Kirsty Wark on irritating Margaret Thatcher and that Prince Andrew interview
Kirsty Wark says she preferred A Very British Scandal to Scoop, as while one was a “rollicking drama” the other failed to give “enough people their place”.
Employed by the BBC for nearly 50 years, Wark presented Newsnight from 1993 to 2024, stepping down this summer after more than three decades at the helm.
Speaking at the fourth live show of Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction tour in Glasgow, the BAFTA-winning journalist also dished the dirt on one former BBC colleague she said was not the best “team player”.
Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew in Netflix drama Scoop. Pic: Netflix/PA
Kicking off with one of the BBC’s most notorious interviews, Wark said Emily Maitlis got chosen to interview Prince Andrew as she was chief presenter of Newsnight at the time.
The interview – which aired in November 2019 – was swiftly branded “disastrous” and “excruciating” for the royal, as he was questioned about his relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
When asked by Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby which of the two recent TV productions based on the interview – Scoop and A Very Royal Scandal – she preferred, Wark plumped for A Very British Scandal.
Released earlier this month, Maitlis was an executive producer on the Prime Video miniseries.
Wark said: “They’re both dramas, and neither is an absolute, you know it’s not about the truth.
“One gives more weight to some people and the other one gives more weight to other people, but by and large, the idea of it being a team endeavour is much more embedded in the second, the Royal Scandal, than it is in the first.
“The first was a rollicking drama, but I don’t actually think that enough people were given their place.”
Ruth Wilson and Michael Sheen in A Very British Scandal. Pic: Prime Video
Scoop, which streamed on Netflix, focused on the story from the angle of Newsnight guest booker Sam McAlister who persuaded Prince Andrew to appear on the show.
Wark said that at the time Prince Andrew had “thought he’d done a really good interview”, and after the chat had offered to show Maitlis around Buckingham Place.
The real interview between Emily Maitlis and Prince Andrew. Pic: BBC
‘I was the one who suggested his train travels!’
Speaking about some of her own interviews over the years, Wark told Rigby, along with co-hosts Labour peer Harriet Harman and Conservative peer Ruth Davidson, about two high-profile interviewees she had rubbed up the wrong way.
She sat down with former prime minister Margaret Thatcher at the height of the poll tax riots.
Wark said she was “preternaturally calm” and had prepared meticulously going on: “Nobody knew except my husband that I was pregnant. And I thought, well, I’m not going to let [Mrs Thatcher] upset me. I’ll be very calm and controlled.”
After the interview – which Wark said nearly got cancelled at the last minute – Thatcher told Wark she had “interrupted me more than I’ve ever been interrupted”, to which Wark said she thought “game on”.
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Remembering another interviewee who did not appreciate her journalistic tenacity, Wark said a sit-down with the former Conservative MP Michael Portillo did not end well.
Wark said the ex-chief secretary to the Treasury had “riled her” by saying “stop hectoring me”.
She admitted she had interviewed him after she “returned to work too soon” following the death of her father and godmother.
Wark joked: “The only broadcasting complaint I ever had upheld was with Michael Portillo. And actually, it’s outrageous because I was the one who suggested them for the train travels!”
The former Conservative MP has presented 15 series of Great British Railway Journeys for BBC Two over the last 15 years.
(R-L) Wark, Jill Dando and John Stapleton on BBC Breakfast Time in 1988. Pic: David Crump/Daily Mail/Shutterstock
A former BBC colleague who wasn’t ‘a team player’
She also revealed that when her former BBC colleague Robert Peston had come along to do a few shifts on Newsnight, he had refused to follow the show’s precedent of brainstorming ideas together, and wearing an earpiece so others could pitch in on an interview.
After letting Peston shadow her the day before, she came into work to discover he was going solo for his own interview, adding with heavy irony that he was “a real team player”. Peston is now political editor at ITV News.
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In other TV news, Wark admitted she had been “asked so many times” to do Strictly Come Dancing but had so far refused due to work commitments and illness.
She did not reveal if she would consider it in the future.
A keen cook, Wark has appeared on celebrity versions of MasterChef and The Great British Bake Off.
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Sony Bank, the online lending subsidiary of Sony Financial Group, is reportedly preparing to launch a stablecoin that will enable payments across the Sony ecosystem in the US.
Sony is planning to issue a US dollar-pegged stablecoin in 2026 and expects it to be used for purchases of PlayStation games, subscriptions and anime content, Nikkei reported on Monday.
Targeting US customers — who make up roughly 30% of Sony Group’s external sales — the stablecoin is expected to work alongside existing payment options such as credit cards, helping reduce fees paid to card networks, the report said.
