Disgrace! Why are MPs playing politics with the Middle East?
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2024
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the fallout continues from the chaos in the Commons over a ceasefire vote, Amol and Nick look at the issues the unprecedented night in parliament highlighted.
Labour’s Harriet Harman is in the studio to discuss the safety of MPs.
Plus hear some of this week’s coverage of Israel-Gaza conflict from the Today programme.
Episodes of The Today Podcast land every Thursday and watch out for bonus episodes. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme.
If you would like a question answering, get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email us Today@bbc.co.uk The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the UK’s most influential radio news programme.
Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the producers are Hazel Morgan and Joe Wilkinson. The editors are Jonathan Aspinwall and Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Technical production from Sam Dickinson and digital production from Elliot Ryder.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.1 | Disgrace. We could have said shameful. We could have said embarrassing. We debated, didn't we? |
| 0:10.0 | Which word to use to describe the chaos in the comments? Take your pick. This was not politics at its finest. |
| 0:18.4 | No, and it's interesting you say chaos because I didn't know this chaos |
| 0:22.6 | was unfolding until I looked at a tweet or set of tweets from you. It was Wednesday evening. I was |
| 0:27.3 | busily bathing my daughters, I think. Obviously like any good modern dad, I decided to look at Twitter. |
| 0:33.0 | And this extraordinary drama was unfolding. The sense that I got from you first and then lots of |
| 0:37.4 | other people |
| 0:37.8 | was that for even people like you've followed politics very closely for decades, |
| 0:42.3 | you'd never seen anything like it. |
| 0:43.5 | I couldn't believe what was unfolding in front of my eyes. |
| 0:46.2 | I wanted to know what the result of the vote was. |
| 0:49.1 | I happened to be cooking my dinner. |
| 0:50.7 | I thought, I'll chuck on the telly to see what's happening. |
| 0:53.5 | And as I saw what was going on, I mean I'll chuck on the telly to see what's happening. And as I saw |
| 0:54.6 | what was going on, I mean, my mouth fell open. We use phrases all the time in political |
| 1:00.4 | reports. You don't we use it when we're presenting the today program? We talk about chaos, |
| 1:05.7 | people playing games. We talk about anger. But what I was witnessing was unlike any of that, there was real |
| 1:13.4 | rage on the floor of the House of Commons, rage from people who felt that the thing they |
| 1:20.1 | thought they should be allowed to do to have a vote, criticising Israel, calling for an immediate |
| 1:26.4 | ceasefire, had been denied them. They'd been robbed |
| 1:29.8 | of that opportunity by political maneuvering. And the reason all this matters is because, as we've |
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