Will the fight for Keir Starmer’s seat make or break the Green Party?

0:00For months now, I've been investigating a woman from London who used to call herself Emma. Now she's better known as Asma Alassab, the wife of the infamous Syrian dictator. She sold her soul to the devil in exchange of the money. If she tried to leave, she'd be knocked off or something. But who is she really? I'm Chloe Hedgimuthau. My new series, We Call Her Emma, is out now from the observer. The Observer Hello, it's Giles Whittell. It's Thursday, the third of September from the observer. Welcome to the news meeting. Zack Polanski wants to fight the bi-election in Hoban and St. Pancras. And with that, the temperature has gone up. Donald Trump warned America is prepared to strike again.

1:01After the two countries carried out their biggest exchange of attacks since July. The government's plans to increase defense spending have come under scrutiny. It's officially autumn. There's a nip in the air and everyone in here is wearing shirts, not t-shirts. That's not true. That's not true. Erica is wearing a t-shirt. We're going to kick off the news season with some healthy competition. Whose pitch is going to lead the news? To make their cases are Whitehall Editor Cat, All Caps, Neelan. Why are all caps? You sent me a summons to the briefing. Are you with your ignore caps? Yes. But did you come? No. News reporter John Honeymonster, Angoid Thomas. Hello. Hello. And deputy comment editor and novelist and poet, Erica Wagner. Hello, Tiles. May the best pitch win. Right. Now your long story is short. Please in a few words or a phrase. Tell me what you want to pitch. John, we'll start with you.

2:01Sabotage and spies. Sabotage and spies. Thank you. Cat. Hi drama and hi, Hoeven. Nice. We need a soundtrack to that. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Erica. I'm going with good news, brackets, probably. Okay. Right. John, tell us more about Sabotage and spies. Well, one of Andy Burnham's first trips as Prime Minister was to Ukraine. To pledge his full support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. And he made clear that he was ready to share the technology for Ukraine to develop its own versions of the long-range storm shadow missiles. Now, some people may be a little bit concerned about Burnham's support for Ukraine because at this time we're finding that there is an increase in what has been described as hybrid warfare.

3:03And I would argue that Britain is in the front line in terms of being in Russia's targets. And of course, most people in the UK want to see the sport of Ukraine. But they are concerned about the threat from Russia. One of the recent cases involves a drone that was found packed with explosives at an airport in Leipzig in Germany. The German authorities have said that they believe the Russians were behind this incident. Russia has denied being involved in many of these alleged hybrid incidents. Now, this is a bit of a test for Andy Burnham because one of the key confrontational points between labour and the Conservatives is going to be over the defence budget. And when Andy Burnham will meet the ambition of 3% of our budget going towards defence. But I think there's a broader question here about Russia and hybrid warfare because it's certainly been escalating over the last two years.

4:09And there's a question about what are we going to do about it and what exactly is the threat. And even calling it hybrid probably doesn't really give the full indication of how serious this is. Because we're talking about assassination attempts. We're talking about attacks on the infrastructure on power plants, on factories. We have a warehouse that was a subject of an arson attack in the UK. And it's not just a question of increasing the defence budget. It's a question of changing the way we deal with this kind of, let's call it what it is, warfare. And I think that's a good area to explore it in terms of a new story and I think it could make a strong piece. Okay, but it's really difficult to answer the question how. Because I'm not arguing with you about the threat that exists. I think we can agree it exists. But where do you go next with this just in terms of covering the news. The Leipzig drone story has been covered.

5:11The Burnham trip to Kiev as a week ago now. The impact of him sharing the technology with Ukraine has been reported on. It's obviously 20% subject to speculation. But where do you go next with this story? How do you tell it given that apart from anything, you don't know where this threat is going to materialise next. The UK response has been released by the government today saying that the foreign Commonwealth and development office has summoned the Russian to charge the fares to condemn the attack at Leipzig airport. And we're seeing that in Germany as well. It's a diplomatic response to this hybrid threat. And I think there's growing voices now from experts saying that we actually need a much more concerted response to this warfare. That's where the story is. We think of ourselves as being in the front line in this. But the Baltic states are really in the front line. And NATO has introduced some measures to deal with this.

