The funding model of the NHS has always seemed sacrosanct, untouchable. We boast about having the finest service in the world - free at the point of demand to everyone. But - it doesn't take a brain surgeon to see the service is now at breaking point. The waiting lists, the A&E queues, the morale of doctors and nurses, the impending strikes and the shortage of staff more generally. So is anyone brave enough to start talking about alternatives? And does private investment in the NHS - as demo...
Dec 12, 2022•46 min
Lewis heads to the scene of a raucous picket line to speak to CWU union members on strike. But how much worse will strikes get this winter? Lewis casts an eye over all sectors taking industrial action over pay, workers rights and terms and conditions. And then, we talk to England vs. France. But not the football. We're joined by two French people who have lived in the UK for decades; and they discuss the complex relationship between England and France; culturally, historically and in the present...
Dec 09, 2022•37 min
Comedian Joe Lycett joins Emily and Jon in News Agents HQ. He tells us why being so angry with the government makes him do 'silly' things, 'shredding' £10,000 in a stand-off with David Beckham, and whether he'll replace Matt Lucas as the presenter of The Great British Bake-Off. Social Media: Georgia Foxwell Video: Will Gibson-Smith Production: Gabriel Radus Deputy Editor: Tom Hughes Executive Producer: Dino Sofos For exclusive daily videos from The News Agents visit Global Player: https://www.gl...
Dec 08, 2022•24 min
Overnight in Germany three thousand police have made two dozen arrests after uncovering a far right plot to overthrow the German state. The group were preparing for Day X- and an attempt to storm the Bundestag, the German parliament, taking MPs hostage. It’s the stuff of horror, nightmare and fantasy - conspiracy rooted in Germany's pre-war history and America's modern QAnon movement. Today we speak to a senior MP from Germany’s governing SPD party, Nils Schmid, and from the author of Going Dark...
Dec 07, 2022•37 min
The Tory Peer Michelle Mone is to take a leave of absence from the House of Lords to 'clear her name' from the allegations she profited to the tune of more than £20 million from a PPE Covid contract. She hasn't voted in the Lords since the end of April - just days before her home was raided by the National Crime Agency. And today, Labour has urged the lower chamber, the House of Commons to vote to secure the release of secret texts, emails and documents relating to the 200 million pounds of cont...
Dec 06, 2022•38 min
On today's episode we launch the Christmas Countdown - our (and your) favourite soundbites of political inanity of 2022. Please send in the moments you want us to revisit and react to. But before we get there, we talk about Sir Keir Starmer's plans to abolish the House of Lords and redistribute the economy more faithfully around the country. Is it justifiable to have an unelected upper chamber in 2022? And what would the replacement actually look and sound like? We speak to Baroness Hilary Armst...
Dec 05, 2022•35 min
You're 30 years old, worth billions as a result of a crypto exchange you've set up - and in the space of one Sunday afternoon it all turns to dust. What must that feel like? On this episode of The News Agents we speak to someone who's been there, done that and has got the badge (the prison sentence). Nick Leeson single-handedly brought down one of Britain's most famous financial institutions in 1995 - Barings Bank - and spent four years in a Singapore jail as a result. He speaks to us about the ...
Dec 02, 2022•30 min
Donald Trump is insisting he was set up by Kanye (Ye) West over that dinner party he accidentally hosted for a white supremacist leader. NBC News is reporting Trump's fury at West - who he thinks is deliberately trying to embarrass him off the electoral map. But some think Trump can do that all by himself. Today, we hear from a former advisor to two Bush presidents (George H.W & George W.) who tells us the stringent security around ex-presidents means NO ONE could turn up to dinner without c...
Dec 01, 2022•30 min
Sir Keir Starmer wants private schools to pay more tax. He's also talking about removing their charitable status. Today at PMQ's he asked the PM why Winchester deserved 6 million pounds to spend on rowing clubs and rifle clubs which could be going to fund the state sector instead. Is the country where Starmer is now - or does this policy represent a polemic talking point which creates more class warfare than cash? And what do head teachers think about it? Today, we hear from the state sector, th...
Nov 30, 2022•33 min
12 Tory MPs have already announced they're standing down at the next election. That includes some young politicians who would once have represented the party's future. Today, we look at how many more are likely to follow - with a looming December 5th deadline by which they need to submit their names. We speak to Seb Payne - author of Broken Heartlands - and the Tory Peer and Pollster Robert Haywood . And also to China - where police are now checking the apps on people's phones to learn of planne...
