Donald Trump is heading back to the White House. Together we can truly make America great again. We are in for an unpredictable but fascinating four years. And we're going to be following every twist and turn for the first 100 days. We'll be bringing you the latest updates and analysis. First thing every morning. So join me, James Matthew. Me, Martha Kallet. And me, Mark Stone. For Trump 100, every weekday at 6am. Wherever you get your podcast.
Hello, good morning and welcome to the Early Morning Podcast from Polisco and Skoy News that gives you everything you need to know about the day ahead in British politics in under 20 minutes where frankly we wake up disappointed this morning because and it really is quite hard to believe this neither of the hosts of this podcast have been appointed trader and voice by the Prime Minister
It feels like just about everyone else seems to have got one of those lovely Envoy ships. Here's friend Caroline Harris gets New Zealand. That's a lot of air miles on the card. Quite a lot of troublemakers from the left of the Labour party are becoming envoys to somewhere hotter. Can't imagine why. Where would you have picked to be an Envoy?
Well, I've worked in both Russia and Germany, Sam. The Russia trade angle is not exactly buzzing right now. But Starmer does want to move us closer to Europe, so maybe I'll take Germany and I'll enjoy whizzing around.
between Munich and Berlin and revisiting my old haunts. It's the ultimate boondoggle of government, isn't it? I'm Anne McElvoy, executive editor of Politico, alongside Sam Coates from Sky News, and it's Wednesday, January the 28th. There's one big story, something we've been previewing for days, that speech, and I can't remember this kind of build up outside of the conference seasons, and it's Rachel Reeves this morning.
Yeah, no, picture on it that seems to have gone on forever. And obviously, obviously, obviously, we'll look at that in a moment. But before we do, it's kind of one of those things where one story and it's page two of the Daily Mail really caught my eye and I want to do it before we get to anything else. Because it's sort of relevant to everything the government's doing when it comes to growth and sort of.
business relations and the sort of general tone. And it's quite a significant development in the Lords that's taking place overnight, right? And it's a defeat for the government, right? And it's always worth looking at these when they happen, because it's a sign that peers are flexing their muscles. And it's just one of those totemic fights on growth. To be honest, I'm not even sure.
at the back end this government is going to win but certainly want to watch, not least because it involves one of Labour's biggest pre-election figures, pre-election backers being on the wrong side of the debate as far as Kirsten is concerned and that is Elton John. I was going to ask if the bill is still standing. It's a bit early for my Elton John puns but what are you actually talking about?
OK, so what are the big growth areas for this government is the creative industries, you know, the music industry, the publishing industry, the film industry, all politicians like talking up how much they love this industry. But the truth is that this government has got absolutely to log ahead with this sector of our economy. It's a massive sector of our economy because it makes loads of money and something that, you know,
whether it's industrial strategy or just politicians chatting, they always tell you that they're very proud of. But they've gone to war with the creative industries, large parts of the creative industries over what's going to happen with AI, with artificial intelligence. Because this government wants to give AI firms, as we've said before in this podcast, the right to harvest, crawl, or cut and paste onto their service, however you want to think of it.
copyrighting material unless they're told specifically that they cannot. And musicians and artists basically think that this is the start of the end of the whole system of copyright, that whole system that pays them their wages, that means that they can do their work, and they are furious. Well, Dave got the House of Lords on their side. They've got the numbers. Piers voted for an amendment, and this is an amendment backed by Elton John, mega, mega, mega labor support, a pre-election to block this. One, four, five, two, one, two, seven. Now,
It's not the first Labour defeat in this parliament. I think they've been like, I think it's the 13th or so, and it's not clear that this would be binding. But these defeats in the Lords, while they're not automatically meaning that things change are often ultimately listened to by government. So this is a big growth fight that the government's not quite winning and is causing harm and is worth watching closely.
