hello. hello, laura. and hello, henry. hi, henry. hi. so last night, i was at my friend tom's birthday party, and he's a very good amateur poet, and he did a lovely poem saying thank you to everyone who'd come to the party. happy birthday, tom. but he's also a big newscast fan and an even biggerfan of sunday with laura kuenssberg. even happier birthday. so i thought, why not combine all those things together and do a poem about this week's sunday with laura kuenssberg? oh, my god. here we go. are you ready? eat your heart out front row. white howard's double barrelled chef on sunday with laura kay. politicians exaggerations going to get slayed. but first, this breaking news, a picture of recovering kate. but with all the twitter gossip, did it come too late? rachel reeves bets all on economic growth. vicky atkins asked why nhs productivity sloweth, but waits this weekend episode has no pad, fear not newscasters

you can always call up add. i think that's extremely good, tom. and we all say one and all newscasters, happy birthday, tom. i was going to try and think of something that rhymed, but i can't. so happy birthday. adam. i think what we need is tom for our next episode to rate your poem. 0k. i'm just wondering, henry, you'll know this. when. when do they pick the next poet laureate? does the person have to die? i think they are on ten year terms. like, does this have to die or? i think they on ten year terms, it's that. it's that. and it's been simon armitage for a few years. i don't know. 0r until they fall out with someone or say the wrong thing. so we have term limits potentially for our poet laureate, but not our prime minister. i mean, i don't actually i think we don't know. we'll try and find out by the end of today's sunday newscast.

newscast from the bbc. hello. it's laura in the studio. and it's adam in the studio. and it's henry at home. and henry, what have you just found out? i have just googled what i confidently asserted earlier. the last two poet laureates did ten years in the job which suggests adam will be free to become poet laureate in 2029. a ten year tenure. what were you i have just googled y confidently asserted earlier, which is how long people are poet laureate for. and the last two poet laureates, andrew motion and caroline duffy did ten years in the job, which would suggest that adam will be free to become poet laureate. succeeding simon armitage in 2029 also means it's a ten year tenure. but i think there as well. laura, right, what were you looking for in your interview with rachel reeves,

which let's remind people, was different this year because it came after the budget rather than before? yes, it did. and we wanted to try to get her really to explain as much as she's possibly willing to and maybe a little bit more to the audience about what she would do if she's lucky enough to win the election with the labour party and move into numberii. although she was a bit coy about whether or not she'd actually move into number 11, however, and i think labour's in this tricky position, whereas for, for rachel reeves own economic and political beliefs, largely following the tories spending rules, is the right thing to do. now, she absolutely believes that for economic reasons at labour and think, oh, they're not going to spend enough, voters tend to look at labour and think, oh god, they're probably going to spend more. however, she has a problem, politically, whereas on the left a lot of people in the labour party say hang on a minute, of course we should spend more because public services in some places are on their knees. there's also a different problem politically because some voters, including some we heard from on the show today, say, well, i look at both of you and you're kind of the same. so we were trying to get her to open up a bit more about some of the things that she wants to do, how close

she really is to the conservatives. and in the context of this week's budget, where the missing £2 billion thatjeremy hunt nicked was going to come from the government thatjeremy hunt nicked was going to come from. the government made their announcements on wednesday. it is now sunday. and i think your viewers would want to know that i was doing the work properly, that i wasn't just plucking numbers out of the air, but that i was methodically going through all the government documents to identify the funding streams so that all my sums add up. and i think there's one thing that you and your viewers know about me is that everything in our manifesto will be fully costed and fully funded, including this pledge. and i will do the work properly, as i always do, to make sure that our sums add up. i mean, let's sort of make sure our sums are adding up. sojeremy hunt stole the policy of changing the taxation of non—dom. so that's people who live in the uk but don't pay tax on their overseas earnings. in the uk but don't pay tax so that disappeared. in the uk but don't pay tax plus spending government money to cut national insurance because that's how tax cuts basically work.

