The News Agents

Once you have revealed that China is hacking British citizens on a major and global scale, the next question is - well, what are you going to do about it? Well this is the one the prime minister is currently pondering. He's talking about putting China on an 'enhanced' list - which basically sounds like a glorified registration. But is he prepared to risk trading links? Or shut down Confucious inst...

The bombing of a Moscow concert hall left at least 137 dead and even more wounded. The regrouped ISIS - now ISIS K- have claimed responsibility even though Putin is insisting on blaming Ukraine. Why has ISIS come for Putin? What does it tell us about the strategic alignments now dominating the Middle East, and does this act of terror bring the threat of more closer to home? Also - another by-elect...

Influential left-wing commentator Owen Jones is in News Agents HQ a day after he quit the Labour Party - despite being a member since he was 15 - on account of what he perceived to be Keir Starmer's fundamental 'dishonesty'. We ask him why he thinks that, whether Labour have lost his vote forever, and if he wants to become the left-wing's Nigel Farage. Editor: Tom Hughes Senior Producer: Gabriel R...

This week, The Sports Agents took a closer look at the state of Rugby Union, reflected on Nottingham Forest becoming the latest Premier League club to suffer a points deduction, as well as, the infamous story of one, Ali Dia... On Tuesday, Andy Burnham - Greater Manchester Mayor and furious Everton fan - certainly didn't hold back when discussing why the Premier League needs an independent regulat...

At 6pm on Friday the Princess of Wales released a video statement. In it, she discusses her cancer diagnosis for the first time. She acknowledges the difficulties facing their family in maintaining their privacy throughout her diagnosis and treatment. Will she now be left alone? And will the conspiracy theories stop? Editor: Tom Hughes Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus Producer: Laura FitzPatrick Soc...

There's only one poll that counts and that's the actual election and that's not today. We know that, we get it, but the latest numbers from YouGov are worth looking at to see a direction of travel that might be staring us in the face. Tonight's poll for The Times puts the Conservatives on 19 percent and Reform Party just behind them on 15. Is it conceivable that they overtake today's party of gove...

Margaret Thatcher has been out of power for thirty years but this week it's started to feel like she's back in the room. Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, gave the agenda-setting Mais lecture to the City of London last night, setting out her vision for Labour's first term in office and invoking the spirit, if not the policies, of Thatcher. David Lammy, her colleague, was quick to endorse both wome...

Even after Kate Middleton appeared IRL at a local Windsor farm shop, the Tiktok conspiracy theories continued. Was it really Kate? Was the photo staged? Why did the video look different to the still image? On and on. The Royals have always generated frenzied gossip. What was once shared over a neighbourly picket fence is now just dispersed online. But does that change how the Royals should respond...

The weekend has been awash with talk of yet another leadership putsch. Is Penny Mordaunt on manoeuvres? Is Kemi Badenoch scheming? The answer is probably no - for now - but it points to a sense of inexorable crisis in a party which is only now realising the scale of the loss that may be careering down the tracks towards them. Could enough of the parliamentary party be persuaded that more of them c...

This week, The Sports Agents were invited to the head offices of 'The Enhanced Games' to interview President Aron D'Souza - who wants to put on an Olympic-style event where all the athletes are permitted (even encouraged) to dope... Don't forget your popcorn for this one! Then on Thursday, Gabby & Mark were joined by boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, to discuss the role the sport is playing in Saud...

British politics has been dominated by race this week. The big picture is that certain ideas which would once have been unsayable are now commonplace within the Conservative Party. Sayeeda Warsi was at the centre of the Cameron modernisation project, where he sought to bring ethnic minorities into the tent. Now she’s in the wilderness and gives us a perspective of the changes which have taken plac...

Michael Gove has announced today that the government is redefining extremism. But given they've taken up to 15 million pounds worth of donations from a man who said Diane Abbott should be shot, do they really have any credibility doing so this week? Lewis interviews Keir Starmer in an exclusive for LBC and asks whether Diane Abbott has a place back in his Labour Party. Editor: Tom Hughes Social Me...

The PM has belatedly conceded that the comments in which a Tory donor expressed his urge to 'shoot all black women' WAS actually racist. He's still not giving the money back. No, that would be a step too far. He praised Frank Hester's move to 'apologise' and 'show remorse'. Hester apologised only for his rudeness, we should remember, not his threatening misogynist racist language. How does it feel...

