this is bbc news. the headlines: a bipartisan group of us senators have reached an agreement on gun safety reform, following the latest school shooting in texas. their proposals include tougher background checks for buyers under the age of 21. the measures fall short of the changes demanded by president biden. there have been significant gains for a new left wing alliance, in the first round of france's parliamentary elections. president macron�*s centrist grouping is still expected to win the most seats in next week's run—off vote. marine le pen�*s right—wing national rally are in third place. the british government is preparing to publish legislation, which would give ministers the power to override the post—brexit trading arrangements with the eu. downing street wants to change the northern ireland protocol, which unionists don't

like because it in effect puts a border down the irish sea. now on bbc news, it's time for political thinking with nick robinson. hello and welcome to political thinking, a conversation with rather than interrogation of someone whose political thinking shapes all of ours. this week my guest is a symbol of the modern labour party, a symbol if you like of a party of two eras. on the one hand, 13 years in power. on the other, 12 years of powerlessness. yvette cooper was once a young rising star of the new labour blair and brown years, but what followed

was the wilderness years of opposition, summed up for many by the night on which her husband ed balls lost his seat, as a neighbour of hers in yorkshire. cooper ran to be labour leader againstjeremy corbyn and lost and lost badly. keir starmer brought her back to front line politics, asking her to become shadow home secretary. yvette cooper, welcome to political thinking. good to be here, nick. i'm sorry to mention the powerlessness! when you watch the tory infighting this week, who is going to be leader? and nobody says keir starmer. it's, "will it bejeremy hunt, will it be borisjohnson?" does it increase that sense of frustration, of not being in power? the frustration of not being able to do things is huge, and you're right, we've had 12 years of this now. we are nearly going to have been as long out of power as we were in power. and yes, there's just this massive difference,

and it is incredibly frustrating. i think it's also... it's frustrating in terms of all the things that you can do in government, but also frustrating watching them right now, because it feels like they are damaging everybody. we're going to talk about politics, as it were, in a while. but just talking about you, do you ever feel, as these years have passed on, years of opposition, "maybe i had my moment, maybe it's time to do something else"7 and seeing your husband ed develop a completely new life, are there moments you think, not, "i could go on strictly" because i suspect that's not quite your thing. but are there moments where you think, "there's another life i could have had"? 0h, he is having a whale of a time, isn't he? so, yes, he is having a great time. and there are times, especially, you know, when we have a series of votes that we just keep losing and we just keep walking round in circles in the voting lobbies and dutifully voting on something that we are making no difference on at all,

there are times when you think, yes, other people are having an awful lot more fun! "other people," she says. point to ed! i was reading, which i didn't know, that you'd dreamt once of being a tap dancer. yes, see, the strictly thing is interesting because i did tap lessons when i was a child and i really liked tap dancing and thought that would be great fun, and i wasn't particularly good at it but i did really like it. so the dancing thing, for me, has always been great fun. and it was actually partly because i had thought dancing was great, we would alljust have fun doing ridiculous dancing at weddings and so on, that i had always thought after 2015, after ed lost his seat, "do you know what? the great thing for him to do would be strictly." and i never thought that would happen. i just thought that was a totally mad idea. but i thought it would be fun. and so it was actually, i was asked repeatedly about whether in fact ed was going to be in the driving seat, kind of thing. and a throwaway remark, i was getting a bit fed up of the questions, i said, you know, "who knows what he'll do next? he might even do strictly." and immediately, the sun newspaper started ringing

up the bbc. it must have been some deliberate ploy behind this! and started badgering them. so i sort of tell myself, i think that's what gave the bbc the idea to then ask him to do it. and it clearly means that we could conspire now to get him on, what, i'm a celebrity or anything! say what you like, we could get the sun to pick it up. what's interesting is, people listening to you will already say, "i've heard a side of yvette i don't normally hear." because you're quite a private person. i think i had to persuade you a bit to do this interview. why is that something you generally have been a bit wary of? i guess i think i probably would talk much more about family issues, about personal issues and so on, when i was first elected. but bear in mind i was first elected when i was 28 and i was a bit thrown in the deep end. i didn't expect to get selected in 1997. i thought i was just having a go because other people had

