Keir Starmer has not ‘stepped up’ to go ‘toe to toe’ with the US in the Middle East

But first, we are now a week and a bit into uh the events that have been uh playing out with the United States and Israel taking on Iran. The latest information is the US has now hit 3,000 3,000 targets in the first week of Operation Epic Fury. Now, quite interestingly, one of the things that has got a lot of people talking in the past few hours has been how Iranian fuel depots are on fire. Because remember, it's not just about taking out the leadership. It's not just taking out what they use to try and strike out against the rest of the region. But of course, it's what they use to keep all of those things in the air in the sky. Part of that obviously is their fuel deposits. Spectacular footage that you see there via many organizations. One of the hardest, if not the hardest thing of an American president, regardless of whether you like them or not, regardless of whether they're Republican or Democrat, is to see the consequences of their decisions. Now, as we know, six people have died as part of the defense forces that were struck in the first 24 hours of Operation Epic Fury. Their bodies have returned in the past day or so to the United States. All six were welcomed back to the country. Their caskets being paraded past the president, his wife, the vice president, his wife, and a whole bunch of other significant uh officials. This can always be a very difficult political moment because it is about the realization of the consequences of war and obviously uh people like Joe Biden who in previous occasions has been literally looking at his watch when such things have been taking place they really can move public opinion. Interestingly though uh as you know there has also been a lot of back and forth between the leader of the United Kingdom who has not stepped up who is not choosing to go toe-to-toe with America. Now, of course, this is because he wants to avoid the supposed sins of the Iraq war, that being Kia Stama and Donald Trump. Now, apparently, the United Kingdom, remember a week and a bit into this thing, is preparing on sending one of their aircraft carriers, maybe, maybe, to the Middle East. Now, would they start firing from those aircraft carriers into Iran? No. Of course, it is just there in case they need to fire into Iran if British assets are attacked. Well, amazingly, as you will have heard by now, but if this is your first chicken on the news, let me bring you up to date. The president, he ain't happy. Going to his favored social media platform, the United Kingdom, our once great ally, maybe the greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two military two aircraft carriers to the Middle East. That's okay, Prime Minister Starma. We don't need them any longer. But we will remember we don't need people that join wars after we've already won President Donald J. Trump. Now, what's particularly interesting about this is remember I told you a couple of days ago the Americans were telling us that the uh waves of attacks that were coming from Iran on all of those American assets and all of those countries that house things like American military bases. Well, the wave of that was down about 85% where there's no further update to what I told you on Thursday night. And remember, the president said that this was something that would go the best part of 4 weeks. The Iranians were saying today that they can fight intensely for 6 months. But let's just go back to that tweet and that key line here. But we remember we don't need people to join wars after we've already won. Now, I doubt Donald Trump is about to do a version of mission accomplished here, but do not be surprised if by this time next week, it is America that is supporting Israel with what it is doing in the next phase. But perhaps the direct and daily involvement of the United States may well change. Why? Because the president is saying they've already won. So why would they continue on? Meanwhile, back to one of the reasons why the UK didn't get involved when of course they should have. Getting rid of the Iranian regime is not just good for the region, is of course uh good for the world because this Iranian regime is able to not just fire missiles, but sponsor cyber attacks, pay for suicide bombers, and also wreck all sorts of havoc in domestic politics. We saw that here in Australia to the extent that we had to boot out the Iranian ambassador. But Penny Wong and Anthony Albani are part of a political class who grew up in the shadow of the titanic figure that is John Howard. In many ways, they came to prominence or certainly formed a major political view that was in and around the Iraq war of 2003. Now, I've told you that at the time I was against that war. Why? Because it was not, in my view, a necessary war. What took place in Afghanistan was obvious because it was where al-Qaeda was being harbored. We all know the folly in many ways that was decisions made in and around the Iraq war. But of course, what is always forgotten from history when it comes to Labor people is that after Goff Whitam got sacked by the Governor General, the Australian people voted against the Labor Party not once but twice, i.e. decision confirmed. And even after all of the dispute and all of the people marching against the Iraq war, John Howard won in 2004 by an even bigger margins. One that for the first time in any of our lifetimes, one party, that being the Liberal Party, in its own majority with the