2025 Awards: Rising stars, resignations, and the moments that defined the year

0:01This is a Global Player Original Podcast.

0:18it's christmas day and we've gathered together here in the newsagent studio for an episode of the antiques roadshow christmas special lewis is excitedly unwrapping his presence emily is busying herself, reorganising decorations on the tree. And John, like old father Ty, is sitting telling stories. Just like a normal episode of the News Agents then, really. Exactly. Exactly. Happy Christmas to all you all. Merry Christmas. Yeah. Abandoned our dear families to come all the way in here to listen to Christmas music. You can't get that in your average list. And that was Christmas music. Very worse.

0:54Proudly. Proudly so. Proudly so. So what are we doing? We're doing the awards. Alright, Grandad. 25 awards. Ah. Will there be a winner? There is always a winner. These are very prestigious. Are they? Oh, yeah. People, honestly, people like it. Come from far and wide. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Time magazine ain't got nothing on us in all sorts of ways. Yeah. Is it like the Nobel Prizes? Nope, it's nothing like that. No, it's the Nobel Prize. Welcome to the News Agents.

1:25The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. It's Father Christmas. We had a sort of series of categories, didn't we? And we sort of battered them backwards and forth. Emily, did you get that Ferrari jacket? If anyone's looking the visuals of this, Emily is dressed as Fangio. Well, apparently I've lost my Grand Prix virginity. This is what all the girls do when they... I'm glad you pronounced it that way. Yeah, they all get the vintage Ferrari. You got a quick pick stop and she lost her Grand Prix virginity. Exactly. It really is Christmas, isn't it, everybody? Well, we've got the first of the categories here, which is speech of the year.

2:01Let's remind ourselves of some of the speeches of the year. In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat. And I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still. I don't think what I have to say is going to make much of a difference. If you like me, you like me. If you don't, you don't. I have no illusions about changing anyone's mind. But I do want to make something clear because it's important to me as a human. And that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. Let me put it this way.

2:38Nations depend on rules. Fair rules. Sometimes they're written down. Often they're not. But either way, they give shape to our values. guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to each other. Now, in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together. Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you turn the volume up God what a different way to class you know J.D. Vance and free speech Mamdani's victory Jimmy Kimmel when he had been taken off air and then put back on air Keir Starmer's Island of Strangers speech which he didn't write apparently and just read out loud.

3:50And regretted. And regretted. I don't think Martin Luther King's content of character speech has got anything to worry about in terms of the kind of, you know, big historical prizes. Yeah. I actually think that the Vance Munich speech was speech of the year in the sense that I think it signalled to the world in a way that, as we've actually talked about, John, on the show, that I still think so many of our politicians haven't woken up to and accepted yet, which is Vance, you know, to his credit in a way, came to Munich and was extremely clear about the different way in which this administration viewed geopolitics, a way in which, frankly, on many of the big cultural and geopolitical questions, the United States was at best indifferent between Europe and Russia and at worst actively aligned to Russian cultural and political values in a way which was completely new.

4:41And we saw that reach its climax in a national security document which came out in December, basically saying that the United States thought that Europe was facing civilisational erasure and could no longer be relied on. And that was just a development of what Vance was saying at the start of the year. Undoubtedly, that speech kind of sent a chill down European backbones, thinking, is the special relationship, is the kind of America still a reliable ally to Europe? Is the Western alliance alive? Does it mean anything when you've got J.D. Vance saying that? I suppose for me, the speech that I kind of really thought signified something was the Jimmy Kimmel speech, actually, because Donald Trump had been so dominant over everything and everyone, whether it was civil society, whether it was political institutions, whether it was corporate boardrooms, whatever it happened to be.

5:35One of Donald Trump's henchmen demanded Kimmel's head on a platter that his show be taken off air after his comments after the murder of Charlie Kirk. Sure enough, Disney take him off air, cancel his show. And the protest was so strong, even from the Republican right, that you suddenly had a sense that there was a limit to Trump's power and that there would be people who would be prepared to fight back. And so I kind of thought, for me, that was one of the moments where you thought, ah, Donald Trump can't do anything and everything he wants with impunity without any pushback. I take your Vance and I take your...

