Epstein files shake UK as Bew maps global disorder (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Here we are on day two of trying to unravel this latest enormous information that has burst out of the Epstein files on the other side of the Atlantic and also a troubling allegation made by an American lawyer in an interview with the BBC that there is a second woman who has said she was trafficked to the UK for a sexual encounter with the former Prince, Prince Andrew. So again, this has been another whirlwind of news where Geoffrey Epstein, the convicted paedophile, has been making headlines and making life very awkward and embarrassing for lots of other powerful people.

[00:00:35] Speaker 2: On this Sunday's newscast. Hello, it's Paddy in the studio.

[00:00:38] Speaker 1: It's Laura in the studio.

[00:00:40] Speaker 2: And it's Henry at home.

[00:00:41] Speaker 1: And in a few minutes, we will hear at length from Professor John Bew, who we had on the TV this morning, but who's going to talk to us, I think, hopefully in a very helpful way about all the bewildering things that are happening in the world. And he was the chief foreign policy advisor to Keir Starmer, to Rishi Sunak, also to Boris Johnson. So stand by for that, because he's a really fascinating guy.

[00:01:03] Speaker 2: And the Fleet Street Knight and historian Max Hastings was on Radio 4 with me saying, the thing we're all talking about the Epstein files is a circus. It's a freak show, because there is so much going on in the world that we should be talking about more. Now, he was challenged for that view. But we are going to try and do both in this newscast, we're going to try and sum up what's happening with the latest release of Epstein files and talk to John Bew about the big picture that we're all living in. So Henry, what are the headlines for the royal family and for Andrew Mountbatten Windsor?

[00:01:37] Speaker 3: Well, there's actually two things happening at the same time. So from the latest files, there is this pretty grim, but quite hard to understand without context photo of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor sort of crouched over a woman. And then the other thing happening at the same time is some of our colleagues at the BBC have got a story where a second woman alleges that she was sent to the UK by Jeffrey Epstein for a sexual encounter with Andrew. And her lawyer has told the BBC that, that she spent the night with Andrew, this woman who's not named, and that she was given a tour of Buckingham Palace. Andrew hasn't responded at the time that we're recording, which is about 11.30 in the morning now, for requests for comment for that. Obviously, he's previously denied wrongdoing most spectacularly in that Newsnight interview some years ago now. But all of this adds clearly to the pressure, I think pressure on the plays actually, adds to the kind of deep, dark cloud, which is hanging over Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, and by extension, even though he's not really part of it anymore, the royal family.

[00:02:53] Speaker 1: And the Prime Minister has in his strongest statement on this yet, suggested that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor should go and testify to Congress, which he said no to doing so, so far. And it was interesting, his cabinet ally, Steve Reid, who was with us this morning, not just echoed that, but he also agreed that anyone who had any information, including Lord Mandelson, should do the same and should come forward. And I was quite struck by that.

[00:03:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's, that's very central to how things are moving so quickly. Because Rachel Maskell, the MP for York Central, who was one of those calling in Parliament for the former Prince Andrew to lose all his title, she was on Radio 4 this morning saying the Metropolitan Police need to reopen their investigation. You can't just drop an investigation when someone loses their royal titles. You've got to look where the evidence takes you.

[00:03:44] Speaker 1: So it's all very troubling, hugely embarrassing for the royal family, even though they've already sort of pushed Andrew to the outer limits of their clan of theirs. So you know, he's meant to be moving out of Royal Lodge at some point. He's then going to go and live in this other royal property somewhere on the sort of outskirts of the Sandringham Estate, we believe. But as you say, we haven't heard anything else yet from Andrew. We have, though, heard some more from Lord Mandelson. Now, he, of course, has always said he didn't do anything wrong, apart from being friends with Geoffrey Epstein, which he now regrets. Remember, a couple of weeks ago, he told us he never saw anything under Ward. But there are new allegations, Henry, aren't there, coming through the documents, this huge cache of information about his links to Epstein?

[00:04:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. These documents, on the face of it, but there are bits of redactions and bits that are a bit unclear, suggest that Epstein sent Mandelson tens of thousands of dollars between May 2003 and June 2004. Now, those dates matter, actually, because at that time, Lord Mandelson was still a Labour MP. This was just before he left Parliament to become a European Commissioner. Now, important to say, obviously, Laura, you spoke to Lord Mandelson a couple of weeks ago, more generally, and he gave his response and a sort of apology for his relationship with Geoffrey Epstein then. But in a new statement today, in response to this, he is pointing out what he sees as some discrepancies in the documents. For example, he says that they refer to a US social security number that he has, but he says he's never had one. So, you know, there are questions that will have to be asked and answered over the coming days. But, I mean, it's clearly very difficult for Lord Mandelson. He is no longer the UK ambassador to the US, had he not ended up being sacked from that last year. I think it's no great feat of political forecasting for us to say he would have been sacked today. There's also another picture, by the way, of him in this cache, as him in his underwear. We should say, by the way, obviously, the Andrew stuff is very newsworthy. The Mandelson stuff is very newsworthy. There are a lot of men who are named in these files, some of them other prominent Brits, and you do just wonder whether some of them are equally going to start getting some more focus, even if they don't necessarily hold positions in public life from which they can resign or be sacked.