It's a good reminder, isn't it, that growth isn't just something a chancellor can announce and everyone then swings behind it. It's a whole government effort and every bit of it is far from straightforward. So onto that main event and how that's going to work out, as you say.
definitely the most prepared event I think we've seen since Kiyastama became leader. Yeah, I was listening to Kiyastama talking yesterday about what's coming today and I'd rather enjoy this language. I just want to sort of see what you think about this and it just tells you a tiny bit about the tone at the top of government. He was talking in a broadcast interview, Paul interview with my colleague Ali Fortescue.
about why growth is important and why he, the Prime Minister, was meeting business leaders. And then he said, that's why I leave got a big speech coming up from the Chancellor. I just don't quite own a ship. Okay, I get that. And is that tiny bit mansplaining in tone? I think I've got to come in there, haven't I? Otherwise it might be a bit mansplaining in tone. Do you know that's so interesting and it struck me when your colleague Ali did that, that it was the inverse of
what was the case for a long time where Rachel Reeves had a way of saying the Prime Minister and I, or sometimes me and Keir, which I thought must have slightly charred sometimes with Keir Starmer, but now this was Keir Starmer owning it, I think also to give backing in fairness to Reeves and say that this isn't just some chancellor who's gone all crazy for growth. We need this. I'm the Prime Minister, you get behind it.
Absolutely. Look, I think sort of, you know, it's always interesting looking at Keir's relationship with women and the brief in the goes on about women. But I think the main point here is Keir started with signaling that him and Rachel Reeves are politically indivisible, which is, of course, a good thing in almost every way in the good times. If there are bad times to come and Rachel Reeves has had some not great times, then
kissed on with being politically indivisible from Rachel Reeves. Well, that creates a new complication because it makes it harder to soar off the relationship with your chancellor if you've backed every single decision that they've made because they can't act as your fire shield. Anyway, that's the language that Kia describes it. We ought to get on with how we want to describe it. It takes place at 10 a.m. this morning. It's in Oxfordshire. That's when Rachel Reeves stands up and she will talk and I believe
for 31 minutes. Got watches at the ready. What job does she have to do? Well, one Labour MP was joking to me last night. That'd be 30 minutes for business and one minute for the Labour Party. But I think that's, maybe it does reflect a little bit of reactiveness, doesn't it? But her audience is really the people she most needs to believe in the Labour approach to growth that's investors inside and outside the UK. It's business leaders, but there is another audience
she really has to get on board salmon. That is labour itself. And there's a lot of evidence that labour voters and the grassroots don't really grasp the connection of the growth agenda to the lives of their constituents. That's the research from the Good Growth Foundation, which is post elaborate and launches tonight in fact. But putting across that she has support from Ed Miliband, the Environment Secretary from others, maybe more on
the soft left in the ministerial and the cabinet ranks, that's incredibly important and the centrepiece that we're really going to have to keep our eye on is that she is going all out to push for political support to expand
three London airports, Luton, Gatwick and Heathrow. And while her sport is massively important, she can't actually bulldoze this. Well, I suppose in the end you need bulldozers, but you know what I mean. Fun fact in our playbook this morning is that the development consent orders are quasi-judicial decisions. And so they go to the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander. Can't quite see her saying no, though.
I think Heidi Alexander will be fully on board for the Chancellor's agenda. So I just thought we'd run through all the things that we know about this speech because we've been talking about it for days and there have been lots of trails and hints and leaks and all the rest of it. So Rachel Reeves will back any new application for a third runway at Heathrow. And as you say, Luton and Gatwick are likely to get the nod from the Chancellor pending that official legal decision. So that's the first thing.
Secondly, she will throw her weight behind all of those plans that we've heard in the last week to take on what the government want to call the blockers and want to have a big loud, noisy fight with. So that's changing the way the government enforces environmental rules, changing whether or not people can take big projects to the high court, and also altering the way that developers really have to consult far and wide, pleading with a whole load of slew of public bodies before they do anything to make sure that, effectively, to make sure that the environment is
is protected in most cases. There's going to be a plan to change the pension rules which listeners yesterday. No, it brings this podcast out in highs because pensions are not free money for politicians to play with. The Sun this morning says there's a green light for the development of Manchester United's 100,000 seat mega stadium and there's a new one in the overnight trail.
