Iran War Q+A

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Hello, thank you so much for sending in all your questions

about what on earth is going on in Iran.

All week, I've been asking the BBC's best experts

in the newscast family what they think is going on,

but on this episode,

it's going to be your questions that we're posing to them.

So we can really, really get to the bottom

of this massive global story.

And this is the episode of newscast

that we recorded on Thursday, tea time,

which was broadcast on BBC one after question time,

but it's now in Europe, broadcast feet.

Newscast.

Newscast from the BBC.

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I was the toppled tail in the class.

Can I have an apology, please?

I trust almost nobody.

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Next time in Moscow.

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Take me down to Downey Street.

Let's go have a tour.

Blind me.

Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.

It's Chris in the newscast studio.

I'm joined by Jane Corbin,

who's in the middle of making a panorama

about what's been happening in Iran.

How's that going?

Yeah, we'll get there.

We'll get there. Thank you, Adam.

We were recording an episode of newscast

the podcast earlier on today,

and you just come from interviewing a couple in Dubai.

And in the middle of the interview,

there was an attack.

Well, the alarms, the sirens,

and I think both Abu Dhabi and Dubai

had more missiles and drones in coming.

And they were obviously really upset and quite panicky.

They were trying to get to the airport, actually.

They thought they're getting a flight out tonight.

We'll see there.

See if they managed to leave in the next few hours.

And also here is Chief International Correspondent,

Least to Set. Hello, Least.

Hello. And of course, I have to say that, Jane,

has a stellar history of always making it to a deadline on time,

even feeding in documentaries live, right?

Do you remember people used to do that before?

Yeah. A and B roles.

So you're feeding the A role while you're editing the B role.

This is when we did things on takes, as opposed to just uploading things.

Don't show my age, Least.

Yes, please.

Right, we're going to focus this episode on events in the Middle East,

the US and Israeli attacks on Iran

and Iran's retaliation against its neighbors.

And what we thought we would do is we would ask newscast listeners

to send in questions because our listeners have a habit of hitting the nail on the head

and helping us all understand what is going on.

So I'm going to go through the questions

and then together we'll sort of brainstorm the answers.

And it's not like an exam. There's no correct answer,

as I've discovered this week for lots of these issues.

So our first question is from Chris in Waterlooville.

He says, or she says,

do you think Trump has underestimated Iran's wide-scale response?

And then Chris has gone for a bonus second question,

saying, what does victory then look and feel like?

So who wants to take that one, please?

It's not even clear whether if President Trump was sitting here,

whether he could give you an answer,

because his answer has changed,

sometimes even from day to day,

if we take what should be the most authoritative account,

which was the New York minute video he put out in the middle of the night

and Florida time,

the attacks had already started, Israel started the attacks

in the early hours of Saturday morning.

And he said, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

Iran cannot have ballistic missiles.

The Iranian armed forces should lay down their arms.

And when the bombing is done,

the Iranian people should take control of their institutions.

So in other words, regime change.

But since then, sometimes he talked about Venezuela

being the perfect scenario.

In other words, you go in with military action,

you remove the president, in this case, the supreme leader,

who was a, Ayatollah Hamaneh,

who was assassinated on Saturday,

and then you work with the new person.

Sometimes he talks about how many leaders have been killed.

And he says, and it's a rather cross thing to say,

but he keeps saying,

well, the people he had in mind are already dead.

And then he says the next day, well,

everyone's dead that we were thinking of.

And then today, just before we started recording,

he said that he wants to be,

he wants to help choose the next leader.

He wants to be involved, too.

So it's not clear, and maybe Jane can say,

it's not clear whether he would be happy with a change

in the regime in Iran,

or it has to be regime change.

And it doesn't help that senior members of administration

give differing views on why the war started

and when it will end.

Well, because Jane, we've had quite a few conversations

in this studio this week about,

well, did the Israelis go for us

and the Americans had to follow them,

or did the Americans and Israelis jump together?

And there's differing accounts of that.

Yeah, and it's least said,

members of President Trump's administration have said,

first of all, rather astoundingly,

we were bounced into it by the Israelis

because we knew that they were going to hit Iran,

and Iran would hit us back, us America,

so we had to hit them.

