Epstein Papers Rock Labour as Starmer Faces Peril (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Gordon Brown's been on the airwaves.

[00:00:02] Speaker 2: Yes, it was a long interview.

[00:00:04] Speaker 1: It was a long interview and a moment of great peril from the government and a moment of great Labour introspection. So Gordon Brown will be talking about what he had to say to our colleagues on Radio 4 this morning.

[00:00:14] Speaker 2: Also, I was asked to interview Barry Gardner on Newsnight.

[00:00:18] Speaker 1: Labour MP.

[00:00:19] Speaker 2: And asked him if Keir Starmer should go and the following thing happened.

[00:00:24] Speaker 3: This was our manifesto, right? One man, one word. Change. That's what we promised. That was the whole of what we as the Labour Party promised this country. Change. This looks more like the same. Should he step down? I think that he needs to think very hard about what is in the country's best interest. So yes. And what is in his party's best interest.

[00:00:54] Speaker 2: Veiled yes. You're saying, you don't want to say it, but you're saying it with your eyes. Arlene, you led a party...

[00:01:05] Speaker 1: Well, dramatic pauses can have a lot of meaning, can't they?

[00:01:09] Speaker 2: I know, but I think people are speechless, aren't they? That's the other thing.

[00:01:13] Speaker 1: I think people are speechless, yeah, about the horror of what's been happening, as has been revealed in the emails from Jeffrey Epstein. But also the really doom-laden scenario for the government now. There's no question about that. But I just wonder, how long do you think Barry Gardner would have sat there if you hadn't said, you're saying it with your eyes?

[00:01:30] Speaker 2: Yes, I don't think he would have spoken.

[00:01:32] Speaker 1: Well, he'd still be sitting there now in the studio, some floors down from us on a Saturday newscast.

[00:01:37] Speaker 2: I don't think he would have spoken. I really don't.

[00:01:39] Speaker 1: It reminded me of another quite awkward moment, which was again one of those moments of sort of, Liz Truss, Birmingham, Tory conference, when she was in enormous trouble and the world was in meltdown. And I asked her, how many people do you think voted for all of this? Because remember, she'd been elected by Tory members, not by the country. How many people voted for your plan? What do you mean by that? Well, you've set out a significant change of direction. Yes, that was a moment that was almost as awkward when I asked the Ireland's chief economist what he thought about the euro, and then miraculously, mysteriously, the person who answered was actually the French ambassador in Dublin, because there'd been traffic and they were sitting in the wrong seats on the outside broadcast. So that was a little bit of a shock.

[00:02:30] Speaker 2: That's very much like the taxi driver who was interviewed as a tech expert. Oh, yes, in this building. Let's not talk about BBC scandal. Let's get on with Saturday's newscast.

[00:02:42] Speaker 1: It's Laura in the studio.

[00:02:43] Speaker 2: Hello, it's Paddy in the studio.

[00:02:45] Speaker 1: And now we are well over a week since the first enormous news bomb occasion of the US Justice Department releasing this enormous cache of more than three million documents relating to the activities of the now passed away convicted wealthy paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. But the shockwaves for our politics here in this country just keep coming.

[00:03:08] Speaker 2: Yes, because we don't often get source material like this. The authorities, the establishment tries to give it a 30-year rule, then sometimes give it a 100-year rule. And if they're really lucky, they can give it forever secrecy rules. Britain's secrecy rules are fascinating. So to see emails from the business secretary to an outside interest during the financial crisis emergency cabinet meeting is staggering.

[00:03:39] Speaker 1: It is absolutely staggering. And I said this to Adam on Wednesday, I haven't seen a scandal like this. I really haven't. And I've covered lots of nefarious bad behavior over the years, you know, whether that was politicians behaving badly in their private life, people doing things that they wouldn't be proud of if they emerged, involving talking to businesses or nudging here and hinting there. And frankly, also just obviously often being very mean to each other and their colleagues. This is absolutely off the reservation in terms of the things that I've covered in 20 years in UK politics. The suggestion that someone sitting in the UK cabinet at a time of genuine crisis was, according to these documents, passing information outside the government to an ally of his who maybe stood to make great commercial gain from it. And that's why you've heard politician after politician this week say they feel that Peter Mandelson betrayed Labour. It's why you've seen Keir Starmer tell us again and again and again and again how angry he is. But the question for me is not really this weekend about what's in the Epstein documents. It's not really about what Peter Mandelson did or did not. This, for me, has moved to be a story all about the prime minister's authority and whether or not he can get through this moment of great jeopardy. Into this this morning, of course, walks Gordon Brown.