6:13But I think it's a combination of military response in terms of surveillance, it's a combination of intelligence response. And it's devising new tactics and techniques to deal with this threat. And I think all of that is an area where which will yield new stories in terms of digging and talking to experts about how better. And I think a lot of people will be really worried about it. You know, they will see that burn and shrink. They will see the increasing reports of the attacks. And they want to know what we're going to be doing about it. At the risk of saying too much about how the sausage is made, I just want to pick you up on this talking to experts bit. Because I'm not in the Michael Gove camp of demonising experts. But there is a type of story. We all know it around this table at any rate, which leans on favourite contacts who we know will pick up the phone at Royal United Services Institute, Chatham House, and you can put together a story that consists of expert comment. But you still feel that one removed from reality. And so I come back to my earlier question, how do we cover this cat?

7:17Where would you go at it to actually talk to real people about real things? I don't think this is necessarily a quote unquote real people story. We have been talking about hybrid warfare for a very long time. It featured as a big part of the strategic defence review that came out a year ago plus now. And that there has been a lot of grumbling from the military community ever since about the fact that the money has not followed, despite the fact that the promises were that all of the commitments in that review would be met by the government. What I think is really interesting, just to put it back for a British audience, is yes we know that there have been some attacks, but I would like to sort of peel back the layers further and just get a sense of how widespread things are because anecdotally, I've heard a lot more about drone sightings at key meetings and key locations that people believe were Russian in the UK.

8:22In the UK. Basically the people that I speak to are sort of saying it's pretty much sort of 95% certain that it is Russian, but they can't say for certain one way or another. But I think the idea that we are a sort of fortress island is kind of for the birds and the hybrid warfare, you know, the fact that you can have drones that can come onto the UK land, I think is something that people probably don't fully understand and the frequency that it seems to be happening at least at a day to day is something I would really like to interrogate more. Erika, is this a story? If so, what's the story? I think it's a fascinating story. I think as you were saying, it requires some digging to bring it forward. And perhaps talking to some people, not just at institutions as you were saying, but what does the military, you know, who's on the front line in different ways, what are serving soldiers, thoughts about this issue, how do they feel prepared for a different kind of warfare?

9:30I would be interested to know that. And to that point, I think it's worth remembering there is a permanent detachment of British troops in Estonia just like you have Canadians elsewhere in the Baltics. And to your point, John, about the word hybrid, perhaps understating what this is about, maybe the way to do this is to examine in detail what would happen if that NATO red line, in other words, the NATO border, were crossed. There are various ways you can do it. You can do it with drones. You can do it with uniform troops, actually. But hasn't it already been crossed? Isn't that the point? What constitutes a crossing of the line? Is it physical troops or is it drones or is it arson attacks? Or, you know, this is the whole point. When I was dispatched to NATO last year, you asked me to ask the question, is everyone still committed to Article V? And the answer was, of course, yes, because what else would it be? The reality is that certainly we're seeing it in this country and many other countries

10:30are seeing the same, that that line is blurred now. Article V, of course, being the part of the NATO charter which says an attack on one member is an attack on all. Last opportunity, John, to give us a top line here, because it's so hard to do this story, to cover this story, that we last year tried to do it in a entirely hypothetical way. We sent a reporter to Estonia who spent time on the actual front line there, collected opinions and data on how they are monitoring their own border with Russia and then speculated on a future attack and reported it as if it had actually happened. But that was a not necessarily successful response to the problem of finding a way into this story. And what's your best guess as well?

11:32I think what the European government has really cooked another cent of the moment is calling this out, like Kat says, because sometimes we have quite a lot of incidents which are blamed on the Russians and then the evidence is actually not there to fully support that. And I think there's a real will at the moment to establish which hybrid attacks are actually Russian. And I think that as Kat says, I think there would be some merit. There's a huge number now of cases where suspected Russian were overlooking over the last three or four years. And a merit would be in going through all of those and trying to reveal the ones that we can now categorically say are Russian attacks. All right, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much. We're going to take a short break and when we come back we'll hear what Kat thinks should lead the news. For months now I've been investigating a woman from London who used to call herself Emma. Now she's better known as Asma Alassab, the wife of the infamous Syrian dictator.

