Trump strikes ceasefire with Iran as Starmer grandstands in the Gulf
Planet Normal
Louisa Wells
4.7 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You can watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/B0VweeU7QlA
This week on Planet Normal, your co-pilots navigate their way from the high-stakes geopolitics of the Strait of Hormuz to the local battlegrounds of the South London Waitrose middle aisle, they examine whether common sense has gone to die - and whether the UK is becoming ‘Blighty no-mates’ on the world stage.
Pondering the paradox of a superpower that can send the Orion spacecraft to the far side of the moon while struggling to control a 20-mile-wide sea passage in the Middle East. Allison shares her fuzzy memories of the 1969 moon landing.
They ask if the sacking of 54 year old Walker Smith for intervening in a shoplifting incident is capitulation to HR and if the policy of non-intervention is undermining the fabric of society.
A Tug-of-War emerges as your hosts clash over Reform UK’s pledge to guarantee the state triple lock, with Liam arguing we are living beyond our means, whilst Allison defending it for those nearing retirement.
Strapping in this week is former UK ambassador to Iran, Nicholas Hopton who tells your co-pilots how the continuing war is affecting politics within the Iranian regime…
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Read ‘Allison Waitrose’s sacking of a hero employee sums up Broken Britain’:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/07/waitrose-sacking-hero-employee-broken-britain/ |
Read ‘I was asked out by a Richard Gere look-alike, but you won’t catch me getting a ‘Mounjaro Divorce’’:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/08/fat-jabs-fuelling-divorce-boom/ |
Read more from Allison: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/a/ak-ao/allison-pearson/ |
Read Liam ‘Britain’s vulnerability to war exposes need for fundamental reforms’: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/04/05/britains-vulnerability-to-war-exposeneed-fundamental-reform/ |
Read more from Liam: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/liam-halligan/ |
Read Liam’s Substack: https://liamhalligan.substack.com/ |
Read Nicolas Hopton: Iran has offered Trump an olive branch
https://spectator.com/article/iran-has-offered-trump-an-olive-branch/ |
More from Nicholas: https://www.nicholashopton.com/ |
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Telegraph |
| 0:07.0 | If anyone needs to go to the far side of the moon, it's bloody kids' armour, isn't it? |
| 0:15.0 | Four. |
| 0:16.0 | Who's in charge? We don't actually know, Is it the IRGC? Three. |
| 0:21.6 | It's secreted in the shed. |
| 0:24.6 | Two. |
| 0:25.6 | President Trump campaigned for his first presidency on the fact that he didn't make it, therefore it was bad, and therefore he would destroy it. |
| 0:33.6 | And unfortunately he did. |
| 0:34.6 | One. |
| 0:35.6 | We have left off. destroy it and unfortunately he did. One. |
| 0:40.4 | We have left off. |
| 0:45.3 | Welcome once again to Planet Normal, the Telegraph podcast with Alison Pearson. |
| 0:46.0 | Hello. |
| 0:47.9 | And me, Liam Halligan. |
| 0:52.4 | Total and complete victory, 100% no question about it. |
| 0:55.9 | That's how Donald Trump described his ceasefire deal with Iran. |
| 1:01.5 | The president has, quote, not just achieved and exceeded our core military objectives added the White House, he's done so within his own timeframe of a six to eight week operation and got the |
| 1:06.7 | strait of Hormers reopened. Funnily enough, Tehran doesn't see it that way. Iran's Supreme |
| 1:12.6 | National Security Council said its inflicted, quote, an undeniable, historical and crushing |
| 1:17.8 | defeat on the US, forcing criminal America to accept our 10-point plan. While a ceasefire remains in |
| 1:25.6 | place for now, Iran still clearly in control of the Strait of |
| 1:29.1 | Hormers, the mouth of the Persian Gulf transit route for a fifth of the world's daily oil and gas |
... |
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