Is Starmer ready to take on Trump?

Bubble Wall is here from 2311 Racing.

You know it's slower than a pace car waiting at the car wash.

That's when I fire up Chamba Casino.

It turns those slow minutes into fast fun.

With new games every week, you'll never get bored.

Next time you're stuck in the slow lane, speed up with Chamba.

Play now at ChambaCasino.com.

Let's Chamba.

Sponsored by Chamba Casino, no purchase necessary.

WGW GroupFord, we're prohibited by law, 21 plus terms and conditions apply.

This is a global player, original podcast.

And I'm not, 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 supposed to flying many extra hours.

So we are very surprised.

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

That is Donald Trump speaking in the Oval Office about Keir Starmer.

Apparently furious at Starmer's delay in granting the US access to UK bases

as part of their military operations against Iran.

And Donald Trump with that uneariness ability

to create a headline, sure as hell has, all the papers are, he's no Winston Churchill.

But is Keir Starmer actually in the right place on this?

Welcome to the news agents.

The news agents.

It's John, it's Lewis.

And if you were in Downing Street yesterday afternoon,

you probably could sense that ouch and the feel of winded pain

after Donald Trump said you're no Winston Churchill.

What a insult, what a brilliantly contrived way of securing a headline.

It was Trump at his best in some ways, because that's what he does.

I mean, it might have been tempted to reply,

and you'll know Dwight D Eisenhower either, Mr. President,

but Keir Starmer wouldn't do that.

Instead in the House of Commons today,

he rather cleverly talked about what the special relationship is.

And it's not just about Donald Trump's words in the Oval Office.

Plains are operating out of British bases.

That is the special relationship in action.

British jets are shooting down drones and missiles

to protect American lives in the Middle East on our joint bases.

That is the special relationship in action,

sharing intelligence every day to keep our people safe.

That is the special relationship in action.

Hanging on to President Trump's latest words

is not the special relationship in action.

And that was in response to a conservative MP.

I think telling that's Kenby Baidnock,

who had a pretty bad premise as questions,

which is very unfocused,

having something knocked down around the park for most of the year,

really shows it very often that she only has one mode,

and that is being as bellicose as possible.

And our moments like today when British troops are in the middle of actual conflict,

it isn't really the kind of thing that you'd expect

from the leader of the opposition to do.

That being said, I think as we were saying yesterday, John,

I think what is quite extraordinary at the moment about British politics

is that we feel very, very strongly,

the shadow of Iraq hanging over 10 downing street in Keir Starmer.

As we were saying yesterday,

and particularly because of course Keir Starmer's Labour Prime Minister,

it was Tony Blair,

who was responsible for our involvement in Iraq.

What I find amazing, amazing,

is how little that shadow seems to be being cast on other political parties

and across much of, in particular,

the right-wing press in this country.

Trump can say what he likes.

Trump can say that Starmer is no Winston Churchill.

But the truth is, is that Starmer's position,

and we can see this from all of the polling,

is exactly where the British public is.

If anything, the British public is even more skeptical of our engaging

with American activities on this than Starmer is.

The reason it doesn't feel like it,

the reason it feels as if Starmer is being weak

in the face of Iranian aggression is because, basically,

the position of the British public is not being well represented

in the media or political parties.

In the established press,

you would think it was 2003 or 2002, all over again.

The steady drumbeat for war,

clamour for Britain to be even more involved,

to be this quasi-colonial imperial power on the world stage,

to get even closer to Trump.

And that is a position which is just ubiquitous

across the British press and in the newspapers.

And then on social media, there's a lot of that as well,

on the right-wing bit of social media button.

Social media on the left,

dominated by a sort of Corbin way of thinking

or a green way of thinking.

It's, he should be slamming Trump, he should be condemning Trump.

And actually, the truth is,

is that the position of the British public

is almost nowhere to be seen in our political parties

and in our press and our social media.

And the person who is actually embodying it is Kirsta.

Yeah, and I think that it's worth just looking internationally

at some of this, where,

look, Donald Trump has a history of falling out with people

and saying obnoxious things about other leaders.