12:36She sold her soul to the devil in exchange of the money. If she tried to leave, she'd be knocked off or something. But who is she really? I'm Chloe Hedgimuthau. My new series, We Call Her Emma, is out now from the observer. Right, welcome back. Kat, hi drama in high-hoban. What on earth is going on? This is the news that despite saying that he would stay on as an MP from the back bench's keyest armor has resigned, which will trigger a bio-election. And it will be in many ways the kind of mirror of the maker-filled bio-election that brought anti-Bernam into Parliament, because whereas in maker-filled reform was the second likely party to win in Hobernand-Sumhankus, it's the Greens.

13:39And as of Thursday morning, Zach Polansky, the Green Leader, has said he would like to be the Green candidate. I have to say at the minute, it's not confirmed that he is. And there is some reporting that suggests that he is not universally favored for that position. But assuming that leaders tend to get what leaders want, he seems to be the likely candidate. And really, it's important for him to do this, because he has repeatedly backed off running famously in Gorton and Denton. And at the time, I was speaking to some Green party advisors, and they said at the time, we're waiting for Hobernand-Sumhankus. I think there was a bit of tongue-in-cheek at that point, but now that moment has come, the gauntlet has been thrown. And this is Zach Polansky's moment. We should explain, shouldn't we, people like me who didn't actually realise until this morning, that he's leader of the party without being an MP, and you can be.

14:42I know you're laughing. I know it's embarrassing, but there it is. He's out there. I admit. I didn't know. I didn't know. I said the same thing to my son last night, and I got pretty badly laughed at. So I'm with you, Jarls. It's okay. Thanks, Eric. You should read the news more. I just listened. So I think this is interesting for two points. As I say, it's a big test of labour. I mean, in theory, it should be a labour safe seat, the polling, the sort of May local elections, they kind of did well. There haven't been, as we've come on any kind of immediate snap polls that I've seen. There has been some bookies sent out there, sort of latest betting odds, saying that actually Zach Polansky is likely to win. But if we remember from the Clackton by election, there was a lot of sound and fury around a camp bin face suggesting that he would get much more than he actually did.

15:45You can't, because obviously people are putting £5 bets on joke candidates. You can't read across it in the same way that you count with polling. Well, that said, it is a big test for Andy Burnham, because he's shown that he can beat reform. And now he has to show that he can beat the Greens. And the two things are quite different, and the two ways you would need to campaign and win people over are quite different. So it is a big test for him. It's important for, I think, a lot of the people that supported his return who were on the soft left, who didn't love the direction of travel that the party was going under-kissed armour. They felt that it was becoming too reform light, and they were worried, particularly MPs from urban city centres and big towns, that they were losing votes to Greens and the Lib Dems. Can he show, even if Labour does hold it, can he show that he is able to sort of stem the flow or reverse that, and actually does the Burnham honeymoon continue for a bit longer?

17:01On the other side, it's a really big moment for Zach Polanski, who hasn't had the best summer. He got into a lot of trouble for having, I think, it was just liked a social media post that had a picture of a guy wearing a t-shirt that depicted someone being beheaded and with the caption, making plans for Nigel, which I think is a song lyric, but obviously interpreted as threatening and in light of increased security issues on the merger of Ann Wydekham, that was taken very seriously. Zach Polanski had a not brilliant interview on Newsnight in which he repeatedly refused to apologise, and I think people kind of have seen that as part of a wider questioning as to whether he's taken the leadership as far as it can go, but if he loses this by election. Can you carry on? So that question had to, whether he can carry on.

18:01So two questions, if he does, can he, would he, a big humiliation to stand and lose as party leader? I mean, it's not impossible, Jeremy Corbyn obviously stayed on after losing, people do stay on after losing, but it would make his position much more difficult. Have any whispers that he's actually sort of already tired of the game? Oh, I've got to say, listeners, that the expression on Cat's face is... Maybe! I mean, I think it's quite telling that there are reports that people within the Greens do not universally want him to stand. Okay. Definitely shows that there is some frustration with him. There was a lot of unhappiness about the fact that the Greens decided to stand in make a field from the likes of Caroline Lucas and others who felt that it was potentially risking, you know, what could have been a progressive win, Labour, you know, could have, they could have eaten into Labour's vote and reform, could have won, which would have been a huge disaster for the progressive left, was the argument.

