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The Monocle Daily
A political scandal shakes the White House. Plus: the UK rejoins the EU’s Erasmus scheme
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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 17th December 2025 on Monocle Radio. The White House Chief of Staff gives a surprisingly public staff performance review. Is the UK inching back towards Europe? And is the black rhinoceros more or less promiscuous than the banded mongoose? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. Hello, and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Rebecca Tinsley and Michael Peel will discuss the day's big stories and we'll visit the new London exhibition by the Turkish Armenian artist Sakis. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Rebecca Tinsley, journalist and human rights campaigner, founder of Network for Africa, and by Michael Peel, Science editor at the Financial Times. Hello to you both. Hello, Michael. You descend from, well, not just an august gathering, but arguably the august gathering.
- [01:22]
B
Well, yes, you refer to the Nobel Prize awards in Stockholm, which happened last week and yes, I was there.
- [01:29]
A
You didn't get anything this year, though.
- [01:31]
B
Sadly, I was omitted for reasons which I can't quite fathom. But next year, hopefully.
- [01:36]
A
Well, as one US President's staff are doubtless consoling him. Always next year. What actually goes on at these things? Does everybody who's won one have to get up and do a turn?
- [01:45]
B
Well, there's a ceremony and then there's the banquet and as the instructions online describe it, it's strictly formal, white tie and tails for men and evening gowns for women. And your instructions on the braiding of your trousers as a man, how you wear your medals and so on. So it's supposed to, I think, give a sen of immutability and grandeur.
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A
What happens if your trousers are incorrectly braided?
- [02:11]
B
Well, I don't know if there's a braiding police actor. Certainly I didn't come across them, so maybe I got away with one there.
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A
Rebecca, we were talking on the Daily earlier this week about one of those dubious corporate research attention seeking things which suggested that people are more generous at Christmas. But as we were discussing earlier, you appear to lit upon some evidence that this may be the case and have in fact benefited from it.
- [02:38]
C
Yes, it is the case that people are more generous at Christmas because first of all, they are encouraged to be by all the charities like mine. There is in the UK something called the Big Give, which happened last week and it is basically a matching funds effort. And so lots and lots of charities send out emails encouraging people please donate in the first week December, hinting of course that you know you'll be getting loads of rubbish given to you at Christmas that you don't want. So the least that you can do is help people like the wretched Network for Africa.
- [03:17]
A
And that's some copywriting right there.
- [03:20]
C
My good news was that in northern Uganda we have a project with survivors of the Lord's Resistance army who were a psychopathic jihadist Christian mob who were particularly vile to the people that they kidnapped and tortured. And we do trauma counseling with them. And you realize you're beginning to be successful with trauma counseling when people say to you and now how can I make a living? And our project is that we set up 71 self help groups of about 20 people each and we provide them with seeds. And that's what we did thanks to the big give last week.
- [04:05]
A
Well, that is good work. And people can find out more about this at Network for Africa's website.
- [04:10]
C
They can.
- [04:11]
A
Thank you and indeed they should. We will start in the United States where White House Chief of Staff as of this recording, Susie Wiles is attempting the always daunting public relations challenge of attempting to deny saying things that one was recorded saying. Interviewed at length by Vanity Fair for a profile of the current administration, Wiles perpetrated numerous spectacular discretion, saying of President Donald Trump that he had an alcoholic's personality, that Vice President J.D. vance was a conspiracy theorist and that intermittent Trump sidekick Elon Musk is a ketamine user and quote, an odd duck. She also was critical of many administration policies. Wiles is now trying to style it out by saying significant context was disregarded. Michael, resident journalist at this table. Do you want to have a crack at what that significant context might.
- [05:06]
B
The significant context as you alluded to seems to be that this wasn't a loose lipped aside at a drinks party or indeed a Nobel banquet, but was actually the result of multiple formal meetings with a journalist who was obviously out to write a piece of this nature. So it's hard to see what would change it. But of course the more substantive point and is the politics of it, of course, and how this goes down within the administration. But many of the observations are not necessarily a great surprise given what we know and what has been reported previously of some of the participants described in it.
