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- [00:00]
A
What do you think is the most accurate American, European cliche?
- [00:05]
B
I don't know. What do you think it is?
- [00:07]
A
Mm.
- [00:09]
B
I mean, you know, a lot of the cliches are not cliches. Cause they're just right. You know, Europeans taking long summers off smoking their cigarettes.
- [00:15]
A
You know, I would say a high level of self regard, like the way that we do it is best and we wouldn't consider doing it any other way. Even when science tells us we're wrong.
- [00:27]
B
I'm sorry? If science tells us we're wrong, then science is wrong.
- [00:32]
A
You know, like when you're sick and somebody tells you you need to go to the sea to recover.
- [00:36]
B
Or the. Or the Alps.
- [00:38]
A
Or the Alps. Do you believe that a person can catch cold from being cold?
- [00:43]
B
I do not.
- [00:44]
A
Is this something you were told when you were a child?
- [00:46]
B
Yes, it is very much something that I was taught. I am still told it now.
- [00:50]
A
Do you believe that if you go swimming after you eat, you'll die?
- [00:53]
B
Yes.
- [00:54]
A
Do you believe that microwaves are bad?
- [00:57]
B
Well, as you know, I don't own a microwave. So, you know.
- [01:11]
A
Hello and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druck. Some of the episodes that we've gotten the most positive feedback on since we launched are episodes about other countries politics. The uk, Canada, Japan and Ireland come to mind. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have some thoughts. One is that it's simply an area of news that's underserved in the US. Another is that people are tired of 10 years of Trump driven news, but remain interested in politics. So it's a nice change of pace. Third, maybe my own personal interest in what's happening in other countries comes across in those episodes. And I tend to think when I'm myself curious and enthusiastic about something, it often makes for a better show. And lastly, perhaps more cynically, it's nice to hear that other countries politics are fucked up too. We in America are not alone. Whatever the reason, it's something that I want to keep doing and it's what we're going to do today because there's been some big election news across the pond. As of late last week, French right wing populist Marine Le Pen was cleared to run for president in next year year's election after a court lessened her five year ban on running for office for misusing European Union funds. The same day she announced her candidacy. Over in the uk, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his resignation as Prime Minister late last month. Nominations are currently open to replace him. As labor leader. And only one candidate has emerged, former mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham. If he remains uncontested, he could be declared the leader of the party as soon as this Friday and become prime minister the following Monday. This is all happening just two years after Labour won the third biggest majority in the party's history. So we're gonna talk about that and a whole lot more. And here with me to do it is our European correspondent, Lenny Brauner. Lenny, welcome to the podcast.
- [03:01]
B
It's great to be back.
- [03:03]
A
It's great to have you back. So I've joked for a while that you are our European correspondent when in fact your real job title has been senior data scientist at the Washington Post. That's no longer the case. What's up, Lenny?
- [03:18]
B
Yeah, so as of June or as of two weeks ago or so, I'm no longer at the at the Washington Post. So now I have so much more time, Galen, to be, you know, regular correspondent of GD Politics, regular Europe correspondent.
- [03:32]
A
I'm excited about that. I mean, I respect your coverage both of Europe and of the United States, to be clear, although I know you've also got a lot of other irons in the fire and a lot of exciting projects going on that we can't necessarily share right now. But good luck to you in all of your next endeavors. I want to mention one more thing before we get going today, which is that we are recording this podcast on Sunday and we just got the news that Senator Lindsey Graham has passed away. I'll say it was something of a shock to see in the headlines when I woke up this morning. My thoughts are with his family and his friends, and I'm sure we will cover the electoral implications of that on future episodes. Lenny, I want to talk to you about some of the cultural fights between our two continents. Maybe, you know, the World cup air conditioning. I guess NATO is not really a cultural fight, but a point of tension between the two continents. But I want to start by just, I actually disagree.
- [04:28]
B
I do think NATO in some degree
- [04:29]
A
is a culture okay.
- [04:30]
B
Or all right, maybe it has been one.
- [04:33]
A
Well, I want to start by maybe covering Europe on its own terms before we talk about our cross continental tensions. And I'll say for folks, I think we've talked about this in the past, but for folks who are just tuning, you are yourself Austrian. Although I should say that in the time since we last spoke on this podcast, you got your green card. So welcome to permanent residence in the United States of America. How's it feel?
- [04:56]
B
Thank you very much. It's very exciting. After 14 years on a number of different visas, I'm very, very happy that I, you know, finally have a green card.
- [05:04]
A
Congratulations. Okay, so we're going to talk about France first, because we have not really covered France on this podcast before, although we have dipped our toes into British politics in the past. So before we get too much into the horse race and the polling in France right now, how would you describe the factions of French politics today? Lenny?
- [05:25]
B
Yeah, so actually before I answer that question, I'm going to take a really quick step back because I think the factions only really make sense with a little bit of background here. And so if we take a look at sort of the pre Macron era, Emmanuel Macron is the current president of France. So let's say we take a look at like 2011 or so. France was basically and had been for basically since the end of World War II, basically a two block system. There were the Socialists that were sort of center left. You know, listeners may remember Hollande, who was the president, Segolen Royale who ran for president, sort of center left. Then there was the ump, which was the center right Gaullist party, you know, that people might remember Jacques Chirac or Sarkozy, who were two presidents from that, from that party. And then over time there had been developing this further right populist party called the Front national, which was led first by Jean Marie Le Pen and then by his daughter Marine Le Pen, who was sort of anti European, further to the right on immigration or significantly further to the right on immigration, but had been sort of a nest of like protest votes against the sort of historical two party system. And then there were like a variety of sort of smaller parties. There was a small centrist party. There were sort of many different left wing parties that weren't part of the center left, the Communists and Socialists and the Greens. And there were also sort of smaller right wing parties that existed. But over the last 15 years or so, the party system in France has become significantly more fragmented and there are really now three poles. So there is what used to be the Front national, which now is called Resemblement national, which is the largest party in parliament. It is still led by Marine Le Pen, though it now has sort of also a younger leader called Jordan Bardella. And it's still very much to the right of French politics. And there is now the second pole is a centrist party. So that's Macron's party called Renaissance. It's actually an umbrella party. Renaissance is the actual party of Emmanuel Macron, but it's sort of a big tent centrist party. And then there's sort of the fragmented left. The largest party on the fragmented left is Jean Luc Melanchon's sort of radical left wing party, which is the dominant party. And then there still exists the old Socialist party from the previous era, but it's sort of a much smaller force. And then finally there's. Those are the three main poles, I would say the, the far right, the centrist parties, and then the fragmented left. And then there still exists the old center right party. It is now called the Republicans. It's the UMP successor party. And it's just a lot smaller than it had been. Sort of similar to the Socialists.
