Cheat Sheet | Asylum reform, Trump Epstein u-turn, house prices fall

0:01Hello, you're listening to Cheat Sheet, the podcast that gets you up to speed with all you need to know in just 10 minutes.

0:06Sophy Ridge:It's Monday, the 17th of November. I'm Wilfred Frost. And I'm Sophy Ridge. Let's have a look at what's happening today. So the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is going to be setting out her plans to cut illegal migration. So we'll tell you what that means. Donald Trump has changed his tune on the Epstein files. He's now telling Republicans to vote to release all of them, saying he's got nothing to hide. And winter is coming. Not to get a whole Game of Thrones about it, but seriously, temperatures are about to drop massively. And it's all because of these Arctic winds. We've been digging out our hats and gloves.

0:42Sophy Ridge:Lots to come. OK, so the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is announcing some of the biggest reforms to the asylum system today since World War II. She was out on the morning rounds yesterday. They gave a great interview to Trevor Phillips. So we kind of know what's coming. um she already spoke yesterday about extending what's called indefinite leave to remain quadrupling it uh from five years to qualify to 20 years for those seeking asylum that's what would allow refugees to become permanent uh residents in the uk and she's also expected today to override human rights laws overrides perhaps not the right word reinterpret uh how British law puts in place the European Convention on Human Rights in a couple of key areas.

1:31Sophy Ridge:Sophie, talk us through the headlines for you. Yeah, so this is the big pitch from Labour and particularly from Shabana Mahmood to try and get a grip on the small boats crisis. She says that is why people are losing trust in governments because it's a very visible sign of governments being out of control. and of course all those concerns about migration that we know have been increasing across the UK as well. So the European Convention of Human Rights I think is really interesting as you say Wilf. So she is basically trying to stop the ability of people to appeal. So all the lawyers who get involved and overturn all the decisions that mean people have to leave the country, she's going to try and look again at the ECHR.

2:16So they're bringing forward a bill to change how the right to family life is interpreted. For example, I think there will be questions about whether or not we should just leave the ECHR completely, which is what other parties, such as Reform, for example, want to try and do as well. And she's also going to try and change the law so that multiple attempts to appeal against refusals can't happen too. So lots of kind of nitty gritty in there, but the aim is for once, I guess, or for finally, for them to try and get a grip on small boats.

2:49Sophy Ridge:So the new legislation is going to aim to modify the interpretation of Article 8 of the ECHR. This is what guarantees people to a family life. So if someone does get over here, they can bring many more family members over. It's really interesting. I think if this works, it might actually put to bed the argument that we need to leave the ECHR and instead raise a different question. Why on earth hadn't we done this sooner? And I think it will allow Shabana Mahmood to look like an incredibly effective Home Secretary, not doing something drastic, leaving the ECHR, just working within the current constraints to have an effect that is desired.

3:29Sophy Ridge:By the way, compared to past Home Secretaries in recent years of both sides of the political aisle, if it is possible to simply reinterpret the ECHR in this way. Yeah, I think that's true. You're saying there about how it will make people ask about why this hasn't been done sooner. And I think that's a really important point, because what Shibaba Mahmood is saying is that things haven't been good enough under Labour either, including, you know, casting a bit of shade, I guess, when you met Cooper, who was in the job before as well. So I think that this is going to be seen as something that is another example of Shabana Mahmood getting in somewhere, rolling up her sleeves and getting to it straight away.

4:07There will be some stuff that's controversial in The Sun today, for example, they were reporting that in order to pay for accommodation costs, some migrants will have jewellery seized, will have some of their possessions seized in order to be sold to pay for that as well. So I think that she will receive a backlash from the left. but I do think this is another example of Shabara Mahmood shaking things up.

4:29Sophy Ridge:Quick final point on this. Will, with that backlash from the left, stop her from getting it through Parliament, I think it's very different from revolts on welfare spending, for example. I think this is something that even the left of the party see is driving reform unequivocally and they don't want to sort of stand in the way of that. On parliamentary numbers, the Conservatives will support it, I think as well as the other thing. So, the Epstein files are just not going away for Donald Trump. And it seems like he's realised that now because he's told the House of Republicans to vote for their release.

