A Keir-death experience: PM clings on

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The Economist.

1:21

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist, Rosie. I'm your host, Rosie Blore. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Assisted dyeing bills are gradually gaining ground in America. Last week one was passed in New York. Our correspondent explains how these laws compare with their international counterparts. And even if you've been watching the Winter Olympics, you'll still be missing out on this extraordinary sport which is apparently becoming popular in America's Mountain west, where skiing meets rodeo. First up, though, Yesterday the storm around Keir Starmer's prime ministership grew and grew.

1:28

The distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing street has to change.

2:32

Anna Sawa, the most senior Labour politician in Scotland and apparently a long standing friend of Starmer, called a press conference.

2:41

We cannot allow the failures at the heart of Downing street to mean the failures continue here in Scotland.

2:49

The current crisis erupted over revelations in the recent release of files from Jeffrey Epstein. These showed that Peter Mandelson, a Labour lord and grandee of the party, wasn't just an ongoing confidant of the convicted sex offender. He actually leaked private government information. That in turn has called into question the Prime Minister's judgment. Yesterday, the country watched to see who else would join the call for Starmer's head. But as the hours passed, his ministers finally rallied around him.

2:58

It certainly felt like it could be all over Verstama yesterday as the makings of a coup seemed to be in the works.

3:30

Sasha Nauta is the Economist's Britain editor.

3:41

But it never quite came to fruition. Is he out of trouble now? Absolutely not. Is fighting for his political survival.

3:44

Sasha, it's less than two years since Starmer got a massive majority at the election. How did we get to this point?

3:54

Yes, it's extraordinary. Two years and he is the most unpopular Prime Minister since records began. It's really important to remember that this definitely did not start with the whole Epstein Mandelson saga. This government doesn't have a clear mission and Keir Starmer, for all his strengths abroad, has struggled to lead this Labour Party, quite a divided Labour Party, through a program that actually deals with the difficult problems that Britain has. Half of the party who voted for Keir Starmer in 2024 say they would now vote for a different party. So there's a feeling of lack of direction and there's U turn after U turn as he's had to make concessions to the left flank of his party. And with that he's fed the idea that rebellion pays. So it feels like a directionless government that has not been able to stand up to the challenges of this country. And this latest scandal has undermined the very thing upon which Keir Starmer was elected, which was to bring calm, to bring an end to the chaos, to bring an end to sort of Tory sleaze and I guess several members in the party who already thinking about replacing Zakir at some point. The big question was, is this that moment?

4:02

Give me just a brief recap of the Mandelson scandal.

5:21

Peter Mandelson has been a senior figure in the Labour Party for many, many decades and he'd somewhat retired, but was brought back by Keir Starmer to be the ambassador which spectacularly misfired. It was publicly known that Mandelston had had a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. It wasn't clear how deep that friendship was and it wasn't clear how long that friendship had continued. But there were suspicions that it had continued beyond Jeffrey Epstein's conviction. And with the big release of the Epstein files in America, it became painfully clear that Peter Mandelson had been leaking sensitive government information, Cabinet minutes to his billionaire pedophile friend in America. I can't quite overstate, like, there's no precedent here. It's a huge political scam and it comes back to Keir Starmer with, oh, my goodness, what a terrible misjudgment of character. There's no suggestion that Keir Starmer knew that Mandelson was leaking this information. But it became clear at PMQ's last week that Starmer did know when he appointed Mandelson that this friendship had continued. And there was a big gasp in PMQ's Prime Minister's Questions when he admitted that. And I think that kind of has sowed the seed. Yes, Starmer seems to have survived this week, but as soon as the criminal investigation into Peter Mandelson moves to the next stage, the government is expected to release these Mandelson files, which at minimum will be embarrassing for the government and for Keir Starmer, I have no doubt, but it could be significantly worse. Right. So I really don't think this issue has gone to bed yet.

5:25

But as you say, Sasha, it's not just about Mandelson. And this issue would not have been as big a scandal, arguably, if Starmer hadn't already been so unpopular. How deep does the.

7:10

If the Mandelson story had happened in isolation, we would have definitely spent a little bit of time going, gosh, this is extraordinary. Someone's been leaking this stuff. But to understand why the Epstein Mandelson story could bring down a Prime Minister, you have to see the much broader, deeper rot. It's a frustration with very little visible showing of Labour delivering the sort of things they promised. They promised to stop the boats. Instead, small boats are up since Kirsten has started. They promise to sort of slash any wasting times. Again, progress there is very, very slow. So I think you're right. This Prime Minister and this government have been struggling for far, far longer. And the Epstein thing is just the latest. Very big, admittedly, but the latest thing that can tip things over the edge.

7:23

So what happens next?

