Starmer, Doyle y Epstein: presión y repercusiones (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Chris is here. Hello. We've not heard from you this week yet.

[00:00:03] Speaker 2: Well you know it's not much much been going on has there?

[00:00:05] Speaker 3: It's been so quiet Chris, you've just been sat at home twiddling your thumbs.

[00:00:08] Speaker 1: How would you sum it up so far?

[00:00:10] Speaker 2: It's been quite the week and we're just reporting on it you know we're not the we're not the people at the centre of it we're just the observers.

[00:00:16] Speaker 1: What are your headlines?

[00:00:17] Speaker 2: I should turn the volume off on my laptop. That's a good headline.

[00:00:20] Speaker 1: You're not the first person to have done that in here so far I'm sorry to say. I did it too.

[00:00:24] Speaker 2: It's just it's been an extraordinary week hasn't it? I mean I'm I'm conscious we've used that line a lot on Newscast in the last umpteen years, but it's been extraordinary because the Prime Minister survived a genuine threat to his premiership and for a couple of hours on Monday it was real, it was very, very, very real as some folk in the building acknowledged, let alone the rest of us, and this is the kind of post that moment of him surviving and then trying to regroup and carry on.

[00:00:53] Speaker 3: and yet the twists and turns continue. And we shall discuss them all on this episode of Newscast. Hello, it's James in the studio. And it's Alex in the Westminster studio. Yeah, I should have said that.

[00:01:04] Speaker 1: Good point. And it's Chris in Westminster too. So Prime Minister's questions today, last before the February recess, how do you think he got on, the Prime Minister?

[00:01:14] Speaker 2: He arrived to a big, big, I mean he always gets a big cheer from his benches, but a really big cheer. And that does tend to happen across the parties when a leader's had a bumpy week, a sense of their own side thinking the leader's got through it, let's give them a big cheer on the way in. And that happened, and it was noticeable.

[00:01:34] Speaker 3: It's totally that thing, like you say, leader after leader, party after party, the louder the cheer, potentially the more they need shoring up.

[00:01:40] Speaker 2: I thought what was interesting about PMQs today was that the leaders of the three biggest parties at Westminster were all pretty punchy. So the prime minister was pretty punchy, He had some good lines. He had a self-deprecating line at the beginning when he was doing the conventional opening line about having meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and he's had rather a lot of those this week, which is quite a neatly turned line and a knowing chuckle. I thought he was quite sharp in his critique of Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, talking about how his election success had shriveled the Tory party to a historically low number in Parliament, and it had got lower since, given the defections to reform. And then Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, did manage to get, I think, under the Prime Minister's skin with his questioning around the main topic today, which we'll come to, which prompted a moment I've not seen before, which was one of authentic finger-jabbing anger from the Prime Minister towards the Lib Dem leader.

[00:02:38] Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was interesting because this obviously was a sort of... Prime Minister's questions... I'm not suggesting that everybody at home sits and watches Prime Minister's questions at 12 o'clock on a Wednesday lunchtime because people probably have better things to do. Jobs. They call them jobs. But however, you know, in the kind of context of politics in Parliament, it is a set showpiece moment of the week. So it was a bit of an opportunity for Keir Starmer to get up there after what has been a really, really difficult few days and kind of deliver the fighting talk that we've heard him say over the course of the last 24 hours or so. But it just struck me that, despite that, he was once again dragged back to answering questions about his own judgment. And this is all to do with Matthew Dorr. And why don't I just, because we mentioned this to newscasters went on when we discussed this on Tuesday. But it's a fairly complicated situation. So if I just sort of give the rundown of what has happened here and why it's become controversial. Yeah, so Matthew Doyle, senior figure in the Labour Party and has been for some time. Now, Keir Starmer brought him in as Director of Communications at Downing Street from the very first day that Keir Starmer took office after winning the general election. Matthew Doyle then left that job. And then back in December, Keir Starmer announced that Matthew Doyle was going to be made a Labour peer, so elevated to the House of Lords. Shortly after that, the Sunday Times revealed in its reporting that some time ago, Matthew Doyle had campaigned for a council candidate in Scotland, a man called Sean Morton, who at that time had been charged with offences relating to children. Specifically, it was possessing indecent images and distributing indecent images. This was back in 2016, 2017. So this This then came to light in the Sunday Times reporting. Now Matthew Doyle has apologised for that past association with Sean Morton. He said at the time he was campaigning for Sean Morton, Sean Morton had not been convicted and was protesting his innocence. And Matthew Doyle has since said he does accept that that was an error of judgement. But the questions really have since been centred on the Prime Minister's judgement about elevating him to the House of Lords and giving him his appearance and then guessing into the detail of what was known from Downing Street and when.

