The Week: Is There A Path To Peace?

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Hello, breaking news about a very important deadline.

No, we're not talking about Donald Trump and Iran.

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then the instructions for applying for tickets are in the episode description

of this very episode of newscast, which as usual this time of the week

is going to be our roundup of the momentous events of the week,

which we recorded on Thursday night, which was broadcast on BBC One.

Have to question time.

Newscast.

Newscast from the BBC.

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Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.

And Chris in the newscast studio.

And Lee's do searches in the newscast studio.

And joining us this week is Stephanie Flanders from Bloomberg.

It's a delight to see you all.

And a delight to have you here.

Now you launched that podcast, Trump Anomics, didn't you?

Did you foresee oil heading towards, I don't know,

$200 a barrel as a result of Donald Trump?

We have had plenty to talk about since Donald Trump came back to office.

And that is just the least of it, I would say.

Right, lots of discuss as the conflict in Middle East enters its fourth week.

Lee, you and I have convened most days on various BBC programs,

five live newscast to try and work out if there are negotiations between the Americans

and the Iranians.

Where have you got to after four days of trying to work it out?

Everyone's going to switch off from this program now because you've just said

that we've asked the same question for the last four days.

I mean, that has been a different answer every day.

Still don't have an answer.

It's a difference of definition, but it's also a difference in the understanding of what

constitutes diplomacy.

That President Trump has been saying for days, very strong talks with Iran,

and that they and their serious negotiations.

And every day the Iranians say there are no talks and there are no negotiations.

And I think what we hear from Iranians and others who are part of this mediation process

because a lot of third parties involved is that there are no talks per se.

But today we did get more details.

Today for the first time we had a confirmation from Steve Whitkov, President Trump's favorite

that they did put forward what he called the 15 point plan, which could be the basis of a

peace plan. And we do know, and he confirmed that it was going through Pakistan.

And we think that is the main channel now that Pakistan, of course, is Iran's neighbor.

They're a very good country to country ties, despite strains every so often.

And it does seem that the Army Chief, who's a field marshal, Asun Munir, actually knows the

man that President Trump he's talking to, or wants to let those talks already taking place

with Mohammed Bagger Kabbalah, who is a speaker of the parliament, and also has played key roles

in all the main security institutions. So those proposals seem to be going back and forth.

So I think it's important that a channel has been opened. But let me finish by saying,

if you look at those two 15 points from President Trump's team, five points to Iran teams,

they are a maximalist man. There is zero chance that they will be accepted by the other side.

And quite frankly, they really don't seem to set the stage for serious negotiations.

And Stephanie, the world markets seem to react to every kind of microsecond of extra

news or analysis about what these negotiations or talks or back channels could be.

Also in quite wild ways as well. So they're confused. Are the markets confused? I think they're

confused. It depends. I mean, I think what the markets have stopped doing is listening to

every word that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth because that is certainly something that

tends to be very even in the same sentence, let alone in the same day. We did see oil prices go

back up though today because I think there was a general feeling that there is nothing to Lisa's

point. There's nothing that's coming out of the White House or our attempts to back up what's

being said by the White House that suggests that an agreement is anywhere close. And I think

with the Iranians particularly focused on will there be a ceasefire they can actually believe in

as opposed to a period of pause before they then get attacked again? All the urgency seems to be

on the US side and that's kind of the extraordinary thing about where we are. The Iran seems to have

an incentive to have this war continue amazingly despite the attacks on its country because of being

able to take the global economy hostage via the straightforward moves because of all these things

that we know about. And it's the US that really wants it to stop. At least the mean, the diplomatic

meme I keep seeing from observers is that Iran is playing a weak hand very well. It's extraordinary,

isn't it? This is what the military would call an asymmetric war. President Trump and his

Secretary of War. Today he nailed the plaque onto the defense ministry to say, take us seriously,