[00:04:59] Speaker 2: Peter Mandelson has not given an official statement on the latest allegations of leaking sensitive financial information, but his position is that he's not acted in any way criminally and that he was not motivated by financial gain. Can I ask you, with your years of covering it inside, have you been surprised by the visceral shock and anger of the governing party? I mean, I know there's a lot of blame to go around, but are you surprised by how the Labour MPs are feeling?

[00:05:28] Speaker 1: I think there's a few different things there. So one, I am not surprised at how taken aback people who were close colleagues of Peter Mandelson were at the time, were people who felt they knew him. One minister said to me yesterday, you know, we thought he shared our values and it turns out we were completely wrong. And I'm not surprised either by how angry Keir Starmer is because he took a risk giving him the job, knowing it was a risk. And that risk has turned out to be an absolutely calamitous political mistake. So I'm not surprised by how angry he is at that. I am, though, surprised by the nature of the scale of this. And I'm also not surprised by the sentiment of some bits of the Labour Party who are to some degree going around with a little bit of satisfaction saying, I told you so. You know, we should be clear. Peter Mandelson has always been a divisive figure in the Labour movement. You know, somebody else in the cabinet said to me yesterday, I've always hated him and he's always hated me. And there are, so this is not a sort of universal, oh, he was everybody's best friend. He's always been somebody, even from the early days, about whom people had reservations about his style of politics, his manner, the kinds of things that he did. And I think that element of this has maybe been a bit lost in the whole swirl of this, partly because the biggest sort of headline coming to the prime minister is about how cross he was. But there's always been hesitation about him, which, of course, takes us back to the very, you know, this sort of fact of, I suppose, the political original sin. Keir Starmer making the decision to take a risk, because it was a risk and it was a judgment. Keir Starmer is not responsible for Peter Mandelson's behaviour, and he's certainly not responsible for what happened in the government that was in charge more than 10 years ago. But what he is responsible for is the decision that he made. And he made the decision knowing it was a risk.

[00:07:31] Speaker 2: So Gordon Brown, it was, who appointed him back into his, hence the reason why we're talking about the emergency cabinet meeting, which Gordon Brown was chairing. But he is sort of giving qualified support to Keir Starmer. Here's what he said about the current prime minister.

[00:07:45] Speaker 4: I know the man. Look, in other prime ministers, you've been questioning their integrity. You've been questioning whether they are guilty of some unquestionable mistakes in terms of their personal finances and their personal lobbying and everything else. This is not the case for Keir Starmer. You know, I can look in his eyes and I can see that he is a man of integrity. He wants to do the right things. Perhaps he's been too slow to do the right things, but he must now do the right things now. And let's judge what he does on what happens in the next few months when he tries to, and I believe will try, to clean up the system.

[00:08:23] Speaker 1: Now, as you say, Paddy, that's so interesting and I think really significant because that is, in normal speak, that's, I think he's still the guy, but he's really going to have to pull his finger out or else. Gordon Brown essentially is saying there, look, Keir Starmer's got a massive, vital task to do. Clean up this mess, be able to move on, kick out the seedier edges of politics. But if he doesn't, was the implicit threat, we will judge him in a few months' time. And he does actually use the phrase, he'll be judged in the next few months. Now, that's not Gordon Brown doing a John McDonnell and he'd hate that comparison saying, look, Keir Starmer must consider his position. He's not saying that at all. But I have to say, I wouldn't be the only person in our business who might have been expecting Gordon Brown this morning to say something maybe a bit more full-throated, like, of course, any idea of getting rid of the leader is completely ridiculous. What matters here are the issues. He didn't do that. He sort of said, yes, I think Keir Starmer will do this and he should. But there was, you know, I think a realism, maybe actually in Gordon Brown's assessment this morning. And I think that something has changed this week. And in the normal sort of, you know, conversations and calls that I do towards the, you know, before we meet up on a Saturday so that I'm not talking rubbish. There are definitely people who up until this moment have been in the position of saying, look, everything's difficult, everything's hard, but we've just got to get our heads down because that landing zone where we can climb out of this and where it turns around and Keir Starmer's fine and by 2029, it'll all be okay. Let's not do something crackers like think about changing the leader. That sentiment's shifted. And this fiasco in the last few days, for it has been that, has moved some people who were still prepared to put faith in Keir Starmer that it would be over in the end. It would be okay in the end. It's moved some of those people into what I think is now the consensus in the Labour Party is that he's not going to be the leader at the time of the next general election.

