In short
Podcast Notes: The News Agents - Episode: Trump - Pirate of the Caribbean?
Episode Summary In this episode, the hosts discuss Donald Trump’s recent actions regarding the seizure of a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, speculated motivations behind this act, and its potential implications for US-Venezuela relations. The latter part of the episode dives into the political landscape of the UK, focusing on Tony Blair's recent interview with Shabana Mahmood at a Christmas party and what it might signal for the future of the Labour Party.
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Key Discussions
Trump's Actions in Venezuela
- Seizure of the Tanker:
- Trump has ordered the seizure of the Skipper, the largest oil tanker ever taken, off Venezuela’s coast.
- Claims of the tanker being involved in shipping oil related to Iran-backed terror groups are cited as justification.
- Implications and Concerns:
- Speculation about a potential invasion of Venezuela arises, raising concerns about the legality and morality of such actions.
- The podcast discusses whether Trump is acting like a "pirate" and what this means for international relations, especially concerning US military strategy and Congressional oversight.
- The legality and morality of extrajudicial military actions are questioned, with historical references to previous US interventions and the implications for American foreign policy.
Maria Machado's Perspective
- Nobel Peace Prize Winner's View:
- Maria Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader, provides a more nuanced view, suggesting that cutting off the flow of money related to drugs and arms is necessary, despite the controversial methods used.
Domestic Politics in the UK
- Tony Blair and Shabana Mahmood:
- Discussion of the implications of Tony Blair interviewing Shabana Mahmood at a Christmas party.
- This is seen as a potential endorsement of Mahmood as a future Labour leader, amidst speculation about Keir Starmer's leadership stability.
- Labour Party Dynamics:
- The hosts discuss how Mahmood's policies, particularly on immigration, are polarizing within the party, potentially hindering her chances for leadership.
- The significance of party membership preferences and how they align or conflict with mainstream electoral strategies are highlighted.
Commentary on Leadership and Strategy
- Political Strategy:
- The conversation explores the balance between appealing to party members and the wider electorate.
- Mahmood's approach is contrasted with more traditional Labour politics, with implications for future elections and party direction.
- Wes Streeting and Labour's Future:
- West Streeting’s comments reflect frustrations within the party regarding its direction and strategies, emphasizing a need for more decisive leadership to confront right-wing challenges.
Cultural Commentary on Fonts
- Light-Hearted Segment:
- A humorous discussion on Marco Rubio's ban on the use of the font Calibri in the State Department, deemed too informal and “woke,” while reinstating Times New Roman.
- The segment critiques the absurdity of such political decisions, illustrating how seemingly trivial matters can become politically charged.
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Key Takeaways
- Geopolitical Tensions:
- The episode raises critical questions about the legality of military actions, extrajudicial killings, and the implications of US foreign policy.
- Internal Party Dynamics:
- The discussion on the Labour Party highlights the need for a clear vision and strategy if they wish to remain competitive amid changing political landscapes.
- Cultural Insights:
- The light-hearted commentary on fonts serves as a reminder of how seemingly mundane topics can reflect broader political sentiments and cultural shifts.
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Conclusion This episode of The News Agents offers a deep dive into significant current events impacting both international relations and domestic politics in the UK, blending serious analysis with lighter cultural observations. The complex interplay between military action and political strategy unfolds throughout, leaving listeners with much to ponder about leadership, power, and the direction of global politics.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01Maria Machado:This is a Global Player original podcast. Well, thank you very much. It's been an interesting day from the standpoint of news. As you probably know, we've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela. A large tanker, very large. Largest one ever seized, actually. Of course, it would have to be the largest tanker ever taken. But aside from the superlatives, this is serious. What are the Americans doing? Is this presaging an invasion of Venezuela? The stakes could not be much higher.
0:42Shabana Mahmood:Trump, just to clarify, has seized a tanker off the Venezuelan coast and appears to be about to take its oil. Has he just become a pirate? Welcome to the News Agents.
1:00Maria Machado:The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. And if you were playing this for laughs, and you're right that Trump is behaving like a pirate, and Venezuela is in the Caribbean, then is Donald Trump a pirate of the Caribbean? But we're not playing this for laughs because it's actually deadly serious that it's possible that America is about to declare war on Venezuela with what as provocation. We've seen the actions of the US military blowing up a series of fishing boats that are allegedly carrying drugs on the most flimsy of legal explanation with no evidence given that these are drug boats. And now we see US Marines rappelling from a helicopter onto the deck of a tanker and seizing it.
1:51Maria Machado:Now, the grounds being given for it are that it was kind of involved in shipping oil to Iran or from Iran, something like that, that it had been a sanctioned vessel. But why now? Why is Trump doing this now? And what does it lead up to?