8:11

Well, what happens next is I'm sure Keir Starmer wakes up with a big headache this morning because, you know, it was a late night. The speech he gave last night, I think, already gave us an indication of how he plans to proceed. He was very conciliatory to the Labour Party. He apologized for not listening to them enough. He promised to be more inclusive going forward. All of those are signals to me that he plans to give the party more of what they want. In my team, we call it ice cream for breakfast. You sort of move to just giving the party what it wants. Oh, welfare reform. Oh, there's a protest. People don't want that. Let's stop doing that. Oh, winter fuel. Oh, let's take a U turn. And from the look of it, having really had to beg his Cabinet to support him, is not in a strong position to do any of the difficult things that Britain needs.

8:13

So there's going to be a challenge at some point, probably a number of them. Who are the contenders to replace Keir Starmer?

9:04

There's Angela Rayner, the former deputy Prime Minister, but she was very damaged by a recent tax scandal and is still being investigated. But she is very popular with the party. Then there's Wes Treating, who's sort of a Blair Eye. He's very ambitious, but he is damaged by his association with Mandelson and he's not particularly liked by the party. Then there's Andy Burnham, but he's been blocked for running. He's very popular, but he doesn't currently have a route to Prime Ministership. And then one name that we're increasingly hearing is Ed Miliband, currently the Energy Minister. Very different characters, Unclear what any of these people would do and none of them perfect. And I think that's one of the issues here, is that everyone can see the flaws of Keir Starmer and everyone can see that he's not in a great position to take the party to the next election. But all of the other candidates have asterisks behind their names. Nobody's Aslam then, and it doesn't look like there's a consensus candidate at all.

9:11

So, Sasha, what's the verdict? Is Starmer toast?

10:05

Well, he's not toast this week, but it's very hard to see how he survives for another three years. It can't be that long before we have more drama, I think, in the Labour Party, with or without Keir Starmer running the show. British politics, I think, is going to get worse before it gets better. And the big problems that this country have will not be the priority of the Labour government for the coming period, I'm afraid.

10:08

Sasha, thank you very much.

10:36

Thanks, Rosie.

10:38

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For her 70th birthday, she didn't want to party. She wanted us to buy an abandoned funeral home. That's mom and bring it back to life.

11:53

Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, says she knows the pain of seeing someone she loves suffer and feeling powerless to stop it.

12:02

Stevie Hertz is our US Policy correspondent.

12:10

My mom did get a chance to see me become a member of Congress, but passed two months before I was nominated to be lieutenant governor.

12:14

Hochul's mother, Patricia Ann Courtney, died of ALS, a motor neurone disease, at age.

12:23

76, fighting a debilitating illness, ALS that robbed this woman who dedicated her life to being an advocate for victims of domestic violence, families in stress. She became a great social worker. That's the kind of mom that I lost to a disease that robbed her of everything, including her own voice.

12:28

Neurological diseases like ALS are the second most common diagnosis for Americans who ask for a doctor's help to die. Hochul signed a law last week making New York the 13th state plus Washington, D.C. where assisted dying is legal.

12:45

And if a New Yorker chooses to have that under the circumstances we pre designated, then who am I to stand in their way? That is where I am at today with this decision.

12:59

This makes New York part of a wave. In 2025, Delaware and Illinois approved assisted dying laws. So by the end of the year, more than 30% of Americans will live in states where doctors can prescribe fatal medications to terminally ill patients.

13:11

Stevie where does the American public stand on assisted dying?

13:28

So slightly more than half of the public believe that assisted suicide is morally acceptable. And that share grows to two thirds if the patient is in severe pain, has no chance of recovery and is asking for help. So this is really a case of law and lawmakers finally catching up with public opinion.

13:33

We've discussed assisted dying bills in other countries on the show a number of times in the uk, in Canada, Australia and elsewhere. How does America's approach differ?

13:50

The safeguards in the US Are much stricter than in other Western countries where assisted dying is legal. So Canada and the Netherlands allow it in cases where patients are suffering from incurable illnesses but are not actually terminally ill. But American states follow the model of Oregon, which became the first state to legalize assisted dying back in 1994. And it's really striking how little has changed since then. It requires patients to have six months or less to live. That diagnosis has to be confirmed by two doctors. Patients have to be mentally competent. They have to request the medication and then be able to take it themselves. It can't be administered by a doctor. So typically it's a drink that they have to drink themselves. Because of this, relatively few people are eligible. It's patients generally with als, like Kathy Hochul's mother, or more often, terminal cancer. And since some hospitals and doctors refuse to help on moral grounds, or they would just prefer not to, assisted suicide remains relatively rare. In states where it is legal, it accounts for less than 1% of deaths. Compare that to Canada or the Netherlands, where the rate is about five times that.

14:01

And you said that New York has just passed this bill. Is it the same model?

15:05

New York has added yet more guardrails. The patient's mental fitness has to be confirmed by a psychologist or a psychiatrist. Only one other state so far requires that. The patient's request to die even has to be filmed, as well as being witnessed by two people. And those two people cannot be involved in the patient's care or set to benefit from their estate. These extra elements were added during negotiations between legislators and Kathy Hochul. She's a practicing Catholic, and she wanted New York to have the toughest safeguards in the country. The bill was signed last Friday, and it will take effect in six months.