Nov 29, 2022•27 min
Sir Tony Blair speaks exclusively with The News Agents. He has words that may surprise Matt Hancock and Liz Truss, and a gentle message for Keir Starmer to go further. He talks about gesture politics over the banning of Qatar state advertising - and he tells us he thinks he's kissed at least one Tory. Watch the full interview with Tony Blair exclusively on Global Player. https://www.globalplayer.com/videos/2JsSYUgsZkC/?category=the-news-agents/ Video: Will Gibson-Smith Social Media: Georgia Foxw...
Nov 28, 2022•38 min
There are thousands of homes in Britain not fit for purpose with people living in neglected and dangerous conditions - with damp, mould and vermin. Lewis talks to social housing campaigner, Kwajo Tweneboa, former Levelling Up and Housing Secretary, Simon Clarke to get to the heart of what needs to change. And playwright James Graham talks to us about the art of bringing to life political events. Planning: Melissa Tutesigensi Socials: Georgia Foxwell Video: Will Gibson-Smith Production: Gabriel R...
Nov 25, 2022•39 min
Bird Flu is bringing Britain's farmers to their knees. The disease has killed nearly a hundred million birds world wide - nearly 4 million of them in the UK - and it poses a serious threat to our food supply. So today we're on a farm talking to a twitcher, a farmer and erm a motoring journalist. And it's all the same bloke. Jeremy Clarkson talks about the dearth of birds, the cost of feed and how hard it is to get pigs to make other pigs. We also hear from a poultry farmer who's had to slaughter...
Nov 24, 2022•35 min
The Supreme Court has ruled against the Scottish Parliament holding a new independence referendum without approval from Westminster. Is this the end of the fight for Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party? Lewis is joined by SNP MP Stewart Hosie and Wendy Chamberlain, Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife, to pick apart both sides of the debate. He's also joined by Financial Times’ journalist Sebastian Payne to discuss PMQs, as well as his new book ‘The Fall of Boris Johnson: The Full Story...
Nov 22, 2022•33 min
Dominic Raab is facing renewed allegations of bullying behaviour. In this episode we turn the clock back to the time he took out a 'confidentiality agreement' -which lawyers tell us is EXACTLY the same as an NDA; a non-disclosure agreement. In 2011 he refused to release the woman who signed it from being able to tell her side of the story. We hear from Mark Stephens, a solicitor, who shows us how NDAs are being used and abused in the corridors of power. And from Zelda Perkins - former personal a...
Nov 22, 2022•35 min
Qatar has gone from being a quietly successful, enormously rich, largely anonymous speck on the world map to being a pariah of the Middle East. It had hoped hosting the World Cup would bring fame and more fortune - not the unedifying stink of corruption and rows about workers, women and LGBTQ+ rights. Are they wondering if it was all worth it? And will a gratifyingly rampant England victory finally stir the relatively subdued fans watching back home? Planning: Melissa Tutesigensi Socials: Georgi...
Nov 21, 2022•36 min
Poverty in Britain is bad and it’s getting worse. And yet, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has set out plans to tax the British public more than ever before. Lewis travels back to Birmingham to visit a community centre which provides food and warmth for the local community, and he’s joined back in News Agents HQ by Torsten Bell, of the Resolution Foundation, and Duncan Robinson from The Economist to unpick the structural reasons of how it can be that the government is taxing more than ever before, yet pu...
Nov 18, 2022•33 min
The highest tax burden in decades. The biggest drop in living standards on record. The UK and its economy is stuttering into a second recession in a decade. The news today delivered by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was not good. Emily, Jon and Lewis unpack the Autumn Statement on today's episode. Planning: Melissa Tutesigensi Socials: Georgia Foxwell Video: Will Gibson-Smith Production: Gabriel Radus Deputy Editor: Tom Hughes Executive Producer: Dino Sofos For exclusive daily videos from The News Agent...
Nov 17, 2022•27 min
Donald Trump is running for president again... to the surprise of no one. Not even the legion advisors telling him now was a really really bad time to announce it. He's on a bit of a low - the midterm results were a stinging rejection of the candidates he backed - and the election deniers were - ultimately - rejected at the polls. You can hear a very on-message, subdued Trump in the speech he made last night. We thought we'd speak to someone who's rarely on message - one Piers Morgan -about his ...
Nov 16, 2022•40 min
A second minister in two weeks faces serious allegations of bullying. Are our corridors of power a breeding ground for bullyboy behaviour? We speak to Liz Bates, political correspondent at Sky News, who has delved deep into the alleged toxic culture that appears endemic in Westminster. And we're joined by the former Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, George Eustice, who stood up in the House of Commons yesterday to brandish a trade deal he endorsed la...
