2026 Q&A: Unlikely comebacks, the future of democracy, and Jon's acting debut

7:06Lewis Goodall:I think you were pretty. I mean, in a year of bad takes from John, I think that was probably his best. That was the healthiest one we had. Yeah, I think, Emily, you're right. And also, it's not just left and right, right? Because obviously the centre can be in different places, in different polities, in different countries. But it's also an element of just being system and anti-system, right? And being anti-system, you can be left, you can be right, you can be of all sorts of different political kind of combinations or permutations. But ultimately, people who find themselves being identified identified with the institutions and the system is the most uncomfortable ground of all, which is why Starmer struggled or appeared to struggle so much in 2025, because in so many ways he does embody the system, even to the point where at the end of last year, and I thought one of the most telling moments of the year really, was where he appears before the House of Commons Liaison Committee and basically says, look, I sit here in the centre and I pull levers and I can't basically, I can't get them to work, which was actually one of the most damning moments for him of all, because he was basically elected as the guy, I understand the system and I can sort it out.

8:04Lewis Goodall:He was basically making an admission in his first year. He was struggling to do so.

8:08Jon Sopel:Let's move on to our next question, which is from Ross. If you were to bet, who do you think is going first? Starmer or Baden-Württemberg?

8:18Emily Maitlis:Start with the very first question. Most unlikely comeback of 2026. Wouldn't it be funny if it was Starmer? I mean, how's that for a comeback? The person who is the prime minister carries on being the prime minister. And yet somehow that would be a comeback.

8:31Jon Sopel:we talked about doing the counterfactual podcast of you know the great achievements of the starmer administration so far decided we wouldn't have 30 minutes we decided that i mean look there are things that he's done and there has been an absolute failure of communication i think to get across what the government has done but it's not just getting across what the government has done but targeting what it's important and why it's important that's where i think that they've you know the communication has been crap from this government so starmer i wouldn't count him out yet and i think there are structural problems about how difficult it would be to get rid of starmer and you know getting the names getting them to go public andy burnham if he is to be the you know the prince across the water you've got to get him on this side of the water first and that's not without complication so i kind of think that it may be that the idea that starmer is a dead man walking is overpriced at the moment.

9:25Emily Maitlis:OK, well, let's just do it another way. Do you think we'll get to next December with both Starmer and Baden-Ock still in their respective roles? I'd be willing to bet, yes.

9:33Lewis Goodall:I think it's underpriced that that's the case because partly for the reasons, you know, John has said, for the Labour Party, I think we keep sometimes forgetting that the Labour Party does not have the 1922 committee. We got so used in the Tory years to, you know, the proverbial man, literal man in the grey suit, Graham Brady, you know, turning up and saying... Sir Marcus Fox in my day. There you go. Edward Duquan. Edward Duquan. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, RIP. Spicer. Yeah, Spicer. This is fun, isn't it? Let's just name 1922 committee chairs. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. It's what they come for.

10:03Lewis Goodall:I know, I know. They're losers. Anyway, they don't have that. Nice way to talk about our listeners. Well, this is one of the nicest things we've said so far. Look, they don't have that. They don't have that. Labour Party doesn't have that. And what it has instead is lots of structures, which basically, whether it's the National Executive Committee or whatever it happens to be, which basically help embed the power of the leader. Plus the Labour Party, if it has an excuse to bottle anything, usually does so. There will be a fear, as ever, that Jeremy Corbyn factor is still sort of lurking at the back of the mind, which is that, you know, does the left end up seizing the leadership?

10:35Lewis Goodall:Starm a lot and McSweeney will be putting that out for everybody to hear over the course of the next few months.

10:41Emily Maitlis:And if you rock the boat, it capsizes.

10:43Lewis Goodall:Yeah, you just, well, you know, you've clinked to nurse for fear of something worse. And then on top of that as well, it is still just about possible that Labour do slightly better in the elections in May than is commonly considered because there has been such catastrophizing about it. And if he's able to do so, then he can turn around and say, look, it wasn't that bad after all.

