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 too many corridors to make parties safer. Sir Bernard Jenkin led the charge asking what he would ha...
Mar 22, 2023•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Casey joins us. Plus we get hold of Boris Johnson's defence dossier. He argues he didn't mean to misle...
Mar 21, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 deal: The Windsor Framework. And - on Iranian New Year we speak to Anoosheh Ashoori and his daughter El...
Mar 20, 2023•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 process has been called 'Trumpian'. And we speak to a senior SNP MP about what this is doing to the ...
Mar 17, 2023•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Player Original and a Persephonica Production.
Mar 16, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 talk childcare, taxation, potholes, and Brexit beer. Later, we revisit the question of BBC impartialit...
Mar 15, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 against women. The numbers are unbelievable - how, out of 1500 officers facing accusations of violence, h...
Mar 14, 2023•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 being dictated by the government? We speak to Armando Iannucci - who coined the phrase omnishambles a de...
Mar 13, 2023•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 to children - should be allowed to take place. Lewis asks what happens at these readings, why people...
Mar 10, 2023•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 goes to Paris. The News Agents hear their might be a firm Gallic ' non ' coming. So what happens to ...
Mar 09, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 experience... And can Suella Braverman defend her language - and her policy more generally - to the cou...
Mar 08, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 measure will break the Geneva Convention - the UN Convention of Human Rights - and talk to former La...
Mar 07, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 watch our episodes in full at https://www.globalplayer.com/videos/brands/news-agents/the-news-agents...
Mar 06, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Johnson and Partygate, off to become…Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff.You can watch our episodes in fu...
Mar 03, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 and author of Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading and Public Speaking to talk about mi...
Mar 02, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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.com/videos/brands/news-agents/the-news-agents/ The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Pers...
Mar 01, 2023•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 in Sunak's works, hasn't poked his head above the parapet. Could this be the start of a Conservative...
Feb 28, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ERG, potentially led by mischief-maker-in-chief, Boris Johnson. What Sunak has negotiated is a victo...
Feb 27, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.
Feb 24, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 and yellow - but is Putin successfully negotiating the West's economic sanctions? We ask corruption...
Feb 23, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 - once Lib Dem leader, now podcast host - if politics and religion can ever mix in Britain. You can ...
Feb 22, 2023•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 former speechwriter Abbas Gallyanov, and former Head of News at ITN and formerly of broadcasting reg...
Feb 21, 2023•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 from Rotherham, where he was over the weekend reporting on a far-right protest gathered outside a hotel...
Feb 20, 2023•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 the independence movement? You can watch our episodes in full at https://www.globalplayer.com/videos/b...
Feb 17, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 catastrophe. Yet the authorities are accused of a cover up - and conspiracy theories are starting to flouris...
Feb 16, 2023•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 or former Labour leader now. You can watch our episodes in full at https://www.globalplayer.com/vide...
Feb 15, 2023•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 contribute to a work practice that was not fit for purpose. We talk to the investigative reporter Hanna...
Feb 14, 2023•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ... on Prime Time Australian TV. We are merciless, as you would expect. You can watch our episodes ...
Feb 13, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 whether it’s worth both parents staying in work - or worth even having children at all. We also brin...
Feb 10, 2023•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 to Syria's rescue. What's the agenda there? We asked former Foreign Secretary and International Rescu...
Feb 09, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
