also fascinating that philip barton said he was never consulted about mandelston's appointment and [23:08] also this strange situation you know you've touched on it that morgan mcsweeney was the one sending [23:13] emails to mandelston checking things out and obviously uh doesn't believe that those responses [23:19] were honest i think if you do step back with all of this we can't get away from the fact and kia [23:24] starmer can't get away from the fact that at the point of appointing lord mandelston he knew as all of [23:30] us did that peter mandelston had had a seemingly quite significant relationship over a number of years [23:37] with a convicted paedophile and there were photos of them hanging out together and on the earlier [23:43] point adam about the difficulty of of sacking people obviously i suppose it's not just what [23:49] morgan mcsweeney has done but also what kia starmer did with ollie robbins and also of course emily [23:54] thornberry must have got a call soon after labor got into power not giving her the attorney general job [24:01] i think we can't get away from it in the atmosphere in that committee room this morning [24:07] the fact that it didn't seem like emily thornberry was a huge fan of morgan mcsweeney she'd been [24:13] through with her clerk seemingly sort of cuttings uh library on him wanted to ask him a lot of things [24:19] about his his earlier life so there's sort of underlying beef in different in different parts [24:25] of this no i feel we've um underestimated philip barton's uh contribution but then i think he'd probably [24:31] be quite pleased with that because he sort of didn't really want to make any massive waves he was [24:35] happy to make a few little ripples um one of the ripples he did make was clearing up something that [24:39] kind of went a bit viral and became a bit of a meme last week when the committee were questioning ollie [24:43] robbins about the nature of this uh so-called pressure from number 10 downing street on the [24:49] foreign office and whether there'd been a sweary phone call from somebody in number 10 perhaps morgan [24:55] mcsweeney to somebody at the foreign office like philip barton and then here is philip barton giving his [25:00] version of what did not actually happen in the end this story or versions of it has been in the media [25:06] persistently or floating around the media since last september you know there's different versions [25:11] sometimes involving the swear words sometimes not and i've really wrapped my brains and i cannot recall [25:18] morgan mcsweeney swearing in a meeting at me or indeed just in in general and so my takeaway from that [25:26] alex is that this this select committee process can look very very forensic but actually sometimes [25:32] it's not as forensic as it might look yeah i mean i guess maybe because some people in a room yes [25:38] i guess ultimately mps on the select committee like might like to think that they're very forensic and [25:42] some might argue that they are um but yeah quite a some of what was put to some of the people who [25:49] appeared before the morgan mcsweeney and philip barton was about kind of stuff that had been reported in the [25:54] newspapers or on you know blogs or political news websites um and you know that was the nature of [26:00] some of the questioning and not only did philip barton knock that sweary phone call thing down [26:04] but then morgan mcsweeney said i'm so grateful for philip barton for knocking that sweary phone call [26:08] thing down later so yeah i mean i guess look the thing about these select committees is what they do do [26:13] is a they have the power to summon the key people who were involved at the heart of some of this [26:18] decision making that won't necessarily pick up the phone to journalists or want to do an interview for the [26:22] six o'clock news but they do go and appear before parliament because a lot of them respect the [26:26] process the parliamentary process and authority and the other thing about it is the time you know so [26:31] they do allow time and when we were saying that this all in all was about like four and a half hours [26:36] that these two people today philip barton and morgan mcsweeney spent in front of the committee [26:40] and you don't often get kind of in public that kind of time to go over the real minutiae and detail [26:48] of parts of process now some people might think what's the point in doing that but you know what [26:53] it is is a kind of insight and a chance and an opportunity to examine in detail slowly a lot of [26:59] the stuff that there wouldn't otherwise be opportunities to do and of course it is televised [27:03] so people can watch it and reach their own judgments on what is or isn't said but yeah or [27:09] you can watch lawrence of arabia on itv4 talking of sliding doors moments it just struck me that what if [27:14] george osborne had been appointed uh us ambassador we could for good or ill be in a very different [27:19] place right now having a very different conversation joe the other significant thing i thought philip [27:24] barton said or in fact didn't say was when he was asked do you think due process was followed in all [27:30] of this and that's important because that is the line that keir starmer has repeated in the house of [27:35] commons which was then the subject of the privileges committee motion that we started this episode [27:40] talking about and philip barton was asked that and he he swerved the question and he even said [27:46] i'm swerving this question which is not super helpful for downing street absolutely he yeah he [27:52] said i said i'm gonna dodge that question but he he did go later into uh raising saying that he had [28:01] uh his own concerns about manderson because of the epstein links so he he said at the time the [28:09] appointment was announced or he found out the appointment was happening the decision had been [28:14] made that he had concerns about epstein i suppose awkward yes that he uh didn't say yes i do believe [28:21] due process was false i think he just didn't want to seemingly make a call