2:06Shabana Mahmood:Yeah, we've spoken in the past about Venezuela and Trump's focus on regime change, possibly wants to get rid of President Maduro and also on its rich oil reserves, which seems to be at the heart of this, certainly. And I guess what is kind of confusing from the outside is that America is trying to grapple with the extraordinary extrajudicial order of Pete Hegseth, who blew up that boat in September, the fishing vessel with, you know, maybe drugs, maybe nothing, who blew up the boat and then went back to say in his second order, kill everyone on board. If there were two survivors, kill those. And instead of the kind of world going, oh, my God, well, everything's going to stop whilst we look at what's happening here.
2:57Shabana Mahmood:Right. Surely this is the end of of the sort of the attacks on Venezuelan boats for a while. Trump, in his sort of characteristic style, has just upped the ante. So this is a vessel called the Skipper. It was carrying Venezuelan crude crude oil. and basically a federal judge, they say, had previously issued a warrant for its seizure because of these alleged links to Iran-backed terror groups. So there's a lot to unpack here. You know, is Trump going to argue that this was basically terrorist goods that he has sort of intercepted and he stopped, you know, the sort of the enriching of a terrorist group by taking the oil away?
3:40Shabana Mahmood:Or is this just part of what seems to be the continuum, which is get Venezuela's president out of the way, seize the oil, you know, take the licenses. And you don't have to call this an invasion because, according to Pam Bondi, some people talk about an invasion of Venezuela. I answer that Venezuela has already been invaded. Her line is we have Russian agents, Iranian agents, terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas operating freely in accordance with the regime, Colombian guerrillas, the drug cartels. So in a way, she is sort of trying to paint Trump as the white knight here. You know, all this stuff that's going on in Venezuela needs clearing up.
4:21Shabana Mahmood:And thank God we have the might of the US to do it.
4:24Maria Machado:Yeah. And with regards to that first Venezuelan boat attack, the fishing boat, where there was the kind of so-called second tap where they killed the two survivors. They went back to kill the second. You know, Hegseth is denied that was his direct order. The US Admiral has said it was his. There is a huge demand from congressmen and women. There was an important vote in the House last night, which is almost making a certain degree of funds going to the military dependent on them seeing the video of this attack and whether it is as described or whether it was just to kill two survivors, which arguably, and very arguably, is a war crime.
5:04Maria Machado:And this is why the kind of... It's not just that America may be about to declare war on Venezuela. Of course, there has been no formal declaration of that. It's the manner in which it is going about it, which is alarming congressmen, senators, on both sides of the aisle, because they think, what is going on here? Donald Trump got elected on America first, that we're not going to get involved in foreign wars. And there is this massive, massive military buildup now off the coast of Venezuela by U.S. forces. And these are the voices being heard in Congress saying, what the hell is going on? I don't think it's really the job of the American government to go looking for monsters around the world, looking for adversaries and beginning wars.
5:51Maria Machado:So seizing someone's oil tanker is an initiation of war. I have absolutely no idea why the president is seizing an oil tanker, and I'm fairly gravely concerned that he's sleepwalking a set of war with Venezuela. If you're a narcotrafficker and you're thinking about getting on a speedboat that is filled with a bunch of cocaine, you're having second thoughts right now because President Trump is saving the lives of Americans. It's going to be a very dangerous escalation and a prelude to a potential conflict we should
6:23Tony Blair:not be involved in.
6:24Shabana Mahmood:I'm worried about what this regime is doing with regard to Venezuela.
6:29Tony Blair:This is no different than presidents have done in the past, whether it was Reagan or people before him as well. I have no information.
6:36Shabana Mahmood:Look, let's not pretend this isn't complicated. I think it is quite complicated, actually. You heard those voices there. The first one was Ram Paul, the Kentucky senator who has been on the Republican Foreign Affairs Select Committee, who actually has had a fairly sort of solid voice in Trump's sort of involvement in foreign wars. You know, he does not like seeing America get into places.
7:01Maria Machado:He's a libertarian and he doesn't believe that America should be involved.
7:04Shabana Mahmood:And I think that what you hear kind of consistently from Democrats and Republicans is this questioning of like the method. Do we really want to start extrajudicial killings and wars without kind of any oversight from Congress, from the actual legislators in America? But I think when I say it's complicated, why it's complicated is you have very strong voices on the other side, like Maria Machado. She's the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. She is Venezuelan. She is the, I think many would say, the rightful president of that country. Now, Maduro basically fixed the election in his favour and refused to cede power to her.
