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The Evening Standard’s Defence Editor, Robert Fox, explains how the political situations in the US, Germany and France have thrust the UK to the front of the western alliance.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been pitched into Nato leadership due to the UK Labour government being seen as the strongest and most stable of the lead European Nato allies - amid threats from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
In part two our Arts Correspondent, Robert Dex, discusses the BBC’s annual list of top earners and what the Director General Tim Davie had to say about the Strictly Come Dancing crisis.
Here’s a fully automated transcript of this episode:
From London, I'm Rochelle Travers, and this is The Standard.
It looks like the UK has been thrust to the front of the Western Alliance.
The upheaval in US politics and potential return of Donald Trump to the White House, as well as the political turmoil in Germany and France, means Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been propelled into NATO leadership due to the UK Labour government being seen as the strongest and most stable of the lead European NATO allies.
The Alliance faces an increasing threat from Russia.
We're growing concern that Putin is working alongside China, North Korea, and Iran.
Here to explain what this all means for the UK and the rest of the world is Robert Fox, The Evening Standard's defence editor.
Robert, why is the UK being thrust to the front of the Western Alliance?
Because of what is happening in America with the way that the presidential race has taken a sudden turn.
And it's raised behind the scenes, the question of future American commitment to NATO and the security of Europe.
Either way, there will be less commitment, but even with a Trump presidency, I don't think there will be a complete abandoning of European NATO.
It's key also to a lot of the way America does its defence in general.
But both from a Harris presidency, I think almost as much as a Trump presidency, there will be reluctance to commit to Ukraine.
Europe through the NATO partners from the European continent and including Canada, and the EU partners are committed to supporting Ukraine.
Now in this story, it's the European allies of NATO that are so important.
Now the most durable, the most stable government of the major powers, surprise, surprise, is the UK.
The Starmer Labour government was such a huge majority.
The German government isn't in such a happy position, a weak coalition, and France is struggling to put together a government at all.
Is it risky for us to be in such a prominent role?
I think that this could have been forecast, but the surprise is that the Labour government, the incoming cabinet with Keir Starmer, David Lammy as the foreign secretary, and John Healey, very important, as the defence secretary, just reel back two and a half weeks ago, before the election victory day, as it turned out, July the 4th, they couldn't possibly have imagined that events would turn this way, both between America and France in particular, but also Canada is weak, that actually puts Starmer as the established leader with real legs in this government.
This government will certainly look set to last for years.
And you cannot say that of any of the administrations, including the Americans that I've mentioned, that there may be just an interim presidency, whether Trump or Harris or whoever, that will just be another four years.
There's the ongoing potential threat from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
How much responsibility comes with a prominent position in the Western Alliance when it comes to strategy against this quarter?
Well, you become the wise counsellor, the wise advisor, because this is where we come into Ukraine, where the UK has done a lot, nothing like as much of course as the US and nothing like what Germany has done at the civilian level with something like 19 billion euros worth of commitment.
But what is so strong about the UK's performance is that the advice to the Ukraine leadership, military and civil from the Brits is so highly prized and appreciated.
I'm speaking to you from the British Army Conference and we've had the new ambassador from Ukraine speaking, General Zaluzhny, who was the commander who kept the Russians at bay until last year when he was replaced.
But the appreciation of the kind of level of advice of the people that went in on the ground, not generally publicized, training on the ground, helping people with new techniques, using new weapons like the British Storm Shadow, the French equivalent, Scalp, and also Italian manufactured Storm Shadow.
But they've been a very crucial weapon, but the Brits have been in there guiding and training and are very much appreciated by the frontline NATO powers, the Baltic powers, Finland, Poland, and the Nordics where Britain is the club leader of a club within the club of NATO.
It's called the Joint Expeditionary Force of 10 Nordic nations.
Nowhere in there we're committed, but it's what kind of contest, what kind of confrontation that we're into, the British military leadership is very keen to say we're not at war with Russia.
Well, that may be playing with words, because if you talk to one of our closest allies, the Norwegians who have a frontier with Russia, they say we're in a pre-war or a near war situation.
I have called it in The Evening Standard a near war, and that's where we are, because Russia is not aiming, as far as we can tell, to invade a NATO country, but it is out to disrupt.
