Protests have swept across Iran in the last couple of days, and reports suggest hundreds of people may now have been killed by the regime’s ensuing crackdown. On Sky News this morning, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the UK government has ‘always viewed Iran as a hostile state’, and that the priority is to ‘stem the violence’ against protesters. She told Trevor Phillips that Iran has a ‘destabilising effect on the world’, and said the UK would like to see a peaceful transition where Iranians can enjoy ‘fundamental freedoms’ and ‘proper democratic values’.
Kemi Badenoch: ‘Greenland… is a second order issue’
President Trump has suggested the US needs to ‘own’ Greenland for national security reasons, claiming he will do it ‘the easy way’ or ‘the hard way’. This week, Downing Street has held talks with European partners about sending troops to Greenland to shore up its defence and ease Trump’s security concerns. On the BBC, Laura Kuenssberg asked Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch if she would support this action. Badenoch said she does not have the ‘level of security briefings’ that Keir Starmer has, but argued for a broader strategy around improving Britain’s defence capabilities, claiming that the ‘rules-based order is quite clearly breaking down’. The Tory leader argued that discussing a potential dispute between NATO members is ‘getting ahead of ourselves’, although she ‘stands with Greenland’, and that the protests in Iran represent a higher priority for the UK’s national security.
Peter Mandelson: ‘I was not culpable’
On the BBC, Laura Kuenssberg interviewed former US ambassador Peter Mandelson, and asked him if he’d like to apologise for his association with Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson described Epstein as an ‘evil monster’, and apologised to Epstein’s victims for ‘the system that refused to hear their voices’. Kuenssberg pressed him on whether he would apologise for continuing to associate with Epstein after his conviction. Mandelson said he would apologise if he was ‘in any way complicit or culpable’, but claimed he had no knowledge of what Epstein had been doing. Mandelson added that he would ‘regret to [his] dying day that powerless women were not given the protection they were entitled to expect’.
Heidi Alexander: ‘We take the issue of the shadow fleet very seriously’
The US has seized control of two oil tankers linked to Venezuelan oil exports, including the Russian-flagged Marinera, as part of operations against the ‘shadow fleet’ of ships used to get around sanctions against Russia and Iran. On Sky News, Trevor Phillips asked Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander if she knew how many sanctioned ships heading for Russia have sailed through the Channel this week. Alexander said that the French are responsible for ships heading towards Russia, and the UK for ships heading from Russia to the Atlantic. She estimated that 200 sanctioned ships have been taken off the seas as a result of UK action.
Peter Mandelson on Trump: ‘I liked his humour, his graciousness’
Laura Kuenssberg also asked Peter Mandelson about his relationship with President Trump. Mandelson said he liked Trump’s ‘graciousness’, and praised his ‘directness’, saying, ‘you knew exactly what he was thinking, and where you stood’. Mandelson admitted that some of the things Trump said made him ‘gasp’, but labelled him ‘an extraordinary risk taker’. He argued that in a world of conflict and danger, leadership requires a ‘preparedness to take risks’, and Trump does so, ‘for good reasons, in pursuit of good objectives’.
Kemi Badenoch: ‘The internet is a Wild West’
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is backing a ban on social media for under-16s. Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg, Badenoch said children are spending too much time on ‘platforms that are profiting from their anxiety, their distraction’, and that the policy is about distinguishing between what is appropriate for adults and children. Kuenssberg asked if Badenoch found it hard to control phone use in her own family. Badenoch said it is hard because there are ways to get around restrictions, and she knows from her own experience how addictive social media is. The Tory leader noted that increases in mental health issues correlate ‘quite strongly with social media use’, so this policy is linked with her party’s strategy to get more people into work.