I am the Secretary of War. I'm not the Secretary of Defense and he pumps out all the statistics and

that 92 percent of the Navy's gone. And President Trump has been saying even from the very almost

the very first days of the war that the war has been won. We've completely destroyed. There are

a hundred percent of the military assets of Iran are destroyed and yet as they say on social media

with the zero percent that Iran has, it is still able to fire missiles into Israel,

lower rate, but it's still firing and to fire into Gulf states. The way this war is, and this is

every war unfolds on two levels. It unfolds on the ground, but it also unfolds in terms of the battle

for the narrative. And this is the first artificial intelligence war. So both sides are trollers

in chief as well. And the memes, people are saying that Iran should be heading Netflix now because

the kind they're doing Lego animations, they did movies. But more seriously, both sides say,

both sides say, and they absolutely believe that they're winning. So President Trump says,

we've defeated them. And you know what Stephanie said, they're desperate for a deal. And Iran says

we've defeated the United States and we're desperate for a deal. The Iran has done what they

call horizontal escalation. And it is quite astonishing that they have suffered extraordinary

losses. That seems factual of their ballistic missile program, military bases, a whole range of

leaders has assassinated both top commanders as well as top officials. But they have changed

this from what they themselves described as an existential battle when it started. President

Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu talking very clearly about regime change. And now it's a battle

for the street of Hormuz. They have weaponized the world's critical waterway. So they are now

fighting a completely different war on a completely different terrain. And that is their one

card. So I think it's not the case. They've always had this one potentially strong card.

And what this conflict has taught them is that they can deploy it incredibly effectively and

incredibly cheaply. I mean, when you talk about asymmetry and we tend to say the other phrases,

you know, they're on the wrong side of the U.S. or on the wrong side of the cost curve. But

the drones. That's very Bloomberg. The drones. We love your Bloomberg phrase.

In other words, the Iranian drones are very cheap. You're taking down the cost.

So take even the mines, right? What's the cost to the U.S. of actually reopening the

straight of Hormuz? Well, potentially enormous and more than any of the number of troops

that are currently on the way there could potentially do. How many mines does Iran need to actually

create a minefield in straight of Hormuz? Potentially none. Because the threshold of risk for the

insurance companies that insure the tankers is very, very low. And the drones are very easy to produce

and cheap to produce and can be produced in very non-military looking sites, you know, very

normal kind of industrial factories. So then you have to broaden out the number of things that

you're hitting in Iran. So the asymmetry, both in the ability to withstand the war, but also

the cost of it is quite extreme. And by the way, Iran is benefiting from the rise in the oil

price and its oil is going through. It's just other U.S. allies oil that's not getting through.

It's effectively Iran has sanctioned the U.S. Well, yeah, because if you're China or India,

you can have a tanker going through the straight of Hormuz. Yes. Which suggests there aren't

any mines there at all. Well, they're being escorted or being pointed, which ways to go.

Right. It's a bit unclear. Which brings us back, I mean, we can bring Chris in here,

because, you know, Sir Keir Starmer's hesitation to join this war, because this discussion again

raises that absolutely crucial question about why did they go to war? And what was the planning

for this war? Because even though President Trump continues to say, oh, we knew this was going

to happen in the straight of Hormuz, the way every day they seem to come, yes, I roar from

them. I mean, I know this sounds really cruel, but they seem to be making up as they go along,

bringing thousands more rain from Japan, sending in troops from the 82nd Airborne Division.

It really sounds like they just were not prepared for this option. Yeah. And the Prime Minister,

whilst facing difficult questions about UK defence budgets and where UK defence assets are deployed,

whether it's to the Mediterranean or to the high north, the Prime Minister's in Helsinki at the

moment, talking to the joint expeditionary force and a big conversation that feels very January,

which is about kind of the high north and Greenland and where we were a couple of months ago

in terms of the conversation that was then circulating around President Trump. He is absolutely

of the view that he feels he's strategically called the UK's position right in terms of those

big questions that remain live now about what the end game is, what the objective is,

and then the wider question that circulates now, picking up on the conversation at this last

couple of minutes, which is that Iran outwardly remains powerful and influential in terms of

shaping this conflict and the knock-ons for the global economy. With the wider question,

I guess, for newscasters that you solve, the sustainability, seeming sustainability of the

Iranian regime, able to continue prosecuting an argument around the streets of Hormuz,

and then also its longevity, which seems there. Is that fair?

