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Welcome to your Weekend Wire from Best for Britain.
What a week. The rollercoaster of the past seven days has seen US President Donald Trump declare his intention to sue the BBC; rumours of a potential leadership challenge against Keir Starmer; and the strongest hints yet that the government will scrap the two-child benefit limit.
That’s before we get to the welcome news that - as of next week - the UK and EU will begin formal talks on food and drink and emissions trading deals.
Read on for plenty more on all that.
A Brief(ing) Encounter…
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The clever idea to let it be known to half of Westminster’s lobby journalists that Starmer would fight any attempt to challenge his leadership does seem to have proved all too clever by half.
Rather than shoring up the PM’s position, the almighty row generated by this briefing operation - seemingly from the heart of No10 - appears only to have left Sir Keir looking either out of touch, or out of control of his own officials, and apologising to the health secretary who was accused of plotting. Keeping up? Me neither.
Streeting, who is not known for being media shy, took to the airwaves on Wednesday in a pre-planned ‘morning round’ where he was meant to be talking about cutting NHS waiting lists.
But when quizzed on the inevitable, Wes swiftly gave a quote-of-the-week worthy answer, telling Sky News: “Whoever’s been briefing this has been watching too much Celebrity Traitors, and this is just about the worst attack on a faithful I’ve seen since Joe Marler was kicked out and banished in the final.”
Asked if he would rule out demanding Starmer’s resignation after the Budget, he responded: “Yes, and nor did I shoot JFK. I don’t know where Lord Lucan is, had nothing to do with Shergar, and I do think that the US did manage to do the moon landings. I don’t think they were fake.”
Trump v Auntie
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In a move that made global headlines, the US President threatened Britain’s national broadcaster with an unprecedented billion-dollar legal action, following an edition of Panorama last year that spliced together two parts of a speech he made on 6 January 2021, which his legal counsel called “false and defamatory”.
It came after a report from Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, raised concerns (in October 2024) that the speech had been selectively edited. It also follows the resignations of director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness, and an apology from BBC chairman Samir Shah for an “error of judgment”.
Trump said he has an “obligation” to sue the BBC, and gave them until Friday to respond. On Thursday, it was reported the corporation had apologised to the President, said it would not show the episode again, but rejected his demand for compensation.
Critics of the BBC - including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage - have highlighted this incident and other issues raised as examples of “left wing bias” at the corporation. However, the BBC’s defenders - including former Newsnight journalist Lewis Goodall - argue Trump is seeking to “frighten”.
He said: “It should apologise for the edit, but go no further, for one very important reason: impartiality.”
“The BBC should use the threat of legal action to set the record straight and stick to its journalism. It should make clear that, though in a minor way it slobbishly altered what Trump said in a handful of sentences, this did not change what Trump did.”
‘Dear Sir…’
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Five years since Brexit, and a British Chancellor has finally called out Brexit for what it is. An act of pure economic sabotage and vandalism. Politics is finally catching up with economic reality.
Ahead of the Budget, we are asking our supporters to take action and highlight the impact of Brexit on the UK’s public finances. Our recent report on Public Attitudes Towards Brexit shows that - now more than ever - Brits agree with the Chancellor on Brexit. Three in five Brits think Brexit has failed and cite the economic damage as the main reason why. Seven in ten of these voters believe Nigel Farage is the person most responsible for this catastrophe.
Will you take action this weekend and write to your local paper to make the case?
A big shout out and thanks to Paul Appleby, Graeme Blake, Gregory Monks, Cllr Rob Colwell and Steve who already have!
Shutdown shuts down
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After more than 42 days the longest US government shutdown in history is over. Trump signed a bill Wednesday night to reopen the federal government after it was passed by the US House of Representatives, following a deal negotiated by a group of Democrat Senators last weekend..
However, the deal - which will see food stamps and government paychecks restored - did not resolve the issue of expiring tax credits for Affordable Care Act - or Obamacare - health plans which most Democrats had demanded be included.
Meanwhile, the White House is facing further revelations over Trump’s links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after a fresh tranche of emails were disclosed, including mentions of the President and exchanges with former royal, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
The House of Representatives will now vote next week on a bill to release government files on Epstein- which Trump, and the Senate oppose. It comes after a new Democratic member in Arizona, Adelita Grijalva, was sworn in after a delay of more than two months making her the required 218th signature on a discharge petition calling for the bill to be put to a vote.
Trump also reportedly tried - unsuccessfully - to pressure two Congresswomen to withdraw their backing for the vote.
Cost of living Cop
Green Party leader Zack Polanski wrote for the Best for Britain Substack this week about Cop30 and why the global eco-summit is so vital. His piece came ahead of a report in the Guardian that fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber all Cop30 delegations - except Brazil - raising “serious questions about the corporate capture and credibility”.
As Polanski argued: “These two fights, for climate justice and for economic fairness, are two sides of the same coin.” Read the piece in full.
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Welcome progress as it’s now been confirmed that formal talks between the UK and the EU on food and drink and emissions trading will begin next week, after Keir Starmer and Ursula Von der Leyen spoke on Wednesday. However, as the Financial Times reported, there are questions around how much the UK will pay into various schemes which still need to be hammered out.
Our CEO Naomi Smith urged ministers to crack on urgently to make the promise of the reset a reality.
Business and trade secretary Peter Kyle also called on the EU to recognise the need for speed, requesting the Commission “run faster in coming to the table”.
Cheerful News of the Week
We bring you a tale from our Canadian friends this week that genuinely made us chuckle out loud in the Best for Britain office. According to a delightful report in the Metro’s Friday print edition (seemingly not online), police in Ontario have praised a joy rider who took a bus for a 15 minute spin for doing a “great job”. After jumping on the bus when the driver took a break, he reportedly drove the vehicle around, stopped to let passengers on and off - and even denied someone boarding with an expired bus pass!
“There was not a ding on the bus,” Hamilton police spokesman Trevor McKenna said. “He did a great job.” Can we have more news stories that read like an episode of a kids’ TV show, please?
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From the delightful to the truly tragic, we now go to Elon Musk, who *checks notes* was awarded the world’s first trillion dollar pay settlement by his company Tesla just last week.
In an apparent attempt to showcase his new Grok Imagine AI software, Musk posted on X, the social media network he owns, a video of a dark-haired woman smiling in the rain, and the following text: ‘Grok Imagine prompt: She smiles and says “I will always love you”.’
The New York Post described the online reaction as Musk being “trolled mercilessly” and “deluged with comments mocking the multi-billionaire”. What’s that old saying about money not buying you happiness? Could someone please notify the Black Mirror scriptwriters.
Separately, Musk is also feuding with the 87-year-old novelist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates, with one of her put-downs dubbed “the single most devastating burn I’ve ever read”.
Next week sees International Men’s Day, and Transgender Day of Remembrance. On the political front, home secretary Shabana Mahmood is expected to make a speech - read, intervention - on the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) on Monday. We’ll certainly be watching closely.
Have a good one.
Jessica Frank-Keyes
Senior Press Officer
Best for Britain
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