- [07:51]
A
Okay, so amidst this fragmentation and the Poles pushing further to the right and to the left, Emmanuel Macron starts his own centrist party and he consolidates the center. Has his presidency been seen as a success in France? Has he made circumstances for the political middle better electorally? Has he made them worse?
- [08:16]
B
Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a great question. I mean, like, if for himself, it's obviously been a great success. So if you measure it, you know, for, you know, he has been president now for two terms. In a narrow reading, it's been very successful for the center. You know, the centrist parties were a very small force in French politics prior to his rise and they are now one of the three poles. So, like, if you take a narrow reading here, like, yeah, it's been very successful for the center, but the cost has been that he has basically destroyed the center left and center right parties along the way. Initially sort of more the center left in 2017, because the sort of movement that he ran with in 2017 was sort of maybe seen. He comes from the more historically sort of the left. And so they sort of destroyed the Socialist party initially and then after that had happened and they'd lost a lot of votes to, in order to win the 2022 presidential election, they moved his party moved significantly to the right and as a result sort of destroyed the center right party. So like, you know, on a macro level, it's actually been quite unsuccessful for the center because they have sort of destroyed or eaten up some of the parties that under normal circumstances would be their natural coalition partners and have opened up the space for these more right wing and more left wing parties to sort of take the vacuum.
- [09:26]
A
Is Macron himself popular?
- [09:28]
B
No. Though I will add that French presidents are often not popular and yet still are able to win elections. I mean, this. We'll get into this later. I'm sure with comparison to the uk, there are structural reasons at play here that I think just make it very hard for these sort of more centrist, you know, politicians to actually remain popular. But they're similar to the US Actually. They're, you know, even though they might be personally unpopular and have low approval ratings, these politicians, people still vote for them because they are sort of, you know, negative polarization. They're more scared of what might happen if they don't vote for them.
- [09:58]
A
Okay, you mentioned immigration as one of the policy areas where the once called National Front, now called National Rally, is distinguishing itself and trying to pitch itself to voters in general. What are people in French politics mainly fighting about?
- [10:14]
B
So immigration is sort of an ongoing issue that's been around for, you know, a long, long time. I mean, you've already. In the 90s, Marine Le Pen's father was running on immigration as one of his main issues. So that's obviously not gone away. But actually, right now, you know, sort of some of the more pressing issues, I guess, are one of the big issues of the day are like budgets and debt. I mean, similar to a lot of Western countries, the debt in France is ballooned. It's Now, I think, 120% of the GDP. France has 5% deficit, which is, I think, the third or fourth worst in the Eurozone. And there's a big political fight about how to fix it. The left wants to leverage, like, wealth, taxes, the right ones to cut spending. I mean, this is all not super surprising or that different from what happens in the United States, though. I guess in the United States, we've
- [10:54]
A
kind of been on a hiatus from fighting about the debt and for.
- [10:57]
B
And also now everyone has to cut taxes in the US So it doesn't really matter. And it's. It sort of destroyed French politics. Not destroyed is maybe too strong of a word, but it's had real impact on French politics over the last couple years. The 2026 budget took two years to pass parliament and it forced two prime ministers to resign along the way. So it's had, like, a real impact on. On French politics. Another big issue are pensions. That's sort of related to the budget fight. Macron instituted pension reform in 2023 that raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. That triggered huge protests. And then it's been suspended until January of 2028. This pension reform, which is, you know, not coincidentally, after the next French presidential election. But the Senate in France, which is controlled by the Senate, right, keeps trying to Reinstitute the reform. And that causes sort of friction within the national assembly, which keeps on blocking it. Obviously, like everywhere in the west, there is a cost of living issue. There was pretty high inflation after Covid. That's now sort of under 2%. But, you know, similar to the U.S. similar to a lot of Western countries. There's a debate between, you know, what people are feeling in their pocketbook and what the actual inflation numbers are currently showing. A lot of that, because obviously the higher inflation of the post Covid era sort of had a lingering impact here. Housing is obviously a big driving faction here. And then, yeah, there's like immigration, like you mentioned. There's like government instability, which has become an issue in and of itself. The fact that prime ministers keep on resigning, the fact that the government doesn't really have a majority in Parliament. It has been using decrees to. To run the country for a while now. And the French presidential election is sneaking up on us. It's in less than a year. And so that in and of itself has become a political issue, too.
- [12:40]
A
Yeah, I'll say, just for reference, the presidential election, the first round is going to be on April 18th. The second round will be on May 2nd. It sounds to me like a wonderful time to be in Paris. So GB politics may have to cover this on the ground. I mentioned one time, I don't know if it was on this podcast or the Forbearer podcast, but I somewhat controversially said that Donald Trump was our first European president, because European nations, particularly like France, had been arguing about immigration and national identity for decades before Donald Trump started making those more explicit appeals in 2016. I mean, folks might remember the burqa ban, which predated Trump in France. Debates about where and whether mosques can be built and whether they can have turrets and the like. And these conversations about national identity have been much more explicit and out in the open for much longer than they have been in the United States. You know, like, we were used to cultural fights around gay marriage and abortion and sort of religion and things like that. Things that, you know, Europe had maybe settled in its own way. Now you're talking about how the budget and pensions and things like that have roared their head in Europe. I'm wondering if in some ways that foreshadows where we might have to end up again. If folks have been reading about the budget projections for Social Security and the like, I imagine someday the debt and deficit and funding for government benefits will eventually make their way back into the mainstream of American politics. We'll see back To France, though, how big of a deal is this latest court decision on Marine Le Pen's misuse of European funds? Like, was it presumed that she actually was not going to run in the French presidential election?