6:16Thank you. Kimmel. I take your Kimmel. Don't take my Kimmel. I give you... Don't take my Kimmel away. I give you Gianni Infantini, who was a late great entry into this bit. I loved every word. Jenny Infantini giving Trump the peace prize for FIFA as if it hadn't just been invented the night before. And what I loved most is that when Blatter was in charge, we genuinely were like, oh, my God, where did they get this guy from? This is extraordinary. Is this really how sports can be run in 2010s, 2020s? And then Blatter went on corruption charges. And who did they find? Jenny Infantini. Fantastic.

6:56You know, a man who has managed to exclude most people who'd actually like to even attend the World Cup because of those exorbitant ticketing prices, giving the prize to Trump, who has just found two more countries to ban from the list of countries that are no longer eligible to even come. And yet the two of them on stage just treating it like it was an actual thing. Brilliant. Hilarious. Let's move on now to the moment of the year. I suppose the bust up in the White House between Zelensky and Trump and J.D. Vance. Mr. President, Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media.

7:39Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring it into this conflict. Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have? I have been to come once. I have actually I've actually watched and seen the stories. And I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Are do you disagree that you've had problems with bringing people into your military? We have problems. And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to trying to prevent the destruction of your country?

8:16A lot of a lot of questions. Let's start from the beginning. First of all, during the war, everybody has problems. Even you, but you have nice ocean and don't feel now. But you will feel it in the future. God bless. You don't know that. God bless. God bless. You will not have the war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you. Because you're in no position to dictate that. Remember this. You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel. I mean, it was just horrific, wasn't it? And I think that for Europeans watching that, it was just, oh, my God.

8:54You know, Zelensky, this hero who has kind of fought for his country's independence after an unprovoked Russian invasion, suddenly being treated so disgracefully by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. I was horrific. Horrific. So the other ones that you would have heard in that clip was Rachel Reeves. I mean, that's a complicated one because it was a visual one. But I do remember being in the office at that moment when she started crying in the Commons. And it was almost like VAR, wasn't it? It was like stopping a football match and trying to work out what had happened and rewinding. What had happened?

9:29Was it him? Had she heard him? You know, and essentially that was the moment where we came to understand the bond markets, as it were, had saved Rachel Reeves' job if Kirsten had been thinking about deposing her at that point. The other one we put in was the Hootie PC small group WhatsApp. brilliant sort of scoop inadvertent scoop by the journalist at the Atlantic who found himself included in this whatsapp group which was about the bombing of hooties in the Middle East I tell you what I'm going to give you though quite sobering but if there was one moment of this year in a sort of like where were you when that happened actually it was the it was the shooting of Charlie Kirk I just remember our group sort of starting to send that around and I was stuck it It was during the tube strike week.

10:14Do you remember? And I was stuck in a cab that was not going anywhere on my way to the FT summer party. And I remember just thinking, it was just shocking. And most news doesn't shock you. And this shocked me. Yeah. And also it was like one of those clarifying moments in newsrooms, right? And I heard this from lots of colleagues in different places where it probably didn't happen here just because we follow US politics so closely. But, you know, half of the newsroom under a certain age going, my God, I can't believe Charlie Kirk's been shot. and then people above going, who's Charlie Kirk? And the people who watched and the people who wouldn't watch.

10:47Yeah, so it was more than just a kind of astonishing political moment and a moment I think which has changed MAGA and I think has changed the nature of MAGA actually, but also it was a sort of crystallising moment of all of the sort of ways in which our media culture and our media political culture is just transformed and transforming, right? The kind of like duality and sort of multiple media worlds which now exist. I suppose my other moment of the year is Liberation Day. when Donald Trump announced the tariffs that were going to be put. We'll be marking it this year, of course. And you just thought, this is all mad.