either way but clearly there [28:28] are many of those in parliament who think it wasn't because if it had been we wouldn't have necessarily [28:34] been in this mess i suppose the other thing to think about is in terms of how number 10 may be [28:40] viewing this they've pulled a lot of levers they've used a lot of sort of trump cards as alex said at the [28:45] start of this conversation um mainly yesterday in terms of wheeling out brown and blunkett and ellen [28:49] johnson and the cabinet ring round and the the surprise plp meeting i suppose the issue and the problem for [28:57] prime minister is that if there is to be a a moment maybe on the horizon when he needs to get [29:03] mps on side soon maybe after the may elections or indeed maybe on it on that sort of a policy [29:09] area of of difference he can't necessarily do all of that again certainly i'm not sure that [29:15] i call him harold wilson's ghost yeah i mean like how i mean i had to actually put this to somebody [29:19] number 10 like who's next who's the next person you bring out here and maybe if gordon brown does it [29:24] a second time or david blunkett i mean are they going to listen next time i don't know let's see but [29:30] they have used a lot of trump cards or pulled a lot of levers quite early considering what could [29:35] be coming in the next few weeks and then alex you wait ages for a story about an american ambassador [29:40] to come along actually no you don't because they're every day but then today there were there was another [29:44] one about the current one yeah so christian turner i know i was just about to say christian fraser [29:50] because that came up on the millbank group earlier but on our whatsapp yes one of our colleagues [29:54] called the american ambassador christian fraser who's our colleague who reads the news yes absolutely [29:58] not christian fraser to be abundantly clear christian turner who is the fairly recently appointed us [30:04] ambassador the financial times has obtained a recording of him i think i'm right in saying he was [30:09] speaking to some students school children school children in washington and being recorded and this [30:16] was a couple of months ago but according to the ft has only just been passed to them this week and [30:22] make what you will about the timing but the ft says it didn't sit on it it received it it looked at it [30:27] and then it published it but yeah some of the comments that he has made are language that you [30:31] wouldn't necessarily expect from a u.s ambassador certainly a u.s ambassador fairly recently in post and [30:37] and to be fair you might assume he didn't know who was being recorded but then others might say [30:41] well you should always assume that you are so some of the stuff he said he told these students [30:45] that keir starmer had been on the ropes earlier this year and over all of this to do with peter [30:50] mandelson the labor party could remove him after the local elections in may so sort of talking about [30:56] the prime minister's political vulnerability and another of his reported comments is that you know [31:02] this phrase that we often use to describe the relationship between the uk and the us the special [31:07] relationship that people kind of lean on and refer to quite heavily talking about the long-standing [31:12] you know military security defense diplomatic links between the two countries christian turner [31:16] apparently said that america's special relationship is probably israel so that has emerged in reporting [31:22] from the ft that these recorded comments have been passed to this week i was going to say back in [31:27] my day on news round when we did the press packers it would be things like i like girls football or [31:31] here's how we could stop doing cyber bullying this is like woodward and bernstein levels press packer [31:36] but i've now seen that apparently it was sixth form students okay so it wasn't like news round aged [31:42] children leaking private comments to the ft no and we don't know who leaked them obviously we don't [31:47] know exactly who was there blame the children no all the sixth formers yeah but yes yeah i mean it's [31:52] kind of not what anybody would in government would want right now when there has been so much focus on [31:58] a previous us ambassador to have now renewed focus on the latest one and in terms of actual [32:04] ambassadorial action in washington dc the king and the queen are continuing their state visit [32:09] they've exchanged the gifts with the trump's apparently the king presented donald trump with [32:14] a framed facsimile of the 1879 design plans for the resolute desk which is the desk in the oval [32:21] office made with timbers never knew you needed from the from the ship either of you actually seen the [32:26] resolute desk in real life no yes i have is it a nice desk a nice piece of furniture um yeah i suppose i mean [32:33] i suppose the the history of it is is fascinating even though it's maybe not you know it doesn't [32:37] work as a standing desk adam you know it's sort of probably limited its uses in 2026. i've seen a [32:43] replica of it and that was very impressive um and then for the king the president gifted a custom [32:48] facsimile of a letter written from john adams to john jay in 1785. not an expert on who john jay was [32:57] i mean he's one of the founding fathers wasn't he and a lot of my john adams knowledge comes from hamilton [33:01] um which is not a necessarily reliable historical don't base your us political history [33:07] um john jay what would have what would they have been what were they in writing about well i know [33:13] what they've been writing about leaving leaving britain um and they're not published oh john jay [33:20] negotiated the jay treaty of 1794 which settled major grievances the great britain and promoted [33:26] commercial prosperity so basically kind of settling things down after the war of independence well [33:32] there's some meaning in that right now right um alex thank you very much pleasure as ever joe great [33:38] great to catch up with you too thanks adam