5:04So, it feels like a massive moment and a complete U-turn to what he was previously saying. He posted on Truth Social overnight, House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because we have nothing to hide. So, he says it because he has nothing to hide. It might also be that so many of them were preparing to do just that and to vote to release them anyway.

5:25Sophy Ridge:So obviously I said last week on the podcast that, you know, President Trump in this regard is like the king. Well, he's just U-turned and kings don't typically U-turn. I stand by the point that the worst this can really lead to for him is increasing bad press, increasing distractions as opposed to fundamentally being dethroned like Prince Andrew or Peter Mandelson. You raised the right question here. Is he doing this because he genuinely has nothing to hide? or the negative argument is his hand was being forced. High profile Republicans were saying we should do this. Most notably, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican member of the House from Georgia who took a lot of heat from President Trump over the weekend, but is clearly won through on this argument.

6:14Sophy Ridge:Or potentially you could say the worst on him, which we'll find out in weeks ahead, is already out there. So maybe he's got less to lose from jumping on the bandwagon and claiming he was always for transparency. I think people can see through that. He opposed the release of these files for many months. He's now arguing for their release. I do still stand by that main point. It's bad press for him. It's a bad look for him, no question. But he's in a very powerful position. It's unlike Mandelson and Andrew Mountband-Windsor in that regard. Sticking on Donald Trump, you might have seen this earlier in the weekend.

6:50Sophy Ridge:He is pushing ahead with his decision to sue the BBC. The range has gone from a billion to a billion to five billion now. So it's really getting optimistic in its aims, this lawsuit. It could be an expensive battle for the BBC, but we've seen the chair push back, various legal experts to Sky News push back, a point that we made a week or so ago. So this programme only aired in the UK and it was a week before the election last year and he went on to win it. So again, I find it very hard to see how he can establish huge amounts of damages are due. But clearly it hasn't gone away yet if he's still talking about filing it, if he does try and file it.

7:34Sophy Ridge:And it'll be interesting to see if there's some kind of diplomatic effort behind the scenes just to be like, let's put this to bed now. Yeah, this is what I'm watching for as well. What's Keir Starmer going to do? The president said he hasn't spoken to him about it. Apparently Donald Trump was supposed to be calling his time over the weekend. I haven't seen any readout yet, so watch this space. So the resident doctors are continuing their strike today. This is the body, of course, previously known as junior doctors. But the head of the NHS says there are fewer people actually taking part in the strikes than ever before, which I think is interesting.

8:09Do we read into that that support for the strikes even within the resident doctors is waning? So they walked out in England at 7am on Friday. They're going to return to work on Wednesday morning. And in a letter to NHS leaders, the chief executive of the health service thanks staff for their heroic efforts to maintain services and at least 95 % of planned activity going forward.

8:34Sophy Ridge:Quick bit of data, Sophie, on the economy, on house prices. It's the right move, the property website saying that the average house price fell by£6 ,000, which is a big move for the average house price in the latest data. That was more than expected. Something to keep an eye on going forward. I mean, housing affordability is incredibly tough in this country. So long term, we need house prices to sort of come down. Of course, you never want them to come down for reasons outside of your control, because the economy is slowing, because people are leaving the country, whatever it might be. So something to keep an eye on going forward.

9:17And you probably realised, actually, if you got out of bed this morning, but things are getting freezing in the UK this week. So far, we've enjoyed a very mild November. But now that is over. That's gone. Cold Arctic air is set to hit the UK this week. And temperatures dropping to minus seven degrees in the Highlands on Saturday night. In the south, temperatures are due to drop to around 10 degrees lower than we've had recently. So get your gloves out. We're allowed to say bloody freezing. I think so, yeah. It's a podcast, right? That's fine. It's not even a swear web.

9:51Sophy Ridge:That does it for Cheat Sheet today. Thanks so much for listening or watching. You can also watch as well on our YouTube channel, that Ridge and Frost YouTube channel, if you want to check us out there.

10:04How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.