[00:06:06] Speaker 1: As you say, Henry, lots of prominent names in there. And we should also say that just because somebody is mentioned in a document or seen in a photograph, it doesn't mean that they did anything wrong. It clearly means that they are now part of this cloud of embarrassment, if you like, and with the possibility of a civil suit against a former member of the royal family, as well as quite possibly more stories still emerging from this enormous dump of documents. We were talking yesterday saying, well, these are the headlines so far, but there may well be more coming out of it in the coming days. There certainly was, and there may yet be more still.

[00:06:41] Speaker 2: And just in terms of our job trying to bring the best of broadcast and the best of print and online, the Sunday Mirror today reports an attorney close to the victims saying there's more to come which is more damning. So that's on the front page of the Sunday Mirror. Also quoted in much of the press today is the historian Andrew Lowney, and he has long been calling for the publication of the flight logs for when Prince Andrew, as was, was the trade envoy. And that's repeated again in the Sunday papers today, just as the Prime Minister this weekend has said that Andrew Matt Batten-Windsor should testify before Congress, as an MP has appeared on Radio 4 calling for the police to reopen their investigation, as Lord Mandelson has been pictured in his pants in the paper, all because of this release of the Epstein files, which we think was over and is not.

[00:07:34] Speaker 1: It's not, and I'm not sure when it will be over, frankly. And it remains this kind of ever sprawling web pulling in, even perhaps through no fault of their own, people who've done absolutely nothing wrong, but are being kind of caught up in this web of shame. And it is just extraordinary how one person who's no longer here, their communications from years ago are still creating so much political unease, so much distraction, so many headlines. And of course, at the heart of this, how on earth do you feel as somebody who might have been one of Epstein's victims, or the family of one of Epstein's victims, where more and more and more of this grisly material is coming out there into the public domain? I mean, how must Virginia Dufresne's family have felt when they saw that photograph of Andrew Matt Batten-Windsor looming over a young woman lying on the floor? You can't imagine the people at the centre of this, or the people whose lives were turned upside down, the ongoing torrent of information coming out, which is what many of them call for, of course, transparency. Sunlight's meant to be the best disinfectant, but it certainly doesn't look very disinfected or clean right now.

[00:08:49] Speaker 2: As promised, Professor John Bew is here. He was the chief foreign policy advisor to four UK prime ministers. He also worked on UK security reviews and strategies. Now, he's been on the telly box already with Laura this morning, but he's back now at length. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

[00:09:07] Speaker 4: Iran, what's happening? So there's a US flotilla, as announced by President Trump on Truth Social, which is in the region, which has a lot of aircraft, a lot of capability. So the Iranian regime is being very publicly pressured by a potential hard power component of Donald Trump's strategy. But there are also negotiations going on, actually brokered by regional partners, Turkey, the Qataris, the Omanis are playing an active role to try and see if there's an off-ramp potentially for the Iranian regime. But there's still quite a distance between Iran's position and what President Trump wants to see out of this. So Iran has certain red lines, including on nuclear enrichment. President Trump wants to see a complete end to the nuclear program. And the reason why this is going on is very important, which is the US and Israel reached further into the Iranian nuclear program than anyone actually had. Well, a lot of people had presumed was possible in the attacks last year, and they did so with incredible surprise and swift effect, partly because Iranian air defences had been weakened, but it didn't end the program. And that's the kind of key issue. So there was always going to be likelihood of this coming round again, either in a military or diplomatic way.

[00:10:27] Speaker 1: So there was unfinished business from President Trump's strikes on Iran's nuclear bunkers last year. Yes. And for you, John, you know, this is like your life's work, you know, you're a professor, but you've also advised governments about how they should run their foreign policy and what all the implications of these dilemmas are. And I suppose a lot of that is also assessing the chances of what's going to happen next. Do you think that there will be some form of American military action against Iran?

[00:10:52] Speaker 4: Yes. I don't think the final decision has been made. My own instincts tell me, partly as someone who's worked in government, but also someone who looks at these issues as a historian.

[00:11:01] Speaker 1: And you've worked with the Trump administration.

[00:11:03] Speaker 4: Yes, I dealt with the first Trump administration. So my instinct is that there's a quite high likelihood of some sort of military action. There's still a potential for diplomacy, still a potential for an off-ramp. You see two things simultaneously with President Trump. One is a willingness to use US military power in swift and decisive ways, not to do forever wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, long campaigns, but to use this military force. You've seen it in Venezuela, you've seen it in Yemen, you've seen it in Nigeria, you've seen it in Iran. On the other hand, you have President Trump, and these two things exist in the same brain, who's yearning for a Nobel Peace Prize and believes in himself as a dealmaker. And the two things I think you've got to understand coexist in the same strategic brain. So as you look at that situation, is there a potential off-ramp? There is diplomatically, but it requires a humiliating climb down for the Iranian regime, which is on its knees, which is very weak, which has a hell of a lot of internal problems as well.

