The News Agents

The coveted Crimes against the English Language award goes to Penny Mordaunt today for mangling almost a dozen football analogies into one short Commons speech. We are still trying to work out what a left wing striker is but for now what you need to know is that the Conservative frontbench is nervously awaiting a response to their small boats policy from President Macron tomorrow when Rishi Sunak...

Gary Lineker has responded to the furore surrounding his tweet on the government's asylum policy with the promise to 'keep speaking for those with no voice'. It's being reported on the BBC News website - whist - we understand - the BBC is currently trying to give Lineker 'a frank talking to' for breaking impartiality rules. How do the BBC rules on impartiality work? We speak here from a little exp...

The Tories have produced - at last count - over forty different failed policies to stop channel crossings. Today, Suella Braverman came up with the latest. It will prevent anyone arriving here by small boat from claiming asylum or doing so in the future. And it promises to detain them for 28 days after which they will be returned. Without quite explaining where... or how. We ask if this desperate...

Is Boris Johnson’s dad going to receive a knighthood? Is anyone else in the Johnson family? We speak to Rachel Johnson who opens up about family relationships and how it works if your brother is Prime Minister. We also ask why Keir Starmer seems to be unwilling or unable to answer a simple question: when did he first appoint Sue Gray? Does this all go back to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case? You can...

We talk to the woman who has started a war with Matt Hancock- journalist Isabel Oakeshott. He was her source and she turned on him by taking 100,000 of her Whatsapp messages to The Telegraph. The revelations have gripped Westminster- she tells us there’s more to come. We talk to her about her motivations. And we talk all things Sue Gray, that once famous woman of Westminster who investigated Boris...

Boris Johnson is back. But then again, he never really went away. In a speech today at a soft power forum, he takes a swing at Rishi Sunak and his Windsor Framework after two days of lying low. We discuss the continual Johnson-shaped fly in the Sunak ointment. And Jon and Lewis go through the latest Hancock WhatsApp developments in the Lockdown Files story, and talk to Mehdi Hasan, MSNBC anchor an...

The Telegraph have released a slew of Matt Hancock's Whatsapp messages from when he was Health Secretary, at the height of the Covid 19 pandemic. Lewis and Jon discuss the politics of the investigation, and the ethics, or lack thereof, of the journalist behind the release of the messages. And is Matt Hancock, quite simply, a plonker? You can watch our episodes in full at https://www.globalplayer.c...

We said yesterday that Rishi Sunak had taken a massive gamble announcing a new deal for Northern Ireland without having necessarily laid the political groundwork beforehand. Well, 24 hours later, and it feels like he might have pulled off a blinder. The far-right of his Tory party are...quiet, and the DUP seem cautiously optimistic. Perhaps most importantly, Boris Johnson, a key potential spanner...

For Northern Ireland Protocol, now read Windsor Framework. A beaming Rishi Sunak and European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, have signed what MIGHT come to be seen as an historic agreement to solve the conundrum of the status of Northern Ireland post-Brexit. Might, because we don't know how the loyalist, unionist DUP will react, nor the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, the...

U.S. Senator, Chair of the Budget Committee and TikTok sensation Bernie Sanders joins Lewis and Jon in the studio. He spoke about Joe Biden’s presidency, whether Jeremy Corbyn should stand as an independent candidate, and his new book It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism . You can watch our episodes in full at https://www.globalplayer.com/videos/brands/news-agents/the-news-agents/ The News Agents...

The environment and food secretary has suggested that - faced with a tomato shortage - people should just eat turnips instead. It’s all a bit Marie Antoinette but just a bit more depressing. Today we look at the long-term problem behind our current empty shelves with Observer food critic Jay Rayner. And on the eve of the anniversary of Russia's second invasion of Ukraine, London's streets are blue...

Most fifteen year olds do stupid things. Rarely do they join a terrorist organisation in Syria. But today. Shamima Begum - the ISIS bride - lost her appeal - and with it her chance to regain UK citizenship. Do we feel safer as a country? Or soulless? And as Kate Forbes - committed Christian and SNP Finance Minister makes her case to lead Scotland, we ask another committed Christian, MP Tim Farron...