arithmetically that then adds up to that makes the black hole for labour slightly bigger. what's your kind of back of the envelope calculation of how far down they are? it's a couple of billion pounds because the non—dom tax abolition which labour had said that they would do. butjeremy hunt has now gone ahead of them and done was specifically hypothecated i think is the word for particular policy. so labour said that that was going to fund a host of policies to do with the nhs and also breakfast clubs in primary schools. and that costs i think roughly a couple of billion pounds on labour's estimates and that is a couple of billion pounds that they are going to have to raise elsewhere because they said very quickly after the budget that they're still committed to those spending plans. so, i mean, look, ithink rachel rees would have been politically negligent if she hadn't given at least a little bit of thought to what alternative ways they might raise the money if the government ended up going back on its previous policies and abolishing non—dom tax. what i thought was really interesting in her interview with laura and in that clip we just heard, is that she's almost

trying to make a virtue of the fact that she won't tell us. she's saying, look, you know me, i'm methodical, i'm going to go through this slowly. she's trying to say, look, the fact that labour haven't very quickly said, ok, this is how we'll fund it instead is itself a sign of her fiscal prudence and fiscal responsibility. i think that's quite an interesting kind of comms manoeuvre that she's trying to pull off. i suspect what actually lies beneath it is that they worry that if they come out now and say this is how we're going to fund it instead, and if the general election doesn't take place until after the next fiscal event, after an autumn statement in october, say, you know, the fear might be that the conservatives would make that revenue raiser as well and leave them having to find a third way to pay for all of. and we are in this sort of weird limbo, actually, i think, for both parties, whereas they don't want to put too much out into the public domain labour because they're worried about the tories nicking it. and they also don't particularly want it to be the kind of mental levels of scrutiny that there will be in an election campaign. they don't want that right now. similarly for the tories, you know,

it's like dangling this and i know actually we're going get rid of national insurance over the course of the parliament and so rishi sunak. doubling down on that in an interview with the sunday times today. but, you know, we are still, in political terms, still miles off from actually getting into the manifestos. but the parties have to say more. but they don't really. they don't want to give us the whole story. so we're in this slightly weird sort of limbo period, which is one of the reasons why when we tried to press rachel reeves today, i think quite rightly, would she admit if they win the election, that there won't be lots of extra money for public services, but not just that, that some bits of government would actually see real terms cuts. i tried very hard to get her to confirm that today. she did, she did tacitly say yes in code. let's have a listen. well, at the moment, the government have not set out their plans by individual departments, so we haven't got a spending review. i will do a spending review quickly when i if we win the election. but that's not something that's possible to do from opposition.

but i do know that public services need more money. that's why we will make that initial injection. but remember also the office of budget responsibility is forecasts are based on the government's plans and the government's plans do not include our comprehensive plan to grow the economy. 0k, laura, there's a lot going on there and i've heard that three times. 0k, laura, there's a lot going on there and i've heard that three times. i still couldn't fully do the decoding. so you do it for me. so i think if you put that together with something she said later on, she said, we won't be able to do things as quickly as we want to and it might be slower than i'd like or something like that. i'm sort of paraphrasing, but what? so she sort of tacitly said, yeah, in some bits of government it might be eye wateringly tight. what she's also saying is true is that she doesn't know and we don't know exactly what the numbers are going to look like by the time of a general election. let's hope for everyone's sake, actually, the economy is looking

a bit perkier than it is now. but what we were supposed what we were trying to drive at is what her instinct is as. and when growth turns up, what's her instinct to give you, you and everybody listening a bit more back and to keep more of their own cash? or is it to put money as soon as they can into public services? and yes, there is a little bit that they've earmarked going out. and of course, actually it's a huge amount of money, 1.7 billion or whatever it is, it's a lot of cash. but in the context of a government budget, it is a rounding error. i think people the treasury would say. so we were trying to sort of get to her instincts and i think she did tacitly say today, yes, the first year, if we win, might be absolutely horrific. but to sweeten the pill, there'll be a cash injection to sweeten the pill to be top up somewhere. and my instinct is actually as soon as i possibly can to put more money into public services. but henry, you might disagree, because when you're watching at home and listening, you know, you get people different people take different things. well, one thing one thing that i think is certainly