Today's Tory 'was it racist?' row centres a donor who's given the Conservatives more than ten million pounds. The Guardian scoop revealed comments he made 5 years ago - centring on the now-suspended Labour MP Dianne Abbott whom he blamed for making him 'want to hate all black women'. Rishi Sunak has called the comments 'clearly unacceptable' but refused to call them racist. Is there any chance he'...

Lee Anderson has defected to the Reform Party, saying he’d done a lot of soul-searching on his political journey, and wants his country back. He had of course already been kicked out of the Conservative Party for those ‘islamist’ slurs against Sadiq Khan, so when we say ‘defected’ we mean from being a party-less whip-less MP. Nevertheless, the move may chill his former colleagues - and the PM hims...

Welcome to The Sports Agents, a brand-new twice-weekly addition to The News Agents podcast family, hosted by Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman... This week Gabby & Mark explored the big scandal in Formula One surrounding Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, found out a little more about Manchester City and England star Phil Foden and discussed Saudi Arabia's increasing influence in heavyweight boxi...

There is fury surrounding a bid by the former head of CNN to buy The Telegraph and The Spectator due to the involvement of the Abu-Dhabi-backed RedBird IMI investment group In an exclusive interview, media executive, Jeff Zucker - who is leading that group - tells us about a "serious campaign" against his bid, and that the Chair of The Spectator Andrew Neil, is a "hypocrite" in his opposition to t...

Michelle Donelan is Rishi Sunak’s Science Secretary. She has accepted that she libelled an academic. That’s unusual. It’s even more unusual that the taxpayer is paying her libel bill. Lewis asks, why this has come about? Discover that to some extent, as always, all roads lead to Boris Johnson. We also ask whether we need to look at this through a different lens- whether this weird episode is part...

The Chancellor of the Exchequer made a fat joke about the Leader of the Opposition on the floor of the House of Commons as he delivered his Spring Budget today. It was one of the only things he said that wasn't pre-trailed, making for an unremarkable speech about further temporary fuel duty freezes, National Insurance cuts and the creation of the Great British ISA. Lewis has all the details with L...

The Conservative Party have just received their worst polling results of all-time, with Ipsos now showing Tory support at just 20 points. It's the worst Tory numbers since polling began in 1978, so Lewis picks it all apart and analyses how bad things have got for Rishi Sunak on the eve of the budget. Later in the show we're in Washington DC with Jon and Emily for Super Tuesday. Editor: Tom Hughes...

After everything that’s happened - the million plus deaths from Covid, the January 6th insurrection, the indictments, the law suits the debts and the sexual abuse - why are we even talking about a Donald Trump comeback? Britain doesn't get it, most of Europe doesn't. But America does. Today, we take you -not just behind the curtain, but right into the heart of the MAGA bunker - and the strategy fo...

The News Agents: USA, on Global Player We're in Richmond, Virginia for Donald Trump's last rally before he is almost certainly crowned the Republican candidate for president. But who are the voters queuing for miles to get into the sold-out event? What do they think - and what motivates them to vote for a man indicted 91 times? We're the only foreign press able to get into the rally. The Trump tea...

George Galloway has said that Keir Starmer’s woken up to his “worst nightmare”, after the former Labour MP won the Rochdale by-election by almost 6,000 votes. Jon and Lewis analyse Galloway’s victory, and ask what this means for Keir Starmer ahead of this year’s General Election. Is it really the nightmare scenario Galloway is making it out to be? Editor: Tom Hughes Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus...

Right now the Treasury are flying more kites than you would see on top of Parliament Hill on a windy day. This comes ahead of next week’s budget - the last before the general election. But one policy is particularly eye-catching. It's the idea that the Tories are about to tax non-doms - the flagship Labour policy. Whether you want to call it shooting Keir’s fox or stealing his clothes, it would be...

Liz Truss was doorstepped by the BBC in Westminster today and asked to explain why she'd been talking about the dangers of the 'deep state' at a Washington Conference over the weekend. Keir Starmer went one step further in his Commons questions - asking Rishi Sunak why he hadn't kicked her out of the party for her 'tin hat' conspiracy theories? Keir Starmer loves Liz Truss as he's seen polling sho...