[00:12:04] Speaker 2: I was going to say that it's very difficult for people to live. They don't have enough money, the Iranians are thinking, the regime's thinking of sprinkling them with money, they're in such trouble. But where do British interests lie? Does this government differ from the previous conservative administration in basically backing America over Iran?

[00:12:22] Speaker 4: No, I think the previous conservative administration was aligned quite closely with the Biden administration's position on robustness. And in fact, in some respects, although we didn't necessarily have the wherewithal to bring it about, there were times when in the previous conservative government, the UK position was actually more advanced than the Biden administration's position on robustness.

[00:12:42] Speaker 1: So we were more hawkish?

[00:12:43] Speaker 4: In some respects, yes. No, we obviously were very careful with our relationship, not to go over across our skis. You saw a little bit of that pattern on Ukraine as well, when we're a little bit more advanced. By and large, and the prime minister has been quite clear about this in the last few days when he was asked about this on the China visit as well, the UK position actually is, you know, there's no love lost to the Iranian regime. What it's doing is diabolical. And there's no world in which we can accept Iran having nuclear weapons. The question is the method and the means by which you get there. But there's actually a considerable degree of alignment, I think, more broadly speaking, but we're not closely involved in military action as we were over the Houthis, for example.

[00:13:21] Speaker 1: So then where it comes to somewhere there's not the same view between the UK and the US is China. So President Trump had a pop at the UK and Keir Starmer's visit to China, even though he himself in April is going off to China to see President Xi, we think. How do you rate the prime minister's approach to China? Obviously, there's been a big old hoo-ha about whether or not he should have gone. Dialogue, of course, many people you said to us on the TV this morning that you have to have dialogue going on. But how do you see the government's positioning on China?

[00:13:51] Speaker 4: So here's a really strong case for dialogue. I think it's very important for people to understand when we weren't engaged in dialogue with China, our key partners in the region, let's put aside the United States for a moment. Let's say the Australians, the South Koreans, the Japanese urged us to have a strong diplomatic relationship at leader level. But the only way you get into a message into the Chinese system or you show your solidarity or you show your concerns is to deal directly with Xi Jinping. So no one who shares concerns about China in the region thought it was a good position for the UK to be in where there was such a freeze in relationships. I said on the TV, I wouldn't want to restate it again, because it's actually really very important. I think it's slightly disingenuous to say, oh, this great diplomatic act has got us out of the deep freeze, because the problems in UK-China relations where there may be things that we did that we're taking issue with are not a UK source. There are things that China did that threatened our security that were concerns around espionage, were concerns about Hong Kong, the treaties to which we were a party to the agreement. So let's set those things down there as well. Then the question is what the engagement achieves. Now, having been a number 10, there's a completely understandable but slightly crass thing you do, which is to basically measure these bilateral meetings in terms of metrics like inward investment, et cetera, et cetera. Press releases. And press releases. And I kind of get it. And it's to feed you guys, I'm afraid. It's this law's fault.

[00:15:11] Speaker 2: Lots of things are. Henry, are you imminent on this? Is this a success for Starmer, the kowtowing, as the Mail calls it?

[00:15:19] Speaker 3: I think he'll be reasonably pleased with how the past few days have gone, for sure. I mean, he was never going to end up with the Mail enthusiastically endorsing what he did there. And from the start of the trip, indeed, from some time before, the Conservatives had taken a position that he shouldn't have been going. So if you start from the basis that he was going, and therefore was displeasing them, I think they'll think the past few days have gone fine. I think the thing that hasn't necessarily worked for him is the sort of attempts you see in every one of his interviews to say, well, yes, I am here. But while I'm here, I'm specifically addressing the cost of living back at home. I think that's a sort of relic of the 2026 that Keir Starmer and his team hoped that he would have, but which world events way beyond China have conspired to deny him, which is a year in which he gets to focus relentlessly on the domestic cost of living. And I'm actually curious with John here, I mean, you know, one of the things that has been talked about a lot in Keir Starmer's time in office is that he spent so much time on foreign policy. And I wonder, John, does it feel, did it feel when you were in there with Keir Starmer, like he was being forced by world events to spend more time on foreign policy, presumably, therefore, at the expense of other things than his predecessors?