[00:04:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a real sense here of deja vu, because here you have a case study in a senior Labour figure being offered a job that is in the gift of the Prime Minister. There then being revelations that ask questions about whether offering that job was a good idea, followed by the Prime Minister then posing sharp questions and criticisms of the person themselves and the process that led to their appointment. Ring any bells? There are big differences between the two cases, but in those parallels, Lord Mandelson and Lord Doyle, there are clearly in the process similarities. And so, yeah, questions today from Kemi Badenoch, in particular, and lots of questions, by the way, after PMQs from all of us lot as a press pack to the Prime Minister's team about, well, what did you know? What questions were asked around the appointment of Lord Doyle? And then also, why is it only now, this week, yesterday as we're recording, so on Tuesday, that Labour suspended Lord Doyle from their team in the House of Lords, took the whip away, could there not, went the questions, have been a decision taken after that Gabriel Pogrond Sunday Times piece, that the peerage would be rescinded? And would that be possible? The government suggesting it was too late, parliamentary official saying no it wasn't.

[00:06:11] Speaker 1: Well on that very point let's have a listen to it because this was the leader of the opposition Kemi Beidnoch tackling Sir Keir Starmer on that.

[00:06:21] Speaker 4: Mr. Speaker the Mandelson episode was not an isolated incident. A few weeks ago he announced a peerage for one Matthew Doyle, his former director of communications. Immediately after that the Sunday Times published on the front page that Doyle campaigned for a man charged with child sex offences. Yet despite the Prime Minister knowing this, he gave Doyle a job for life in the House of Lords anyway. Why? Prime Minister Mr Speaker, Matthew Doyle did not give a full account of his actions. And on Monday, I promised my party and my country there would be change.

[00:07:07] Speaker 3: And yesterday, I removed the wick from Matthew Doyle. So there were lots of references to Matthew Doyle in the House of Commons today. And we had had this statement I referenced from Matthew Doyle initially when he talked about apologising for his association, the fact that Sean Walsh was protesting his innocence. But I'm not sure, Chris, if we've heard anything from Matthew Doyle since.

[00:07:23] Speaker 2: We haven't. And obviously, journalistically, there's an obligation for fairness to offer anyone in these situations, particularly when they face an accusation from the prime minister like that, a chance to set out their argument. I've been in touch with Lord Doyle today, he doesn't want to comment any more beyond that on-the-record statement that he gave on Tuesday in which he acknowledged the error of judgement.

[00:07:46] Speaker 1: What was the process for appointing him and is he now going to be unappointed to the Lords?

[00:07:52] Speaker 2: So there is a process and questions are asked. The clear impression I was left with from the long exchanges with the Prime Minister's team at lunchtime, is that they did not know at the time of appointment of the detail around Matthew Doyle campaigning alongside this guy when he had been charged, but at that point was still insisting on his innocence. He did later plead guilty.

[00:08:20] Speaker 3: And we should say, yeah, he has been subsequently convicted, yes.

[00:08:23] Speaker 2: So Downing Street argue that that is what they didn't know, with the implication that they were aware of the association.

[00:08:33] Speaker 1: But also, is there not a further moral question, if we're now turning the newscast into the moral maze, as to if we believe in the principle of innocent until proven guilty, is it reasonable for Lord Doyle to be stripped of his peerage for his actions relating to someone who was, the point at which he took those actions in that on the basis of that principle innocent?

[00:08:56] Speaker 2: Indeed so that's absolutely a question particularly when it is that detail that Downing Street are insisting is the key detail they were not aware of at the point they decided to confer a peerage on Matthew Doyle. The second part of your question James is also a key one here which is that having announced that he was getting a Labour peerage there is then a gap between that point and what are known as letters patent when the peerage becomes a thing, and that gap included within it the Sunday Times front page. In other words, which again for context, and this is important when we unpick these things, was just before New Year, it was in the Christmas holidays, Parliament's in recess, and it is before all of this slew of revelations that are unconnected but create the atmosphere in which we are now, which is the whole revelations involving Epstein. So, the government has argued that it was too late, basically. Once they'd announced the peerage, it's too late. We have heard today from the authorities, well, actually, no, until the letters patent happen, the peerage is not actually cast in stone. And in practical terms, if the Prime Minister had decided to say on New Year's Eve or in early January, by the way, again, the context was this one about Venezuela, not long after New Year, then in reality he wouldn't have become a peer.