7:45Shabana Mahmood:But she has, I think, given tacit approval to what Trump has done. Again, not the method, but she said it is right to cut the flow of money from drugs, arms, human trafficking. And some of these things do need investigating. Russia has been an important source of weapons for Venezuela, you know, for 20 years. Iran has been helping Maduro, the current president, to rebuild oil refineries. And there have been guerrilla bases operating, you know, Colombian guerrilla bases operating from inside Venezuela, involved in cocaine smuggling. And so I think you have to kind of say, look, this is not black and white.
8:26Shabana Mahmood:It's not like Maduro is, you know, this hero. We're not kind of talking about this. No, benign Democrat politician. It's not a benign little kind of EU state sort of sitting there minding its own business. It probably has covered up a mountain of horrors. But I think just like when, this reminds me of Duterte, when he came to power in the Philippines. Do you remember his first action? He was like, I'm going off the drug cartels. And everyone went, yay. And then he just shot them. Machine gunning them. Yeah, he just machined them. So it's like, do you?
8:59Maria Machado:And he's now on trial at The Hague for war crimes.
9:01Shabana Mahmood:Yes, exactly. I mean, you know, one of the few to actually come to trial for war crimes at The Hague. And that keeps getting pushed backwards and backwards. So, you know, let's see. But I guess the question is, I mean, it's that whole question of like the means and the ends. That the means do not look particularly healthy for the world's democracy to be doing this. The end, do you want to clear up drugs? Do you want to clear up narcotics? Do you want to clear up arms and human trafficking?
9:25Maria Machado:And do you want to have democracy in Latin America? Yeah, all good. Yeah. But, but, but, but. And, you know, this is the biggest military buildup since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Is that right? Yeah, it is. It's the biggest military buildup in that area of the world since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now, the Cuban Missile Crisis, everything was at stake then. You know, Russia, the Soviet Union was kind of sending these nuclear missiles, short range nuclear missiles to Cuba, which could have struck the American mainland. And that was where the standoff came between Khrushchev and JFK. JFK and it was the 11th hour of weather.
10:01Shabana Mahmood:I mean, when you say Cuban Missile Crisis, just in case people aren't familiar with this, we're talking nuclear. We're talking about the verge of nuclear war.
10:08Maria Machado:In the early 1960s. And it was kind of an arm wrestle of kind of brinkmanship between Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, and JFK. And eventually the Soviets pulled back and didn't put the, you know, the missiles onto Cuba. Now, that was everything at stake. Venezuela, of course, as you rightly say, Emily, is a kind of rogue state where the elections were fixed. Everyone knows that Maduro stole the last election, but it's not exactly a threat to the world order. This is Trump saying Latin America is my backyard. And so Millay in Argentina, I like you. You're my friend because you're a right wing populist.
10:53Maria Machado:So I'm going to give you money to bail out your country. Maduro, I don't like you, so I'm coming after you. And the person next, apparently, in the crosshairs is going to be the Colombian president, who Trump has more or less said, we're coming after you next to Gustavo Petro. And already across Fox News, people are talking of war. And this is America asserting itself in Latin America.
11:16Shabana Mahmood:Look, I mean, when you say it's not a threat to the world order, the stuff that we've just been through suggests it is probably a threat to the world order If it's actually the place that Russia's getting weapons from, that is a threat to the world order. If it's actually sort of housing Hezbollah for Iran, that is a threat to the world order. If it's actually distributing drugs and fomenting the cartels, yes, I think that is a threat to the world order. But I guess this is Trump second time round saying, let's not bother with the red tape. Right. Do you remember what happened in the first term when there was a challenger to Maduro in the form of Juan Guaido and both Pence?
11:56Shabana Mahmood:I mean, this was sort of Mike Pence's active role as vice president. Mike Pence said, we're going to support Juan Guaido. And Trump said, yes, we're going to support, you know, Guaido. He's going to be our man. It was kind of a throwback to the sort of, you know, the 70s when America could decide who the leaders of, you know, all these kind of Caribbean Central American countries were. And so they basically threw their backing behind this alternative to Maduro. It didn't go anywhere. Right. Guido never became president. Maduro is still there. And so I guess this is Trump just kind of going, well, that didn't work.
12:29Shabana Mahmood:You know, sod the red tape, sod the sort of formalities of trying to get somebody elected or backing or whatever. We'll just shoot the hell out of them. And I think that's, you know, at this point, he's become a cowboy. He's become kind of no better than the thing that he's trying to get replaced because none of it matters except for his end result. And America ends up with the oil.
12:50Maria Machado:It is Donald Trump behaving without guardrails, without need to go to the UN. What a waste of time that would be. Why don't we just do it without any kind of...
