Hello and welcome to Politics at Jack and Sam's Daily, the podcast that gives you everything you need to know about the day ahead in British politics in under 20 minutes. And after all these months of doing it together daily, finally the roles are reversed because I am in skunts safely and warmly at home. And finally Jack has been allowed out. He's in the hotel room. It's an all brown backdrop, Jack.
Wherever can you be? I am in Washington DC. Where else? Where the real news happens? We should say that this is a special edition of this podcast. You'll listen to this on Tuesday, the 90th of November.
We are actually recording to it, or I'm recording late on Monday evening here in Washington, D.C. I have not been to bed since the last time we recorded this podcast. And here it was. We are 62 days from the inauguration of Donald Trump as president for a second time.
And that prospect of Trump as the 47th US president is changing the conversation everywhere, including in another part of the Americas, further south in Brazil, where the G20 is taking place in Rio de Janeiro, and that of course is where Keir Starmer is right now alongside the other G20 leaders.
as they're all trying to trump-proof policy on everything while also avoiding displeasing the incoming US president. We'll talk all about the G20 in a moment, alongside that much less glamorous but no less politically toxic story. The farmers protest in Westminster, which is what people like me left behind in the UK have to potentially endure throughout
Tuesday. But first, Jack, you're in Washington. Now, UK politics, as we've said many times, is going to be in the shadow of US politics for some time to come. Just give us a little bit of a feel of what you've stepped off the plane and walked into. Well, I've walked into a very warm, sunny Washington. I thought it was supposed to be cold over here in the winter. It's like 20 degrees. I mean, Washington, honestly, Sam, is a town that has come alive again with buzz and gossip and
Frankly, fear in some quarters. It felt rather like Washington went to sleep while Biden was president. At least semi so. Last time I was over here was in April of last year. Joe Biden was sort of shuffling around as the president. The election felt like a long time away. The idea of Donald Trump coming back seemed
rather far fetched at that point, if sort of plausible. Now, all anyone wants to talk about is Donald Trump and what's going to happen, like the moment he walks in the door of the White House, that the place is alive with gossip and thoughts. Mainly at moment they're obsessing here about Trump's cabinet picks. The issue about Matt Gates, his pick for Attorney General, is absolutely dominating the conversation over here. We're expecting a big meeting of Republican senators on Wednesday.
where they will decide whether or not they should release a report that the Ethics Committee in the Senate has done over allegations of sexual misconduct against Matt Gaetz, which he denies, but they're pretty law-read allegations. Now that he's quit the Senate to be the Attorney General, that report's not supposed to be released, but some senators want to do it anyway. And so there's all sorts of chatter about what's in that report. There's lawyers popping up on the TV all the time, making allegations about Matt Gaetz. And there's a lot of question about whether the Senate will actually confirm his appointment.
Frankly, though, Sam, it feels to me like a bigger story over here of the picks that Donald Trump is going to make around the economy and particularly around trade. We know the stuff he said about tariffs endlessly on the campaign trail, the promises he's made about big tariffs he wants to put on imports. That will be a huge, huge moment for the UK where he's to hit the UK with those kinds of tariffs as president. There is rumours around here today that Linda McMahon, now I'm sure you're a
a wrestling fan. Sam, did you watch American wrestling when you were growing up in the 90s? I bet you didn't, did you? I went to the summer slam at Wembley in 1991, so I'm an aficionado of American wrestling, and I remember Linda McMullen when she ran that. Well, now she's apparently going to run the whole Commerce Department in the American administration, because that's the kind of person that Donald Trump picks for his cabinet.
This is the kind of the rumour bill that is doing the rounds of Washington and it just feels like this time is going to be a completely different place for the next four years with these sorts of stories washing around all the time. Jack, from what you can see and what you can sort of smell and the early conversations that you've had.
do the people you talk to over there think that Trump too is going to be more disruptive than Trump one or has he got a bit of feel for how the presidency can work. So maybe actually this time it could be a little bit calmer. What's the sort of vibe about the extent of the change in the chaos that we're facing after January the 20th?