[00:10:22] Speaker 3: And the thing that sits behind all of this, of course, is the central question, which has been a running theme of critics of Keir Starmer, which they are, this has now given them another opportunity to air, which is the question of judgment. Judgment and the operation in number 10. And are those two things working as they should be? And actually, what was interesting in some of Kemi Badenoch's questioning but also followed up by where the Prime Minister went after Prime Minister's questions was about the sort of central number 10 operation and whether they are fully understanding the impact or potential implications of some of the decisions they are making. So Kemi Badenoch was referencing this term which kicks around in Westminster about a boys club mentality in number 10 and straight after Prime Minister's questions Keir Starmer went off to address a meeting of senior women MPs, Labour MPs, so it's the Women's Parliamentary Labour Party. And that sort of same sentiment, I think, came up in the room about this concern among senior figures in the Labour Party, women, about whether or not there has been a boys' club mentality in Number 10. And interestingly, one of their suggested answers to that was creating a whole new post, what they're calling a First Secretary of State, which would be a female appointed to said post to try and address what some perceive as this boys' club mentality. And the Prime Minister said he'd take it away.

[00:11:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, and a couple of sort of asides to that, which is sort of worth noting, which is that there is a precedent for having a First Secretary of State. Gordon Brown had one and that First Secretary of State was Lord Mandelson and at the time there wasn't a Deputy Prime Minister so you were effectively creating a deputy in all but name. Were you to have a First Secretary of State now you would then have a kind of governing structure around the Prime Minister both in government and in the Labour Party where you had a Prime Minister, you had a Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, who's a man, you have a Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Lucy Powell, who is a woman, you have a Chair of the Labour Party, Anna Turley, who is a woman, and then you'd have a First Secretary of State, which would be a government position, unlike Lucy Powell's and Anna Turley's, who would be a First Secretary of State, but is actually kind of number three in the pecking order, presumably, I mean, let's see, I mean, the Prime Minister could say otherwise, but where you've got a deputy prime minister as well. But it gets to, I think, as you say, that underlying sense. And it has been alive for a long time. There are some who, including senior women in Downing Street, who dispute the idea of a quote unquote boys club. But to an extent, in life as in politics, perception can be reality. And there has been a persistent perception from critics of the prime minister of that sense of a quote unquote boys club.

[00:13:06] Speaker 3: And it'll be interesting to see what Keir Starmer chooses to do with some of the gaps he's currently got on his Downing Street team and who ends up filling them. But you mentioned Gordon Brown had a First Secretary of State and actually Gordon Brown, talking of him, James, has written this piece for the News Statesman, which looks at the much bigger picture around the Epstein files. And we've been reading it since it dropped a few hours ago. And there's some really quite extraordinary stuff in there.

[00:13:29] Speaker 1: I think this is really significant. I think this is a big intervention. And Gordon Brown does tend to choose his moments to intervene pretty carefully. I mean on Saturday's newscast, Laura and Paddy were talking about his interview on the Today programme in which he expressed qualified support, I would say, for Sakir Starmer, saying the situation for the Prime Minister was serious, he might have been too slow to do the right things. Now he's made another intervention and this time he is talking, he says he's been wading through the Epstein files, right? That's the basis on which he's published this piece. It's not an interview, it's a piece he's written for the New Statesman. He says, I've delved deep into the Epstein files. He says Britain's as yet unacknowledged role in the abuse of women by male predators and their enablers has shocked me to the core, or rather Britain's as yet unacknowledged role in facilitating or failing to stop that abuse. He says there must be an in-depth police investigation. He calls it the biggest scandal of all. He talks in detail. I mean, Gordon Brown's campaigned in this area anyway, the treatment of women and girls. He's been very involved in this area since he left Downing Street. And he talks about the files opening our eyes to the sheer scale of the sex trafficking industry. But he's particularly interested in what he suggests. And again, we have not verified the information in the Epstein files or not all of it and certainly not what we're talking about here. But he talks about the issuing of visas and the transportation of British girls on Epstein flights organised from UK airports. And he talks about some of those flights being given the go ahead after Epstein's conviction in 2008 for soliciting sex from a minor. So the point is he's saying this is a greater scandal than the Profumo affair. He's saying it's an outrage what's happened and crucially he is saying I have asked the Metropolitan Police in London urgently to re-examine their decision making in their investigation and in the subsequent reviews and he thinks they need to look again at information that he thinks suggests there has been trafficking of British girls on British soil and it needs to be investigated. I don't know what you You both think of that, but it strikes me as a very significant intervention.