12:58Shabana Mahmood:But you can sort of see that. I mean, like, we're all sitting in a place where we're kind of... Yes, I mean, that's the interesting thing. Like if you ask me, has the UN been a sort of bastion of problem solving for the last decade? Yeah. Yeah. That's that's not a hard one. It really hasn't done. It has not pulled its weight in terms of sorting out the world's problems. So could Congress do it? Well, of course, Congress can't because they all just do what Trump says. They just nod along little nodding dogs. Right. They're not going to do anything. So in a way, why would you even go through the pretense of asking Congress when he controls the Senate and he controls the House and they're all just going to kind of fall into line behind him?
13:37Shabana Mahmood:I guess. I mean, I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying that's what he's thinking.
13:40Maria Machado:I do believe, though, that Trump's ultimate aim is to destabilise Maduro to such an extent that Maduro calls it a day. I think it becomes utterly perilous and risky if you start trying to land American troops on the beaches of Venezuela and it becomes a shooting war and there are American casualties being flown back to, you know, the naval base where they always come back to. Explain that one. And explain that one when you've said America won't get involved in any unnecessary wars. this is a micro point i just noticed on that video i don't know whether you've seen it that the u.s military released of the people coming down the head from the helicopter the and being sort of landed on the boat it says department of war yeah on the bottom it's no longer the pentagon it's no longer the department of defense the department of war and that's how they're
14:29Shabana Mahmood:badging everything that they're doing now look i don't think it is a micro point because what we're really talking about here, and we've discussed it certainly on the US edition of the News Agents USA, is how Pete Hegseth, who is the Secretary of War, has essentially banished the free press from the Pentagon. They cannot report this stuff. And so the Pentagon press corps is now full of people like Matt Gaetz, right? Matt Gaetz, who was a former Florida congressman, who then resigned, I mean, got himself embroiled in allegations of, again, sort of sex trafficking, actually cross-border sex trafficking.
15:11Shabana Mahmood:And he is now one of those reporting, reporting for Pete Hegseth in the Department of War. So what we're really talking about here is the banishing of any kind of scrutiny. The world's media can't actually get to the bottom of what's going on here because they're not allowed in the press briefings. They're not allowed to question the secretary of war. They're not allowed to get inside. They're not allowed to know anything. Right. You've just got your henchmen, your crooks inside who are doing all the reporting for you. They can get away with whatever they want.
15:41Maria Machado:Yeah. And I think, you know, we heard that sort of montage of Republican and Democrat lawmakers. And I think one of them said, look, you know, Donald Trump's not the first president to do this. And of course he's not. I mean, you know, you look at the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. You look at what happened with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and on and on and on it goes where American involvement in Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine, because it's our backyard. We can do what we like and we are the dominant power and we're not going to have enemies of ours in our own backyard. You know, that America has always intervened.
16:14Maria Machado:It is just that that is exactly what Donald Trump promised he would not be doing. And this is why it is jarring for a lot of the MAGA base to come to terms with that something they thought was in the past when, you know, George W. Bush was going into Iraq or others were going to get involved in other wars far away, which cost a lot of American lives. you have Donald Trump. It seems about to do the same in Venezuela.
16:41Shabana Mahmood:But also, I mean, we went through the litany of things that are making Venezuela a pretty dangerous kind of crackpot state. And I can't see that Trump is necessarily on a moral crusade here. I mean, does he mind if Russia is sending weapons to Venezuela? Trump loves Putin, right? We've established that in the last few weeks. I don't think he minds what Russia is doing particularly, but it's about something much more material. At the end of the day, Trump's not going to get involved in a moral war. He's not like the guys from the 60s and 70s, you know, the sort of imperious, you know, colonial kind of do-gooders who think that America is kind of on a moral crusade here.
17:23Shabana Mahmood:He just thinks, well, there's quite a lot of oil and my eyes would light up at that.
17:28Maria Machado:Look, just read the 30 pages of the National Security Strategy, which came out at the end of last week. You could say that Trump is on a crusade. I think it's harder to argue it's a moral crusade.
17:42Shabana Mahmood:We'll be back in a second talking about things closer to home, the Labour Party and the running and riding.
Read the full transcript
17:53Maria Machado:News you can trust and the conversations that matter.
17:57Shabana Mahmood: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.
18:04Maria Machado:My American Week is next.
18:06Shabana Mahmood:Reporting from the heart of Cardiff.
18:07Maria Machado:Discover how today's story affects your life.
18:10Shabana Mahmood:Listen on our free Global Player app or the new LBC app.
18:15Maria Machado:LBC. Leading Britain's conversation.
