Is Starmer ending his abusive relationship with Trump?

0:00Less support through telehealth, but it feels overwhelming and rushed. Check out orderlymeds.com now. Orderlymeds.com was built to be different. Here, you connect with real doctors who take the time to understand your goals, review your eligibility, and guide you through a plan that's right for you. Orderlymeds provides access to proven GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and terzepatide, including both name brand options and personalized compound versions when appropriate. So you have choices backed by clinical oversight, not guesswork. It's a simpler, more supportive telehealth experience designed around people who want clarity, care, and confidence in their weight loss journey.

0:37And your medication is delivered directly to your home in discreet packaging. So your experience stays private from start to finish. Do your research. Ask the right questions. Then visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast for an exclusive offer. Again, that's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Individual results may vary. Not medical advice. Eligibility required. See site for details.

1:03This is a Global Player original podcast. Have a listen to this from Donald Trump on a very noisy Air Force One. But all you need is a few people dropping blinds here and there and, you know, you louse it up. So we need, I'm really, I'm demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory because it is their territory. I'm demanding these countries, Britain and other European countries, come in and help with keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. This is Keir Starmer's response this morning. First, we will protect our people in the region. Second, while taking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we will not be drawn into the wider war.

1:54It's a pretty clear no from Starmer and he's joined by Italy and Germany as well. So is this a moment? Is Europe starting to turn its back on Donald Trump? Welcome to the News Agents.

2:13The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. And in the Strait of Hormuz, shipping is at a trickle. Some vessels are getting through, but with Iranian permission. And you need Iranian permission now to get anywhere because they can block the strait and it is just too dangerous for other shipping. And Donald Trump, now into week three of the war, has suddenly realised he's got an epic problem. That conventional warfare is not doing it against Iran. Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 % of the world's oil flows like that. With the click of a finger, the Iranians can block the Strait and stop all oil moving.

3:00And so Donald Trump now finds himself in the rather desperate position where he's saying, well, come on, I know I've started this war, but where is everybody? Why aren't you coming to help me? Yeah. And one of the moves that we saw over the weekend was Donald Trump starting to deploy what looks to be a marine force around Karg Island. This is an island off the coast of Iran, which has got a very central Iranian oil refinery on it. He hasn't hit the oil refinery, but he has hit other parts of the island. And he is moving troops, marine troops, into the area as if to say, we are now going to start to work on the Strait of Hormuz with the equivalent of boots on the ground, boots on the sea.

3:46What do you call them? Well, boots on the sea would be walking on water, which would, even for Donald Trump, that would be some achievement. Well, one step at a time. So what we're seeing is Donald Trump reaching out to allies. And in this rather imperious tone that you heard on Air Force One, he's saying, where is everybody? Where is everybody? Everybody is looking at the situation and saying, why on earth would we want to get embroiled in his war? we didn't start this, we don't understand where it's going, we didn't see the plan, we didn't have congressional or legislative sign-off from our own members of parliament, why on earth do we want to get dragged into that war?

4:29They're not quite saying it as starkly as that. They're talking about national interests, they're talking about the importance of safety for those in the region, they're talking about looking after the economic interests as well, But they're clearly not about to send warships into this situation. And as if to preempt that in no uncertain terms, Keir Starmer held a news conference this morning. And the top line was really what he now wants to do to bring down energy prices. He talked about the kind of areas that they'll be finding more money for fuel bills, for heating bills, for the rising costs that this war will clearly create.

5:09but he doesn't want to get drawn into the war. And if you read between the lines, Mertz, Chancellor of Germany, is saying something pretty similar. Italy is saying thanks but no thanks. Japan, in its beautifully euphemistic way, is saying I think probably we'll find alternative arrangements. Thanks very much. Trump is even calling on China. Why would China help America? China's ships are getting through. China has no problem. China has no problem. China and Iran are OK. Right. So the fact that Trump is turning to a sort of arch enemy of America to help America sort out its problems when China isn't facing those problems, I think takes you into his state of mind, which is, frankly, getting desperate.