Well, there's so the big question is, you know, ever since, and especially this year,

you had this major protest wave across Iran and everyone said it was the regime, what's going

to happen to the regime? Can this bring down the government? But there were no mass defections,

there were no cracks, and there certainly wasn't collapse. And so far, we haven't seen,

that we haven't seen any defections, there have been some reports that some police officers

haven't been showing up for work, but there's so far no cracks, certainly not collapse,

and certainly not capitulation. And remember, even before the war was started, President Trump

used to his envoy, Steve Whitcaw, that he was curious as to why Iran hadn't surrendered,

because in face facing with, even before they used it, US military might, which the Iranians

then trolled him. The foreign minister put a flag up and saying, we are, we are Iranian. That was

the first indication of President Trump's misunderstanding of Iran. And it seems to have this

capacity. It has been preparing for years for this. They knew this war was coming. So the layers

of succession are layers deep. Today, they now, the Israeli assassinated their intelligence is

stunning. So today, they got the head of the Navy. They had got the head of Navy intelligence

and other senior officials in the Navy. And also, the Israelis pitched that operation to take

out those, those officials as a way of opening the straight of Hormuz. So it's sort of rather

than an airstrike on a, on a facility. It's an airstrike on individual people making decisions.

Hmm. And they're so, and it's like you get Caroline Levitt, who's the White House spokesperson

last night. And again, they're incredulous because they think we're America. We're the best

star me in the world. And Caroline Levitt goes, but they've been defeated. How come they're not,

how come they're not giving in? They don't understand. They, they really, there's a huge gap

in understanding and a huge gap in trust. Is there an apparent contradiction there?

Because on the one hand, it would appear that Israeli intelligence is incredibly good. And

therefore, incredibly close to the levers of power within Iran, and where particularly significant

figures are geographically, so they can be targeted. And yet, there seems to be a

sustainability, a durability to the regime. Is that a contradiction? I don't know.

I think we probably should also exercise humility. We don't have a, what we know is they're still

standing. We don't know how hard it is for them to communicate. We've heard that, and they've

talked about this, that they decentralize the command and control. It's called mosaic system.

So that when the war started, they wouldn't have to always be referring to Tehran,

because they knew it would be difficult to communicate. And whenever there's a threat from

President Trump, or there's an attack, Iran immediately retaliates, which again says,

they haven't lost completely their, and two people died, and then Abu Dhabi today,

didn't they? Yes, yes, yes. And finally, they all know they have a bullseye on them, that there was

a report saying that the Americans had taken foreign minister Abbas Adakchi off the kill list,

and taken this Muhammad Bagh al-Ibaf off the kill list. So that they'd be available for negotiations.

But this disconnect, as you say, about sort of seeming to make it up as it goes on. I mean,

Israel seems to be much clearer, and I think possibly because of its greater intelligence is

believing that this is going to be a long and has to be a continued attack. I mean, you partly

wonder with the extent of the intelligence penetration they have, whether they're just

waiting for a Mossad agent to be declared the supreme leader, which is surely a matter of time.

But when you hear Donald Trump talk about it, this extraordinary thing is like, well, we could have

talked to him, but well, the Israelis will probably kill him too. You know, there's the lack of,

he seems relaxed with a degree of lack of coordination that the US has just never seen in any

of it in any conflict. But going back to the economics, I'm thinking of big shocks to the world

economy that we've all lived through. So the financial crash of 2008, you could feel the panic,

you could see the panic in Canary Wharf. The COVID lockdowns, you could feel the panic by,

oh, our government's going to be able to borrow any money anymore. This is serious.