19:10So he's not as popular, perhaps, with the party, as he may have been some months ago. And over the summer we have seen, perhaps, a bit of a sort of green ceiling and perhaps plateauing and perhaps even declined in the same way that we have with reform. Erika, what's the story here? We've barely talked about Starmas Departure. Is it Starmas Departure? Is it Zach Polanski's standing? Or is there an on-wee with bi-elections after clack-ton and make a field that makes us think, you know, what we're not going to lead the news with this? I think there is a little bit of on-wee, if I'm honest, but I'm also interested in Keers Departure. I think there hasn't been a lot of, I understand that we always have to be moving forward. But to me, his unwillingness to remain a backbench MP is a little bit sad and seems to epitomize what I feel is his, he doesn't really have a love of being a politician. Why should he? Except he is one.

20:13I would also wonder to move the story forward though, is what Zach Polanski would bring to being the MP for Holborn and St. Pancras? I mean, it is a specific job. So what would that mean? Well, you know, if he does get selected, then we will have several weeks in which to find out, you know, look, unlikely as it seems at this stage, if he does win, that is a huge moment for the Greens. Because then you have someone who is quite charismatic off the left coming in to challenge Andy Burnham at a time when, you know, that will really be the end of the Burnham bounce. And we'll make all of those Labour MPs very nervous, so it will have a direct read across into the kind of policies that Andy Burnham puts forward and his authority. John, same question for you as for Erica, what's the story here? The departure of a, let's be frank, not much lamented Prime Minister or the potential competition involving Zach Polanski.

21:23The story is definitely the potential competition involving Zach Polanski. I'm glad about that. And that's what we've been talking about. How the Greens will do and whether there is a cat says a possible ceiling here, but it's a footnote about how Kierstarmer, the timing of Kierstarmer's announcement on Andy Burnham's debut in Parliament. And this is a man, you know, who said he always believes in the Labour project and here he is, his last kind of act is creating a bit of a pickle for Labour. Thank you so much. Right. Thank you, Cat. Erica, good news, brackets, probably. What's this about? This is about the Jordan bank, which remains the third, the home of the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world. Just tell us quickly, steerable. What does that mean? It means the level telescope, 250 feet, across, named after Sir Bernard Lovell, the astronomer who conceived it, can move on its own.

22:29Isn't part of a network of smaller telescopes. And we reported last week, a couple of weeks ago initially, that part of its funding or its main funding really for the network that it sits within the E Merlin network was going to be cut by UK research and innovation, UKRI, relatively small sum, 2.8 million pounds. But this icon of British science would lose its funding and cease operation become a museum. And although it is a UNESCO World Heritage site, it remains constantly updated at the cutting edge of science. But two days ago, Andy Burnham said the dispatch box, he can kind of see it out his window. It's up in Mackelsfield. It's part of the University of Manchester that he would find a way to get this funding back.

23:31We don't know yet. It's not confirmed, but that seems like good news. And you know, Giles, I always like to be the polyanna on the news meeting. So I agree, good news and it was something of a surprise and it came in response to a question from the local MPs, Sarah Russell. In brute news terms, it kind of forces us to recalibrate what the story is. The story is no longer dozens of scientists protesting that an iconic piece of kit is going to have its funding cut. The story is, as you say, that the money apparently is going to be made available after all. Question then, where do we go from here? What are the reporting questions? Is it will he come through on this? Or can we take it for granted that he will because having said this at the dispatch box, it would be too embarrassing not to? Well, I think there's two questions. Three, perhaps. Will he come through on this? We have to keep an eye on it. We have to keep reporting. He can't be just something he said at the dispatch box to sound good.