encouraged me, said, "have a go." and so i was a bit sort of in the deep end. and i think you then quite quickly find, actually, that everyone you care about is fair game. and so it became probably about protecting everybody else, as well. and i think that's maybe more so for women than for men in politics, too. that people want to pull your life apart? your parents and your...? yes, and you know, we had newspaper stories attacking us about our wedding, newspaper... you know, newspapers trying to contact our parents and ask them things and so on. and i think i probablyjust developed quite a strong protective wall about, and especially once the kids were born, we were quite fierce about protecting their privacy. and if actually, that is the most... everyone wants to ask about your hinterland,

about, you know... and if your hinterland actually is about your family and your kids and you haven't got a bunch of mad hobbies and things like that...! which you haven't got time for! exactly, which you don't have time for. then you end up, or i end up, anyway, just probably not talking very much about that. you once said it's just too awful being a political child. were you thinking of your kids or was there an element in which you, because your father was a national trade union leader, not one of the big names of that era but he was an important player in the trade union movement, was that a little bit of reflection of your upbringing? i think probably not because i think that... i mean, my dad was a trade union official, he took me, i went with him on the people's march forjobs in the early �*80s, you know, marched with union banners and so on. but i think we never felt

publicly exposed, growing up. so your dad was leader of the prospect trade union, the general secretary of it, taking you on the people's march forjobs. was it ever a political house? were you arguing over the kitchen table, shouting at the telly or the radio when you were growing up? i think we didn't really talk about party politics or political party activism so much, but i guess... i guess there were always issues. so my dad... my dad was very much in the trade union... he always had a huge scepticism about institutions, a readiness to challenge, to question, and probably encouraged us to really always believe that actually, if an institution is doing something, chances are it may be wrong and you should be questioning and challenging. and my mum's family is a mining family, she grew up in lowca, a mining village in west cumberland. and very much had that sense of solidarity, that labour solidarity and community kind of ethos of hard work but helping others and supporting others in the community.

because actually, you grew up in prosperous hampshire rather than a coalfield community, but i get a sense that that influence, those sets of values, lived on, notjust through your mum june but also this very powerful figure that you've talked about once or twice, your aunt lizzie. yes, my great auntie lizzie. she was a proper matriarch, you know, she was... my mum's auntie, and my mum's mum died when i was very small and i don't really remember her at all. but my great auntie liz, she was one of those women who, before the nhs was set up, she would be going to help with the babies being born in the community. she would go and lay out the bodies when somebody died. she was just one of those pivotal people in the community. and she worked hard and i really remember, i think it would have been, it was the late 80s, the budget, i think it was probably the 1988 budget when nigel lawson cut taxes for higher earners at the same time as freezing pensions.

and effectively that meant a real cut in pensions, and my auntie liz, she didn't have a full pension because of the job she had done, so she didn't even have a full pension. she found it really hard to make ends meet. and i remember my mum being so angry, just furious, standing in the kitchen, to the point of tears, that how could a government do this? how could a government cut taxes for those on the highest incomes and cut my auntie liz's pension? and was that your moment? was that the moment that young yvette cooper said, "hmm, politics, it matters — i've got to do something about this"? so i think that was the point at which it became, "actually, government is what matters." because there are all sorts of other things you could get involved in and probably as a result of my dad, probably i had that sense ofjust challenging things orjust questioning things all the way through. but i think that was quite a powerful, actually,

just, it really matters what governments do. you then go off to oxford university, where you do spectacularly well. you go to balliol college at oxford, not that long after borisjohnson has left. was he still a presence? because he was a big character, i was at the university at the same time as borisjohnson. was he still a character? he really wasn't at all. i had absolutely no idea who he was. the one person i did meet was michael gove, who then tried to persuade me tojoin the oxford union, and i remember thinking, you know what, i don't want anything to do with any of this. this feels... it felt quite sort of smug and entitled, the whole thing. and it also was really expensive. you had to pay a lot of money tojoin! so i think that was a little bubble of its own. the idea that kind of thing had anything to do with most people's lives, just didn't feel real at all.

