Sunday’s agenda: war warnings, Labour rows and Cass (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: You're looking at me strangely, Patrick.

[00:00:02] Speaker 2: Because how do we sum up Sunday's journalism? The best of broadcast, the best of print, the best of online? Shall we try it in three words?

[00:00:13] Speaker 1: War.

[00:00:16] Speaker 2: Labour.

[00:00:17] Speaker 1: That works in two different ways, doesn't it?

[00:00:20] Speaker 2: And Andrew.

[00:00:21] Speaker 1: There we go. We did it. Well done.

[00:00:23] Speaker 2: So on war, Keir Starmer's been at the Munich Security Conference.

[00:00:26] Speaker 1: And he says we should be ready for war, which sounds quite an alarming thing to say to the country. So we'll hear today what the Foreign Secretary tells us that he actually meant.

[00:00:36] Speaker 2: On Labour.

[00:00:38] Speaker 1: Labour is still behind closed doors, arguing amongst itself about whether or not the Prime Minister is the right man for the job. And there are various bits of jockeying for position.

[00:00:48] Speaker 2: Yes, with the Defence Secretary mentioned for the first time.

[00:00:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's been knocking around a bit. It links war and politics and power and Labour, doesn't it? You're making all sorts of links here.

[00:00:59] Speaker 2: And there's also a story about Labour together, a lobby group to get them all elected.

[00:01:04] Speaker 1: Yes, getting into a bit of a pickle over what appears to be, according to the Sunday Times, some rather unorthodox behaviour.

[00:01:13] Speaker 2: And there are fresh claims about Andrew's time when he was Prince as UK trade envoy.

[00:01:18] Speaker 1: And number four, if I may, a fourth word, or three words, Dr Hilary Cass, the author of what was a very significant review into the treatment of children and young people who were questioning their gender. We've spoken to her for the programme, and I think it's a really worthwhile conversation to have because in very calm tones, which are unusual in that whole debate, she explains some of her views on how often kids will have lifelong issues with gender, how they've been let down by adults in this debate and whether or not they've been misled by what they see online.

[00:01:56] Speaker 2: So four subjects to get to grips with in Sunday's newscast. Hello, it's Paddy in the studio.

[00:02:06] Speaker 1: And it's Laura in the studio. And might I say a belated happy Valentine's Day to you. And to you.

[00:02:12] Speaker 3: Hi, it's Joe Pike, also in the studio. Loved up on news.

[00:02:17] Speaker 1: You both look really uncomfortable that I said that. I just meant it in a friendly way.

[00:02:22] Speaker 2: I think you might be telling the newscaster that we're together.

[00:02:25] Speaker 1: No, I'm not.

[00:02:26] Speaker 2: I'm just being friendly. It's a good start. It's a lot more interesting than things I had prepared. So, look, let's get to grips with what accounts for the news agenda on a Sunday. There is some moving parts. One of them is this business of the whole geopolitical arena, and there's been a giant conference in Munich. It's held every year. It's called the Security Conference. And the Prime Minister has been saying some big headline-grabbing things.

[00:02:51] Speaker 1: He really has. I mean, he's told the country that we should be ready for war. He's said that it is, you know, the new reality. He said it could be a time of rupture, but instead it must be a time of creation, of a new European NATO, and Europe has to step up because America has changed its position. And everybody knows they heard it at the Munich conference last year, but they heard it as soon as Donald Trump walked into the White House. We've talked about it again and again on Newscast that this White House thinks that Europe must do much more for itself. It can no longer rely on American protection for its own security. But it was also interesting, Joe, that the Prime Minister chose to present this as not just a security defence kind of thing, but also a move in politics at home. He said Britain is not the Britain of the Brexit years anymore. Let's just have a listen to what he said.

[00:03:39] Speaker 4: We are not the Britain of the Brexit years anymore. Because we know... And that is because we know that in a dangerous world, we would not take control by turning inward. We would surrender it. And I won't let that happen.

[00:04:02] Speaker 2: That's a message that the people at that conference are hearing all the time. They like that message. They do. They got very grumpy when the American vice-president said something different last year, telling them all off. So he's got the right audience. But actually, when we consume that back home, is he telling us, ah, we're going to get closer to the EU?