[00:16:30] Speaker 4: So the big fight in number 10 is always for the Prime Minister's diary. And it gets really ferocious between the foreign affairs team and the domestic affairs team. And so the reason why Prime Ministers are always trying to reference why they're on these trips back home is because they think they're answering concerns they see in polling, that people are spending too much time abroad. So very strangely, the period from the general election through to the, which is on the Thursday through to the Friday morning, and then Keir Starmer was on the plane, and I was with him in the NATO summit in Washington, DC, a kind of remarkable moment before the US presidential election. So events have forced him to get involved. But actually, in my experience, almost all the Prime Ministers I work for over a significant period of time ended up spending more and more time on international affairs. And I think sometimes against their better instincts, sometimes against their better advice of their chiefs of staff and others who say, look, this is not winning you any votes, because it's partly a reflection of the way the world is. And the fact that these cascading problems are coming through. It is partly a reflection of the fact that we are in a massive renegotiation of the international system. And therefore, you've got to be at the table to argue for tariff relief, export controls, tech deals, and that requires offering security that requires negotiation. So that does matter for people at home. And it's also because, and here's a kind of hard reality about it, on foreign affairs, there's still a degree of executive power. And Prime Ministers, when they find they pull a lot of levers in Whitehall, a lot of them don't like to be made of chocolate. This foreign policy lever actually is an area where the UK does have things to offer. It does have specialist skills. I'm telling Laura, I was just back from being with the UK commandos in the in the high north of Norway. I mean, what they do is the levels of professionalism with insufficiently funded, by the way, of our armed forces, give us cachet. We are serious at national security. It's one things we do very well, actually, with high levels of professionalism. This actually really matters for the international relationships. Let me give you one very tangible example. When the UK was involved in the interdiction of that ship that left Venezuela, the Russian Shadow Fleet, I was able to offer security and intelligence and logistic support for that. The Prime Minister was able to talk to Donald Trump reflecting on the success of the operation. In it, he raised the Greenland question, which is an area of concern. So to be at the table, to have the conversations that matter, you've got to be sort of very literate in these security issues.

[00:18:58] Speaker 1: So Donald Trump has to take the call or chooses to take the call because Keir Starmer is going to say, yeah, it was our guys that helped your guys and you needed us. Oh, and by the way, while we're here, can I just ask you to calm down over Greenland?

[00:19:11] Speaker 4: Yes. And the readout of the call says the Prime Minister also said it has position on Greenland. Now, the great thing about Donald Trump, if you're in number 10, is he loves the phone call. There's a kind of retro feel to it. Yeah, but we were always sweating.

[00:19:21] Speaker 2: Because I hate a phone call.

[00:19:22] Speaker 4: No, he loves a phone call. When my phone rings, I feel, oh, no.

[00:19:25] Speaker 1: Is that why you never answer my calls?

[00:19:26] Speaker 2: But he actually loves just chatting on the phone.

[00:19:28] Speaker 4: He loves chatting on the phone and, you know, it's always a bit of a struggle to get a call with certain White Houses and Biden's time is very protected as well. So that's a real value to the Prime Minister.

[00:19:38] Speaker 1: What's it like, before we move on, being on Speakerford, being on a call, listening to Donald Trump talking to a British Prime Minister?

[00:19:46] Speaker 4: I remember quite a lot of those. I remember meetings, including a meeting with Donald Trump, the day of the Supreme Court ruling. It was in 2019 on the propagation of Parliament, a dramatic day, being cut up in the convoy on the way to the airport by Macron's convoy, which is probably the biggest diplomatic incident I was involved in in government. They split our convoy in two. So they are all very memorable. They do not follow a script. They are very fascinating. President Trump is, I hate to say it in polite company, pretty funny at moments in time, pretty indiscreet about other international leaders. At this point, I have to play the security card and say I can't say anything more than that as well. So they're memorable occasions. I remember listening to one in particular in the outer office of the PM's room, I won't say which, in which there was a long conversation about history and maybe if I publish a memoir in 150 years, possibly I'll say.

[00:20:42] Speaker 2: Can I do what I often do, which is steal something that Laura said? So in the moment, newscasters, when we're talking about what we're going to say, Laura said we must ask John before he goes what it's like working for four administrations. So given that Henry's listening and Laura, you're here. John, can I say as the generalist here, I've learned by watching this Labour government that governing is hard. And I think they've learned that. They've looked to the whites in the eyes and they've learned something they didn't know in opposition.

[00:21:08] Speaker 4: Yeah. So at one level you're in there, you have a kind of, in number 10, have a kind of Sarum's eye perspective on government. So you can kind of see the whole, but you also have to use, extend the metaphor or mix it up a bit. You have cataracts because you're in there and it's very hard. And people say this all the time, not to get consumed by the daily grind. And so what do you do in a position advisory position like mine? You start with the lobby reef in the morning, you're clearing stuff that goes out in the prime minister's name, you're preparing for PMQs, you're occasionally doing negotiation, you're going to cabinet meetings. It's a grind. And leaving government and being an academic historian, it really affirms to me just how important it is for deep think to be done. Now you can't do deep think when you're in there. So therefore you've got to be open to external voices. You've got to have proper plans. And here's what I really think about this. And I think this is absolutely crucial. I think we, the British people keep on giving their governments actually pretty large mandates. It's remarkable. To a certain extent with the, it's actually remarkable in British history. So it's like here, you guys have the keys, give it a go. What is missing, and this is a very difficult thing in politics, but I think it needs to be done. If you look at the manifestos for those elections, they are stakeholder documents. Different MPs, I've got to win X, Y, Z seat. And there's sort of restatements of previous positions. I think the next mandate goes to the government or the government in waiting with an absolutely clear plan. Now planning is something that's gone out of fashion in this country because we're a laissez-faire free market state in our own self image. Everyone we're competing with around the world and anyone who's growing or strengthening their security are doing so around plans. Now plans are tricky, plans are difficult. We don't do instinctively, don't do central Keynesian state planning. But I think that sort of science and art of planning is the absolutely fundamental basis for political success.

