Iran: has Starmer alienated Britain's allies?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, the British government continues to face questions about its response. Was the UK too slow to act, and if so – why? Tim Shipman reveals in the Spectator today that Keir Starmer was initially minded to approve American use of British bases but was persuaded not to by other figures, including Ed Miliband. How much damage has this done with the Americans and also wider European allies? Defence Secretary John Healey has landed in Cyprus today on a damage-limitation mission – or in a show of strength, depending on your viewpoint. Has Starmer been weakened by these events?
Plus – Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has revealed further asylum reforms. Will the reforms neutralise the issue of immigration for voters?
Tim Shipman and James Heale join Patrick Gibbons to discuss.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics podcast. I'm Patrick |
| 0:09.2 | Gibbons and today I'm joined by Tim Shipman and James Hill. The conflict in the Middle East |
| 0:13.2 | continues to escalate and Tim, in the new edition of The Spectator magazine that has hit the shelves |
| 0:18.2 | today, you have excellent analysis on how Stama's response |
| 0:21.2 | has alienated Britain's allies. And for those who think the Prime Minister was initially |
| 0:25.9 | hesitant over using British bases, you have some surprises. What's been going on? |
| 0:30.6 | Yeah, no, that's right. The conventional wisdom for the last week has been that America wanted |
| 0:35.6 | to use its bases and Stama didn't want to and was fully signed up |
| 0:40.0 | with the legal analysis of his Attorney General Lord Hormer that we shouldn't touch any of this |
| 0:44.3 | with the barge pole. The interesting thing is that that story isn't quite right. While Starrma |
| 0:48.8 | agreed with Herma that we should not get involved in sort of preemptive strikes regime change from the air, |
| 0:55.1 | as he's called it himself. He did think that we ought to go some way towards placating Donald |
| 1:00.6 | Trump in allowing him to use those bases in Diego Garcia and R.E.F. Fairford to launch |
| 1:07.7 | attacks, sort of defensive attacks, as you will. And this is the position the government |
| 1:12.0 | got to on Sunday night, that those bases can be used to attack the missile sites that are hitting, |
| 1:16.9 | sending retaliatory waves of missiles and drones, our allies in the region. Now, in this National |
| 1:22.4 | Security Council meeting on Friday evening, Stama basically said, look, we've had a briefing from everybody that shows that the Iranian |
| 1:30.8 | reaction will be to chuck missiles into the region, and the Americans would like to be able |
| 1:36.0 | to retaliate against those sites. |
| 1:38.6 | And I think that's not such a bad idea. |
| 1:40.7 | He was backed up by John Healy, the Defence Secretary. |
| 1:43.5 | But then an alliance of the other |
... |
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