you then move at an incredibly exciting time into politics, had some time as a journalist but you work forjohn smith and then go on to work for harriet harman. you meet ed, who's working for gordon brown at the time. and then you're struck by a really serious illness, something that brought your life effectively to a standstill, didn't it? i had me for, it was probably for about, probably two or three years in total. but i had a year where i was just completely off, couldn't do anything. and that was such a big psychological challenge, as well. because i had always just done things. just always been busy, always had, you know, a slightly chaotic mix of things going on and then suddenly couldn't do anything. suddenly i could barely go out

of the flat, barely do anything at all. and also, not knowing when it was going to end. so that was probably the hardest time i've ever been through. after i had been ill for a few months, i then got depressed, you know, quite understandably. and, yeah, that was really hard. did it change your view? because you went on to be in charge of the benefits system, went on to be secretary of state for work and pensions. was there a bit of that experience that you always carried, maybe still carry with you? yes, i think it's just understanding the difficulty when people actually are desperate to work, really want to, but long—term sickness or difficulties, or disabilities, can end up holding people back and actually, what you need to do is to support people. it's certainly what's happening now. you have got a massive drop in the number of people who are in the labour market. you've got a big increase in the people on long—term sickness, partly because of long covid. you need to actively help people and i don't think that is happening. happily, you did recover. you became a member

of parliament, young, as you'vejust said. and also, one of the first generation of working mums in the house of commons. how difficult was that? we take for granted now, because of the sheer number of women there are in politics now, even though of course there are still many challenges for them. we take for granted a lot of provision, understanding made. i imagine just 25 years ago it didn't feel like that at all. no, it was... ithink... i mean, there were, we had a big increase in the number of women in 1997 so i think that made it much easier for me than, say, for harriet harman and her generation. but it was a bit mad. and there was a sense, as well, that you should try and not talk about it too much. you know, not admit that you were juggling so many different things. so i stopped doing red boxes in the evening when i became a minister, i would do them at weekends but not

in the evening because i thought, this is bonkers. you're expecting us to do all these important papers late at night and actually, there's also, i'm trying to put the kids to bed, you know, trying to balance everything else. and so i said this in answer to a question from a journalist at one point. and i had a senior cabinet minister, who was very supportive, but said to me, "you shouldn't be saying this. "you should not be admitting that you're not doing "the traditional red box of papers in the evening." because, you know, people will think you're not doing the work. people will think... in other words, you're effectively saying to people, the system should change to reflect real life. exactly! not, i should just stay up till three in the morning or get up at four to do it. exactly. and, you know, to do it in different ways. but we also had this mad process of travelling to and fro, it was real chaos, the sort of, you know, getting kids to and from each week... because your constituency is in yorkshire. yes, and we would go back every week on a thursday or friday morning, come back down sunday evening, and so on. and that, especially

when the kids, when you're going through the potty training phase... really tricky! and i had that same sense of trying to pretend i'm professional. and we had this one point where i was on the train, we were aiming to get off at doncaster, and the whole tony blair prime ministerial entourage comes sweeping down the platform and i literally hid. i thought, i can't... i've got small kids with me. i can't pretend to be a professional minister and also deal with the kids. so i ducked, literally hid as they all came down so no one would see me as they got on! i thought it was ok, they got on a different carriage, nobody will notice. and just before i got off at doncaster, i had to change a small child's nappy, the small child had a different view of this! and halfway through nappy changing, set off down the train, without a nappy, set off down the train, ran straight past tony blair and cherie blair and the whole

entourage, with me then pelting after to grab this child! and i couldn't even stop and explain, "hi, yes, hello!" "got to go! "had to get off the train! i thought you were going to say you'd pretended you didn't recognise them! nothing to do with me! was it ever mentioned? we never mentioned it again! theyjust looked in shock at me charging down! that is the fun but you've also had experiences as a woman, as a mother, in politics, and you sort of alluded to it with the kids, kind of the horror that we have seen, the threats that have got worse and worse, social media and so on, and i was very struck that your daughter ellie, who made a point of saying when she did this, "i don't really talk about politics," she tweeted after a row about brexit in parliament, saying, "after chilling scenes in parliament last night, i am scared," she said. which must have been very hard for you to read, iam sure. yes, that is probably

