BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were castaway to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening. My castaway this week is the leader of the Labor Party and the leader of the opposition, Secchia Starmer.

He set aside a high profile career as a human rights lawyer to go into politics, becoming an MP in 2015. And since he was named after a founding father of the Labor Party and its first parliamentary leader, there was arguably a touch of destiny about his appointment to the Post seven months ago, though even he might wonder about the timing. 2020 has been a long year in politics. As it began, Labor's bruises were still fresh from their fourth election defeat in a row, the worst in 85 years.

And the Equality and Human Rights Commission was investigating anti-Semitism within the party. The fallout and infighting sparked by their highly critical report continues. On top of that, he faces the delicate task of leading the opposition's response to the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, considering the national interest while still holding the prime minister to account. He's a man of many contrasts, a sharp suited lawyer who loves football, a former student radical who ended up a Queen's Counsel, and the former shadow Brexit secretary who was a passionate remainer.

He says people are constantly trying to pigeonhole me. I've done human rights cases all over the world. I've played a part in the peace process in Northern Ireland. I was Director of Public Prosecutions. I do not need to have a label. I just want to think for myself. It's worked so far. Sakir Stoma, welcome to that island desk. Thank you so much. So you were elected leader of the Labour Party in exceptional times, of course, and the job of the leader of the opposition is a very difficult one at the best of times as a leader.

What has been the biggest challenge for you personally? Well, 2020 has been a challenge all round. Just hearing you listen there as a reminder of what we've all been through in 2020. I've now been leader of the Labour Party for seven months. I haven't yet made a speech to anyone other than to a camera. So my acceptance speech was made in my living room and my conference speech was just to a camera in Doncaster somet. Actually, the one thing you expect to do as a Labour leader is to address a number of people.

You imagine that moment when you go from campaigning to become leader, to be leader of Labour Party. And you've mentioned a conference hall full of people. I had my armchair to aim my speech at.

Governments around the world are struggling to contain coronavirus while protecting their economies and having to make painful choices every day. How much sympathy do you have for the prime minister and his cabinet?

Oh, look, I think it's really difficult. I think any government would struggle with this pandemic. When I became leader, I made it clear that we would be constructive in the sense that where we thought the government was getting it right, we would support them in that. And so, for example, on the lockdown's, we've supported them on that. But where they're getting it wrong, we've got to challenge them. And they've got it wrong in quite a number of places and we've had to challenge them hard.

Now it's hard to get it right. We discussed this on a daily basis and in the end, the public will decide, as a former barrister yourself, you know, you know about public speaking, commanding a room.

But how different, I wonder, are the skills required of a politician? I know you've only done the speeches to your armchair so far, but I have yet to learn how to let some emotion in.

Yeah, they're completely different. I mean, if you're a lawyer, it's based on the facts. There's proper argument. There's a judge that makes decision in politics. It's completely different because it's about a different art of persuasion. Some commentators have said that you're too lawyerly, that you lack charisma. Oh, they've said a lot worse than that. Well, what do you make of it when they when they do? Look, it's water off a duck's back.

I mean, I am who I am. I know what I am. I know what I believe in and I know what I've got to do. And that's what I'm focused on.

Obviously, there are plenty of opportunities for you to talk about politics on other programs. So today I am rather hoping to hear more about Kirsty that the person. So we're going to start with the music. So obviously I'm really hoping that your choices today are entirely your own and that you haven't, you know, held a focus group to get approval for these tracks first.

Did you show any of your team the list today?

These are entirely my own choices as we go through this list. If and when you run into anybody I've known for a long time, they will tell you this is the genuine customer list.

All right. Let's dig in and track one. Tell me about it. Well, this is Toby. Great out on the floor, which is a defining northern soul song. I love Northern Soul. And this reminds me when I'm on my island of my sort of early days in London with a group of friends in a really grotty flat above a sauna and massage parlor that kept interesting hours. And I was sort of trying to make it as a lawyer, having a lot of fun and forging lifelong friendships.

So it evokes a particular period in my life and a lot of northern soul.

And can you dance? I mean, politicians that can dance is a short but very important list. Clips, bins and backdrops are what you need for northern soul now, a few years ago, we got a number of those at that, but I would not be foolish enough now. They'll be going out on the floor, so Keir Starmer, you stood for and won the leadership on a platform of party unity, but in recent weeks, bitter factionalism has returned, exacerbated by the recent Equality and Human Rights Commission report about anti-Semitism in the party.

