Now its time for todays sunday episode of newscast, with laura kuenssberg, Paddy Oconnell and henry zeffman. Hello, its laura in the studio. Its paddy in the studio, hello. And henry at home, hi. Henry, did you watch eurovision . I didnt, sorry, which is probably not the answer you were hoping for. Well, did you do Something Else nice instead . I had a very nice meal out, yeah. But i saw some tweets so i feel like i watched eurovision. So, here is a quiz for you, as a newshound. Who won . Name the country and artist. Switzerland, and nemo. There you go. And here is nemo. Congratulations on having the winning song. I went to hell and back to find myself on track i broke the code whoa oh oh like Ammonites Ijust gave it some time now i found paradise. I can tell you that paddys toes and knees immediately started tapping and gyrating in a eurovision appropriate manner. A good final sentence, going back to switzerland where it all began, and a lot of people will say, go back to your roots in one way or another, oh, contest. Get the innocence back. I was very disappointed it was abba visage, if thats what its called, or abba voyage, the vr ai Whatever Pretendy Amazing Digital Abba rather than the real abba. The abbatar. Oh, i see what you did there right, lets get on with it. Yes. You had the scoop getter, Gabriel Pogrund, with an excellent story about the defector that we talked about on yesterdays podcast. Whats the story . Natalie elphicke crossed the floor last week, and the paper reported through Gabriel Pogrund that in 2020 she had had a conversation with then Justice SecretaryRobert Buckland asking him to intervene in the court case of her then husband Charlie Elphick facing Sexual Assault allegations of which he was convicted. And heres how Gabriel Pogrund summed it up. As i understand it, having spoken to two people who were in the room, she said, number one, she said she did not think it was furtherl that it was being held at Southwark Crown court, where it would get a lot. Of publicity, the first to be held after lockdown, and she also felt that a very senior judge would throw the book at him, and she felt that, i am not sure im| allowed to say these words. You cannot use words out of context that are swearwords, but you can use words in context that are swearwords. Well, with that, im going to say that she allegedly said that she thought the judge,. Ladyjustice whipple would be hard arse and would be unfair on her husband. I there is a word you dont hear often enough on radio 4. Henry, remind us why these allegations are actually so serious, we have a sitting mp who had gone to go and speak to the Lord Chancellor at the time, the Justice Secretary, to basically say, can you make things a bit easier for my husband . Lets just rewind a little further. If you have told me at the end of last weeks podcast that we would this week be discussing the defection of Natalie Elphicke to the labour party, id have thought you off your rocker. I mean, what happened this week is completely extraordinary. I was sitting in the Press Gallery at pmqs on wednesday when keir starmer announced he was welcoing the new labour mp for dover, and everyone looked at each other and went, what . , because nobody had noticed her cross the floor. You saw a ripple along the tory benches as they tried to work out what was going on. So firstly theres the question that Natalie Elphicke is pretty right wing, although there are some nuances to that, but then very quickly the conversation moved onto the complicated circumstances in which she became an mp. She became an mp succeeding her husband, now ex husband, Charlie Elphick in the constituency of dover after he had been charged and later convicted of charges of Sexual Assault. And that is what this brilliant story by Gabriel In The Sunday Times is all about. It is about claims that she denies, she lobbied the then Justice SecretaryRobert Buckland about how her husband was being tried, and separate claims that she will be someone else about how he was later being treated in prison. Obviously that is a massive no no for any mp, interfering in the course ofjustice, and it is a very serious set of claims, is why on both of your programmes you talk about it so and it leaves keir starmer with a big problem. And thats why on both of your programmes, you talked about it so much this morning and it leaves Party Keir Starmer with this big problem. So they thought labour, they had this great headline, right . Because defections are a great headline. It gives the impression that the tories are alljumping ship. It gives that impression that labours the one on the march and to boot she was the mp for dover. So you can talk about immigration. You can say this is proof that the conservatives plan on immigration is a disaster and da da da. Except that 48 hours later, keir starmer is the one with awkward headlines about this. And when we talked to Jonathan Ashworth this morning, theyre very clear for the labour party. Well, she says its nonsense, but its really awkward. This is what he said. Well, she says its nonsense. Its not her interpretation of events. I dont understand if why the Lord Chancellor at the time did not raise this and why its why hes raising it now. But she says its notj her interpretation of the of that discussion. Should it be investigated just to make sure that it was all absolutely above board because either she isnt telling the truth or Robert Buckland, who is