[00:23:05] Speaker 1: And that's missing at the moment.

[00:23:07] Speaker 4: It's very hard to do. It's missing at the moment. So even if you had the best laid plans and you can't generate growth, you're in a real difficulty, right?

[00:23:14] Speaker 1: It's really interesting. And you say that also as a biographer of Clem Attlee, one of the things that you know an awful lot about. In terms, just before we let you go, there's a couple of specific things I want to ask you about Ukraine. So during your time working with the government, it was probably the biggest foreign policy event that happened. We're hurtling towards a four-year anniversary. What are we to think? There's all these on-off diplomacy. Is it happening? Is it not? Steve Wyckoff goes over to Moscow. Trump says, oh yeah, all could be done. Zelensky pops up. What are we to think is really going on?

[00:23:44] Speaker 4: So there's a kind of a pattern for each of these moments in which President Trump says we're about to have a breakthrough. So it'll start with some engagement with Wyckoff primarily in Moscow and a bit of back and forth. Then there'll be a sort of European scramble to put bones on the proposal to make sure that they're not too weak in areas. And then it goes back to Moscow with the Americans and the Russians say the Europeans are spoiling. So what I really think is that, I mean, some of the Russian casualty figures, by the way, which were released this week are just remarkable. It is unthinkable going back to the start of the war in 2022 that Russia could have accepted such high levels of casualty rates. A million. Something like a million in terms of overall casualties. Inconceivable to me at that moment in time. And yet that seems to cause little difficulty in Putin's calculus, who will think, notwithstanding this cost, that he is winning over this period of time. Now, I've been on government a year. In that time, everyone kept on saying like the small, strategic, important town of Pokrovsk was going to go. This is sort of back and forth. So it's snails pace progress, but it is progress on the Russian side as well. That's the first thing I think very important. Secondly, I think there's a little bit more in the negotiations now, a little bit more seriousness. So what I hear is the work on security guarantees for Ukraine is more mature. That may require some very difficult territorial issues over Donbass as well. So I'd say the diplomatic process has ratcheted up and I wouldn't completely rule it out. I still think, though, the gulf between Putin's view of Ukraine, which is pure subjugation in various forms, and a kind of reality of an acceptable peace is still pretty significant. But wars don't go on forever. Remember, at the start of the war, Putin went for Kiev and thought he could take Kiev. And even it's not military march to Kiev. It's about establishing whatever comes after this period of war and conflict, some way of controlling Ukraine's future. That's the essence of the fight, which is, by the way, there's still a hell of a lot to run in this story. And it may be a generational struggle. It may last longer than that. Doesn't mean the war will continue at this pace over this period of time. So there's a kind of certain cleanliness to the Western political mind where we like to wrap things in a bow or presume land for peace. I suspect this thing is, I'm from Belfast, I grew up on the backdrop of the Troubles and three and a half thousand people died. The long tail and legacy of that. But think about the levels of casualties in Ukraine, the people forced out of their homes, mass migration, children taken. And we just see the tip of the iceberg of the social, political, long term effects of that as well. So I mean, the depressing way of answering your question is that history has a long way to unfold.

[00:26:27] Speaker 2: It's you've actually schooled me in a way because I now remember all the Ukrainians I speak to say, guys, this didn't begin four years ago, it began in 2040. So it's absolutely important that you've been able to join us today.

[00:26:41] Speaker 1: Can I ask you about the Chinese mega embassy? Because if people might ask, we talked a bit about it a bit on TV this morning. And it's been one of the huge controversies around the government's decision making, they have said they're going to allow this mega embassy to go ahead. They've been much criticised by the Tories and others for doing that. So you'd left number 10 by the time that decision was taken. What would you feel like if you were still in the government and then decided to go ahead?

[00:27:04] Speaker 4: So one, we were just a minute ago talking about how difficult government is. And one reason government is difficult, if you take say energy policy, it's because of decisions taken perhaps in the 50s, on nuclear through to the 60s and the 70s, etc. So oftentimes, you're dealing with things that are imperfect and challenging. I don't think if you started with a blank sheet of paper, having a mega embassy, it is a mega embassy, sitting slap bang in the city of London in that way is a way you would sort of choose to do that. You think of the US mega embassy, the only other country with a mega embassy.

[00:27:34] Speaker 1: It's actually mega, mega.

