The NHS is facing one of its deepest crises - a string of maternity scandals, from Shrewsbury to Nottingham, Oxford to Leeds. Hundreds of babies have died or been left severely injured in hospitals meant to keep them safe.
So why does this keep happening? Is it about funding, training, or a system that protects itself instead of patients?On this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru Murthy is joined by Jeremy Hunt MP, who was the Health Secretary between 2012 and 2018; Channel 4 News Health and Social Care Editor Victoria Macdonald who recently reported on a maternity scandal at Oxford University Hospitals. The Trust there has apologised to families and said it was committed to learning from mistakes; and Kayleigh Griffiths, whose daughter Pippa died in 2016 due to failings in care by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.
Her investigation alongside another bereaved mother Rhiannon Davies into failings at the Trust led to Jeremy Hunt commissioning the Ockenden Review into improving maternity services across the country.
Griffiths has also been critical of the health watchdog - the Care Quality Commission saying its oversight of maternity services was 'not fit for purpose.'
The CQC said her complaints were being taken seriously and it was engaging with families directly.
Labour is facing an extraordinary rift at the top of government. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has strongly denied claims that he is plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saying that attacks are a sign of a toxic culture at Number 10.
The story erupted after an anonymous briefing suggested Streeting could be preparing a leadership bid - a claim he has strongly rejected. But the row raises bigger questions: how loyal is the Cabinet? Who is really pulling the strings in No 10? And what does this internal drama mean for public trust and the Labour government’s ability to deliver?
In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by Labour strategist and commentator, John McTernan, who was Tony Blair's political director, the pollster and director of Merlin Strategy Scarlett McGuire and the author and Guardian columnist Zoe Williams.
The BBC is in meltdown: both the Director General Tim Davie and the Head of News Deborah Turness have quit in the same weekend after a leaked memo accused the corporation of systemic political bias - an edit of Donald Trump’s speech ahead of the January 6th riots at heart of the memo.
The President has now piled in, threatening a billion dollar lawsuit.
So what is really going on? Was this a right-wing coup against public service broadcasting - or the consequence of genuine bias inside the BBC?
And could this crisis now reshape the future of impartial news - not just at the BBC, but across Britain’s media?
The BBC chairman Samir Shah has apologised for an “error of judgement” over the edit of the president’s speech and said that the corporation had taken action on other areas that had been highlighted in the memo - and would take further action if necessary.
On this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by the political editor of the Sunday Telegraph Camilla Turner and the editor of Prospect magazine Alan Rusbridger.
While COP30 gets underway in Brazil - Donald Trump is ripping up climate policy, blasting his allies for falling for what he calls the ‘world's greatest con job’ and trying to get big business to follow his lead - and yet in New York, Zohran Mamdani - a left-wing populist unafraid to tout a green agenda - has just won the mayoral race and in the UK, the Green Party has surged under Zack Polanski.
So is the direction of travel really a climate rollback - or is a new left preparing to claim power and reclaim the climate argument?
With me, from the COP in Belém, is our Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson - and in London, the financial journalist and author Andrew Ross Sorkin, whose new book 1929 investigates the Wall Street crash.
After months of a “vicious cycle of mutual retaliation”, as Xi Jinping has put it, Donald Trump and China's president seem to have come to a truce after their first meeting in nearly six years.
Meeting in South Korea, Xi agreed to stop withholding China’s rare earth exports for a year and start buying soy beans from America again. While Trump said he would reduce tariffs and suspend port fees on Chinese ships.
But how long will this amicable relationship last? Will all of this signal a closer tie between the world’s two biggest economies?
On this episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Victor Gao, vice president of the Centre for China and Globalization in Beijing, and Dr Yu Jie, senior research fellow on China at Chatham House.
Is Keir Starmer’s immigration strategy doomed to fail? Despite tough language, a one-in-one-out returns scheme with France and speeding up the closure of asylum hotels, Labour continues to plummet in the polls.
So, why is it going so badly? Has Keir Starmer, as some of his critics say, just been playing into Nigel Farage’s hands by elevating the issue, or will it work out in the long run?