You know, he was great mates with Narendra Modi,

the Indian Prime Minister, he's not anymore.

Zora Mamdani was this communist devil,

he comes to the White House and they're suddenly best pals.

You fall in and out of favor with Donald Trump

as fashions change as, you know, spring becomes summer

and summer becomes autumn.

I don't think it's any more than that at this stage.

And for people to be hyperventilating about,

is this the end of the special relationship

as we've ever known?

No, there's been a disagreement.

And I think that Kirsta, Ma,

I sense having thought very, very carefully about it

is comfortable in the position where he has landed.

And there's been some really interesting reporting

that I've seen today by Axios about the origins.

Everyone's been trying to answer the question,

why did America go when it went?

You know, why now?

Why now?

The why now question?

And apparently early last week, Netanyahu rings Trump

and says we have got intelligence,

that Kamani is going to be meeting with the Iranian leadership

on Saturday at this time in this place.

Trump takes the call, gets the CIA to check it out,

confirms it, and they decide to go.

That is as much planning of what the operation was.

And there's been no planning

about what the operation becomes or how it ends.

And so in those circumstances,

for the British Prime Minister, just to say,

yeah, here's blank check, yeah, you can do whatever you like.

It's not unreasonable to say, okay, we're starting this.

And if you think you talk about the drumbeat to war

in 2002, 2003, the preparation for that

was over a period of months.

It is.

There was a UN resolution, 1441,

that said that Iraq was immaterial breach

of the rules over weapons of mass destruction.

So there was stuff that was happening,

and it was a preparation.

This, just bang out the blue, we're attacking.

I think the fact that Starma has been willing

to put space between himself and Trump,

gives us an indication of just what you're talking about,

John, which is how opaque the reasoning is,

even on the inside, even in terms of what has been communicated

to the British government and to Starma,

and how incoherent and how unclear the objectives are.

Because I think given how much political capital

Starma has invested in the Trump relationship,

how much he has been willing sometimes to embarrass himself,

slightly, frankly, in becoming a sort of Trump whisperer,

how much he has esteemed, I don't think wrongly, by the way,

how much he has esteemed and believed

that the keeping Trump onside,

on certain big geopolitical questions,

has been so important for the UK, not least Ukraine.

I think to be willing to at least risk sacrificing,

some of that gives us an indication

of how little Starma and the British government believe

there is any sort of plan, any sort of mission

and how in the dark they are as to what the purpose is.

I think Starma was completely clear,

much more clear than Trump has been

at Prime Minister's questions about all of this.

He said it briefly, but I think it was very telling.

He said, what I was not prepared to do on Saturday

was for the UK to join a war,

unless I was satisfied there was a lawful basis

and a viable thought through plan.

That remains my position.

He is being crystal clear.

He doesn't believe either exists.

And as I say, I think that tells you everything

that Starma has been willing to allow this space to exist

and potentially risk Trump's eye and blowback,

which is what happened.

That is how potentially ill thought through

and potentially calamitous, frankly,

as a result of it being ill thought through,

the entire thing is.

I mean, over the past day or two,

we've heard from Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State,

we have heard from Pete Hegset,

the Secretary of War or the Defense Secretary,

which everyone will call him.

We've heard from Trump.

We've heard from JD Vance, the Vice President.

All four of them have given completely different accounts

of why this action took place.

And the more they spoke, the less clear it became

about what this was all about.

And so you can see that if you are a foreign government

and you're being asked, and I'm sure every instinct,

when you get the call from the US President

to be alongside America, your instinct is to say yes.

Of course.

The problem is it was just so incoate

what they were trying to do.

There was no plan.

And actually, if you look at American public opinion now,

there was no preparation of American public opinion

for this action.

Yeah, there were two carrier groups

that had gone to the area.

And it was probable that there would be some action

at some point.

But the American public hadn't been prepared for it.

A lot of his base are very cross about it.

And the sort of questions that Keir Starmer was on the phone

to Donald Trump saying, well, hang on,

but what is the plan?

And so Donald Trump hasn't been able to sell that

to the American people either.

And that is why within America,

there is a considerable blowback to what

Donald Trump is doing.