- [05:41]
A
This is all tremendous fun as these sort of scandals always are. Rebecca. But it is just astonishing that she's the White House chief of staff. She is by common repute, one of the more sensible and professional people in Trump's orbit. Now, unless the Vanity Fair interviewer is just a truly tremendous interviewer, which is a possibility we do have to acknowledge, how can somebody in her position be this indiscreet? I mean, it's extraordinary.
- [06:10]
C
Well, first of all, I'd like to say I've always regarded Monocle Radio as very high brow, so I'm really glad that we're dealing with this subject ahead of all these other things that are happening in the world. But I can actually see how Ms. Wiles became so indiscreet. I mean, imagine it. You work in this madhouse environment, surrounded by lunatics and people who are utterly incompetent, as well as a really quite unusual boss. And the person from Vanity Fair, because I believe it was several interviews. Right. And, you know, a cup of hot matcha and sympathetic ear, I can imagine she felt able to unburden, and you would need to if you were in. In that environment. And it is worth noting, incidentally, that Trump has already said that he agrees that he does have an alcoholic personality.
- [07:03]
A
Which is, you know, ironic for a man who doesn't drink, and perhaps he should not. Not the first time that thoughts occurred to me. Michael, is there actually a PR stratagem that is going to make this go away? Trump and Vance and others have defended her, or are they just relying on what does now seem like their usual PR stratagem, which is that some or other nonsense will be along shortly and everybody will forget this happened?
- [07:29]
B
Well, that's been quite a successful PR strategy so far, has it not? And so one can question whether that's a good thing. But, yeah, I mean, if Trump is happy for her to stay in position, then I don't see any reason why they wouldn't shrug this off, as they've shrugged off even more substantive things than this.
- [07:49]
A
She did make a couple of substantive criticisms beyond the curious personalities of, you know, her colleagues. Rebecca specifically, she said she was aghast at the gutting of USAID and associated international aid programs. Her line was, no rational person could think the USAID process was a good one. Working in the sector that you do. Have you seen, I guess, up close, the real world implications of America pulling the plugs on so much of its foreign aid program Every day.
- [08:23]
C
So many NGOs have lost funding that those of us who are still standing, and believe me, a lot have disappeared over the past 11 months. Those of us still standing are now fighting each other for private foundation money. And it's getting quite bloody and it's really unpleasant. And I can actually tell you the name of the person who was making all the decisions. His name is Jeremy and he's 29 years old and he works for me, for Elon Musk, and he knows absolutely nothing about international development. But I have to tell you that I chair an American NGO called the Free Yazidi foundation. And we actually gamed the system because we realized we were told on January 20, the Inauguration Day, that we'd lost all our money from the State Department, stop work. And that was obviously very traumatic because all of our projects in Iraq had to stop and 172 Yazidi were put out of a job and it was just horrible and no reason was given. However, we pestered the good people at the State Department, those who are still left, and loads of them have gone. They provided us with a really unusual 32 point questionnaire written by the Musk people. Jeremy, age 29, with no background in international development. And it had questions like, will the Free Yazidi foundation, what are they going to do to guarantee American energy efficiency and security? Well, that's really not our game. However we gamed it, we realized that it would be marked by AI. So we just put Christian as an answer for all 32 questions. And guess what? We are the only NGO in the Middle east to get our money back.
- [10:12]
A
That is extraordinary and yet strangely unsurprising.
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C
Not least because only 5% of our workers with Christians in the plain of Nineveh.
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B
Yeah, you made the point about foundations and the competition for their money, Rebecca, but it's of course they can't fill the gap, right? I mean, even someone like Bill Gates with the resources that he has, has been quite explicit about this, saying, well, if governments don't do it. And it's not just the US cutting, right? I mean, it's been particularly extreme and particularly ideologically motivated there. But the UK has made very big aid cuts in many other countries in Europe and elsewhere. So this is a big deal. And there's no sign of reversed at the moment, is there?
