The News Agents: How does Israel get its hostages back?

This is a global player original podcast.

Without apology, we're going to play you a father's voice.

It's deeply distressing, but it's about the subject that we're tackling today, which

is the hostages in Gaza.

And this is one man, one father, talking about his daughter, Emily.

She was either dead or in Gaza.

And if you know anything about what they do to people in Gaza, that is worse than death.

And today, Thomas Hand, who was there speaking to CNN, found out that his eight-year-old

daughter had in fact been killed.

And his reaction is, I don't know what word to describe it.

They just said, we found Emily, she's dead, and I went, yes.

I went, yes, I'm smiled because that is the best news of the possibilities that I knew.

It was the best possibility that I was hoping for, death was a blessing, an absolute blessing.

It was an expression of unbearable grief born out of the best love.

So today, on the news agents, we're going to talk about those 150 or so people being

held hostage around Gaza.

What it means for Gazans as they come under attack, what it means for Israelis as they

try to free their hostages.

Welcome to the news agents.

The news agents.

It's John.

It's Emily.

And the situation in Gaza has to be where we start today, which is under siege with emergency

supplies, water, electricity, more or less cut off, and Israel saying, you're not going

to get these vital services back until you free our hostages.

Airstrikes have continued and you have Hamas saying, we're going to start executing publicly

your hostages if you hit our buildings.

It is the most horrendous impasse.

And I think we should hear now from someone whose mother, an 85 year old woman, was taken

from her bed.

Sharon Lifchitz has been giving a news conference in London where she lives.

This is what she said a short time ago.

I mean, you have to be a special sort of person to take an 85 year old woman out of her bed,

don't you?

She really, you know, these are frail people.

When the video's first surfaced, there was a video and a very elderly woman on a kind

of rickshaw being taken around Gaza in her nightie.

And I looked at it and I thought, oh my God, I don't know this woman.

She's from another kibbutz, you know?

She's not someone I know.

Only of course she was.

She was my mother's friend, Yaffa, Yaffa Adal, you know?

We together have experienced something that is so horrific we cannot contemplate.

But we have a job to do now and I am concentrating, all of us are concentrating on the job at

hand and the job is in the face of all of this, bring these people back home.

There's mothers waiting for the children.

These are my friends, children.

These mothers are me.

I'm asking on their behalf, not on my behalf.

There's no I here.

There's we.

I keep looking at this number.

It's 150, 150 hostages and it actually sort of doesn't sink in because, I mean, I'm not

saying there is any right number of hostage taking, of course there isn't, but you occasionally

hear about one or two.

You hear about soldiers being abducted.

You hear about the fight to get one person back.

And now we're looking at the kind of numbers that remind me of the hostage takings of the

1970s, the sort of raid on in Tebi, where entire aircraft were basically hijacked and

made to land at the terrorist wills and you never knew what would happen.

But I mean, even then, all those people were together.

They were all together in one place.

And I actually, I keep on sort of not quite being able to register.

There is a sense of disbelief when you hear of all the nationalities of all the ages of

all the places that they ripped people from, whether it was their beds or their homes or

their sleepovers and took them away.

And I think that probably does explain a little that very first clip we played of the father

who cannot imagine anything worse than an eight year old ripped away from her family

and taken to somewhere where they only mean harm.

And I guess what we need to discuss a little bit is what, if anything, would make murderers,

would make terrorists change their mind because we know it's not going to be compassion, right?

They're not suddenly going to have an awakening, a sort of damocene conversion.

It's only something that will act to help their cause, whatever that causes.

And I think that's where we are now.

There will be hostage negotiators, there will be families, there will be politicians,

there will be entire states trying to work out what Hamas does.

And there will be people who are nervously looking at Israel, who, as you said, is attempting to start

this ground war now saying, hang on, don't do it, don't go in there.

That's going to be the deaths of our loved ones as well.

All the governments involved in that as well, sort of presumably putting pressure on Israel

to go carefully here because they don't know what they're destroying.

I mean, you are in a position now where there are no good options.

There's nothing easy.

There's nothing that, as you say, Emily, the damocene conversion where Hamas says,

oh, I'm terribly sorry we did all this big mistake.

Yeah, here they are, the 150 people back, and here's a ribbon and bow and a box of chocolates to say,

we're sorry.