a case and who was the Justice Secretary in Lord Chancellor, isnt telling the truth. Well, look, she said it is not her interpretation. She says it is nonsense. I wasnt there. You werent there. I mean, look, if Robert Buckland has got more to say on that, perhaps he should come out and, you know, offer offer his opinions and his and his reflections on it. I wonder if she was still a tory mp. I wonder if she was still a tory mp, i think a lot of our viewers might think that the labour party would be shouting from the rooftops for an investigation. Well, well, this didnt come out at the time | because Robert Buckland,. These tories, they didnt say anything about this at the time. Now, because a lot of people in your party are not very happy that she is being welcomed in to begin with. And dont these allegations actually start to create a sense that maybe keir starmer and your labour Leadership Team have made an error of judgment . No, no, no, no, no. I think what Natalie Elphicke crossing of the floor reveals is the extent to which we are witnessing a disintegrating and decaying conservative government. I its tricky for them, isnt it . Well, we spoke to rosie duffield, the labour mp in the neighbouring constituency. She says we a lot of our mps are furious. And she further said keir starmer needs to listen more to his mps and less to his advisers. Which of course we had all that insight from keir starmer, former chief of staff, on the saturday newscast. Yes, were talking to sam white about it. And i think, you know, if people werent lucky enough to hear yesterdays episode, which you can still download on bbc sounds, you know, the headline for keir starmer� s team this week was brilliant. Weve created this impression, weve got somebody across the floor, massive splash for us. If weve rumbled a few people on the left of the party and some of our mps are unhappy about it. So what . Because weve got the story, youve got the sensation, big tick ubu all round. However, it does have a sense that its sort of dragging into something a bit more complicated and who knows . You know, we had Nadhim Zahawi on our programme this morning, a former tory chair and zarah sultana, left wing labour mp and they both actually agreed, you know, they probably agree on almost nothing, the two of them, and they both agreed that actually this is basically this is going to be a problem that wont go away quickly for keir starmer and David Cameron sort of said, oh, well, ha ha, shes not our problem any more. But that is kind of the point, isnt it . I mean, the fact that David Cameron said when asked about whether the conservative party should have treated some of these allegations more seriously when she was a conservative mp. Well, shes not our problem any more. It does speak to the sort of mutual hypocrisy here because as you said, john ashworth, if this story had come out a year ago, two years ago, a week ago, the labour party would have been calling for an urgent investigation, an independent investigation, the suspension of the whip, so on and so on. Conversely, the labour clearly do have a point, which is where were all these conservative people with concerns about Natalie Elphicke when she was one of their colleagues . Nowhere. And that doesntjust go for this set of claims. You had conservative mps queuing up to say how basically how disgracefully right wing she was. That was basically what they were saying on wednesday, thursday, friday. Well, but then they didnt seem to mind when she was in their whatsapp groups. It doesnt show westminster in a great light, this sort of circus of hypocrisy. Well, and also when someone does get an interview with Robert Buckland, the question would be, why didnt you speak in 2020 if you were a Government Law officer . But then the other thing is, i did put it to gabriel polgreen, if you woman asked for something which she didnt get. Yes. I mean, thats the system working, right . I mean, shes not meant to ask, but shes got a mouth and shes allowed to go into the room and shes opening her mouth and shes told no push off. I think, as henry says, actually, it doesnt show anybody in a good light at westminster. And i think it is one of these stories people go, oh, well, youre all at it, youre all at it, youre all dreadful. But ijust wonder that for keir starmer� s team that the this defection scoops such as they had it has maybe had the shine taken off it a bit. And i suspect and i dont know, and we should say again, she says these claims are nonsense, but i would bet iop at least that there might be more to come on this. I mean, my hunch would be and i havent had a chance to speak to many people around keir starmer about this mornings stories. My hunch would be that they people around sir keir starmer still think that on balance it was worth it. The headlines they got on wednesday, you know, the things theyre obsessed with, like commercial and music radio headlines where you maybe get three sentence descriptions of a story. The three sentences on wednesday afternoon were mp for dover obsessed with small boats quits the conservative party says keir starmer is better at handling small boats than rishi sunak. They would be delighted with that. Everything else as they see it is noise. However, i think they did think that the Everything Else would be maybe a days worth of labour mps quietly sort of harrumphing and actually it turned out to be several days and bled into more scrutiny