[00:27:36] Speaker 4: It's mega, mega, but it's in sort of condos in the centre of Battersea, right? It's a kind of, it looks like a sort of, you know, suburb of DC. It's a different type of proposition. And that's with our closest security partner and ally. So this feels like a different proposition. I don't think you'd start with that blank sheet of paper. Truth is, by the time I was in government, because this is a long time in the making, a lot of that was developed along the way. So I wouldn't start with that proposition. I am sympathetic, though, to this. We have, Tom mentioned in a live show, we have an amazing ambassador in Washington DC, in Beijing, apologies, Peter Wilson, we had a very good ambassador before. Caroline Wilson. They're related? Not related. Harold Wilson? You have to be a Wilson or a Rycroft to work in the foreign office. And look, they will say part of the quid pro quo is, you know, our presence there was crumbling a bit. And we need our own diplomatic presence elsewhere as well. I just don't think you would start from this proposition. And again, as I said in the live show, what happens if we're in a really sticky situation over a Taiwan contingency, South China Sea? I mean, the path of Chinese-Japanese relationships are really tricky, for example. You know, how does this all look in a number of years time? So I say you don't start from this position. However, having been in the difficulty of government, it's a kind of fine balance dilemma, to be honest with you. I'm not unsympathetic to government proceeding, given where they were when they picked up the chalice.

[00:29:05] Speaker 1: Caroline Wilson And last thing, if we can ask you, I just wonder, from a foreign policy point of view, and in terms of what's going on in America and dealing with them, the Epstein bombshells that just keep coming that we were talking about at the beginning of the program, what effect do you think that's having in Washington? I mean, it seems to just preoccupy everything. Have they got time to think about anything else?

[00:29:25] Speaker 4: Matthew Feeney Yeah, I mean, I think it's hard to, I spent a lot of time in the US. It's hard to underestimate how much news coverage this is consuming. I think the thing about it, the reason why it's quite hard to draw very clear political conclusions is that it covers the whole range. So you have Democrat grandees, you have liberal establishment grandees, you've got President Trump and people adjacent to President Trump and the Republican side of things. It is a kind of a remarkable spider's web style network. Secondly, it just keeps coming from the Justice Department. So it's this sort of rot and what kind of worries me about it in political terms, apart from the gruesome nature of the thing itself, is just how deleterious it is to sort of public trust in politics and the kind of rule of money around that as well. And that's part of what's going on in the US as well.

[00:30:18] Speaker 2: The man presiding over the release, albeit late, Deputy Attorney General, has said from the podium, we're never going to be able to satisfy the hunger for this stuff. However much we release of the 6 million, they've released 3 million, we're never going to get there. And he's the Deputy Attorney General releasing it.

[00:30:35] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the thing is about these conspiracies, they end up being worse than you think. I mean, this is the challenge here. No, and look, there is an element of conspiratorialism already sitting in US politics. In fact, we're all getting the bug a little bit as well. And you look at something like this, and it's very hard to sort of, people talk about, you know, disabusing people of populist fantasies about where the world works. You look at something like this, and it kind of confirms people's instincts that money, politics, you know, rot, unethical behaviour is all kind of gnarled up. But I mean, as I go back to this avalanche of material, it's just kind of, it's kind of remarkable.

[00:31:16] Speaker 1: I said that was the last thing we were going to ask you. But we forgot to say how much, ask you how much should we spend on defence. So on the TV this morning, you said there should be a vast increase in defence spending. But you were inside government, I would assume, therefore arguing for more.