Sony Bank applied in October for a banking license in the US to establish a stablecoin-focused subsidiary and has partnered with the US stablecoin issuer Bastion. Sony’s venture arm also joined Bastion’s $14.6 million raise, led by Coinbase Ventures.
Sony Bank has been actively venturing into Web3
Sony Bank’s stablecoin push in the US comes amid the company’s active venture into Web3, with the bank establishing a dedicated Web3 subsidiary in June.
“Digital assets utilizing blockchain technology are incorporated into a diverse range of services and business models,” Sony Bank said in a statement in May.
“Financial services, such as wallets, which store NFT (non-fungible tokens) and cryptocurrency assets, and crypto exchange providers are becoming increasingly important,” it added.
The Web3 unit, later named BlockBloom, aims to build an ecosystem that blends fans, artists, NFTs, digital and physical experiences, and both fiat and digital currencies.
Related: Animoca eyes stablecoins, AI, DePIN as it expands focus in 2026: Exec
Sony Bank’s stablecoin initiative follows the recent spin-off of its parent, Sony Financial Group, which was separated from Sony Group and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in September.
The move was intended to decouple the financial arm’s balance sheet and operations from the broader Sony conglomerate, allowing each to sharpen its strategic focus.
Cointelegraph reached out to Sony Bank for comment regarding its potential US stablecoin launch, but had not received a response by the time of publication.
Magazine: Koreans ‘pump’ alts after Upbit hack, China BTC mining surge: Asia Express
Ripple Labs has received approval from Singapore’s central bank to expand its payment activities in the region, amid a broader push to grow its business and institutional-focused offerings through acquisitions.
Ripple’s Singapore subsidiary, Ripple Markets APAC, has been approved by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to expand the scope of its regulated payment activities under its Major Payment Institution (MPI) license, the company said on Monday.
Monica Long, Ripple’s President, said in a statement that the company values “Singapore’s forward-thinking approach,” and the “expanded license strengthens our ability to continue investing in Singapore and to build the infrastructure financial institutions need to move money efficiently, quickly, and safely.”
Ripple Payments’ system uses digital payment tokens such as its stablecoin RLUSD and XRP (XRP) for cross-border transactions. The service was created to act as an on-ramp and off-ramp that supports collection, holding, swapping and payouts for banks and companies, according to Ripple.
The company has already made several significant acquisitions this year to expand its business and institutional-focused offerings, with one of the more recent instances on Nov. 4, when it acquired crypto custody and wallet company Palisade.
Singapore “pivotal” to Ripple’s global business
Ripple was approved for its MPI license in 2023, which allowed it to offer regulated digital payment token services in Singapore.
As of Monday, the MAS website still only lists digital payment token services under Ripple’s license, which “refers to buying or selling digital payment tokens or providing a platform to allow users to exchange digital payment tokens.”
Related: Singapore’s ‘finance-savvy’ crypto retail prefers trust over low fees: Survey
Ripple has been operating in Singapore since 2017, and the company said the area is “pivotal” to its global business.
Crypto use in the Asia Pacific region surges
Meanwhile, Fiona Murray, Ripple’s vice president and managing director in the Asia Pacific, said the region has also been experiencing huge growth, with onchain activity up roughly 70% year-over-year in the area, and Singapore sitting “at the center of that growth.”
“With this expanded scope of payment activities, we can better support the institutions driving that growth by offering a broad suite of regulated payment services, bringing faster, more efficient payments to our customers.”
The Asia-Pacific region saw the highest year-on-year growth, according to Chainalysis’ 2025 Global Adoption Index published on Sept. 3.
The total value received was up 69% to $2.36 trillion, led by India, Pakistan and Vietnam, while the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand also featured in the top 20.
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Sir Keir Starmer will deliver a speech today defending the decisions the government made in the budget, following criticisms of sweeping tax rises and accusations the chancellor lied to the country about the state of public finances.
The prime minister is expected to set out how the budget, which saw £26bn of tax rises imposed across the economy, “moves forward the government’s programme of national renewal”, and set “the right economic course” for Britain, Downing Street says.
He will also confirm that ministers will try again to reform the “broken” welfare system, after Labour MPs forced the government to U-turn on its plans to narrow the eligibility for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) earlier this year.
Sir Keir Starmer will give a speech later defending last week’s budget. Pic: Reuters
‘Of course I didn’t’ lie about public finances, says Reeves
“We have to confront the reality that our welfare state is trapping people, not just in poverty, but out of work – young people especially. And that is a poverty of ambition,” Sir Keir will say.
“And so while we will invest in apprenticeships and make sure every young person without a job has a guaranteed offer of training or work, we must also reform the welfare state itself – that is what renewal demands.”