[00:10:38] Speaker 2: Because Parliament, there's that moment, isn't there? There've been moments which you follow it by sitting there. Isn't it? And I've been following by watching on the telly and listening. When Kemi Bajornot asks him three times, when you made the appointment, did you know that he had maintained a relationship with the convicted Jeffrey Epstein? He had three goes, which is very reminiscent of the way Keir Starmer played Boris Johnson. He would go, think very carefully, think very carefully. And Keir Starmer's attitude in opposition was employed against him.

[00:11:13] Speaker 1: Absolutely.

[00:11:14] Speaker 2: And he finally says that, yes, that information was known. And then there's an, ah, someone in the background goes, ah. But there's a lot going on with Gordon Brown's interview for me because I remember the TBGBs, the extraordinary psychodrama between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson in the emails that have been released by the Americans describes himself as the third man. And also Mandelson's expected to have said by one of the exchanges, we think he was finally going, finally got him to go.

[00:11:46] Speaker 1: And this is part of Labour's family history, if you like, you know, Peter Mandelson and Gordon Brown, there was no love lost between them. Gordon Brown has explained his decision to bring him back into government back in that period in 2009 and 10, essentially sort of saying, well, it was more important for the country to get somebody in who knew what they were doing than it was for me to sort of continue my long running grudge with him after he decided with Tony Blair over me. I'm paraphrasing. And there's another choice phrase in his newspaper article that he put in the Guardian this morning by Gordon Brown, where he said, Peter Mandelson had been less than a friend to me or something like that. But this sort of huge schism that has opened up in the Labour Party over all of this, it feels to me, it's sort of like a kind of black hole into which just more and more and more is getting sucked. But yeah, look, Gordon Brown is clearly really fed up about what's happened here. He was obviously out trying to bat for the reputation of his own government to separate himself from what Peter Mandelson may or may not have been up to, to say also to use this moment to push for what he believes has to happen. And what he'd already said would happen is massively expanding the efforts to root out any sleaze and corruption in parliament. He thinks there should be a ban on MPs having second jobs. He thinks that lobbying should basically be blown up and not be allowed. So he's at the same time sort of pushing his own desire. He's pushing his own policy plans forward here. But I do think that we have to look at his intervention this morning also importantly, in terms of the chances of Keir Starmer being able to get through this. And as we record at 2.18, I can say like I'm making myself a complete hostage to fortune and maybe tomorrow I will be wrong. It seems to me at 2.18 on a Saturday afternoon that there is not that likely to be sort of huge fireworks this weekend. There's been all sorts of rumours going on this morning about what might not happen, but what could happen. Oh yeah. I mean, on a weekend like this, look, this has been a sort of sensational and I don't mean that in an, oh, how exciting. I mean, an extraordinary few days in the life of this government. Incredibly damaging, incredibly serious, a real sense of peril around the place. So by the time you get to a Saturday, you know, MPs, journalists, people sort of around the place are kind of, oh, what's going to happen next? What's going to happen next? Because surely there must be something. Actually, there is a slightly eerie sense of calm. One minister described it to me yesterday as this sort of terrible stasis, right? Where everyone's like, what's going to happen next? But who knows by Sunday morning, all sorts of other things might have happened. But it feels to me at the moment, there's a bit of kind of, oh, my God, that was a really long week.

[00:14:35] Speaker 2: So sort of and pause, sort of. Yeah. For now. So back to the interview given on the radio this morning, there is a bit of cover, perhaps for the prime minister in Gordon Brown, who's master of the kind of big plan. And, you know, he loves to get a big plan together, coordinated if possible globally or the big institutions.

[00:14:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:57] Speaker 2: So he's saying that he thinks there's a failure of joining all the dots in our establishment. And here's how he put it to Amol Rajan on today.