[00:15:55] Speaker 3: Just picking up on that final point, he's not being openly critical of the Metropolitan Police directly, but he is making the point that the Metropolitan Police said that any investigation into human trafficking would largely be about territories outside the UK, effectively implying that a lot of this was based in the US, might be outside their jurisdiction. But this is a very direct call from a former prime minister for them to look again.

[00:16:17] Speaker 1: Oh, and I missed one thing. Importantly, the revelations he said require the police to interview Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

[00:16:25] Speaker 3: Yeah.

[00:16:25] Speaker 1: That's the headline on the article, actually.

[00:16:27] Speaker 2: Yeah. Chris, what do you make of it? It is a big intervention, I think. And I think it's a reminder, isn't it, of all of the strands and consequences that are going to have longevity to them of what has happened in the last fortnight. In other words, that deluge of documents from the Department of Justice in the United States. we see it the ramifications of it in so many different parts of our national conversation at the moment you know when we examine for instance the consequences of that vote a week ago in the House of Commons around the documents to be released connected to the appointments of Peter to Peter Mandelson and more broadly than that that is a drip-drip consequence that's going to take this can be months in the making this potentially could be as well be fascinating to see how the Metropolitan Police respond and the extent to which which what Gordon Brown is saying is picked up or not by the government.

[00:17:23] Speaker 3: It's just a final sort of brief thought on this. You know, I think Gordon Brown here is articulating what we have touched upon on Newscast actually, that whereas the focus of a lot of the fallout of the Epstein files, particularly in the UK, has been quite heavily for understandable reasons been focused on, for example, Peter Mandelson and his relationship with Epstein and that kind of element of it. What Gordon Brown is talking about here and trying to draw attention to is something so much broader. Yes, networks and logistics. And he's talking about networks of wealthy men, primarily. And there's just a line in here when he says, leaks of market-sensitive financial information have incurred far more coverage than the victims.

[00:18:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, I highlighted that as well. I thought that was significant. Two things, just to say off the back of that before we finish, the BBC has approached Andrew Mountbatten Windsor for comment on this article, not heard back. He's previously strongly denied any wrongdoing in his associations with Epstein. And Thames Valley Police, which is actually leading that aspect of the investigation rather than the Met at the moment, has held discussions with specialist prosecutors from the Crown Prosecution Service about allegations that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential reports from his role as the UK's trade envoy with Epstein and is making progress as quickly as possible. That's what we had from them in a statement today. Just to wrap that up. Chris, good to see you. Thank you.

[00:18:42] Speaker 3: Don't leave it so long next time. see you tomorrow.

[00:18:45] Speaker 1: How about that? Yeah, sounds good. Now, authorities in Iran have put on a show of strength, I think you could call it, to mark the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. And that, of course, as you will remember, as newscasters will remember, comes weeks after they used unprecedented force to put down anti-government protests. It is, as you will know, very unusual for us to be able to report from Iran. BBC journalists are generally not allowed into the country, not that often at all, but our Chief International Correspondent Lise Doucette is in Tehran and we need to explain that Lise is reporting from the country on the condition that none of her material is used on the BBC's Persian service and those restrictions apply to all international media organisations operating in Iran. And we can speak to Lise now, hello.

[00:19:36] Speaker 5: Hello James and Alex. I wish I was in the studio with you but it's also good to be back in Iran.

[00:19:43] Speaker 3: Liz, you've been so busy, you've been reporting for all BBC news outlets and we've seen a lot of your coverage, but we have got a question for you from newscaster Rob, always grateful when newscasters drop us a line, and I think the sentiment in Rob's question probably sums up what quite a lot of people want to know about your experience in Tehran, including us, so I hope you don't mind Liz if I just put it to you. Rob says, hello newscast, I have a question for Lise. What's it like being in Iran, walking around and taking it all in? Risky? Scary? Or not at all as bad as it sounds? Thanks Rob. Well thank you Rob for getting in touch. Lise I don't know what you can say to Rob and all of us really about it.