18:22Maria Machado:The News Agents. and we're delighted to welcome into the studio now for his cameo role and was able to drop in for which sorry where were you yesterday remind me for which we're incredibly grateful otherwise engaged is the answer to your question right mr lewis goodall thank you unbelievably smart thank you john and in comparison to me i mean super super smart you're not hung over are you no why would i be hung over lewis i don't know i have no idea thank you thank you for the compliment Anyway, we were all together last night, the party of Tony Blair's kind of institute. And there are a whole pile of parties that are going on in Whitehall at this time of year.
18:58Maria Machado:I think Prime Minister had a rival party, but we were at the Blair one. And it was interesting. Parting like it's like 1998. Yeah, exactly.
19:05Shabana Mahmood:I mean, I'm not sure that most human beings would recognise those events as parties in the tradition. Like there are no streamers. There are no Christmas hats. They'd be very disappointed. There are not many carols. It's more about the party than a party.
19:19Maria Machado:No bums on the photocopier machine.
19:21Shabana Mahmood:It would be quite disappointing if that was the sort of apex of your festive spirit.
19:26Tony Blair:Well, very few actual Christmas parties do an in-conversation with. The Home Secretary, exactly. Auntie Violet in conversation with great-uncle George. And that is what last night was, which was an in-conversation with Tony Blair, obviously, and the Home Secretary, Shibana Mahmood.
19:42Maria Machado:Yeah, and Tony Blair interviewing Shibana Mahmood. And it was kind of interesting because of the time that we are in, when there is so much uncertainty about the Labour leadership, whether Keir Starmer is going to survive 2026, who would the runners and riders be if he were to fall? And so it went on. And so you were kind of listening to what Shabana Mahmood was saying last night with, I think, more intent interest than may. I mean like last year for example it was Angela Rayner who was at the Tony Blair party and being interviewed by Tony Blair and it was kind of neutral Labour just won the election, yeah there were a few problems but it hadn't come apart in the way that it has done in the past few months.
20:23Shabana Mahmood:Look I think if Tony Blair were here now he'd say guys don't make a big thing of it it was a former Labour Prime Minister interviewing the Home Secretary because she is a sort of new rising star of the party and obviously Labour's fortunes the government's fortune, survive or fall on what happens with immigration. And that was, you know, the reason I did the conversation. But sorry, there was just something very particular about the timing of what we saw last night. It was Blair praising Mahmood's, he called it a radical style, her political philosophy. It was very sort of, you know, quite sort of touchy feely.
21:06Shabana Mahmood:You're doing a fantastic job. What do you think of when you get up in the morning? You know, how do you kind of get through Twitter? It felt like a benediction and it felt like an endorsement because the word radical is a very Blair word, actually. Like he's always, his philosophy has always been, you can be from the centre. And still be radical. But you can be radical. Permanent revolution he used to fall for. Exactly. So the fact that he, you know, the fact that on the same night that the Downing Street Party is going on, which obviously Keir Starmer is presiding over, Blair seems to some of the people in the room, and I guess I would count myself amongst them, to be anointing a potential next leader.
21:50Shabana Mahmood:Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking it. I'm sure there are loads of people around Starmer, loads of people around Blair who will go, Emily, don't overthink this one. But, you know, you feel a mood music in that, and she's his type of girl.
22:03Maria Machado:OK, but my simple rejoinder is that if shabana mahoud is thinking i want to be the next leader and what are the building blocks i need to put in place to ensure that i get the leadership when keir starmer falls i think appearing at tony blair's christmas party is probably not a huge help given that the membership of the party is not that blairite anymore it's changed so much since blair was you know prime minister and seeing as it will be the membership who will decide these things and you know the MPs. I'm not sure being with Tony Blair is necessarily the right thing to be doing.
22:36Tony Blair:I think two things are true at once. One is that, I think what is very clear, McMove was talking about this last night, and she's talked about it since she became Home Secretary. I think she's doing what she's doing in turning to a more authoritarian style, at least, with regards to migration. I think actually, if you talk to some people around Yvette Cooper, I think they would probably say that in actual policy terms, there isn't a great deal of difference. But certainly in style and the way that she's approaching the job, representation.
23:02Shabana Mahmood:Unapologetic.
23:03Tony Blair:Very unapologetic, very robust and to Mahmood's credit, I think she really believes it. If you talk to people around her as well, they will say, you know, we're not doing this because we think it's where the public are. Of course we're aware of that. We're doing it because Shibana Mahmood, particularly as a Muslim ethnic minority senior woman in politics, is aware, she's expressed this explicitly, of how toxic this issue has become and that unless a sense of order is imposed on it, then this will continue to metastasise and poison politics and it will be the handmaiden to a reform victory. I think that is, by the way, all true.