And the campaign of disruption will affect all our lives.
The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has launched a defence review.
What is the current state of our country's defence, and what should we be focusing on moving forward?
They want more money, the forces, but as everybody's agreeing, the money shouldn't be given just like that.
We've got to work out what we've got to spend it on.
The forces are undermanned, under-equipped, under-recruited, and that's the thing that has to be addressed, but to fit them for the modern era.
It's not same old, same old.
The thing is history never repeats itself.
And also, I love the exam question I always give them, is that history teaches us nothing.
We've heard at this conference from journalists saying, oh, are we on the brink of World War III?
Well, if you think of World War III in terms of the World War I and World War II, which killed 60 million people, that was industrial war.
But there is a global confrontation now.
And that is the basis of the defence review.
As Lord George Robertson, former Defence Secretary, former Secretary General of NATO, leading the review, said, we are faced by a lethal and unpredictable quartet of disruptors who may do possibly worse.
Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
And if you'd said two years ago, a quartet made up by those four members were going to be the main threat to the stability of the world and the alliances in which Britain is key and is affected, you would have thought it was madness.
But we are affected because it's going to affect supply, as we've seen through the Houthis, communications, undersea, and through things like GPS, the positioning, satellite positioning system, because the Russians and our allies even are playing around with this.
It is something where we have to be more vigilant.
But it's interesting, the public opinion polls, if you look in Northern Europe, and I mentioned Norway, Sweden, Finland, they're aware of the situation of near war.
People here simply won't believe it.
They don't believe still, public opinion is still not on the side of spending a lot of money on defence.
Let's go to the ads.
Coming up in part two…
Top of the league, as he's been for quite a while now, is Gary Lineker.
I mean, by a long way, he's on about 1.3 million.
The Standard podcast’s, Rachelle Abbott, speaks to the Evening Standard's arts correspondent, Robert Dex, about the BBC's highest earners list and the latest on Strictly Come Dancing.
Hi, I'm The Standard podcast's Rachelle Abbott.
The BBC has released its annual list of top earners.
It comes as the director general has spoken publicly about the ongoing controversy with Strictly Come Dancing.
Here to explain more is Robert Dex, our arts correspondent.
Rob, can you kick off by telling us about what this list is? Why do they release it?
Well, this list is a list of the top earners at the BBC.
Why they release it, I'm sure they wish they didn't.
About just short of 10 years ago, there was a great deal of pressure on the BBC to be a lot more open.
And as part of the annual review that they put out yearly, they agreed to put out salary charts, basically, of who earns what.
Now, it is, having said all that, not as simple as all that, as things never are.
So it's only people who earn above a certain amount.
So, it's not absolutely every single BBC employee, for example.
You know, if you've just joined as a tea boy, you're not gonna be finding your name on this list.
It's people who earn above £178,000 pounds.
It's also not exact salaries. So, it's in bands of £5,000.
So, for example, they'll tell us Greg James, Radio 1 Breakfast Show, big landmark show for BBC Radio.
They don't tell us how much he earns.
He earns between £415,000 and £419,999.
And that's how they do it.
So, there's a little bit of blurring.
The BBC's argument has always been, we don't want to say exactly what we pay all our top talent because rival broadcasters will come in and offer them that and a pound more, which you can see their arguments.
So, things are blurred slightly, but it's very roughly a league table of most of their top earners.
Now you just mentioned Greg James. Who are the highest earners?
Well, top of the league, as he's been for quite a while now, is Gary Lineker.
I mean, by a long way, he's on about £1.3 million.
Now these figures are for 23/24.
I think the next after him is Zoe Ball, who does the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, and she's on between £950,000, £954,999.
So, he's sort of £300,000 plus more than Zoe Ball, who is the next big earner by a long way.
Then after that, sort of the big numbers tend to be sort of in the £300, £400,000s.
So, you get people like, and because the report goes back previous 12 months, Hugh Edwards, who obviously is no longer there, but in the previous 12 months, earned between £475,000 and £479,999.
He was another big earner, though obviously, probably by next year's report, his figures don't mean that, he left the BBC this April.
Have the fees got better for female presenters?
I'm going to answer this in a way reporters hate to answer.