That's the thing.

All of those people, all of those so-called hawks,

all of those people who seem to think

that it is Trump right or wrong in the British press

and within British politics are essentially saying

that Starmer and the UK government

without any sense of objective or mission

or any sense of how it ends should have hitched themselves

and therefore our selves to a war and a course of action

which they themselves, it is clear,

do not know the purpose of.

And if it is true, if it is true,

which I think is maybe one of the most

more disturbing parts of all of this,

if it is true that the Americans basically did it

because Netanyahu forced them to do it

and Netanyahu played Trump,

then that makes even less sense for us to do it.

Because then we're not just getting played by Trump,

we're getting played by Netanyahu and the Israeli government.

And this is one of the greatest kind of mysteries

of this entire thing is we said,

I remember when Trump came in and we talked a lot about

the pressure that Trump might be able to bring to bed

to get Netanyahu to agree to a cease-fire in Gaza,

which sort of happened, although some people will say

it's only a partial cease-fire,

it's not really holding, the Israelis are still

doing very bad things.

Okay, there was an argument about that.

What has become clearer and clearer

is it's not Trump who can get Netanyahu to do things.

It's Netanyahu who can get Trump to do almost whatever he wants.

Netanyahu has wanted to do this.

Attack Iran in this way since the late 1990s.

And by the way, he's been warning that the Iranians

have been on a verge of a nuclear missile

since the late 1990s.

So I'm not sure we should be necessarily crediting

or outsourcing our military assessment on that matter

to Benjamin Netanyahu because if he were right,

Tel Aviv would have been flattened about a hundred times

by now by an Iranian nuclear bomb.

But anyway, Netanyahu has tried to get

every American president since the late 90s.

Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump won't buy to do this.

None of them have done it.

But this time, Trump basically bends over backwards

to do whatever Netanyahu wants.

And I suspect that in part of Starmer's mind,

he just thought, I'm not going to go along with that.

Well, I think that there was an element, look,

you talk about whether it was Netanyahu,

whether it was Trump, whether they agreed,

whether they didn't agree.

The fact of the matter was that there was a plan

to take out the leadership and nothing more.

And there was an opportunity

because Iranian air defenses had been much weakened

by the 12-day war last June.

So yeah, okay, opportunity, let's take it, bang.

Well, what are we going to do now?

Well, Joe, I think just to interrupt that.

I mean, the Israelis have said today

that whoever the Iranians take out will kill them next.

Well, where does that end?

I mean, we just end up, is that the objective here

that basically Israel is allowed?

And we should be encouraging Israel

to just kill the leader of Iran, whoever it is?

And where does that get us long-term?

Well, that raises a slightly different question,

which is what is, you know, the Israeli objective,

I think is pretty clear that it wants regime change

and it wants the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It wants it to stop being a Theocratic state.

It wants to see a very different Iran

that will be perhaps a bit more amenable to Israel.

And there is a recasting of the Middle East

going on in Benjamin Netanyahu's vision of the world.

But is that Donald Trump's vision of the world?

Well, it was sort of on Saturday,

when he talked about the people rising up

and taking back their country,

since when we have not heard a single word about that.

So you'd be understandable if you're part

of an Iranian opposition group,

where you're thinking, well, I can see that

what they're trying to do in terms of getting rid of the regime.

But where does it go?

And again, we don't know the answer to that.

And it feels as if, and this is again,

well, I find it remarkable that some of the tone,

the glee as we were talking about yesterday,

about all of this in, you know, Trump showering a probe

among on Stama and all of that kind of thing.

It seems to me that almost no matter what happens now,

it's hard to see how Western interests

are going to be advanced.

I mean, European interests.

It is real or right that they're just going to keep killing

whoever this Iranian leader is sort of adding for an item.

This could go on for months, a month,

which is presumably going to destabilize the region even more.

The Straits of Hormuz are basically entirely blocked.

This is the waterway where much of the world's oil

is directed through.

We're already seeing profound volatility

on international energy markets.

We have the prospect in a couple of months time

of domestic energy bills increasing by 500 pounds

after a period during which they've already

been extremely volatile and extremely high.