[00:15:05] Speaker 4: Keir Starmer was misled and he was betrayed. And of course, that is not sufficient explanation for what happened. There is a systemic failure to do proper vetting, to go through the proper procedures and to actually have, in my view, what should be public hearings for anybody who is going to be in a senior position representing the British government. They do it in America. We do it for even the members of the Monetary Policy Committee have got to come before the House of Commons for hearings. We didn't do it for Mandelson. So the private vetting is one thing. There should have been public hearings as the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee recommended so that people could ask the questions of Mandelson and see whether he was indeed the liar that he has now been seen to be.

[00:15:48] Speaker 1: So he's basically saying thumbs up to Dame Emily Thornberry, who wanted to hold Mandelson in front of MPs and ask all sorts of questions to probe whether or not he was really up for the job. But I think newscasters might be sort of interested because as you say, you can hear Gordon Brown there very clearly saying, look, we need a completely different way of doing this. And there's been so much froth and written and discussed this week about vetting and the vetting as if there is some kind of orderly flowchart serious procedure that is always followed. That's actually just not the case. There's so many variables in this. And, you know, one official said to me, look, this is actually a red herring because this was a political appointment and broadly, look, if the prime minister says they want someone, the prime minister's going to get someone and they're going to get their pick. But Gordon Brown there, as you said, is suggesting really something quite different where we basically have, well, you know, Cullis House hearings, you know, you have sort of Capitol Hill hearings for any big job.

[00:16:48] Speaker 2: When you saw Peter Mandelson and you did an interview with him three weeks ago.

[00:16:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, which feels like another universe. It does. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:55] Speaker 2: Feels like another lifetime. That's the pace of the releases. And here's the corollary I'm going to make.

[00:17:01] Speaker 1: Oh, I like that word.

[00:17:02] Speaker 2: Well, there's going to be now the release of the British Mandelson papers. I'm using the word papers, but I mean WhatsApp messages. And if I understand the system correctly, it's a crime to delete a message. So if there is out there a WhatsApp to Minister A and Peter Mandelson and it's been requested, Parliament has to be able to see that.

[00:17:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, either way, whatever the technicalities are, what we do know is that there is going to be an avalanche of information and communications about Peter Mandelson, from Peter Mandelson and with ministers or anyone else in government.

[00:17:45] Speaker 2: I'm Wes Streeting. I'm Morgan McSweeney.

[00:17:47] Speaker 1: Right.

[00:17:47] Speaker 2: I've got to fess up my WhatsApps.

[00:17:50] Speaker 1: Correct. And we know from covering Boris Johnson's government how much trouble WhatsApps can get people into. And I don't know what was in their WhatsApps. No. I've got absolutely no idea. I'm innocent. But you can imagine, that there will be all sorts of things that might prove to be very embarrassing for everyone involved. They might prove to be very embarrassing also for the UK's relationship with the White House. Think the American ambassador, the chap who's about to be appointed as the American ambassador is in close contact with close colleagues, maybe discussing the American administration. So we don't know when we're going to see those. We know there might be as many as 100,000 documents. And when we say documents, this might be, you know, a quick text exchange. It might be an email, it might be this, that and the other. But that whole episode may yet become even more embarrassing for the government. And that therefore could, and I'm saying it could, no more than that, but that could make life impossible for one M McSweeney to stay in Downing Street. It could give another moment when MPs are thinking, oh my God, we just can't carry on like this. And very often in politics, people say we can't go on like this. And then they do. And as we always do at the weekends, we should say overtly, because it's true and it's worth remembering, all kinds of things could happen. There is still, although it's getting narrower and narrower, there is still a narrow path where you can see none of Securistama's leadership challenges actually are brave enough to step up to the plate. He manages to find a course through maybe the economy improves, maybe the government's changes eventually start to cheer up the country. Who knows? But this week has been a really big moment and it's without question has made things much more perilous. And, you know, even people who are very close to the centre would now, you know, not be betting, I was going to say their mortgages, but maybe not even betting their lunch money that they'll be there by the time of the next general election.