the hardest thing. and with the rise of social media... we have seen a lot more abuse. and the abuse is higher for women, it's also higher for those who are black or ethnic minority, there's a racist element to it, as well. and i guess... i and other mps, we find ways ofjust dealing with that. of, you know, just ignoring things and so on. but for your family, it's really hard. and i think especially, i mean, obviously afterjo cox was murdered, obviously, david amess as well, you had that happen, we had the westminster terror attack as well. i think it is really hard for close family. running through you and this interview, a bit like lettering through a piece of blackpool rock, is someone screaming, "i've got to be back in power!

"i've got to be back in government!" now you're in a marginal seat which has got more marginal in yorkshire, very high bnp vote at one stage, ukip vote, brexit vote, exactly the sort of red wall—y area, i don't much like that phrase but so people know what we are talking about. you must have had to do a lot of thinking about why labour keeps losing. the cliche is, some people blame corbyn, some corbyn backers blame brexit. i suspect you've thought about it a bit more than that. why? why didn't those people, who you would have assumed were labour voters, want to vote labour? yeah. so i think underpinning both those things... look, both brexit and our leader, jeremy corbyn�*s leadership, were big factors. underpinning both of them, i think, was a feeling among a lot of people in towns like ours that labour was disrespecting them and that the party sort of disrespected them

on things like security. they didn't think we had a leader who would keep them safe. they didn't think we respected the big institutions of the country, of the issues around patriotism. but they also thought that the second referendum was disrespecting the result of the referendum, and i think that was damaging. and yet people listening to what you said about brexit will say, hold on, keir starmer was the guy who wanted the second referendum. there was the cooper amendment which bore your name, which was about stopping a no—deal brexit, which some interpreted as an attempt to scrap or scupper brexit altogether. have you done enough work to say to those voters, sorry? i think we got a lot of things

wrong and i think a lot of people got things wrong. i obviously had said i thought we shouldn't have the second referendum, that it wasn't the right policy for the general election, but there were different views on that. that was my view. i also took the view that we shouldn't have no deal and that would be damaging. ithink... you argued that at the time. yes, i argued that at the time. i think one of the things that i think i got wrong on it was, i genuinely thought that somehow it would be possible to build consensus and that maybe, ok, if things took a bit longer and it took longer then there would be more chance of people coming together and finding a way through this, finding a way to build some consensus. but actually, the opposite happened and the longer it took, the more polarised everything became. and i got that wrong. but i think things became more polarised, but i think,

you know, look, but we've got to do now is move forward. you know, we are outside the eu. we have new relationships to build. we've got to set up now a positive future for the country that moves on. immigration is one of those policies that obviously lay at the heart of the concerns of some, by no means all, but some of those people who wanted brexit. big businesses are now saying, "we have not "got enough workers." you're responsible for immigration policy as shadow home secretary. without getting to the weeds of immigration policy, that's for another interview, broadly, are they right? does the economy need more immigrants? the level of net migration, immigration, is about the same now as it was before brexit was implemented. so the composition has changed but the overall level is about the same. the big thing that has changed in the labour market is there has been a big drop in the number of over 50s working. i think some of this is also been affected by notjust things like long—term sickness but also about things like lack

of childcare, lack of affordable childcare, people giving up work to look after their grandchildren, things like that. so it's a much more complicated situation. as you give that answer, and you will know the criticism that sometimes is made of you, and that you faced when you ran for leader, you ran as a candidate of the radical centre and were mocked for not wanting to give answers. somebody did a meme, i think, saying you couldn't choose between tea and coffee. tea! does it frustrate you? cos you're a policy person. i mean, i suspect if i'd given you time to talk about immigration and the economy you could fill the whole half—hour. does it frustrate you that people want to boil things down to yes and no in that way? in the end, the world is complicated, isn't it? i like evidence and like facts and i think that's not a bad thing! if you want to change the world