11:01Jon Sopel:What about Kemi? We haven't talked about Kemi in all of this. I mean, I think Kemi towards the end of the year seemed to be just having a bit more brio, a bit more kind of self-confidence about her. and I think that you know we talked about it on our kind of one of our episodes before Christmas about the fact that actually the Tories seem to be on a bit of a comeback and that their her approval ratings are getting a bit better and the Tories have got an argument now they've got they've got you know now that reform has seen to be this sort of party that is very in favour of welfare spending and all the rest of it in its pursuit of the red wall seats there is a space for the Tories and for Baden-Ock to be, you know, Thatcherite, low-tax, small government.

11:43Emily Maitlis:Again, who takes her out? I mean, apart from her own cabinet is pretty benign, actually, around her. And they sort of seem to be quietly letting her get on with it. So who takes her out?

11:56Lewis Goodall:They've also made it harder. I mean, it used to be 15 % in the old days. Now the threshold is higher. So, I mean, there aren't that many Tory MPs, so they still don't need, you know, that many. But it's harder. I think you're right with that. Yeah, exactly. generic has appeared more of a busted flush and there is more warmth towards her i think now in the tory grassroots and than there was and something that both have i think and starmer in particular which i think is often underestimated about him what they both have is quite a lot of steel and i think starmer has tremendous self-belief that i think is often kind of it seems i think so yeah like and and a deep competitiveness i remember that story in gabriel pogrom's book and patrick maguire's book about about him and about labor you know on the night of the general election when all the results are coming in.

12:37Lewis Goodall:Obviously, it's an extraordinary success. And they're both pissed off because they're going to have a majority, which is five less than Blair. And they'd wanted to beat Blair. This is a man who is deeply, to his core, competitive. And it's really interesting. He always uses that line. He was always like, people said we couldn't change the Labour Party. They were wrong. They said we could never win a general election at one time. They were wrong. Now they say they're writing me off. They're wrong. For all of his faults, it has quite a deep competitiveness.

12:59Emily Maitlis:Everyone says they're underestimated. That seems to be part of the first job. I think it's true for him, though, to a certain extent. Rayner said that. Stammer said that. Liz Truss said it.

13:07Lewis Goodall:Liz Truss said it. But not all politicians have a real eye and self-belief. And I think Stammer does. Yeah.

13:12Jon Sopel:I think that, I mean, I would only add as the correction of going across the Atlantic and saying, well, that's what Joe Biden kept on saying. You know, people have always underestimated him.

13:19Lewis Goodall:And look how hard it was to get rid of him.

13:20Jon Sopel:Yeah, it was.

13:21Lewis Goodall:And does the Labour Party have that bottle and that steel? And is there going to be a moment of crystallisation, which was obviously debate in Biden's case? If it hadn't been for the debate, he would have been the candidate, right?

13:29Emily Maitlis:The terrible thing that Biden kept saying was, don't compare me to the almighty camp. Compare me to the alternative. So people went, yeah, fine. I know.

13:37Lewis Goodall:Best of luck, Joe, for 2026.

13:39Emily Maitlis:Right. Ada loves lace on blue sky. Will Netanyahu survive 2026? What might his downfall mean for the region? You're very interesting, listeners. You're all about political survival and death. And death. And death, yes.

13:55Jon Sopel:Well, there are legislative elections. I think there are Knesset elections in October of 2026. I'm looking to Lewis Goodall because he knows that when every election is going to be some good Hungarian ones coming up in April as well by the way and so so I think you've got an Israeli general election coming in October and we'll see what difference it makes look you know Netanyahu has just been someone who people have written his political obituary so often often with a kind of vested interest in the hope that they are successful in writing his political obituary and he still sticks around and with trump in the white house and with the attempts to forge some kind of you know progress in gaza after the calamitous war that israel has fought in that land you would think that netanyahu would be toast but i'd hesitate to count him out at this stage i mean and what it means to the region well i mean you know i think that you're still going to have an Israeli Prime Minister of whatever stripe, even if it's not Netanyahu, his principal concern is the security and the safety of Israel.