- [10:55]
A
Well, on a semi related front to Geneva, where the UNHCR's Global Refugee Forum has been gathering, it is depressingly not short of material. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, addressing the gathering by video, has accordingly struggled for reasons to be cheerful, noting that several conflicts are getting worse, that humanitarian aid budgets have been widely slashed, and that many of the wealthier countries to which refugees flee have become less generous, while roughly three quarters of Earth's Displaced people are hosted by low and middle income nations. Rebecca. He wants countries and one assumes he means the wealthier ones, to, quote, boost refugee inclusion and self reliance in the current political climate. He's going to struggle for takers, isn't he?
- [11:42]
C
He is, but it is in our self interest. Unless we want waves and waves of migrants to keep arriving. Here's an example of our stupidity. As you know, there's a war in Sudan and something like half the population have been displaced and they are in incredible. The lucky ones, those who haven't been killed, are in incredibly unpleasant IDP camps and refugee camps. I've just come from a meeting where we were told that the Refugee response plan, the UN's response plan in Chad, in eastern Chad for all of these Sudanese is funded 4.7%. That's it. So if you had half a brain and you were a refugee, are you going to hang around in this camp? Of course you're not. You're going to use any means possible to walk across Africa to, you know, get in a boat the size of a fruit basket to go across the Mediterranean and come to Europe. Of course you are. So this is just so self defeating by making these refugee camps so unpleasant because they really are, you know, and we're asking something like 60% of the people at Calais waiting to cross the Channel are from Sudan. The rest are from places like Eritrea and Iran now, you know, and Afghanistan. So what have those countries got in common? War. And yet we still don't think about curtailing or suspending arms sales to the very countries that are prolonging these conflicts.
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A
The difficulty being though in the bind that I think governments, certainly incumbent non nationalist governments are in, Michael, is their self interest or their concern is that if we enact rules like this in which it is possible for refugees to come here, to work, to be included and self reliant, as the Secretary General puts it, that encourages more refugees to attempt the same thing. And at that point you might as well, well, in the case of the United Kingdom, hand the keys to 10 Downing street to Nigel Farage, which won't be good for the refugees. E. Yeah.
- [13:52]
B
I think the key is to separate the fact from the presentation and then the assumptions around this. And given that the United Kingdom says it honors international law and part of that includes the right to seek refuge, the structural problems here that have ignited support for Mr. Farad and also panic in the Labour government is that people are staying in hotels and they're not working well. Why is this happening? Well, one, because the processing system has broken down, it's underinvested in. So people are having to wait for a very long time to have their. Their cases dealt with. And so that means they're staying in these hotels for a long time. But it's not their fault. They're waiting for the cases. And also they can't work. So even if they want to be useful, to earn a bit of money. Yes, but also to make a contribution to society, they can't. And so there's no attempt to sort of think through holistically about what are the structural points here that need to be addressed. Now, labor has said that it will start to try to cut asylum processing times, but this is a scandal that's been going on for years and the idea was that that would discourage people from coming. Well, there's no evidence that that has worked. What everyone thinks about the morality of that policy.
- [15:16]
A
Indeed. So, Rebecca, do you think that if those things that Michael points out could be addressed, that if that backlog could be cleared up, that if a. And this doesn necessarily apply to the United Kingdom, but to any wealthy country, that a transparent and comprehensible refugee or asylum system was installed, that a plurality of the public would be fine with that? Because when I try to be optimistic about this, what I try to think is, I don't think what people are worried about is the refugees themselves. It's the appearance of disorder, that there's no system and nobody's in charge.