And then we've heard them quite the opposite.

So it's really been all really all over the place.

But I think the talk of regime change

has really dialed down in the last few days,

although as Lee says tonight,

or today, President Trump has indicated

that he wants control over who comes next,

and he's been quite firm,

it should not be the son of Ayatollah Khaminay.

So he's really put his spoke back in again,

but less about regime change.

And I think that's because the Americans realize

that the people of Iran are not going to rise up

and take to the streets with a risk of terrible bloodshed,

that's not going to happen.

So therefore, regime change is not perhaps going to be

the simple thing that it was that we heard right

at the beginning of this attack.

And also, at least there isn't some new leader

who's ready to go live in Venezuela.

Yeah, there's no Delta Rodriguez

who went from Vice President to President suddenly,

she seems they seem to have decided,

it's better to work with the United States administration

about cooperating with them on oil, on other things.

You know, the political system that you have in Venezuela

is left-wing Chabismo after Hugo Chavez,

but what you have in Iran is something completely different.

To give you just a very short explanation,

it's not as if you can simply take as they did in Venezuela,

with a certain amount of difficulty,

because there are those in the administration

and in the military who are ideologically,

deeply ideologically opposed to the United States.

But the Iranian regime, it's not as if you can take one person

and say who could possibly be more pragmatic,

could be among the reformist camp,

rather than the hardliner principalist camp, as they say.

But that person would not simply change the system.

He has to work within a system,

which is layers and layers and layers,

political, ideological, religious, security,

and the elite revolutionary guard corps

and the Basiti volunteer militia, ideologically hardline,

deeply suspicious of the United States.

And Jane, what about the first half of Chris's question,

which is, do you think Trump has underestimated Iran's

wide-scale response?

Because I'm thinking back to the military action

by the US against Iran last summer,

where Iran fired back, but in a very limited way.

And delay as well, in firing back, it wasn't immediate.

But this time, they fired back immediately.

And in ever-widening circles, I think 10 countries

now have come under attack.

And as far away as Azerbaijan, even at one stage,

we were told a missile was heading for Turkey,

who is a NATO member.

So it's a much wider circle and far more attacks.

So I think that, although Iran made it very clear

before this started, that if there was action, as last June,

they would hit back at American bases,

I think the scale, the number of attacks

and the longevity of them has really surprised the Americans.

And it's certainly surprised the Gulf leaders as well.

And I should just mention, it's just this whole

conflagration underlines, not just the deep distrust

between the two sides, but the deep misunderstandings

that has been part of this relationship,

ever since, of course, the Islamic revolution of 1979,

that Steve Whitkov, President Trump, end voices,

President Trump is surprised that the Iranians haven't

given in after they saw the build-up of U.S. military

might, the biggest build-up, in decades,

to which then Iran's foreign minister posted

on social media platform X. He put an Iranian flag

and said, we are Iranian.

In other words, you misunderstand the nationalism

of the people of Iran and their defiance

and readiness to fight back.

And also, Iran's neighbors, how prepared were they for this?

Because the threat has been there,

but it also seems like they've been quite surprised

at the threat of their materialization.

I didn't expect it.

I was really struck by what happened in Kuwait,

where for reservists in the U.S. military were killed.

They were in a sort of almost like a, not a caravan,

but they weren't even under-hardened shelter.

They were IT specialists.

They were working on a trailer, yeah.

In a trailer, and they were hit and killed in Kuwait,

and you sort of feel, wasn't there any recognition

that they were exposed?

They were American servicemen working

on American base in Kuwait.

And yet, they were not protected.

And yeah, you just think about Dubai Airport,

like so many people I know fly through Dubai

on the way to their holidays.

And that's now sort of, it's not a war zone,

but it's a very vulnerable bit of the world now.

So I'm very senior official, and the Gulf said to me today,

that what are you on in trying to increase the price?

It's gone after sort of the headline buzzwords, like Dubai.

Everyone around the world knows what Dubai means,

go and Dubai as much as possible.

