2025 on The Interview

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? the History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts with the European Athletics Championships the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport and the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists More Than The Score from the BBC World Service.

1:05Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:31for 33 years. Isn't that enough? Solar for 25 years. That's enough. I don't have army. I don't have missile rockets. I have my body. I have my voice. I love singing. And so my goal was always to do better and better at it. I was still in an induced coma in hospital when the world was defining me. Since the interview launched in March 2025, we've heard from world leaders to cultural icons, grassroots campaigners to business titans and sporting legends. As we approach the end of the year, we're bringing you a selection of the most compelling conversations we've featured over the last nine months.

2:07For this episode, we hear from Justin Welby, former Archbishop of Canterbury and symbolic head of the Global Anglican Communion, Annika Wells, the minister overseeing Australia's groundbreaking social media band for under-16s, and Stevie Wonder, music legend.

2:24In March, in an interview with BBC presenter Laura Koonsberg, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, spoke for the first time since his resignation over his handling of abuse in the Church of England. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby was symbolic leader of the Anglican Communion and a figurehead for more than 85 million people. But his tenure was clouded and eventually ended by an abuse scandal that shook the Church. He stood down shortly after the release of a damning report into the case of John Smythe, who abused boys and young men in the UK and Africa, many of whom he met at Christian summer camps.

2:56Here's BBC presenter Laura Koonsberg. Justin Welby presided not just over the church, but over some of the biggest events in the Commonwealth of the last decade, including the funeral of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Mr Welby speaks candidly about his deep shame in not acting on revelations about John Smythe, a barrister actively involved in the church. A review revealed that the Church of England knew of Smythe's abuse, but didn't do it nearly enough to pursue it. And when the failings were laid bare, eventually Justin Welby felt he had to step down. The former Archbishop of Canterbury made history for all the wrong reasons.

3:38I went out of a sense of both personal responsibility for shortcomings during my time and my own shortcomings, and out of a sense of institutional responsibility for the long-term revelations of cover-up and failure over a long period. As I reflected on the horrible suffering of the survivors, which had been, as many of them said, more than doubled by the institutional church's failure to respond adequately, it increasingly became clear to me that I needed to resign. What exactly do you think you did wrong? I think I was not sufficiently pushy in a way that I would have been a few years later.

4:37I first heard about Smythe's offences in August of 2013. I'd been in post 11 weeks. And safeguarding had been the crisis I hadn't foreseen. I didn't realise how bad it was. And we didn't see all the details till 2017. I should have pushed harder because I knew enough to know that people very rarely, almost never, abuse once. I should have said, are we absolutely sure there's no one else involved? But why didn't you? I mean, this was 2013. The police had got involved. There'd previously been high-profile prosecutions even of clergy in the 2000s. Absolutely. We're not talking about the 1950s, the 1960s, the kind of era in this country when people just didn't talk about this kind of thing.

5:39Why didn't you care enough? I cared. I wasn't curious enough. Well, you said previously, I didn't care sufficiently. You didn't care sufficiently about young people being abused. On that first report, that's a very fair comeback. So why? On that report, you're right. One thing was the rules of the time said that cases are investigated by the diocese where they're reported. it. The second thing was the police said, don't interfere. A few years later, I would have pushed harder. That's the technical reason. The other reason was, actually, I was finding that every day more cases were coming across the desk that had been in the past, hadn't been dealt with adequately.

6:36and this was just, it was another case, and yes, I knew Smythe, but it was an absolutely overwhelming few weeks. Now, that's not an excuse. As Archbishop, there are no excuses. Being overwhelmed is a reason it isn't an excuse. I have said sorry very much, and just for the avoidance of doubt, I am utterly sorry and feel a deep sense of personal failure, both for the victims of Smythe not being picked up sufficiently, and for my own personal failures. Would you like the victims of John Smythe to forgive you? Obviously, but it's not about me. Everyone wants to be forgiven, but to demand forgiveness is to abuse again.

7:48And I am so ashamed of my own failure and I am so sorry that I did not serve the victims and survivors and nor did the church, as they should have done and I should have done and that's why I resigned. You wrote, to forgive is not to pretend that nothing's happened. It's the opposite. It accepts the full weight of the wrong. Do you forgive John Smythe?

8:25Yes. I think if he was alive and I saw him. But it's not me he's abused. He's abused the victims and survivors. So whether I forgive or not is, to a large extent, irrelevant. Justin Welby. Earlier this month, BBC correspondent Katie Watson spoke to Australia's Communication Minister Annika Wells about the world's first social media ban for children under 16. Under the new law, social media companies will face fines of up to about US$32 million if they fail to take steps to ensure that under-16s in Australia cannot set up accounts. It has wide public support and comes about after research shows that 7 out of 10 Australian young people are suffering harm online.

9:20However, the law has its opponents too, from those who fear children could be cut off or driven to darker, unregulated sites, to huge international technology companies, but Annika Wells is ready for a fight. Here's Katie Watson. I'm speaking to Annika Wells, Australia's communications minister, at her office in her electorate of Lilly, which is in Brisbane. It's a busy time for her. She got the job of communications and sports minister at the beginning of the year. The social media legislation had already been passed in Parliament by that stage, so she inherited the rollout, if you like. And her media team was saying as much.