That's in the UK with potentially more to come.

We see virtually every country in the Middle East affected.

We see hundreds of thousands of Westerners

and British citizens being stuck and stranded,

again, without any apparent endpoints.

And worst-case scenario, absolute worst-case scenario.

Let's say the Iranian regime does fall,

but basically we see another Libya,

because this is also, we talk about Iraq,

but this is quite reminiscent of what happened in Libya

in 2011 as well, which was no ground troops,

but we try and basically affect regime change

or a form of regime change from the air.

Well, maybe, maybe, you can destroy the many

headed hydra and the Islamic regime collapses,

but to be replaced with what exactly,

where we could be facing hundreds of thousands,

if not more, of Iranian refugees heading towards Europe.

They're not going to end up in America.

They're going to end up in Europe.

And I do wonder, I'm going to ask Richard Tyson

about this on my, oh, Sunday show on RBC.

I do wonder if all of those people

who are being quite so belligerent,

quite so belligerent about the fall of the regime

would be quite so content

to have those Iranian refugees

ending up in small boats crossing towards Dover.

Actually, let's just play that exchange.

This is me with Richard Tyson,

the deputy leader of the form, of course, on Sunday.

I think for everything I'm hearing,

actually, the likelihood is that Iranian dissidents

will want to go back to Iran to help Iran.

Sure, but if there's going to be those Iran,

all of that, in a sense, is to look at over the coming months.

Well, we must hope and give support

for the Persian people, the Iranian peace-loving people,

hard-working people, to give them the maximum opportunity

to get their country back.

I mean, Iran, I just only mentioned it

because we really have a reasonable flow

of refugees from Iran.

Iran, in fact, was the third most common nationality

of refugees on small boats in 2025.

But the issue is whether or not they...

Where was your support for those Iranians in small boats?

Because our deep concern is that actually,

some of those have links to the regime

looking to spread anti-semitism

within Iran, there are those who are part of the regime.

We support the very bad people.

And there are those who are good people,

and we should be supporting the good people.

And you just got to have the courage to tell it as it is.

And should we support them if, as I say,

if this revolution with your backing goes wrong,

you would welcome them if we appear on small boats.

Let's back it to go right.

That is what we've got to be totally focused

as you say, there are bumps in the road.

So we'll be bumps in the road,

and you keep supporting good people.

That's what you do.

So yeah, Richard Tyce doesn't want to engage

on the prospect of thousands or tens of thousands

with Iranian refugees heading towards Britain.

But let me make a prediction on all of this.

And, you know, I'm sure I'll be wrong,

but I reckon...

It's a spirit.

Yeah, exactly.

But I reckon that where we are heading,

just listening to Trump over the past 48 hours,

listening to Trump over the past 48 hours,

of course he's going to declare victory.

There's no way he's going to say,

oh God, why did I ever get into this?

This was a terrible, terrible decision.

He's going to claim victory,

but he's going to stop the bombing

within a week or two,

because once he sees oil prices going up

at the pumps in America,

and Americans start saying,

whoa, what the fuck are we doing in Iran?

The cost of filling up the car with gas

has gone through the roof.

What are we doing here?

Donald Trump will say, okay, enough's enough.

They will have weakened the regime,

but the regime will be in place,

and you'll have a much smaller Iranian army

with far fewer stockpile,

a much smaller stockpile of missiles,

but the world will go on,

and it will have achieved a little bit,

but not very much.

The world will go on,

but assuming the regime survives,

which I think it will.

Yeah, I think it feels likely.

Then whoever is heading up that regime,

a very mind, you know,

the itola who they killed,

I mean, he was 86, I mean, time sith

was probably going to come along

and do the job for them without the American bombers,

but nonetheless, like presumably,

in a sense we'll be back to square one,

which will be that the Iranian regime

whoever takes over will be more determined

than ever to try and advance their own security interests,

and will be more determined than ever to get the bomb,

because the bomb is the only mean still.

They've seen what happens when they don't have the bomb,

which is they get attacked.

And if they have the bomb,

who else has wants the bomb?

Saudi Arabia wants the bomb,

because they've seen that they've been attacked by Iran.