It was pretty damning and led to former leader Jeremy Corbyn suspension. So your aim is a united Labour. How on earth do you get there from here?

I am. I am is a united Labour Party and we in the Labour Party have to learn that if we spend all of our time taking lumps out of each other, we're never going to persuade anyone to vote for us. So I'm determined to unite the party. I'm equally determined that we will root out anti-Semitism in the party. The report we had last week for the Equality and Human Rights Commission was a damning verdict, a real day of shame. A commission that was set up by a Labour government found that the Labour Party had breached equality law.

You can't get much lower than that. And I'm absolutely committed to rooting out anti-Semitism. And and that means taking tough decisions.

There are some on the left of the party who see Jeremy Corbyn suspension as an indication that there's going to be a, quote, 1980s style purge of its left wing. How do you answer that?

No, there is no interest in that. And on the day that the report was published, I wanted us to, as a party, honestly acknowledge what had gone wrong, to apologise in no uncertain terms, to renew the commitment to root out anti-Semitism and to draw a line and move forward. So I didn't want that day to end in the way it did. I have no intention of purging anyone. I have no intention of purging of the Labour Party, a broad church.

We are far better when we're united, but if we don't tackle anti-Semitism, then we don't deserve to win. Would you like to see him reinstated?

Well, I'm not going to comment on that particular case. What one of the things that the Equality and Human Rights Commission said very, very strongly was the leader of the Labour Party shouldn't be getting involved in individual cases and individual decisions. And I'm not going to be tempted to do so as well as being a matter of principle. The HRC report must have had a personal resonance for you. I know that your father in law is Jewish and that your family observed some Jewish traditions.

So how did you feel when you read it?

Well, the two were divorced in this sense that it was it is perfectly true that my wife's father is Jewish, his family are Jewish. They came from Poland and my wife's mum converted when they got married. So there is a long tradition, family, religion and faith there. We observe some of the practices, for example, Friday night prayers occasionally with my wife's father. Her mum sadly passed away earlier this year because my wife in particular wants our children to know the faith of her family and her father's family.

But that was far removed from my sort of principle decision to tackle anti-Semitism. For me, that's a matter of absolute values and principles.

It's time to take some more music. This is your second disc today. What are we going to hear and why have you chosen this?

It's Beethoven. It's the Pastoral Symphony, Symphony number six, and it's the Fifth Movement. And I've chosen this because this was one of my dad's favorite bits of music. And so it will remind me of him.

Part of the fifth movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Carey, I kissed Elmo. You were brought up in Oxford, in Surrey, the second of four kids. Your dad, Rodney, was a toolmaker. Tell me a little bit more about him. I don't often talk about my dad. He was a difficult man, a complicated man. He kept himself to himself. He didn't particularly like to socialize. So I wouldn't really go out very much.

But he was incredibly hard working. He worked as a toolmaker on a factory floor all of his life. And my enduring memory as a child with him, as he did go to work at eight o'clock in the morning, came home at five o'clock for his tea, went back at six o'clock and worked through till 10:00 at night, and that was five days a week. But also he had this utter devotion and commitment to my mum. My mum was very, very ill all of her life, and my dad knew exactly the symptoms of everything that might possibly go wrong with my mum.

He knew exactly what drugs or combination of drugs or injection would be needed. He stopped drinking completely just in case he ever needed to get to the hospital with her. And then on the many occasions that she was in hospital, he would stay with her the whole time. He wouldn't leave the hospital. He would sleep on any chair or whatever was available.

So your mum, Josefin, she she was suffering from an autoimmune condition called Still's disease, which is hugely painful. And your father completely devoted to her. But you did use the word difficult to describe him. And it did sounds like he was dealing with a lot and also not home so much because of working all the time. Were you close? Did you spend much time together?

I wouldn't say we were close. I understood who he was and what he was, but we weren't close. And I regret that. And, you know, like many parents, I suppose I'm determined that my relationship with my own children will be different to that. But that remarkable commitment to my mum was really incredible. But for for my dad, my mum would never have lived as long as she did live. So tell me more about how your mum, Josephine, she had been a nurse.

