of culture, politics and hours of culture, politics and current affairs to enjoy. dominic cummings has admitted that he orchestrated the plot to bnng that he orchestrated the plot to bring down boris johnson. that he orchestrated the plot to bring down borisjohnson. now, bring down boris johnson. now, he says of the conservative leader kemi badenoch, that she is a useless dud and that she'll be got rid of before long. i'll ask my panel about whether his views can be influential even now, and how the panel feels about the power wielded by unelected political appointees. tuesday will be the 50th anniversary of margaret thatcher becoming leader of the conservative party. i had the pleasure to serve the iron lady in opposition and in government to mark this moment in history, sir malcolm rifkind, secretary of state for scotland in her cabinet, will join me to reflect on the anniversary. sir keir starmer announced plans to make it easier to construct mini nuclear power stations. it comes in the same week that the government relaunched the net zero council. the former ceo of energy uk, angela knight, will

join me to discuss the impact of those new policies. and stefan kyriazis will be here to update me on his theatrical excursions dunng me on his theatrical excursions during the week. but first, your news headlines with sophia wenzler. >> michael. thank you. good morning. it'sjust >> michael. thank you. good morning. it's just gone 11:00. these are your headlines. the prime minister has sacked one of his health ministers over offensive comments he's reported to have made in a whatsapp group. andrew gwynne has also been suspended as a member of the labour party, and has since apologised for what he calls misjudged comments. it follows an expose by the mail on sunday claiming mr gwynne reportedly made anti—semitic comments and joked about a pensioner constituent, saying he hoped she died before the next election. it's also alleged that he attacked members of his own party, including making racist slights towards labour mp diane

abbott and sexist comments towards deputy prime minister angela rayner. housing minister matthew pennycook praised sir keir starmer for acting decisively. >> comments made by andrew gwynne are completely unacceptable, that this is going to be a government that upholds the highest standards of conduct in public life, where a government in service of working people. so we've taken decisive action to dismiss andrew gwynne as a minister. as is the case, there's a live investigation going on in terms of the labour party. he's been. andrew gwynne has been administratively suspended. he's lost the labour whip. i don't know what was said in those whatsapp groups. it wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment. >> meanwhile, shadow chancellor alex burghart said andrew gwynne's comments just show. sir keir starmer hasn't got a hold of antisemitism within the labour party. >> the worst thing that i've seen mr gwynne say on that group was that one gentleman was too jewish. now, keir starmer claims that he's gotten on top of this

problem in the labour party, but he clearly hasn't. we need to know who else was on that group. did they call andrew gwynne out when he said that? if not, what sanctions are going to be taken against them? you know this. we need all of this out in the open as quickly as possible, because otherwise it's the same old laboun otherwise it's the same old labour, same old antisemitism within the left in in this country. and, you know, it shows that labour hasn't changed at all. >> in other news, the parents of two girls killed in the southport knife attack say they're looking for light in the darkness. speaking to the sunday times, seven year old elsie dot stancombe and six year old bebe kings families remembered their daughters as confident, happy and intelligent. they opened up about their children's funerals and the support from their communities. in the months since the horrendous attack. alice da silva aguiar also lost her life that day. prince harry and meghan cheered and clapped as

the united kingdom's team walked on the stage for the opening ceremony of the invictus games in canada. the couple arrived in vancouver yesterday for the seventh edition of the games, which were established by prince harry in 2014. their public appearance comes just hours after donald trump affirmed he won't move to deport the duke of sussex. speaking in an interview, the us president said i'll leave him alone. he's got enough problems with his wife and friends. star david schwimmer has called on ex—owner elon musk to remove kanye west from the platform. it comes after west appeared to write a barrage of posts on his social media account, making offensive comments, including about jewish people and appearing to mock domestic violence. the actor mr schwimmer took to instagram to urge mr musk to remove west from x because of his hate filled, ignorant bile. those are the latest gb news headlines. now it's back to michael. >> for the very latest gb news

direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts. >> thank you sophia wenzler. dominic cummings, who masterminded the pro—brexit campaign and was boris johnson's right hand man in downing street, admits on the record that he also brought him down. he and friends agreed that boris could not be left in place, rattling around number 10, making a whole set of appalling decisions. he dismisses the new tory leader, kemi badenoch, as a bad joke. are those remarks likely to be influential? how do we feel about the power wielded by political appointees? for example, what role did morgan mcsweeney, keir starmer's chief of staff, play in the demise of his predecessor, sue gray? with me now is my panel. pollster and

director at jl partners, scarlett mccgwire , broadcaster scarlett mccgwire, broadcaster candice holdsworth and former conservative special adviser and chief of staff to nadhim zahawi james price. and candice, what do you feel about this? first of all, do you think that these remarks might be influential, for example, about kemi badenoch? >> well, from what i. from what. >> well, from what i. from what. >> i've heard, people aren't quite sure about her approach that she's taking. you know, the sort of easy as it goes. we've got time. let's take time to diagnose. others are saying, actually, events are moving really fast. they're looking to america, where donald trump has come in with elon musk in the silicon valley ethos of move fast and break things. and they're saying, we want that here. we want that level of system disruption. and i don't think it's just on the conservative right as well. people i've spoken to in labour are also saying the same thing, that actually the system is broken and we need to do something about it. and what has surprised me totally is people who i know found donald trump

repulsive eight years ago and now saying, actually, i quite like what he's doing. so it's possible cummings has picked his moment quite well to say something like this, and it could influence people that maybe, just maybe, kemi badenoch approach is just not the right one right now. i personally think that she she looks at things the same way he does. she's just not forceful enough about it, and maybe she needs to be a bit more forceful and a bit more radical. >> at things, the same way that dominic cummings does. what do you mean by that? >> she also has a systems level analysis of things. you know, when i've heard her talk about it, she tends to say, listen, no matter which party is in charge, if you have a system which has all the wrong incentives in it, it doesn't matter. everyone's going to make the same choices. >> we're talking here about the civil service, about what they call the blob. >> yes, exactly. so she has said that explicitly. i think she thinks in the same way, but i don't know if she'll come in and don't know if she'll come in and do sort of like a hard system reboot, like someone like elon musk will, for instance. >> james, i think this is a very

interesting topic. let's let's take the point. does kemi have time or not? i've said that we're coming up to margaret thatcher's anniversary of becoming leader. she did have a bit of time and she put in place this philosophical basis. so she's got lots of academics to write, interesting papers and books and so on, and that gave her a tremendous, solid intellectual grounding. i think kemi wanted to do the same. the difference, of course, is that margaret thatcher did not face this threat on the right that kemi faces. so what is the timescale? has has kemi potentially either miscalculated or does she need to make a new calculation about how long she's got? >> it's the it's the question that will decide whether i suppose she gets the keys to downing street or not. as you say, that margaret thatcher had all those people around her, she had some time. there was a very clear philosophical ethos 1508 00:08:47,392 --> 00:08