a little bit overoptimistic in what rachel reese said there was. oh, well, the pr don't factor in at this stage. labor's plans to grow the economy. therefore things might be slightly more generous than they look at the moment. i mean i think even on labour's own terms, their plans to grow the economy, which mean which entail reform of various public services and particularly reform of the planning system, that that is not going to bear fruit, even if you're extremely optimistic about it, that's not going to bear fruit for several years. so i don't think that affects the early years of the public spending envelope that labour have available. i mean, i think for that reason, one thing i don't know if it's the same for you guys, one thing that increasingly crops up when i speak to labour people about the plausible scenario in which they're in government by the end of the year is they say they're going to be really unpopular. that's what labour people fear very early on because a lot of people will have voted for them hoping, thinking that things will very quickly feel different and actually because of a combination of the circumstances which they will inherit, but also of course labour's

own choices about how to respond to the circumstances they inherit. they think that for a while, perhaps a period of years after that, potentially getting into government, things would still feel pretty similar to how they feel at the moment, especially, or including in those crucial public services. but that's so interesting, though, because my ears really picked up when rachel reeves started talking about tony blair and education, education, education, because i'm old enough to remember a time when his name was banned from being mentioned by labour politicians. and i wondered, is that her trying to create a bit of hope and recapture, recapture, a bit of nostalgic, sort of like reverse old optimism? i think that's right. because, laura, in your piece that you wrote for the website, her mentor was alistair darling, who gave her three pieces of advice. and the third piece of advice was always leave people with a bit of hope. but actually, if your colleagues are then also saying to you, hang on, we're going to be really unpopular because we're going to do hard things, then it must be a really hard balancing act to know how much hope to offer. i think it's really i think it's a really, really,

really difficult set of circumstances, both economically and politically. how do you make voters feel excited about what labour might offer when you know that there's not much in the tin when you rattle it around? and of course, politics is not all about promising spending money. there's a lot of focus at the moment across the political spectrum about how you spend public money better. nobody listening to this would think that money is absolutely the only answer. and yet it is, of course, a big part of political promises. and this is not going to be a chequebook election. you know, we've all covered and newscasters will all remember elections as well. hilarious. well, when people say we're going to spend 400 gazillion million pounds on giving everybody free something, or we're going to spend £20 billion on making all children be happy or whatever, that is not going to be that kind of election where people are. it's a competition of big cheques, which for certain people would be electronic bank transfers will not compare to each other. the other thing i was thinking about, though, which older newscasters will remember to perhaps

as i do, is gordon brown's miserly decision to give was it 75 p on the pension per week just after they had taken office and how that even for a government that had a massive majority felt that they had a sort of surge in enthusiasm that went down like a cup of sick. and that when you were talking about that. henry that made me just think of that moment. and i think they are sort of prepared for that. right. and also also they know there's this sort of anti—politics mood out there at the moment. how do you make anybody believe that a politician might have any answers? although i have to say, actually, our programme inbox and my inbox had actually quite a lot of positive messages coming straight in about rachel reeves sounding competent, sounding like she was a breath of fresh air. maybe it was herfriends and family, i don't know. but it's talking about rachel reeves and friends and family. thanks to your piece this week on the website, we're learning more about her as a person. and there's the two anecdotes that

really stick out for me. there's they're going to her gran�*s in kettering. yeah. also signalling middle britain. you don't get much more middle england than kettering. no offence to people in capturing its lovely place, and collecting the 20 ps from all her relatives that she was dragged around and then her sister splurging them all in the toy shop and rachel reeves saving them up for a rainy day. and then the other thing about her going this charm offensive in the city and we've all been to events where like there's far too much catering and like lose of pastries that no one's ever going to eat. and so she asks permission from her hosts. and so she asks permission from her hosts if she can put them in her handbag and take them back to her office. i know. well, as she said, we asked her about it on the telly and good on her. she would say technically she leant into that story. she said, well, that's what you'll get with rachel reeves as a chancellor. no, actually, it's interesting the focus on rachel reeves as a person. she's been in politics for longer than keir starmer and in many ways. say much more political person.

