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The Monocle Daily
Europe’s far-right parties split over Trump. Plus: The Gulf states look to Hollywood
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A
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You'Re listening to the Monacle Daily, first broadcast on 10 December 2025 on Monacle Radio.
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B
Europe's far right wonder whether the US President's blessing might be a curse. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy's jail memoir reveals the dreadful truth about French prison baguettes and is the office Christmas party going out? Fashion I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now.
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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 Rainbow Murray and Quentin Peel will discuss the day's big stories. And our on this Day historical series will recall the moment and the reasons that London was consumed by uproar and over a statue of a dog. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily.
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This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Rainbow Murray, professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London, and Quentin Peel, regular Monocle Radio contributor. Hello to you both.
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A
Hello.
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B
It does strike me that you do have something in common, apart from being on the Daily panel tonight, which is, and this sort of foreshadows, a story we will be talking about later that Christmas at your place, Rainbow is cancelled.
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A
Well, cancelled is an overstatement. We've still put our decorations up, we're still feeling festive and bright, but we're not having any guests, unfortunately. Normally we host a party every year called Tinsel Fest, the highlight of the festive season for me. But at the moment, we have some emergency repairs going on after a leaky pipe, which has made it very difficult to host people, which is a shame.
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B
This is definitely a thing that has happened. This is not one of those things where you've just thought, hang on, all I've got to do is bang a couple of nails and a couple of pipes and I don't have to have this party.
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A
It was the bit where they poked a little hole in the ceiling and 10 buckets worth of water came out that revealed it was very genuine.
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B
And, Quentin, you've been attempting the same ruse.
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C
Well, we were flooded quite some time ago in one of those torrential downpours, biblical downpours that we had earlier in the year. And, and it cascaded into our basement bedroom and wrecked the floor. And ever since we've been trying to get it fixed. And there one reason and another, there was always a delay. And finally they said we'll definitely do it before Christmas. And now they say second week of January.
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B
So you've also found a reason to not invite the family?
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C
Unfortunately, no, they're all invited. So we're going to get some very cheap carpet and throw it on the floor, I think, and stick a bed back in there.
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B
You can try a fire next year. But just also, Quentin, before we move on to our actual topic, because you have research been a place which sort of pertains to it, you are just back from Riga, the delightful capital of Latvia.
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C
Yes, wonderful place. But although it was, I fear, rather wet and dismal for all the days we were there. But I was doing something which I very much wanted to do, which was meeting a whole bunch of Russian journalists in exile. All very much liberal journalists would be very critical of Putin and passionately opposed to the war in Ukraine, but nonetheless finding life in exile really quite difficult. And not least because if you're Russian these days, even if you don't like Putin, people tend to treat you with a certain mistrust.
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B
Well, we will start in Europe, which is still trying to assess the ramifications of the new United States national security strategy, which contains, among much else, the promise of, quote, cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations. This has been widely interpreted as encouragement to Europe's far right nativist parties, especially in light of references elsewhere in the document to, quote, the stark prospect of civilizational erasure, which is arguably a bit rich coming from a country in which several companies turn a living selling bulletproof school bags. However, there are reports that Europe's seething nationalists see Trump's possible endorsement as a mixed blessing rainbow. First of all, interestingly, the national rally in France regarding this from the far end of a barge pole.
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A
Well, I think the value of Trump's endorsement is perhaps lower than he might believe it to be. When it comes to France, even amongst National Rally voters, Trump is not very popular. And that's not so much about the man who perhaps espouses an ideology closer to the national rally than any of his predecessors. It's more about the actual inherent nationalism within the French far right that they don't want foreign interference and they reject an Americanization of France, just as they reject any other foreign encroachments on France. And so they don't want the leader of another country telling them what to think or do. And because of that, you know, the leaders of this party don't want to be seen to be too cozy to any foreign leader, especially as they've already been accused of being too cozy with Russia. So they're trying to keep their distance and maintain their independence and say, we are all about France, only France and just France.