[00:20:22] Speaker 5: Well thank you Rob. Thank you for following newscasts and thank you for being interested in Iran. I have this expression which is that places always look more dangerous from a distance. And in reporting in Iran, and I've been reporting from here since 1989, from the funeral of the first revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. And so I've always described Iran as a mix of frustration and fascination. It's an extraordinary country with such welcoming people and such a rich culture. But there is also an intense, there's an atmosphere of suspicion and intense surveillance by the authorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran. And when we go out into the streets filming or recording, we're often stopped by members of various security forces, often taken in for questioning. And then we have our government-issued badges, and so we're eventually released. So you have to be careful. But I was really struck by my last trip to Iran, which was a year ago, as the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which also drew in the United States, was ending. And so many questions seem to suggest that Iran was like North Korea, a place where people don't dare express their views. And this is a country which is not a North Korea at all. This is a people of very courageous people, a very outspoken people. We go out on the streets. If we have a camera, people are more nervous and they are nervous now after this unprecedented crackdown of last month. But when we go out as we did yesterday, just for radio, having conversations with people, you heard some of our reporting, people on this trip, there's been such, it's been really quite moving actually, even painful. People have been venting their anger and their pain. than one person just burst into tears when I asked them a very open question like, what's the main worry on your mind this month? So for a journalist to be in a country at such a defining, such a historic moment, for those journalists that I think, you know, me and Alex and James still believe that face-to-face journalists on the ground is always the best kind of journalism and so whatever the difficulties, whatever the limits of operating here, it's good to be here.

[00:22:45] Speaker 1: Of course, I mean it's amazing to hear your description of it in that way and it is obviously extremely good for everyone that you were there to tell us what's going on. Lise, in terms of what is going on, is that nervousness and behaviour towards you and other journalists from the regime, do you think that's been heightened by what's happened in recent months and can you just bring us up to date for newscasters up to date about where we are with those protests? You know, how many people do we know? How many people died in them and have they been completely quashed by the regime?

[00:23:23] Speaker 5: Yeah, Iran's story, this particular chapter of Iran's story is still being told and we may never know all of the details of this extraordinary moment when this uprising, which was triggered by a strike by shopkeepers in the bazaar who shut their doors and brought down their shades because they simply couldn't trade. The real currency collapsed against the dollar. And so they wanted to vent their anger against the government's failure to address a deepening economic crisis, but it quickly spiraled into something much, much bigger and about much bigger issues with calls even to bring down the Islamic Republic. But as the protest intensified and spread across the country, so too the government's crackdown intensified and there was this near total internet blackout, which is being described as one of the longest in a digital shutdown in history. And in those, when Iran almost went to dark, when we were just getting trickles of videos and messages, brave Iranians sending them out through Starlink satellite terminals. The government went in with lethal force and today as the streets have been emptied of these protests, it's simply too dangerous for people to go out in those numbers into the streets. They see how the government will meet them. The government here told us yesterday that their official death toll is about 3,100. We have been hearing from human rights groups who've been trying to document this extraordinary moment. They say it's just short of 7,000. And there are other projections that it could be in the tens of thousands. Government officials here say to me that they're telling Iranians to come forward, to tell them the details of someone who died, but people are very nervous. They're worried that their loved ones could be taken in as protesters. There have even been accusations that the government is asking for money for people to be given the bodies which are in the morgue for burial. So it's still shrouded in a lot of uncertainty, a lot of questions. And I have to say, just being here, you feel the pain of people after all that's happened here.

[00:25:48] Speaker 3: And with all of that as the backdrop, Liz, there's this sort of strange juxtaposition because I've seen some of the images that you've sent in from your reporting in Tehran and newscasters can look on the BBC News website. And you've sort of got a city that's bedecked in flags and bunting because it's this moment, this 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. And we've had this address from the president of Iran today. I just wonder, when you've got this moment when the regime is sort of celebrating the revolution of 1979, how the messaging from the regime is landing with people against that backdrop of the recent protests.