[00:19:51] Speaker 2: So Keir Starmer must own his own mistake, which he says he's regretted. Here's something else that's true. David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Trush, Rissi Sunak and now Keir Starmer have delivered from Downing Street a diet of doom for a decade. And it's been questioned openly whether or not the British prime minister is a job that can be done. The person who said that to me most recently is your predecessor, Andrew Marr, who spoke to me for Radio 4 this weekend. He says, I seriously now doubt if this is a job that anyone is equipped to actually do because of the way modern life is now gone.

[00:20:29] Speaker 1: But I think if I'm allowed to disagree with my esteemed predecessor, Labour had all the ingredients for that. They were an absolutely whopping majority. They had a leader who had a very tight grip of the centre, had a very tight grip of the party, had enormous numbers of new MPs. I think a lot of people knocking around the place would suggest in response to that, it's a very interesting point, but had Labour done its homework, which many of them now wish they'd done their homework, they wish they'd come in with the plans that they now have ready to go 18 months ago. They wish that they hadn't made some very silly mistakes and things like taking free glasses or, you know, trying to get rid of winter fuel allowance and then going back on it. I think there's always a bit of a risk in making big statements based on one thing. I mean, in a funny way, right, this has all become an absolute nightmare for the sitting government because of one man's relationship with one other man 10 years ago. And that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, we are forever and never, ever, ever going to have stable government ever again. But it's a really interesting debate to have. And it's also a debate that's being had in government, right? So there are people who go, oh my God, this is absolutely horrendous. But let's not forget how chaotic we might look if we try and change the leader.

[00:21:48] Speaker 2: Well, I was just going to say that the editors keen that we make the Manchester United connection.

[00:21:52] Speaker 1: Yes. So this is a minister said to me, basically, anyone who fancies this job needs to remember what the cost of chaos could be. And when there's a risk, we just end up as a country looking like Man U, like we can't hold on to a manager. And that raises serious questions, which Andrew Marr is raising, about us as a country. Like, what does it say about our attention span? What does it say about voters' willingness to put their faith in anyone and anything? But, you know, even when people might want to say, politicians might want to tell us that the vast majority of them go into it for the right reasons, which I think is true, that they're all about public duty, which many of them are. It's also true that how things have unfolded has given members of the public some pretty good reasons to look at them and think, well, hang on a minute, you don't know what you're doing. Why should I have faith in you?

[00:22:39] Speaker 2: Since 2010, how many times has Manchester United changed manager and how many prime ministers have we had? And while you're thinking, yeah, I should say that Manchester United have beaten Spurs 2-0 while we've been wanging on.

[00:22:52] Speaker 1: Well, that's good because it's not good for either me or you. I was going to say, there's probably two people least in the country who have had sincere reactions.

[00:23:03] Speaker 2: We've noted the result and we say to Spurs and Manchester United fans, we understand it's a significant result.

[00:23:09] Speaker 1: Well, what time's the Scottish rugby? And what time's part of Thistle? And are they even playing today? But I would feel more strongly about it if they were. Well, I know the answer to one of them.

[00:23:18] Speaker 2: OK.

[00:23:18] Speaker 1: So the number of PMs, Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak, Truss, Starmer. But if you include the beginning of 2010, you've got to do Gordon Brown. So that's seven.

[00:23:33] Speaker 2: That's correct. Your answer is correct because you've got them slightly out of the wrong order.

[00:23:38] Speaker 1: Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak, Truss, Starmer.

[00:23:43] Speaker 2: No, you said Sunak, Truss. It's Truss to Sunak.

[00:23:47] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Sorry, Truss, Sunak. Fire me, God.

[00:23:49] Speaker 2: I'm not going to fire you. You should for that. It's the first time I've tripped you up in two years. So the answer on Manchester United is it's in that same time. So there have been seven, which you've just identified. There's been 13. So the minister who's saying to you, let's not do it like that is saying, how many more times do we have to change?

[00:24:07] Speaker 1: Right, exactly. Not least because they were saying to me, it's incredibly disruptive for the country. And, you know, the several ministers in the last few days have said that to me, look, don't underestimate. If we do this, you then get a new minister comes in, whatever work they were doing gets looked at again. And, you know, then like nothing happens. You know, one of the reasons lots of things were in a mess when the Tories left was because with all the chopping and changing projects that were meant to be getting underway, the brakes get put on, the new minister wants to do something different, and then nothing happens. So then voters look at the government's promises even more sceptically. They think, well, you didn't do anything for me anyway. But the other reason why it's bad, particularly for Labour, is they ran a whole election campaign based on not being like that. You know, they were the ones who were meant to bring stability and meant to bring calm and all the rest. And it was meant to be an end of the Tory chaos and confusion. And Keir Starmer was promising to roll up his sleeves and be sensible and stable. And that just hasn't come to pass.

