The New Statesman

Welcome to the New Statesman podcast. I'm Anoush Shaqueline and this is You Ask Us, our weekly episode where we answer your questions.

This time we've got some great questions on Labor's tax policy, the future of the Tory left, and of course the UK's response to the conflict between Israel and Iran.

I'm joined in the studio by our editor-in-chief, Tom McTague, and our associate political editor,

Rachel Cunliff. Hello, both of you. Hello. Hi. So first, we have to start with the

big story of the week, Israel and Iran. We've had so many questions come

in on this, in particular about the UK's response. And I do encourage our listeners and our

viewers to go back and listen to some of the episodes that we've done this week as well,

because we've been following it day by day. On YouTube, Valerie T8D asked, how long are we,

which we assume means the UK, going to continue to fund Israel?

And on newsstatesman.com forward slash you ask us, where you can email in your questions,

Jamie Bamber sent a message asking, why is the Prime Minister so unwilling to stand up to Israel?

So Tom, why don't you kick us off with this?

You know, how has Kirstama been responding to what's been going on?

I think he has been following the kind of script that we've come to know from all prime ministers.

And I think that kind of gets at why the party is in a bit of trouble.

You know, if you think back to the election, the strap line, the great slogan,

was just that one word, change. And yet, like, as the, as the questions sort of implied,

nothing really has changed. Like, the government's position is what it's always been, what

previous governments have always believed in. And I, when I did a, I did a profile for, of Kierstamo in my first edition, and in that,

when I was interviewing him, I know, I sort of asked him, ultimately, you don't believe in change,

you believe in protecting, conserving much of the status quo, whether that's domestic

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