You'll see on the front pages talked about Britain's UK Silicon Valley and this is another will they won't they on off on off on off thing in British politics, which is she is breathing fresh life and reviving the corpse of the Oxford to Cambridge growth corridor, which has been around a
for as long as I can remember, but now it's a new big thing back again. I would just highlight two issues with that. Look at the political map of the 2024 election campaign, and the path between Oxford and Cambridge goes through lots of lovely new Labour-red constituencies, Haropfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Stephenshire, Buckinghamshire,
Buckingham. So all those MPs will have to hold their enough. Labour MPs are doing that at the moment, it has to be said, but watch this space. And secondly, this is another project in the south. Now, really, what Labour did at the election was to rebuild the Red Wall, right? Lots and lots of the bulk of that, large numbers of that, 161 majority that Labour has, was off the back of
advances in the Midlands and the North and so much of the biggest picture items in today's speech are about boosting the South and there have been two theories of growth, regional distribution of growth over the last 30 years. One says create massive clusters around London and the other is we need to level up with Labour actually
In the end, always focusing on the southeast one and Boris Johnson being the face of spreading it out across the country. So interesting to see how non-southeast MPs for the Labour Party take to this because rather than worrying today about bulldozers, I think there might be more complaints from not just MPs, but also from mayors about whether or not this is a two London and the southeast centric plan.
I think that will be what will happen because I come from the North East, I spoke to a lot of Northeast MPs along the road to the election and beyond about this. And I think there was an expectation which was created and Angela Rainer among others gave speeches about it, which talked about spreading growth out and spreading out those nodes of growth across the country. You would hear it a bit in sort of Labour, think Tanki World, let's model it a bit more on Germany, you know, that's not all have everything agglomerated.
in and around one part of the country and we can spread this out and we can have lots more growth and industrial centres coming back to life. As it happens in the end, it looks like Rachaelius has accepted an analysis that Michael Gove was very prominent in pushing under the Tories, which is that basically you go away, your two best known universities are, you push those connections and then a lot else follows as well as the broader growth strategy for the southeast. That makes the whole country richer.
But it's a little uncomfortable, isn't it? If you've got a lot of red wool seats, as you say, you've got them back. You've got mares in the north. And also, frankly, just a feeling that labour should lean a bit more towards the north and the Tories. I wonder how that will go down in practice.
So one thing to balance this out, but I don't think it does entirely, is I think there might be something on free ports, more free ports. This is an announcement, it's a weird one, this. This is an announcement that number 10 nearly made or sort of started to make when Kirsten was visiting Samoa. But for some reason, number 10 on that trip seemed quite distracted and got their sort of niggas on the twist and it was all a muddle and in the end, number 10 we drew the announcement.
And I do think that announcement might be back today, but I don't know. And it's always slightly dangerous predicting what's in the speech when you haven't had it officially confirmed three hours before it happens. But there's one other thing that I'm going to listen for when Rachel Reeves stands up. And that is
whether or not, and I think she will, talk about how she talks about the EU. There could be something I'm told in this space about trade and even maybe visas and the need to attract talent. And one of the things that looks like it's emerging is a very interesting fault line in this government.
is stuff to do with the EU. Now, at the moment, it feels like this government is set on quite a modest path when it comes to improving EU relations, because it's unwilling to budge on issues like migration visas and youth mobility schemes. All of those things that I think brings Morgan McSweeney at, Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff out in Hives, because he worries about the sort of electoral impact of anything that could be perceived as unlocking Brexit.
But it seems to me from talking to people that Rachel Reeves just feels like her job has to get gross. And if that means leaning closer to the EU, then so be it. And it's just going to be interesting to watch how different cabinet ministers and different people around Keir Starmer lean different ways, slightly different ways in this EU debate.
And the best way of tracking that is to listen to the precise words that people like the Chancellor use when talking about issues connected with the European Union because the Europe, America, China kind of, you know, debate, our foreign policy debate is going to sort of determine what happens with growth to large part. And it is far from obvious where this government's going to land when it has to make forced hard choices between those three, those three power blocks.