[00:26:26] Speaker 5: During this wave of protests, as it grew, there were so many predictions from so many capitals that the Islamic Republic was about to collapse, that it was on its last days. It was just a question of days. But there were no major cracks within the clerical rule. There were no mass defections, no evidence of any mass defections in the security forces who are ideologically loyal to the Islamic Republic, and therefore what we are seeing today in this show of strength, huge crowds flooding those same streets which had been filled with protesters. These are the most loyal foot soldiers of the revolution. Of course, some people were bussed in for the day, but it is a reminder that this government does have some support. It's very hard to say how much. The protests tell us that there There is also widespread dissatisfaction with the clerical rule. But it's not to say that they are not without support. And this is their... What happened today, not just here in Tehran in a main artery, going through the heart of the city, but also in major streets across this country, is basically the government's political reply to its critics saying, look at this, look at the people who come out in the street in support of the Islamic Republic. The situation is not black and white, but so too the protests weren't black and white. But what is undeniable is that 47 years on, the authorities here face their most critical test since their own uprising nearly a half century ago, both in terms of the unrest at home, including with this soaring inflation. You talk about a cost of living crisis in Britain. tell us that they're paying four to five times more for cooking oil, for meat, for chicken, that the prices have really been sky high and so too is unemployment. And at the same time they are facing these repeated threats of more military strikes by the United States if this new intensifying diplomacy over Iran's nuclear program and more doesn't succeed.

[00:28:44] Speaker 1: And what's the latest on that, Lise, because Donald Trump's been hosting the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. Obviously, there's been a lot of speculation about what Mr Trump intends to do with regards to Iran. And as ever with the US president, he's perhaps deliberately been keeping people guessing. And one minute seems to suggest that there could be strikes any minute and at the next pulling back. What is the latest with those negotiations? Are they talking? Who's talking? What are they talking about?

[00:29:20] Speaker 5: Well, they're definitely talking. And I have to say, if you compare now the shuttle diplomacy, the messaging compared to last year, when what had been five rounds of mainly indirect talks before a senior Iranian and American delegation, which were shattered, of course, by Israel's attacks on Iran in June last year, there's much more diplomacy now, A very senior Iranian official has been in the Gulf state of Oman, which has been the main Arab mediator between the United States and Iran. He carried a message. We know that the foreign minister here, Abbas Araqchi, has been on the telephone repeatedly to his counterparts across this region. They've been on the phone repeatedly to the American president, telling him, don't go for military action. You will set in train. instability across this region, a region where you'll remember when President Trump made his first foreign trip of his second term. He went to the Gulf states and he boasted that he signed a trillion dollars in deals every day in every stop. President Trump, he wants to avoid that kind of chaos. He doesn't want to be sucked into a long confrontation, certainly not in a year of the midterm elections. He wants something short, sharp, successful, and he would like a deal. Iran says it wants a deal. The way the discussions have been going so long, in brief, is that the Americans keep making these maximalist demands, zero nuclear enrichment, limits on the ballistic missile program, an end to Iran's engagement in the region, to which Iran says that you're asking us to surrender. Yes, we agree, we don't want nuclear weapons, we haven't crossed the line, but we need to be allowed a certain amount, commensurate with civilian purposes, nuclear enrichment about three, somewhere around three or four percent, not zero enrichment. And that's where the discussions are now. And there are many different, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, the main reason why he's in Washington is to make it absolutely clear to President Trump it can't just be nuclear. There has to be limits on the ballistic missiles which are now in range of Israel. There has to be a stop to its nefarious activities across the region. It supports for military, for militias, of course, which are now, have been in battle with Israel as well. Will President Trump, who wants a deal for the sake of a deal, go for the narrow path, which could happen more quickly? Will he listen to Israel? As you said, he likes to keep people guessing from one day to the next.

[00:31:59] Speaker 3: I suspect all of exactly those kind of thoughts that are playing more heavily on the minds to the people in Iran as much as anybody else. And Lise, just a sort of final thank you to you for being there for us and bringing us the voices of the people in Tehran, because exactly as you say, there's just no substitute for that kind of thing. No, definitely not. Thank you so much, Lise. Thank you, Lise. And yes, good luck with the rest of the trip.

[00:32:20] Speaker 5: Thank you so much. Really good. Thank you. Thank you. Great. I have a great team here too. Nicky Millard and Charlotte Scar. They're here with me too.

[00:32:27] Speaker 1: Absolutely. Credit to all of you. Brilliant. Say hello. Thanks very much, Lise. And that's it for this episode of Newscast, which I thought was very interesting.

[00:32:36] Speaker 3: Aren't they not all very interesting, James? Yeah, good point. They're all very interesting. We will be back with hopefully another interesting episode of Newscast very soon. Goodbye. Bye-bye.