The UAE wants the bomb,

because they've been attacked by Iran.

Does Trump think about any of this stuff?

No, he doesn't think about any of this stuff,

because he doesn't think in terms of years,

or decades he thinks in terms of news cycle.

I agree with you, John, completely,

that as soon as this to heart stay at home,

given how little consent there was for it anyway,

for the first Trump will just declare victory,

and you know who knows all of that?

Starman knows all of that, he's not stupid,

he knows all of that,

and he would have known all of that

when he was looking at this on Saturday

and weighing up the pros and cons.

And he also knows, as you say, John,

for all of the glee, and a sort of, you know,

just genuinely,

reasonable kind of shard and Freud,

that you're getting from some parts of the press,

you know, loving echoing this idea that he's no Churchill.

Again, if Starman wanted to,

and I suspect he won't want to,

because he won't want to deepen the rift with Trump,

but if he wanted to,

this could be a real political moment for him,

as it was, for example, for Mark Carney in Canada.

He can turn around, if I were Keir Starmer right now,

I would, if I were doing my next Paul interview,

where doubtless he'll be asked about it,

he could in a very quiet,

understated way, seems to say,

the President Trump, he says I'm no Churchill,

Winston Churchill, stood up for Britain,

and stood up for British national interests,

and that's what all always do.

And it's very, very simple,

and he can choose to make this

into a political moment for himself,

not only sending a message to the voters,

but to his own MPs.

I think that the example of Mark Carney

is such an interesting one,

because I keep hearing people saying to me,

you know what, what Keir Starmer want to do,

is to follow Mark Carney's model of being polite,

but extremely firm with Trump,

and not being afraid to push back,

because that is the only language that Donald Trump understands.

If he bullies you, and you roll over,

he bullies you some more.

And so to stand up,

and to put this distance, as we've described,

between himself and the American President,

may well be no bad thing.

We'll be back in just a moment.

From a range of trusted voices,

and award-winning journalists.

Good morning, I'm Nick Farah, it's time to get to your calls.

Find out the latest news,

and hear every side of the story.

I will say the UK has been very, very into our business.

They were in relationships,

and this is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with.

The Prime Minister sticks to his guns over Iran,

but if Iran is the question,

is a Churchillian response even the answer?

For conflict in the Middle East,

follow it live on LBC.

Listen on our free global player app, or the LBC app.

Telloretic here from 2311 Racing.

Game night's fun until someone spends five minutes

lining up one shot.

Chalk, breathe, re-chalk, still aiming.

While they figure it out, I fire up Trump a casino.

I can spin anywhere, anytime,

and there's always a new social casino game every week.

Spins happen way faster than that shot.

Play now at chumbacacino.com.

Let's chumbac sponsored by Chumbacacino.

No purchase necessary.

VGW Group Voidware prohibited by law,

21 plus terms and conditions apply.

The news agents.

Right, let's talk about the spring statement,

which is the chancellor's second big sort of event

of the year in the House of Commons.

We didn't really have time to discuss it yesterday

because we're so much going on with Iran.

Although it is partly also because,

in fairness to the chancellor, she herself had,

I think it's fair to say lowered expectations.

She said she was going to be boring.

Who are we to disagree?

Well, quite so.

Promise made, promise kept.

But anyway, the reason she said that slightly

is because there had been this sort of tradition

in recent years that developed particularly

under George Osborne and Gordon Brown

before that's had these kind of almost

a sort of second budget every year.

Updates, which became a sort of second budget,

which many people in business,

another said, wow, it's adding a lot of instability,

lots of policy change all the time.

So she was like, this is just going to be an update

to the figures from the Office of Budget Responsibility

compared to the budget in the autumn.

The thing which got perhaps most attention of all,

not least because obviously so many of the economic forecasts

in terms of growth and unemployment

were basically out of date before she even said them

as a result of, in fairness to her, it's not her fault,

but events in Iran and so on.

The thing that got more attention,

which is more likely to come true,

is the long-term projections and forecasts

on welfare spending, staggering really.