15:10

This must feel painfully slow for people who want to use this option. What are the obstacles to moving forwards with it?

15:43

Yeah, it has been a long debate. In Delaware, Illinois, and New York, lawmakers debated these bills for a decade or more before they reached the governor's desk. There's been a lot of religious opposition in Illinois. Pope Leo xiv, who was born in Chicago, he lobbied Illinois's governor unsuccessfully, to veto the spell. Some groups representing the disabled have also objected. They worry people will face pressure over the perceived burden of caring for them. And then on the other side, the terminally sick patients have often been very eloquent advocates. And recently, a new dynamic has also started where Democrats have seized on this issue as they seek to become the party that represents individual rights. Cathy local connected assisted dying with reproductive rights and labor rights as individual rights that Democrats have long supported. What's really interesting about America, in contrast to the UK and other places where these debates have taken such a long time, is that states like New York and Illinois have three decades of domestic data to point to. They can look to the example of Oregon to show that disabled people have not been pressured to die. And they can also show that the scope and the remit of who is eligible for assisted dying hasn't grown, it hasn't become a slippery slope. It is the same same group of people who were eligible 30 years ago. And I think that has been a very powerful example for campaigners to point.

15:52

To and which states might be next.

17:09

So Death with Dignity, the leading campaign group for this issue, expects it to be considered in 13 states this year. And they're most hopeful about their prospects in Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts. But given how long these debates can take, they're not expecting rapid change. One advocate I spoke to said that campaigning for assisted dying requires patience and persistence, but that many terminally ill patients do not have that luxury of time.

17:12

Stevie, thank you very much.

17:38

Thank you.

17:40

You know, a horse named donkey is.

17:56

Going to be fun from the get go, too.

17:58

I'm in Heber City, Utah, for the kickoff of the very first pro skijoring tour in the Mountain West.

18:00

Aaron Braun is our west coast correspondent.

18:10

There is horse poop literally everywhere. Lots of people walking around with skis, lots of people in cowboy hats. It's sort of like if the rodeo met the Winter Olympics. That's a bit of the vibe. The sport skijoring involves a rider on horseback pulling a skier by a rope. The aim is to make it through a snowy racetrack in the fastest time possible, going through slalom gates, catching rings on your arm, and clearing jumps. The blend of skiing and ranching culture in the Mountain west makes skijoring a natural fit for the region. But the sport's roots aren't actually in America. The term skijoring is actually derived from a Norwegian word meaning ski driving. Some people I talk to say that it originated with indigenous people in Scandinavia who would harness their reindeer to pull them along frozen lands. The sport started to catch on after the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz. It was demonstrated there, and the event I went to in Utah began in 2017 with around 1,500 spectators. This year, the organizers expected 10,000. Ski touring won't be featured at the Winter Olympics currently underway in Italy, but the sports boosters are really hoping to demonstrate it in 2034 when their winter Olympics return to Utah. The best skijoring athletes already have Some ski experience. So they were competitive downhill skiers or ski racers. But it's really hard to get started in the sport because practicing is basically impossible. Nobody has a snowy race course at their disposal, even if they do have a horse. One married couple I spoke to thought that wakeboarding and snowmobiling might help them prepare.

18:13

I wakeboarded for a long time, so it kind of like overlaps, but not having a handle and the horse being galloping with like an inconsistent type pull and having to like make your gaits, it makes it very exciting because you could be very good at one thing that's similar. And then you come to into this and you're like, oh, this is a lot harder than you think it is.

20:29

But they told me that nothing can really compare to being pulled behind a horse at 40 miles per hour.

20:50

We did. We rented snowmobiles actually, to try to get simulate a little bit. So yeah, I got a little bit.

20:57

Of a feel for it.

21:03

Obviously not the same as a horse, but at least the kind of feeling of being pulled.

21:04

There'S sort of an art to it. They told me skiers have to learn when to climb up the rope to get closer to the horse. And when they need more slack in the line in order to take those.

21:11

Jumps, let that horse run now into the finish. That ended up being a great run.

21:22

Here we go.

21:28

Fans at the event I was at in Utah were so enthusiastic. They were screaming and clanging their cowbells and even chatting with some of the athletes. But it was pretty clear that not all of the fans were ranchers or skiers. One group I happened across was watching the NFL playoffs on this little battery powered TV while they were waiting for their friends to compete. And they had the skijoring live stream on the tiny phone right under the tv. But if skijoring just seems too crazy to comprehend, I found it helpful to listen to the team names to get a sense of the sport's unserious culture.

21:31

Here we go.

22:13

Fifty shades of Hair.

22:13

Two Dudes and a Stud. Two Dudes and a Stud. I'm guessing the studs referring to the horse.

22:14

Blazing Saddles.

22:20

That's Blazing Saddles with a Z at the end, by the way. But my favorite team name was probably Two Idiots and a Rope. The energy at this ski drawing tournament was infectious. And by the end of the day, even I started wondering, should I learn to ride a horse?

22:21

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. See you back here tomorrow.

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