To discuss all this and more on the latest episode of The Fourcast, Jackie Long is joined by Channel 4 News Communities Editor Darshna Soni - who’s just been to France to meet asylum seekers sent back under the government’s new deal and from Westminster by Channel 4 News Political Editor Gary Gibbon.
Is the UK government complicit in the destruction of Gaza? That's the assertion in the new book by journalist and polemicist Peter Oborne, with both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak under fire for backing what he calls Israel's “criminal assault” following the Hamas attack of October 7.
What's more, he says, the British media played its part too: colluding with the government as well as misrepresenting or under-reporting those voices opposed.
On this episode of the Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to Peter Oborne and Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former UK ambassador to Yemen, previously a UN monitor, and now a senior fellow at the foreign affairs think-tank RUSI.
As Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s latest meeting reportedly descended into another shouting match, the war in Ukraine feels as volatile as ever - and, according to some, more dangerous for the world than at any time since the Cold War.In this episode of The Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Serhii Plokhy, professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard and author of The Nuclear Age. He warns that fear is once again driving nations towards the bomb - and that we could soon see dozens more nuclear-armed states. So is the world stumbling into a new nuclear era - and what does that mean for global security and for Ukraine’s fight to survive?
In 2011, Virginia Roberts Giuffre became known as the most outspoken victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Her campaigning against their abuse and trafficking helped to get justice for many women, but she was perhaps best known for a now-infamous photograph, taken when she was aged just 17, meeting with Prince Andrew. She claimed it was taken prior to one of three times she was forced to have sex with the King's brother. Encounters he vehemently denies took place but which have led to his public downfall, with Prince Andrew reportedly paying around £12 million to Roberts Giuffre, formally ending a civil case brought against him in the US without admitting liability. Earlier this year, Virginia took her own life. Before she died, she wrote a memoir, determined for the world to finally hear her story in her own words. In this episode of The Fourcast, Jackie Long speaks to Virginia’s brother and sister-in-law, Sky and Amanda Roberts, about the woman behind the headlines, the legacy she leaves, and the campaigning she wanted to be remembered for. They also express their frustration with the Metropolitan Police response - but the Met reiterated to Channel 4 News today that they do not consider themselves the appropriate authority to investigate alleged crimes in the UK related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.This episode includes conversation around suicide and abuse.
With the IMF warning that we’re in an AI bubble that could be worse than the dot-com crash if it bursts — and even OpenAI’s Sam Altman admitting the market is “kind of bubbly” — what happens to the global economy if the AI boom implodes?
Are we witnessing the next dot-com bust, or just the growing pains of a genuine technological revolution?
To discuss it all on the latest episode of The Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined from Silicon Valley by entrepreneur, author and futurist Jerry Kaplan, and from the World Bank Group annual meeting in Washington by our Economics Correspondent Helia Ebrahimi.
After two years of war, a deal has finally been struck. Hostages are coming home, Palestinian prisoners and detainees are being released, and Israel and Hamas have declared that the fighting is over. But can this really be the end?In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin - a man who has spent nearly five decades talking to both sides of the conflict, including Hamas.From back-channel talks to the Trump administration’s surprise role, Baskin reveals how this ceasefire came together, what it means for Gaza’s future, and whether it can last.
After two years of relentless war, devastation, and loss in Gaza — a ceasefire has finally been agreed that will see all remaining Israeli hostages freed in exchange for thousands of Palestinian detainees.
It’s a stunning diplomatic breakthrough, driven by Donald Trump’s personal intervention — but can this fragile deal really end the war, or is it just another pause before the next explosion of violence?
In this special episode of The Fourcast from Hostage Square in Tel Aviv Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by Palestinian filmmaker and journalist Yousef Hammash and former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy.
As Kemi Badenoch fights for her political life at the Conservative Party conference, the Tories face a growing threat from the right. With high-profile defections to Reform UK and deep internal divisions, is this the beginning of the end for the Conservative Party?In this episode of the Fourcast, Cathy Newman speaks with former deputy prime minister and Conserative MP Baroness Therese Coffey, and Lord Daniel Finklestein, columnist for The Times and also a Tory peer.