11:18You know, the sort of random tariffs put on countries based on the most spurious of calculations. And for the global economy... The penguins. Yeah. You know, there was some island and, you know, other countries that hadn't bought anything from America because it's so small it hasn't got any money to buy anything from America. And they, you know, hit with massive tariffs. Did we get to a conclusion on that? No. No, we're just going to leave it with our listeners. You can vote now. You can vote now via a voting mechanism that we will never disclose. No, we all know about. Rising Star of the Year is the next category.

11:49And here are some rising stars in our political sky. You said it yourself. The question was, you never told anyone when they voted they were voting for this. This is extreme. This is inhumane. And it is a government of cowards. Rather than take on the powerful, because the issue here is not immigration. It's inequality. They went for pensioners. They went for the disabled. and now they're going for people who are fleeing war and conflict. I am furious. So many people are furious. It's only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now. So they should be very grateful to our great country.

12:22I think the president has made conservatism and made Republicans cool again. Of course the president supports peaceful protests. What a stupid question. I think there is every chance now of a general election happening in 2027. And we must be ready. So you heard Zach Polanski, Caroline Levitt, spokesperson to the president of the United States, Nigel Farage. Where would you start? Caroline Levitt, I think that in the Trump first term, you just had these endless array of spokespeople. who kind of did it and couldn't quite pull it off with a shamelessness and a brio that Caroline Levitt does. And just she's sharp.

13:11She's quick witted. She's excellent on her feet. She looks the part. Trump adores her. And I think that the public face of Trump when he's not speaking is her. And she does it bloody well. And so Caroline Levitt, there is a shamelessness that you can only address. admire or alternatively she has drunk the kool-aid and believes everything she's saying i think in a way two sides of the same phenomenon right i think polanski and mamdani have shown that for the british and american left which had felt lost both of them have given life to their sort of respective bits of the left and both the us and and the uk mamdani obviously in particular Mamdani is a deeply, deeply impressive politician and I think has shown that the next presidential election, the next primary for the Democrats will likely be fought or the energy will likely be on the left and therefore is already sort of establishing himself as a kind of national figure in that way.

14:15and shows exactly where the kind of energy of democratic politics is. I'm going to throw in a couple more just because who would have thought this time last year that Mark Carney actually would make it to be Canadian PM? I mean, no small thanks to Trump. Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister of Denmark, I think has had an amazing year. I mean, don't forget, we started with Trump threatening to invade Greenland. Don't tempt fate. I know. Where are we? Where are we? I think she's sort of been quite a force in Europe and I think she's come from... The other person I'm going to say is not really a rising star, but somebody who I think has made their mark this year in a way that's given Democrats in the US a real kind of Philip.

14:57And that is Gavin Newsom, who I always thought of as being a bit of a kind of... A bit of a lame. A little bit. I thought he was about him and I didn't think he was sort of what the future of the Democrats look like. And I don't know whether it's him or quite possibly his social media team, But they have made him much more attractive as a possible contender for President 2028, I think. Yeah, just, Lewis, you mentioned Mamdani. I mean, I know the previous category of awards was the moment of the year. Maybe we should have included there Mamdani's meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, which was just one of the most extraordinary, bizarre moments where, you know, two complete opposites meet and fall in love with each other.

15:40You could do a whole award, which was just moments in the Oval Office. Exactly. Including Trump trying to ask the footballers about transgender sports people. It was harder to do that category in the Biden years, wasn't it? Yes, it was. But there weren't any. Fewer nominations all in all. We didn't get to see quite so much. We've got to do the sinking star now. Who are your sinking stars then? That's a category you won't see anywhere else. They don't do that, the Oscars, do they? We'd like to hail all the people who we may never think of again. Yeah, you know what, actually, maybe it's a sort of rising star and sinking star all at once, which is, and again, we could have had a moment of the year, is Musk, right?