Nationals, had control of both the lower house and the upper house. Yes, 2007, but that wasn't about the Iraq war. That was about a government that had been around for a long time. and of course interest rates that when it's the Liberal Party and they start going up, well, it becomes politically fatal. We've seen that with the Labour Party and it going up 13 times with another chance of going up again in the next couple of weeks. Nothing to see here. So, I take that tangent because you need to see Penny Wong today playing the home game on the ABC when she was saying that look, there's a there's a chance we get involved in very on the fringes defensive stuff, but she goes out of her way to pretend that there is some sort of a choice before the Australian government that is similar to the choice made in 2003. This is the chief diplomat of the country who does not know the difference between the threat that Iraq posed to the rest of the world and Iran that was so significant that she herself helped boot out the ambassador of the country not of Iraq but of Iran because of their involvement in crime in Australia. But have a listen to somebody who is just part of this new left which is about just wiping away any vestigages of the Howard era including the people who voted for it. >> This is not Iraq and we are not the Howard government. We are not asking Australians uh to for uh to to accept uh Australian men and women being deployed into a ground war. But of course, remember Anthony Albenezy in the leadup to the last election was openly talking about Australia committing potentially potentially to peacekeeping troops in the ongoing ground war that is Russia and Ukraine. Now again, these people assume we don't remember, but they also think that everyone is of the same cloth. That the millions of people who voted not once, not twice, not three times to reelect the Howard government have either all changed their mind or all died off. And everyone was at university railing against John Howard. Now the reality is that a lot of politics has changed in those years and certainly the fortunes of the Liberal Party well we know that they have been circling the drain for a couple of years now with the beginnings of it for a little longer. But again the arrogance in and around that statement I got a feeling you'll hear it a lot more across the week here on Sky News. But remember you saw it here first. Always join us on a Sunday night cuz we get our first bite at the opinion uh apple. Meanwhile, now we know that there's lots of different opinions about whether the war should or shouldn't be happening. Reality is, and I said this even as a person who opposed Iraq. Well, we can have arguments about whether it started or not, but the reality is we are where we are. And where we are right now is, as you can see, we're rolling quite deep, right? It's gone for more than a week. The president says they've won. Iran says they can keep fighting at the current level for another 6 months. So, who knows where it all lands between now and then. But Bill Maher, who is a left-winger, all right? He's just sort of an old school left-winger, an old school left-winger who ends up being on the right of the Democrat world of politics in the United States. Well, he's got a show on HBO in the United States, and he has for what the best part of 20 years where he has conversations about all matters big and small. and every now and then because he's an old school lefty, not this sort of new school lefty, he's able to trip up the new school lefties with the idiocy of some of their logic. Now, one of the arguments that is being made by the Democrats who are claiming that this is an unnecessary folly, this is a potentially illegal folly, etc., etc. Well, look what happens when one of them is confronted by Bill Maher about the logic of a president when it comes to going to war without a vote in Congress. This statement from the administration, the president had the constitutional authority to direct the use of military force because he could reasonally determine that such use of force was in the national interest. That's too vague for you. >> Totally vague. >> Okay. Because that's from Obama about about Libya. Well, Obama made the argument um initially that he could go into Syria without an authorization. I and many others pushed back on that argument. Ultimately, he did not go forward with going after Assad even though Assad was gassing his own people because he thought he might lose the vote in Congress. Um but I respect the fact that that uh that was important to him. The point being that this has been going on for decades, multiple administrations, but again, orange band, bad, orange band, bad. Well, what about the same logic when it came from the guy that you thought walked on water? And also, there is inevitably going to be a moment where um we're not going to lead the show with what is taking place in the Middle East. Not because it's not important, but because things when they become static after a while, we'll still tell you about what's going on. But you've got to know the difference between the early days and the super breaking news nature of things. And we'll tell you what's going on as an update and then there's other news that will eventually start to take over. But I think Friday might have been a little too early for such a pivot. Now, as I said, I was in Melbourne checking in on the 6 p.m. news after a day at the Grand Prix. Excellent races in supercars, by the way. Excellent