Yeah, that's not going to happen.

It is beyond awful the situation that they're in.

There are no good military options.

I mean, it looks like Israeli is massing forces and artillery on the border and heavy weaponry

to launch a land invasion into what could become a quagmire.

And it's very uncertain that it will lead to the liberation of those hostages.

And therefore, you have to look at who might have leverage in this situation over Hamas.

And that is very hard to see.

Sure, Iran, maybe, but Iran is not going to do a thing to help free the hostages

because presumably Iran had been in on the original plan and given it the go ahead

because Iran funds Hamas to such a large extent.

I guess the only players potentially are Qatar, where the head of Hamas is said to be based,

and also Turkey, which is a very big regional player as well,

that they might be able to produce some form of swap whereby Palestinian prisoners

held in Israeli jails are exchanged for these 150.

But I wonder more profoundly and more disturbingly whether actually Hamas wanted to terrorize Israel.

It did it incredibly successfully with this operation on Saturday.

By taking 150 hostages, you extend that sense of terror, of shock, of insecurity, of vulnerability.

And there's also the provocation theory, which William Haig writes about really well, actually,

which is that, I think he describes it as a howl of rage, that Hamas is basically standing there

with the hands, saying, come on then, come on, let's see what you want to do.

And the angrier it can make Israel, the more extreme the response will be,

the more unsettled the Middle East will become, the less likely there will be any sort of deal-making

or peace or normalization of relationships.

And so this is the point at which Israel itself has to go,

am I being led down this dark alley?

Is this exactly what is? It's a trap.

And we know that Israel have extraordinary military might.

But I guess the question that Haig raises now is, have you thought this through?

This is the chess game.

Where is your political end to this?

Because it's not really, it's not really just to destroy 2 million people living in Gaza.

That's not going to help anyone.

I mean, it's certainly not going to help the Gazans,

but it's not going to help politically Israel find its footing with the allies it so desperately needs

now either.

So where is this game being played?

And at the moment, if you think that Hamas is trying to say to Israel, come on,

let's see how cross you are.

Let's see how angry you are.

Let's see how much destruction you can do.

Israel also has to hold back and think about what their strategy is.

There's another piece of this that really interests me,

which is the role of the US in all of this.

And Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, America's top diplomat, is in Israel today.

He is there alongside Netanyahu.

And we'll play a clip of that in just a moment.

But for public consumption, it's all about America absolutely stands by Israel's side.

But America will have considerations in all of this as well.

I'm sure they've relieved that a government of national unity has been formed and that people

from other parties are being brought into the government as well.

But I think America will be looking at this in a regional context of the danger of the whole

of the Middle East being engulfed in a war with Iran and that draws everybody in.

And that is the wider picture that America probably won't talk much about.

But today, Blinken and Netanyahu were standing shoulder to shoulder Israel and America side by side.

If you'll permit me personal aside, I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of

State, but also as a Jew.

My grandfather, Maurice Blinken, fled pogroms in Russia.

My stepfather, Samuel Pizarre, survived concentration camps, Auschwitz, Dachau, Mydonok.

So Prime Minister, I understand on a personal level the harrowing echoes that Hamas'

massacres carry for Israeli Jews, indeed, for Jews everywhere.

And Tony Blinken talking about the political questions this raises.

And interesting, yesterday you mentioned the need for a Good Friday Agreement.

Now, obviously, back in 1997, 1998, that was all about finding the political will to get the parties

around the table. What has happened in the Middle East recently is a sidestepping, if you like,

of political tensions to work on something that they all agree about, which is trade, technology,

answers to AI. And it's extraordinary how the Abraham Accords, which were, you know, curiously

sort of brokered by Trump in that time, have actually brought these normalising relations

between Israel, between several Arab states to do with technology, to do with trade.

I think the UAE looks set for 10 billion pounds of bilateral trade with Israel in the next five

years. And on the table, as we mentioned a couple of days ago, is this putative deal with Saudi as

well. So this is how they've tried to get everyone together. They've said, okay, we'll leave the

politics aside. We're not going to talk about that stuff. It's too dirty. It's too difficult. It's too

grubby. But do we all agree that we'd like to share more information? Do we like to agree we'd all

like to do a bit more on technology? Yes, we do. And it's as soon as Saudi comes to the table,

as soon as this starts looking like a really prosperous part of the world that the terrorists

kick it all up. But then you have a situation where Gaza is miserable. It is overcrowded.