I don't know.
What you can do is pull some things out.
So, the fact that Gary Lineker is the top earner by a long way shows the importance of match of the day and football rights to the BBC.
He's just done the Euros, for example.
You know, he'll do the World Cup, that sort of thing.
So, that's why he's a big earner, because sport and live football and football highlight shows are massive things for the BBC.
Those things, due to the nature of the sport, tend to skew male, obviously.
But it is worth pointing out, actually, that one of the people who qualifies as a top earner now is Alex Scott, female former footballer.
She's on there earning between £220,000 and £224,999.
But that's still about £160,000 pound less than Alan Shearer, who's also on Match of the Day.
And obviously, you know, more than a million pound less than Garry Lineker earns.
So, we've seen a slight bit of movement in there in that women's football is coming to the fore, and we're getting more women presenters and pundits on football, both male and female.
A couple of the big, big female earners aren't on there.
So, someone like Tess Daly and Claudia Winkelman.
I mean, obviously Claudia Winkelman, A, she does Strictly and B, she does Traitors, you know, two of the biggest hits the BBC have.
She would, I think we can safely say, be earning a fair old whack.
Now, why aren't they there?
They're basically not paid as individuals.
They don't get a pay packet.
They're paid through production companies, which means due to the nature of the way this was set up, the BBC doesn't have to publish their salaries.
So, people who are missing tend to be people who are paid through production companies.
And some of the people on this list will also be partly paid through production companies.
So, actually, the salary we're given won't be a true figure as well.
So, it's impossible to say because we don't have all the numbers.
I would imagine Claudia Winkelman is probably about as high an earner as they have, apart from Gary Lineker.
And certainly, you know, Zoe Ball's importance is reflected in how much she earns, which is sort of twice as much practically as anyone else on the radio.
My next question was going to be, you know, obviously Strictly Come Dancing has been in the news with the controversy over its treatment of its celebrity contestants, you know, and have they dodged the list?
Yes, there is nobody Strictly related, if you like, on the list.
The closest we have got is Vernon Kay, whose Tess Dalys’ husband and nothing to do with the show, but he has a connection to it and that's about it.
I think Zoe Ball sometimes does the spinoff show, doesn't she?
That's perhaps a very minor connection, but you know, she's basically being paid for her radio stuff.
So no, we don't quite know who gets paid what on Strictly, I'm afraid.
The BBC director general, Tim Davie, has been speaking about the Strictly controversy.
What did he have to say?
He basically, he said that there was an excellent cast for the next season, so he's confirmed it's not going anywhere, because there has been some talk of it closing down or stopping for a year or, you know, stepping back a bit.
So, no, it's still going ahead.
And he apologised for what he called unacceptable behaviour.
I mean, he said that he was sorry that anyone who's had an experience that hadn't been wholly positive, you know, he apologised to them.
He did actually sort of mount a sort of defence of Strictly, which I thought was quite interesting, in that I think the problem with Strictly is it's a live entertainment show, it's a family show, everyone sees the glamorous dresses, the live music, the feel good stuff, and perhaps don't always think about the sheer physical and mental hard work that goes into it.
I mean, these are people who have been dancing professionally for about 20 years, they're essentially professional athletes, and when a celebrity in whatever state of fitness, physically and mentally, comes in and tries to get up to speed in a couple of weeks. It's massively, massively demanding.
And he sort of said, there's competitiveness, there's hard work, there was a will to do well, we need these things on the show, they're always gonna want to win, you can't take that out of it without destroying the show.
But he added, there are limits and the line should never be crossed, we will never tolerate unacceptable behaviour of any kind.
And he made a point of saying that if anyone has anything they want to speak about, anything they want to talk about, then they should come to the BBC, they should speak to them, they've got safeguarding people in place who can talk to them so that they can look at, changing the rules, bringing in new rules, which obviously they've done, they brought in more staff, which means the dancers and the competitors will always have chaperones now, that sort of thing.
So yeah, he spoke quite openly, and he said they need the right protocols and structures in place for the show.
You can read more about these stories and others in The Standard newspaper or on our website, standard.co.uk.
And that's it from this episode.
The Standard podcast will be back tomorrow at 4 p.m.