Welfare spending will rise by 5.8% this year alone,

this year, so nearly six percent of the year

to 330 billion, forecast to hit 407 billion by 2031.

That is being driven as I say.

Some extent by increased pension of spending,

which is sort of locked, there's not a huge amount

you could do about that, obviously you could change

a triple lock, but that's sort of demographic.

But a bigger component by then

will be driven by health and disability related benefits.

Indeed, by 2031, the number of people

claiming incapacity benefits is forecast to rise

from 3.4 million to 4 million,

while the number of people claiming disability benefits

will rise from this year, 6.5 million to nearly 9 million.

So these are rapid, rapid increases

with massive implications for UK government spending.

James Murray, the chief secretary to the Treasury,

was asked this morning whether it is the UK government

objective to reduce total welfare spending

and the number of people on welfare.

This is what he had to say.

We've been clear that welfare spending needs

to be made sure it keeps under control.

Sorry, you can't say reduce.

You're about to say reduce there, and you stopped yourself.

Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

can I just be clear on this?

Because there are different components of welfare spending.

And we know that it's gotten out of control

in recent years in certain parts of the welfare system.

So we know, for instance, that the number of young people

who are long-term unemployed has gone up substantially.

We know that under the previous government,

the number of young people who are economically inactive.

James Murray, I'm asking about what's happening

under your administration.

Welfare spending is going to rise

to £407 billion in 2037 times the defence budget.

Do you want to cut spending on welfare and benefits?

We've already begun to reduce fraud and error in welfare.

We've already begun to change the welfare system

when it comes to universal credit

to make sure it's balanced towards getting people back into work.

It is pretty weak and uncertain territory

where you feel he is standing.

Because, of course, the answer is, yes,

we should be cutting down welfare spending

if people are claiming things

that they shouldn't be allowed to claim.

Surely, questions need to be raised

about why so many more people are claiming incapacity benefits

or sickness benefits when all sorts of stories you hear,

the way that the system is being gained slightly at the moment

or doctors are signing people off very readily

from being able to go to work.

And it is just a staggering sum.

If you look back to the 1950s

and what we spent on welfare and health combined

was the same as the defence budget.

And now the welfare budget alone

is going to be something like,

whatever, however many times,

six times the defence budget.

And this is a time when the government

wants to spend more on defence.

It knows it needs to spend more on defence.

If anything is underlined,

it's the first part of our conversation

where Donald Trump is going alone

in terms of what he wants to be doing

and not very interested in NATO.

I mean, you see other countries saying,

right, we're going to take the measures needed.

But when this government has tried to bring in

a modest welfare reform measure

that would have saved five billion pounds,

they backtracked, went to fuel payments, they backtracked.

And so you just wonder whether the government

has the capacity to do what it wants to do on this.

I should say, as well, James Murray

was speaking on Times Radio.

Look, I think that, I said,

Kerry Bade not had a sort of bad prime minister's questions.

I think she did.

And so far as she had a more powerful potence moment,

I think it was this one.

He stands there, telling us that he's spending

more money on defence.

They're saying it.

Nope. No, he isn't.

In fact, they are cutting defence spending

by 2.6 billion pounds from the MOD budget this year.

And that's why there are no royal navy warships

in the Middle East, Mr Speaker.

In June last year, in June last year,

he should ask his defence secretary for the numbers

because that is what's happening.

In June last year, Mr Speaker,

the government promised that its plan

for funding our armed forces would be ready by autumn.

In autumn, they promised it would be ready by the end of 2025.

It is March 2026 and still nothing.

So can the Prime Minister tell the House

that when his defence investment plan

will finally be published?

Yes, Prime Minister's questions.

We should say, obviously, there has been some work done

on why it can be that these benefits are rising so quickly

and why so many people are finding themselves on them.

I think there are a few reasons that set us apart

from other countries.

We see one of them is mental health.

So almost half of new disability benefit claims

are now linked to anxiety, depression,

or other psychological conditions.

Those claims have risen very sharply since the pandemic,

especially among younger people.

And there is some evidence to suggest

that doctors have become more likely to sign people off

for whatever the expression for those reasons.

Second, there are sort of post-COVID effects

both for individuals but for the system.