[00:04:22] Speaker 3: I think he might be. Integration is in our interests. And what he was nodding towards there, Paddy, was not something that dissimilar from the argument Rach Reeves has been recently making with economic justification, her saying this week, the biggest prize for Britain's growth comes through deeper integration with the EU. And, of course, those within the Cabinet and other senior politicians in Labour, especially those perhaps who see a leadership contest in the future, are also leaning into the idea of a close relationship, partly because, of course, Labour members, it seems, like the idea of being closer to Europe.

[00:04:59] Speaker 2: Well, I mean, 10 years after the referendum, we're still working out our place with Europe. It's exhausting to newscasters.

[00:05:05] Speaker 1: I think that's right. But it tells you, though, actually how big a deal Brexit was, right? It was unplugging the country from decades and decades and decades of legal cooperation, economic cooperation, defence cooperation, polysocial cooperation, all sorts of things. And, you know, politicians at the time, if we cast our mind back then, they were all rhetorically very open about how big a deal it would be, either positively or negatively. But I don't think anybody really had the sort of almost emotional expectation, if you like, that the politics of unpicking it all and all the arguments about unpicking it all and now the arguments about how much of it you might want to plug back in... Well, this is our... ..would so completely consume our political conversation. You know, 10 years later, the Prime Minister is invoking that and, you know, tickling the bellies of a load of European diplomats who, by their applause...

[00:05:59] Speaker 2: Yeah.

[00:06:00] Speaker 1: ..tell you that they thought it was all a terrible idea. But it is interesting. And I think also it's not without risk for the Prime Minister, actually. If we just think narrowly about Keir Starmer, you know, showing a bit more ankle to the rest of the EU, that's not without risk because here, some of his rivals, Reform and the Tories, when he says things like that, they immediately will accuse him of saying, ah, well, you're just going to give back control, this is surrender, you're tipping back, you're trying to, you know, you're trying to kind of undermine what people voted for all those years ago. But I think, Joe, I was trying to find out from Yvette Cooper this morning what he really meant when he was talking about defence, because he wasn't just talking about the economy, he was also talking about doing more collectively, he used words like solidarity and collective action. So what do you think the Prime Minister is really trying to drive at?

[00:06:45] Speaker 3: I think he wants to send a message to European nations who are big defence nations that the militaries will work together, although not in that much of an integrated way because all the research and expertise we've heard on this issue suggests that actually armies cannot integrate too closely together on small operations. But also this is, isn't it perhaps a message for the US as well? Yes, he's saying something that will keep the Europeans happy, but by showing that we, European nations, are committed to working together, bolstering our defence, spending more, we're feeding into what Donald Trump sees as one of his big successes, which is forcing spending to go up for NATO countries.

[00:07:27] Speaker 1: And we should also say there's already lots of joint working, it's Britain and France particularly who've been working together on the plans for what might be called a reassurance force if there's ever a peace deal in Ukraine. There are already lots of joint operations and more and more countries have been doing things like developing new weapons systems together, so this is something that's happening already. But it is interesting, I think, that Keir Starmer wants to really push this as a political message and also I thought Paddy really justifying himself being there at all. And Reform and others have sort of raised an eyebrow on the Prime Minister sort of using that platform, a sort of diplomatic platform, to send a message that's about his own political problems at home. Because he said, well, this is why I'm here as Prime Minister, this is why I devote time on the world stage. He also suggested if Reform and the Greens are allowed to get their hands on the levers of power, then, and I quote, the lamps would go out all over Europe. Now, newscasters, being the smart bunch they are, many of them may remember that was a quote that was from the eve of World War I. So, essentially, the Prime Minister is saying, if you vote for people other than me, then you find yourselves in a global conflict, which, not surprisingly, Reform and the Greens have really pushed back very hard against.

[00:08:42] Speaker 2: And we've recently changed Foreign Secretary. You had her on the programme. Because there's a lot going on with how Europe appears to the rest of the world. Weak is one version of how it appears. There are some European countries still buying fuel from Russia. And there are some that have to be dragged towards the defence spending targets that we know about. So, you had Yvette Cooper on. She's got to be the sort of domestic-facing and the world-facing voice of Labour's policy. How did she nail down what more solidarity with Europe looks like?