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B
Well, just to follow that up, Rainbow Jordan Bardelia, presumptive national rally presidential nominee, has said, among many other things, Trump treats us like a colony. He is always excessive and at times ridiculous. And the thing is, it's not just that the French don't like being pushed around by anybody else, which they don't. They really don't like being pushed around by Americans.
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A
They really, really don't. And they. They see this as, amongst other things, a sort of a cultural encroachment. They're very defensive of the French language, for example, and don't like people starting to use American terms. They don't like the invasion of American multinational businesses on French turf. So it's political, but not only it's very much a sort of protection of French sovereignty, but also the idea that.
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Americans can keep their ways to themselves. Thank you.
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B
Conversely, Quentin, in Germany, alternative for Deutschland are apparently all for it. They're really excited that Trump wishes to use them as a lever with which to prise apart the European Union, if indeed you do use levers to prize things apart. Yeah, you can do that. Yeah, yeah, a crowbar, sort of a lever. It's fine. The simile works.
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C
But the truth is, yeah, they're really rather keen on the idea of Trump support. I'm not sure they're wise to be, because I think there is a considerable anti Trump feeling across Germany and across most political spectrums. But they're about to send a rather large delegation over to Washington to schmooze with the MAGA people and all those surrounding Donald Trump. So I think that they're rather keen to up the credibility they believe they will get from being seen to be the one acceptable party in Washington. Remember when J.D. vance came to Munich earlier in the year and he singled out the AfD for a big profile meeting when he didn't meet Chancellor Scholz at an event where he roundly criticized his hosts in Germany for being undemocratic, for not being willing to talk to the far right. So the AfD seem to think this will pay off a dividend for them. As I say, I'm not at all sure that is true. Because right across Europe you do see that the way Donald Trump behaves, even if people agree with him, maybe on being anti immigration or whatever, they really don't like the way he behaves. And I think even in Britain you see there is tension between Reform UK and those to the right of Reform uk, like Tommy Robinson, about whose side are the Americans on?
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B
Well, there has been the most recent polling I saw on this rainbow by La Grand Continent asking the question of nine European countries, do you see Donald Trump as an enemy or a friend? Across the continent, slightly more than half saw the President of the United States as an enemy. There was interestingly, quite a spread at one extreme. 62% of Belgians think Trump is an enemy. Only 19% of polls think he's an enemy. But only 24% of polls see him as a friend. The rest are either a bit bewildered or indifferent.
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A
You can forgive them for being a bit bewildered because Trump does have a strong tendency to change his tune.
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B
Yes.
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A
And so the outcome of that poll, I think, would very much depend on when it was taken. Because while we he'll be friendly and suggest that he's going to be a good ally to Europe and the next week he'll lambast European leaders for being weak. He will claim that Europe is not spending enough on defense and that America is not going to prop them up anymore. He can blow a bit in the wind. And I think Europeans, first of all, they don't like someone who is.
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Unreliable. And for another, people don't forget an insult very quickly. So I think those who do see him as a friend perhaps are not referring so much to Trump the man, as to the long standing alliance with the US in the hope that that will continue, which remains uncertain.
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B
Just finally on this one, Quentin, if you were the incumbent prime minister leading a centre left, centre right party somewhere in Europe, and frankly any given European country could do worse, where would you be in sanguine and terrified about what this document portends? Because on the one hand, you know, if we think Russia has meddled and interfered in European politics, then the resources the United States could deploy in the same cause are kind of awesome. And yet, as we've seen in a few other non European jurisdictions, thinking most obviously of Canada and Australia, if you can successfully tag your conservative opponents as Trumpists, it does them no good. Yeah.
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C
And I think it's a real dilemma for somebody indeed, like Keir Starmer of the centre left in the United Kingdom. You know, how much do you Keep trying to suck up to Trump when he really insults you regularly, and him slagging off the Mayor of London about whom he seems to be obsessed, such.
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B
Scarcely imaginable reason, Quentin.