So Britain's seen a very, very big increase in people

who are economically inactive because of long-term sickness.

Britain has become sort of less healthy in that time.

But also, the waiting lists for the NHS themselves

have become so much longer that people end up

sometimes getting conditions or their physical condition

worsens because they're waiting for treatment

for such a long time, that they end up on these benefits,

either in a way that they wouldn't have done

if they got treatment more quickly

or that they just end up languishing on them for a long time.

But let me show it just on that, though.

I mean, yeah, the longer waiting lists,

that will explain why Britain may be

as different from everywhere else.

But everywhere else went through the pandemic.

So why are instances of mental health problems

or whatever, and I don't completely understand

through shutdown and all the rest of it,

why people have a suffering?

But it was the same in Europe.

Oh, well, I know, I don't know.

I mean, I suppose you might say that,

I mean, our mental health services are very, very poor

and some countries will have better provision than we do,

but for sure, I think that's a fair question.

I think a lot of economists and psychologists

are sort of still puzzling over the answer for too.

And then third, obviously, there is the sort of structure

of the welfare system itself.

If someone is assessed as having limited capacity for work,

they basically face fewer requirements

and receive more, more generous support

than they would if there are non-employment benefits.

And that can just act as an incentive for people

to move on to that part of the system

because the requirements are less onerous.

And I think you get more money.

Yeah, and so if you put all that together,

the numbers are rising very quickly.

Spending on working-age health-related benefits,

36 billion before the pandemic,

I mean, still, a lot of money, 36 billion.

And it's now projected to reach over 60 billion

later this decade and will rise

a sharper than that as a result of yesterday's upgrades.

Lewis, do you get any sense that after what happened

with the personal independence payments

last year in the kind of backbench revolt

and the way that the government just had to capitulate,

that the government will come again and try that Pat McFadden,

you know, you've put in someone who is a sort of a

pretty effective political operator

into that department that they will try again

and make a serious go at it.

I think McFadden will want to,

and I think it's interesting that he's there,

but as I think you could hear from James Murray,

I think that after a result of what happened

with the personal independence payment vote,

and I think you can actually trace back

a lot of Starmer's problems with his authority to that vote.

It was that moment that crystallized

that when push came to shove,

number 10 could be shoved around by,

despite the huge majority by the parliamentary Labour Party,

and that when push comes to shove,

number 10 wouldn't force them to do something

that they didn't want to do.

And I think it told you a lot about the psychology,

particularly of this intake of the parliamentary Labour Party,

many of whom do come from backgrounds in charities

and the third sector worked on poverty

and all of those sorts of things, very noble and so on,

but do have an instinctive, I think, antipathy

to any measure that might be brought forward

that would show it would have any negative distributional impact

on the poorest people in society,

which welfare reform to some extent always will do,

because by definition you are dealing,

if you're on benefits with poorer elements of society.

I would just say this, like whenever we talk about this,

and whenever I've asked ministers about it on LBC and elsewhere,

I always get people sort of emailing me

or messaging me going,

I'm really disappointed in you,

I'm really disappointed that you would demonise people on benefits,

or suggest that people on benefits want to be there,

we should be taking from the poorest people in society.

I really, really reject that,

and I think Labour ministers need to be far more aggressive

in making the moral case, not just an economic case,

the moral case about benefits.

I've had people in my family on long-term sickness benefits.

I don't think that's a good place for them to be,

and I think they themselves might say

that it wasn't over the long-term a good place for them to be,

because the longer that you're out of work,

and that's not to say by the way

that those initial sicknesses and illnesses they didn't need it,

but I've seen it for myself,

that when you are on out of work for a long time,

it becomes so hard to get back into it.

Two things can be true at once,

when people say that on some level,

they'd like to go back into work,

but they feel that they can't,

they genuinely have profound anxiety that they can't,

because they can't imagine working again,

and to some extent that is as a result of the system,

how it operates at the moment,

and those, that case, could not be stronger for young people,

I mean, us allowing people in their 20s,

particularly for mental health conditions,

not to go into work and to set up that foundation,

establish layer of those foundations

for the rest of their lives.