There are poor facilities. There are people living in terribly overcrowded conditions. Now,

in fear of their lives, as these bombs rain down from Israeli fighter planes overhead,

they felt they were being left out of this. Of course. You know, the Gulf states were thinking,

cock, can't wait to get new bar, cock. Not just by Israel and the Israeli government,

but by Arab states as well. Yeah, they were forgotten. They were forgotten. And this is the

howl of rage that there has been. And that is why, if Israel does go in with land forces,

you might wipe out the leadership of Hamas, but you're going to have a whole heap of radicalized

youngsters whose fury and rage against the state of Israel will be as intense as anything that was

there when Hamas was in charge. And that is the sort of desperate hopelessness of the situation

and complicated as we've been talking about by these 150 hostages. Let's speak now to

Rachel Briggs. She's been a hostage negotiator. Her uncle was a hostage. She works at Chatham House,

and she has been involved in some of this desperately difficult work over 25 years.

And it's good to have you with us on the news, agents. Thank you so much. I mean, the scale of

this hostage taking is, I suppose, like nothing we've really seen before. It's really extraordinary.

Mass hostage takings are not entirely unprecedented, but they are highly, highly unusual because,

as you can imagine, they're really difficult to pull off. So there have been mass hostage

takings before. We think of the theater siege in Moscow in 2002, the Japanese Embassy in Lima in

96, when Saddam Hussein took hundreds of hostages during the first Gulf War as a human shield,

for example. So there are precedent in that regard. What is highly unusual in this case is

the mass nature of it, combined with the fact that it's a multinational hostage group. They have

been taken into a war zone. Of course, many of the hostages, unfortunately, may well have been

injured en route to their place of captivity. And as we're seeing play out, hour by hour,

tensions and emotions are an absolute boiling point at every side of this equation. So

in the 25 years that I have been in and around hostage situations, I simply don't remember one

that's as complicated as this. Rachel, it seems to me that we always try to get inside the hostage

takers mind. I'm wondering whether that just seems an utterly futile exercise in this case. I mean,

if you start from the point that they are murderous and terrorists, then is there any point trying to

work out what this is about other than publicity? Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question,

isn't it? There is a point in the sense that they will have taken them for a reason.

What that reason is may evolve as we go through the situation, of course. I mean, in the first

instance, it would be a logical sort of calculus on their part that taking this number of hostages

would firstly be helpful in demonstrating their sheer audacity, their power, their ability to

sort of pull something off that shouldn't have been possible. Secondly, they have quite a helpful

human shield within Gaza. They will certainly have been thinking about that. I would anticipate that

they would see the potential here for using the hostages as some form of bargaining chip.

Hamas has already said, every time you bomb without warning, we are threatening that we

will murder a hostage. And what those sort of bargaining positions might be as we go forward

will change day by day. But it sounds like you think that they do want to release the hostages,

then. Would you give families that kind of hope? I think we have to start from that

basis. Yeah, I mean, holding 150 hostages is also a very difficult endeavor, particularly

in any circumstance, but particularly with what is going on here. And I'm the first to say that

these hostages find themselves in an incredibly perilous situation. And having been a family

member of a hostage and having supported many, many, many dozens of families, it's so important to be

honest about the situation. But what I would add is that it is critical to always maintain hope.

I've also seen hostages walk out of scenarios that we all thought was almost impossible.

And in fact, a good friend of mine and a mentor of mine, Terry Waite, who was

held for five years, his family were told a year or two into his captivity.

Categorically, he has been murdered. And of course, he emerged from the side of a plane

at Bryce Norton a few years later. So very perilous. But there is reason for hope.

There is reason for hope. And most hostage takers do want to end up sort of releasing

them at some point down the line. Yeah, the other side of this that we haven't spoken about,

which is not just whether there will be a deal that Hamas wants to strike with Israel to release

them. It's hard to see quite what the contours of that would be. But the other aspect of this is

who has got leverage over Hamas aside from Iran? And can they be prevailed upon to act as

sort of honest brokers in this? I mean, we hear that the leader of Hamas

is in Qatar. I mean, presumably the Qataris could be playing a role in some of this.