[00:09:13] Speaker 1: Well, I'm not sure we got that far, to be honest. I mean, we tried to press her on that issue and say, OK, what does it mean? She said things like, well, joint working, joint working in various different ways. No European army, though. No European army, when I put that to her. Yeah, she was quite careful to underline that's not what it meant. That used to be, didn't it, one of the things that politicians on the right would hurl accusations about terrible idea of a European joint army. But she talked a lot about joint working and partnerships and collective action. In terms of specifics, I'm not sure that we learnt a huge amount during our interview, despite our best efforts. I think, though, what's interesting is, you know, it's just really, really more clear than ever that discussion about what's happening around the rest of the world is a part of our politics, will be a part of our normal politics for a long time to come. And that just wasn't always the case. You know, we used to go weeks and weeks and weeks covering politics in Westminster without ever talking about foreign affairs. You know, maybe we ought to have done more, but it's just part of the bread and butter of politics now in a way that just didn't used to be.

[00:10:20] Speaker 3: And it helps Keir Starmer as well, potentially, right? This was an opportunity for him to try and reshape the narrative after a difficult week. He's seen as stronger on foreign affairs. Also, he can frame himself as this statesman in times of instability. Do we need another Labour leadership fight? And do you think the pretenders to my throne are people who could do what I can on the world stage? And also use the fact that he has this prime ministerial world hailer in Munich to criticise his political rivals, especially the newer ones.

[00:10:54] Speaker 1: I think there's still a political problem for them, though. We did press Yvette Cooper on this this morning. They keep saying, we've got to spend more on defence. We've got to be ready for war. Bad things might be coming down the track and we need to be able to deter the threats. But the government has still not told us how they're going to pay for all of this extra defence spending after 2028. And that, for their political rivals, is something that they are going to continue to pick away at. Because if you tell the country again and again, we've got to be ready for war, but then you don't say, this is where the money is going to come from to do that, that makes them politically vulnerable. We also spoke to Deputy Patel, the Shadow Foreign Secretary this morning, and she said that the government ought to be calling in the Russian ambassador after the UK government, alongside other governments yesterday, said that the Kremlin was responsible for the assassination of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, and that he had been poisoned by a toxin from a frog. I mean, the most extraordinary, hideous detail in a sort of John le Carre, truth stranger than fiction horror show of that man who was a brave opposition politician killed in a Russian jail. But Yvette Cooper, again, didn't give us any sort of specific actions that they might take. She talked again about ratcheting up sanctions, taking action with other countries, but she didn't agree with the conservative suggestion that at the very least the Russian ambassador in the UK should be summoned to the foreign office to receive a dressing down. Because if you remember Salisbury, that attack on British soil, at that point, dozens of diplomats actually right around the world were thrown out, dozens of Russian diplomats were kicked out in a coordinated action, but it's not clear what's going to happen after the confirmation of what happened to Navalny.

[00:12:40] Speaker 3: She did mention referring this to the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, because she argues this is a breach of international rules and the convention on that, but it's unclear what that would mean for Russia and how significant that would actually be in terms of changing any behaviour.

[00:12:57] Speaker 1: Now, the other thing that she said is that government is going to change. Keir Starmer is going to listen to the women in government more after what has been a very, very troublesome week. But there's another slightly niche, but yet very interesting and potentially very difficult story for Labour on the front page of the Sunday Times this morning. Is there not?

[00:13:15] Speaker 3: There certainly is, yeah. This has been rumbling for a week or so and the fact that the Sunday Times have splashed it, put it on their front page, makes it far more prominent. And there is some pretty startling detail in it too. This is about Labour Together, this think tank that was at the heart of the efforts to get Keir Starmer into the job as Labour leader. And some reporting by the Sunday Times three years ago as to its funding. Now, we know that Labour Together didn't report on time over £700,000 worth of funding. Oops. The argument, seemingly, Paddy, was that they wanted to keep some of their motives a little bit unclear.

[00:13:59] Speaker 2: They blamed an admin error for their £700,000 and Morgan McSweeney was in charge of it.