races. soaking up all of the Oscar piestri and I turned on channel 9 and okay their lead story on Friday well okay I get it formula 1's happening in Melbourne there's 150,000 people turning up each and every day so I'll give them this one as their lead on Friday >> good evening Melbourne's Oscar Pestri has defiled predictions to finish fastest on the first day of practice for the Australian Grand Prix >> still still sport war still happening war hadn't even happened for a full week. In fact, you had to get to sort of story four for people coming home and story five before you got to this. >> More than,200 people, including children, have now been reportedly killed since the US and Israel declared war on Iran. >> And what was considered somewhere between the war and there's a car race in Melbourne. Believe it or not, this story, and I'm not joking, was given greater prominence than the war on Friday, less than a week after it had started on Channel 9. >> A burst water mane has caused traffic headaches for peak hour commuters heading out of the city for the long weekend. We'll go live now to Ollie H, who's in Fitzroy North. Ollie, key roads are closed. >> Yeah, Alicia, Brunswick Street and St. George's Road and this is the state of it tonight. You can see water is continuing to flow down uh Brunswick Street. >> Oh, the humanity. Again, I understand that sometimes all politics is local and sometimes all news is local and sometimes people care more about what's happening in their part of the world or even their street in their part of the world than what's happening on the other side of the world. But does anyone really think the first water man was a bigger story than the war and the death toll which grows by the day? Now the fight for Farah is on and of course it is going to be taking place May the 9th. There is the best part of well you know more than a month here sort of about six seven eight weeks that's going to happen here in terms of the fight for the former parliamentary home of Susan Lee. The most populous part of it is Aubry but it does stretch out I think about 123,000 square kilometers. So, it goes right into the bush. And there's a few uh towns including beautiful Griffith and other places that are involved in that federal electorate. And this has been considered as the the the first of the real tests about the surge for one nation desperately trying to hold on to the seat that they have for a long time being the libs or the nats trying to take it back because remember way back when in fact 30 years ago when the deputy prime minister was Tim Fischer his seat was the very one that we are talking about and I just was looking around today to see is there any betting markets to give us an idea because to this point we have seen the The rough assumption here that this is and remember at the last election it was what sort of 5743 it's a center right seat the surge in one nation and it is um Tiffany Teal parading as a country teal that is going to be the alternative here well guess who's leading currently in the betting markets the independent this may shock a few people here but I want to put a pin in this nice and early. All right. What a couple of weeks in what it's the uh the 8th of March now, the 8th of April, the 9th of May. So what best part of eight weeks? One Nation is not second favorite. It is third favorite right now. The Liberal Party way back in fourth. Now Labor at $51 is hilarious because they're probably not going to run at all. So they're just taking your money if you want to put it there. uh the Greens. I'm surprised it's even at 101 there. But why is the independent considered the favorite here? And by some margin, if you know your betting, it's because Labour got 15% at the last federal election. And presumably you can add that automatically to the independent. You know that about a quarter, maybe a little more, maybe up to a third, but a quarter of people who voted Liberal at the last election say they won't preference One Nation. So all of this is really fascinating, but perhaps because the independent may be not quite the dark horse here, but the favorite going into the race, it's why center left news organizations are suddenly interested in what would otherwise seem to be a prize fought amongst the center right. A protest vote is coming according to the nine newspapers. But is the protest vote One Nations, the Nationals, or according to the bookies, the Tiffany Teal with a new Aubra? The ABC today, the fight for 126,000 square kilometers of coalition heartland. The electorate has been a safe coalition seat since its inception almost eight decades ago. Now voters say they're sick of being taken for granted and ready to do something about it. Underlying much of the frustration is the perennial thorn of water policy. complex and foreground the challengers have rushed to occupy. Now the National Party well they named who their candidate is going to be for the election in a few weeks time. It is Brad Robertson. Uh Brad is a healthcare and veterans advocate and I'm reading from the bio of the National Party here. He lives at tabletop. He's a retired armory colonel who had service in the military for almost 30 years. What a formidable and seemingly good choice that's being made by the NATS. What about the LIBS? Remember, it's technically their seat that they're trying to hold on to. Well, Angus Taylor speaking at the New South Wales Liberal Party conference uh over the weekend has said that they're going to fight hard