That is, in moral, there's nothing socialist

or social democratic or left-wing or progressive

about allowing people to be on benefits

and lose the most fruitful, productive,

industrious, happy year of their lives, to a half-life,

because that is what being on benefits can be,

and by the way, the people it's most unfair to

are the people who are on benefits

who really cannot work for their physical conditions

and so on, because you know what, for those people,

benefits should probably be more generous,

more generous than they are,

but because so many people are on it who, frankly,

don't need to be, or certainly don't need to be,

for the length of time that they're on it,

then you're basically spreading the same amount of butter

around the slice of bread,

when actually what you actually need to do

is concentrate it on those who most need it.

We will be back in just a moment.

It is Ryan C. Crest here, there was a recent social media trend,

which consisted of flying on a plane with no music,

no movies, no entertainment,

but a better trend would be going to chumbacacino.com.

It's like having a mini social casino in your pocket.

Chumbacacino has over a hundred online casino style games,

all absolutely free.

It's the most fun you can have online and on a plane.

So grab your free welcome bonus now at chumbacacino.com,

sponsored by Chumbacacino.

We don't purchase necessary VGW group void

we're prohibited by law, 21 plus terms and conditions apply.

The news agents.

So American politics last night had one of its,

I wasn't going to say big nights,

it had a big ish night last night.

We'll give it a hard sell, John.

Yeah, no, no, well, but it's fascinating.

Big ish night in American politics.

I'm going to start again.

What a fascinating night it was last night in American politics.

All right, Wolf Blitzer.

So a Texan state kind of lawmaker,

a guy called James Tallerico,

has won the Democratic primary to be their candidate

for the US Senate.

And the Democrats have dreamt for years

about winning a statewide election in Texas.

And I think the last time it happened was 1994.

And honestly, this guy, James Tallerico,

very religious, serious,

but brilliant communicator,

is the star name in American politics,

up and coming that is getting all the attention.

And this is him after he won his primary last night.

The gravity of this moment,

this movement is about whether the people

will hold the power in this state and in this country.

We launched this underdog campaign six months ago

in my hometown of Round Rock, Texas.

And since then,

and since then,

tens of thousands of Texans have shown up to rally with us

in every corner of the state,

from Beaumont to El Paso,

from Amarillo to Brownsville and everywhere in between.

We have recruited more than 28,000 volunteers

who are organizing in every community across the state.

And we have shattered grassroots fundraising records

all without taking a dime from corporate PACs.

Amazing communicator.

It's like disturbingly just discovered

who was born the same year as me, 1989.

So there you go.

I don't know. I don't like absolutely nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Hang on out with you too much.

You know, I mean, look,

it's been this kind of sort of,

forever the bridesmaid thing really

for the Democratic Party, right?

Which is just constantly,

it's just around the corner turning Texas blue.

They're sort of eyeing those 40 electoral college votes

on the map and also the kind of map to a Senate majority

as well, all seems to run through Texas

and yet it never quite happens.

And they've had sort of charismatic candidates

before we tour the rock, of course.

But this guy to La Rico does seem to be something

a bit special.

And if he can win,

and obviously he's a massive if,

but if he could win in November in Texas,

then he at a stroke, I would say,

becomes a massive player

if he wants it for the 2028 presidential nomination.

And along with, I mean,

along with, for example,

John Ossoff in Georgia,

again, he has to win his Senate seat in Georgia.

He's already a senator,

so he'd have to get re-election again,

only a little bit older than La Rico.

Does feel like that generational change

within the Democratic Party,

which has been long, long talked about,

and long needed,

feels to me like it is really on the cusp of happening.

And when you see Trump right now,

when we talked about Biden a lot,

you know, probably don't talk enough about Trump again,

becoming even more rambling,

more sort of physically ailing,

you can kind of see it.

Feels like that push for generational change

in American politics is going to be so strong.

It would not surprise me at all.

Whoever the next president is,

Republican or Democrat, is on the 50.

We'll be discussing this much more

on the news agents, USA.

But for us, for now,

bye-bye, see you tomorrow.

Bye-bye.

This has been a global player,

original production.