9:57This is big news and they're flat out speaking to families and teens, and of course media like us. She's pretty forthright on the reasons why this is good for parents. She's a mother of three herself and talked about those personal challenges, but perhaps more significantly, she seems unfazed by the potential challenges ahead, including from Silicon Valley giants and even the US president. We've been speaking to lots of young people in the last few weeks and some are OK with this ban, others are not. Less OK. Patronising, they call it. They can have a job, they can have a bank account, but they can't get on the platform of their choice.

10:36What do you say to them? Having a job or a bank account aren't necessarily so demonstrably harmful as being online, on social media and subject to predatory algorithms. the research that places like the Safety Commission, which is Australia's independent regulator for safety online, the evidence is now that seven out of ten Australian kids are suffering harm online and that's as a result of activity on these kinds of platforms, the predatory algorithms that they see there. So we think that overall culturally this will really change the landscape and for generation alpha who are coming along who are babies toddlers little kids looking up to their siblings this will really make for cultural change by the time they have their own device and an ability to have a login and you've got small children in that generation how are you talking to them obviously you've got an eight-year-old so potentially interested in going online well i think she's asked for a smartphone for christmas i think that every household has their own challenges and even if you are a household that doesn't want screen time strict about not having devices for children I know for us the change was when she reached the year at school where you had to have an iPad so overnight we had to have rules and policies in our house about what that looked like for her even if previously she'd been device free and I guess personally for me I am not there every night to police her screen time or to check her activity on Roblox or what have you because I'm travelling Australia doing this job which my husband is very supportive of but it falls to him to do that policing so in a funny way me being the lawmaker for this social media ban is my own contribution to helping those kinds of fights not just in our house but in houses all down our street everywhere I've been surprised by the number of parents who have come up to me whether it's at the shops at a community event as a local member to say I just want to say thank you I've felt so helpless in this fight it has felt never-ending you can't out parent an algorithm and this is giving parents another weapon in their arsenal for their lives and for the happiness and mental well-being of their children.

12:54Now to tech companies so tech companies have said they agree with you on making social media platforms safer but they don't agree with this ban or delay as it's known. Why was anything other than a ban just not an option? I would contend whilst many of these platforms have safety features, have put their shoulders to the wheel, improving particular elements of their platforms online, manifestly they have had 15, 20 years in this space to do that of their own volition now. And the harms that are coming through by independent research demonstrate it's not enough. It's not enough. And whilst they have every right as private companies to transact business on our shores, every right to make their millions and billions off selling the data of their customers, we choose to do this.

13:41We feel that they have more of a social responsibility as social media platforms than they have signed up for themselves. So we have made it the law. Australia's being touted as a world first. In smaller jurisdictions, in some states in the US, for example, they've tried and failed to implement similar bans. the court has pushed them back. Are you worried about that failure? I mean, there's a high court challenge here in Australia now by two teenagers. Is that something that worries you? Yes, I've met with some of those people. The governor of Utah came to Australia about a month ago and we met about these laws.

14:14He pointed out some disclosure that's happening through the US court system because of these cases that actually reveals internal documents of these platforms, where it's even worse than we thought in terms of intention and what they knew and what they chose not to do about it that give me ballast that we have done the right thing and that of their own accord they knew things and they chose not to do anything about it. We're pleased to be the first, we're proud to be the first and we stand ready to help any other jurisdiction who seeks to do these things. Like you say we have a high court challenge but in no way does it intimidate me.

14:48We stand firm on the side of parents and not on platforms. I understand the moral imperative of what we're doing pretty early on becoming the communications minister some parents bereaved parents who had lost kids to suicide through their social media activities through bullying through a series of events I'm walking to a room to be introduced to them and a guy named whipper said Annika this is Rob Rob was standing there in a suit he was holding a pink urn and he said and this is live and I just felt the oxygen suck out of my body as the very real impact of what is happening stood so politely and respectfully in front of me asking me to act.

15:31So in the face of that and countless other stories like that I am firm and unintimidated by those companies continuing to act the way that they have chosen to act for so long. I genuinely feel in 10 years time we're all going to look back and ask why did that take so long not why did they do that. There is a feeling that that there's just a total lack of understanding of how young people work online so Roblox you know and other online games speaking to strangers and connecting with them that is still a huge risk for young people and if you're not eliminating that it feels like there's a massive hole in this legislation.

16:09I don't consider it that way I've been honest from the outside this isn't a cure it's a treatment plan and treatment plans will always evolve as we adapt and address harm and see what works and what doesn't so we'll deliver this we'll watch what happens we'll see what kind of cultural change it creates this is at the end of the day work to try and save a generation so it's worth doing

16:37Annika Wells

16:41If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. With the European Athletics Championships, the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place, 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport.

