The News Agents

Animal Rights Protestors are being blamed for the death of a racehorse at the Grand National this weekend after they forced a delay which - trainers say - agitated the animals. Animal Rising - the protestors - say: Don't blame us - horses are dying on racecourses; with or without the delays. But they're delighted we're now having a conversation about animal cruelty, sport and what happens to thoro...

If you thought the overturning of Roe v Wade- the constitutional right to an abortion in the United States was the end of it in 2022, then 2023 has other ideas. Or rather the radical, anti-abortion groups in the United States have other ideas. Just this week, Florida’s Governor (and presidential hopeful) Republican Ron DeSantis introduced a six week abortion ban in the third biggest state in the c...

China's President Xi Jinping has told his troops they should be ready for real combat. So now we are wondering if Taiwan will be the next Ukraine. It comes after a week of China sabre-rattling in the Taiwan straits - surrounding the island on all sides with a blockade. France's President Macron is just back from Beijing where he's set the cat amongst the pigeon's with some ill-judged comments abou...

We've been told off-record that Joe Biden might be Irish. Obviously, unattributable. So keep it under your hat. He's the latest in a long line of US Presidents who feels the pull of the Emerald Isle very strongly and traces his ancestry back there by 180 years. But he begins the day in Belfast - reflecting on the Good Friday peace accord 25 years ago. But can he get power-sharing back on track? Or...

Labour’s Easter weekend attack ads about the Conservatives and Rishi Sunak specifically have been called 'politics of the gutter' by, awkwardly, Labour’s former Home Secretary David Blunkett. Lewis is joined by Steve Reed, the party’s Shadow Justice Secretary, who was behind the campaign. He, as you’ll hear is entirely unapologetic. Is this the start of a new period of a more vicious politics? And...

There are two questions that accompany any political scandal. What did you know and when did you know it? After questioning Nicola Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell for eleven hours yesterday, police are back at their Glasgow house, and there's still a blue evidence tent in the garden. It comes just a week after the leadership election of new SNP First Minister Humza Yousaf, seen as the Sturgeon su...

When we left you Trump was on the cusp of entering the Manhattan criminal court as an arrested man. That didn't go well. A door was flung shut in his face. And the indignities began. In this special all-nighter episode of The News Agents we take you through the charges against him, the reaction, the defence and the speech to his supporters in Mar-a-Lago. We speak to a key member of Trump's campaig...

Donald Trump will today become the first US president to appear in court on criminal charges. He arrived in NYC late yesterday and will shortly be heading to Lower Manhattan District Court to have his fingerprints taken and hear the 34 charges of improper business dealings being levelled against him. Will the criminal charges stack up? Will Trump keep his cool? And will his supporters take to the...

Rishi Sunak has pledged to end the 'political correctness' that stops police arresting child sex abusers from ethnic minority backgrounds. The scandals of Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford show how badly things can go wrong for victims when the perpetrators are seen to be beyond the law. But Labour's West Yorkshire mayor has called it 'dog whistle politics' - and some are wondering why the Conservative...

For the first time in American history a former president has been indicted (charged) with a criminal offence. Donald Trump will appear in a New York court on Tuesday afternoon. Do the charges stack up? Will they help Trump or hinder Trump? And how is this unprecedented moment going to impact the Presidential Race of 2024.? Spoiler alert - you can actually campaign from behind bars... You can watc...

Ten years on from the horse meat crisis, a new scandal has engulfed almost the entire food retail sector. Huge quantities of foreign pork - sometimes tens of thousands of tonnes a week - has been passed off, fraudulently as British. One meat processor - who can't be named for legal reasons - has been accused by former employees of 'washing' hams that are visibly rotten, or mixing bad meat with fre...

THOUSANDS OF MIGRANTS TO BE HOUSED ON LUXURY CRUISE SHIP screamed the headline in the Daily Express. That was in February of 2016. And it never happened. The idea has been mooted in various ways about ten times in the last decades - including by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor in 2020. Each time the idea is dropped for being unworkable, unaffordable or illegal. So why do we keep falling for it?...

