The United States has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose.
We have taken the decision.
to accept this request.
This government does not believe in regime change from the skies.
I will not commit, I will not commit our military personnel to unlawful action.
That is not what they would expect and deserve.
Welcome to The State Of It,
the political podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times with me, Stephen Swinford.
And me, Patrick Maguire.
And this week, I mean, there is obviously one massive story and that is Iran.
And what we're going to do is take you inside the discussions in number 10,
inside the kind of approach that Starmer's taking and show you where we're going.
And we're also going to be talking about the aftermath of the by-election in Gorton and Denton.
And we have an extraordinary poll this morning from The Times and YouGov,
which shows that the Greens have leapfrog both Labour and the Conservatives into second.
which is quite something but look let's start on iran and let's start with the basic point that stama has picked a side and it is not the same side in this case as donald trump so ever
since he became prime minister patrick stama has been doing this kind of delicate balancing act of trying not to criticize trump trying not to criticize the u.s administration but yesterday in the commons felt like a genuine moment he went there he said we cannot have regime change from the skies he said the initial action against iran by the u.s and israel was one illegal and two that there was no thought through objective and i kind of everyone was kind of sitting there and it was uh really surprising actually
because up in that point until that point stammer had been doing his loyally best not to commit news but i think they felt yesterday they had no choice but to go there and explain why they've adopted the position they have yeah indeed and look the theory of kier stammer's foreign relations,
foreign policy, which has, it's a bit of a meme in Westminster to say,
it's almost become a cliche to say,