[00:14:03] Speaker 3: Yes. Admin error is still the line, but they were fined by the Electoral Commission. And it is viewed by some as an intentional deception because they wanted to look a bit like a sort of woolly, unthreatening group to those on the left of the Labour Party as they were spending loads of money on polling, working out what Labour members would want in a leader and therefore using that to get Keir Starmer in the top position. After that Sunday Times article about the non-declaration of donations came out in 2023 and some background into the funding of the group, the chief executive of that think tank got a lobbying and PR firm, Apco Worldwide, to investigate. Now, initially we thought this was purely looking at the sources of those journalists. Not that that is a great idea, perhaps, but now more detail that Apco Worldwide, this firm that were paid over £30,000, looked into personal details and the religion and relationships of Gabriel Pogron, this scoop getter at the Sunday Times.

[00:15:13] Speaker 2: But also naming journalists as people of significant interest, which is just kind of spooky. And I don't think it's really what you want to be... It's not a great look if you're a libertarian, free speech-loving party of the left. You shouldn't be naming journalists as of significant interest because they found your admin error.

[00:15:31] Speaker 1: And it's also not something that is normal or standard behaviour, as far as we know in British politics, right? So just to say that to everybody listening, this isn't the kind of thing that would be considered to be normal behaviour. Of course, political parties will do research and dig around their rivals and their political enemies, but they wouldn't, unless we're all living in the dark, which who knows, it's possible, they wouldn't dig around into journalists and their motives. And they did also dig around into the motives of a couple of other journalists, including a man called Andrew Feinstein and people who'd been very much of the left. But the tricky thing now, I think, for Labour in this is that the man who was the chief executive by the time this digging around was being done and this report was commissioned was not Morgan McSweeney, the now exited chief of staff. It was a man called Josh Simons, who's now not just an MP, but now a minister in the government. So the allegation here is that a minister in the government before he came into parliament, paid a PR agency to try to discredit the motives and the character of a journalist who was doing his job. Now, Josh Simons has said, oh, but essentially the company went beyond their brief. I didn't know that they were doing this. I'm paraphrasing, but he's essentially saying, I did nothing wrong. But Joe, do you think, because it has a bit of a sniff about this to me, that this could be a story that actually really takes on a bit of a head of steam. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if the opposition parties tried to put down a question in parliament about this or something like that.

[00:17:09] Speaker 3: Absolutely. And there are Conservative MPs, Nick Timothy amongst them, who have voiced shock and dismay at all of this, in particular some of the details, especially considering that this report claimed that Gabriel Pogra and one of his colleagues could have been part of a Russian conspiracy, in that the source of their information about Labour Together could have come from a Kremlin hack of the Electoral Commission, even though there's absolutely no evidence of that. APCO Worldwide, this lobbying in PR firm, have not responded. But one interesting detail is that the person who wrote the report is a former Sunday Times journalist. So someone who used to work at the Sunday Times has been investigating some journalists at the Sunday Times. Meanwhile, Labour Together, under a different chief executive now, has said they're ready to support the PRCA. That is the trade body for PR and communications firm, which APCO Worldwide is a member of, and the trade body are now investigating one of their own members to see if they have potentially breached the Code of Conduct.

[00:18:13] Speaker 1: It is a bit murky, it is a bit complicated, but basically this could turn into become quite a problem for a member of the government in terms of embarrassment and what they knew and when and who else knew. So we'll see what happens this week.

[00:18:24] Speaker 2: OK, so we're scampering through our four subjects. So let me just summarise the Andrew situation. The Mail on Sunday is led with fresh claims and fresh emails they say they've got, which show that he spread information when he was, for a decade, the UK trade envoy, and he was giving information to Epstein and Epstein's contacts. So Vince Cable, Sir Vince Cable, who was the business secretary during that time, has called for an investigation, and we also spoke to Rachel Maskell MP on Radio 4 Today, who wants the same public inquiry into what happened, public investigation into what happened when Andrew was a publicly held trade envoy.

[00:19:06] Speaker 1: Because a trade envoy essentially is part of the government. They're doing government's business. Seeing government documents. So that's a really interesting and important allegation that he, and there have been bits and pieces of it, but still this comes.

[00:19:21] Speaker 2: He has in the past denied all allegations of wrongdoing. So we bring that to you because we're trying to do the primary colours of the main news stories on Sunday, which are Labour, Munich, Andrew, and an interview making news from BBC One, which we are quite used to, Laura Coons, because you've spoken to a woman at the heart of one of the polarising subjects in Britain.