23:36Tony Blair:I also think it's exactly not what the Labour Party wants to hear and she is putting herself in pursuing that in a worse position versus her rivals than she would. And that is brought out by the fact that there was Labour member polling just the other day showing that her personal rating has seen a 32 point drop in her approval ratings over the last few months from plus 26 with Labour Party members to minus six now. So if this is a leadership strategy, it is a bad one. So I think that we maybe have to kind of flip that on its head.
24:10Shabana Mahmood:Yes, Shibana Mahmood is not wooing the left. Shibana Mahmood is not wooing the sort of powerful faction of the Labour Party that could probably put her in place if something happened to Starmer. But I think what she's thinking is I've got to make my party, that party, come to me. And if you talk to people outside the Labour Party, if you talk to voters who would never really vote Labour ever, you know, and I've talked to a lot of them, who will say, you know, we can't stand what's happening at the moment. We don't really like what Starmer's doing. We can't see the point of it. We definitely don't like Reeves.
24:50Shabana Mahmood:The only person who seems to be making any headroom at the moment is the Home Secretary. because she appeals to the kind of the centre-right outside of the Labour Party. And I think she's playing a long game here. She's saying, look, you've seen what Kemi's doing in the polls. She's actually jumping ahead. You've seen that she's pretty robust. She's trying to put the Conservatives in a place where they've got an answer to Keir Starmer. If we don't go there, if we don't follow the centre-right part of the mood of the country, which doesn't like what Starmer's doing, which doesn't like what Reeves is doing, then we're not going to have a chance at the next election.
25:27Shabana Mahmood:I mean, it's a difficult strategy and it's a difficult strategy for a woman with a majority of, what, 3 ,000. Again, this is what you have to look at. Most of the putative next leaders of the party have got tiny majorities or no majority at all, like Andy Burnham.
25:39Tony Blair:Yeah, although if the polling is correct, then frankly there won't be a Labour Party. So those questions about majorities are, I think, sort of weirdly less germane than they would have been in the past.
25:46Shabana Mahmood:But that's why I think pulling the party to where the country is right now might be a better strategy than saying, who have we got on the left of the party that can carry on from Stalin?
25:57Maria Machado:I think Labour only gets serious about winning elections when it's been out of power for 12 years. And in the interim periods, it just wants to kind of be ideologically pure rather than thinking about what is it that we need in terms of the country. I think you're right. I think Shabana Mahmood is a brilliant politician. I think she's a proper heavyweight in the kind of best sense of the word of being, you know, someone who is very firm in her beliefs and her views, intellectually self-confident about what she's doing it and why she's doing it, happy to talk very openly about her faith.
26:30Shabana Mahmood:Yeah, I mean, there was a gasp in the room where she sort of talked about, you know, something felt like divine intervention leading her political journey, right?
26:37Maria Machado:So, yeah, exactly. So I think that she is a really, really impressive politician. And I think she has been brave and I think she's bold. And I think the messaging she's doing on immigration puts Labour in the right sort of place but it makes Labour activists feel uncomfortable and it probably makes a sizable number of Labour MPs which is something we've talked about on the podcast before about her immigration proposal of making Labour people feel uncomfortable and it's not from that position that you probably win a leadership contest if Keir Starmer is brought down and so I suppose I think for Labour's own electoral fortunes probably for the best if Shibana Mahmood were to succeed Keir Starmer.
27:18Maria Machado:What do I think the likelihood of that is? I think small. I do wonder, I think Mahmood,
27:22Tony Blair:I think she's an impressive politician as well. She's still pretty untested. I mean, by comparison to some of the other sort of front runners, she's only been home secretary for a brief period. Yes, the press, particularly the right wing press, love her. They're also building her up to knock her down because they know that she is likely to fail on her own metrics and her own target. Because, yeah, there's been a lot of, like I say, vibes around it and she's talking a good game. But the fact is, is that if it were just about talking a good game, Suella Bravamon would have succeeded. If it was just about talking a good game, Yvette Cooper would have succeeded.
27:50Tony Blair:If it was just about talking a good game, Priti Patel would have succeeded. You know, ultimately, this is a big, big structural problem, which is possibly unsolvable, certainly in the short term, without the sort of really big reform that we're talking about yesterday with ECHR. So I don't know. I mean, I think that the shares in Mood, I think it's still TBC, I would say.