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C
And Keir Starmer doesn't really seem up to saying that is ridiculous, you know, do not interfere in our politics like this. And I know an awful lot of people across the spectrum in Britain who desperately want Keir Starmer to stand up and be much more forthright, much ruder to the Americans and to Trump in particular. But of course he is playing a terribly careful game. Just to go back for a moment, I mean, which country in Europe made a decision putting basically all their eggs in the American basket by leaving the European Union and sticking all their eggs in the NATO bas, only to find that they've got a president who is very half hearted about NATO and utterly, utterly hostile to the, to Europe in general? And Britain has really made a rather.
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B
Bad decision, well, to the Gulf states whose enthusiasm for the acquisition of Western cultural assets is not in itself news. In the United Kingdom alone, Gulf interests own institutions, including, but by no means limited to Harrods, the Savoy, the Ritz Claridges, Manchester City and Newcastle United. Nevertheless, every so often, often we are treated to a reminder of the extraordinary scale of their ambitions and their sheer spending power. 3 Gulf sovereign wealth funds, those of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are backing the bid by Paramount Skydance to mount a hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal worth somewhere in the vicinity of US$108 billion. Rainbow, a completely incomprehensible sum of money, twice what I make in a year, etc. Why do they want it this badly?
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A
They see it as an extension of their soft power, which they have been trying to develop for a while. We see this both in their sort of investment in other countries and their attempt to draw people from other countries to their states through investments in things like theme parks, luxury resorts. So I think they see Hollywood as pretty much the epitome of soft power because it's. It, it's cultural, it's diffused around the world. And so this would give them a real investment in that. Even though they wouldn't have a say on things like the board membership, it would still allow them to extend that cultural influence in a way that they haven't been able to do previously.
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B
Is it unusual, significant, Quentin, to see Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Qatar actually on the same team? Because they are, though they are occasionally collaborators, they're also at least as often rivals.
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C
Yeah, indeed. And I think it is an odd one, but so you wonder about the politics of it as well as the culture. I mean, okay, on one level, buying a big great slice of Hollywood is a trophy asset. This looks great. But on the other side, are they trying to be nice to Mr. Trump? I mean, look, they're in with Trump's son in law in this whole exercise. That's certainly going to be an element there. But I think that particularly between Qatar and on the one hand and the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the other, there are really quite profound rivalries. So I would worry if I were the Warner Brothers discovery they're, you know, looking to be bought, that they'd all end up fighting each other rather than being a united ownership. And I think that's the reason why WBD so far, far has been really so resistant to their blandishments.
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B
I mean, is, is part of the appeal though Rainbow as well, the idea that perhaps they can influence global culture, that they can kind of insert their own ore into it. Because though they are, as you say, trying to build their own entertainment empires, no one's going to compete with Hollywood ultimately.
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A
No one's going to compete with Hollywood ultimately. I mean, they already own the sort of the Netflix of the Middle east, but they I think are going to have limited opportunity here to diffuse Middle Eastern culture to other parts of the world through this deal.
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So I think it's, it's going to be challenging for them. But if you look at it from the perspective of wbd, I mean the alternative is a sort of takeover by Netflix, who put in the original bid. And that would create a different kind of overreaching influence, if you will, in that one multinational would have.
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Almost monopoly level control over sort of cultural outputs. So I think you sort of have to ask yourself.
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Which one is more threatening, sort of too much control by one corporation or by a set of countries eager to diffuse their influence more broadly around the world.
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B
Quentin, just finally on this one, do you hold out much hope that this is, however this pans out, is going to usher in some new golden age of American cinema?
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C
I would be very doubtful. Think back a little bit to do you remember how much the wonderful films that used to come out of Hong Kong when there was a lot of Chinese influence and then more and more you got the politicization of that Chinese control and basically cinema out of Hong Kong became duller and duller. And this would worry me that actually these rather uptime societies would, would be a bit of a dead hand on Hollywood. Certainly not an inspiration.
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B
Well, To France now. And exciting news for French listeners who still have not bought a Christmas present for that difficult to please uncle morbidly obsessed with self pitying memoirs by disgraced politicians in all good bookstores today and in all overflowing bargain bins next month, is former President Nicolas Sarkozy's chronicle of his recent stretch in the A Prisoner's Diary. Given that Sarkozy spent all of 20 days in the slammer, and given that said days were presumably somewhat uneventful, there being famously little action or dialogue in solitary confinement, the fact that he has somehow padded this out to 216 glorious pages may make the book also of interest to journalists seeking hints on how to stretch a desperately thin yarn to the word count. We've all been there, Rainbow. Have you already ordered your copy?