she was involved in the labour party at university, should be an mp since 2010, but she she really had a proper long wilderness period. i mean, it was alluded to by michael howard on your panel, laura, who said that unlike keir starmer, she refused to serve underjeremy corbyn. and that's true. and she was know she had been a fairly prominent member of ed miliband shadow cabinet. but when they lost in 2015, she retreated to the backbenches. she was chair of the business select committee, did some work on outsourcing on the collapse of carillion, if you remember that. but it's sort of what you call in newspapers back of the book stuff, you know, it was stuff on sort of page 23, you might see a rachel reeves quote and she hadn't really worked with keir starmer. and i've asked people before what was the, you know, when did keir starmer decide that he wanted her to be a shadow chancellor because they hadn't really worked together and no one really seems to know. but he at some point decided that. i mean, she wasn't his initial shadow chancellor, by the way, although i think he might have wanted her to be. but she at some point decided that she was the person who he wanted alongside her.

and keir starmer doesn't have a long sort of lineage of economic thought in the way that some leaders of political parties do. so she really is setting the tempo and the parameters for this potential labour government and that makes us such a central and important figure. and at least for now, she has absolutely won the argument in the shadow cabinet that you do not promise a single penny. you know, and i talked to lots of her colleagues this week. it was absolutely like, yeah, we have understood this message. we all get it. lots of us want more money for projects that we would like to say that we would do if we win the election. but we all get it. she has won that argument. i also remember when she got the job, it was just after labour had been absolutely dumped in the hartlepool by election, which was a very perilous moment for keir starmer. yeah, existential, we read. and he apparently, according to tom baldwin, even thought about quitting at that point. his biographer, rachel reeves, was actually brought in to bolster starmer�*s credibility.

you know, it was almost like she was the one doing not doing him a favour because it was obviously her dream job. and for years, it sort of felt inevitable that she was going to be everybody thought, oh, well, she'll probably be the shadow chancellor. and if labour is ever in power again, she would be the likely person at sort of near the front of the queue for thatjob. but it is interesting thinking about her politics because she's that very rare beast in westminster. she really doesn't seem to yet have any enemies and she's quite self—deprecating. she's got a very good sense of humour. we saw a bit of that today. she's well liked and well respected, but some people are also very interesting. on how good at small p politics is. she understands what colleagues care about. she's very good at, you know, dropping the odd little text here and there, making people feel that they've been understood. now, her friends say that's because she's a good person. she's a decent person. some of the conversations i had that was also a little bit of scepticism, not saying that that was artificial, but just actually that's part of being a very canny politician,

is making sure that nobody�*s any doubt about what you think. but you make other people feel as if they've been listened and understood, and if you're decent to them, they don't. then mind if you're really tough, right? so you can get away with being hard and being well respected if you are also extremely courteous, thoughtful and all the rest without making enemies. let's see if that survives this first year in 2025, because i mean, that is i mean, i guess the thing for a chancer is that a spending review is technically done by the chief secretary to the treasury. — —chancellor. so you can load some of the political pain off onto them. but there is one thing saying to your colleagues in government, in opposition, look, we need to be cautious. we need to hold the purse strings tight for political reasons as well as economic reasons. but when you get into government, i think some of those cabinet ministers, as they then would be rather than shadow cabinet ministers, will start to chafe at it a little bit more. i can see a world in which rachel reeves, obviously we're getting well ahead of ourselves here.