- [14:26]
B
It's a huge deal because it kind of upends the presidential race as it had been expected to go. People considered that it was a possibility that this would happen, but I don't think it was seen as sort of the likeliest outcome. I mean, there were three possibilities, right? There were the possibility that the court upholds the five year ban on running for office. There was a possibility that the court reduces it, but not enough for her to run. And there was a possibility the court reduces it and makes it possible for her to run. And I guess they picked the third option, right? So, like, in some degree it was quite possible and probably more likely that they weren't going to pick that, but they did. And just to context, you know, the initial ban was five years on politics and three year jail time. It's now been changed to a 45 month ban on politics, though. 30 months of those suspended. And so the 15 months that she's already been sort of banned from politics, she's already done that. So she can sort of enter politics pretty much immediately. And the three year jail time has been changed into a two year suspended sentence and one year with an ankle monitor. So it's been a pretty big change. I do want to make a small point about what you said just before about, like, you know, American politics and European politics. Like, the same sense that American politics has become nationalized over the last couple years. Like one of my predictions over the next 20 years or so is that European and American politics in some ways are going to become more similar to each other, continue to become more similar. I mean, to your point, they have already become more similar in the sense that I agree with you that Trump is maybe a more European right wing figure, someone we could have seen coming out of Europe over the last years. I think this trend is basically going to continue.
- [15:51]
A
Well, then we'll have to continue employing you as a European correspondent on the GD Politics podcast. You've just made a job for yourself. It's also worth saying that if Marine Le Pen had been barred from running and she is appealing this to the Court of Cassation, so she may not actually even have to wear an ankle monitor while she's running for office. Like, if she did, she would have to talk to authorities about being able to leave her home in order to do regular campaign activities. It would all be very messy and perhaps make her even more of a martyr of the French establishment.
- [16:25]
B
In that case, look, she'll be running from her basement. So again, the similarity between American politics
- [16:30]
A
and French politics, well, that's a reference to Joe Biden, but of course, being persecuted by the French establishment and the judicial system is very Trumpian circa 2022, 2023. It's worth saying that had she been barred from running, that Jordan Bardella, the up and coming leader, her Protege, who's only 30 years old, was preparing to run in the presidential election for the national rally in her stead, Are these two similar characters? Like, would it have been the same national rally? Who is this guy and what is he doing now?
- [17:04]
B
Marine Le Pen has spent the last 15 years in French politics moderating. Her party, like the Front national was seen as sort of way too far to the right for French mainstream politics. They her dad made it into the runoff in the early 2000s and was sort of trounced by Jacques chirac. He received 83% of the vote or something like that. Basically, the entire political establishment, from the right to the far left, came together to try and make sure that her dad does not become president very successfully. And so she has spent the last 15 years running the party, moderating, trying to moderate the party, you know, throwing out a lot of the people who were sort of seen as sort of vestiges of a previous time, including her father, who had been convicted for Holocaust denial. And that has been quite successful. I mean, she's moved the party to the center and sort of, as a result, has been better and better in the elections. Jordan Bardella was seen as sort of, in some ways, an even more, I would say, moderate figure than she is, partially because she comes with a lot of baggage of the pre era before she had moderated the party. And like you said, he's very young and sort of doesn't have a lot of this baggage. That being said, he's also, you know,
- [18:09]
A
quite right wing and also a party led by Jordan Bardella was getting ready to appeal more to the middle class or even upper middle class versus Marine Le Pen's appeals to the more working class and rural parts of France. I mean, he had talked about, or at least been muddled on raising the pension age and was a little more like liberal on taxes, reducing taxes and the like for corporations or people or what have you. Whereas Marine Le Pen is actually, when you think about it, particularly from an American perspective, quite left wing on a lot of her economic policies, while being Quite right wing on a lot of her cultural policies. Given that, given now that Marine is going to run, it seems like we have a relatively set stage for what the presidential campaign will look like leading into April and May. What do the polls show?
- [19:05]
B
Yeah, so I'll caveat that by saying the scene hasn't entirely been set yet, and I'll get into that in a second. And I'll also caveat this by saying, you know, there's been a big change over the last couple days, last week or so, which is that Marine Le Pen is able to run and we don't have that many polls yet, so we should probably wait a little bit to see how that settled down. But big picture, Marine Le Pen is polling at 35%, far ahead of any other candidate. Pretty likely that she's going to make it into the runoff. The next candidate is a centrist candidate, Edouard Philippe, who is part of Macron's sort of centrist coalition, though a different, different party, polling at 18%. Then there's a whole bunch of candidates sort of polling at around between 10 and 15%, including Jean Luc Melanchon, the leader of the left wing party, at around 15%. Gabriel Attal, who was one of Emmanuel Macron's prime ministers and is actually from his party Renaissance, also at around 15%. Then Rafael Glucksman, who is polling at around 10%. He's from the remnants of the Socialist Party that did not sort of submerge and become part of Jean Luc Melochamp's big tenth left wing party.
- [20:04]
A
And just for reference, because I know we're talking about socialism a lot in the United States right now, the Socialist Party in France is center left and not as far left as Jean Luc Melanchol, right?
- [20:13]
B
That is correct. Many left wing parties in Europe are still called socialist parties, even though they're actually ideologically probably closer to social Democratic parties, which is more centrist than socialism. Then there is a conservative candidate from the Republicans, the sort of formerly big center right party, polling at around 8%. And then there's a whole bunch of smaller parties, the Greens, Eric Zamor, Communists, all polling at 5% and less. Though I did, you know, start this by saying I will need to caveat it, which is that I want to caveat it by saying that the center is currently split between Attal and Philippe, both of them part of this, you know, centrist bloc. I think it's pretty unlikely that they will end up both running. There has been rumors that they basically have a deal that the candidate who's polling ahead by the end of this year or something like that will become the centrist candidate. And the other thing is that the left is split between Melanchon and Glucksman. I do think it is significantly more likely that both of them will run because part of Raphael Glucksman's brand has been that he is not part of Melanchon's party. So there's definitely more of a rivalry there. But I guess it is possible there that, you know, one of the two will drop out also and endorse the other candidate before the first round.