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A
I'm sure Santa's going to me. It's what I've always, always wanted. Someone describing 20 days of nothing happening over 200 pages. Please count me in.
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B
There are revelations in it, Quentin, which have been published in the popular prints, and I'm glad you're sitting down for this, because we glean from President Sarkozy's memoir that in prison the bed was uncomfortable, the water pressure in the shower was apparently insuffic, and the food really wasn't very good at all. In particular, the baguettes were quite soggy.
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C
Soggy, yes. And the heart bleeds for him, by the way. I just want to say quickly, Andrew, if you are remotely thinking of giving me this as the Christmas present you always give, I will hit you over the head with it.
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B
Tragically, too late for the office Secret Santa we're distributing tomorrow. Do you think, Rainbow, knowing the French people as you do, that this is going to elicit a great deal of sympathy?
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A
I think if you turn the volume on your radio right now up to the absolute maximum, enhanced with triple amps, you might just about hear the strumming of that tiny violin.
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This isn't so much about obviously there's an element of monetizing it, trying to get a book out before Christmas. But this is more about Sakozy trying to defend his image as a man who has been disgracefully wronged. I think a lot of people who eat not such nice food, sleep on not such nice beds, and have showers that don't have massive water pressure as part of their daily existence, as opposed to a punishment for a crime that they have been convicted of, might wonder whether perhaps Sarkozy needs a little dose of reality. But he's trying to use it to make himself look like, you know, a man wronged, having to endure this terrible suffering, even though he continues to protest his innocence. He also uses the book to suggest that his party should be in stronger cahoots with the far right. So alongside the copious self pity, there is also some questionable politics. I don't actually think this is going to rehabilitate his image in the way he maybe hopes it will.
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C
Well, he's been hugely humiliated by this. He's damaged his party, hasn't it?
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B
Absolutely, but so it should. I mean, it's a pretty low bar to get over. Quentin, I think if you are the president, the head of state of a reasonably serious country, and the opportunity is presented to you to think, should I take large sums of money from Colonel Gaddafi, of all people, or should I perhaps, on the other hand, not. That doesn't seem, I think, to most people like a terrifically difficult choice.
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C
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it just shows up the appalling sort of self centeredness, narcissism of the Sarkozy regime in France. I'm struck by other narcissists who seem to have come to power since then, but I mean, this extraordinary man, just me, me, me. And I fear that that really has undermined the centre right in France and it's his fault. I don't think people are going to be fooled by this, certainly.
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B
Just before we move off this subject, I will ask you each in turn, because we do try to be constructive and upbeat on this program. Lord knows we do. If we're not going to recommend President Sarkozy's memoir to anybody, is there a political memoir you would recommend to people? Doesn't have to be a recent one, just one you've read at some point. I mean, I can start. I've read two, actually, quite good ones recently by politicians who were different from usual politicians, but similar in other respects. One by Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand. And I will remind listeners that our interview with Jacinda Ardern is available on our website on the big interview page. And also actually Leo Varadka, the former Taoiseach of Ireland, his. His memoir, Genuinely Quite good Fun Rainbow.
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A
I'm. I'm going to confess that I quite enjoy Hillary Clinton's memoirs, really. And I know that she. She has written several, but the one that. Where she discussed what happened after the 2016 election, that wasn't my favorite. But the one where she recounted her life story.
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And especially her early years, I found that fascinating and for me it really helped to humanize her. She's often seen as almost a cliche of a powerful and ambitious woman, which goes against gender stereotypes and so a lot of people dislike her for that. I actually admire her for it. But it also showed a much softer side of her that I think people don't get to see very often and which I really appreciated.
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B
Okay, that's quite an encouraging sell because I can say, conversely, having struggled through it years ago because I had to review it, her husband's president memoir is terrifically tedious.
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A
I couldn't finish it. I tried.
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B
Quentin, is there one you would recommend?