but i can see a world in which she tries to, if she does indeed move into numberii, move across to number ten afterwards. and one of the friends i spoke to for this piece this week did say that they believe very much that she did have that higher ambition. but it is not what drives her right now. no, i've never asked her about it. i don't know. but that is definitely a view. and i think, you know, she's clearly someone who many people in labour circles and i think also in conservative circles believe is is likely to be one of the most significant political figures of their generation, which is why, you know, we spoke to her at great length this morning and why, you know, we wrote a big piece about her yesterday because focus groups say people don't really know anything about her, but she is somebody who we're all going to learn much more about in the next few years, but also we might about victoria. well, i was going to say last, last word. i'm going to have the last word on rachel reeves. he says, so, i mean, as a guest here on sunday, going to say, fine, but we're in a bizarre political situation where you've got the labour shadow chancellor saying there's going to potentially be quite. saying there's going to potentially be quite big spending cuts in some government departments. when i'm in charge, i'm in favor

of cutting the tax that people pay when they sell their second homes. i mean, that's going to annoy a lot of people on the left of our party. welcome to 2024, everybody. looking glass. i should write a poem about that. maybe you can. yes. anyway. laura, introduce us to victoria atkins. so victoria atkins is the health secretary. she's not been the health secretary for very long, but she's also actually a bit like rachel reeves, although she's come into politics later, she's part of the sort of coming generation of people are probably going to be around for quite a long time. she's got a safe seat. she's probably going to be around and she's ambitious and is already in a big job as health secretary. and she uses the nhs all the time. she uses the nhs all the time. did she tell you she uses it every time. well she's got a i mean look, if you are the health secretary at the moment in a post—pandemic world where you've got absolutely appalling waiting lists in england, same in scotland and wales, frankly, but different people are in charge of it in those parts of our country.

same in northern ireland, but she has a sticky wicket and her hope and she got some money out of the chancellor in the budget is if you spend three or £4 billion on productivity, basically getting more bang for your buck by having better i.t. and better technology that will start to see improvements in the health service quite quickly. what's hard for her is that so many newscasters know bits of the nhs is sort of crumbling. there's all sorts of problems with buildings. fax machines are still used, hospital i.t. can be absolutely terrible. and she's sort of now, i think, henry, like ministers are in several government departments. i don't want to say desperately that seems very unkind, but frantically trying to make some good in what time they've got left before the election. and it's that kind of frenzy that's sort of unfair. but, you know, there is that kind of really you're going to do this now? i think it's i think of a piece with the budget this week where jeremy hunt, the sort of broader argument he was making, straddling all the specific policies, was trying to argue that the country has turned or is turning a corner.

and i think that's probably what cabinet ministers like victoria atkins in public service departments are trying to do as well, because it would be absurd for them to pretend that everything is hunky dory. but if they can say, look, these are things that are happening soon and they're a sign that things are getting better and they're a sign that the hard years weren't wasted or, you know, stick to the plan, as they would put it. i think that's kind of the fairly delicate political argument that people like victoria atkins, who i guess gillian keegan is another example the department of education are trying to make. and if they can pull it off, then perhaps they can claw back some public support because it's always worth remembering the tories poll rating is not bad at the moment. it is dire, historically dire. but the risk is that people just think the sort of rhetoric and language they use is just so absurdly at odds with their experience of public services. i think that's the thing

that is really tricky and or the reality of the, you know, the nhs still has fax machines and she's sitting saying, well the potentialfor ai is amazing. how do those two things stack up in the same conversation? i love reminiscing about the nhs and social care levy because remember that was when i was a day to day political journalist as well. and remember, laura, you and i spending hours phoning people when there was a sort of like auction going on in government about how big the increase should be. and some people were like, it should be one percentage point. and then sajid javid was like, it should be three percentage points. and then it's like day by day it just went up a bit, down a bit, up a bit, died a bit, up a bit, down a bit. and then the last minute they finally agreed to do it. and it wasn'tjust an idea like they passed legislation to make it happen. yeah, they did. but george osborne passed passed legislation to do it before in the donor reforms. andrew dilnot, an expert in this field who's very cross that nobody�*s basically done it. and this is not a new issue. it's not a new problem, and it's not going to go away