[00:19:42] Speaker 1: That's right. So Dr Hilary Cass, many people might remember from a couple of years ago, she wrote a landmark review after years of controversy about how young people were experiencing or accessing treatment or coming forward with questions about their gender in the NHS. And there was huge controversy about a clinic in London called the Tavistock. As a very experienced doctor, she was brought in to look at this whole issue. A couple of years has passed, but given that the government put its guidance out for schools this week about what they should do if young people come forward and say, I want to change my pronouns or I want to dress in a way that's different to my birth sex, we thought it would be a great occasion to sit down with Dr Cass and ask for her take really on where this whole very tricky conversation has got to. And the thing that really came across to me more than anything else speaking to her at some length was that she really believes that the adults in the room and all the shouting from adults on all sides has really let kids down. And she said that children have been misled by what they see online. She said that they've been weaponised by adults in a very toxic and unpleasant debate. And here's a clip of her explaining that.

[00:20:57] Speaker 5: That's a real shame that children have been weaponised. Weaponised? Yeah, I think so. By some people. By people at the extremes. The vast number of people in the middle are silent, but it's the people at the extremes who really have, I think, caused quite a lot of distress for young people, even as there's been rhetoric in the press. It's frightening for young people.

[00:21:26] Speaker 1: I just thought that was so profound to hear. She spent years talking to kids and young people about this, talking to doctors around the country, talking to teachers and families around the country, and her conclusion is that basically, for ideological reasons, people who wanted to have a big shouting match about something ended up harming children. The other thing I thought was fascinating that she said, and I'm going to read you the full quote because I think it's really important to hear this all in context. So one of the reasons this became such an issue is there was a dramatic spike in the number of kids coming forward saying that they had what's called gender distress. I mean, the numbers are really, really spiked a few years ago. And basically, I asked her why she thought this had happened. And this is what I asked her, what her view was on the proportion of children who might be questioning of their gender for a few years and then get through that and live their life perfectly happily, and the proportion of children for whom they're only going to be happy if they do have medical treatment or transition. And she did say, look, it's impossible to put precise numbers on it, but I just want to read you this full quote because I think it's really important. She said, when the clinic started, there were about 50 children a year in the UK. By the time I started my review, it had shot up to three and a half thousand a year. We tried very hard to find out from the Tavistock what happened to the ones who didn't go onto the medical pathway, who didn't have treatment. They didn't have that data. So there's one chunk of children who don't go onto a medical pathway. Then there are all the ones that me and parents and teachers will tell you about who go through two or three years of gender questioning and then desist. So I think it's probably a really tiny number. So to paraphrase and decode that a bit, she's essentially saying, in her view, as an experienced clinician having looked at this issue, that the majority of kids who come forward with questions about their gender essentially grow out of it. And I just thought that was really notable because I cannot imagine almost anybody in public life being that candid and that clear about their view of this a couple of years ago. And I think it shows how the debate has moved on. I don't know if you two would agree with that, but I really was struck by her feeling able to say that out loud.

[00:23:41] Speaker 2: Well, of course, the debate has moved on because of a very important legal ruling about, among other things, same-sex spaces, which is where she began her interview talking to me. I think everyone in journalism and everyone who is a newscaster will agree, even if they don't like the way the debate's moved on, the debate has moved on. And, yes, it does mean it's a surprise to hear someone as influential paint in such clear colours because it was an area that people kept out of unless they could take refuge by saying, I'm going to do a three-year review, I'm going to take all sorts of evidence, and I'm going to come back to you, we're going to hear from children, we're going to hear from parents. But inevitably, to sum up all the work that she's done when she's been so influential, I agree, yes, it is a sign of the times. The debate has moved forward, and when I say forward, it's moved into a new way of which we're now talking about.

[00:24:39] Speaker 1: And she said that clinicians had often been frightened. To use her words, clinicians had been frightened to talk about this openly. And she also said a good news klaxon, in her view anyway, and newscasters do get in touch if it's not been your experience, she said the treatment that's now available for kids is much better than it was. So we don't often have good, positive things to say, but in her view, the treatment and how these kids are cared for and looked after if they have this distress is much better than it was at the time of her review.