The full-scale Russian invasion and the surge in oil prices, you could feel panic.

I'm not feeling panic from the world financial system, even though I've been told it's really bad.

Our yardsticks for these things have been somewhat distorted by the events of the last few years.

So it's all relative. And we would probably think this was pretty dramatic if we hadn't lived through

all the things that you've described in recent past. But I mean, I think it's the sort of worst of

all kind of shocks in a sense, because it doesn't feel as dramatic as something like COVID,

where people accept this is going to be a major hit, and people are going to be hurt.

But unfortunately, in real time, if your Rachel Reeves, you're looking at an awful lot of your

forecast going out of the window. I mean, we're even seeing the sort of the very short-term

inflation forecast. We have these now cars, which predict just what this month's inflation is

going to be. And they're about half a percentage point higher for March than they were at the start.

So that's the, we've already seen that immediate impact from the oil price.

I think from the kind of volatility you've seen in markets, from the uncertainty,

from the change in our expectations around interest rates, all of which dates to this

the attack on Iran in four weeks ago, that translates into probably half a percentage point

off growth and a non-negligible chance of a recession for the UK this year, which we've seen

people talk about this week. So that is a, it doesn't feel maybe dramatic enough for you,

I know. No, I don't want it to be, but I'm just using it as an indicator for how worried I should

be as you're being. But Chris, it was the OECD today, Stephanie will correct me, doing their growth

projections. Britain is now predicted to have the second lowest rate of growth in the G7

group of those countries. I remember not so long ago, Kirsta Amar's target was to have

the fastest rate of growth. So I mean, that's literally been turned on its head.

Yeah, and I think what's striking looking at that OECD report is not, it's not surprising that

they are saying that this is going to have an economic impact on the biggest economies in the world,

but looking it through the UK prism, the disproportionate, seemingly disproportionate

impact here. And yeah, and then the challenges for our region, and actually picking up Stephanie

on your point about the framing of the, of how we look at this in the context of saying the last

well, five years, 10 years, 20 years, we've got used to having it in a way that

we wouldn't have done if they hadn't come at the frequency that they have. Have these moments

where we say, oh, our Chancellor's projections are fed into the shredder, things are looking

grim again, and non-negligible potential for a recession. How might a government step in?

What might be affordable? We've seen it this week, haven't we, with the expectation

management we've heard from the Prime Minister and from the Chancellor?

Oh, yes, because Rachel Reeves has tried to rewrite the expectations for what the government

will do. Well, because I suppose, because of the recent, apparently one sinner, whatever it is,

century, or whatever events that we've had, whether it be the pandemic or the full-scale

invasion of Ukraine, whether it have been these in relatively recent history, and therefore in

the memory, the sort of folk memory of the electorate, big, not just big, massive, massive state

interventions to help with energy bills, or to pay wages during the pandemic with furlough,

with massive consequences for the public finances, ongoing challenges for the treasury and for

Rachel Reeves, and then her saying this week, and we've had this sort of dripped, if you like,

into the national conversation over the last two or three weeks from the Prime Minister and the

Chancellor, but then said explicitly about the Chancellor this week that support will be targeted.

It won't be, she hopes, need to be universal. That recognition tried to make an argument about

what is fair and what is affordable, but it is also true that Chancellor's acknowledged that

the spring statements a few weeks ago came what, three or four days after the Iran war started,

and where any assumptions that they might have been about where things were economically

are being rewritten, and at just the point, as we said on Newscastle of the day,

that the likes of Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer were tentatively in public, a bit more so in

private, but tentatively in public, sounding a bit more positive about at least some economic

indicators, and now you look at this OECD stuff, and indeed more widely, what's on Stephanie's

screens and all the rest of it, and it's, that is grim. The only upside is the OECD is almost always wrong.

Also, we could actually have the lowest rate of the G7 rather than the second lowest.