They unpack the party’s identity crisis and ask whether the Tories can survive or if British politics is undergoing a major and irreversable realignment.
The Conservative Party Conference is underway in Manchester where the Tories are in turmoil, trailing badly in the polls and staring down electoral oblivion as they are squeezed between Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride joins Cathy Newman on this episode of The Fourcast to explain how the Conservatives plan to regain momentum and rebuild their reputation as the party of economic competence — but is it too little, too late?
Nadine Dorries was once a Tory loyalist and Boris Johnson’s closest ally — now she’s defected to Reform UK, the party leading the polls under Nigel Farage.
She claims Farage is the only leader who can deliver the change communities need, but are Reform’s headline promises really workable?
And how does Dorries reconcile joining a party whose leader launches blistering attacks on her old boss, Boris Johnson?
She joins Cathy Newman for her first sit down interview since defecting.
Labour’s deputy leadership contender and Keir Starmer ally Bridget Phillipson joins Krishnan Guru-Murthy on The Fourcast to set out her vision for the party.
She talks about the threat from Reform UK and Nigel Farage, and how she would still hold Keir Starmer to account even though she’s a cabinet minister and widely believed to be the prime minister’s preferred choice. Plus - does she prefer Tony Blair or Gordon Brown?
Rachel Reeves’ big speech on the economy dominates the second day of the Labour Party conference. Ahead of the November budget, the chancellor warns that there will be harder choices and refuses to rule out tax rises. But with growth sluggish, polls tightening and Reform making gains, can Labour really deliver the change it promised?In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murphy speaks to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury James Murray to discuss the prospect of tax rises, and how Labour plans to tackle immigration, the cost of living and the UK’s growing debt.
Award-winning Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah was sacked after posts she made about Charlie Kirk on social media sparked a storm of controversy. Her dismissal has become a flashpoint in the debate over free speech, newsroom policies, and the future of press freedom in America.In this episode of The Fourcast, Karen Attiah speaks to Cathy Newman, reflecting on the circumstances of her firing, the political pressures facing journalists, and why she believes her case is a test for how far opinion writers can go in today’s media climate.
As a UN commission concludes that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and international pressure grows with more nations, including the UK, moving toward recognising a Palestinian state, is there any hope for a two-state solution?Can Israel and Palestine ever coexist side by side in peace, or has the violence, mistrust and the events of October the 7th and its aftermath made that dream impossible?In this special extended episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined in Jerusalem by Alan Baker, a former legal adviser to Israel’s foreign ministry who helped draft the Oslo Accords, Yariv Oppenheimer, a human rights lawyer, Dr. Hassan Jabareen, the head of Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights, and the former managing editor of the Jerusalem Post Tovah Lazaroff. In relation to some of the claims made in the podcast, Israel's Foreign Ministry has categorically rejected the UN commission's report calling it "distorted and false" and Israel has always strenuously denied all claims of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid in relation to the Palestinian people.
A UN commission investigating the Gaza war has concluded that Israel is committing genocide, adding its voice to growing international concern from legal scholars and human rights organisations.
It doesn’t have the force of a court or the UN Security Council. But as a commission of eminent legal experts, its findings carry significant moral weight.
Arab Barghouthi is the son of Marwan Barghouthi, who is perhaps the most popular Palestinian leader in the occupied territories. He has been in jail for two decades after refusing to take part in the legal process that ultimately convicted him of being involved in attacks that led to the deaths of five people. He denied involvement.
In the podcast Arab Barghouthi makes claims about his father's alleged mistreatment in prison. The Israeli prison service has previously responded to these allegations by saying that they have been examined in court which concluded that there had been no violation of the law by the Israeli Prison Service. It also said that all detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined by official authorities.
Israel's Foreign Ministry has categorically rejected the UN commission's report calling it "distorted and false". Israel has always strenuously denied all claims of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid in relation to the Palestinian people.