[00:31:30] Speaker 4: But yeah, how much do we need? That was a bit cheap of me, because it's very, it's very hard in government. So it's very popular. It's very easy to say what you think. I can say that out of government as well, because it's hard. And there are trade-offs. The Prime Minister and our system is presented with the stack. They say, sure, Prime Minister, you can have a bridge to Northern Ireland if you want. Something I've strongly supported, by the way. But it means you can't meet your manifesto commitments on schools and hospitals. I'm sure you can have a big R&D budget, but it means you have less for net zero, etc, etc, etc. So the whole stack thing, if you're operating in that environment, you're not changing your borrowing rules, you're not thinking of new bonds, it's not going to get us anywhere as well. I also remember having got little, a significant increase in defence spending and being involved in lobbying for that internally, as well, I think on sort of three occasions. The frustration that happens when you kind of sit down with the MOD and say, this is what we need. And then inflation just bites a massive part out of the budget, which is what's happened. So let me say the start of government has done pretty good on this. Some involvement, I went back and helped a little bit around the national security strategy. The Strategic Defence Review is excellent in concept. There's a gap now. In fact, you wrote it. No, I didn't. I didn't write that. George Robertson and Richard Barron and Fiona Hill, there was an excellent piece of work, very strategically sound in conception. That's not really the issue. We're quite articulated on the way the world is. But the problem is, there's a gap between that and the defence investment plan, the dip. So Ron Whitehall, people are talking about the dip. And that's been in the way of inflation. And just to meet the current programme of record, it's going to be extremely difficult. And having been around this boy three times, now we're into the fourth time and looking at the way the world is, I think we are now really, and it's so easy for me to say this outside number 10 now, we're now really at the edge of plausibility. So the truth is, we have a genuinely brilliant professional armed services. I've just been out with them in Norway. But across the services, there's a lack of kit. It is known in the defence industry, it's known in our allies and partnerships. We're actually very good at projecting force. We have no stockpiles, we have no basis. So I think something's going to break pretty soon. But let me make a slightly different case forward as well. I just want to end on this, it's really quite important to me as to how this is articulated. So you often hear on your show, Laura, across the piece as the chiefs or the defence secretaries make the case for defence, but they talk about the threat. We need to respond to the threat. Now truth is, a lot of what UK does abroad is actually a choice. So we've often dealt with threats quite far away from our homeland. We don't just wait on our island home at night for things to happen. We believe that when Russia invades Ukraine, that's a security threat for us. But we cared more, by the way, than almost every other major European capital at the start of that war. So what is it about us? I'd actually change the conversation slightly as follows. I say that the whole world is in flux. The Prime Minister and government are negotiating our inputs and outputs and alliances. So what the level of our tariffs are, how much protection we have, what areas of focus should we go on in case something kicks off over here? This is all now being litigated. This international order is being litigated and re-litigated. How much can we get from your tech stack or your investment, your $3 trillion investment in the United States or on tech? This is all a massive negotiation. The most useful thing a Prime Minister can bring to the party in those negotiations is a sense that we are a net security contributor and we can help across the piece. That's not just on heavy metal, that's on cyber, how innovative we are, how much we fight. And we do fight, by the way, our historical record contra the President Trump's true socials, which are subsequently corrected as we do fight. We're highly capable. We've got quite light permissions when it comes to use of military force as well. So we have that sort of professional, very professional, very risk-taking national security establishment. It needs that fulsome backing. And that is what's going to get us a better place in this renegotiated order. That's the absolutely vital thing. So I paused and I was slightly sliding at Mark Carney's speech as well, because the challenge in Canada is that Canada has consistently been the lowest G7 defence spender, hasn't reached 2% over this period of time. So, you know, we can all go off and, you know, get upset and chase sort of fantasy versions of an international order, which suits our sensibilities better. That ain't the way it's going to work, right? So this is not a hard negotiation, bring something to the table. And by the way, over 5, 10, 20 years, that will be of benefit to us. We are in a power game. This is an element of power, some financial power, some cultural power, but military power, national security powers is absolutely vital to making ourselves more secure and more prosperous. And I think that it's a longer, more long winded way of answering the question, but it's actually what I fundamentally believe. I think that sort of thing is that the consciousness of that reality is, I think the Prime Minister understands it to his credit. I think the Prime Ministers I work for increasingly understood it over the course of their time in government.

[00:36:19] Speaker 1: Who's the best you work for?

[00:36:21] Speaker 4: Oh, I can't say. They all had their different strengths. I did an interview, a longer form interview recently about it. They all had their different strengths. I said that, you know, Rishi Sunak was unquestionably the most professional and slickest number 10, but in remarkably bad political circumstances. Working with Boris Johnson over Ukraine was an incredible experience. And that was genuine leadership and risk taking. As a biographer of Clement Datley, it was important for me that also worked for Keir Starmer. And when he talked about country ahead of party on the steps of Darling Street, I was very pleased that one of the speechwriters told me I'd actually been lifted for my Atlee book. So it was all a great privilege and genuinely. And it was, Atlee wanted the bomb. Atlee wanted the bomb. Yeah, yeah. Labour bomb. You had to hide it from the Chancellor though. So there's a lesson learned. Yeah. Secret subcommittee of cabinet. To get the atomic weapon. To get the atomic weapon. Yeah. Yeah. And my other favourite fact of that is that Ernest Bevan had had three pints at lunch when he came back into that meeting and said, we've got to have this thing over here. We've got to have the great big bloody Union Jack on it.

[00:37:29] Speaker 2: NATO of course. It's basically their NATO.

[00:37:32] Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely. One more boring history point. We love history. Okay. So from 45 to 47, we said we created the world's best international order, United Nations, NATO, et cetera. It was a hell of a time in Anglo-American relations. So they ended nuclear sharing, having had a joint project with us, with the McMahon Act. The US cut off Lend-Lease, as Atlee said, the tap was turned off at a moment's notice.

[00:37:58] Speaker 1: The cash for the UK. Yeah.

[00:37:59] Speaker 4: The cash for the UK, creating a massive crisis. And then they just basically undercut UK policy completely in the Middle East. I think not unjustifiably, by the way, where we had still 100,000 troops in Suez Canal, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there was actually succession of crises and a lot of tension. So what did we do in that period of time? We didn't mope around, saying the end of XYZ order. We got on with doing things like NATO. We got on with our independent nuclear deterrent. And you know what came out the end of it? An even stronger alliance, where you get on with things yourself, you take energy, you take risks. We ended up standing with the Americans over Korea, the first big test of the international order. It meant less welfare spending at home. And that's what the Atlee government faced, another massive rearmament campaign. So it feels a bit like we're in that. I can't stand consoles of despair and hopelessness here, but I think I've got to also understate the radicalism of the moment. So just muddling through is not enough. But actually, there's plenty of things we can do in this country to navigate this period of time and chasing sort of Davos fantasies about an alternative world order. That's not where the business is to be done. So credit for Keir Starmer for maintaining the Trump relationship. I think it's vitally important. In three years' time, you could have AFD in Germany and the Democrats in the White House and Front National in Paris as well. So just making short-term political bets do not work. We're in, I say, this great disruption in British history and finding a statecraft that adapts to that, I think, is the key.