Also, Stephanie, I'm just thinking again, back to the recent past, and that you can't

fight the old conflicts in the modern day, but politicians are usually a bit behind the

curve, aren't they? They talk a good talk about, oh, this is what we're going to do, and then

the world throws more stuff at them, and they have to be more ambitious or do more, or I mean,

I think the difficulty about this is that it is at least from a lot of perspectives inexplicable.

I mean, it's one of the actual, the US decision to do this, for all the reasons that we've discussed,

and given all of the sort of gaming of different scenarios that US administrations had done,

that security and intelligence people in the US had done, for decades, more or less since the

Iranian Revolution, every time they gained out some kind of intervention in Iran, it had ended

with, or even begun with, the closing of the straight-before-muse and enormous uncertain costs

and difficulties, and that's why successive administrations hadn't done it. So I think you'd be

forgiven. It's true that, you know, whenever Donald Trump sort of sends troops and aircraft

carriers to a region, he tends to want to use them, but the idea that you were going to have this

kind of severe attack, I think, just seemed improbable to people, because, and not least, because,

I mean, we make it onto this, it was just, it's so counterproductive in terms of some of the other

things that are happening. If you raise the oil price, well, for a start, you help Iran,

and it's getting a lot of it to oil through, you hurt some of your biggest allies if they're

not able to get their oil through, although Saudi Arabia is able to send quite a lot of oil

through the Red Sea. And you are helping Russia significantly at a time when probably the

economic pressure on Russia a few months ago was greater than it's been at any time since it

invaded Ukraine. So if you're the Treasury, it was sort of reasonable to at least hope

anticipate that you wouldn't have this degree of conflict so fast and so suddenly.

And is it helping Russia because Russia, which was a bit of a pariah as an oil provider,

is now like Putin's the go-to guy, because he's got loads of it?

I mean, before this, it was looking at a major discount on the oil it was selling because of

the sanctions. It was, and that was meaning it was looking at a big budget deficit.

The cost of the war, becoming a complete war economy, was really weighing on the financial sector.

Ukraine was actually making some progress on the battlefield even though, of course,

Ukrainian cities were suffering enormously from lack of heat and other things.

There was, again, some cautious optimism from the Ukrainian side. That's all completely

reversed now. The oil, Russian oil is now either has no discount or is actually, it's

able to charge a premium. It sold some oil to India this week at a premium over the world price.

It's budget deficit if these oil prices continue for any length of time. It's more or less

just disappeared. And, of course, you've also got the eyes of the world almost entirely,

and including movies to this podcast, talking about Iran, and certainly much less

talking the US of potentially doing anything to help Ukraine. So it has had probably that's

the biggest sort of consequence, which other countries who are supportive of Ukraine now have to

try and deal with. And Ukraine is trying to deal with on itself. But we are seeing lots of

bits of the world sort of rewiring in real time. And so another example of that lease is

for Vladimir Zelensky, Ukrainian President, in Saudi Arabia today, almost looking like he's

going to do a deal with the Saudis to help them defend themselves from Iranian drones, because he

is now the Mr. go-to guy for drones. Yes, he's very clever, very strategic thinker. He realizes

that the drones that are now being fired at Gulf States are actually Iranian-made Shahid

drones. And so he offers the support there, the experts now on how to deal with the drone attacks,

because Russia brought so many of them from Iran. And so he's the go-to guy on providing,

so they've already sent technical advisors to many Gulf States. We don't know exactly what he's

discussing in Saudi Arabia. He might like to ask for a bit of money, a bit of help saying we're all

part of the same. The war that Ukraine war has now expanded. I'm on your please keep me on your

radar too. He will offer something, and I'm sure he's hoping to get something in return.