for it. The Farah bi-election is going to be a tough fight, but I promise you this, with your help, we're going to be putting up a hell of a fight in Farah all the way through to the close of polling on the 9th of May, which is great, but why haven't they pre-seelected a candidate? We know who the independent is because they ran last time. We know who the national is because they've been pre-selected. apparently part of the logic here about why the libs think this is an okay option and apparently they'll get a candidate this week but why wouldn't you have had a candidate put in place because remember there was a little bit of time couple of weeks between when Agus Taylor took over Susan Lee had said that's it I'm not going to recontest I'm I'm out and then the official date being announced there was a couple of week window here for the limbs to have the inside running to go and here's our candidate Philip Curry writing in the financial review this weekend says the decision hold the far buy election later than expected on May the 9th has given Liberal Party hope that it can cling on to the seat which Susan Lee held for 25 years. It gives us time, says a senior Liberal. Internal polling, however, is frightening to read. Internal polling described to the Australian Financial Review weekend is that if the bi-election was held this weekend, the junior coalition partner would be lucky to achieve 5% of the primary vote. Its role will be little more than to run and send preferences towards the Liberal Party, that being the National Party. So, of course, there's the One Nation of Everything. Well, guess what? They've got a candidate. The candidate will be on this show tonight. We will make the same offer to the national to the lib and we will be having a pub test in the seat of Farah where we will get the people to be able to ask the candidates whatever they want. One nation has gone for a bloke called David Farley. He was formally announced as the candidate in a pre-selection process that happened this weekend. Again, I'm reading from the One Nation bio here. He lives at Narandra. has a career that has taken him from being a jackaroo to leading major agricultural enterprises in Australia and overseas. He understands that Australia's strength begins in the regions. David is passionate and strong about regional communities, responsible water and land management as well as better hospitals. There's a big issue there. Bleeds into state politics though, but still important to see. Anyway, as I say, David has been selected as has the NAT as has the Independent, but the LIBs who are apparently up for the fight um haven't picked anyone yet. David joins us a bit later in the show. A little more on one nation too is that we get another poll showing their strength in state politics. Now this is really fascinating because of course federal politics is the echo of where Pauline Hansen has existed for the best part of 30 years where she has been both a lower house MP, multiple time candidate and then returned to the Senate by the election of 2028. She will have served two Senate terms. She will have served 12 years again in the federal parliament. that has grown to a second senator in Queensland, a senator around in New South Wales, and a senator out of Western Australia. With Jackie Lambi being in the wobble that she is, the expectation is Lee Hansen would be most likely to make the grade, and there's a lot of energy behind her in Tasmania. We know that at the upcoming state election, apparently anywhere between 20 25% is what One Nation could well be running. That of course, if replicated, a federal election would get them a Senate seat there as well. But Isabelle's politics at the moment is interesting because while there are many issues that exist in every state and there are many things that often go wrong, this is still a first-term government. It's a first-term government that is led by a relatively popular premier in Chris Mins. Now, I made it very clear too. I really like Kelly Sloan. I think Kelly Sloan's a fabulous leader of the Liberal Party. I think she'd be a great premier. I think it's more of a two election strategy for her. But have a look at this. The explosion in support via the demos. AU poll that was in the Telegraph over the weekend. It shows the Labour party's vote is down just 3% since the last Fed state election in New South Wales which was 20 and 23. The Libnats they are down 12%. The Greens are up 5%. Why? Because the other section is down 9.1. So One Nation has now jumped to 19.2% 2% higher than what it was at the state election. It was one and a bit percent that was able to get a couple of people elected in Mark Laam to the upper house of course since left the party as has Rob Roberts and uh also Tanya Mahalik but they were able to get a couple of people elected. So imagine what would happen in the upper house with one nation currently with no visible candidate running in state politics in New South Wales but still getting what a fifth of the vote 21%. That is incredible thing to see the strength of One Nation all over the place. Now it all matters though about preferences. If there's a section of coalition people who won't support One Nation and a section of One Nation people who won't support the coalition, guess what happens? The Labor Party keeps winning federally. The teals get to run up the middle and nothing really changes in the country. What you do with your number two is as important as what you do with the number one that