This is The Guardian.

Yes, of course, we will defend British lives and British interests in the region.

We'll stand by our allies in the Gulf region, but we're not going to get dragged in. That's my values, whatever the pressure, and whoever it's coming from.

You never know with Therrand because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.

So let's stop pretending that Kirstommer is a huge philanthropist who's just trying to help people.

What he is doing is taxing people to pay benefit.

I'm Pippa Carrera.

And I'm Jessica Elgot.

And you're listening to Politics Weekly for The Guardian.

Hello.

Oh, hi.

We're joining you from our Westminster office today.

News does happen.

So, you know, it'll be bustling and busy in here.

Although not as bustling and busy as usual, just because it is, of course, recess. It's recess at the moment, isn't it? So MPs will fled. Empeas will fled back to the constituencies. But the big news this morning was, of course, the launch of various local election campaigns, namely Kirstarmer launching Labour's election campaign for May in the West Midlands,

a quick stump speech. We weren't invited to go up and ask questions, very disappointing.

We'd have been there, obviously, otherwise. Tell us about the launch, Jess, and what the

government's going to try and get us to all focus on in the weeks running up to that pivotal May vote.

So I think the main focus, talking to some advisors last night, what he is trying to put

the emphasis on, is this idea of don't risk it. So Labor is achieving things, doing things

in government. He talked a lot in his launch speech about childcare, the two-child benefit cap.

He's talking about action that Labour is broadly taking on the cost of living minimum wage

...