That's what negotiators are always looking for in this in this instance.

Who might be able to open the door of Sleva? Who can get people around the table and who's

got some influence? I think one of the positive signs that we've seen over the last almost week

now, extraordinarily, is that there are signs that conversations are starting. So the Qataris

said very quickly over the weekend that they were starting to negotiate to at least try and get the

women and the children out. I mean, unspeakable that children are going through this horrific

experience. We've heard today that Turkey has said it is trying to use some leverage. And

indeed, the Red Cross has stepped forward as well offering both humanitarian support, of course,

but also the option of its table being used. So I see that as a really positive sign. And

I would feel very sure that the negotiating team behind the scenes in Israel will be very closely

trying to figure out who has got an in, who can open the door and who can ultimately get Hamas

around the table. Just given the horror of what has unfolded, the concert goes 260 dead,

the Kibbutz mothers children wiped out. Isn't it just perfectly possible that what Hamas are doing

is extending the horror with no intention of release, no intention of letting these people go.

This is just a kind of another piece of salt in the wound that Israelis are feeling right now.

Listen, I mean, I think, you know, as I said, this is an absolutely unprecedented situation.

And I think we have to face the reality that anything is possible. History gives us some

guidance as to what the future might look like. But ultimately, it doesn't give us the full road

map. So, you know, we can't rule that out as a possibility. We just have to hope that there's

a shred of humanity and that there's something worth dealing for to get these entirely innocent

human beings back with their families and healing as soon as possible.

Rachel, you spoke about your own experience. Your uncle was taken hostage.

Just take us through what you would be doing now as a family. When you said you wanted people to

be honest with you, how much communication do you want to have? How many of the details do you

want to have? What did you need when that was you? Yeah. And obviously every family is different

and how they choose to cope will be right for them. I'll tell you about how it felt for me.

And I've seen this with other families is initially you start off almost with a sense of

disbelief. How on earth could this happen to a family like mine? It's so unusual,

even given the extremities of this instance, it's generally unusual anyway. So, you know,

the number of families I've spoken to who've said literally this phrase, I feel like I'm in a

Hollywood movie and, you know, my feet aren't touching the ground right now. So I think in

those early days, there will be just this sense of disbelief almost like you're living in a cotton

wall bubble that, you know, you can't really touch reality. As you said, Emily, the information

pieces is really key. That was especially important for me. You know, I wanted to know what's

happening, what might happen, what's happened previously, how do you think this is going to

run? And I've always found in my experience that, you know, families aren't stupid. They know that

their family member is in a very difficult situation. You have to, if you are the information

giver, you have to approach people as adults and be really honest and realistic with them about

what the chances are, what has happened previously and so on. So, but families will be clinging on

for any information they can get. And of course, these situations are so frustrating in that regard

because on the one hand, there is so little information. And on the other hand, there is no

shortage of information, which is rumour, incorrect, conspiracy theories. This is obviously a totally

different example. But when we used to do these sort of courses, you know, hostile environment

courses that talk you through what could happen in those situations. I remember this phrase they

used to us, which is you have to try and be the grey man, i.e. be the person that no one notices,

that just sort of gets under the covers almost without standing out. When you're talking to

hostages themselves, when you're trying to convey how they should act, what is the advice you give

them about their behaviour? Yeah, I mean, it's a good piece of advice you've had. It's firstly about

trying to survive. And that's a particularly pertinent piece of advice given the situation in

Gaza right now. It's about trying to mentally survive, hold on to a sense of yourself, which

we sort of sound so fluffy and silly in these situations, doesn't it? But actually, the hostages

I've seen who've coped best are those who have managed to make sense of their situation, reconcile

themselves to the reality. It really sort of sets them up for strength that they will need to both

survive captivity, but then survive survival as well, because it's a long old job to recovery.

So yeah, the grey man is a good analogy here. And as I said, tensions are an absolute boiling

point. So the last thing you want to do is lose your call and risk provoking something

from your captors. Rachel, grateful to you. Thank you so much. Rachel Briggs there. Thank you.

This is the news agents.