16:15We started in 2025, sort of, it felt like being, you know, dominated by the news cycle being dominated, our running order every day basically being dominated by what Musk was tweeting. He was both at the heart of the federal government, but basically setting the news agenda for the US, UK. And that is, again, been one of the themes of this year has been this emergence of what is increasingly a kind of UK, US kind of shared new space driven, not least by the online right and by X in particular. We started the year with him basically, you know, directly attacking the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, and creating that enormous political story around that.

16:51But it's also true to say so he was deeply powerful, also true to say that his power to some extent has has waned, partly because of his own commercial interests in his company and sort of yanking him back. but also because of his waning interest in the court of Trump. Although he continues to be a sort of powerful figure and doubtless will be a big figure of 2026. Exactly. He's sort of like, he could also be in the comeback category as well, couldn't he? I guess I'd say only because it slightly surprised me by the speed with which it all happened. I guess we'd put Prince Andrew, who's no longer a prince.

17:22A sunk star. A sunk star. A black hole. Not that this, you know, came from nowhere, obviously, sort of been going on for years, but it was almost like the final clinch, wasn't it? No title, no house, get out, no dinner. It was brutal. It was brutal. And the way that the king moved against him, eventually, you just thought, wow, this is quite something. The king had said, right, you're losing your titles, you're losing the whole bloody lot. And, yeah, I think that Prince Andrew, or Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as we must now call him, Yeah, has had a shocker of a year. I suppose my two, where you thought there would be a kind of realignment of the left when there were the sort of, you know, Corbyn had won the election, his seat in 24, but was no longer sitting for the Labour Party.

18:13And Zahra Sultana leaves the Labour Party. And you think, actually, wow, this could be a powerhouse combo that would kind of reignite the left. And Zach Polanski won't be able to breathe once these two come into the ring. And it's been an absolute shit show of comic proportions as two rival age groups, two rival egos clash and can't agree. And this kind of great left realignment that would be spearheaded by Sultana and Corbyn has sort of gone foot and hasn't done very well. What's it gone? Foot. Very good. Well, it turns out it's not an ideal start to a sort of new organisation when they both start suing each other.

18:55Yeah, no, it's not great. But then again, we did it and look at us now. So, you know what? Still friends. Still friends. I love the fact that they've ended up in a place where neither is leader because no one in the party... Well, no one can have it then. Either one. It's like Solomon's baby goes wrong. Just cut the thing in half. It's fine. We'll be back in just a moment.

19:18and the conversations that matter. With award-winning journalists at the heart of the stories from the UK and around the world. Breaking news here in Edinburgh. I'm Simon Marks. My American Week is next. Reporting from the heart of Cardiff. Discover how today's story affects your life. Listen on our free Global Player app or the new LBC app. LBC, leading Britain's conversation.

19:46the news agents so let's go now to our social media moment of the year i thought for a minute you're going to do the thing they always do awards ceremonies where you sort of go through all the ones that no one wants to watch oh yeah where they spin through very fast through them video production moment of the year those are the ones we always present that get cut out of the ceremony. Because they're not the best actor. We go and you get all dressed up in your finery. You're invited to the South Bank to do some awards ceremony and then you're bloody edited out of the whole thing. Lighting of the year.

20:20Yes. Yeah, exactly. Very important. I don't know. What was your favourite? I think there's one moment for me. Coldplay Kiss Cam. I mean, it was electric, wasn't it? The couple who were caught and then they see they're on Kiss Cam and they're, God, we've been busted. We're busted. definitely busted and then the reaction and they were busted i would say i don't know if this is a so technically a social media moment but when grok lost it with mecca hitler and he suddenly went fascist and it's like everything that you knew elon musk had been thinking about his own chat gpt system was suddenly on the table it's like i hate woke okay what does that mean i just want Mike Guy to sound a bit more like Hitler.

21:06Okay, now he does. It was a sort of pulling back the curtain, wasn't it? But also on Musk. I mean, I think this was our biggest episode of the year when we did this, right? And again, it was when he tweeted, then deleted, time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they've not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT. I mean, he wasn't wrong. I mean, he was in there. Everything that happened since has kind of gone back to that moment. Yeah, totally. You could actually say that that was the moment that, you know, Trump's power did start to decline.