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C
Well, if I look at what's on my bedside table, Rory Stewart's memoir is their political memoir, which I quite enjoyed because he is quite pleasantly rude about rather a lot of people. It is again somewhat self centered and I confess that if it's on my bedside table it means I haven't actually finished it yet, but so other things got in the way. But actually it's a good read, well written and he is quite refreshing in the British political scene.
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B
Well, here at Monaco, as at many other workplaces, it is Christmas party week and so staff have been getting their novelty antlers dry cleaned accordingly. However, according to doubtless diligent research by some attention seeking corporate entity, which in line with petulant program policy we will not be naming the annual festive office wassail may be an ebbing tradition. Almost interestingly, it says here that the reason for this decline is not today's young folk, the allegedly prim and abstemious Generation Z. But they're middle aged Gen X colleagues. And hey, that's me. Of whom 60% would apparently prefer some sort of Christmas bonus and an early night in with their Soundgarden bootlegs. Quentin, I don't. You're not. You're definitely not Gen X. I'm not sure what we. I'm not sure what we file you under.
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C
Gen Bastard Way over the top.
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B
Where are you on the Christmas?
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C
I must admit it was something I dreaded every year. People drinking far too much and then.
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Running off into corners with people they oughtn't to be running off into corners with. However, and, and, and the trouble was there was what was the point? I mean, you saw these colleagues at work every day. It was time for Christmas was to go out and enjoy other people away from the office. So I. I never enjoyed it. But I have done some serious research with my extended might imagine and discovered that there are now very interesting things creeping in. How about Christmas parties along the lines of pasta making Parties or craft making parties, Christmas wreath making parties. Very politically correct. But I think one of the reasons for the backlash against the Christmas party was they had become deeply uncorrect politically and something that on the whole was almost always embarrassing.
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B
Well, exciting for any of Quentin's former FT colleagues who are tuning in to learn Rainbow, that he always felt he spent far too much time with them as it was and couldn't bear to get out of their sight. But as you are the. The youth vote on the panel this evening. Where are you on this? Are you a big fan of the office Christmas party?
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A
It's generous and kind of you to call me the youth vote.
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B
Everything's relative.
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A
I do. I do technically qualify as Generation X and I'm guilty as charged. I don't like the Christmas party. In fact, fact, if. If I'm owning to guilt, I will confess. My staff Christmas party was today and.
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B
And you're here instead.
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A
I did not go.
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B
Amazing.
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C
That's why you're not wearing a Christmas jumper.
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A
But I don't think this would entirely astonish my colleagues because I didn't go last year or the 15 years before that either. I would rather.
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B
So you. You can't stand your colleagues either. Much like Quentin, I'm not much one.
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A
For office socials, if I'm honest. I would rather work with my colleagues and then spend my free time and money with my family. And I'm also teetotal, so the entertainment factor of getting very drunk at the office parties is kind of lost on me.
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B
Well, the entertainment factor at the office party is watching everybody else getting very drunk.
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A
It's less fun than it sounds when you're sober.
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Although, to be fair to my colleagues, we don't actually have very booty cozy Christmas parties because the. The alcohol is not provided and none of us can afford to buy any. So it's. It's a relatively sober affair. But you, You. You're still expected to pay for all the food. So I think. I think office parties at my workplace are just a bit too stingy to be fun.
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B
See, I was going to conclude by asking you both if you had any hot tips for how to survive the office Christmas party with dignity intact. And I think we know what rainbows is, Quentin. It's just simply. Don't go. I would pass on one that I learned and I'm still angry with myself like three years, two years later, the hard way of years ago, where I thought I was having a nice evening and I just thought, this is fun. I've had a Good year. I will stay for another drink with my colleagues and treat myself to an Uber home and then left the building at about one o' clock in the morning and realized that literally everybody in London had had exactly the same idea. I, Quentin, a definite veteran of Generation X and aged accordingly, had to go home on the goddamn night bus. I have never been angrier with myself in my entire life. So my hot tip is leave while there's still a tube. Do you have a hot tip?
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C
I think avoid the office bore is clearly one tip, but probably even more avoid the office gender not important one who's always been eyeing you up from afar and best not to.