She was a nurse. Yeah. And a very proud nurse with it. She got Still's disease when she was eleven, which is an attack on the immune system. They told her when she was 11 that she'd be in a wheelchair by the time she was 20 and she wouldn't be able to have children. It be downhill from there. As it happens, the steroids as a drug was discovered while she was a teenager and they put her on steroids.

What that gave her was the ability to walk in her twenties and have four children, which she didn't think would happen. But in the end, the combination of Still's disease and steroids, which have long term effects, absolutely took their toll. And she paid a heavy price as she got ill or Anila her. She couldn't use her limbs. She was very, very prone to infections. And as as young children, we spent a lot of time in and out of high dependency units with my mum thinking we were going to lose her.

But I remember one occasion when I was about 13 or 14, my dad phoning me from the hospital and saying, I don't think your mum's going to make it. Will you tell the others? And that was tough. That was really tough. So, you know, we pulled through that as a family. My mum was absolutely incredible. And incredibly, she never moaned. If you ever asked my mum, how are you? The stock response, even if she was in high dependency unit B, I'm alright, love.

How are you? And what do you think? Looking back now?

My dad died a couple of years ago. My mum sadly died just weeks before I got elected into parliament. And I look back with pride. I look back with regret. My mum in the end, couldn't talk, couldn't move. And so we've got two young children. But my mum had never spoken to my children because she was too ill.

How do you think what your mum went through changed you? I think it made me. Value, determination and courage and to and to sort of see people for what they really are. It's time for your next desk. What's it going to be? This one is Jim Reeves.

Welcome to my world. And this was my mom's favorite song. Welcome to my world. Why don't you come on in? Very good, I guess. Step into my heart. Jim Reeves, and welcome to my world so that for your mom, Carstone and Josephine, when would you listen to that? Well, she would listen to that when we came home from school, we'd arrive home and she would make us jam sandwiches and she would have Jim Reeves on in the background.

And that's an image of a mom that sticks with me forever.

Your parents named you after Geir Haarde, a founder of the Labor Party. They were Labor supporters. It's quite an unusual name. Did you any interesting nicknames at school?

Plenty of nicknames at school. You can think of all things for yourself that rhyme with care. And I have to say at school I was, you know, say, why on earth did you have to call me Kear? Why can't you call me Pete or Dave or something like everybody else?

How politically active was the household with lots of debates around the dinner table, arguments shouting at the telly, that kind of thing?

No, they were labor through and through, and that was their values. But we didn't have discussions around the kitchen table. We didn't have guests very often to the house just because my dad was working. Most of the time, he didn't particularly want to socialize and he wasn't a man for debating. His view was the view and that was it. Again, that made life difficult, made me much more prepared, I suppose, as I grew up to countenance other views.

But most of what, particularly my dad thought, was not up for grabs for discussion.

So where did your politics come from and what sparked your interest? I got interested in politics at very early age and joined the East sorry, young socialists when I was 16, which was the youth section, if you like, of the local Labor Party, I have to say sorry. There weren't very many of us. I think it numbered about four in total.

How did the home counties react to your radical politics?

I campaigned on pretty negatively as we sort of marched round east sorry, up long drives, telling people that we thought nationalisation was the answer after it explained our views and asked, well, how will you be voting? There were so many that were persuaded with what we're putting. But we you know, we passed resolutions. We took it all very, very seriously. But, you know, it's hard work back then.

What were your hopes for for your life?

Well, I hoped to go to university. I was thinking I want to do politics until my parents said, no, you want to do law. And I said, alright, I want to do law. I arrived at university. I had never met a lawyer. I didn't really know what lawyers did. I don't think I knew the difference being a solicitor and a barrister. But, you know, this was for me, this was an incredible journey.

Boy from Oxford goes to the city of Leeds to lead university. It was an incredible journey. And a really important to me in Leeds is a place now very, very close to my heart. It's time for your next desk. What's it going to be?

This is orange juice falling and laughing. And I've held and Nathan Collins class for many, many years still play the song. But this absolutely captures those early years at university and beyond. I see orange juice and falling and laughing, so kiss them, as you've just said, you went to Leeds University to study law, your parents suggestion.

Why did you choose human rights law? Because I think that was your choice.