15:07Emily Maitlis:When Netanyahu was at MIT doing his PhD, the theme of his thesis was political communication and the internet. The year was 78. He never finished the PhD. But just to give you a sense of how far ahead he was thinking about things that didn't even exist. It was about political communication and the computer. Did I say the internet? The internet didn't even... The World Wide Web didn't exist then. It was about how you would use the computer. So all I'm saying to your point about underestimating is it seems almost inconceivable that Israel could be in love with the prime minister after the years they've had.

15:56Emily Maitlis:If you take October the 7th and everything since, it seems utterly inconceivable. And one other question I think is really interesting. If you talk to Israelis candidly, they're now sort of coming out and saying, why does everyone hate us? Why does the world hate us? Why are we perceived like this? A lot of people are, you know, who are sort of closer to where the West is on views of Gaza. And I think people in Israel keep going towards Netanyahu in one shape or another because he keeps redefining the question of safety, the question of existence, the question of political survival. And I think he's incredibly good at seeing round corners.

16:42Emily Maitlis:I mean, disastrous as it has been for that country and for the whole region. He's very good at seeing round corners.

16:47Lewis Goodall:I think that's right. And also, I mean, even if you were to lose the elections, all we know is, I mean, we've sort of played this game before where I think Israel had four general elections in two years before the most recent Knesset. And, you know, because of the electoral system that Israel uses, which is highly, highly proportional, you know, the coalitions are decided by razor thin margins. They're often highly unstable. So it's entirely possible we have that election. We have another one within six months or a year or whatever it happens to be. I do think if Netanyahu survives, though, I have to say, not only do I agree with you, Emily, that I think it would be a disaster long term for Israel.

17:19Lewis Goodall:But I think it would be a disaster for the world in the sense that, obviously, at the tail end of the last year, the horrific events in Bondi Beach, we had a lot of conversations about, not just us, I mean the sort of media and everywhere, had a lot of conversations about the scourge of anti-Semitism, which has clearly been on the rise, and the radicalisation which has taken place. I think Netanyahu has been a key part of that radicalisation, because he has done something which I think is abhorrent. Every time there has been what clearly were not anti-Semitic or were attacks on the state of Israel because of what it was doing in Gaza.

17:52Lewis Goodall:He has said that there was an attack on Jews everywhere and was anti-Semitic. I think that's appalling because I think it sets up a standard by which Jews in different countries who are not Israelis can be held accountable for what happens in Israel as a result of the policy of the Israeli government. And he has chosen to do that and I think it was catastrophic.

18:07Emily Maitlis:I mean, he has made a link between countries that have recognised the Palestinian state and I include Albanese in Australia and Starmer here and said you are bringing antisemitism to these shores if you do so.

18:20Jon Sopel:And you're giving Hamas a victory, which you're not.

18:22Emily Maitlis:Yeah, I think it's a terribly, terribly dangerous place to sit.

18:27Jon Sopel:I'll tell you one of the other things as well to watch, you know, while we're on this question about Netanyahu's survival is whether the corruption charges will get dropped against him. Because, you know, before October the 7th, his political position was looking deeply precarious because of, you know, all the kind of bribes or whatever that were alleged to have been made by TV companies and, you know, the cosy sweetheart deals.

18:52Emily Maitlis:All that's kind of small potatoes, I understood. Yeah. Corruption charges.

18:55Jon Sopel:But you've had Donald Trump intervene, writing to, you know, the President Herzog, saying these charges should be dropped against my friend Netanyahu. You know, obviously Donald Trump allies himself with anyone who thinks they're being persecuted because they're facing charges for wrongdoing.

19:11Emily Maitlis:Look, anyone who is a member of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, and actually America isn't, cannot let Netanyahu land in the country without an arrest warrant. Right. So we've gone bigger than corruption over a box of chocolates or whatever it was. We're now talking about whether this man should end up in the Hague.