And so Dubai, which as up until now,

been synonymous with stability, safe haven,

place to get rich, place for the rich playground.

Now suddenly, there's images,

and they're just a small ones, but still five star hotels

on fire, debris falling into swimming pools,

and of course, straight of hormones.

And so all these words, buzzwords, if you like,

of what places that matter to the world

are what they're hitting.

Right, Chris, we've got a question.

Which Ron says are legitimate targets, of course.

Yes, and also some people would say Dubai is not a playground

because the human rights for some of the people

that live in Dubai aren't very good.

But that's all other issue.

Chris, question for you from Jimmy.

But the hotels are not deliberately being targeted.

I should just clarify.

It misintercepts themselves.

Oh, yeah, and that's the other thing.

There's sort of the thought, there's a lot of fog of war here.

A lot.

Because you initially see reports and you think,

oh, Iran has struck that building in that country.

No, no.

And it's in Dubai, the Fairmont Hotel,

which has become emblematic because of the palm,

the emblematic of what Lisa's talking about, the playground.

That wasn't hit by a missile.

There was a drone that was intercepted,

and debris came down.

And obviously, a hotel's full of glitzy bits and bobs.

It just went up in flames.

And a lot of people took pictures of that,

and it went wild on social media.

But it wasn't actually hit by a missile.

And it was the very basic observation about wars,

is that they then have consequences,

and it's difficult to predict the consequences,

and it becomes confusing.

And there are spillover effects.

Right, Chris, as promised, a question I have for you

from Jimmy, who says,

is Keir Starmer playing a blinder by showing strength,

which is something Trump actually admires,

which is slightly counter-intuitive question

from Jimmy there, considering lots of the commentary

around Keir Starmer.

Keir Starmer's outlook, and he gave this news conference

on Thursday afternoon.

I think trying to, certainly from a UK perspective,

sees the agenda and look like he's taking a grip

of the UK response, because he's faced pressure

from Donald Trump.

He's faced criticism from some voices in Cyprus,

whether it's the RAF base,

and indeed domestic pressure from various angles

around the UK's response.

I think there is something perhaps,

and this is more recent, James Wheelhouse,

under his mind, in terms of Donald Trump respecting those

who do stand up for themselves.

That said, from the Prime Minister's perspective,

it is also true that he's had, I think, quite a lot of pressure

from Washington.

We've seen it publicly.

I think it's been happening privately as well,

particularly regarding access to runways,

both in Gloucestershire and in Diego, Garcia.

I think the Prime Minister, I certainly got the impression

at the news conference this afternoon,

wanting, what he used to phrase he talked about,

being calm-headed, that sort of sense that this is a conflict

without, I mean, there's so many unanswered questions.

Well, his opening line was,

I'm here to show you how calm I am,

and that's my leadership, and I do just wonder,

if you have to sort of say that explicitly,

it sort of suggests you're maybe feeling a little bit subconscious.

Yes, I mean, I'm just...

Yeah, I think there is a...

That's a fair kind of critique or observation.

I think he was trying to, certainly, to a UK audience,

give across a sense that he sort of knows what he's doing,

and he's approaching, as I say, with that kind of calm-headed sense.

I think there's a sensing government,

they know where public opinion is at the moment,

and certainly the early evidence of public opinion in the UK,

which has long been skeptical about Donald Trump full stop,

but then I think he's about this war as well.

And I think as well, I think as a sense from him,

of almost a sort of new reckoning

around the whole quote-unquote special relationship.

Because, you know, so much,

we talked about this, didn't we, early in the week on newscast.

Obviously, he has invested a huge amount of effort

into building a decent relationship with Donald Trump.

We've seen repeatedly now Donald Trump

in the last couple of days be pretty critical.

Well, yeah, let's remind people about what happened

in the Oval Office at the start of the week

when the German Chancellor was visiting,

Donald Trump was doing one of his Q&As with the press,

and he was asked about the attitude of Britain

to the military action in Iran, and this is what he said.

By the way, I'm not happy with the UK either.

That island that you read about, the lease,

okay, he made it for whatever reason.

He made a lease of the island.