Yeah, it was. I became absolutely fascinated with the idea that at the end of the Second World War and the atrocities of the Second World War, that the countries around the world came together and made commitments to each other to honor human rights. And I became fascinated and really taken with the idea behind human rights. Really, it's not so much the individual rights, but it's the human dignity that sits behind human rights, how we treat individuals, how we treat them fairly, equally.

Were you driven? What kind of student were you? Oh, I think I was I there's no getting away from it. I'd love to joke and say no, but I've well, I've always been pretty driven and hardworking. But in a sense, once I discovered something about human rights, I so enjoyed it that it didn't it didn't feel like the burden it might otherwise have been so hard working that it almost cost you your television at one stage.

What happened?

This was a story about the the infamous flatted Archway Road where I was busy working with one of the early computers there. I think it was an Amstrad of some sort bashing away deep in thought.

And then one of the other people, in fact, came back up and said, what are you doing? Did you not notice? And my flatmate had intercepted two people walking out of our flat with our television. I'd been oblivious to the fact we were being burgled. I was actually in the next room whilst they were taking the television. Right. Without any knowledge of what was happening around me around this time.

You're also one of the editors of a radical magazine called Socialist Alternatives. What did you cover? We were asked to change the world, as you can imagine. But unfortunately, more copies of that magazine ended up under my bed than actually distributed to the world at large on behalf of socialist alternatives.

You wouldn't if you Tony Benn, for one article and in another piece, you denounced centrism and argued that the future of the Labour Party lay with the grassroots left. I mean, you sound a lot like the people who give you a hard time now.

Yeah, I mean, I said a lot of things then. Tony Benn was an incredible person to interview. I went to his house. He had a house in Hollerbach and he let me sit in his chair. There was a wooden chair that he got from Chehabi, which he let me sit in in order to interview him. But yet, no, I was very much of that view at the time, said some things that were daft, of course.

But, you know, that's part of it. Daft, do you think?

Well, you know, what I've learned is that the important thing in life, in a sense, is to hold your ideas up to the light and see if they withstand scrutiny. But that takes time. And certainly I started by thinking I had all the answers. And as I've grown up, I've learnt the power of saying, I don't know, let's have a look at that. And that's that's been a very important lesson for me.

And are you prepared to say that as a leader? Oh, no, I'm prepared to say it and do say it. I think it's very important. So I don't know the best decisions that leaders make of those that are fully challenged by other people. And I think the power of saying, I don't know, the power of looking at a decision and saying, is that actually right? Is underestimated.

You were called to the bar in 1987 and three years later, you co-founded Doughty Street Chambers. You were also human rights adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board when it set up a new police service under the Good Friday Agreement. That is an incredibly challenging brief, isn't it? How did you approach it?

It was implementing some of the Good Friday Agreement proposals, particularly that the Royal Ulster Constabulary should become the police service of Northern Ireland, that that police service of Northern Ireland should comply with human rights and properly reflect both communities. I was an adviser. I was on the ground sometimes outside the Ardoyne shopfronts in North Belfast on the 12th of July when the parades were happening. There were all sorts of things happening on the ground. We were there with our clipboards observing what was going on, and suddenly golf balls were being thrown.

There were petrol bombs and I was thrown in the back of a police van for safety. It's time for your next desk. What are we going to hear?

Well, this is the Edwin Hawkins Singers. Oh, happy day. And this is very much about Northern Ireland because there's an expression in Ireland used a lot, which is happy days as an expression. It's a fantastic expression. And it just reminds me of all the challenges we went through, the ups and downs.

And this song reminds me of that day. By the way. Happy day, the Edwin Hawkins Singers and, oh, happy day care star. In 2008, you were appointed Director of Public Prosecutions. You were a surprise choice. You'd never prosecute a case in court. You were not known as a fan of state power. And as a lawyer, you'd represented poll tax protesters and striking miners. How much soul searching did you have to do before you accepted the job?

Well, there was a lot of thinking about it and talking about it, but I had spent quite a lot of time challenging the state, the police, prosecutors, for not doing their job properly. And I felt that actually stepping up and taking responsibility was important.