[00:25:06] Speaker 3: I thought it was also interesting, Laura, what she was talking about, her views on this trial of puberty blockers, a medical trial, after the ban of that medication, which some think the fact that the trial is going ahead is controversial, and kids are being put in a difficult, vulnerable position. Her argument was that there is no evidence that puberty blockers are irreversible, but also this argument that if you are on a medical trial, she argues, these children are going to be monitored like nowhere else in the NHS, in terms of their cognitive development, their psychological development, she talked about their bone development. So she ultimately was arguing that having this trial is a positive, it is a good way forward, the kids are going to be monitored closely. And the alternative she described was, quote, charlatans handing out inappropriate drugs.

[00:26:03] Speaker 1: Exactly, because I think since the ban on puberty blockers, it seems to be her view that some children and families and young people have been going online, buying drugs that they feel that they need. And in her view, there is just not evidence that that is the right thing to do, and it's not properly regulated. But that decision on this trial is on Wes Street in the Health Secretary's desk. He has to decide whether or not this trial is going to go ahead. At the moment, it is meant to, but I was told that it's not inevitable that it will. And some clinicians have expressed concerns and said it shouldn't go ahead. Some campaigners have said it shouldn't go ahead. So we'll see. I think it is a tricky, in one sense, it is a tricky decision for the government. But Hilary Cass saying that she thinks it's vital for the reasons you've outlined, Joe, I think might tip the government towards not intervening and not stopping it, because it is planned, but it hasn't started yet.

[00:26:57] Speaker 2: And it strikes me that she is looking for a new public conversation. And by coming out onto BBC One, that's a pretty good way to get that ball moving. And so we do say to newscasters, we're going to come back to this, we do want to be instructed by you. Many people will hope that children are cared for when they approach big decisions in their life. And so a lot of people will perhaps not have been speaking out because they wanted to leave it to experts. And then you find out the experts disagree. So that's where we'll kind of say, thank you very much indeed for listening. But we should go by sort of previewing all the news that will happen, that you can both tell us what will happen next week. Can you tell me anything that will happen, to brace myself?

[00:27:38] Speaker 1: Well, it's the parliamentary recess. So MPs will, so Parliament won't be sitting for a few days.

[00:27:43] Speaker 2: And I can't call it holiday because you get very cross.

[00:27:45] Speaker 1: Well, it's not so much I get cross, it's that if we say MPs are all going all day, they'll all be on their loungers. You then get furious messages from MPs saying, no, no, I'm doing 400 meetings in my constituency, or I'm going on an important trip to go and fact find in the Bahamas. Actually, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, we're going to go to the Falkland Islands, but the weather is too bad. So they're not going to go and see the penguins in the Falklands. But yeah, so the Parliament there will not be sitting. So any urgent questions people want to ask about Labour together will not be this week. That would have to be postponed till next week.

[00:28:18] Speaker 3: Maybe the breeze that Keir Starmer wanted, right?

[00:28:20] Speaker 1: Possibly, yeah.

[00:28:22] Speaker 3: Pressure off a little bit with that MPs all together at Westminster.

[00:28:26] Speaker 1: We'll see.

[00:28:26] Speaker 2: Honestly, I think we're failing at previewing the week. I think the editors asked us to preview the week. To be honest, it'll be obvious to the intelligent newscaster. We haven't got anything. I'll tell you what's going to happen today. I'm going to go shopping. I didn't sleep last night. I might go shopping. I think I'm going to go shopping. What are you going to buy? Oh, I think I'm going to buy a new chicken in order to have a good roast.

[00:28:48] Speaker 1: Are you going to, as opposed to buy an old chicken?

[00:28:51] Speaker 2: Yes. So, honestly, we can't dress this up any other way. No, it's dreadful. You've tuned to one of the biggest news offerings of the BBC at the weekend and we don't know what's happening next week.

[00:29:01] Speaker 1: It's OK. We'll keep you updated.

[00:29:02] Speaker 2: So that's it. So, thank you very much.

[00:29:09] Speaker 1: They've got their head in their hands through the glass, so I think we should say goodbye.

[00:29:12] Speaker 2: Thank you very much and goodbye. Goodbye.