19:27Lewis Goodall:I mean, something that's going to be really interesting for this year that sort of really started to develop at the sort of back end of 2025 was, though, I mean, you mentioned Trump and Netanyahu, John, being such great friends. Obviously, the evolving nature of the Republican Party's relationship with Israel is really, really interesting. You know, the Republican Party wants dominated by neoconservatives. Israel, right or wrong. You could not put a cigarette paper between an Israeli prime minister, particularly a right wing one like Netanyahu and the Republican Party. Suddenly, in Trump's MAGA, people like Tucker Carlson and others, very influential voices, all saying, questioning those fundamentals.

19:59Lewis Goodall:Why are we so embedded with Israel? Why are we giving them all this money? Why are we aiding? some of them even using the G word genocide, aiding a genocide. And that is a massive evolution in Republican Party politics and could be, who knows, a theme even running up to the 2028 election.

20:15Emily Maitlis:I would say it's an evolution in Republican Party politics, but I think if you go towards some of the Tucker rhetoric or the Nick Fuentes rhetoric, there is something much darker.

20:27Lewis Goodall:It's not just about politics. 100%. But the fact that that is even being within the Republican Party is a huge new thing.

20:33Jon Sopel:But just to go back to the focus of that question, what does it mean for the region? If you've got a prime minister who was committed to a two-state solution and would speak openly about a two-state solution, then you do get opening up the possibility of diplomatic relations being restored or kind of installed for the first time between, say, Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would be a very significant political moment. At the moment, you've got Netanyahu saying, no, there's no chance for a two-state solution while I'm the Prime Minister. So in terms of the region, if Netanyahu goes and you've got a more liberal Prime Minister, that could change.

21:10Emily Maitlis:Coming up, we have a question from Alan Aykroyd. Not Alan Akebourne. No. No, OK, fine, good.

21:17Lewis Goodall:No, he's unavailable.

21:22Jon Sopel:News you can trust and the conversations that matter.

21:25Emily Maitlis: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.

21:36Jon Sopel:Discover how today's story affects your life.

21:39Emily Maitlis:Listen on our free Global Player app or the new LBC app.

21:43Jon Sopel:LBC. Leading Britain's conversation.

21:50Jon Sopel:The News Agents.

21:53Emily Maitlis:Right, as promised, Alan Aykroyd has sent us greetings and a question.

21:57Jon Sopel:By the way, did you think it was a good trail to say, and coming up, a question from Alan Aykroyd? I knew we'd have one listener. Quickly, quickly, come in for the garden. Alan, stay listening, Alan, mate. Your big moment.

22:05Emily Maitlis:We've got a question from Alan. Yeah, Alan and all his family and friends have tuned in specially for part two. Happy New Year, Alan. Happy New Year. How much, this is Alan, of the US President's programme is Trump and how much is the team behind him? I hear suggestions that age is catching up with him. I don't think the U-turn on the Epstein files rings true somehow. Trump signing it off. Are his strings being pulled?

22:31Jon Sopel:Well, I think is age catching up with him? Undoubtedly. I mean, you see him now sort of nodding off in cabinet meetings and there's the suggestion that he just hasn't got the vim and the vigour that he had. And, you know, sure. I mean, he's the age he is. He's nearly 80 years old. but I mean for Trump vim and vigor was his kind of product and that's how he said look you know look at Joe Biden sleepy Joe it was his selling point about I'm tough I'm strong I'm you know all the rest of it and I think there is a slowing down undoubtedly of Donald Trump as for the Epstein files Trump didn't do a u-turn he was forced into it his arm was pushed behind his back Congress voted for it there didn't need to be a vote in Congress Donald Trump had the power to release the Epstein files with the sign of his pen he chose not to until congress had legislated on it and then he had absolutely no choice I think it's undoubtedly true as you say John that age is

23:27Lewis Goodall:catching up with him I mean when we saw him in Mar-a-Lago during the election in November 24 I mean he already looked like a gargoyle I mean this is he's he's you know you must love to say what you think yes no I know well I've learned for the best and clearly you know being in office even when you are you know approaching the way that Trump does is a deeply sort of aging process And we've seen that play out with president after president. I mean, I think, though, the interesting thing for this year is the extent to which, you know, the political bandwagon is has moves on and how quickly it's moving on.