24:33But then we also have to ask, where does the money come from? I am a great proponent of the work at Georgia Bank, which I've been following myself for decades, despite being generally a person of the humanities, which kind of speaks to its wider status, I think, in the culture. But money has to come from somewhere. And other people have different ideas of what our priorities should be, and my understanding is the funding was cut, because UKRI was wanting to fund robotics and AI. And it's not that those things aren't important. So hard decisions have to be made, and we have to dig into what those are, and what might lose out, however much we love the work done at Georgia Bank. Does the whole who-haw about Georgia Bank raise the question, does the government understand the importance of pure science, which may not yield a quick commercial return? I think that is the question. And I think it would be important to draw our reader's attention to all kinds of pure science that has been done in the past,

25:41the discovery of penicillin, the discovery of the structure of DNA, work in mRNA vaccines, all of which began as pure science, and came to have hugely important practical applications. So I think, just as I think the division between the arts and the humanities is kind of a false one, I think the division between pure science and applied science is also not really real. No, fair enough. But John, there are two hardy perennials here, aren't there? One, Brits patting themselves on the back for their expertise in pure science, and secondly, Brits flagellating themselves for failing to commercialize their research. They're commercialized, they're brilliant in pure science. And if we want to look at the other side of this argument, there are people whose job is to allocate research funding and who've been told you can have quite a good, big overall sum.

26:44As long as it is broadly, you prioritize projects with a possible commercial return, hence, as Erica says, focus on AI quantum, as if that'll get anywhere in the next 10 years. Do you think in our journalistic leaping on Jodra Bank, because it looks so cool, and it is so cool that we're actually being a bit tough on the people who've made these tough decisions? No, I think there's an incredible attraction about astronomy and looking to the stars. This isn't a huge amount of money, and the other countries are investing quite heavily in astronomy and building out telescopes. I think it was a wrong decision to cut it, and I'm glad it sounds as if it's been reversed. I think this was part of a wider cut in terms of astronomy. I'd like to know a little bit more about the rest of it, because I think there's a telescope in her, the James Clark Maxwell telescope, which gets some UK funding, and I think they're also looking at cutting that.

27:50I'd just want to know about, if Jodra Bank is saved, what happens with the other cuts they were proposing to make, and will they also be reversed? How do we think it got to the Prime Minister's desk? Could it have been Brian Cox's Twitter feed? That's Sir Brian Cox, of course, TV's best known astrophysicist? It's been widely reported, and there's been pretty universal criticism of the decision. It wouldn't surprise me if he had read about it and decided that it wasn't the fight that he wanted to have. I mean, rightly or wrongly, he has shown himself pretty flexible when it comes to responding to public sentiment on things and has already performed a few U-turns. Now you could argue that, like I say, that's him being flexible and him recognising that actually sometimes you do need to do popular things, rather than stubbornly sticking to things that really aren't popular, even if you think they're the right thing to do.

28:57In this instance, it seemed like a bit of a slam dunk because, as Erika and John have both said, it wasn't a huge amount of money overall. But I think what it does is it kind of gives you a bit of a microcosm of the kind of wider issues that he is faced with, which is there isn't enough money for everything that he would like to do, and he's going to have to make some unpopular decisions. So what are they and where is the knife going to fall? And that we're going to know, at least by the budget, if not before. So this is perhaps the thin end of the wedge of that. It's fascinating, isn't it, Erika? One end of this story, you've got planets and galaxies forming hundreds of billions of light years away. And at the other end, right down here in Westminster, as you point out, Kat, there's this fascinating political problem of right now, which is that one person's U-turn is another person's flexibility. And of course, Stama was absolutely hammered on his U-turns. And you've got to wonder that...

30:02But I think all politicians are going to make U-turns. I think it's the savvy politician that knows which ones are the right ones to make. And how to present them. For all the sort of much justified criticism of Boris Johnson, he was quite an intuitive politician in that respect that he could sense when things were going down so badly that it wasn't a battle worth having. And Stama really wasn't. So the question is, is Burnham going to be more of that intuitive politician? I think the signs are so far, yes. But does that mean that he goes so far in the other direction that we don't actually know what he stands for and he doesn't stand for anything and he doesn't make the difficult decisions because he doesn't want to be the bad guy? And in the process, racks up bills that he can't pay. Okay, thank you all very much. Now you have to tell me which stories you think should lead the news. You cannot pick your own. I wonder who looks readyest looking around the table. The silver fox.