Somebody came and took it away from him,

and it's taken three, four days for us to work out

where we can land.

There would have been much more convenient landing.

There's opposed to flying many extra hours,

so we are very surprised.

This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with.

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So that's a reference he's making there

to the Chegos Islands.

And we've talked to everybody on newscasts

about this long-running argument

about the future of the Chegos Islands

and in particular the military based on Diego Garcia

and the argument that you've heard

from the British government,

there's been something of a rower

about the future of the Chegos Islands.

It's the way to secure the long-term future of the base,

even though it comes with a price tag,

is to hand over the sovereignty to Mauritius

but then to lease back the base

and that that offers,

said the British government argues,

is the long-term future of this base,

which is usually important to the UK

and indeed to America.

I think Donald Trump has rather conflated

the arguments around the future of the base

with arguments around the Prime Minister

not giving him permission in the first instance

to use the military base there

to from American bombers targeting Iran.

That permission has now been granted.

We think for both the base there

and indeed RAF-Furford in Gloucestershire

for these defensive strikes on missile sites in Iran

but clearly a frustration there,

you've heard from the President

that not only was this a disagreement

with Keir Starmer but it was a disagreement

from the White House's perspective with consequence

because they couldn't use those runways

and that was inconvenient

because they had to use other runways

with additional flying hours, et cetera, et cetera.

I don't know what newscaster Jimmy's film tastes are

but I wonder if he's getting at the love actually reference

by when he says is Keir Starmer playing a blinder

by showing strength.

In other words, like in the film

when Hugh Grant's the Prime Minister

and Billy Bob Thornton is the President

and Hugh Grant basically says to Billy Bob Thornton

very publicly, you ain't having what you,

I'm not giving you what you want.

I can't remember what the actual policy issue is

in that film but is this an example though

of Keir Starmer's sort of-

Is Keir Starmer like Hugh Grant or is he like that?

I mean.

Well, I think, I thought was an interesting riff

from the Prime Minister's questions this week

where he tried to publicly redefine

or define in his own mind publicly

what he sees the special relationship to be.

So he was saying in terms,

it's not about hanging on every word of President Trump

and that's pretty much what he said, I think.

Not hanging on every word of President Trump

but it is about intelligence showing

and by the way when I speak to Fokar

are in the sort of deeper elements

of the relationship if you like

between London and Washington,

they emphasize that military and intelligence

and security services cooperation

which is really deep-seated

and then the political relationships sort of

have some flows depending on who's in the White House

and who's in Downing Street, et cetera, et cetera.

But talking about intelligence that's sharing,

talking about the military cooperation

going on in terms of protecting allies

and the Gulf, et cetera, et cetera,

as opposed to if you like the more-

if you like rhetorical stuff between the two leaders.

But then I suppose that's what you are going to say

when there's been a bit bumpy-

Yeah, but the relationship hasn't been perfect in the past.

No, sure.

Good relations, I think of George Bush and Tony Blair.

There have been less good relations.

Obviously Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan

also strong, but you don't have to go that far back.

For you now.

Britain refusing to send troops to Vietnam.

And what happened there?

So I think you're right,

it's there's a sort of public level

which is a relationship between usually two men,

maybe a woman occasionally, Mrs. Thatcher.

And then the reality, which is the much deeper

and broader understanding and cooperation

on defense and intelligence.

But one of the interesting things about this conflict

is just how everyone is trying to project

their version of strength and trying to do it very visually.

So for example, Pete Hegseth,

the defense secretary in Washington,

the Secretary of State for War, as he calls himself,

published that video,

which appears to show an American submarine

shooting an Iranian naval vessel

off the coast of Sri Lanka,

just another example of the ripples spreading out very, very wide

from this conflict because Sri Lanka's a very long way away

from Iran.

And then he was sort of going on this whole thing

of quite yeehaw thing.

This is the first time the Americans

have sunk a ship with the torpedoes as World War II.

And then you've got Emmanuel Macron doing that speech

about France's policy on nuclear weapons

in front of a huge nuclear submarine in a dry dock.