23:55Lewis Goodall:We've got sort of glimmers of that in 2025 in a way that seemed unlikely at the start of the year. But already the sort of jockeying position of 2028, remember, wasn't so long ago, which you don't hear very much now of people talking about Trump third term. And, you know, us having discussions about kind of, you know, whether that was constitutionally possible and whether if it wasn't constitutionally possible, it might happen anyway. You're not hearing that so much now, not least because it is clear what I think was always going to happen, which is that, you know, Trump is going to be over 80 by the time of the next election.

24:23Lewis Goodall:And also the politics of the Republican Party already starting to accelerate out of his grasp.

24:29Emily Maitlis:I think there has been indubitably a slowing down and a covering up. There's a lot of things that do not make sense. the fact that he had these mri scans not actually part of a normal presidential medical we heard nothing about that we've seen caroline levitt his spokeswoman trying to explain bruises on his hand because he her words shakes hands too much we've seen bandages first president to shake hands of course first one ever yeah and and to shake so much that you get bruising i mean for all the talk of how much Democrats around Biden let down the party and many would say the country in their cover-up of Biden's ill health, I do think the conversation has to start and has to be actually much more centre stage about where Trump is failing.

25:22Emily Maitlis:And I think to your point, Lewis, it's really interesting that we haven't heard about the third term, because I think the more people tell Trump that he's not fit for office, the more he will sort of want to stage a sort of sit-in and not go and prove that he is actually immortal. That is Trump's whole shtick.

25:39Lewis Goodall:Well, he'll hate the bandwagon moving on. He'll hate the spotlight moving on.

25:42Emily Maitlis:He wants to be immortal. He is kind of, you know, Ozymandias, this little pile of rubble in the desert, isn't he? Like orange rubble in the desert. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere.

25:51Lewis Goodall:Imagine how confused he'd be if you called him Ozymandias. He'd think it was an Australian reference or something.

25:56Emily Maitlis:I think I've confused everyone, haven't I? I mean, just like, anyone still with me? out there but i do think the questions will get more insistent actually in the coming months about what state he's actually in also the reason we were kept in the dark about biden if we're

26:13Jon Sopel:making the comparison yeah i mean biden never did anything in public biden never stopped at the con on the south lawn of the white house to answer questions from reporters before getting on to marine one to fly off to andrews air force base he never did the gaggles in the oval office that Trump does every single day. If we suddenly see Trump disappearing from in front of a camera and a microphone, then you know something's up.

26:36Lewis Goodall:I mean, he has been doing fewer appearances. I mean, the New York Times was tracking this the other day. He's been doing fewer public appearances. Very few rallies. Yeah, fewer rallies. Fewer compared to the first term. But I suppose the problem with Trump slightly, though, is that, I mean, I always felt this in 24, right, when people were talking about their age. What you were basically seeing is two quite different types of male ageing, right? You basically have the quiet, sort of slightly absent-minded or quite very absent-minded sort of old man. And then you have the angry old man. Doddry versus mad.

27:03Lewis Goodall:Yeah, exactly. And Trump's always sounded mad, either sometimes confected or because it really is who he is. So it's just a bit harder, I think, to distinguish or to actually identify what is potential actual decline and what's just him. More of the same. Yeah, exactly.