- [15:56]
C
Yes, I think Michael's absolutely right on both counts. And I would stress the importance of getting. Allowing these people to work because they really do want to work. I've spent the last 30 years working with migrants to the UK, first Bosnians and now Sudanese. And they are desperate to work. They want to be seen to contribute to society, they want to integrate, they want to learn English and they are, you know, very, you know, it's not like we're lacking. Sorry. It is not like we don't need workers to do some of the jobs that they're perfectly prepared to do.
- [16:34]
A
Is it a political dead end, though, for NISP to bring it back to the United Kingdom, Michael? Because I think we see a good example of it. We have a somewhat flustered and beleaguered broadly centre left government whose biggest challenger at the moment, according to polls, is a right wing, you know, pull up the ladder, nationalist populist movement. They keep trying, I think, to. They're acting in the view that they can get some of those voters back. They can't, can they? Nobody in the reform column is going to vote Labour in four years. So does it actually make sense for a government in Labor's position to keep trying to bend towards reform's position on refugees and migration?
- [17:17]
B
Well, yes. I mean, again, to sort of leave aside the morality of the policies. Political scientists seem pretty unified that it's absolute madness as a political strategy, because the support that Labour's been hemorrhaging is not mainly to reform, it's mainly to other parties of the centres and left, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens in particular, and somewhat nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales. And meanwhile, in polls of supporters of different parties, reform voters score very high on there's no way I would ever vote Labour. So you're only going to be peeling off a very small number of those people. So to then double down on this very salient issue that Nigel Farage is trying to. Is trying to use as a bulldozer into Downing street and to essentially make the argument that Nigel Farage is right, but don't vote for him is not going to work. And it's a little bit bemusing that despite all the evidence that shows what a terrible strategy this is. Again, before you even come to the morality of it, that Labour is continuing down this path, well, staying in the.
- [18:31]
A
United Kingdom, it may have taken a small, awkward shuffle back towards Europe. One of the more pointless vandalisms of the Brexit process was the UK's withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme, which enabled students in participating nations and apprentices and people on vocational courses to spend a year in a different country as part of their degree without being stung for extra fees and also also eligible for financial assistance. The uk will spend 570 million pounds to rejoin the Erasmus plus variant of the scheme, a bill apparently 30% below the usual price of admission for non EU countries. Michael, first of all, is it clear, even with the benefit of hindsight, why the UK left Erasmus in the first place? It wasn't actually necessary. There was nothing on the ballot paper in 2016 about this. It's perfectly possible for countries not in the EU to be part of the Erasmus scheme.
- [19:26]
B
Yes, indeed. And there was nothing on the ballot paper about leaving the single market or all kinds of other things. And indeed, some major promoters of Brexit said that the UK was not going to leave the single market, Daniel Hannan, for example. So, yeah, I think it's part of the general sort of scorched earth policy towards Europe. That was the strategy of the Conservatives at that time to consolidate their support around Brexit, which, of Course worked in the 2019 election win of Boris, John and but no, there was no need to do it. And gradually we're seeing step by step reintegrations into some of these schemes. And of course it didn't start with Labor. It was under Rishi Sunak that the Conservatives got Britain back into the plugged back Britain back into the Horizon Research, scientific research scheme, which of course is something that scientists have been campaigning for for a long time. But you know, those are six years gap between when the UK was essentially either out of it or it was uncertain what was happening. And that of course created great damage in terms of disrupting the continuity of the work. And it's a long road back from there.
- [20:45]
A
The Conservatives and other pro Brexit types, Rebecca, have been claiming all day that this is a slippery slope manoeuvre that Labour treacherously is trying to shove the UK inch by inch back into the European European Union. Is, is that necessarily what's going on here?
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C
Oh, I hope so.
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A
I thought you might say something like that. I set you up for that nicely.