Of course, when you're the DPP, it's the cases that you don't prosecute as much as the ones that you do that attract criticism. I wonder if there are any that you regret not prosecuting. Well, there are a number of cases that were very, very difficult because the evidence wasn't there that was hard. There was a decision in the case of Ian Tomlinson, who was the person who was knocked to the ground by a police officer and vital medical evidence wasn't available.

In the end, he was the newspaper seller who had been struck by an officer during the G20 summit 2009.

And the doctor who carried out the post-mortem chucked away the sample so that when we really needed it, we couldn't use it. And I remember the sinking feeling I had when I realized what the doctor had done and that that vital piece of evidence was not going to be there. In the end, we were able to prosecute it using different evidence. And in the end, we didn't secure a conviction. In that case. There was a lot of criticism over that case in particular.

I mean, how did you cope with public scrutiny and very vocal criticism at times about your decisions?

Oh, it takes a bit of getting used to the scrutiny. The journalists outside your house, the photographers it takes getting used to. And it's very, very uncomfortable when it starts very uncomfortable most of the time. But it's particularly uncomfortable when you're not used to it. And I'm very protective of my family. And then I've got two young children, a 12 year old boy and a nine year old girl. And I want to protect them from that insofar as I can.

Obviously, that's not entirely possible given the nature of my job then and my job now.

When you became DPP, a man called Paul Binte started impersonating you. How did you find out what was happening?

This is the man who answered adverts, Lonely Heart adverts, I think, in the Sunday Times. But as me. So he answered as kissed on the DPP. And he had two affairs going on at the same time as me. And he used to steal the jury from one of the women and give it to the other and vice versa. He was eventually caught because he was taking lots and lots of taxes in my name and saying, put it down to Keir Starmer, the Crown Prosecution Service.

Could you see how he does how he'd worked this story? I mean, was there was the resemblance that strong?

Well, I would like to think not. And during the trial, I think it was put to one of the women that he had an affair with, that he didn't look particularly like me to which if I'm right in recalling, she said, well, everybody can have an off day.

Look, it's time for your next desk. What are we going to hear? This is Three Lions, the iconic football song. In order to really appreciate this song, you had to be in Wembley in the crowd out in the upper tier for the semi-final of Euro 96 when we're playing Germany and for the whole stadium to be jumping up and down, rocking to this year's.

I know David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds with three lions, so you love playing football as well as watching if you learned anything from either side that you can take with you into other areas of your life.

I don't know about that. I've been playing football every week since I was 10 and still do and still see myself as the driving force of midfield. But that just brings chuckles now from those that I play with.

So, Keir Starmer, back to your career. You became an MP in 2015 and Jeremy Corbyn appointed to Shadow Brexit secretary in 2016. You described yourself as a passionate remainer and said you were devastated by the result of the referendum. How did you maintain a working relationship with a leader who held a more neutral position on Brexit?

We worked actually quite well together because this was always a difficult issue for the Labour Party. The whole country had been split. But Jeremy, I actually worked very closely, very well together on it. And just as I would say now, the pandemic we're in is not easy for any prime minister, including our prime minister. So equally, I'd say for Jeremy Corbyn, Brexit wasn't easy for any opposition leader.

But I mean, there were media reports of frayed tempers and even stand up brows, nearly all exaggerated, most of them not true, actually. Of course, there were tense discussions going on, but most of the time we had our challenges. In our discussions in private, we hammered out an agreed position.

Last year, you fought to include a second referendum in the Labour manifesto with remain on the ballot. And there are many in the party who thought that stunts cost Labor the election, that you alienated your traditional supporters who were worried about their jobs and they just want to see the back of Brexit.

Do you have any regrets about the way you handled the issue?

Of course, I acknowledged this came up on the door in different ways across the country, in the north, west, north eastern parts of the Midlands. It came up in a very negative way. I've got to accept that. And that's a fair challenge. Obviously, it was definitely received in places like Scotland. There was never an easy position for our party in that election. But I think the important thing now is to recognise that we've left the EU leave, remain is over, and now we have got to aim for the best deal we can have with the EU and move forward and build on that.

How much would you see your politics have changed over the time that we've been talking about reflecting on you as a 16 year old handing out leaflets in the streets of Oxford? I think, you know, like most people, I started off as the radical who knew everything. And I'm now much more open to ideas, much more questioning of ideas. I think the fundamentals in many respects are still there. Do you still consider yourself a socialist? Yes, I do, yeah.

