Episode details

News,16 Feb 2026,31 mins
Available for over a year
Today, the government is considering accelerating planned increases to defence spending. The news comes after the PM dropped some heavy hints that he was ready to spend more on defence during his speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. Katya Adler and James Landale drop by to explain how America is trying to rewrite the global order… and get Europe to sign on and Joe Pike explains why spending more on defence is never politically straightforward. Plus, Joe and Adam discuss the government’s decision to scrap it’s plans to postpone elections for 30 councils after recieving “legal advice”. They also review the government’s latest proposals to crack down on online safety for children and Starmer’s response to claims that a Labour Think Tank paid a private investigator to look into journalists. You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://bbc.in/newscastdiscord Get in touch with Newscast by emailing [email protected] or send us a WhatsApp on +44 0330 123 9480. New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Anna Harris with Shiler Mahmoudi. The social producer was Joe Wilkinson. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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