Enda Brady: UK correspondent on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backing Zelenskyy after 'dictator' allegations

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has backed Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Donald Trump described the Ukrainian president as a 'dictator'.

Starmer called Zelenskyy and told him it was 'perfectly reasonable' for the Ukraine to suspend an election amid the ongoing conflict with Russia - as the UK did the same during World War II.

UK correspondent Enda Brady says Starmer is set to meet with Trump next week in Washington DC. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Trump calls Zolinsky a dictator, and now Starma is
calling Zelinsky for apparently some advice in the Brady's at
UK correspondent in the Good Evening.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, reassurance, I think was the main kind of effect
that the Downing Street wanted last night from that phone call.
So Starmer got on the phone, spoke to Zelenski. They
get on, They have a good relationship. And this is
all because of what Trump said. As ever, lately, whatever
happens in the world, he has an opinion, and the
feeling here is that he's very wrong. So the reason

(00:34):
Trump called Zelensky a dictator is because he suspended elections,
brought in martial law. His term in office was due
to finish in May of last year. There should have
been presidential elections in Ukraine, and Trump is making out
that he's a dictator because of that. Here in the UK,
people are pointing out, well, world War two, what the
Winston church He'll do? He suspended elections until after the

(00:57):
war was finished, and of course, famously Churchill then lost
that election. The Russians are rubbing their hands with glee
at the prospect of them enforcing elections in Ukraine because
what they're trying to do is get Zelenski out. They
haven't managed to kill him in the last three years,
so what they're hoping is that some pro Kremlin puppet
will somehow engineer a win in Ukrainian elections at some

(01:21):
point this year. If there is a peace plan. Starmer
is going to get on a plane next week to Washington,
d C. And see Trump face to face. And it
does look like the UK Prime Minister is stepping up
now as the statesman of Europe to try and get
involved here and make sure Ukraine does not go down
the pan.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Does he have the experience to do then, well that's.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
A very good question. But look, given that we had
Liz Trust run this country for six weeks and we
had the circus with Boris Johnson, I would say Starmer
is our best bet. And as much as a lot
of people won't like hearing that, he's a very serious
man and these are serious times, but in all honest,
I mean, it's a pretty low bar here in the UK.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
The last few years a huge sinkhold. Tell us about this.
This is Neil London, a village and it's had to
lead to some evacuations of homes because of these sink
all so big.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, and another one has now appeared beside it on
the same stretch of road. It's on the main street
through a place called Godstone now is in the county
of Surrey, just south of London. Why is it important.
It is a main kind of cut through to get
on the M twenty five motorway, so literally thousands of
motorists would have gone through the village of Godston most days.

(02:37):
Local residents are saying this is part of the problem,
big heavy lorries using the village as a cut through.
What's actually going on is it's built on chalkstone and
there were mines in the area years ago. There are
caves in the area and clearly subsidence has happened, so
imagine you can see the pictures online. It is absolutely shocking.

(02:57):
The first sinkhole is twenty meters long and the end
result is emergency services called in, people evacuated and local
workmen telling reporters that this job is not days, not weeks,
it is months and thirty families have had to leave
their family homes just like that.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Goodness. Are they flats like next to each other or
are they stand alone homes in the sweet village.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
They look to be standalone semi loan properties. It's an
expensive area. But you know, basically people have been told
gold to a hotel. There is no support. Locals are
saying some people have gone to friends. I guess you
find out who your friends are is you've got to
move house in the space of ten minutes.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Hey, Jim Redler's this is a recklarf. Sorry. This is
the guy that's running ins and owns in theos rather
and is having a bit of a run in with
a New Zealand rugby union. So Men's History United, which
he owns too. They've got some financial results in a
great for.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
The last quarter. This is really interesting. So this now
paints us the picture as the why he's pulled out
of n ZED rugby, why he's pulled out of the
America's Cup with Ben Ainsley. Lots of other projects as well.
I see a sponsorship deal with Tottenham Hotspur wenty yesterday
in the Premier League. Right, the last three months of
last year Manchester United lost is Manchester United. They lost

(04:18):
fifty four million en ZED dollars. Now included in that
was a payoff for the outgoing manager who got sacked
the Dutch guy Eric ten Hagen, his coaches, and also
a guy called Dan Ashworth who was brought in much
fanfare as sporting director. He lasted less than six months.
Getting rid of the two of them and all the
coaches cost somewhere in the region of twenty nine million

(04:41):
en Zed and on top of that, loans from the
Glazer family that they engineered in the last nineteen and
a half years have now topped. This is the interest
on the loans. Manchester United have paid two billion en
Zed dollars and it's clear Raptliffe sat down and thought
this us to stop. We need to shore up some

(05:02):
money somehow.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Goodness made that does help to actually explain the situation
that we find ourselves in here at the bottom of
the world. End to thank you for that. Inde Brady
are UK correspondent with us.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
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Speaker 1 (05:15):
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