- [21:24]
A
And because we've talked a lot about who Marine Le Pen is, who is Jean Le Melachon, like, what does far left mean in the French context?
- [21:32]
B
I don't want to become too sort of heavy handed on the comparisons between American politics and French politics because it is very different. But in some, to some degree, he's like a little bit of a Bernie Sanders figure in the sense that he's been part of French politics for a really. He's significantly further to the left than Bernie Sanders. I should caveat this, but he's been part of French politics for a really long time, but for a long time was sort of seen as this fringe candidate who sort of was trying to move the Overton window to the left, basically doing his own thing a little bit. Mind you, Bernie Sanders has been a, you know, he's not a member of the Democratic Party, but his caucus of the Democratic Party has been a reliable vote for the Democrats. That has not been really true for Jean Luc Mnoschamp in the center left. So there the differences sort of are strong. But then over the last 10 years or so he has really seen an influx, especially among sort of young urban voters who has, you know, rallied around his flag. Obviously, the, the fact that the Socialist Party has collapsed over the last 10 years has been helpful there. And he has sort of taken up the banner for the left in France. A lot of the issue is very pro immigration, very sort of pro, you know, a lot of the demographic changes have been taking place in France over the last 10 years. In Europe generally, he is very suspicious of the European Union, very suspicious of NATO, which to some degree is a French tradition. But maybe he takes it further than a lot of sort of more traditional French politicians. And he is very critical of Israel, very pro Palestine, which is a big part of his appeal also, and very critical of Germany and sort of the role that Germany has played in post war Europe. And I think his election would be quite complicated for the German French relationship and the American French relationship for that matter.
- [23:07]
A
You know, this is just one of the French political issues that I've been paying attention to recently. And we might dig a little deeper into this issue later on in the podcast, but people might have heard that there was a heat wave in France over the past month. And to give you some sense of how the two polls came down on this, Marine Le Pen said that she wanted to provide tens of millions of dollars in interest free loans to French people to put air conditioning in their homes. And Jean Luc Melanchol said that he would not allow his grandchildren to be in air conditioning because it caused sinus infections. So, yeah, a very French take on the issue of air conditioning while people in the country were experiencing over 100 degree weather. And the left is having its own fights in America about when, when to stand firm in your beliefs and when to acknowledge that you're on the wrong side of public opinion. I don't know if Jean Luc Mellenchamp is, is going to have that own reckoning with his, you know, supporters on air conditioning, but who knows? Maybe French people really don't want air conditioning.
- [24:10]
B
Well, I think part of his appeal, similar to part of Bernie Sanders appeal, you know, maybe 10 years ago, was that he has been saying the same thing for many, many years, basically his entire political career. And people find that very appealing, you know, similar to like the appeal that Jeremy Corbyn had 10 years ago or
- [24:26]
A
so in the UK to wrap things up here. The National Front and then the National Rally have been running in French elections for more than half a century now. Jean Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen's father, first led the party in French elections in 1972. And they've just been running and running and running. And there was the Cardon sanitaire and the marginalization of that party. Now, Marine has been working at it, you said, for 15 years to try to moderate and mainstream the party. How significant would it be, she's currently the frontrunner now. How significant would it be if Marine Le Pen became the next president of France?
- [25:04]
B
Yeah, I mean, it would be a huge shift in French politics. It would be a, you know, like I said, French politics was defined by this two party division for decades and decades and decades. And this would be the first time that a candidate from a different part of the political spectrum becomes president of France. Like you said, you know, like I mentioned earlier, in 2002, her father, you know, received 17% of the vote. And fast forward 20 years later and his daughter receives 41% of the vote, which is obviously a huge shift. That being said, like you mentioned, like I mentioned, she has moderated the party. So for a long time the debate was there's this concept in French politics called like Gaulism, which is sort of the overarching ideology of sort of French politics. You know, basically the center left and the center right both had to sort of adhere to Gaulism, which is sort of a ideology espoused by Charles de Gaulle, who was obviously the leader of the Free French during World War II and then President of France for a long time. It's sort of a centristy French exceptionalism, but also heavy handed state intervention when necessary kind of ideology that sort of transcends left and right. And for a long time the debate was whether someone from the National Front or National Rally becoming president would be a break with Gaulism. And Le Pen, over the last, you know, 15 years has sort of tried to make the appeal that, no, no, she's actually a Gaullist now, or like maybe was always a Gaullist and was misunderstood or something like that. So it would be less of a break than maybe if you would have asked me this like 10 years ago or something like that. But obviously it would be a huge shift in French politics and in European politics. And her odds of winning are pretty good if you look at the polls right now. I mean, it depends a little bit on who she ends up running against. If she ends up running against a centrist candidate, her odds are slightly less good though she is polling ahead in head to head polls with both of the centrist candidates. And if she runs against Melanchon, it looks significantly better. Like right now she's winning in the polls like 2 to 1 in a head to head poll against Jean Luc Menachem. So, you know, I. Her odds are pretty good right now.
- [27:05]
A
GD Politics is powered by you, the listeners. If you enjoy the show, the data driven analysis, the genuine curiosity and lack of partisan bs, and yes, sometimes the silliness too, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at gdpolitics. Com. Paid subscribers help make the podcast possible and they also get twice the number of episodes and access to the paid subscriber chat where you can send me whatever questions you've got. Independent political media only works if the people who value it support it. So if GD Politics is part of your week, head to GDPolitics.com and become a paid subscriber. That's GDPolitics.com I so appreciate it. Thank you. On the topic of the system Breaking down. Let's turn to the United Kingdom. The uk, once known for its stability and stiff upper lips, has traded places with, I don't know, maybe say Italy in the game of leadership. MUSICAL chairs The UK is now on the cusp of elevating its seventh Prime Minister in about a decade. What is like, what is going on? Is it copy paste to what we've just talked about in France? No, not really because it's still the same party as the Tories and Labour. But something is not going right, it seems.
