Tony Blair vs Labour?
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, Sir Tony Blair has spoken to the Today programme about an almost 6,000 word essay in which he criticises the Labour government for focusing on politics rather than policy.
Adam, Alex and Faisal discuss the arguments made by the former Prime Minister, plus how two would-be leadership contenders Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham (who still needs to fight and win a by-election if he wants to challenge Keir Starmer) have pushed back.
And energy bills will rise for millions as Ofgem raise the price cap for the first time since war in Iran.
A full list of candidates standing in the Makerfield By-Election is available on the BBC News website https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrp1z8n4w2o
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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Miranda Slade with Shiler Mahmoudi. The social producer was Gabriel Purcell-Davis. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
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| 0:56.2 | Alex and Faisal, I've got a special offer for you. It's more of an invitation. Go on. What are you doing on August the 10th to the 14th? Oh my God, no idea. I have got a plan for the 14th because you know what's happening on the 14th. I hope you haven't double booked here. Oh, oh. What's happening on the 14th? It's the solar eclipse in Ibiza. I knew you're going to be there? No. But I imagine I might go, I mean, how cool would that be? Solar eclipse. Yeah, well, I mean, the second most exciting thing happening on the 14th, for example, is newscast live at the Edinburgh fringe. |
| 0:56.7 | Oh, yeah. We're making a triumphant return to Edinburgh. And I was going to say the door is open to both of you, either of you, to come to any or all of the days. Adam, the eclipse can wait. Great. That's here. The eclipse that you weren't going to anyway. Yeah, so basically, I'll get my people to speak to your people, but we're going to be in |
| 1:12.1 | Edinburgh, the 10th to the 14th, that's Monday to Friday. You don't have to get tickets because you've got a standing invitation to be on the stage. But if you, as a newscaster, would like to come along, if you go to the website, edfringe.com, boy's name, hair cut, that's how I remember it. Edfringer.com. Click on shows and then type in newscast and you'll find all the information about how to get a ticket there. And maybe Alex and maybe Faisal will be there, but I'm detecting a little bit of lack of commitment from the two of them at the moment. More for diary-related than in black enthusiasm. He's entirely diary-related. I tell you, if there is a space in that diary, I will be there. |
| 1:47.4 | Great. Good. Is it the comedy festival? |
| 1:50.6 | It's comedy, entertainment, lectures, music, dance, mime. You will get all those art forms on |
| 1:58.6 | newscast that week. |
| 2:00.4 | Mime. I'm not sure mine really works for a podcast. What am I miming now? Faiso, you can see me. I can almost tell you without seeing you. Oh, I don't know. Is that a fishing thing? I'd say, let's get on with this episode of Newscast. No, I'm turning some pages, documents, almost as if I'm reading Tony Blair's polemic that he published on Tuesday night, |
| 2:20.4 | which we will discuss in this episode of Newscast. |
| 2:22.9 | Newscast from the BBC. |
| 2:25.3 | Humanity's next great voyage begins. |
| 2:27.6 | We are in the midst of a rupture. |
| 2:29.6 | Nostalgia will not bring back the old order. |
| 2:32.3 | Six-seven. |
| 2:33.9 | Yeah. It's supposed to be me as a doctor. Daddy has also. Six-seven. Yeah. |
| 2:34.3 | It's supposed to be me as a doctor. There he has also a special connotation. Ooh-la-la. Thinking about it like a panter helped. Do we play music now? What do we do? Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. It's Faisal in the Newscast Studio too. And it's Alex in the Westminster studio. And Faisal, I promise we will talk about the story you've been working on today, which is the new level of the energy price cap. Indeed. Set by Offjam, the regulator. But first of all, we're going to talk about the 5,000 words that have gripped Westminster and beyond. Because Alex, Tony Blair on Tuesday night, published on the website of his think tank, the Tony Blair |
| 3:07.7 | Institute for Global Change, this big long essay where he basically called out lots of the things |
| 3:12.4 | he thinks the Labour government has done wrong and lots of the things that he think could go |
... |
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