of her ex husbands case and how she handled that. And i think they probably didnt quite anticipate that. I mean, all of this would be far more difficult for them if this defection had happened two years out from a General Election or if she were intending to stand again at a General Election. I think the sort of the fact that the clock is ticking so fast towards a General Election and she said at the time that she defected that she wasnt going to try to stand as a Labour Candidate at the General Election. I think those sort of slightly limit the political implications for keir starmer within his party, but the scale of private frustration among labour mps is pretty high. And i think, you know, in terms of how he manages the parliamentary labour party, you know, you pull that elastic and you pull that elastic and thats yourjob as the Leader Of The Labour Party to take me to places where theyre not necessarily comfortable, but at some point and it might be in two months, but it more likely be in two years or four years when hes in difficulty, probably as prime minister, the elastic snaps and that is the concern for people around keir starmer is that this contributes to blowback that will come when keir starmer is in trouble. Mps will remember things like this and decide they dont want to come to his aid. We were talking this morning with sara sultana. Its put the spotlight back also onto labour mps whove been under investigation for ages and still havent been let back in. And diane abbott, for example, theres a lot of people who think, well, hang on, whats going on with that . Why is it taking new years to investigate it while also welcoming in these people . So i think this story has got further to run, not least because of the excellent scoop from Gabriel Pogrund who was with you this morning. Meeting gabriel programme this morning, who was voted journalist of the year in 2023. He told me that hes got a lot of track record with the fix and theres been the newspaper and where you used to work and you probably know gabriel has done a lot of investigating before, so i wonder if you can lift the lid because we know newscasters like It Newscasters like it when Natalie Elphicke defected in the marmalade dropping moment, do we think thats when Gabriel Polgrund picked up the phone to Robert Buckland after she defected . How do you think the anatomy of this scoop was revealed . Well, gabriel did a lot of great investigative work a couple of years ago, actually, more than a couple of years ago, several years ago on Charlie Elphicke. And in fact, Charlie Elphicke unsuccessfully tried to sue the sunday times on the basis of some of gabriels reporting. So i think one of the ways in which the labour party underestimated the potential political and journalistic fallout from this defection, i think they seemed to slightly not appreciate or they didnt really do enough of what in journalism is called a cut check on what had been written before about Charlie Elphicke and sometimes by association. Natalie elphicke because, you know, gabriels done loads of stuff thats in the Public Domain about that case. And so yeah, it does. Im sure that the second she defected on wednesday, you know, he dusted down his elphicke notebooks, which will be vast and full of stuff that he didnt manage to find a way to get. Thats what i was going to say, because its all the stuff that you dont manage to get across the line. But as i always say, no work is ever wasted. No work is ever wasted. Sometimes the moment wasted. Work is not ever. But its true. Often injournalism is part of hiving things away. Right . Sometimes its not the moment to use things. Sometimes you cant quite get a story over the line. And then at some point, further down the track, anotherjigsaw piece arrives and goes plop, and suddenly you can put the picture all together. And sometimes people change their minds on whether they want to talk. And if youre an mp who knows something or experienced something, what are the kinds of things that might change your mind about whether you want to talk . Well, one of them might be if your colleague you were trying not to embarrass before suddenly joins the other political party. Im going to get im getting im getting two thoughts in my mind. Im picturing two newscasters. Yeah. The one who wants newscast to talk about votes in my home Cost Of Living policies and the one that loves process. And im thinking in the interest of the both, were going to have to stop talking about this, but were going to it was amazing, but were not going to keep going. Were going to change the subject. I think thats merciful for everybody. So the big other story this morning, which no offence to the labour partys Defection Strategists or no offence to Natalie Elphicke or Robert Buckland or gabriel grant, but there is a story of massive imports in its big picture. Thats whats been happening in gaza in the middle east. But on the specifics at the moment of whether or not the israelis are going to Go Into Rafah in a big way, theyve been saying for ages theyre going to do it. Their allies have been telling them very publicly for ages, saying do not do it. And this week, President Biden went even further. He said, if you Go Into Rafah, i will stop giving you weapons. I paraphrase slightly, but he spelt out almost that baldly. I paraphrase slightly, but he spelt out almost that boldly. That then puts the uk in an interesting position. Ally of israel