- [28:25]
B
Yeah, I mean we can get into the specifics of why it's the same parties versus different parties in France and the uk. I think it has more to do with the electoral systems rather than sort of the underlying factors. The underlying factors I think are kind of similar, which is that I think this is true for all of Europe, which is that post 2008 slow wage growth and no real economic growth since then, Covid, you know, which obviously made the budget deficits go up even further. That had been gone up after the 2008 crisis. Continuously slow growth in the UK obviously there's been compounded by Brexit, which is that the UK left the European Union which has sort of hurt their growth even further. But I think the general issues in a lot of European countries that are driving the political turmoil are not, not entirely unsimilar or are at least like related to each other. That being said, obviously there is a specific issue here like Keir Starmer resigned as Prime Minister. He was particularly unpopular. I think his net approval rating was like minus 46% or something. Why was that? He wasn't able to deliver the change that he had basically promised the Conservatives. The Tory party had been in power for a really long time when he took over and he had sort of promised a break and a change and he has sort of not been able to deliver on that. No increase in defense spending, no welfare reform. He proposed welfare cuts and then reversed them back and forth. He's managed to alienate people on the left because of his sort of heavy handed approach to supporting Israel. More than a lot of his left wing supporters would like. He has alienated people on the right generally. I mean, he's a Labour Prime Minister so in general the right is probably not going to be as happy with him. But you know, maybe his response to the anti immigration rights in 2024 probably plays some role here. The cost of living in the UK never improved. And then there's also the personal issues which is he comes across as like a Little boring. And in many ways I think he's sort of the person, personification, or seems like the personification of European managed decline that's been taking place over the last, you know, 20 years or so.
- [30:21]
A
I talked about this with Helen Thompson and David Runciman when I was in the UK last winter and they sort of predicted this at the time. They wouldn't come out and actually say it, but they talked a lot about the difficulties that Keir Starmer was facing and even foreshadowed this idea that Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manch, might be next in line to replace him. And one of the things that Helen and David had mentioned at the time was that whoever the Prime Minister of the UK is is completely hamstrung by the fact that they have to be responsive in some ways to the bond markets. And so they have very little room to maneuver when it comes to whatever spending or tax cuts or whatever they may want to levy. So they're in this situation where they're trying to spur growth, but they also can't reduce government intake because then that makes the bond markets even more scared about the long term debt and deficit. And so, I mean, we're talking here now first about France, that's sort of hamstrung politically by budget considerations. Now the UK again, politics becomes so much harder when it becomes harder to spend. And so I will be curious to see it when this becomes a part of American politics next. But right now it's making it basically impossible for somebody to lead the uk. Taken all of that, what do the views of the parties look like according to the polls? I know Keir Starmer is personally very unpopular across the whole spectrum of British politics. How do Britons feel?
- [31:55]
B
British politics is going through a very interesting moment, I think for observers, I think probably for political scientists, very interesting moment. Similar to France though way more strictly. The UK has been a two party system for a long time. I mean basically the system is designed, the first past the post system is supposed to create a two party system. The UK has not been a real two party system. It's been more of like a two and a half party system because the Lib Dems have been a real and significant player in UK politics. So it's not entirely true, but it has been the case for, for the most part. That being said, the UK is currently now like a five party system effectively. There is the reform uk, which is Nigel Farage's far right, more populist party, similar, similar in some ways to the National Front in France. Currently polling number one at 26% or so. And then there's the labor and Tories which are both polling at around 20%. Which one's exactly ahead sort of depends a little bit on the polls that you look at. And then the Greens are polling at around 12%. That being said, they seem to be on a little bit of decline. They had a bit of a moment a few months ago where they were sort of polling at more 15, coming close to Tories and Labor. And then the Lib Dems are polling at around 12%. So like I said, the UK has currently gone from a two and a half party system to a five party system. It is very interesting to me and I don't really know, I've talked to some political scientists about this, whether this is now a permanent feature of British politics or whether this is going to settle down again at some point. I will add that the UK system, you know, like it's because of the first parts to post system, it's really hard to predict what a election that would take place with this kind of result would actually mean for Parliament. And so the sort of predictions for seat, the seat predictions that I've seen are sort of kind of all over the place. Most of them predict that reform UK if an election would happen now with this kind of result, would win, but it would be a hung Parliament. That means no party would have a majority. To actually rule there would need to be either a new election or kind of a coalition government. That being said, I saw a forecast that had labor ahead by 109 seats though still hung parliament. So like the, the projections here are a little bit all over the place because it is hard to foresee what an election like this would mean for the seats because of the like non linearity of first past the post.
- [34:04]
A
Yeah, and it's worth saying as well that the next British election may not be until the summer of 2029 unless somebody calls for an election earlier. It seems unlikely that Andy Burnham would call for an election sooner given the unpopularity of labor at the moment. And labor still has a majority in Parliament based on how well they did in the most recent election.
- [34:27]
B
Hey look, England. If England wins the World cup and he becomes Prime Minister the next day, like maybe that's the moment to call a snap election.
- [34:35]
A
Maybe. Maybe. Okay, so is there any reason to believe that Andy Burnham will be able to stabilize British politics after seven prime ministers in 10 years?
- [34:45]
B
I personally think that's quite unlikely given like you said, the structural forces at play here. You Mentioned that British politics is sort of underneath the gun a little bit of like the bond market and the leeway that any Prime Minister in the UK has is limited. So I don't think it is super likely. I mean, we can take a closer look at Andy Burnham himself and see sort of if there's any indication here. He was an mp, a member of Parliament for an area close to Manchester for 16 years. He had a number of senior cabinet positions under the Gordon Brown Prime Ministership. He was Shadow Home Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn. He ran for leader in the like to run the Labour Party in 2010, but lost to Ed Miliband and then. So since 2017 he's been the mayor of Manchester. The ideological question is a really interesting one. Right? I mean, he comes from a very working class background. That being said, he was tied with the sort of tied to the more centrist parts of the Labour Party, tied to New labor, which is sort of like Blair. He has shifted left over time. He served under Jeremy Corbyn even though a lot of people from his wing, historically his wing of the party were unwilling to do so. And he stuck with Jeremy Corbyn for a long time. There's been a joke running around the UK over the last, I guess, couple years or couple months, which is that a Blairite, a Brown Knight and a Corbinite walk into a pub and the barman asks, what are you drinking, Andy? Because he sort of represents all wings of the party. He has sort of responded to this joke by saying like, yeah, he is just not a factional member of the party. He wants to represent all of the Labour Party, which, you know, as responses go, it's a pretty good one.