5:59Right. This is a desperation. So there was that comment that Donald Trump made about Keir Starmer that he's no Winston Churchill. And you go back to the Second World War where Winston Churchill was desperate, was begging, was pleading with FDR, with Roosevelt, to come and join the war. And then, thank God, the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and Winston Churchill dances for joy because, of course, it means that the Americans are going to be joining the Second World War. this time round actually the role of Winston Churchill being desperate is being played by Donald Trump he's desperate to get the Europeans to come and help him please I've got myself into a right frigging mess in the Strait of Hormuz I started this war I thought I'd get rid of the leadership it would all be happy days and now we're finding out why successive American presidents have said you must be bloody joking to Israel when they've said come on let's attack Iran because the complications are mounting.

6:59There are no easy solutions. It is very easy to block the Strait of Hormuz if you're Iran. And there's a whole range of weaponry of kind of, you know, drones, unmanned motorboats that could go out and attack shipping. Allegedly, they've got something like 5 ,000 mines that they could just drop a couple over the board of a fishing boat and you've blocked the strait. And so all these countries are now saying to Donald Trump, You started this. This is your mess. Why are we obliged to come and help? Yeah, I mean, a short history lesson to your point was that Churchill was desperate because the Nazi invading force had just essentially taken France and was heading towards the UK and further.

7:46Yes, we were dealing with an invasion across Europe, right? That isn't what Trump is dealing with. Trump is looking like a man who has never played chess before, who suddenly moved his king to the centre of the board and doesn't really understand why he's now under attack. And, you know, to this point, Iran has played politics with oil for decades, not just under this administration. Absolutely. But the Shah of Iran had America literally over a barrel in the 1970s when they worked out about the way they could produce oil and the price they could command after the six day war, Israel's six day war against the Arab countries in 67.

8:32Iran was the centre of the world in terms of oil producing and how it was dealing with America. And the fact that Trump wouldn't even think, wouldn't even think two steps beyond his own nose as to what was going to happen if he suddenly created problems for Iran, who are the gatekeepers, who define what oil gets through one part of the world to the next. The fact that he didn't even think that far is extraordinary. I mentioned that Japan had been sort of euphemistic. I mean, the phrase that they used was that to escort ships faces high hurdles, which is their way of going, I don't think so. Luxembourg, slightly less diplomatic.

9:16Their deputy prime minister, Javier Batal, said his country would not give in to blackmail from the US to join the war, saying with satellites, with communications, we're very happy to be useful, but don't ask us with troops and with machines. I love that. Machines is such a sort of Luddite word. It means anything, doesn't it? We're just, we're not doing it, right? Well, then there's the other thing that Donald Trump has said, which again, I think is just fascinating and troubling. I'll read it. We won't play any more Air Force One because it will make your ears bleed probably. But it's only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there.

9:54If there's no response or if it's a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO. Now, NATO is a defensive alliance. Article 5 of the NATO treaty says that an attack on one country is an attack on all. Donald Trump is doing the attacking here. It is America's war of choice with Israel to attack Iran. It wasn't in defence of anything. I mean, we just haven't had any kind of serious explanation about why this is a NATO matter. This is Donald Trump's matter. This is the US matter. And it's just worth playing that clip of Donald Trump from a week or so ago, when kind of after Keir Starmer has talked about aircraft carriers going, this was Donald Trump's response.

10:45Give me the offer to send two aircraft carriers. Maybe, maybe, but they're not sure. I just put out a response. I said, we don't need him. It's not the right time. It would have been nice to have had him two weeks ago, but the response I put out, I think, says it very well. And so Donald Trump, having stuck two fingers up at Keir Starmer for his offer of an aircraft carrier, is now saying, oh, please, please, please, we'd love to have whatever help you can give And you can understand why other countries are wary, because if they send warships into the strait, they will be sitting targets as well for all their sophisticated weaponry.

11:30Yeah, I do think this takes us back to the place that we started, which is whether there has been a change of mood in Europe, because nearly a year ago we were covering the NATO summit in the Hague last June. And at that time, NATO countries were falling over themselves to please Donald Trump. All they wanted was for the NATO summit to go, well, will we get to this 5 % mark of defence spending? Mark Rutter was pretty much lecturing NATO about how they needed to do more. This was the summit famously where he ended up calling Trump daddy. You know, daddy, of course, had to swear at those naughty countries.