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Sky’s Ed Conway looks at the aftermath of the budget and explains who the winners and losers are
The prime minister will add: “This is not about propping up a broken status quo. Nor is it because we want to look somehow politically ‘tough’. The Tories played that game and the welfare bill went up by £88bn. They left children too poor to eat and young people too ill to work. A total failure.”
Instead, he will argue it is about “potential”, saying: “If you are ignored that early in your career, if you’re not given the support you need to overcome your mental health issues, or if you are simply written off because you’re neurodivergent or disabled, then it can trap you in a cycle of worklessness and dependency for decades, which costs the country money, is bad for our productivity, but most importantly of all – costs the country opportunity and potential.
“And any Labour Party worthy of the name cannot ignore that. That is why we have asked Alan Milburn on the whole issue of young people, inactivity and work. We need to remove the incentives which hold back the potential of our young people.”
The announcement will come after the Conservative opposition described the budget as one for “benefits street”, following the chancellor’s decision to lift the two-child benefit cap from April, at a cost of £3bn.
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Prime Minister defends the budget
‘Government must go further and faster on growth’
The prime minister is also expected to launch a staunch defence of the budget overall, saying it will bear down on the cost of living through measures like money off energy bills and frozen rail fares; increase economic stability; and protect investment in public services and infrastructure that will drive economic growth.
He will argue that “economic growth is beating the forecasts”, but that the government must go “further and faster” to encourage it.
He will also reiterate his vow to scrap regulation across the economy, which he will argue is not only pro-business, but also a way to deal with the cost of living.
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How will your personal finances change following the budget announced by the chancellor?
“Rooting out excessive costs in every corner of the economy is an essential step to lower the cost of living for good, as well as promoting more dynamic markets for business,” the prime minister will say.
He will confirm reforms to the building of nuclear power plants, after the government’s nuclear regulatory taskforce found that “pointless gold-plating, unnecessary red-tape and well-intentioned, but fundamentally misguided environmental regulation had made Britain the most expensive place to build nuclear power”.
“We urgently need to correct this,” the prime minister will say.
Business secretary Peter Kyle will be tasked with applying the same deregulatory approach to major infrastructure schemes and to accelerate the implementation of Labour’s industrial strategy.
In response, Tory shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: “It is frankly laughable to hear the prime minister say Rachel Reeves’s Benefits Street budget has put the country on the right course and that he wants to fix the welfare system.
“His chancellor has just hiked taxes by £26bn to pay for a welfare splurge, penalising people who work hard and making them pay for those who don’t work at all. And she misrepresented why she was doing it, claiming there was a fiscal black hole to fill that she knew didn’t exist.
“Labour’s leadership have repeatedly shown they lack the backbone to tackle welfare and instead are just acting to placate their left-wing backbenchers.”
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Rachel Reeves tells Sky News she did not lie about the state of the public finances
Chancellor accused of ‘lying’
Sir Mel is referring to the chancellor’s speech on 4 November in which she laid the ground for tax rises due to the decision by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to review and downgrade productivity over recent years, at a cost of £16bn, which led to a black hole in the public finances.
But the OBR revealed on Friday that it had told the Treasury days earlier that there was actually a budget surplus of £4.2bn, leading to outrage and claims that she misled the country about the state of the public finances.
Rachel Reeves was asked directly by Sky’s Trevor Phillips if she lied, and she replied: “Of course I didn’t.”
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Why did Reeves make the situation sound ‘so bleak’?
She said: “I said in that speech that I wanted to achieve three things in the budget – tackling the cost of living, which is why I took £150 off of energy bills and froze prescription charges and rail fares.
“I wanted to continue to cut NHS waiting lists, which is why I protected NHS spending. And I wanted to bring the debt and the borrowing down, which is one of the reasons why I increased the headroom.
“£4bn of headroom would not have been enough, and it would not give the Bank of England space to continue to cut interest rates.”
Ms Reeves also said: “In the context of a downgrade in our productivity, which cost £16bn, I needed to increase taxes, and I was honest and frank about that in the speech that I gave at the beginning of November.”
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Badenoch says Rachel Reeves should resign
But Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “I think the chancellor has been doing a terrible job. She’s made a mess of the economy, and […] she has told lies. This is a woman who, in my view, should be resigning.”
Report due on OBR breach
The tumultuous run-up to the 26 November budget culminated in the OBR accidentally publishing its assessment of the chancellor’s measures 45 minutes before the speech began, in what was an unprecedented breach of budget security.
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The chair of the OBR, Richard Hughes, apologised for the “error”, and announced an investigation into how it happened.
The chancellor has said that she retains confidence in him, despite the “serious breach of protocol”, and confirmed to Trevor that the investigation report will be delivered to her on Monday, although it is not clear when it will be published.
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