I have yet to meet anybody who thinks anything over here is going to be a little bit calmer. That is definitely not the vibe. Calm is not the vibe here. The theory goes that Donald Trump now understands how government works in a way that he just didn't at all when he first came in in President 2017.
and that this time he's going to hit the ground running and you've seen that with the speed of the cabinet picks. He's gone hell for leather with it, with essentially rolling out a plan that he's clearly had in the works for some time. He's not floundering around trying to find people. He's going in hard. He's talking a lot about the stuff he's going to do on day one, including an enormous clamp down
on illegal immigration, the like of which America hasn't seen for like 100 years, maybe longer. And of course, he's hanging around with some of the other most powerful people in America, not least Elon Musk. There is an expectation that, or there's at least a rumor that Donald Trump is going to turn up on Tuesday evening at Elon Musk's latest rocket launch, because why not? They're best friends now. They seem to go around everywhere together. They're on the golf course. They're playing golf with each other's kids, one of Donald Trump's
Children was describing Elon Musk as having uncle status within the family over the weekend. So, you know, these are the kinds of people that Trump is now surrounding himself with. And by the way, Sam, you do have to wonder how much of a problem that's going to be with the UK, given how much Elon Musk has been slating the UK government. We saw him at it again on Monday, attacking, funnily enough, over the farmer's protest saying the UK had gone full-starling
on farmers' issues. And so for Donald Trump, I sort of feel like there is no ceiling on how crazy this could get. That is the general feeling here. But with Donald Trump, the one thing you know for sure is you don't know what's going to happen. Britain, obviously, thinking very hard how it's going to respond. There are a lot of reports, and frankly, a lot of signs now that Peter Mandelson, Lord Mandelson, is heading for the ambassador's residence in Washington.
That appointment hasn't yet been made, however, and even if it's the recommendation of the Foreign Secretary, which reports suggest that it is, I have in the last few days picked up just a bit of concern amongst people around Kiyastama that
Frankly, if he'd end up being Peter Mandelson, then the story from a British perspective about the Trump White House and the UK-US relations are going to feature Lord Manelson day in, day out. He's a master at putting himself at the center of affairs, and they're just our people at the heart of government
quietly asking at this eleventh hour when it seems that most indicators are pointing to him getting the job, whether or not really that's the wisest thing of all, clearly others think a big figure who can insert himself in the conversation is the way forward, but they're just worried that a Mandelson ambassador's residence will be about.
Mandelson rather than the UK-US relation. So watch this space to find out what actually happens. You find one circus with another circus. I certainly would look forward to the story if nothing else if Peter Mandelson was sent out here to deal with Donald Trump. That's what they're worried about. That's what they're worried about.
So we switch our focus to Rio, because obviously that's the big other big global story happening at the moment the second day of the G20. It's lead a summit unfolding in Brazil all day through Tuesday. We're expecting Keir Starmer to give some broadcast interviews around Tuesday lunchtime, UK time, and we're expecting him to give a press conference.
as the summit wraps up late afternoon. And I guess the topic that's going to dominate things over there, again, Sam is Ukraine. It's a thousand days anniversary of the war on Tuesday. There's still these issues being asked about missiles. And I guess Kistam is going to be asked endlessly about storm shadow missiles and whether or not
they are now going to get the green light to attack inside Russian territory. The Prime Minister declined to tell my colleague Beth Rigby on Monday whether or not the UK Storm Shadow missiles will be authorized for use. There seemed quite a lot of uncertainty through the day. I note that on the front pages of the papers they seem to think that now America missiles have got the authorization. They seem to have got the tip that actually UK missiles will finally be allowed to be used into Russian territory.
see whether Keir Starmer is any clearer in those interviews. Russia, clearly one of the big stories, but Putin not there, Sergey Lavrov is representing Russia at this summit. The thing that's caught my eye over the last 24 hours is clearly Keir Starmer had that contentious meeting with President Xi, the Chinese president, the first meeting of a UK Prime Minister since Driesabay in 2018 in the sidelines of the G20 summit.