It's time for some more music. Your seventh disc, penultimate choice. What is it? This is Beethoven Piano Concerto number five second movement. This is chosen by me because it is beautiful and it's the music that my wife walked in to at our wedding and she was beautiful as well. Part of the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto number five, the emperor performed by John Evelyn Mbabazi and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, kissed Alma for a while. There was a rumor that you were the inspiration for Mark Darcy, the dashing human rights lawyer, and Bridget Jones Diary.

But when Helen Fielding, the book's author, was my guest on Desert Island Discs earlier this year, I'm afraid she made it clear that you weren't. How long did it take you to come to terms with the disappointment?

It didn't take me very much time at all. You know, of course, it would have been lovely, but I never claimed to be. I always said to people, she'll tell you the answer and she gave it to you.

I'm about to cast you away to a solitary existence on your island. Then how do you think you'll cope?

Oh, I find it really hard because, you know, we just heard the beautiful piece of music that my wife came into at our wedding. She's an incredible, warm, wonderful woman who is my complete rock. And the idea of me being there on my own fills me with all sorts of trepidation. And of course, we've got two fantastic children. I mean, I was thinking I'd like a bit peace and quiet, but I'm not sure that's going to last very long.

Jason, you're vegetarian. So I know that fish and seafood will be off the menu, but I think you can cook. How capable are you?

I like cooking. I actually find it very relaxing on this island. I'm not sure quite I'm going to get on because obviously being a vegetarian, I'm going to have to stick to presumably grass and some bits and bobs off trees. But yeah, I'd give it a go.

All right. It's time for your final disc today. What are we going to hear and why are you taking this with you?

This is Bridge Over Troubled Water, and it's artists for Grenfell featuring storms and its reflection on Grenfell. And a reminder that for all the factional positions, party positions people take up, in the end, politics is about people. And Grenfell brought a shudder, I think, to everybody. So it is a reminder about what politics is really about. I chose storms because my children love storms and so it will remind me of my children in this beautiful song.

Yeah, I don't know where to begin, so I'll start by saying I refuse to forget you. Do I refuse to be silenced. I refuse to neglect you. That's for every lost soul, even though I've never even met you. Could it could have been my mom's house that could have been my nephew and I could have been me up there. We've had plenty of them, my friends on the ground trying to see their rotoscoping, risking your freedom.

Never feel your pain, by the way, is just a chore with the kids in troubled waters come running past summer.

Be right there just to bring you and your wee wee artists for Grenfell featuring Storm Zee Bridge over Troubled Water Silkier. It's time to cast you away with reading material. Of course I can give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare and you can take another book of your choice. What will you go for?

I'm going to take a detailed atlas, hopefully with shipping lanes in it so I can get myself off the second try and escape.

I'm going to try and escape. So a big atlas with real detail so that I can work out my way to get off the island and get back to my wife and my children.

It's arguably a practical item thereby, you know, contravening the rules at this late hour. That's a curveball.

You have to promise me that you'll just look at it for a look object, work out where I am. Yep. You can also have a luxury item. What would you like? Oh, a football. I've got to take a football with me. It'll have to be slightly different without any role to play against. But I'd love to have a football.

And finally, which of these eight tracks would you rush to see if there was only time to rescue one from the waves?

I would take the Beethoven Piano Concerto number five because that would remind me of my wife Sakir Stoma.

Thank you very much for sharing your Desert Island Discs with us. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sakir, with Castaway, many politicians to our island, including Boris Johnson, Nicola Sturgeon, Vince Cable, Theresa May and Ed Miliband, they're all available to listen to on BBC. Sande's and Kear will be pleased that next time my guest will be former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. I do hope you'll join us. From BBC Radio for a new series from intriguing May Day on November the 11th, 2019, James Le Mesurier was found dead in Istanbul.

He was the British army officer who helped set up the White Helmets in Syria.

Ordinary people trained to save civilians in the aftermath of bomb attacks. The biggest heroes in an ugly war. But lots of people here in the UK say all the White Helmets videos staged part of the greatest hoax in history by Lemann's.

I'm Chloe Hedgepeth and I've spent the last year investigating the White Helmets and James Le Mesurier, who they are, who he was and why he died. Subscribe to Intrigue Now and BBC Sounds.