27:19Jon Sopel:More of what we've had for 10 years now. Right. Marcus Ward has been in touch. Hi, news agents. given russia's long-standing objective of destabilizing europe and the recent attacks on the european union by figures such as musk vance and trump how serious is the threat posed to european democracy and stability how should europe respond to this challenge love the show it's a great companion on my daily commute oh marcus from bristol thank you very much indeed can we sound so scathing oh no it wasn't scathing no no i'm sure it's not i like being a companion

27:51Emily Maitlis:yeah I was being sincere

27:53Lewis Goodall:ladies companion

27:54Emily Maitlis:you sound like a Victorian Marcus companion

27:56Lewis Goodall:no I was being sincere something you it's very hard to tell with you John I think that this is this goes back to the I think well for me at least goes back to that document that we talked about John the national security strategy strategy and it also goes back a little bit to that first question that we had from Anna about the different sort of radical right parties and so on I do think this is a genuinely new thing for us in Europe to deal with in terms of our democracies and one of the reasons maybe that some of these radical right, far right parties aren't going to just disappear because to some extent, you know, on some level, some of them are being buttressed by, supported by, even to some extent coordinated by a bigger international network, a bigger international network of hard right, radical right, culturally conservative parties, which to some extent or other wish to certainly, let's say, make a bit of a rupture with the way that we've had done democracy in europe for a very long time and that is coming now with the kind of presidential seal of approval and it is part of it when we talked on that episode john it reminds me a lot in a way of kind of like how the old communist parties used to be you know they're sort of almost sort of coordinated from from moscow you know it's all seen as being part of the same international movement and i think that is a new development for us to reckon with at the

29:11Emily Maitlis:risk of sounding like slightly mad no the conversation amongst a lot of my friends who've got sort of children in their late teens 20s is about what part our young are going to have to play in defending our our countries and our freedom and i i sort of can't believe i'm saying that out loud now because we grew up you know with our parents the children of the second world war we thought that that was all behind us we were the generation of peace and love and you know the 70s and the 80s and the kind of you know the boom and all the rest of it and now we're back somewhere where if you look at what the French politicians are saying they're talking about a sort of conscription I mean they've always had military service they're much closer to that than we are but they're actually talking about whether our young will have to go out and fight for their country and i mean take out the idea of whether our young are in any way equipped right now to fight for their countries but i guess it was always thus you know we were always sending young men and increasing young young women out to do jobs that they couldn't possibly be prepared for that's that's the lesson of the ukraine war and i suppose for the first time those are the conversations that we're having now which is is that going to be what we do i hope this is where Well, when Rishi suggested, do you remember before the last election, Rishi suggested military service and we all found it hilarious.

30:37Lewis Goodall:Sounds like it was quite far-sighted.

30:38Emily Maitlis:Yeah. And if you talk to Estonians, for example, they were all like, I mean, the Estonian ambassador was a conversation I was having actually last summer when he was like, why was everyone laughing at Rishi Sunak? We've been doing that for years. We're on the border with Russia. If you'd been on the border with Russia, you would have been doing it for years. I do think that's the sort of the way that the world is developing.

30:58Jon Sopel:For years, you've listened to defence ministers or the chief of the general staff coming out when there's the sort of expenditure round going on ahead of an autumn statement saying well the threats have never been greater and you thought oh you're just you know you're just trying to protect your budget or maybe get a small increase in your budget or maybe it's just to stop your budget being slashed too much and it's just you know fighting the corner so for departmental spending and that was it really and for years that's what it seemed like when you heard defense chiefs saying those sort of things and now i think that has really changed when the music the mood music has become so much more somber about the threat that europe faces and then it may not be a kind of assault by tank brigades coming across the border and going into germany or whatever else or into poland but the threat of hybrid warfare and you know some people would argue this has already started with you know ukraine and some of the skirmishing that's taken place across the border russians have been killing british people

32:03Emily Maitlis:on british soil for two decades yeah i mean make no mistake it didn't start with litvinenko you know i mean he was russian but didn't start with that with that period it has been embedded in particularly i think in the capital but the but the fact is that the what has what has changed is

32:20Jon Sopel:the russians have become much more daring much bolder much more brazen and you know whether it be the incursions of submarines into our territorial waters or or kind of ships that are kind of cutting some you know cables under the sea you know all of that stuff has increased and i think there is a real fear now that i bet you in the mod in the corner of the mod there are people who are planning if we had to do conscription how would we do it what would we need to put in place? What are the men and the supplies and the boots and the army uniforms and all the stuff that we would need to have made?