you have to be able to do it in a way that makes sense and you've got to be able to deliver. and there's no point injust having a bunch of headlines if you can't actually deliver. and people can see through it. i guess what i'm asking is a version of the question i hear coming often from people in the labour party who like their leaders, you and keir starmer, but they've got a bit of a worry that you're, as it were, a bit too theresa may and not enough borisjohnson, crudely put, competent, decent, losers. that's the worry they have got. have they got a point? in the end if we are not credible and we are not serious, i think for labour, we don't win. but then, beyond that, you've got to have the optimism, the excitement. here's the things, here's the way in which we want to change the country. you know, some of that is practical policies like a windfall tax, but some of it is also about the kind of vision of a future where we are stronger

if we stand together than if we leave each other to sink or swim alone. we still believe, actually, we are the party of the many and not the few, as well. when you ran against jeremy corbyn to be leader, you said, "look me in the eye, do you want to be a labour prime minister? it's certainly why i'm here." is it still? i want to do stuff. ijust want to, you know... and you can do stuff as a local mp. so, you know, we are able to do stuff to get investment in our town centres, we are able to do stuff to try and solve individual problems and things like that. but you know, to be able to change things on a grander scale, to stop kids across the country just slipping into poverty... i think that wasn't a no! well, i think it's about getting a labour government, isn't it? maybe. maybe one day. now, as well as always, you're occasionally allowed a holiday! and when i've heard about the balls/cooper, cooper/balls holidays, i can't decide, if i was one of your kids, if i would think this was heaven or hell. the sound of music trip.

that was absolutely great fun. you know that scene in the sound of music where they sing "doe a deer" and they're all dressed in curtain material and they're riding the bikes along the long road ? and so we went cycling along that road, we had a beatbox, a tour guide and a beatbox playing out the sound of music songs and singing as we went! and i got this idea we should wear curtain material. as you do! we should go full on. and so i got some damask curtain material and we were going to do some lederhosen and things. only, of course, i left it to the last minute. so we ended up on the train from munich to salzburg, me getting the other parents we were travelling with and ed in this sort of conveyor belt of sewing and flattening these lederhosen! we thought, we'll get away with it, nobody knows us! we're in the middle of...

of course! but then the people opposite suddenly turned to ed and said in this strong west midlands accent, "i do hope you'll come back into politics one day!" as he is dressed in some curtains! exactly, as he is trying on curtain material! listening to yvette cooper reminisce about making those costumes from curtain material as she cycled towards the home of the sound of music may make it difficult to realise that she essentially believes that it is seriousness that will get labour back into power again. my hunch is that some of her supporters, some of the party's, might wish they saw a little bit more of that side of her and keir starmer in the future. that's it from this edition of political thinking. thanks for watching.

showers fading, towards dawn it will be chilly in rural spots. again, we have cloud creeping towards the west of scotland by morning, and although not as showery as we saw through the weekend or as windy we'll have more cloud across the skies here. rain for the highlands and islands. the osmotic drizzle into northern ireland. england and wales will have the best of the sunny spells and weather, 19—21. 1718 best of the sunny spells and weather, 19—21. 17 18 for scotland and northern ireland, feeling a bit warmer. sunshine continues into the evening. overnight temperatures fall away for a chilly start on tuesday. more rain nudging towards the west of scotland, a pattern we will see continuing throughout the coming week where temperatures will be held on to the high teens, low 20s but it could potentially become a very warm indeed across

england and wales later in the week.

welcome to bbc news — i'm simon pusey. our top stories: tougher background checks for gun buyers under the age of 21. could it be the beginning of the end for uncontolled gun posession in the united states? in the wake of the latest school shooting in texas, a bi—partisan group of senators say they've agreed a framework for potential legislation on gun safety. gains for a new left wing alliance in the first round of france's parliamentary elections. the african children being insulted and exploited for the entertainment of chinese social—media viewers. we have a special report. the british government says a new law overriding brexit trade arrangements with the european union will not undermine the northern ireland peace agreement.

are the machines about to take over?