And then he's sending the French aircraft carrier

to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, Kirsta, I was talking about sending HMS Dragon

and it's going to take about two weeks for HMS Dragon

to get to Cyprus.

All this sort of supposed strength or whatever,

it being deployed very visually.

Yes.

But then the twist with the whole question around HMS Dragon

with the permanence of getting some criticism

for how long it's going to take to get to the Mediterranean,

probably a couple of weeks,

because it hasn't set off yet.

Is my understanding is it was due to be heading

to the high north.

And of course.

That's month's crisis.

Well, this is the point, isn't it?

What were we talking about just a matter of a couple of weeks ago

in the context of Greenland?

And that last flare up between President Trump

and other Western leaders around all of those questions.

So my goodness.

And then on the question of Donald Trump

and his relationship with others, not least Kirsta.

I'm struck.

And this is intriguing, isn't it, with this president?

And then we were examining what

with the history of the special relationship over decades.

The relationship between Donald Trump and notionly his allies

can ebb and flow in matters of days and weeks constantly.

You just think around the rhetoric around

presidents of landscape, for instance,

and how that's ebb and flowed.

Yeah, he might, tomorrow, call up and say,

how much he loves the king, loves the accent of secure

summer, and just you just don't know.

And by the way, in one way, he is like Churchill,

because Churchill really flattered Roosevelt as well

and tried to send him thousands of messages

and really made it, because Churchill

came up with a phrase, special relation.

Eight years ago this week, he's got the podcast on that.

But you know, just on the line, I find it really

is because you've also had Mark Carney, who has basically

saying, well, OK, we are backing it with regret.

And then hasten to say, but we see this

as a, that it isn't consistent with international law.

So you have secure summer, the barrister,

and Mark Carney, the banker, trying to make sense

of Trump the property dealer.

And it's like, you know, what if a banker,

a barrister, and a property dealer walked into a bar,

what kind of war would they have?

But they're really, and I will say this in

in secure summer's defense, the legality of it

mattered, because what does the UN charters say

that you can only take this kind of action,

invade another country, attack another country,

is if you have a UN Security Council resolution,

or if there is an imminent threat, and there is neither

still in this war, and it's about to enter it second week.

And obviously, everyone will remember what happened

with Iran.

Yes, Shadda was there.

Shadda was there.

Here's to express it.

Yes, and of course, you know, the efforts that were gone to

to ensure a UN Security Council resolution.

And the questions over the legality,

and would the advice be made public?

And it was all very, very difficult.

And nobody is forgetting that.

And as you say, especially Kyrgyzstan,

and they shouldn't, no.

Right, well, we've done a sterling job

of getting through a whole two questions.

A lot of brainstorming going on here.

Right, the question from Simon and Aberdeenshire.

Oh, this is a good one, because this goes,

gets deep into actually how Iran works as a country.

And Simon says, what is the status of the regular Iranian army,

not the IRGC, not the Revolutionary Guards Corps,

and is the domestic Iranian army enough to depose

the weakened regime or protect citizens from a clamped down?

In other words, quite often if you had a coup,

it would be driven by the army,

they'd be replacing their leaders,

and they'd step into sort of look after the people.

But of course, in Iran, you've also got the Revolutionary Guards, as well.

Ideological.

Yeah.

Well, the regular army is actually big.

It's about 400,000 strong, but it is a regular army,

and its task is to secure the territorial integrity of Iran,

both internally and externally.

And if there's an external threat, but that's a big army.

And the IRGC, which is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,

is exactly what it says.

It was created in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution in 1979,

specifically to guard the tenets or the beliefs of the Islamic Revolution

and to guard the Supreme Leader.

And it's a much smaller force.

It's about 125,000.

So it's a third to a quarter of the size of the regular army.

But it has the power, because not only is it the power together

with the besiege militia that Lee's mentioned,

the paramilitaries that it essentially go with it,

it controls the sort of sharp end of the defense system, the Navy,

the missile brigades, the whole nuclear program.

These all come under the IRGC.

It has the real strength, and it also has tentacles deep into the country,

into its economy, into its industry, into its politics.