32:54Jon Sopel:Where would we house them? Where would we train them? But the truth is, is we

32:58Lewis Goodall:wouldn't last 72 hours. I mean, like, all military analysts would say now that, you know, if the British Army, the British Armed Forces have been so hollowed out that, you know, any serious, serious, if we're talking about sort of deploying large numbers of troops to continental Europe, we haven't got the resources and we haven't had for years. So the truth is, is it's all a bit empty. No, there are no boots. There are no boots and there are no tanks. Not least because we've diverted so much of it to Ukraine already. So I just don't know. I don't know. Sometimes I feel almost as if we're, I mean, it makes it scarier for me because, you know, if you compare, I was talking to Mark Urban, you know, colleague of ours in the crisis room about this not long ago.

33:34Lewis Goodall:So, you know, if you compare, say, even British military capability today with where it was in the 1980s or 1990s, you're talking probably about a fifth of the sort of military deployable personnel and materiel which if we're talking about another war how far is that going to get us? You're a fighting agent aren't you? Well you'll be on the home front of course John Yeah I'll be at home Old Captain Manoring over there The fighting agents Yeah yeah yeah That's good new citizens Good citizens And we'll have people Our boys have won once again We'll be blanking our belts

34:03Jon Sopel:We'll be shining our boots That's what they call us anyway of course

34:05Emily Maitlis:I'm going to change the subject with Laurie Driver who says perhaps not pertinent for 2026

34:11Jon Sopel:Hang on is his name really Laurie Driver?

34:13Emily Maitlis:Yes it is Laurie Laurie Driver why you can't laugh at our listeners names now they're probably going is he really called John Sopel I don't think so

34:22Jon Sopel:Laurie Driver he's actually called Captain Manory

34:25Emily Maitlis:I don't know I mean maybe this is from somebody in our gallery who knows perhaps not pertinent to 2026 will we ever see King William V given everything going on around the royal family yes

34:40Lewis Goodall:with a bit of luck hopefully not all I want for next Christmas is the Republic Oh, you're so predictable. Oh, I'm predictable, right. OK. No, I'm unpredictable because I'm saying that I think that the royal family with him as king would change quite substantially.

34:55Jon Sopel:It would still be the royal family. But I think a lot of the flummery would go. I think it would become more Scandinavian, more slimmed down as a monarchy. I mean, what it does with the kind of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall and all that sort of stuff. I mean, those are very big questions.

35:11Lewis Goodall:They were around being carried around when they went on one of their African tours. They were carried around by some local... The Prince and Princess of Wales carried around by... It was very controversial by some... It was by locals. When they went around on their Caribbean tour, they basically... It looked so colonial. They were being carried around by local people there. I'm not sure. I'm not sure that I buy the idea that they're terribly modern, those two, the Prince and Princess of Wales.

35:33Emily Maitlis:The question from Laurie is, given everything going on around the royal family, I guess he's talking about the sort of demise of Andrew and the titles and all the rest of it. And the only thing I'd say, Laurie, is I think what happened with Andrew in the last two months was precisely to enable the sort of regrowth of the royal family in a totally different direction. I think that's what was at the front of the king's mind. I want to do this so that my son doesn't have to deal with it when he comes to the throne. So I don't know if that works, but I think there probably will be a King William V, don't we think?

36:07Emily Maitlis:I think so.

36:08Lewis Goodall:But I don't know if there'll be a King George VII, as in Prince George, whenever, you know, presumably William becomes king and is around for several decades.

36:15Emily Maitlis:And we're sort of thinking lucky boy, aren't we?

36:17Lewis Goodall:Well, yeah, I hope the lad gets away from that gilded prison sentence, to be perfectly honest, because I think it'll be absolutely appalling for him, like it's been for the rest of them. I mean, the interesting history of the royal family

36:26Jon Sopel:is it always does just enough to survive and to maintain public support. I mean, I agree with you, Lewis, that it is changing and it's diminishing, and I think among a younger generation, looking at the royal family and thinking, what? What's all that about? Which maybe, you know, when I was a lad, that wasn't done. It was just accepted that that was the way of it.