And the two sides pledged to be respectful of one another. Starmer said that there should be a full UK-China meeting in London or Beijing. If you remember, I was talking yesterday about Kistama scoping out a trip to China. Kistama says this is needed as part of a consistent, durable and respectful relationship between the two countries. And for his part, President Xi, talked about the UK and China sharing the dual responsibility of addressing global challenges.
But, but, but, shortly before midnight on Monday night, Russian agencies, via Reuters, started reporting that at the G20 summit, Russia and China, well, their foreign ministers held a meeting to discuss unprecedented strategic bilateral relations on the sidelines of the G20 meeting.
In other words, Keir Starmer spent Monday condemning Russia and hugging China while the foreign ministries of those two countries at the very same meeting were bonding and talking about strengthening their ties. I suggest to you that he's highly awkward and part of the problem with Keir Starmer's strategy and I wouldn't be surprised if that gets put to him when he faces the cameras at lunchtime on Tuesday.
I guess one of the main focuses for Starmer in meeting with President Xi was a focus on trade because the UK is very worried and Jonathan Reynolds, the business actually said this at a Lord's Committee on Monday, very, very worried about what the impact will be of a trade war.
between the United States and China and the knock on effects on the UK and this is a really big deal for the UK not least as the UK tries to hit its green goals as we were saying yesterday. Also interesting announcement coming out to the G20 overnight Monday night is Britain planning to resume trade talks with India, Sam
You'll remember the India trade deal that was supposed to be the big prize of the Boris Johnson premiership. Boris Johnson promised us a trade deal by Diwali. Well, that was Diwali in 2022, and here we are in late 2024, and there is no sign of said trade deal. Listros couldn't get it over the line. Rishi Sunak sort of pulled the brakes on it really, and with Kemi Beynock as trade secretary.
Now, Kia Starmer is promising to revive those talks next year. The fact is, Sam, it's very easy to revive trade talks, but it is still very, very difficult to actually get a trade deal with India. And the reason for that is that the thing that India always wants in any trade deal is access to your labor market. And the problem that labor are going to have is exactly the same problem that the Tories face, which is that they are promising to bring migration down.
and doing a trade deal with India is very, very unlikely to help that if it's going to be any sort of a meaningful trade deal and not just a very, very paper thin one that hardly scratches the surfaces of what either country wants. And Dan is street confirming again on Monday night that the deal will be rooted in the UK national interest and that the position of migration, which KISS Dharma says needs to come down, has not changed. So quite how they get that over the line. And then just your reminder that the more trade deals outside of the EU, the UK does,
just the incrementally harder it becomes for the UK to strengthen ties with the EU, something that it's meant to be doing not least in the light of Donald Trump. We still haven't really seen a great deal of what the UK wants from the EU. So I'm sure the EU are sort of watching quite closely the sort of starting positions on the India talks and perhaps scratching their head. It is slightly unclear quite what Keir Starmer's foreign policy
amounts to overall globally, if we're being honest. Is it to tiptoe closer to the EU, or as the Telegraph is suggesting on its front page today, to tiptoe slightly closer to the US? What I do think is clear is the emergence of Donald Trump and the return of him to the White House is going to force Keir Starmer to choose, not something that he always likes doing, between perhaps more binary options of the EU and the US. It's going to be very hard to play both sides off
as he often likes to do and kick cans down the road, he is going to have to sort of make a decision as to what side he's going to hug in the national interest. And that could be a painful moment, but I don't think he's decided it yet. So as we watch Keir Starmer, you're looking for clues about where he sees Britain's strategic interest. Is it China? Is it Europe? Is it America? And when he has to choose between them, what direction does he ultimately find himself going in? I just don't know what it's all going to look like.
All I'd say on that as I was chatting to someone, he was pretty senior in the previous Tory administration, and they were saying even Boris Johnson couldn't get a trade deal with America over the line, because once you look at the sort of requests they have around agriculture, you remember the rounds around chlorinated chicken and hormone beef and all the rest of it, then there is just no way that even a Boris Johnson free-trady Prime Minister could do that deal. They said they thought there was no way that Kia Stommer was going to be able to make that deal either.
But as we're talking about beef, shall we talk about farmers? Because the farmers are descending upon Westminster, aren't they on Tuesday, Sam? And I'm very sorry to be missing them, but we are expecting not one but two different farming protests in Westminster on Tuesday. One that's happening down the streets of Whitehall outside.