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C
You really did. I mean, I think it's cheap at any price and I hope it really is a slippery slope. But actually I think this, this kind of connects to the previous subject, which is it shows how, how much our Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer is really not a politician because he's been so timid about embracing little aspects of the European Union, the European project. Just as he doesn't seem to understand the politics of migration and the fact that, as you said, Michael, people who have sort of migrated to reform are not going to come back to Labor. They're simply not. But on the subject of Europe, it's as if he's utterly deaf to the fact that a huge number of British people now not only regret having voted Brexit, but you know, if you had the vote again today, so many Brexit voters have died since 2016 that we would be back in the European Union. Why doesn't he get that? Why is he so timid? This will be, I think this will be popular and I'm sure that you could, you could, he could push much further.
- [22:17]
A
I mean, is this something, do you think, Michael, that we are just inevitably going to see more of? I mean, I guess absent a reform led government a few years hence, but for over the next four years at least, will we see labor continuing to try and find ways to maybe inch back towards Europe and see where, I guess the limits of public enthusiasm are?
- [22:42]
B
Yeah, I think that will be the pattern. And of course there will be a lot of wrangling. There'll be debates in Britain about, well, what do we want? Which won't actually consider what the EU is prepared to accept. But I think there's a bigger point about the forces at work here, that yes, the UK has particular pathologies to do with Brexit, but actually a lot of its problems are European problems, public spending pressures, Russia, the US having a national security strategy which basically says we will back far right parties which are trying to oust governments across Europe. And there are so many common factors which are actually European, that it, these forces are so large that they have to impel greater cooperation. Now, what the eventual structures for that are is a different question. And of course, even before Brexit there were ideas about having an EU with different spheres, a kind of core and a sort of outer or two outer spheres. And what it requires is imagination on all sides about, you know, given where we are, how do we make this work?
- [23:54]
A
Just finally on this, Rebecca, is it crediting this government, given all we've been saying with too much nine dimensional chess, to think that maybe they have done this not merely in the expectation, but the vague hope that you might start to hear a piping up from other sectors of society saying, well, hang on, if students can go and live and work in Europe, why can't the rest of us?
- [24:16]
C
Oh, I wish you were right, but from what I can gather from people I know within the Labour Party and certainly from my sector, which is the charity, the international development sector, this government doesn't listen to anybody and it's making a lot of enemies that way as well.
- [24:36]
A
Well, to Cambridge now, specifically the university thereof, where boffins they're at, who may not have enough to do with their days, have been studying the relative levels of monogamy among various species, including our own. The test applied was the proportion of full versus half siblings. The thinking being that species which tended to pick one other fellow creature and stick with them would be vastly likelier to produce offspring which shared both parents. What we discover is that on a table topped by the punctiliously, indeed unanimously monogamous California deer mouse and propped up by the vastly less fussy soay sheep and celebes crested macaque. Humans rank somewhere near the top, just below the Ethiopian wolf and Eurasian beaver, just above the white handed gibbon and the meerkat Michael, the resident scientist at the table as well. How useful do you find this information?
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B
Well, it's certainly very diverting and I must say that I noticed that one of the best performers on monogamy is the African wild dog. So thus striking a blow for all the stereotypes about wild dog behaviour.
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A
Indeed.
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B
So really quite respectable. Yeah. I mean I think that, well there's a sort of biological test and then you know, there's the. What would the self reporting answer be? And would they be honest as well? Which is obviously something. What could apply to humans but none of the others species. You might get some slight variations to the results.
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A
Obvious difficulties with self reporting surveys of Ethiopian wolf as well.
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B
Indeed. Or bottlenose dolphin.
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A
Yeah. If you don't happen to speak Ethiopian wolf or bottlenose dolphin aside, Rebecca, from the quite startling abstemiousness of the African wild dog, were you surprised by any of these?
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C
I have a point to make about the African wild dog.
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A
Please.
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C
Having encountered a few of of them, did you know that the female has a penis?
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A
I did not know that when I woke up this morning. No.