36:48Emily Maitlis:We were talking about, I mean, the Bondi Massacre before Christmas, and we were talking about how culturally varied Australia is. I'm really curious. I'm going to go, I'm doing your slot. I'm going to go to Australia. You're doing the Australia correspondence. I'm going to Australia in March to do a sort of tour. And I'm really curious to find out. We're sending you these days. Exactly. I hope they carry me. I can't wait to be carried. But I'm really curious to know how they feel about the monarchy now.

37:16Jon Sopel:I think in an older white generation, there's still enormous support for the royal family. Is that in the

37:24Emily Maitlis:dominance? No, I don't think it is.

37:25Jon Sopel:If you travel, you know, you're going to Sydney and I think you're going to Melbourne and Adelaide, whatever. You're going to find very diverse cities. And people who have come not from bits of British Empire as once was which was traditionally what made up the kind of foreign population. The criminals? Yes. Yeah, I don't think you do jokes about convicts. Yeah, you're going to go down well, aren't you? Have you got a criminal record? Why, do I still need one? No, don't do that gag, OK?

37:54Emily Maitlis:OK, we've got one more after this, you lucky things.

38:09Jon Sopel:The News Agents

38:10Emily Maitlis:Dear Emily, John and Lewis My question for the end of year Q &A is This is from Christopher, who's 29, from E-Sheen How does it feel to be in the midst of an acclaimed actor? No, not Emily's starring role alongside Alan Partridge I mean, drumroll, John Sopel I was extremely confused seeing John pop up in the final episode of Down Cemetery Road. So was he. Despite having the familiar tossing tones of Mr. Sable, I was absolutely convinced it was Tom Cruise that I saw before me. We've all had that experience. How was that, John? And have your colleagues welcomed you since broadcast with the respect deserved?

38:50Emily Maitlis:Ask your autographs. Have you been lined up for a star on the Hollywood Walk phone? I just wish there was some kind of anecdote that could accompany the story of how you ended up appearing in Down Cemetery Road. Let's put a quid in the soap hall.

39:02Lewis Goodall:Anecdote meter.

39:03Emily Maitlis:Here we go. Is there anything that would take us into March of next year?

39:08Lewis Goodall:Were you surprised to be in Down Cemetery Road, John? We'll see you next year. No, no, no.

39:13Emily Maitlis:No.

39:18Jon Sopel:I got an email. Oh, we're starting at the beginning. There we go. Okay, here we go. I got an email. No, they all do. This is a story that I tell against myself. I took off my coat. I got an email from someone senior in Apple TV saying, who was an old colleague of mine saying i want you to be in slow horses i said slow horses so i rang up my agent and said mary you know when you speak to these people if they ask me to pay my own bus fare to get there the answer is yes i want to be in slow you don't hear that from john sople very often and so i go up there to the studios in bristol where my section of it is being filmed i've given two pages of script of what i think i've got to do and we're halfway way through shooting and the floor runner uh the show runners i should say morwenna banks um wife of david baddiel and kind of you know that's all she is a producer and producer of slow horses as well comes onto the floor and said oh it's great to have you here john and i said well who wouldn't want to be in slow horses and she says it's not slow horses and i've been telling everybody that i'd be in slow horses and it wasn't slow horses well you thought you were on the rest is politics

40:20Lewis Goodall:for the first six months here so that doesn't surprise me at all to be honest yeah it turns

40:24Emily Maitlis:out that that gig went to Christian Guru Murthy yeah it was actually on Slay Wars and it was a

40:30Lewis Goodall:child that was a

40:31Emily Maitlis:kind of knife that's sliced

40:32Lewis Goodall:between the ribcage no I think it was just a preference at least it didn't go to Andrew Marre John

40:38Jon Sopel:we'll be back sometime soon maybe not with me bye bye January the 5th

40:41Lewis Goodall:we'll see you bye

40:42Jon Sopel:this has been a Global Player original production