Parliament Square and outside Downing Street which thousands of farmers are expected to join sadly not on their tractors because the tractors are not allowed maybe there'll be pitchforks I'm not sure and then the NFU the National Farmers Union are organising a mass lobby of MPs at a venue in Westminster where there was sort of drag MPs down there and shout at them in demand that they change the thing that they are really really upset about which of course is that inheritance tax changes that Rachel Reeves announced in her budget last month the farmers are angry but Sam does it really matter
I remember two days before the budget, somebody aware of the discussions between Defra and the Treasury saying, I can quite see us losing an entire sector as a result of the decisions that Rachel Reeves is about to announce in the budget. And that is pretty much exactly what has happened. You've got thousands of farmers descending on Westminster, even though
the Treasury and the Environment Department insist that the changes that Rachel Reeves made that apparently have Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary's complete backing and total support, only affect 500 farms a year. Only 500 farms will be caught by the new inheritance tax rules that have been introduced that raised £500 million a year
Yet thousands of farmers feel sufficiently moved and frankly betrayed in order to descend on Westminster. Now there is an argument to say that frankly the farming community has never been a core part of Labour's voting constituency. There is an argument that there's trade-offs, there is an argument to say that those with the broadest shoulders
can pay a little bit more and once you take into account the fact that you can transfer allowances between married couples and that there are other exemptions really for many people who are looking to transfer farms to the next generation, they only pay inheritance tax over estates worth three million pounds.
Nevertheless, the sense of betrayal here, I think, is perhaps more significant than simply the numbers of people that are affected. One subplot of this has been the head of the NFU, Tom Bradshaw, suggesting that Steve Reed actually promised a Labour, future Labour government would not.
introduced this change, any changes to the inheritance tax rules around farms when he was in opposition. And I've checked it out. And it's true that people around Stevie confirmed that about a year ago, he did say that there would be no changes to the what's known as the APR, this bit of the inheritance tax rules.
And he's having to swallow those words from a year ago, arguing that the economic circumstances have changed. It was in a Q&A at the Country Solid Land Association. That's where he said it. And now he's having the Environment Secretary has gone into government in the same place as having to swallow his words.
And it is that kind of thing, I think, that is very, very tricky for this government, where there is what feels like a promise. It wasn't in the manifesto, but it was made at a conference in front of the relevant community. And now they're having to backtrack on that. It is tricky. Now, we know that Defril, one of those departments that were kicking up TAF about the budget, they were sending letters to Keir Starmer about what was in it.
But my understanding is that that was around stuff to do with spending, and of course this is all to do with tax. It doesn't seem as if Defra were intervening, at least with the Prime Minister, in order to try and stop this or soften this, at least in the letters that they were sending to Keir Starmer.
But nevertheless, the optics of betrayal are never good, which is why Kemi Badernock is doing an event on Tuesday morning around this. Nigel Farage is expected to take part in some form in Westminster around this protest, and the opposition smells
blood. So it'll be interesting to see how this how this plays out. Is it something that is confined to a few hundreds or a few thousand people who feel strongly for one sector of the economy or does a betrayal narrative start to take hold with something bigger implications for this government?
Yeah, I should say the Lib Dems as well, I would imagine we'll also be joining those protests, plenty of royal constituencies that they have now. I have to say, speaking to Labour MPs, they still feel more worried about the backlash to the winter fuel allowance cut than this. I think in terms of the number of their own constituents who are very angry, but you're quite right, these things can build up a head of steam or whatever a tractor runs on these days, a head of red diesel maybe.
and might just come for a kiss on in the days where he of course won't be there to see these protests. He will be in Rio on the Copacabana while the farmers are pouring manure outside his residence cellar. Something for him to look forward to when he comes back. Sam, that is 20 minutes. We have better knocking on the head. I am going out for dinner in Washington and you really ought to go to bed. I'm looking forward to your reflections on 24 hours in Washington this time tomorrow for another special edition of Jack Gays to Washington. We'll see you then.
Thanks very much, see you soon.