12:15And this was just after Trump had struck Iran for the first time and declared that he had obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities. OK. What is interesting about that summit is I think that was six months into the Trump second term where Europe was saying, well, he has got a point. You know, we haven't spent as much as we should. We can't be dependent on America for all our defence forevermore. And so they talked themselves into a place where this was the practical and the pragmatic and the sensible thing to do. You know, all of NATO was coming together and well done, Donald Trump, for showing us the path.

12:55Six months later, Donald Trump is talking about invading Greenland at Davos. They don't really know what to make of that. He's already kidnapped the president of Venezuela and his wife. They don't really know what to make of that. He clearly hasn't ended the Ukraine war, which he promised to do on day one. They don't really know what to do with that. And here we are in March with a full scale war in the Middle East that he has started. And I think this is the point at which Europe's saying, hang on, we've kind of played the game. You know, we've gone towards his demands. We've pushed our own defence burning.

13:35We've actually managed to find accommodations to what we thought he was asking for. But fucking hell, where does this end, right? Because if he's still going to talk about invading Denmark, if he's still going to go in and start wars, If he's still going to go in and kidnap heads of state, what is the role of NATO in any of that? Why, as you say, why should a defence organisation, which is meant to be keeping the peace, which is meant to be stopping invaders like Putin or stopping invaders like Xi Jinping if he tries to do the same in Taiwan, why do we want to be part of a force which is bellicers, which is starting wars?

14:15And so I do think this is a kind of turning point for Europe because the language that we're seeing now, whether it's from Germany, whether it's from Italy, whether it's from Belgium or whether it's even from our own Pat McFadden this morning on Sky News, is pretty unambiguous now. It's a very transactional presidency and our job is to navigate this, to always remember that the friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom runs very deep. It's a good relationship. It's enduring. And I think it will outlast all the personalities involved. OK, so just decipher that one. It will outlast all the personalities involved means forget Trump.

14:57This is about the countries. We will survive. It will reconnect once Trump's out the way. The other word he uses is navigate this. Navigate is not a word that you use to describe your friendships, right? Navigate is what you do to describe difficult, stormy, complex relationships with your adversaries. And so the fact that Pat McFadden is having to talk about finding his way through this, I think speaks volumes. Keir Starmer hasn't, frankly, spelt out what it means to defend the national interest, to defend people in the region, but not to get involved in the wider war. Maybe he's kind of saying, well, you know, that's for Tuesday.

15:38But the one thing I would say is that I think I think that Starmer's superpower at the moment is being able to be boring, quite boring, you know, not strident, not loud, not shouty. He's kind of hit the right pace and the right tone for this age, which is people are terrified of Trump now. They're terrified of the sound of chaos. They're terrified of the idea of the drones and the airports closing, the airspace closing and whatever's going on that we have no control over. And so when Starmer stands up and says, well, I'm just going to try and take this one step at a time, points A, B and C, points one, two and three, all the things that you normally think sort of stand against Starmer, which is like, oh, come on, show us your personality or show us your drive or show us the glint in your eye.

16:31everyone's going oh yeah that's fine thanks yeah i'll take that and i think you're i think that's absolutely right and i think that the measured tone of not getting into a pissing competition frankly with donald trump where he kind of lets off a rhetorical hand grenade and you feel you've got to fire off a rhetorical missile in return keir starmer's not doing that keir starmer is just but i think that what you heard from pat mcfadden about him being a transactional president we know there's rhetoric we know there's bullshit we'll take it in our stride we're not going to get overexcited but i do think that where trump is right is of course it is in britain's interests and europe's interest that the strait of hormuz is open and is kind of open for business and so i'm sure they are looking at ways in which they can be of help but it's hard to see what that practical solution is without a massive de-escalation and you've got donald trump having being Mr Bellicose and expecting Iran to roll over.