31:02Sizz. No. Kat, you go first. I'm going to go with John's pitch because I think it is clear what the story is at the minute. And you know, journalists are always going to go for the negative. Okay, John. Well, I don't like saying no to a good news story because we need to have more of them. And the Dr. Albank Saga is really fascinating. But I think Zack Plancki and what happens with the Green Party and his future is this is a really important by election. It's significantly more important than the Clackton was. And I think it's a strong story. So I'm going with Kat's. Okay, interesting. Erica. Kat's is a really important story. And I know that good news, you know, always, always comes in behind. So I don't take events at any of that. I have already confessed unfortunately my own slight personal weariness with, with by elections.

32:08And I am fascinated by what's really going on in as you say, what is hybrid warfare? And it's just a new kind of warfare and don't we really have to address that. So to really dig into that fascinates me. So I am going to vote for John. Okay, thank you all very much. We're going to take another quick break. And when we come back, we shall find out what I deem leads the news. I'm Sam Cotes. And I'm Ann Nikehlhoi. Britain has a new Prime Minister and every day from 7.45am will help you make sense of the day ahead in just 20 minutes. That means taking you inside Westminster with our forensic insight, sharp analysis and the stories behind the headlines. From the battles in Parliament to the conversation shaping government. We'll set you up each morning for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to politics at Salmon Ants, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, welcome back.

33:10I've more or less made up my mind and I'm going to do it by disagreeing with two of you. Kat, I'll start by disagreeing with you. You chose John's story, sabotage and spies, the Russian hybrid threat. Because you thought it was clearer what the story was than the Jodrow Bank story. I disagree. My whole problem with the Russian hybrid warfare story is I'm not sure what it is. I'm not sure whether we're looking at hacking, undersea cables, military plans for Moldova or the Baltics. And my sense is that nobody else knows as well. We can go and talk to these experts, but you always get mush. And so at the risk of waiting until something catastrophic happens and then wishing we'd reported it earlier, I'm not going to lead the news with that. John, I'm now going to disagree with you. You went with a hydrama in high-hobin, the biolection story, which you argued was more important than the clactant story,

34:14because it would tell us about Zach Polanski's currency as Green Party leader. I disagree. I think the clactant biolection was a much more important in what it told us about Faraj's durability as a leader, and b was about enough biolections for now, Ed. So that leaves ostensibly by the process of elimination the Jodrow Bank story, but of course I have to confess to a deep personal fascination with this story anyway. So this is not just chosen by a personal elimination, it's because as I hinted earlier, it touches on the mysteries of the cosmos, of the big bang, of the formation, of the universe, of the future, of the universe. If it goes into space, it leads. I mean, come on, guys. You're so predictable, darling. This is why I said, right, when I put my story, I said teacher's pet.

35:14I'm teacher's pet. But also, the politics of this is fascinating, and the big question, will the government... It's a story. A picture story. Have you been? No. No. All right, I'd advise you to go... We rest our case. We rest our case. Well, have you been to Hoven? Yes, I was there this morning. For all those reasons, and I didn't get quite to finish, the political point that we were ending on, the difference between flexibility and new turns in politics, I think it's fascinating. The only caveat here is that, in a sense, the story has had the rug pulled under it by the Prime Minister saying he's going to fund it. So the story is not what it was 24 hours ago, but it is still a story, and it's going to lead the news. Because it's good, and it's fascinating, and it's scientific, and political. So that's it for today. Erica, John Cat, thank you all very much for joining me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry to be so predictable. Do you infinity and beyond? Stephen will be back with another episode next week on Thursday. Have a lovely weekend, and goodbye.

36:21The Observer. I'm Sam Cotes. And I'm Ann Nicole Void. Britain has a new Prime Minister, and every day, from 7.45am, will help you make sense of the day ahead in just 20 minutes. That means taking you inside Westminster with our forensic insight, sharp analysis, and the stories behind the headlines. Then the battles in Parliament to the conversation shaping government. We'll set you up each morning for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to politics at Sam and Ann's, wherever you get your podcasts.