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C
Now you do. I have to say I found this really, really encouraging, this list because I'm hoping that I come back as a dolphin in my next life. And the dolphin, you know, they lead a life where they're mucking about in the water and having, splashing around, having quite a lot of fun.
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A
Having quite a lot of fun by the look of this survey.
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C
Well that is it at 4% compared with 66. I mean, bring it on Michael.
- [27:09]
A
Are we surprised? And this was this, this was my own non scientific thought that more animals are in fact not more promiscuous given that, you know, they don't really have anything else to do all day.
- [27:22]
B
Well, I suppose another biological point would be, I mean there's Darwinian element to this, isn't there? And presumably dominant males who, you know, there are other males who might interested to be promiscuous but just aren't allowed to because they'll get beaten or killed for doing so. So yeah, it's a very wide variation and as you say, doesn't always perhaps map onto our stereotypes about how animals behave. Which just goes to show why science is so important and challenging. Receiving wisdom.
- [28:02]
A
Indeed. So Michael Peel and Rebecca Tinsley, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, one of Turkey's most influential contemporary artists has opened his first solo show in London in over half a century. The Turkish Armenian artist Sakis Zabunyan, who goes by Sakis, has lived and worked in Paris since 1964 and now brings a constellation of works to Dirimart's new London outpost. What used to be A Starbucks is now home to the Turkish Gallery's Mayfair space, filled with Sarkis objects and quiet provocation. He invites visitors to step in and interpret his work freely. Monocle's Joanna Moser went along to find out why Sakis remains such a vital cultural figure.
- [28:49]
D
Walking into Sarkis new exhibition feels like overhearing a conversation you don't quite understand yet. One built from archaeology. Objects, neon signs, artifacts and memory. Nothing is explained. No titles, no dates, no labels. Just an invitation to look and to imagine. And at 87 years old, with more than 600 exhibitions behind him, Sarkisis says it all begins with a radical sense of freedom.
- [29:18]
A
And I'm completely free to use all.
- [29:23]
B
The materials that I want. And in this exhibition there is many, many different things, but it's a miracle all comes together. This is my book, perhaps created miracle.
- [29:46]
D
That idea of harmony within freedom defines taste Together. His first solo show in London in more than five days. Decades bringing together 22 works spanning multiple eras. Dirimart, one of Istanbul's leading contemporary galleries, opened its London space this autumn. Levin Osman, who oversees its curatorial program, says Sarkis is more than a celebrated artist in Turkey. He represents a conversation that many still find difficult.
- [30:17]
E
Actually in Turkey there's a very deep respect because of the fact that he, for instance, Represented Turkey in 2015.
- [30:29]
B
In.
- [30:29]
E
Turkish pavilion in Venice when it was the hundredth anniversary of Armenian genocide. It was such a bold move, but he refused to the idea of being taking part from one side or another without like, you know, rejecting the idea that he has Armenian roots, who was born in Istanbul. He said he can represent both at the same time, which is quite still today resonates in Istanbul.
- [31:02]
D
Sarkis Venice Biennale project in 2015 was partially censored when its catalogue explored themes of reconciliation and shared history. Since then, his work has continued to challenge national narratives quietly, not through protests, but through reflection. Here, pieces from different decades appear without chronology or hierarchy. Books on his practice are also displayed to help visitors immerse themselves in Sarkis world. And Levain encourages visitors not to hesitate when curiosity strikes.
- [31:33]
E
So I truly recommend if anyone steps in in the gallery and say, can we talk about this piece? Or can we talk about Psyche? Can we talk about this exhibition? That would be the perfect start and.
- [31:45]
D
The only start actually for Monocle in London, I'm Joanna Moser.
- [31:54]
A
Thank you, Joanna. Sarkis exhibition Stays Together is on view at dirimart London until the 10th of January. That is all for this edition of the Daily. Thanks to our panelists today. Rebecca Tinsley and Michael Peel. Today's show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Steph Chungu. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks. Thanks for listening.
- [32:39]
B
Sam.