And it's a Rubik's Cube, isn't it? Everything affects everything else and someone who will be at the heart of that if the appointment goes.
ahead as reported this morning that it finally will is Peter Mandelson who seems to have been on his way to be ambassador in Washington for most of our adult lives, or at least a few weeks of speculation. I've got a little factoid for you, actually, Sam, that I have heard on very good authority that Kia Starmer would have appointed David Miliband.
if it had been Kamala Harris. Now, okay, it isn't, it's Donald Trump, it's a different world in that regard, but it does show that there's something very specific that Starmer's Prime Minister wanted by appointing Peter Mandelson. It was somewhat ironic that there was then a bit of noises off about whether Donald Trump will still approve him because he's really there specifically to appeal more to the Trump world and to make those connections.
But we're reporting, Labour, this morning, that it is coming at a step closer. The administration, as far as we hear, is not looking to block the great Labour grandi, and he could start packing that Vuitton luggage, if he has it. He's got to have it, hasn't he?
I think he's on his way. And by the way, so does my Sky colleague, Mark Stone. He thinks he could turn up next week. I've got my own factoid for you, which is so confident is everybody that Peter Mandelsohn's having is heading to the US that he's had his leaving due. He's had his work leaving due. That would nail it, wouldn't it?
And that was on, what day is it today? It's Wednesday. That was on Monday night. So on Monday night he had his work living due, which I think is why the photographs of Peter Mandelson going into the foreign office yesterday morning perhaps didn't show him a sort of peak precision and perfection.
Which you wouldn't after your own leaving to the night before. So I think we all know which way this is going. The worries were genuine. The worries inside the foreign office, parts of the foreign office about
Peter Madison being dead on arrival, as unlikely as that felt, seemed to me for my reporting to be genuine, but it looks as if they've got there. And now he'll turn up and his job really is to charm Trump land. That's the quality that he's got. You know, he's got connections. Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, is somebody that Peter Madison goes on holiday with. He knows Peter Thiel, who's part of the kind of tech bro world.
which is orbits around Donald Trump. So he's got connections, but more than anything else, it's his personality, I think, that has been picked. I think the issue of China will dog him, but it hasn't ultimately proved fatal, it seems. And so he is heading to the ambassador's residence in Washington. I want to then, well, Trump goes a long way, but
doesn't get you around the Chagos Islands and that issue because it does appear the Marco Rubio, the new secretary of state challenged David Lamy, foreign secretary over this in a phone call. It wasn't in the official reader, but it has been reported actually by our American colleagues directly from Rubio that he thinks the Chagos deal as a agreed or at least proposed for ratification there.
about the British government poses a serious threat to American national security interests. That's pretty strong language there. And there's some talks of an attempt to square that circle here soon in London. So let's see where that goes.
There was chatter I'm told on right-wing social media circles, which are circles that I'm not quite as embedded in as I ought to be, so I'm relying on other people's reporting, but there is something that's coming soon on the Chagos Islands. Remember, the Chagos deal was negotiated by Jonathan Powell, who went on to be Kissed Armor's Chief of Staff,
And a key part of that deal, I think, was down to the Attorney General, who is a low-profile, but massive figure in this government, who likes international law to be upheld, which is quite a big dynamic, I think we'll be coming back to in the weeks and months to come, because who your Attorney General is, how they advise cabinet ministers, and just whether they
you know, where they come down on things like enforcing the letter of international law have a huge footprint on how any government works. That's the alarm and that means that we are out of time. Cheers.
Donald Trump is heading back to the White House. Together we can truly make America great again. We are in for an unpredictable but fascinating four years. And we're going to be following every twist and turn for the first 100 days. We'll be bringing you the latest updates and analysis. First thing every morning. To join me, James Matthew. Me, Martha Kallet. And me, Mark Stone. For Trump 100. Every weekday at 6am. Wherever you get your podcast.