There have long been reports about prison overcrowding, and you sort of take it in your stride

and think, well, yeah, okay, but they'll find room for everybody. But there was this little gem

that we missed at the Conservative Party conference. I don't think we could have been paying attention

or something like that. But Alex Chalk, the justice secretary in his speech, revealed this,

and it didn't get much pickup. Have a listen. We're expanding and refurbishing existing prisons

and hiring thousands more prison officers. And I can tell you today, conference, that we also

intend to look at the Norwegian example and explore renting overseas capacity. We are actually going

to rent prisons in other countries to house our own criminals because we haven't got room. Well,

the story thickens because we now know, we think we know, that judges have been told not to jail

rapists as the prisons are too full. And the reason that we know that is because Catherine Baxie

broke that story in the times and she can join us now. Just Catherine, spell this out for us,

because it sounds like something you kind of make up. No, well, as you say, it sounds almost

inconceivable, but it's an indication of the state that the justice is in at the minute,

that the prisons are so full that judges have been told not to send people who are on bail to

prison, so as not to add to the prison population, which is at capacity. So it's just when they're

on bail, right? I mean, I guess the point of putting people behind bars is because you think

that they could still be a danger to the public. And what the government's message seems to be

sending out is like, even if they are potential fugitive rapists, we just can't deal with that,

right? Well, yeah, I mean, people who are charged with murder and crimes like that,

who haven't been convicted, are generally sent to prison on remand waiting for their trial.

People who are charged with things like that, what the judges have told us they're concerned

about, people who are charged with things like historic rape, the rape of a child or rape of

a grown-up person or other serious sexual assault, where these things happened

a several years ago, and sometimes the defendants are quite elderly, so they are not in prison,

they're on bail before their trials. But then the judges said they're concerned that when these

people, if and when these people are convicted by a jury found guilty, the judge will tend not

to be able to sentence them to a custodial term, that they will have to delay that and send the

convicted rapists back out into the community on bail until there comes a time when the prisons

have enough room for them to be sentenced. So this would be convicted, this would actually

be convicted rapists, yes. Yeah, oh my god. What's so extraordinary about this is that

even at a time when there is such criticism of how few people are actually convicted of rape,

that you could then have a situation where those that are convicted are still out there and

therefore the woman who has been raped and has been a victim, doesn't get any satisfaction

from seeing the person that has carried this out being sentenced and serving time inside and feeling

safe. Well one of the judges who spoke to us, they said they were so concerned, what happened if

this person that appears before them is convicted and then they send them back into the community

and they could come across the victim, the victim may come across them and the victim is going to

think what on earth is going on, this person was convicted the other day by a jury, why are they

still at large? You wouldn't want to be a victim with a convicted rapist still potentially on your

doorstep, right? Well exactly and the government talks tough and say we want to try more people

and convict more and give them longer sentences, but then the whole thing is made a complete mockery

of by the fact there's nowhere to send, the prisons are too full to send anybody to prison.

Catherine you were told this by judges, what was the reaction when you put this

to the government departments, whether I presume it was the justice department?

Yeah well they didn't deny it, they sent some form of comment and there's been a minister

doing the rounds today who hasn't denied it and just keeps banging on about safety and how

safety is paramount. And are the judges up in arms? I mean presumably that's how you know.

Some of them are because they've told us there haven't been any public comments by the senior

judiciary or maybe they will say something in due course, I don't know. And Catherine we know that

before the Supreme Court at the moment is the whole issue of whether you can send asylum seekers

to Rwanda and what will happen there, what is the legal position? We heard that clip of Alex

Chalk there saying well we might rent prison places overseas, can you just send off your prisoners

who've been convicted under the British legal system to serve their sentence in Estonia or

Norway or Latvia or wherever it happens to be. I know I would have to consent, you can't just

send people overseas like that, I mean it's a particular state of affairs, if our asylum

processing is going to be sent to Rwanda prisoners are going to be sent to Estonia or Norway,

the whole thing is just ludicrous. So do you get the impression but listening to Alex Chalk

from that speech, it sounds like this is something they're considering, you haven't heard whether

there is work going on saying what price will you give us for 100 prison places in your prison

with a view. Well it's difficult to say because you don't know whether the government is saying

these things to try and create a headline or make it look as though they're doing something.

