I'm John Batchew with my colleague Simon Constable, who's at the foothills of the Pyrenees,

but I'm asking him to speak of his home country, England.

He's an Englishman in paradise.

But back home in London, there is anything but paradise for the Prime Minister Kirstarmer.

It was bad enough before when we were talking about taxes.

Taxes that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had promised she wouldn't exact.

And here they are in the fall budget.

But this time it's about foreign policy.

But once there was a British Empire.

And the British Empire contained all manner of countries that aren't naturally, you would think, attractive

to London. But they picked them up along the way because the Royal Navy dominated the world.

They picked up the Chagos Islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. They picked up Mauritius.

That's near the coast of Africa and the southern part of

Africa. Many other islands that can name Pitcair and Ireland, it goes on and on and on. During the

empire, in order to administer those acquired colonies, they passed them around to various public servants.

It was decided at some point in the empire that the

Chagos Islands should be administered by Mauritius. No connection whatsoever between them.

Thousands of miles, as far as I can see, of water between them, but no connection whatsoever.

That was the way it was done in the empire. The empire went away. Now, the prime minister,

who possesses the Chagos Islands, which contains the strategically critical Diego Garcia,

an air base that the UK and the U.S. both can use in order to protect their interests in the

Middle East and throughout Eurasia.

...