- [36:17]
A
Fair enough. Let's talk about reform for a second because as you mentioned, looking at the polls today, it seems like reform could be in line to succeed labor at the next election. Understanding that we are three years away and a lot can happen. But Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform Party, is facing his own chaos. So Parliament was investigating two funding scandals around him for taking money and gifts without reporting them. He has now resigned from Parliament, triggering a by election, which is British for a special election that he himself will run in in order to avoid being potentially suspended based on the investigation. He is running against a trash can because the other major parties in the UK are boycotting the election basically because they think it's bullshit. You know, he's just trying to escape accountability for this ethics investigation, if you will. How much has that tarnished reform uk? Hmm.
- [37:20]
B
That's A good question.
- [37:21]
A
And to be clear, to be clear, when I say he's running against a trash can, I mean, literally, he's running against a trash can because there are all sorts of frequently comical characters stand in British parliamentary elections to try to represent these constituencies. And in particular, this guy's name is Count Binface. People may have seen him because I think he's run against also like Theresa May. So when they're like in the constituency counting the votes, it'll be like Theresa May, the next Prime Minister of the uk, and then standing next to her on stage will be like a trash can or a wizard or whatever, who got elbow votes. Elbow as well, certainly. So I guess, is he going to beat the trash can? And how has this shaped perspectives of reform UK in general?
- [38:05]
B
Yeah, I mean, he's. He's going to win his by election comfortably. He would have won his by election comfortably even if the other parties had not boycotted that race. He did very well in the last election and that was before the current sort of surge in polling for reform uk. It has tarnished his reputation. It made the whole, like, shtick, you know, the people versus the establishment thing, not work quite as well. He has been criticized sort of from the entire spectrum of the political party, including people that you would expect to be more supportive of him. But, you know, the investigation will continue when he's back in Parliament. So he only sort of is buying himself a little bit more time here. That being said, so far it's been more of a Nigel Farage issue, less of a reform UK issue. There are other problems that the reform that reform has. You know, like, they didn't do as well in the Makersfield by election, which was the one that Andy Burnham won in order to make it to become a member of Parliament than was expected. They didn't do as well in the Gorton and Denton by elections than was sort of maybe expected. Or so there's a sort of question about whether their actual support is softer than what the polls indicate. So, like, you know, like, yes, reform is doing very well now. I don't think this particular scandal is going to hurt them going forward, but there are other question marks around their ability to sort of maybe become the successor party of Labour in the next election that I think we will have to continue to track because it's sort of unclear how these all play together right now.
- [39:25]
A
So both France and the UK are seeing an ascended populist. Right, Although not uncomplicated in both instances, given the scandals surrounding, I guess, both Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage. How do you make sense of this from a 30,000 foot view? Are the politics of the UK and the politics of France the result of the same forces that we talk about in the United States in terms of hollowed out rural areas as the result of globalization and trade? A polarization in cultural preferences between the elite and non college educated voters? Is that overly simplistic? Like, are Europe and America facing actually different political circumstances today?
- [40:18]
B
I mean in some degree they're facing similar ones. Right. Institutional mistrust is true sort of across the West. Immigration being a top issue is sort of true across the West. The impact of social media, which I think is sort of a bit of a looming in the background here, and the fragmentation of information ecosystems that I think has caused fragmentation in political parties in both France and the UK and you know, so far not in the US but we'll sort of see what happens in the future. So like, I think that's sort of a similarity, but I do think in other ways Europe and, and the US are, are going down the slightly different paths. You know, not to become like too sort of historical materialist here. Like I, I, I do think that the post 2008 economic stagnation, I mentioned this earlier, that was never fully in, in Europe. And the sort of inability to get economic growth on track in, in Europe is causing these similar issues across, across different European countries. And obviously there are particularities in the different countries that are specific to these countries. Brexit in the UK for example, is one of those. But the 30,000foot view I think is that there are similar forces at play here.
- [41:23]
A
Yeah, well, I, I guess that I should ask, are you saying that what makes Europe unique is the economic stagnation? Because as much as the left would criticize how our economy works in the United States, and perhaps the right would criticize it too, at times we have experienced consistent economic growth nonetheless.
- [41:48]
B
Yeah, though I think the economic growth is one issue and then there's sort of the status threat that that comes with for like the lower middle class in both. And I think that in, in, in, in, in both electorates, in the European electorate and the US electorate and that might be quite similar actually. Um, so maybe the US has been seeing more economic growth and sort of on a whole made a difference in the politics of the US versus Europe. But I think there are still sort of similar things happening under the hood.
- [42:15]
A
Yeah, Let me maybe ask this question in relation to a podcast I did about Irish politics a couple months ago. I Talked to Hugh Linehan of the Irish Times, and one of the questions that we tried to contend with was why hasn't Ireland experienced an ascendant populist? Right. And there were many reasons. People can go back and listen to that podcast. I think it was a worthwhile one to listen to. But one of the reasons might be that Ireland is not really in a period of decline. The country has never been more prosperous. And the way the politics of the country work means that already the establishment parties have been quite populist in dispersing that prosperity through sort of grants and transfers across the country. On the flip side, I think one might say that the politics we've discussed in France and the UK are more emblematic of places that are in decline. I mean, do you think European decline is really what we're, what we're contending with here?
- [43:11]
B
Yes and no. I mean, like, I think there are counterexamples to the Ireland thing or the explanation that the Ireland thing offers. Right. Like Switzerland, for example, has very much not been in decline by any metric. But the far right has been the strongest party there for decades. I mean, basically, since I've been a child, I think the far right has been the strongest party there. Poland is another example here. Right. They have been growing significantly over the last 25 years. They have effectively become a middle class European country, a rich European country. And yet the far right ran the government there for years and, you know, made a lot of changes to the constitutional system that the sort of centrist bloc has had a hard time undoing over the last, since they won the election last year. So, like, I think it is a partial explanation, but I don't think it is a full, full explanation. I'm not sure I have a full explanation. Right. I mean, there are, like I said, there are the idiosyncrasies of all these countries that you can use them to explain away why this is particularly happening in this country. But I do think, yeah, the 30,000 foot view is when the pie is getting smaller or maybe not growing as fast as you expected or are used to it growing, there will be bloody fights about how to distribute, you know,
- [44:19]
A
what's left over now that we're talking about Europe more broadly. And given that you're neither French or British, by the way, thank you very much for enlightening us on French and British politics. Nonetheless, I mean, what about.