just because our politicians don't want to crack it. anyway, we've talked about a lot. we've been down memory lane. we've been talking for a long time. we talked about rachel reeves a lot. we've talked a bit about victoria atkins, both people. i'm sure we'll talk about more. but tonight, lots of people will be talking about the oscars, but you'll have a double helping of newscasters. so i'm going to say our excitement tomorrow. so i'm going to stay up all night, watch the oscars. and they're me and katie russell. she's going to be in her hotel room in l.a.. fabulous. and we're going to do a special episode of newscast which will be streamed on the iplayer at 7 a.m., then available as a podcast. and then there'll be a normal classic daily newscast in the evening, and i'll just be sleep deprived. amazing. what wonderful, tasty morsels you are offering up for our wonderful newscasters. it's been wonderful having you with us this weekend. thanks for having me. also on oscars, if you've seen any of the oscar nominated films and you want to send us a little review, whether it's anatomy of a fall or oppenheimer or barbie or whatever newscast at bbc.co.uk or whatsapp us on 03301239480. that's probably enough. bravo. see what i did there?

it's been lovely having you come back another time, but me and paddy will be back next weekend and he'll be here twice tomorrow with the wonderful, dazzling katy razzle from la. henry, always wonderful to have you with us. great to be with you. bye, everybody. bye. the newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello there. march so far has been quieter, but colder and the wind direction has played its part. we've seen an easily wind so far, and in the last few days, it's brought a lot of cloud in off the north sea and temperatures struggled along those exposed coasts — only around six degrees. but the story is set to change as we go through the next few days. with the wind direction swinging round to a south—westerly, temperatures may well peak into the mid—teens, but there's still a chance of seeing a return to some showers or longer spells of rain. monday, however, will be a quieter story. this weakening weather front still producing a cloud thick enough for some drizzle.

first thing monday morning, a lot of cloud and some fog around as well early on. some showery outbreaks of rain moving out to the far north of northern ireland, into the far north—west of scotland. and still, the wind direction coming from an easterly. here, always that little bit cooler, eight or nine degrees. but out to the west, with the best of any brightness, we could see temperatures peaking at 12 celsius. now, as we move into tuesday, this weather front could bring some showery outbreaks of rain into wales and southern england for a time. it's a really messy story on tuesday. there'll be outbreaks of rain drifting their way steadily east, drizzle as well a little bit further north. but the far north of scotland could cling onto some sunshine here, not quite as warm, around 6 to 8 degrees, but further south, we'll see temperatures peaking at 13 celsius. low pressure will sit to the north by the middle part of the week and this trailing cold front will introduce the risk of more rain. but the south—westerly winds starting to pick up the milder air moving in. so despite a lot of cloud around potentially on wednesday, there should be some breaks in the cloud.

temperatures will start to rise. highs of 16 degrees. brighter, with a few scattered showers, into the far north and west. so as we move into thursday and friday, weatherfronts will continue to bring the threat of showers or longer spells of rain. and some of the showers could be heavy and thundery, but the wind direction will continue to push this milder air across the country. so temperatures on the rise, particularly in comparison to march so far. so, yes, there is a risk of some showers or some heavier rain from time to time, but it will be mild with it, with highs of 16 celsius.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm steve lai. the headlines... a ship carrying 200 tonnes of aid to gaza prepares to leave cyprus — after securing all necessary permits to travel. it's the final day of china's national people's congress — we'll look at what the government in beijing could announce about the year ahead. the princess of wales thanks the public for their support as kensington palace shares the first official photo of her since she underwent surgery. and the biggest night on the entertainment calendar is finally upon us. will oppenheimer dominate the 2024 oscars? welcome to bbc news —

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