Nov 15, 2022•35 min
Comedian Joe Lycett is offering ten thousand pounds to an LGBTQ+ charity if David Beckham pulls out of his multi-zillion dollar ambassadorial role in Qatar's World Cup. He calls on Beckham as a role model and ally to think about gay football fans in a country that criminalises homosexuality. The News Agents have been hearing of the growing unease from members of the LGBTQ+ community who feel a deep disquiet from prominent figures in the world of entertainment prepared to take the Qatari dollar. ...
Nov 14, 2022•33 min
We often hear about mortgage rates going up, but perhaps not enough scrutiny is paid on the private renting sector... a sector that has enormous demand, and next to no supply. It's a sector that burns a mile-wide hole in the coffers of students, young professionals, families and many more. The Mini-Budget just seven weeks ago exacerbated the crisis to near breaking point. But who's to blame? And how do we fix it? We speak to an estate agents in London, a landlady with half a dozen properties, an...
Nov 11, 2022•33 min
Major TV series The Crown is back - series five - and it deals with one of the most painful and excruciatingly public decades of recent Royal history. Diana's tell-all book with Andrew Morton, Charles's intimate phonecalls with Camilla, the Queen's popularity with her public and the early years of the young Prince William and Prince Harry. Every new season brings with it questions as to what is fact in the show, and what is fiction. So today, we look at not just the drama, but the political, soc...
Nov 10, 2022•33 min
We've been up all night waiting for the US midterm election results to come through so you could wake up at your leisure. TLDR: Trump-backed candidates didn't really take off, Trump's Republican rival soared to victory and the Democrats look - at the time of recording - as if they've emerged with less damage than they might have feared. What does that mean for the next presidential contest? Does it allow Biden to seek a second term? Will it put Trump off his BIG ANNOUNCEMENT next Tuesday? And wh...
Nov 09, 2022•31 min
It's hard to imagine leaving a job in disrepute but then giving 20 of your mates a top honour that allows them to create the laws of this country. Well, maybe it isn't that hard to imagine. It's what Boris Johnson appears to have done with his Resignation Honours List. Lara Spirit of the Times tells us that four sitting MPs want to accept peerages without immediately giving up their seats in the House of Commons. That's a constitutional clash for a start. And then there's the advisors who have b...
Nov 08, 2022•32 min
When Liz Truss was looking to galvanise not just the Tory party but the nation in her conference speech, she turned to Just Stop Oil protesters for help. She believed their fractious, disruptive, an d potentially dangerous tactics would make her 'anti growth' point better than any positive messaging she had hitherto used. As it turned out, she's now gone and they are still here - this morning blockading several more parts of the M25 motorway in the UK as the COP27 climate conference got underway...
Nov 07, 2022•32 min
Elon Musk has begun laying off staff at Twitter, a week after taking sole control of the company. He says he’s “freed the bird” but does freedom of speech on the platform come at the price of political stability and threats to democracy? Lewis speaks to a range of guests from the tech industry, including a founding member of Twitter, Jason Goldman. Planning: Melissa Tutesigensi Socials: Georgia Foxwell Video: Will Gibson-Smith Production: Gabriel Radus Deputy Editor: Tom Hughes Executive Produce...
Nov 04, 2022•30 min
In less than a week America will head to the polls for the midterms - the first national elections of the Biden presidency since the January 6th insurrection. Biden has told Americans that democracy is on the ballot - with hundreds of Republican candidates refusing to say whether they’ll accept the election outcome next week. Many more within the GOP continue to accept and propagate ‘The Big Lie’- that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. And yet the Republican Party is r...
Nov 03, 2022•31 min
As we record today's episode, Benjamin Netanyahu - currrently on trial for corruption charges - is about to (re)become Israel's PM. He's been in power for 17 years out of the last 25. And this time, it's all thanks to the Religious Zionism faction - a theocratic movement far far to his right that doesn't altogether believe in democracy. What does this mean for Israel, her neighbours, the Arab vote and indeed long-term peace? And fresh from PMQs we speak to Labour's Shadow Health Secretary Wes St...
Nov 02, 2022•36 min
So much heat surrounds the issue of immigration. And the person in charge of decision making is Home Secretary Suella Braverman - and she's at the centre of a political storm over alleged multiple security breaches. Today The News Agents ask where the crisis lies, and what the numbers really tell us. We speak to the former Brexit secretary David Davis - does he have confidence in the Home Secretary? And we talk to a key former civil servant in the Home Office Sir David Normington. One person mor...
Nov 01, 2022•38 min