17:32And Iran is playing this long and is playing it cleverly. It knows what the weapon it's got is the Strait of Hormuz. And it is using that to almost blackmail the rest of the world. And Donald Trump is now finding himself isolated over it. Yeah, Iran doesn't have to win militarily. It just has to play the long game. Let's listen to Iran's foreign minister, because curiously, one of the other things that Trump said at the weekend was, oh well we've had chats but I'm refusing to compromise on this even though they want to. Iran's foreign minister went on the airwaves on CBS and went uh-uh. No we never asked for a ceasefire and we have never asked even for negotiation.

18:13We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes and this is what we have done so far and And we continue to do that until President Trump comes to the point that this is an illegal war with no victory. And you know, there are, you know, people being killed only because President Trump wants to have fun. This is what he... Look, I think there'll be people listening to that thinking, how dare you lecture another country about the killing of Iranian citizens when we know that the regime has been the foremost killer of its own people there so far. And I guess this speaks to the wider issue, which is if Trump had thought about this for two seconds longer, if he thought that the way to actually destabilise Iran militarily was to try and create the environment that allowed for regime change, then this would naturally have flowed from that.

19:25In other words, do something for the people first. Don't go in, you know, guns blazing and be surprised when Iran's got an answer, because of course they've got an answer. Yeah, you killed an 86 year old man, but now you've got the IRGC involved and they have got no intention of changing. They're going to be, if anything, more hard line. And I think to your point, you know, how does Keir navigate the, you know, the British interests? well it's clearly not a military escapade in the straits of Hormuz. Why would it be? Because there are ships getting through. Of course there are ships getting through.

20:03The ships that are getting through are the ones that Iran doesn't consider to be enemies. To India, to China. So don't put yourself on the side of America in this one. Otherwise your oil prices are going to be even further through the roof. That takes some navigating. I mean that is what has to be navigating. But look, there's just one other thing about all of this, which is, you know, we've talked about the Strait of Hormuz endlessly. And I'm sure that very few Americans, if they were presented with a map of the world, would be able to point to where the Strait of Hormuz is. But it's affecting them directly now with the price of fuel, petrol pumps.

20:37When they go to fill their car up with gas, the price has gone up. What's interesting is in America, if you want to get Donald Trump's attention, if you're a lawmaker, what do you do? How do you tell Donald Trump that he might have to kind of rethink some of this? You go on Fox News and a succession of Republicans have been on Fox News this weekend to say to the president. I mean, not say to the president, but giving an interview where they're expressing this view because this is their belief is the best way to get to Donald Trump, because Donald Trump will be listening to what's on Fox News. and there are a growing number of commentators there are a growing number of lawmakers who are saying what the hell are you doing what is the plan here and how are you going to stop this before you start ruining the economy ahead of the midterm elections and of course that is a very narrow parochial way of looking at what is potentially world war three but you can be sure that those republicans are worried about their senate seats and their house seats

21:45from a range of trusted voices and award-winning journalists good morning i'm nick ferrari it's time to get to your calls find out the latest news and hear every side of the story there is no question ending the war is the quickest way to reduce the cost of living that is my first instinct my first priority is the best way to help us with petrol and fuel costs for keir starmer to Say yes to President Trump and send the Navy to protect Hormuz. The fallout of the Iran war. Follow it live on LBC. Listen on our free global player app or the LBC app. Less support through telehealth, but it feels overwhelming and rushed.

22:24Check out orderlymeds.com now. Orderlymeds.com was built to be different. Here, you connect with real doctors who take the time to understand your goals, review your eligibility, and guide you through a plan that's right for you. Orderly Meds provides access to proven GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and terzepatide, including both name brand options and personalized compound versions when appropriate. So you have choices backed by clinical oversight, not guesswork. It's a simpler, more supportive telehealth experience designed around people who want clarity, care, and confidence in their weight loss journey.

22:58And your medication is delivered directly to your home in discreet packaging. So your experience stays private from start to finish. Do your research. Ask the right questions. Then visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast for an exclusive offer. Again, that's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Individual results may vary. Not medical advice. Eligibility required. See site for details.

23:25The News Agents. So this morning, the Prime Minister has offered help of£53 million to vulnerable households who've been hit by a sharp increase in the price of heating oil. And we are now looking at oil prices that today spiked, I think, at$106 a barrel. To put this into context, we always talk about like the spikes. What should it be normally? Sort of 70? Well, it was$70 a barrel. Yeah. About that before going into this. So it's gone up roughly 40, 50 percent. Yeah. OK. And this is tricky because consumers who use gas and electricity have got their bills capped by Ofgem. But when it comes to oil, they're not.