And they come up with these ludicrous ideas sending people overseas when there are much

simpler ways of dealing with it. This problem of overcrowded prisons is not something that's

crept up on the government overnight, they've been aware of the problem growing for ages,

it's an entirely natural and foreseeable consequence of A, the lack of funding which

means you don't have enough courts, you don't have enough judges, so the trials can't get on,

so the remand population is growing, but also with a ratcheting up of sentencing over the years,

so the prisons become full of both unconvicted and convicted prisoners who are having longer

Catherine listen thank you so much and well done on breaking this story because it is

an extraordinary tale and I guess it shows the clash between a party and government that wants

to show it's tough on crime and tough on criminals and therefore lock them up and yet a situation

where you just don't have the capacity and there is tight spending rounds and there isn't the money

to create the capacity that you need to meet the demand to be tough on crime yeah I mean look

there is no doubt when you look at the numbers we have reached prison capacity the population is

set to pass a hundred thousand in prison by 2025 that's a huge huge number huge threshold to cross

but I guess the question is we can't build people houses right we can't even let young people own

their own homes or or live in houses so the idea that we would sort of bypass the building of houses

to build more prisons seems crazy I guess the question is are the people that are sitting in

prisons rapists who potentially right could actually go out and and do harm in the community

are they murderers who could actually go out and do harm the community or are they a whole series

of people suffering from social mental health problems deep rooted family problems deep rooted

community problems where there is very little sense to see them locked up when I was in Australia

recently and jet lagged we watched on TV inside the world's toughest prisons which was a kind of you

know factual program just kind of thing my boys would love yeah kind of mildly entertaining break

and I thought you know what I don't fancy any of those prisons overseas thank you very much

and I can't believe that there'll be many British prisoners who would fancy oh yeah

always wanted to get an Estonian stamp in my passport I'll go to Estonia to go to prison you

probably wouldn't get the stamp because I'm imagining they do something like they do with

rendition where you don't technically leave the UK they just designate a boat with a prison on it

somewhere in the Estonian sea I don't know but we're getting a bit granular now on a big macro

problem which is oh my god are we really telling judges that you can't send convicted rapists

to prison what a mess

this is the newsagents

and before we go Lewis Goodall is here that's too few to give my full name or just in case he's

been doing that he's been going Emily Maitlis Lewis Goodall no I have not you'll cross with me

no no I'm just I'm just sick of how matey we are fanboy chum Lewis Goodall was in Liverpool

I mean we had a lot of attention but as nothing compared to our boy band hero Lewis Goodall

the David Beckham of the newsagents you want to be careful how you wear that yeah not as many tats

not yet not inked up enough I was thinking about getting one of our faces just on my back

like the coffee like the coffee so the SMP have got their conference starting this weekend

and what a cork are it's getting off to yeah well when we were talking last week about what it

couldn't be better for the Labour Party better backdrop that they'd won in rather Glen obviously

that means someone lost and that was the SMP that's bad enough and then today certainly to I think

anyone who hasn't been watching the kind of intra SMP politics within the Westminster group of the

SMP very very closely who would that have been none of our listeners I'm sure but the sort of

shock news that one of their own MPs Lisa Cameron who is the MP for East Kilbride has defected

crossed the floor which is pretty rare in the Commons to the Conservative Party the Conservative

and Union Party yeah I mean I can't actually think of I mean certainly in recent history this is not

this is not happens and she's attributing her decision to her treatment from colleagues in

reaction to her speaking out she says in support of the harassment victim of fellow SMP MP

Patrick Grady she said this I do not feel able to continue what I have experienced as a toxic and

bullying SMP Westminster group which resulted in my requiring counselling for a period of 12 months

in parliament and caused significant deterioration in my health and well-being as assessed by my

GP including the need for antidepressants she said being in the SMP has been bad for my health

and she said that the person who has supported her most in this time has again perhaps for people

surprised been the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and so she has crossed the floor and joined the Tory

benches I mean we should add perhaps that she was like this has come on a day when she was

facing deselections from her own seat yes and she was also yeah she was slightly out of step I think

on bigger issues as well like abortion she spoke after an abortion debate and she clearly

felt more aligned with the Conservatives I guess in the SMP position but I love the line from Ian