There is too much news today. Frankly. Putin tried to convince a domestic audience that NATO started the war in Ukraine, Rishi Sunak tried to face down Tory doubters telling him to drop his Northern Ireland deal, and the press and media are mulling over how to respond to accusations of intrusion by Nicola Bulley's grieving family. We hear from Northern Ireland Shadow Secretary Peter Kyle, Putin's...

Boris Johnson has been slapped down by a senior Conservative for his interventions on Rishi Sunak's latest Brexit deal over Northern Ireland. Is the former PM stirring up trouble to pave the way for a comeback? In the first interview since he left office, Johnson's former Director of Comms Guto Harri speaks exclusively to The News Agents and has a message for his old boss. And Lewis comes back fro...

Rishi Sunak has been in Belfast, hoping he can be the Prime Minister to finally answer the question on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Can he break Brexit gridlock? And elsewhere in the United Kingdom questions over the strength of the Union have been raised by Nicola Sturgeon's decision to quit as leader of the Scottish National Party. Does her resignation signal the the start of the decline of th...

Lancashire Police have come under-fire for the revelations they made overnight about the missing mother Nicola Bulley who's not been seen for nearly three weeks. Why did they say so much - after weeks of near silence? And how damaging has that been to trust in the police? And we look at another communications disaster in the making - a train derailment in Ohio is threatening environmental catastro...

Sturgeon is stepping down as Scotland's First Minister. Jeremy Corbyn is banned from standing as a Labour MP. If there’s a broad News Agents take away it’s this: be careful about sitting down with Lewis Goodall. Today we look at what may lie behind Sturgeon's decision and what it could mean for Scottish independence. And we ask Diane Abbott - old friend of Jeremy Corbyn - is she backs the current...

The only NHS service in England to offer gender identity services to children announced it would be closing down last year - after years of whistleblowers who worked there trying to raise the alarm about a scandal in their midst: a failure to safeguard some of the country's most vulnerable young adults. What went wrong? And how much did the toxic political climate at the time over trans issues con...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the airspace, another one gets shot down. What are these unidentified flying objects? Are they *just* balloons? And are there more of them now or are we just noticing them more? What does it tell us about a) the sky b) the relations we now have with one of our biggest trading partners, China. And - missing in action? Jon Sopel has finally turned up...

Childcare in Britain is broken and yet it is almost never talked about. Why? In this episode, Lewis dissects why Labour thinks this could be the key to a majority at the next election and why in 21st century Britain having children is fast becoming a luxury item. We talk you through how the system has become so expensive and the fact that families increasingly find themselves wondering whethe...

Authoritarian regimes in both Syria and Turkey make a devastating situation even more complicated. How do we get aid in to help quake victims when the humanitarian corridors are limited and social media communication is censored? In Turkey many want to know where the 30 billion pounds of funding that was meant to make buildings earthquake-proof has gone. Meanwhile, Russia is on the move - coming t...

With a mere couple of hours notice that Ukraine's President Zelensky was in town, The News Agents dropped everything to get to Westminster Hall to hear him address both houses of Parliament. A speech that began with gracious tributes quickly got to its blunt point: A request for 'wings' - fighter jets - which the US and UK previously turned down. So will this historic demand change the minds of th...

Rishi Sunak has had his first proper reshuffle (excluding the one he did as soon as he started). What do the changes tell us about the priorities of this government? And what has he left? TL:DR Dominica Raab remains in his job. Then, we shift to the Calder Valley. James Norton is in HQ and talks playing a rapist, being from Yorkshire and what the PM is getting wrong with the arts. You can watch ou...

Liz Truss is back. And oh. So are those pauses. She tells Spectator TV she doesn't want to be PM again but she does want to promote her economic ideas. (You remember the ones that nearly melted the markets). We ask why there has been so little self reflection. And if her economic diagnosis might one day prove right... And we speak to Malte Grunert - producer of the world's most harrowing film, All...

Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader was one of the most extraordinary periods of modern politics. For a while he seemed like he’d moved the posts of politics. And yet now, he is a political ghost. He isn’t even a Labour MP. In this wide ranging and exclusive interview, Lewis talks to the man himself, at length about the prime ministers he knew, the biggest period of industrial unrest for decades...