21:37But also it also reminds me of kind of the speed of everything and the freneticness of everything. Because I sort of almost forgotten that it feels it already feels so long ago. OK, can I throw one more in, which was again kind of a moment was the the Gaza Riviera video.

22:02No more tunnels, no more fear. 12 Gazi is finally here. 12 Gazi is shining bright. Gold and future are brand new. Again, again. The Gaza Riviera video was when we all sort of thought it was a joke. And then we went away and it was like, oh, this isn't a joke. This is what he actually thinks Gaza should look like. Are there any Gazans in it? No. The Gaza Riviera video was posted by Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States, at a time when it was an absolute parlour situation for tens of thousands of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and this kind of video of hotels on the Gaza Riviera and loads of money and deck chairs and dollars falling from the sky and him and Netanyahu sitting there in big comfy chairs.

22:49And you thought, oh my God, this is so tacky. It's not true. I've got a social media moment of the year about which I know there's quite a bit of interest. Go on. I think it might be, John, when you announced you were leaving X. Oh, don't. No. Which lesson? It said, change of address notification. You'll be able to find me now on Blue Sky. I've greatly enjoyed living here for over a decade, but Phil, the neighbourhood has really gone downhill. We'll still call by occasionally. How occasional do you reckon that's been, John? Honestly, you are... How are your Blue Sky posts going? How often would you go on to Blue Sky?

23:19Let's just get that. You're doing the work of Guido Forks here. Every month he posts. It's been another month that John Sobel hasn't posted on Blue Sky. Okay, so... from us. I mean, he just checks in with us. We'd like to wish all the lads at Guido a very Merry Christmas. Guido, we love you. And a blue sky. John never sees you. yeah, because he ain't telling you. Do you know what? I got on the tube the other day. Someone said, why haven't you been on blue sky, John? Exactly. He said, blue sky? He shouted, blue sky? And I thought, oh, bloody hell. I guess that's because he reads Guido, not because he's on blue sky, if I'm really honest, but I could be wrong.

23:52Right, shall we do Politician of the Year? We're in the big ones now. We're in the home stretch. Best actor. They're allowed to make speeches. Yes. So we had a few knocking around. We thought, would it be West Streeting? Would it be Nigel Farage? Would it be Benjamin Netanyahu? Vladimir Putin? Who put this list together? This is just like what? It's not completely crazy. I mean, Politician of the Year. Look, I mean, I suppose Streeting, it has managed to establish himself, which it wasn't where it was sort of like six months ago. as a real proper heir apparent. And he's done that by assiduously courting the soft left, and he's done it by assiduously putting himself in a place where, well, it's partly happened around him as well, which is that, you know, as the Farage threat has grown and the reform threat has grown, it has slightly changed the kind of calculus and the thinking of the Labour Party away from potentially who do we want who best reflects our values to who do we think might win and see off this threat, and that would be streaking.

24:50OK, if I was to give one, and it would fit for the previous category as well a social media moment of the year. Which we know which has won that. Yeah. Which is you. Thank you. I had to win one award at some point. It would be Generic, actually, for his camp. I mean, you know, him going onto the tube and sort of filming people pushing their way through ticket barriers and not paying their tickets. Really? You think he's a politician of the year? Well, I think he's, I think he has, I think as a Conservative politician. Now he's working for Guido. He has connected. I think he was a really good communicator.

25:21Did you not see that one, did you? No, I think he's a really good communicator. Not just of Britain, but of the world. Well, OK, if we global... OK, global... He's really good communicating. Yeah, but where streeting is not global politicians in the world. The fact that he can't see any white people on the streets of Birmingham, that went down well. I know that went down well. But I think that some of what Jenrick has done and the way he's used social media as a politician has learnt a lot from other countries where not many British politicians of Labour or Conservative have been that good. And I think that Jenrick has been pretty effective in all of that.