17:27And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action, bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

17:52Global music icons don't come much bigger than Stevie Wonder. The American Ghanaian singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. In July, he spoke to BBC presenter Annie McManus, sharing his journey to stardom, where he gets his creative spark, and why he speaks out against injustice. Stevie was born in 1950 in Michigan, USA, and was just 11 years old when he was discovered and signed by the legendary Motown record label. And the rest is history. Across a career that spanned seven decades, he sold over 100 million records worldwide, won numerous awards, including multiple Grammys, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, and even received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom.

18:32Blind since birth, Stevie Wonder uses his platform to campaign for greater rights for disabled people around the world, and was also a vocal critic of apartheid in South Africa. Here's BBC presenter Annie McManus. This interview happened quite last minute, in the middle of the summer, on a very, very hot Friday in July. It was the night before a big show that Stevie was doing at Hyde Park, the last show of a five-date summer tour that he'd done around the UK. He was in absolutely fantastic form. He was so personable, so genial, but most striking about him was his sense of humour. He couldn't stop finding the humour in every little thing that I spoke to him about.

19:13And at the end, I had to capitulate from trying to be a serious interviewer and just go with his flow, which was very much of wanting to have an interactive conversation. This is a harpeggi, and I've been playing it for about eight years I've played it. It's a string instrument, but it's sort of laid out where, like, a guitar would go this way, like that. It's this, like that, and you play it. It's what we call where you have, like, your... This is whole tones up. So you're just pressing it and the note is coming from the press as opposed to a pluck Right

20:03Beautiful

20:07Annie Annie Annie Don't let me go Oh my gosh Stevie I can't tell you how nervous I've been about this interview You are soothing me right now. Well, relax yourself. I know, I need to relax. Chill, chill, chill. I know. We need to have a conversation. Yeah. Conversation piece. Well, let me ask you about playing these songs on this tour. I'm just interested in how it feels to be playing songs that are maybe kind of 50 odd years old now and how your relationship with those songs changes over time in terms of performing them. Songs are like children. you know they're with you forever songs are like you know it's a statement from the spirit of you the spirit in you and so my thing with singing those songs is songs like me taking another breath within a day when you write a song what comes first is it the words the melody?

21:13Usually for me, I write the melody first in my mind. So the melody's in your mind? Yeah. And then, you know, I mean, along with the melody, you know, along with that, you do hear the chords in your mind. Is it true that your mom co-wrote some songs with you when you were younger? Yeah, she did write some stuff with me. Yeah. What was it that your mother taught you? My mother sang a little bit. I think it was just kind of, it was a lot of funds and that's work on something and she i'd be down in the basement and she'd come down and say try this do that come on steve do that come on steve you know get it steve so you'd be down in the basement is that your place to play it was yeah right yeah so so she made you a place she gave you a place she's like go down there well i wasn't there she didn't say going out and I just that's what I did you took it you took it commandeered it for yourself it was fine yeah yeah what kind of a kid were you such a very quiet kid you know I didn't do anything I'm so quiet really believe that lie I don't believe that yeah no I mean I was you know I was definitely curious you know as they talk about the things that I did instead I was blind but what did that mean to me I'd never seen so So, you know, whether it be kids out climbing trees, you know, getting apples off the tree, whatever, going, I'm just jumping off the tree.

22:43All that was like, OK, so I want to do that. So come on, you're going to fall. I'm not going to fall. Get out of there, Steve. Steve. And so, I mean, I would do all the things that, you know, all the kids did, you know, growing up. Was there a moment in your childhood when you realized that you had a gift that was unique to say your brothers and sisters? I'm not saying better, but just unique to you. I never thought of it being unique or better or whatever. I just thought it was a blessing that I was given. Right. And I thank God for that blessing. Obviously, I knew I could sing. I love singing.

23:26And so my goal was always to do better and better at it. Yeah. But it wasn't so much that I thought, hey, you know, what's up? Yeah. I can sing. What about you? Nah. Once when I first came to Motown, I met Smokey Robinson. And I remember I said, you know, I know your music. I love Smokey. You're good. You can sing bad. You can sing good, but I can sing better. You did. What? I did. What, a little 11-year-old Stevie. How did Smokey take that? He probably laughed. Like, ah. So that was then. And fast forward six, seven decades. There you go. That is the passing of time.

24:10You're starting in decades. That's okay. Yeah, yeah. You are one of the most beloved artists in the world. I'm interested in how you define yourself as a musician. When you're making music in the moment, in real time, what is the feeling that you get? Is there a unique feeling to that? I mean, there's always a feeling of creativity. When you're creating, you're in that mode. And so it feels good to me. I'm more so in the groove of what that is. And if from that then comes a melody or an idea for a song or whatever, we do that.

24:45Stevie Wonder. Thank you for listening to this special edition of the interview from the BBC World Service, featuring conversations with Justin Welby, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Australian Communications Minister Annika Wells and music legend Stevie Wonder people shaping our world from all over the world you'll find more in-depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts including episodes with President of Botswana Duma Boko author Sasamun Rushdie and tennis great Martina Naratalova until the next time, bye for now

25:30If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. With the European Athletics Championships, the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place, 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport.

26:15And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action, bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.