[00:25:02] Speaker 2: News. Partick Thistle are away at Elgin City today. 1500 kickoff.

[00:25:08] Speaker 1: Well, we can revel in that tomorrow. Come on, the Jags.

[00:25:11] Speaker 2: Newscasters listening in the future will know the result of that clash. So there we are. Churn. There's a lot of churn. I wonder if we should... Imagine you as a milkmaid. I wonder if we should just stick to your flabber being gassed as we limp towards the end of Saturday's newscast. Everyone, it seems, has been staggered by the sense of authority ebbing away from this prime minister. That seems to be the story of the week.

[00:25:37] Speaker 1: I think that's right. Yeah, I think it's a real change. He completely lost control of parliament on Wednesday. And it's really hurt his authority. And it's very hard to see that coming back. And I think it's fair to say that at the moment, Keir Starmer's largely being kept in place because none of the people who want his job think now is their moment to strike. And that means that Keir Starmer largely is in his job at the moment from a position of weakness rather than from a position of strength. And that sounds very doomy because that is how the mood is among Labour circles this weekend. Doesn't mean it can't change, but that's where things are at now.

[00:26:23] Speaker 2: And on the TV on BBC One and iPlayer at nine on Sunday, you have a key figure in all of this.

[00:26:29] Speaker 1: Yes, so Pat McFadden, who's now the Welfare Secretary, he's with us tomorrow morning. And I think it's going to be really fascinating because not just because he's doing a big and important job in the government now, but he was the Prime Minister's right-hand man in number 10 when the Mandelson appointment was made. He was also Peter Mandelson's deputy in the business department in the era where we now know what Peter Mandelson was doing without his colleagues' knowledge. And even before that, Peter Mandelson was also someone who worked very closely with Pat McFadden for many, many years.

[00:27:10] Speaker 2: On the 97 campaign.

[00:27:11] Speaker 1: On the 97 campaign. And then in Tony Blair's number 10, you know, Pat McFadden, who's somebody who is well liked and well respected in Labour ranks, he's someone who was absolutely at the heart of that new Labour Blair project. So he has a unique perspective on this. And I have no idea how he's, what he's going to say tomorrow, how much he's going to open up about it or whether we're going to hear the same, oh, we're all terribly angry and we're all terribly angry or it will be really interesting to hear what he's got to say tomorrow.

[00:27:45] Speaker 2: I should be bringing for your ears David Blunkett to the Airwaves and the podcast and also Andrew Marr's reflections on how life's changed. And we're going to ask Tanni Grey-Thompson to think about the Jubalympic year 2012 and contrast it with our national conversation now because the headlines are full of money, corruption and back then there was the Queen's 60th Jubilee, there was these big victories and this amazing Olympics that was staged in the UK. So what's that been doing to us as voters to be hearing this doom dripped for a decade?

[00:28:19] Speaker 1: Well, one of the things it's been doing to lots of voters is make them feel like looking for something completely different, which is why I can shamelessly segue into a plug for our film that we've made in the last few months about reform because it's clear a lot of this mess, whether it's Tory mess or Labour mess, if we look at the polls, that's pushing voters towards something different, whether it's reform or increasingly also whether it's the Greens. We talked a lot about the Greens last weekend, but people right now in this moment seem to be saying anything but the red and blue team. And one of the things that you could do this weekend if you had an hour free is watch our documentary on the iPlayer about reform.

[00:28:55] Speaker 2: Good. And now we say goodbye by way of a very long silence. So thank you very much for listening. And here is a Barry Gardner inspired silence.

[00:29:08] Speaker 1: I'm sorry I ruined the silence because you just really make me laugh.

[00:29:12] Speaker 2: But you're meant to say goodbye.

[00:29:13] Speaker 1: I'll try again. Oh, bye.

[00:29:14] Speaker 2: Goodbye.