The News Agents

Welcome to the new-look weekend edition with fresh interviews and content!

With the Tour de France starting this weekend Gabby and Mark try to get their heads around the immense physical and mental challenge of winning one of the world's toughest races. They speak to the winner of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, Kasia Niewiadoma (06:15), ex-pro cyclist, Adam Blythe, and former Team Sky nutritionist, Nigel Mitchell (21:30).

You can ...

Keir Starmer did a round of interviews this morning in a show of support for his Chancellor. And the reason was clear. After she cried in the Commons chamber yesterday the bond markets started to panic.

If Rachel Reeves leaves the government, so the theory goes, her fiscal rules, her commitment to economic discipline, could be revisited. So after a bumpy week - for both Reeves and the government - has she proved to be unsackable?

An...

There is much we still don’t know or understand about today. Was Rachel Reeves upset by an altercation with the Speaker? Was the issue something more personal? Was she exhausted after the fruitless and demoralising failure of her welfare reform bill? But the sight of the Chancellor at lunch time today fighting back tears at the PM's side was pretty surreal. She looked wounded, fragile and hurt - and inevitably, it’s started specula...

After a lull in the Bro Wars - the sequel. This time Trump is threatening not only to remove Musk's government subsidies but even have him deported. Why? It all goes back to Musk's criticism of Trump's massive spending bill - which gives the wealthy tax cuts and removes Medicaid for 17 million Americans - and would add 3 trillion dollars to America's ballooning deficit. Could Musk start his own party? Will he really prove a politic...

Tomorrow, Labour MPs will be asked to vote on the rejigged welfare reform bill. Senior Labour politicians Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham still don’t think it’s worth the paper it’s written on. But the whole debacle has thrown up a bigger question about Starmer's leadership and authority. Does anyone really understand what’s in the PM's mind or what he is trying to achieve? We speak to the Starmer whisperer, Tom Baldwin.

Later, Glaston...

This Friday, Lewis is joined in the studio by the newest members of the 'agents' family. Neil Basu is former head of Counter Terrorism Policing and Andy Hughes is an investigative journalist who's been covering crime for two decades.

They look back on 2017, a year which the UK experienced a series of devastating terrorist attacks, to talk about what it takes to catch a terrorist, and why some slip through the net.

You can listen to...

This week on The Sports Agents...

A big exclusive ahead of the Euros with two of England's defending champions, Lauren Hemp & Niamh Charles, Gabby goes behind the scenes at Wimbledon (10:30) and after England's historic comeback we ask ex-England bowler Steven Finn if 5-day cricket is too long? (19:30)

You can watch our full episodes on YouTube here.

Got a question for The Sports Agents? Email us at thesportsagents@global.com

New ...

Remember how there was going to be no row back and no change to the government welfare reform bill? Well, now it seems there might be...

Starmer's team are talking about the importance of “conversations with colleagues“ after an amendment signed by 120 Labour MPs showed them how easily they could lose a major vote on Tuesday. Those conversations are code - as is “listening mode“. Are we about to see a climb down? A change of policy?...

The atmosphere here at the NATO summit has been little short of obsequious towards President Trump. Leaders have worked out that if they want US buy-in to NATO they have to commit to Trump’s spending demands, and flatter him into believing he is the only person who can make things happen.

Well, so far it seems to be working. The US has renewed its commitment to defending other NATO countries. And the language has been expletive fre...

We’re at the Nato summit in The Hague where Europe’s leaders were hoping to put defence spending and Ukraine top of the agenda.

That's before Donald Trump derailed things by swearing on the White House lawn. He’s very cross that Israel and Iran aren't listening to him, and his insistence that a ceasefire is underway.

Can he will a war to end just by saying it? Or are we learning how little control Trump really has over world events...

Has Trump now decided he would like to topple Iran’s leadership? He’s let his cabinet tell the world that the only game here was to stop Iran becoming nuclear competent.

Yet, overnight his motivation seems to have changed. Does this change the whole scenario and make an end game much harder? And what kind of conversations is Starmer now having with his inner circle about whether these strikes on Tehran are even legal?

Later, the com...

Trump did it - he attacked Iran. Overnight, US armed forces attacked three of Iran’s nuclear development sites. Trump claims to have obliterated the nascent Iranian nuclear capabilities. Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu is jubilant. European leaders are uneasy. The whole world is holding its breath.

What happens now? Can we even know? What does it mean for the region, for Europe and the world? And what should the British government do...

Chris Patten has done it all. Conservative cabinet minister under Thatcher and Major, our last Governor of British Hong Kong, then back home overseeing policing reform in Northern Ireland, EU Commissioner in Brussels, Chairman of the BBC, Chancellor of Oxford University, you name it, Patten has more chance than anybody of having done it. But his sort of Tory Party is one which increasingly feels consigned to history. What does it m...

This week on The Sports Agents...

Does the government actually have a good reason for the £2.5bn from the Chelsea FC sale not helping millions of children worldwide? And was former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich poisoned? (03:30)

How do you train a horse for Royal Ascot? A full behind the scenes episode from one of Britain's best yards, which trained the late Queen's horses. (13:30)

And what is it like to race for 24 hours in Le Mans?...

Sir Keir Starmer has put his cabinet on alert for a possible US attack on Iran.

Just 24 hours after insisting Donald Trump had given no indication he was about to “get involved” in the conflict between Israel and Iran, the Prime Minister called a COBRA meeting to review how Britain might respond to a major escalation. Would Starmer be able to say no to Trump? What might Trump ask us to do? And how did we get here in under a week?

La...

Later on this episode we’re joined by author of 'Sapiens' and 'Nexus' - Yuval Noah Harari - to talk politics and AI. But we begin with war.

The speed of the escalation between Iran, Israel, and the US has been staggering. Trump is flirting with entering a war he doesn’t want, with an enemy he may not be able to control. At the heart of this conflict are questions over Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons. Netanyahu believes it’s ...

Louise Casey's report on grooming gangs is incredibly tough reading. She details, over 200 pages, the repeated failings of local authorities, police forces, government departments and indeed the legal system, which treats the victims of the most horrific abuse as somehow culpable.

She was tasked to look into the issue following a clamour for a national inquiry earlier this year. Bundled up in those calls - propelled by Elon Musk - ...

What is Israel's end game in Iran? Does it genuinely believe Iran is making nuclear weapons - or is this about overthrowing the whole regime? Did Trump make Iran more dangerous when he ripped up the diplomatic deal Obama had forged with the country? And will Trump end up dragging America into a brand new Middle East war?

We talk to CNN correspondent and Ex Files host, Christiane Amanpour and ask how Iranians themselves are feeling ...

The last two decades have led to the last 24 hours: Israel, going for broke and launching an all out assault on Iran’s nuclear programme. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu claims he is trying to prevent a “nuclear holocaust.” But why now? And in acting in this way will Israel succeed in halting an Iranian nuclear weapon or guarantee it?

PLUS Lewis talks at length to Zia Yusuf, the former Reform Chairman about that weekend, where he resi...