Jeremy Corbyn will not be allowed to stand for Labour at the next election. That’s despite the fact he’s been an MP in Islington North since 1983 and led Labour at two general elections- nothing like it has ever happened before. Jon and Lewis explain why Labour’s ruling body has made the move and why Labour’s left might not be as weak as you might think. And the News Agents are joined by a secret...

More mass protests in the streets- this time in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. Millions of Israelis believe their democracy to be in jeopardy. The airport is blocked, universities out of action, a general strike has been called. Even the diplomats won’t go to work. With academic and expert Ayala Panievsky, we explain why so many - both within the Israeli state and in the population at...

In this special episode of The News Agents, Lewis travels to Paris to find out why the City of Lights is on fire. Amidst the tear gas, the riot police, the stun grenades and the flames, The News Agents ask- what's happened? why is it this bad? And why could this riot be the start of a new, far-right, European order? It all comes as huge protests have erupted across France after President Emmanuel...

Keir Starmer spent the morning in Stoke-on-Trent. Not WOKE-on-Trent, as one hilarious Tory Red-wall-er reminded him. But attempts to fire up the culture war are something Rishi Sunak wants no part in. And recent polling suggests it's the right call. Today we look at the state of play of the two main political parties and what the numbers are currently telling us -with James Kanagasoorium of Focald...

Boris Johnson told the parliamentary inquiry that he HAD misled parliament, but he hadn't meant to. His repeated defence was that he hadn't been advised what he was saying might be wrong (he had). And that other people hadn't told him that rules might have been broken (they had). He insisted that the leaving parties he'd attended had been essential work and berated Downing Street itself for having...

The Met Police - so says the explosive Casey Review released today - is a bullying boys club in which predators flourish. Rape evidence is thrown out - because of broken fridges. Eye-watering force is used against Black people. Gay officers are scared of their colleagues. So what happens now? And will this diminish public trust in the force even further? The author of the review Baroness Louise Ca...

Boris Johnson has submitted evidence to the Privileges Committee which will be judging whether he set out to mislead the House of Commons over Partygate. He argues that 'he was advised he wasn't breaking any rules' - which might seem odd coming from the person who in fact made up those rules. We now await publication of his defence. Also today - why the DUP won't vote for Sunak's latest Brexit dea...

After nearly a decade of stability spearheaded by Nicola Sturgeon, why do the SNP look like they're imploding? The three candidates after her job are spending day after day taking lumps out of each other. Polling suggests that the only thing that they're hurting though is their common goal: Scottish independence. We speak to one of the candidates who's attack on the independence of the leadership...

The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt finished his early morning media round and then came for a coffee with the News Agents. We asked how many doctors would re-enter the workforce with his pension changes. How Brexit will effect our growth longer term. And where his childcare ideas came from.... You can watch our episodes in full at https://global-player.onelink.me/Br0x/Videos The News Agents is a Global Pl...

Today's bombshell rabbit (to mix a metaphor) was the Chancellor's promise to abolish the lifetime allowance on pensions. If you're super-rich it's time to crack open the champagne. If you're working age and well-paid, it might keep you in your job longer - at least that's the aim- but this is against a backdrop where household disposable income is falling at its fastest rate since the 1950s. We ta...

Last night more than forty Conservative MPs refused to back Suella's new plan for immigration. One- the former Lord Chancellor - called it 'ineffective authoritarianism'. Another - the former Immigration Minister - called it 'an absolute horror'. So today we tackle the policy head on. Is it legal? Is it humane? And will it lead fewer people taking small boats? We also look at police violence again...

Gary Lineker will be back on air this weekend. And BBC Director General Tim Davie has apologised to viewers for the weekend's schedule disruptions. They'd like this row to go away now. Except it won't. Where does it leave the BBC Chair and his Tory donations and friendships? Where does it leave the social media activities of other high profile talent? And what does impartiality mean - if it's bein...

The BBC have told Gary Lineker he won't be presenting Match of the Day on Saturday night. Emily, Jon and Lewis bring you their immediate reaction. Protests against drag queen story readings for kids have been gaining momentum in the US and increasingly the UK. This week in London there was a clash between protestors, arguing about whether these kinds of activities - where drag queens read stories...