And I think we don't know what was being discussed in the meeting, but they would definitely also

like to have some investment from the Gulf nations in their domestic arms in defense industry,

which has done extraordinarily well in developing drones. But that would also clearly help support

the war effort. And then at the same time, they're also on the other front, because oil is being

the Russian oil that is now being sold on the market so easily, we saw this week for the first

time in a while serious Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian export terminals. And at least by some

estimates, it's about 40% of Russia's physical export capacity has been wiped out by this. So that's

quite bad news for us as well, because that's less oil in the world market and probably higher

prices. But it shows the Ukrainian desperation to try and respond on these two fronts. So this

change in the situation. Well, that's the Ukrainians responding to the different financial incentives

you were just talking about. And Chris, talking about the rewiring, we're now learning maybe what the

the future demands on the British Navy might be, because today you've got Kirst armor in Finland

with this joint expeditionary force, which is his group of like-minded northern countries in

Europe. They're talking about upping their commitment to the Arctic to, as you said earlier on,

a swaged Donald Trump's concerns about the Arctic from January. But then you've also got

Kirst armor and a manual Macron on the phone to each other about a marine task force for

the Strait of Hormuz when there is a peace deal to get things moving again. That seems like

two quite big new commitments. One by the way, we're going to be boarding more Russian

dodgy oil tankers in British waters as well. That's three new missions just today.

Quite. And so it's no surprise that whenever I speak to anybody in broadly and defend circles,

by the way, of almost any political affiliation, but at the moment, clearly, those around the

Labour government, talking about how important it is when they get the chance, and at the moment,

there is quite a lot of chance, but maintaining that conversation about how our defence posture

in the coming decades, in other words, beyond any particular government, is going to be in a

very different place and trying to win that argument. And that's clearly not an easy argument

to win when you're also talking about NHS pressures. Oh, and by the way, some more strikes coming

up in England in a couple of weeks' time, and questions around welfare and the bills.

So the Prime Minister in Helsinki, as you say with this wider discussion, and then this argument

that we heard John Healey, the Defence Secretary, making this morning, around what's known as

Russia's shadow fleet. Again, we're getting to how Russia transports oil around the world.

And I think quite a significant, it's not happened yet, but as and when it does, it will be quite

a significant moment. This decision taken, signed off by the Prime Minister, that they believe

is now illegal, where British forces could board Russian ships passing through, for instance,

the English Channel, if they are deemed to be illegally transporting sanctioned Russian oil.

But how you go about doing that, and the special forces that you are potentially putting

in harm's way in so doing, and then are these boats, these ships transported to British ports,

et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, that is now a live possibility. We're told by the Minister of Defence

that it's likely to happen soon. So that becomes a thing down the track, because either it does happen

with who knows what consequences, or it doesn't happen, and the question will be,

why not? Because these ships are still moving around. Oh, and whether he's talking to Donald

Trump about that, because that's what they were doing in the run up to the Venezuela,

indeed, and that particular ship that had changed it from memory had changed how it was flagged

on its route. And of course, you can see these things happening some way off, because they don't

travel wildly fast. But then you can make a decision about what you're going to do, and what

response you might get if you board a particular boat, et cetera. I think that was the point, so

my understanding is that was why there had been so much concern before this. There was a rationale

for boarding, which you could also say, you could say it was environmental regulations. There's

lots of sort of reasons you could potentially board. But there was just this uncertainty and fear

about how Russia would respond. And it just shows, if it does happen to your point, just shows that

that threshold has been crossed, because there's this desperation to have Russia not gain quite so much

from this other conflict. Quite. At least it's speculation, but we do have a fair idea about the

Russian playbook. How might Russia respond against Britain if British commandos are boarding a

Russian shadow ship in the English Channel? If there is an escalation. I don't know. What is the

playbook? We seem to be having a whole new library now, things that are happening. We don't know.

Well, Mr. Rones of the Scandinavian Air Force standoff. I would imagine that they won't take it lightly.

And it's one of those things where you have to not just do something, but we seem to be doing

something in order to establish deterrence. It's all about deterrence, isn't it? To ensure it doesn't

happen again. Adam, can I throw in just an actual little sidebar curveball? A sidebar curveball?