So it is the real force in Iran, and not the conventional army.

And Jane and I had a great conversation on when's these episodes of newscasts,

where we were quizzing our colleague, C. Avash Ardalan, from BBC Persian.

And he was talking about how there's a theory and some evidence

that the, how many regime told the IRGC to be quite decentralized

and sort of just gave them some broad instructions about

if there was an attack from the Americans,

here's what you should do in principle.

But it's up to you individual units, individual regions of the country

to fight back in the way that works for you,

which kind of makes it harder for the, for the US to dismantle.

But also the Foreign Minister Abbas Adakchi admitted this

because he was interviewed and was made a kind of an apology to Oman,

which had come under attack, but Oman has been the main mediator

between Iran and the United States for decades.

You could see his expression.

He said, well, it's decentralized now.

In effect, he was hinting that someone took the decision

to hit Oman, not realizing how crucial

Oman was to the, to the Islamic Republic.

Does Iran have any friends now?

Because a lot of those countries that it's been attacking

were sort of getting into the friend zone

in the last few years, weren't they?

There was a, there was a huge rapprochement

that these, you know, major Sunni Arabs,

this is including the wealthy Gulf monarchies

and the Islamic Republic of Iran had come

to a kind of a rapprochement realizing that

if you use a phrase that sometimes use regional solutions,

regional problems need regional solutions.

And during, for example, the, the 12-day war last year,

it was absolutely crucial that Abbas Adakchi,

the Foreign Minister, could pick up the telephone

and talk to countries and Arab capitals.

And in the run-up to this war,

they were on the phone constantly to President Trump

or racing to Washington to tell him, don't go to war

because it will have huge consequences.

But again, today, a very senior Gulf official said to me,

it will take decades to repair this lack of trust.

And in fact, they said to me that when,

if and when the negotiations every resume,

Iran had been refusing to put ballistic missiles on it.

There's no way now that the United States, Israel,

or these Gulf states, Arab states who've come under attack

are going to allow Iran not to include ballistic missiles.

They now see it as a threat.

How much of a risk is there now of total chaos in Iran?

Very high, I think, very high.

Because, as Lee said, it's decentralized.

The order went out.

You control your own regions.

There's some 30 provinces.

There's some 12 ethnic groups.

And a huge country?

A huge country.

So the possibility of a fracture

and the possibility of a failed state

is, I think, growing potentially more risky.

And, of course, a failed state means

what the Americans have been talking about in the last few days,

which is the threat of terror.

And what will come out of Iran, what might crop up

in other countries, obviously also criminal elements

and the outflow of refugees.

And when you think about a huge country like Iran,

how many thousands of refugees could flow out and into Europe

and create a crisis, the stakes are really, really high

that Iran disintegrates in some way.

Oh, la, la.

No, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But this is what's causing such an unease

and torment for Iranists, even those who want to change.

Iran is a very proud people, very nationalistic.

And the integrity of Iran really matters.

We don't have time to go into this.

But the reports, conflicting reports

about either United States or Israel

arming the Kurds is sending shockwaves among Iranians

who don't want it to break up on ethnic alliances,

you, as you said.

But it all depends, Chris, on how long it goes on.

So far, the center is holding so far.

Was that a bit of the French-Canadian popping out there?

What?

When you said Ula-la, did I say Ula-la?

Yeah, yeah.

And you said it in a very French way,

but it's a little bit Canadian, right?

What if I, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But just to end on a serious note though,

and actually, Jane, I was just thinking that when you said,

oh, there could be a huge refugee crisis.

I hadn't, I hadn't even thought about that.

And I think it's because we've got colleagues

who are on Iran's border as looking to see

for people crossing, and they've all been reporting

that it's a trickle of people crossing.

Yeah, because the center is holding,

and I really think that the moment it's holding,

and so psychologically, it feels like,

oh, there isn't a huge wave of refugees fleeing.

Yeah, it's only day, well, exactly.

It's only week one, and then we're back

to what is the time frame for this?

And I don't think we, well, we obviously heard President Trump

saying four to five weeks at one point,

and then he said, we're ahead of schedule.