Murray who's Labour Scottish Secretary today who's kind of twisted the whole 2015 election campaign

on its head and he's just said it's clearer than ever vote SMP get Tory which was a sort of gift

really for Labour she hasn't gone to Labour she's gone to the Conservatives all that rhetoric around

oh if Labour win they'll just do a deal with the SMP now it's completely sort of falling apart and

he's trying to turn that one around I do think what's so interesting in Scotland at the moment

is the sort of disjunction between support for independence which sort of largely remains unaffected

and support for the SMP which is really falling sharp and this will underline further oh my god

they're all rats in a sack it's not a united party what's wrong with them what's wrong at

Westminster I bet you the SMP MPs are glad to see the back of her in some ways but it comes at a

price where it looks like your party is falling apart is dysfunctional there's a lot of bad blood

around and that's just the last thing you need and they can't deselect her so they've essentially

lost that seat until the next election yeah and look the people in the East Kilbride might have a

particular sort of set of surprise right because they vote by I think 46 percent for an SMP MP

the Conservatives come a distant third compared to that and now they've got a Conservative MP and

obviously particularly crossing the floor is rare and it throws up questions anyway I suppose it

throws up big questions who is your favourite floor crosser my favourite floor crosser well I

suppose Churchill did it twice yeah who was the person in St Helens it was Sean Williams no no

Sean Woodward sorry Sean Woodward Sean Woodward he was I think he did it twice no no oh yeah

he defected to Labour in 2001 and then he was he was the MP for Whitney that's how Cameron ended up

in his seat because he left Whitney but then obviously he wasn't going to get elected as a

Labour MP and he ended up in St Helens and he was nicknamed the only Labour MP with a butler

okay I stayed at his house Sarsden house after I'd written a bug for the Blair he had someone

over from America a very prominent Democrat politician Linda and I were invited to go and

spend the weekend at Sean Woodward's place and Linda said I think I'm going to be really jealous

of his house and I said I think it's going to be so far beyond anything that we could ever think

about he married Camilla Sainsbury and inherited I mean they had a fortune and they had this house

with a chapel a lake with a Grecian temple at the end and there was a butler and so it was true

the apocryphal story about him being a Labour MP with a butler was true oh yeah there was the

butler in the house and on Sunday morning Linda said I'd really love a cup of tea so I said I'll

go find a kitchen and I went to I found the kitchen eventually it took me bloody ages to find the

kitchen and there is the butler saying ah tea for two there was a pot of tea silver service

china cups and sauces remember his name good butler's name someone they were out but

you know I'm making that up all right someone at university when I was at university told me that

I had a good butler's name it's what Oxford was like at that time good all it was the most extraordinary

weekend well I didn't think this is where we'd end up but it's it's it's lovely to be here

sure if you're listening we love a bit of that but yeah look it's rare and the point is is that

it's particularly weird obviously in the context of Scottish politics because when the fundamental

question is the constitutional question about whether you are a unionist or you believe in

independence and this was obviously a person who at least up until the 2019 election was telling

voters that she wanted there to be an independent scotland she's now joined the conservative and

unionist party who is very much against Scottish independence it does open the door I mean interestingly

and for another day to the question of whether there could be a independence party that is not

linked to the smp well it's alba there's alba yeah no it is and that is as the smp gather for their

conference nabadi this weekend it is we've just been to the labour conference and you know by common

agreement that was the best conference they've had in some years this is going to be the worst

the smp have had for many years because even actually even after in 2014-15 after they'd

lost the independence referendum conversely that gave them that kind of political adrenaline shot

in the arm which led to their taking 56 out of 59 seats in the subsequent general you can regroup

you can have a failure and then regroup suddenly they feel like they are on the slide and yusuf is

going to have to try and come up with an answer the question what is the strategy here as you

were saying john when for the first time really the question of independence is being decoupled

from the smp is a movement how do you re-couple it and how do you regroup ahead of what is

anticipated to be a tough general election and then a tough hollywood election after that

where of course they have been in office since 2007 we'll be back tomorrow except of course we

won't just but just do this way but we'll say that anyway it's all right that comes here don't

worry about it becks becks golden balls good all oh and now here we go now we're talking

the news agents with emily matress john sople and lewis goodall

this has been a global player original podcast and a persophonica production

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.