Well, in the sort of multi-layered overlapping elements of all of the stories that we've been

kicking around, whether it be around and Russia, there was a report published this week into a

alleged foreign interference in UK politics, by a guy called Philip Reichoff to form a civil

civil servant. There was one particular line in it, which I was just reminded of in the

conversation, which I just pulled up on my phone around all of this. As for examples of what

Iran has been doing, he said, this is Philip Reichoff, that the day after Iran's internet went down,

the number of posts about Scottish independence dropped by a quarter. So just throw into the

mess in the conversation. And that's not because Iranian citizens are weirdly

interested in devolution. An unlikely explanation. So just throw that into the mix and the swirl of

all of this. Anyway, the newscast is my part of that. And so I was going to give you the last

word, because I remember chatting to a diplomat in my previous life who'd worked for a European

Prime Minister for a long time, and he said something that really stuck in my mind. He said that

when there's a crisis and the pressure is building in the boiler, you can never predict which

gasket is going to blow wear. And it's unusual things that take people by surprise.

Is there a particular thing you're looking at or that you might think, oh, that'll be the thing

that will pop that maybe we're not we're not taking into account? I mean, I'm getting you to

predict the future now. Wait, you're also getting me to what's the really unpredictable thing that

no one's expecting. Yeah, go ahead. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, is there something that is sort of

actually, I think when it comes to the economy and the oil price and whatever, actually the

straightforward moves, which is a very obvious thing, it really is important how long that stays

partially or actively closed. I remember in the first week of the conflict, we had on Trump

inomics, we talked with the chief emerging market economist and also heavier blasts, which is

fantastic. Commodities expert and commentator. He just said they've got four days to reopen

the straight. Right. And if they can't reopen it in four days, that's when you start saying it.

And of course that four days as long since parts, we've already passed the sort of short, sharp,

sharp aspect. But it's the length of time. It's not even sort of the intensity. When it comes to

the oil, it's the length of time. This is closed because that also means you have a backup

backlog. You know, how how you quickly can you get everything through? How would have been passing

through all of this time? So it's not exactly an exciting sort of whatever you'll phrase, the

gasket that's going to burn. I will add a curve bar. Just when we're a child, whenever we're

getting a curve gasket, guess when everyone is getting off their maps to find and this drives

us mad. The straights. It's not the straights. It's one thing you're lost. The straight

of four moves. What there's another, you know, Joker in the pack or curve ball, whatever,

the hoothies have been on standby. Remember a few years ago, the Americans were and the British

were bombing the hoothies because they had been blocking the Red Sea. And from what we understand

is Iran has said hold fire to the hoothies. Don't get involved yet. And now there's an indication

that the hoothies are going to join the fight. And then therefore it won't just be about the

straight of four moves. It will also be about the alternative routes, which are involved

the Red Sea. And Saudi Arabia is getting about three or four million dollars a day, barrels a

day through the Red Sea. So it's actually managing to get out a lot of what it was previously,

what it has been producing. And that would be croop. And with both of those things, you think

how long does it take to then get back to a level of confidence where things can flow normally?

But this is the point. So you have this card that has now been played and Iran has learned that

it can play very cheaply. Once it's been closed once and can be closed again. So there is a

legacy of this conflict for future presidents, let alone Donald Trump, let alone the rest of it.

My version of the gasket was going to be that the best joke on the new British version of

Saturday Night Live, which was on Sky last Saturday, was about a shortage of helium. And that's

a reference to the straight of four moves being closed because so much of the world's helium

goes through there. And you don't just need helium to do funny gags with your voice or to

blow up someone's balloon for a birthday. It's used in lots of important industrial processes.

Stephanie, thanks for coming in. Great to be back.

Lisa, good to see you for what feels like the 900th day in a row.

Are we so pleasure. And Chris, good to catch up with you too.

Thanks a lot. And that's all for this episode of Newscast. Thank you very much for listening.

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