So what does that mean?

Does that mean a few more days?

But, you know, wars, I mean, Putin was going to take

him in a week.

Yeah.

The, obviously, it was all going to be over,

and it's months later.

And they're years later in the UK, and they're not.

Oh, years later.

And, you know, just think, people start out

with these time frames.

God help, God help all of us if it's still going on.

Doesn't bear thinking about.

And then this is going to sign up a bit parochial now

considering the issues we've been looking at.

We're forgetting our listeners' questions.

Well, we're going to have time now.

We managed three whole questions, but they were a very good

high quality questions.

But I was just going to make the point, Chris,

and it's about the energy price cap, which might sound a bit

ridiculous in this context of what we've just been talking about.

We've just had the new energy price cap put in place

for the next three months, and it had come down

because the government had taken lots of the so-called policy

costs of energy bills, so the things that are mandated

by the government.

The next energy price cap will have to take into account

the international price of gas, which this week went through

the roof.

If it goes back down through the roof in the other direction,

back to the floor in the next couple of days,

the price cap in the summer might be fine.

But if it stays at this elevated level,

then everyone's energy bills will go up a lot

just when the government was trying to tell the story

about the energy bills going down.

Yes.

And so, I mean, this is another longer term consequence.

Completely.

And so to be very kind of parochial, very domestic,

I'm conscious looking at it through the prison that I do,

at the moment, of course, you've got the geopolitical,

the military, the reality of this ongoing war,

which is obviously huge and hugely significant.

You've then got, if you like, practical and consular,

what the UK is doing, they allowed us in in this attempt

to talk up what they're doing in terms of trying

to grip this domestically.

They allowed our cameras into their crisis centre,

as they call it, in the foreign office today,

showing us what they're doing,

trying to pull together, bringing Brits back

from the region, et cetera, et cetera.

And then there is the economic and the kind of practical

consequences for millions of newscasters and others

worrying about petrol prices,

worrying about inflation, worrying about interest rates,

worrying about energy bills.

And those in government beginning to think,

how is that managed?

And then that's back to the big and vulnerable

about how long this lasts and with what consequence

and who assumes the leadership ever ran in there,

in the short, medium and long term, et cetera, et cetera.

Those are just all, at the moment,

impossible questions to answer aren't they?

But profound, big questions that can have huge consequence,

domestically, it's a European level, it's a global level.

And can me and Chris do a bit of a humble brag,

was talking about how the government manages these crises,

where the only journalists have been in the Cobra briefing room

under the cabinet office and like that.

That was for newscast, wasn't it?

Was that a seven or eight months ago?

Touch you.

Please, I think you've achieved a lot of more

journalistically than I have.

I've been to one interesting room.

Well, that's been in play again this week.

Yeah.

But the thing about Cobra is,

the thing about Cobra that I take away from that is,

I mean, let's be honest,

it is just a room with lots of screens and chairs.

The artwork, so the artwork has been chosen

from the government art collection to remind ministers

when they're making life and death decisions

about life and death.

Mm-hmm.

Oh no.

Chris said, oh, it's just some pictures of flowers.

Oh no.

It's flowers.

It's flowers to remind everyone.

It's a church.

It's a church hill down there.

Yeah.

I didn't see it in church.

No, don't think so.

So the Prime Minister chaired his second Cobra

of this war on Thursday,

having done the first one on Saturday.

And there's been, I think they call it Cobra O,

which is Cobra official level meetings

that have been happening in the other days in between.

Right, that's all for what should we call this?

What did I come up with?

The acronym to the cast stands

for a current assessment of the situation today,

because we were doing a program earlier on

in Jane, but with lots of military acronyms.

So I came up with my own acronym, which is current assessment

of the situation today.

News, news.

All in only call news.

Yeah.

You can call it that.

Yeah, news.

It's that's what we're doing.

Let's stick with the old name, the news.

Right, Jane, thank you very much.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Please, thank you.

Always a pleasure.

And Chris, good to catch up.

Thank you, Adam.

Newscast.

Newscast from the BBC.

From one newscaster to another,

thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode.

You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason,

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