28:09Shabana Mahmood:Yeah, I mean, I would agree. I don't think I think heavyweight is probably too strong at this point. And I think, you know, I was talking to people last night and they all use this word authentic. You know, that's the that's the word every politician wants about them. And I was like, do you know what? Just because somebody says, oh, I know who I am and I'm not scared to be who I am. Frankly, I think Keir Starmer is being his authentic self. It's just that people don't massively warm to that authenticity. Like there's a lot of people who are authentic, but it doesn't really carry much weight. So in a way, the whole idea of authentic is synthetic, because what you're really saying is like, call me this name and I will tell you we need.
28:45Shabana Mahmood:I mean, I still think Shabana using the idea of racist abuse at her to justify a change in immigration policy is one of the frankly weirdest things I've ever heard. You know, I said at the time, if that was about anti-Semitism, if that was about any other kind of racism and you suddenly turn around and said, oh, I don't like that racist abuse. So I'll just make sure that we pander to the racists by removing those people from the country. I'd say two at the time. You'd be absolutely off your trolley. So, I mean, I agree with you. I think she's untested. But I think the other question, sorry, just to finish, is where is Blair's power now in the party?
29:23Shabana Mahmood:Because if this is a gentle ushering, if he is slightly pushing some of her media, slightly pushing her appearances, I'd say watch out for the kind of, you know, the media, the profile pieces that she does in the new year. If he is behind her, then it's also kind of his power on the line as well. You know, are people prepared to see the Labour Party going in a position that was back to the old days?
29:49Tony Blair:I think it's pretty clear that like anyone else in the Labour Party, I'm sure Blair is reasonably unhappy with the direction. You know, you said, Emily, he was a politician. It was interesting yesterday that he did the thing he praised Shabana for was articulating a philosophy. Right. And it's hard not to conclude an idea level that he's referring to Keir Starmer in his lack of ability to do that. And there are, of course, others who were talking in very similar terms. Right. I mean, Wes Streeting has done an interview with the New Statesman for their Christmas edition, where, again, I mean, it's amazing.
30:17Tony Blair:Leaving aside all this kind of gossip about leadership and what might happen, the sort of breakdown, I think, in the authority of the centre continues to marvel, really. I mean, you know, Streeting said in this interview, I'm pretty frustrated, to be honest. I feel like on the one hand, since we've come to government, we've actually done a huge amount that we said we would do, etc. But he also says Labour is in danger of presenting itself as the maintenance department for the country. The problem with that kind of practical, technocratic approach is if someone else comes along and says, well, I've got a maintenance company too and mine's cheaper, why wouldn't people go, okay, we'll give that maintenance team a try?
30:51Tony Blair:It's clearly not naming Starmer and his team directly, but by talking about being too practical or technocratic. Everyone knows what he's talking about.
30:59Shabana Mahmood:It's a good quote, that, because basically what he's pointing to is the doers. I mean, I think Patrick McGuire, you're talking to tomorrow, but he wrote about it recently. People who do, people who see the need to actually do, take risks, you know, jump over chasms. You might fall down the middle or you might get something done versus the people who kind of go.
31:19Maria Machado:Well, you know, are you ever going to put the works department who kind of paint the lines on the road or whatever? Front of house. And that's the most damning part of that quote, because I think it hits the target actually that Keir Starmer promised to be technocratic and there have been significant achievements, you know, arguable, but they have made progress on waiting lists and all the rest of it that it's what they promised to do. But it's because it feels like there's no argument that goes with it, which is clearly Blair's frustration at the moment. It does feel like you are the maintenance department of the guys who keep the building okay and make sure the lights still work and change the light bulbs.
31:56Maria Machado:I mean, there is a world
31:57Shabana Mahmood:There is a world where we want the maintenance department. The trouble is you want the maintenance department when everything is working. You want the workingness to be maintained. But when it's not actually working, and for a lot of people, the country is not actually working. The maintaining the status quo seems like you're going backwards, not forwards.
32:14Tony Blair:I think this is why Streeting is playing potentially a cleverer game, which is that, you know, for a while now, he has been making overtures to the soft left of the Labour Party. He has talked more about Gaza. He's talked about, you know, praising Angela Rayner. getting things wrong. You know, he's someone clearly associated more with the Blairite wing of the party, but he's not someone... Who wasn't there last night. Wes wasn't there last night. And he is clearly, you know, he's clearly making overtures to prepare for a leadership campaign when it happens. And the thing is, I mean, again, if you talk to people around him, then what they'd say is, is that, yes, the received wisdom is that the Labour Party membership always goes to the soft left, that it always wants its tummy tickled.