[00:39:27] Speaker 1: John, it's been great to listen to you at length. And we're really grateful to you for your time. And I'm sure there'll be lots of newscasters who think I feel more informed and also more stimulated. And you've given us lots of different ways to think about the world. So thanks so much.

[00:39:40] Speaker 2: Thank you. It's very enjoyable. Therapeutic.

[00:39:42] Speaker 1: Oh, good. Oh, well, we like that. I'll come to the license.

[00:39:44] Speaker 2: Doctor, we'll see you now. Henry, a lot of people who've been close to the coal face always say the same thing that it's very difficult. And also, there should be more long-term thinking.

[00:39:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, politics conspires against long-term thinking, doesn't it? Especially if we're in an era where, as John said, you have different parties being given pretty overwhelming mandates, at least in parliamentary terms. But it tends to be different parties from one election to the next. I mean, I think what really struck me, and I don't know about you guys listening to that, is obviously totally fascinating, head-spinning in some ways. Clearly, someone who's been so close to this believes we are at a huge pivot point in diplomatic history and how the world order works. But I spend most of my time talking to MPs who might appreciate the significance of that and might be, frankly, pretty daunted and scared by that, but didn't come into politics to engage with that, especially at the moment where 400-odd of our 650 MPs are Labour MPs. Most of them knew in 2024. They came into politics to spend more money on public services. And actually, that is something that is potentially being made harder and more complicated by all the things that John just described. So I think you kind of have politics operating on two levels, and you see some of the friction there, which is that Keir Starmer and members of his government are dealing with some incredibly complicated global issues which have no right or easy answers. But that is making things harder for him domestically with MPs who don't necessarily have much patience or indeed engagement with the kinds of things that John just talked about.

[00:41:25] Speaker 1: And also, the public, quite understandably, normally votes on things that affect them much closer to home. Of course, that's the natural way. People, of course, care more about what's happening in their lives rather than what's happening around the world. But as we saw with energy bills in Ukraine, what happens thousands of miles away can have an almost immediate impact in our own lives. So it is one of these. It's a real dilemma, always has been so, but maybe right now it's one of those moments in history where that tension between foreign policy and policy at home is more acute than it's been so far. Also, what's interesting from this morning's news, moving on from our conversation with Professor Bew, which I expect might get quite a lot of attention. We spoke to Zac Polanski, the Green Party leader in England and Wales this morning, and we talked to him about all sorts of things. But newscasters might know if they've been paying attention. They have a policy where they want to legalise all drugs. They think there should be a public health approach to drugs is the way that they express it. But as politicians do get asked about their own habits, their own past, we wanted to find out whether Zac Polanski is coming at this policy as somebody who uses recreational drugs. You know, Prime Ministers have been asked about this. It was pertinent to ask him that question. He said he never had a drop of alcohol, never tried any drugs at all. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's quite a lot of news. People will listen to that, find that an interesting thing because it tells us something about who he is as a person. This is what he says. You say there that the Prime Minister joked about using drugs at university. Did you?

[00:42:49] Speaker 5: I've actually never taken a drug in my life or even drunk alcohol. But I still don't sit here as the fun police. I very clearly believe people should be able to do what they want to do. It just wasn't for me. But this is about the system change that we need. This is about what is happening from government that is clearly having a hypocritical approach when we've had ministers, both from the Labour government and the Conservative government, who have openly said on record that they've taken drugs, yet they're incarcerating, i.e. putting in prison, people who have taken drugs. And very often, again, it's disproportionately young black and brown people.

[00:43:18] Speaker 2: Not a drop, Henry. This is a political leader who's had not one drop of alcohol.

[00:43:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, which is interesting. I mean, you know, some political leaders are big drinkers. Some aren't. I think actually overwhelmingly far less so than perhaps in the days of political leaders who John Bew was writing biographies of. I think, you know, the reason that Zak Polanski ended up saying that to Laura was Laura was asking him about his policy on drugs, which is essentially mass legalisation. And if the Greens continue to ride pretty high in the polls, certainly by their historical standards, then I suspect that is something we're going to hear much more about, especially from the Labour Party, because Keir Starmer seems to want to use that as an attack line on Zak Polanski.

[00:43:59] Speaker 1: Yes, that's what took us into that conversation, because Keir Starmer said he's high on drugs and soft on Putin, and that made Zak Polanski very cross indeed. But yeah, Henry, you're quite right. That's what led us to then ask him about their drug policy, which was interesting to hear about. We've talked for quite a long time. We've done a lot of listening today, Paddy. Maybe we've done more listening, maybe than we normally do. Maybe we ought to do a bit more sometimes.

[00:44:22] Speaker 2: Well, actually, that reminds us of the newscaster. That's what newscasters do every week, for which we are increasingly grateful. So we say thank you very much indeed to the newscaster, and goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.