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B
Did you get a lot of that, Quinton?
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C
I would not confess to anything like this far too long ago and I'm far too long in the tooth now for anything like that to distract me.
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B
Quentin Peel, you do yourself a disservice. And Rainbow Murray, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, on this day historical series reminds that Londoners have been arguing about statues for at least 118 years.
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In the old English garden in Battersea park in London, atop a plinth of Portland stone, there is a bronze statue by Nicola Hicks. It was erected in 1985, is entitled Brown Dog and depicts as the name very strongly foreshadows, a brown dog, specifically a brown dog called Brock, Hick's own terrier. The monument does not honour Brock as such fine hound, though he doubtless was. Brock merely served as the model for the statue's real subject. Similarly, the statue itself is a stand in the inscription reads in part, this monument replaces the original memorial to the.
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C
Brown dog erected by public subscriptions in.
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A
Lachmi Recreation ground, Battersea in 1906.
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B
And in another part, after much controversy, the former monument was removed in the early hours of 10th of March 1910. Before, between and after those two dates occurred considerable brouhaha.
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Which reached some sort of crescendo on 12-10-1907.
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The name of the original brown dog is lost to history. Indeed, it may never have had one. It was the hapless creature used as Prop In a 1903 lecture by the eminent physiologist Sir William Baylis, discoverer of hormones among many other accomplishments at University College London. The brown dog Sir William dissected for his medical students was alive but anaesthetised. Sir William did not know that among his audience were two Swedish anti vivisection activists, Louise Lind Afhagaby and Leserschoutau. They raised a fuss. The fuss got into the papers. Sir William sued his various accused for slander and libel, and won by way of vengeance. The pro brown dog tendency raised funds for Joseph Whitehead to sculpt the original Brown dog statue. It was unveiled in September 1906. George Bernard Shaw and Charlotte Despard both gave speeches. Not for the last time in history a statue became a target. Not for its aesthetic properties, it was quite nice, as these things go atop a granite plinth with drinking fountains for humans and a trough for dogs. But for what it represented, about which it was not ambiguous. The inscription was a strident anti vivisection declaration which concluded with men and women.
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A
Of England, how long shall these things be?
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B
Medical students and other pro science, pro modernity types took this somewhat personally and repeatedly attacked the statue with crowbars and sledgehammers. It became the venue for protests, counter protests and the inevitable consequent diversity bus stops. On this day, 118 years ago, it kicked off properly.
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The ringleader was another distinguished medico, William Lister, who encouraged his students to march on the statue and on Trafalgar Square, brandishing effigies of small brown garments, dogs and singing to the tune of Little brown Jug. Little Brown Dog, how we hate thee, which seems not to have won the many converts. Fisticuffs were traded liberally with police and public. The following day, 10 students faced the beak at Bow Street Magistrates court and escaped with fines. That was not quite the end of it. There were further stramashers and fracases pitting the young boffins against a range of opponents, opponents trades unionists and suffragettes in particular, who all tended anti vivisection and pro brown dog. Like everything else in Britain, it also became understood as a class conflict inasmuch as the largely well to do science students believed their opponents gutter snipes and parven news. And the broadly working and middle class anti vivisectionists thought their adversaries insufferable. Top hatted Fotherington Thomases. The statue of the Brown dog continued to be targeted until a round the clock police guard was instituted at a cost of 700 quid a year, or about 75 grand. Today. The Home Secretary, Herbert Gladstone, fretted in the Commons not merely about the cost, but the precedent.
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A
The difficulty would grow acute if it were to become the fashion for parties or sections, for example, on the tariff.
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B
Question, to put up public statues or.
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A
Memorials with a view to defaming the.
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B
Actions and views of opponents. Eventually the local council wearied of the hassle and the expense and removed the statue under police guard and coloured cover of darkness. It was hidden in someone's garden shed for a bit before being destroyed. The passions were not dissipated however, merely dispersed. The brown dog merely one exhibit in an endless procession of excuses the English find to dislike each other.
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And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Rainbow Murray and Quentin Peel. Today's show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Steph Chung Goo. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.