24:13So this is specifically for those households who use oil for their heating. And that's in rural areas where you're not connected to mains gas. So what happens is the oil man comes round. He's got a tanker. It goes into your tank. And of course, the price of that is going to go up steeply really, really quickly. And so those are the people that are, I suppose, at the sharp end of the spear, if you like, on what some people are already calling Trumpflation, because let's face it, it's Donald Trump who started this. And so I'll be interested to see where the ministers start using the phrase Trumpflation.

24:49I suspect they probably won't have the courage to do that. But what's happening is that you're seeing all sorts of other things where it looks like prices could go up. And one of the things that, Emily, you were talking about the other day on the podcast was about, you know, fertilizers, where the chemicals to make fertilizers are coming through the Strait of Hormuz. And so if you're not getting that, then either farmers are going to have lower yields on their crops or they're not going to have the fertilisers at all or they're going to pay more for it. And so food is going to go up. And so there are all sorts of areas where you're looking at why inflation is set to rise again.

25:26It was only less than two weeks ago that Rachel Reeves made her spring statement. I mean, has anything aged so badly? It just looks like an irrelevant document, given what we're now seeing two weeks on. Well, I guess it's not an irrelevant document. It's a way of comparing the trajectory that we were on, i.e. inflation at 3%, with what's happened since then, which is not her fault, frankly. You know, it is not this country's fault. Also on those ships, helium. Do you know what helium is used for? Well, balloons. And funny voices. Funny voices. Go on. Cooling data centres. Oh, really? Yeah. So if you think of all the store that Donald Trump has put by AI and, you know, the big tech companies, there's going to be a lot of unhappy bunnies coming up to Easter who are seeing the helium that they need to cool data centres stuck in the middle of the Hormuz Straits.

26:17So you're seeing this in all sorts of ways where, although the change hasn't arrived now, it's the expectation of what's going to happen as a result of this that is going to go on way longer. Even if they announce there's a ceasefire tomorrow, there are things that are now built into the system. So, for example, you know, mortgage products that were an offer for people hoping to buy a house. hundreds of the offers have been withdrawn from the banks and the building societies because they now seem to be too generous because everyone was calculating the interest rates were going to come down and offers were being made on you know fixed rate terms for three years or five years on the basis of that and that's not going to happen now because the trajectory is that people think that inflation will go up and therefore the bank will have to raise interest rates yeah and to your point about Trumpflation, which is this phrase that the trade unions are now starting to use, according to Bloomberg, I think you ask a good question, which is, you know, would the ministers dare use it themselves?

27:21I don't think they have to. They just have to talk about conflict-related inflation or an inflationary wave created by this conflict or something that hints to measures abroad, which are nothing to do with us, that remind everybody of where this started, where it came from. You know, if you call it Trumpflation, yeah, he'll just kind of get cross and start yelling at you. If you just say, well, clearly it is related to the conflict over and over again. I think you've made your point, haven't you? Yeah. And I think it's so interesting the way, you know, if you at the start of this, all the criticism was on Starmer.

28:03Why aren't you doing more to help America why aren't you doing more to support America and that was the very much the voice of the right in this country which is you know pro-american and actually using the war in Iran as another stick with which to beat Keir Starmer rather than thinking whether Trump is right or wrong I'm now getting a push notification from the Daily Telegraph Trump's greatest miscalculation. I think it's quite interesting to watch the way that people on the right in Britain are now starting to talk about Trump's great miscalculation. Who's the Telegraph's first constituency?

28:40Rural farmers, right? All the people that use oil in the heating, all the people with argos, all the rest of it. Those are the Telegraph readers. That's their bread and butter. So if they're seeing the prices go up, or you heard from GB News in the press conference today saying, what are you going to do? You know, price This petrol pump price. This is the problem, is that middle England, middle Britain, is at a place where they don't want to see this conflict. They do not want to see prices go up. There's virtually nobody running around waving the flag for sort of jumping into bed with Trump now.