32:52Tony Blair:But there is a clear difference this time. And I think there is some credibility to this argument. If this leadership contest, when it comes, if Starmer were to be defeated or he were to be removed, clearly the SA question for this leadership election won't just be about policy and won't just be about moving to the left. Because actually, arguably, Starmer and Reeves are providing that anyway, as things are, it will be about how to beat Nigel Farage, how to ensure that the Labour Party not only survives, but defeats the prospect of a hard right government. And Streeting's belief will be to say that he, or I'm sure people would say this as well, that they, that the Labour Party membership, that they can't just do what they normally do, that this will be a more grave leadership election and will perhaps change the calculus that would normally be there and the Labour Party members might vote with their head and not their heart.
33:41Maria Machado:I spoke to someone very senior last night in the Labour circles and said, do you think there will be a leadership contest? And he just went, absolutely. Yeah. That's the thing that I think... Absolutely. There's no way we can go and carry on like this with the polls as we are.
33:53Shabana Mahmood:yeah of course it's going to happen so the question is january or may i i think may it's
33:59Tony Blair:hard for them at the moment to justify you need that kind of ignition right so i think it will be may if the scotland and wales election results are are as bad as i mean as we were saying the other day john of course you can never underestimate the potential sometimes for you know if the results are not quite as catastrophic that that could itself you know give starmer a little bit
34:18Shabana Mahmood:and everyone's been talking them down everyone's been talking them down and you can just completely
34:22Tony Blair:see how Starmer's survival may be somewhat underpriced. But John, I think your point is exactly right, which is I think this is one of the things that is so different at the end of this year compared to the beginning and the transformation which has taken place, which is, as of right now at least, it is just received wisdom within the Labour Party, within the PLP, that there will be one and that Starmer is therefore on borrowed time. And that is just a transformation compared to January.
34:43Shabana Mahmood:I mean, not to do a whole sort of 2025 post-mortem, but do you remember the year began with Elon Musk getting involved in the whole like British shit and the civil war and Starmer was so punchy on that day I remember just thinking good for you you're actually fighting back against the richest man in the world because you're you're telling him where to stick it and and we cannot be bossed around by you know American money or world money or you know world media social media whatever and then that sort of seemed I sort of I don't know seemed to be the sort of high point it's never a good thing is it in your year
35:21Tony Blair:when your high point's in January. It's all downhill from there. We'll be back in a moment.
35:26Maria Machado:And as it's nearly Christmas, we'll be talking about fonts. In church or actual fonts? Yeah. Okay, right.
35:43Maria Machado:The News Agents.
35:45Tony Blair:So as you've been hearing, you would think that given that the US apparently is on the verge of invading another country in the Americas, that the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, would have his hands full. But he has found time, good news is, to wade into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces. This is with an order to halt the State Department's official use of Calibri, the font Calibri, because it is considered too informal and too woke. And is restoring to... Woke? Calibri's woke. And is restoring to the good old-fashioned... Times New Roman. Times New Roman. Excellent. Times, that's your font for the lads, isn't it?
36:22Shabana Mahmood:So I think we need to analyse this. Do we? Yeah. Because Calibri, I'm trying to work out why you'd find Calibri so offensive. And the only thing I can see is that it's quite round. Yeah. Is round... No serif. Okay, so what does... It's taking the knee. It's on serif.
36:39Tony Blair:Is round taking the knee?
36:40Shabana Mahmood:Is it too feminine? Yeah, exactly. Is it too LGBT?
36:44Tony Blair:A serif is so massive, it's like a kick. It's like, yeah, fuck you.
36:46Shabana Mahmood:Yeah, you're right, you're right. Like times.
36:48Tony Blair:Yeah, yeah, times. Roman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gladiatorial. They should go full on wingdings and then everyone will just be completely bewildered. Isn't wingdings what you get at McDonald's or something like that?
36:57Maria Machado:I don't think we did need to analyse this.
36:59Shabana Mahmood:That is quite a dad joke.
37:01Maria Machado:Are you amazed? Three years in. Surprise me. No. God. There's a whole lot of trouble that we've just opened up now.
37:07Shabana Mahmood:We will have more on the US, font or no font, on the News Agency USA. Please join us there. It's out later.
37:13Maria Machado:Yeah, we'll be fonts of wisdom there. Goodbye. Oh, God. This has been a Global Player original production
From the publisher
Trump has attacked a huge oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela - and when asked what would happen now to the oil responded “we will probably keep it". Is there actual strategy behind the piracy? Will it help him topple the illegitimate Venezuelan President Maduro? Or is it just about seizing assets? And what does Nobel peace prize winner Maria Machado make of Americas posturing?
Later, why is Tony Blair interviewing Shabana Mahmood at his own Xmas party? Is this a not too subtle endorsement? Or a friendly festive chat? Is the replacement of Keir Starmer now an open secret even in Blair circles? And who might the other contenders be?
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/