Is Tony Blair getting in Andy Burnham’s way?
The News Agents

Is Tony Blair getting in Andy Burnham’s way?

B2Upper-intermediateSeptember 24, 202642 min
  • Politics

On the eve of Andy Burnham’s first party conference as Prime Minister, Tony Blair has entered centre stage - to talk about rejoining the EU. Is he nudging Burnham towards his own goal? Or putting unnecessary hurdles in the new PMs way? And what is the state of the relationship between them? We talk to The New Statesman’s Tom McTague. And, as a new mega MRP poll lands suggesting the current number of parliamentary seats each party would win if the election were held tomorrow, we analyse why a snap election is so unlikely. Th...

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The soul searching and breast beating over Europe goes on and at the UN General Assembly

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B2

B2 · Upper-intermediate

Comfortable if you already follow TV news

A1 25%A2 29%B1 20%B2 21%C1 4%
  • 75% of the words are B1 or easier.
  • 177 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
  • 163 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

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0:00

This is a global production. The soul searching and breast beating over Europe goes on and at the UN General Assembly this week, Andy Burnham was again talking about close relations with the EU. We are America's closest ally.

0:21

We have deep ties with our friends in the European Union and seek to deepen them further. So just how close is close? On the eve of the Labour Party Conference, none other than Tony Blair has interjected into the EU debate and called on Burnham to restart negotiations about joining Europe. Welcome to the News Agents.

0:51

The News Agents. It's Jon. It's Maitless. before party conferences always like to come up with an eye-catching sort of report that will get the conversation going and maybe put themselves at the centre of a debate.

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