The News Agents

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Monday, 12 May 2025 - 43 minutes

Keir Starmer, sounding in tone closer to Nigel Farage than previous Labour prime ministers, has called immigration a failed lab experiment and decreed it’s time to take back control. Introducing the government's immigration white paper, the PM says that high net migration has done "incalculable damage" to the country. It’s language that suggests he has been spooked by Reform's recent successes. But language, he presumes, voters now want to hear from their leader. Is he right? And what happens to our most vulnerable if we don’t have NHS staff and care home workers to fill the job gaps no one here is taking?

But we start with an extraordinary interview with Victor Orban's right hand man. In the week where Zelesnkyy and Putin could meet in Istanbul for a potentially crucial moment in attempts to bring the Ukraine war to an end, why is Hungary at odds with the rest of the EU over Russia? Why have Hungary and Ukraine accused each other of spying over the weekend? And is Starmer's language on immigration now mirroring Orban's a decade earlier?

The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/

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