you mark on a ballot paper. The difference of course in places like New South Wales is that preferential voting is optional. So just vote one might be enough to win a seat, but we'll all find out together. All right. Meantime, uh a little update on the anti-semitism Royal Commission. I do think this thing is going to be a snow job and until I am shown otherwise, I'm just going to keep saying it. It's not out of disrespect to the commissioner personally, but come on. This was all, of course, a raw commission the prime minister didn't want to have, but ended up happening. Why? Because 15 people were murdered in Bondi. Speaking of a encore of the Bondi documentary that we had a couple of weeks ago, that'll be on straight after this program. So, send the message around to those who haven't seen it yet. You'll see it straight after this show. Well, this thing has only had uh one day of hearings thus far. They've said that they won't hear from anyone with eyewitness accounts in and around Bondo. So, I'm not entirely sure what the Royal Commission is really about apart from the Box Gang exercise because there have been there's been one hearing day and the interim report is due in 54 days from now on uh April 30. We learned today that the royal commissioner, again, an eminent jurist, is going to make a pretty penny here. The legal bill for the Bondi inquiry thus far is $1.3 million for Bell, that being Virginia Bell, the Royal Commissioner, $2 million for council, according to the Australian Financial Review. Anti-semitism royal commissioner Virginia Bell will receive $1.3 million for the year-long inquiry triggered by the Bondi terror attack in addition to her judicial pension of $330,000. Remember any eyewitness from the attack that was the reason we had the Royal Commission not allowed. And remember how Dennis Richardson, the former ambassador to the United States, a big wig in terms of security in CRA? Well, he was originally going to talk about uh the um defense issues and the national security issues that were apparently a problem here. Well, that's all getting folded into this Royal Commission as well. He earns five $55,000 a day according to this. The Royal Commission spokes uh woman said that the council assisting apparently base rates $2,300 for junior council every day, $3,500 for senior council. And apparently the person who is the commissioner assisting or sorry the person uh assisting 8 to 10 grand a day that means their pays 1.8 to 2.3 Virginia Bell one day of hearings thus far. a report supposedly on matters to do with anti-semitism, but we can't talk about the one that killed 15 people. Report due in 54 days. There will be another inquiry though, which is there have been a lot of people who are trying to pull things into this Royal Commission to essentially turn it into the Royal Commission into hate. We've seen before that there are people in the indigenous communities who want that uh pulled into it, but there's already going to be an upper house inquiry, but you didn't know this was happening. a Senate inquiry that will travel around the country. It'll be investigating racism, hate, and violence directed at Aboriginal and Toouristra Islander people. Who is on the committee? Oh, you know who's on the committee. Jina Price. No. Lydia Thorp. She's there. Meanwhile, my mate Ed Huser said that he thinks Islamophobia should be part of this Royal Commission because it of course is the social cohesion part of it. He says the Royal Commission is about anti-semitism, social cohesion. if that's not going to be an examination of Islamophobia. That really is concerning. He says put simply that Muslim Australians should not feel like they have to beg for protection. Very fair point. All right. I mentioned before and I put it off for long enough, but let's have a talk about Oscar Pastri and what happened today. Now, Australians were desperate that this bloke who was almost almost so damn close to being the Formula 1 world champion, of course, beaten by his teammate and perhaps his team bosses last year, well, he didn't get there. The race was incredible from the start. The Ferraris off the grid are incredible once the go line happens, but Mercedes has got the pace on the straits. They ended up winning the race. Oscar Piestri never got to compete in the race. Why? because he crashes on the earliest of moments. When they leave the pits, they go around to try to form where you have to sit on the grid. He would have been in a reasonable position to be competitive, but pretty obviously Ferrari was going to overtake him on the start and then it was going to be a blow away by Mercedes. My favorite reactions, ironically, come from Channel 9 News in Melbourne today. A >> lot of tears in the stands everywhere. So, yeah, it was a bit shuddering. >> Pretty gutted. Uh but not as much as my little boy here who uh you know was here to see Oscar and uh yeah so had a tear in his eye. >> I was sitting here when I saw it happened and then I'm like oh no. >> Oh no. Oh you little cutie. I'm sorry mate. It was incredible to see how many people were wearing the the hats. 125,000 people were there on Saturday alone. Alone. It is the biggest sporting event that happens in Australia by a number of people turning up each and every year. Sadly, an Australian hasn't won it for a very long

On tonight’s episode of Paul Murray Live, Sky News host Paul Murray discusses the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Donald Trump’s lashing out at Keir Starmer and more.