“Another chapter in the farce that is HS2” | Will and Anoosh’s weekly round up
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 28 March 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Morgan McSweeney’s stolen phone, Kemi Badenoch’s council tax claims and the UAE defence attache, Group Captain Sandy Sandilands.
Will Dunn and Anoosh Chakelian round up their stories of the week.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:05.4 | I'm Anoushia Kellyan and you're listening to Daily Politics from The New Statesman. |
| 0:09.9 | I'm here with my colleague Will Dunn for our run-through of the week. |
| 0:14.0 | Hi Will. |
| 0:14.5 | Hello. |
| 0:15.4 | So what's the first category that you've chosen this week? |
| 0:18.1 | Let's go with, we've got our best people on the case of the week. |
| 0:23.6 | So this is this week's top police investigation or lack thereof. |
| 0:29.3 | I'm talking about Morgan McSweeney's stolen phone, which wasn't stolen this week, |
| 0:34.4 | stolen in October. |
| 0:37.7 | But the police were unable to find it, and that is newly relevant because now the concern is that the messages |
| 0:47.6 | between Morgan McSweeney and Peter Mandelson might not turn up as a result of this phone theft. |
| 0:54.8 | And we know he was his closest ally in government at the time when he was appointed to |
| 0:58.9 | US ambassador. |
| 0:59.8 | Yeah. |
| 1:00.3 | Yeah. |
| 1:00.7 | So you talk to the police a fair bit. |
| 1:05.0 | You make me sound like I'm... |
| 1:06.3 | Not as a result of your many crimes, which you always get away with. |
| 1:11.9 | But so could the police have found Morgan McSweeney's phone? Why didn't they bother? |
| 1:17.2 | I mean, you know, chief of staff to the Prime Minister, that's probably quite an important phone. |
| 1:22.8 | It is. And it's interesting reading the transcript from the call because he called 999 after his phone was stolen. |
... |
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