- [44:33]
B
I'm looking forward to all the French, your French listeners and British listeners telling us how incredibly wrong I am about everything.
- [44:40]
A
Well, we'll get around to Austria eventually. When's the next Austrian election?
- [44:45]
B
The next Austrian parliamentary election is in 2029, so it's still a while away.
- [44:50]
A
We can finally take our trip to Vienna together. But, you know, given that we've zoomed out a little bit, I mean, what are the biggest challenges facing Europe today?
- [45:00]
B
Yeah, I, I, I want to caveat all this by saying, like, I sound like a real doomer here. Like, I'm not actually right. Like, I, I don't think a big catastrophe is sort of approaching. I think the likeliest outcome here is that Europe continues to sort of muddle along. And I, I love Europe. I mean, I'm Austrian, I love Europe. I, I go back frequently. Personally, I think Europe's biggest issue is that the, basically the flatlined economic growth in a lot of parts of core Europe. Obviously, like there are a lot of countries that went through big crises right after 2008 that have actually seen pretty good economic growth over the last year. So like you, you mentioned Ireland, which obviously had a big issue, had big issues after 2008. Spain has been seeing significant economic growth. Greece has, you know, had a budget surplus and in fact, their budget surplus last year was double what they had budgeted, which is very surprising to a lot of people, like commentators looking at this, if you, you know, compare that to where they were at in say 2011 or so during the big fiscal crises. So there are parts of Europe that are seeing strong economic growth, but these sort of core, you know, like Germany, France, northern Italy, the uk, the Blue Banana as a sort of call, the core industrial heartland of Europe has been seeing pretty sluggish economic growth and Europe is kind of dependent on it. Simultaneously, there's been the cost of living crisis. This is very similar between the US and Europe, especially in housing. Again, I mean, very similar to the US There is the fact that Europe has a aging and shrinking population. So like demographic issues that are sort of approaching and the fact that the people who are, who are taking pensions, elderly voters, are sort of a larger and larger chunk of the voting population, which means that it has become harder and harder to make any reforms when it comes to this. I think over time the fiscal crises that you have sort of outlined, that we have outlined will become more and more acute. I think in that sense, the UK is maybe a harbinger of things to come for a lot of other European countries. Europe needs more immigrants as a result of their shrinking population, high skilled, low skilled, any kind of immigrant. But at the same time they're having real issues integrating their current batch of immigrants. And that's causing real political issues. We talked about the fights around immigration that are taking place. There's the technological and innovation gap. You know, there's no European equivalents to the major US And Chinese tech giants. Productivity gap is sort of increasing, though. There's sort of a lot of debate about whether that actually matters or not. There is the energy issue that Europe faces. In the past, Europe has been quite energy dependent on Russia, which has changed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But it's changing slowly. And there's a variety of political reasons why Europe is sort of unable to sort of maybe tackle this question head on. And obviously energy is becoming more and more important in the world of AI. There's a security issue which is that, you know, in the past, Europe has basically been dependent on the US in terms of their security. The US Is becoming less and less interested in playing that role. And Europe has to come to terms with that. This is slowly changing. The European. The Germans have said that they're willing to invest 600 billion euros in their own defense. Obviously the UK is a major player here too. France with their nuclear weapons. But you know, there are issues around fragmentation of suppliers and procurement systems and all this kind of stuff. And this money is money that could be spent elsewhere. Right. Like, you know, butter, not guns, to sort of, you know, hark back. There's a whole bunch of issues. I mean, like the other big one that I was going to mention is there's basically, and this, I think is sort of a underlying factor of a lot of the issues I mentioned above, which is there's real, like decision making paralysis in the institutions that Europe has created over the last 70 years. The European Union in particular. A lot of major decisions need unanimity, and that's really hard to get. And a lot of these, you know, systems mean that they've put in place mean that it's really hard for Europe to institute the reforms that are necessary here. Especially sort of European wide reforms that might be necessary here.
- [48:54]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the most tricky ones that you mentioned is defense. Right. The war in Ukraine combined with Trump's reluctance towards NATO has created a kind of come to Jesus moment for the continent where it's had to contend with the fact that it can't defend itself without the United States. What has that done to European politics? I mean, there was a NATO summit last week, so that's part of why I'm asking about this. But it's also created this really difficult situation where a lot of European leaders have had a lot of difficulty with Trump. Their own voters really don't like Trump, but there's this great indignity of having to rely on him because of the way that defense works in Europe today. And so what are the political consequences of that?
- [49:46]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think it's made a lot of European leaders pretty unpopular with their public. I mean, I mentioned this briefly when we talked about Keir Starmer. I think one of the many reasons he became unpopular was that his handling of the Iran war, where he was sort of seen domestically as not critical enough of the Trump administration. His reasoning, I assume, was that, you know, the UK Needed to keep the US on their side in other matters that, that, that are important for security and so didn't want to alienate the Trump administration here. It's done a lot for European, totally European politics. It's sort of scrambled coalitions in kind of interesting ways. Like historically speaking, the right in Europe has always sort of been more sort of pro American, pro arming, pro national security. And the left has been sort of more critical of the US and security and spending money on weapons. This has changed a little bit. Keir Starmer is a good example of a center left politician who takes at least what he talks about. He takes European security pretty seriously. Maybe his actual budget decisions paint a different picture. There's a ton of social Democratic parties in the Nordic and Baltic states that have become very hawkish when it comes to defense. And at the same time, there's a lot of right wing parties, I mean, obviously further to the right than the historical center right parties that are like sort of more hawkish in pro defense, like the national rally in France, like the AfD in Germany, who are more NATO skeptic and more maybe are less critical of Russia than center right parties have in the past. So it's done some interesting things to European politics under the hood. I mean, simultaneously it's also made European solidarity stronger in other interesting ways. You know, Finland joined the, joined NATO, for example, which is something that would have been unthinkable, you know, 40, 50 years ago.
- [51:28]
A
I try not to indulge the extremely online too much, but there is a Twitter trend that you and I have texted about because we are friends in real life of American commentators basically calling Europe poor. The trend is called Euro poor. And it ranges from people pointing out that the median income in the UK is below the median income of Mississippi, America's poorest state, to highlighting heat related deaths due to Europe's lack of air conditioning to pointing out that Europeans don't have dryers for their clothes. I sort of poked fun at this trend a little bit in a cold open a couple weeks back when I talked about this chart that has been going around showing that more Europeans die of heat deaths than gun deaths in America, which of course is not funny. Both gun deaths and heat deaths are tragic circumstances. But I think it's been a way for people to highlight just how deadly a lack of air conditioning can be and not just the fact that it's a difference in comfort levels on both sides of the Atlantic. I'm curious, just given everything that we've been talking about here, what your thoughts on this sort of Euro poor trend are.
- [52:43]
B
I mean, it, it, it amuses me, I guess. Look, I don't really want to get bogged down in the debate that inevitably follows about whether GDP measures all the things that are, you know, good and beautiful in life, where I think the answer is very clearly no. And then you can sort of debate about whether Europe has sort of struck a better deal here about, you know, in other parts of quality of life issues. That being said, historically speaking, quality of life and GDP growth have been pretty strongly correlated. And you know, if the US Is going to continue to see GDP growth and Europe is not, then my fear is that eventually the quality of life in Europe will catch up to the difference in gdp, in GDP growth that we're seeing. That being said, I mean, the European thing does speak to like a broader truth here. The US Is very, very rich. I mean, they Americans have larger houses on average and larger cars. It does miss though that Americans need to pay out of pocket for a lot of things that European take for Europeans take for granted. So they just need higher disposable incomes, right? Like healthcare, education, all that kind of stuff, which is paid for. A lot of that is paid for in Europe by the government. But yeah, I mean, I, I was just in Dallas for the World Cup, Austria against Argentina. And that Dallas Cowboy Stadium is quite something. I don't think I've ever seen a stadium like that before.
- [53:57]
A
Well, you've made this transition very easy. Let's end on a topic where Europe remains undoubtedly dominant, which is soccer or football, if you will. We're now down to the semifinals of the World cup and the matchups are Spain versus France, England versus Argentina. I think many people have said that this is the best ever Final Four matchup in FIFA history because these are maybe four poles of soccer excellence. Three out of the four are European the fourth, Argentina thinks that it's European. To what do we don't have to get into Argentine national ethnic politics today. We'll save that for when I'm in Buenos Aires, which I don't have any plans to be soon.
- [54:44]
B
I think you may need, I think you might need a different, you know, partner to talk to that about. I.
- [54:49]
A
We'll track down Peter Thiel, who apparently recently moved to Buenos Aires. But let's, you know, say some nice things about Europe before we close to what do Europeans owe their dominance in soccer? And maybe, maybe there are lessons in that for other areas where they can hope to dominate again someday.
- [55:07]
B
Yeah, that's interesting. You know, if I, if I were
- [55:10]
A
to take capitalism, I guess is one of them, I was going to make that point.
- [55:13]
B
If I were to, you know, take a real sort of right wing sort of, or more, more, more libertarian, conservative, whatever, like, you know, like approach here. I would say, like, yeah, like the European soccer football system is way more punishing of mistakes and you know, benefit if you do really well than the American system does, which, you know, is really good at picking winners and really good at punishing losers. And so maybe that has something to do with it. I, I will say, like, broadly, like, obviously the you. The European system is just, you know, more institutionalized. It's a really well structured industry. It has the most money. People all over the world want to watch the Premier League, which means there's just more money flowing to the UK with that. These clubs can invest in their, in their academies, pick the best players, all the best players in the world want to compete there. This is all like historically grown, historically, which I think sort of just gives a lot of advantage. There's also some. I'm Austrian. I support a team in Vienna that I've supported my entire life, that my grandparents supported. The centralization of capital in European football has been detrimental for the clubs that I, the club that I support. And European football in countries that are sort of not the Big Five in particular, the ones that have all the money coming. In the UK in particular, this has been caused by a number of issues. Obviously the globalization of football, the fact that there are people all over the world who are willing to pay and watch the Premier League. Some of it has to do with like a ruling of the European courts in the 1990s that changed how foreign players are being treated if they're euplays. I don't want to really get into the specifics here, but it has really turned European football around. It's really professionalized European football. If you're interested in this, I would suggest you sort of compare Even just the 2002 World Cup Final, which really isn't that long ago, to the current way football gets played. And it really looks like a different sport in terms of what kind of professionalization has taken place. And then I think there's an interesting sort of issue around like the way that the uk, the Europe and the US sort of have their best players come up, right? Like in the US people pay to compete playing for teams and in the you in Europe, clubs pay for the best players. And so it changes the incentive structure around like who actually wants to get the best players and who is able to get the best players if it's actually, you know, your money, your skin in the game, your money on the line to actually pick those players. Whereas in the US you know, if you're able to pay to have your kid play, like maybe you're willing, you're able to do that. And then there's also the fact that, you know, in the Europe, the best 18 to 22 year olds are competing against adult players in, in the US a lot of them play college football, college soccer, which is, you know, obviously just very different. And that probably contributes. I mean, I think there's just a variety of, of issues that are, that are, that are the reason why European dominance, at least in this one field, persists.
- [58:01]
A
We're gonna leave things there for today, Lenny. This has been a long one, but an informative one. So thank you for your duties as GE Politics European correspondent today.
- [58:11]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
- [58:13]
A
My name is Galen Drook. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gepolitics.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes. You can also join in our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for us to discuss on the show. And you ensure that we can keep making a podcast that prioritizes curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. Also, be a friend of the POD and go give us a five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts, maybe even tell a friend about us. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.