B (3:19)

Coincidentally, Phil is here this evening dressed in a complete Morris dancing outfit, though we have made him take the bells off for obviously the purposes of this podcast. It would be ridiculous. Phil, you have been. I do wonder if this is an occupational hazard because your. Your current book, Ghosts of Iron Mountain, is very much about conspiracy theory and, and how it happens. You've recently been research conspiracy theories. Do you ever find yourself getting to a point of just thinking, hang on, this is all starting to make sense?

C (3:49)

Yes, perhaps I should go outside and go to Greenwich and be hoist along by strange women, possibly with bells about their knees? Not sure how that would go, but yeah, no, you do. You do have to be a little bit careful. There is something about, you know, the old line about, you know, stare into the abyss long enough and the abyss stares back. Stare into the sort of conspiracy swirl for long enough and you start going, I've seen connections between this and this. There's a fantastic line once you end

B (4:11)

up being mad guy with like red string photographs.

C (4:13)

Yeah. And there was a fantastic headline ones on the BBC news website, which always sort of pops into my head when I think about this, which is a dark line about a vast network of conspiracy theorists. Lads.

B (4:28)

Well, we will start with the ceasefire, which has allegedly muzzled the dogs of war in the Persian Gulf, at least for us. President Donald Trump's favourite time span of altogether now two weeks. We have already discovered that several aspects of the alleged agreement are in the eye of the beholder. At least 203 people were killed by Islam Israeli strikes on Lebanon yesterday in the heaviest bombardment of the war so far. And the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial energy route, supposed to be returned to business as usual, is currently unchoked by traffic. Just three ships have tried their luck in the last 24 hours. Phil, how would we say this is

C (5:05)

Going well, not enormously well. I mean, ceasefire does sort of imply slightly pause rather than stop sometimes. Ish. You know, you want to have something slightly more definite in the end. But no, I mean, the big sticking point, obviously is the fact that the Israelis, or one big sticking point is Israel is still attacking Lebanon. Iran says, but that was part of the ceasefire agreement. They were going to stop. And JD Van says, no, no, no, it wasn't. This is just a misunderstanding. It would be dumb to fall out over such a small thing as bombing a country. So, you know, it does seem like the. And the Pakistanis who were involved in brokering the deal say that indeed not bombing Lebanon was part of it, whereas Van says it was supposed to just rein back a little bit, which is an extraordinary phrase to use in this context, as indeed is talking about people. But no, I think it seems pretty rickety. But then that's not altogether surprising.

B (5:57)

Rachel, I mean, how much do you like this ceasefire's chances of actually lasting the mooted two weeks?

D (6:04)

Oh, I would like it to last two weeks. Was that the question? This is the problem when you have a ceasefire negotiated by certainly on the US side, diplomats who are not really diplomats, at least they're not career diplomats. They're, you know, business advisors and people who've done wonderful deals in the past. And also when the text of the deal is sort of posted on a random social network and seems to be very much in the eye of the beholder. Like, the point about deals like this is you do have to hammer out the details because that's what leads both sides to stick to it. I think now Israel is saying, or Netanyahu is saying, that Israel will negotiate directly with of Lebanon over Hezbollah and over Israel's bombardment of southern Lebanon. The other big sticking point is obviously if ships are allowed safe passage through the state of Hormuz, only by paying a toll to Iran of a so far indeterminate amount of money is that free shipping is the strait open. And many of the countries, many of the companies that were a month or so ago, happily transporting their goods through that without those tolls would say, no, it isn't at all. So to what extent you can actually say that a core part of the ceasefire deal is being achieved when those ships aren't going through is a matter of debate. But hey, at least the Easter Bunny's not involved. Which looked like on Monday it very

B (7:38)

much was, we will come back to the Strait of Hormuz. But on the subject of Lebanon, Phil, as Rachel correctly points out, it's breaking in the last little while that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, says Israel will hold direct talks with Lebanon. Is that potentially encour? Because easy though this is to forget, weirdly, in this conflict, Israel and Lebanon, by which I mean Lebanon's actual government, are nominally on the same side in that they both want the same thing. That is Hezbollah not to be a thing anymore?

C (8:11)

I mean, it may be, but it's very hard to see, you know, how it resolves from here. I mean, I think, you know, the fact that his, I mean, you know, there is something about, and I know it's the most obvious thing in the world in one sense, but there is something unendingly extraordinary about the fact that you just have these militias in Lebanon and in the region more generally in Hamas and the Palestinian territories, but particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon that are just Iranian proxies. I mean, this is a very unusual situation. It does make it very difficult to negotiate your way out of. So, I mean, I'm not sure I take your point, but I'm not sure that I see much particular hope in this.

B (8:47)

On the Strait of Hormuz, then, Rachel, President Trump is again reiterating his demand that everybody else should turn and reopen it. Do you get the sense that the U.S. s allies, reliant though they are, and more so, as Trump has pointed out than the United states, that the US's allies are terrifically enthused about this prospect?

D (9:10)

Well, they want to know what happens next, and that's the key thing. So Donald Trump is suggesting, demanding that NATO allies, basically everyone except the US go in and defend it or defend the ships or allow it to open freely with or without tolls? That's during the ceasefire. So what happens if the ceasefire ends and suddenly you've got a whole load of NATO allies with military resources in an active war zone? That's one issue.

B (9:39)

It's a fair question.

D (9:40)

Another issue. And Mark Rutter was out and about earlier today as well, trying to be the sort of Trump whisperer and trying to, I guess, explain NATO's position in language the president will understand without insulting him. Sort of pointed NATO countries were not informed of this beforehand. Trump went into Iran without telling anyone. I think he said sort of he wanted it to be a big surprise. And, you know, unfortunately, that meant it was a surprise to us, too. And therefore being asked to contribute to what has really been a very botched military effort on the part of the US that has left things worse than they were before the intervention took place, you know, NATO allies have some opinions about that. And that's before you factor in the opinions that Trump has made very clear about NATO in the past.

C (10:27)

I mean, the most extraordinary thing to me about the whole straight of Hormuz thing is that this is something which has been absolutely core to American strategic thinking for a very long time, ever since Captain Mahan in the late 19th century. Identifying this along with people in Britain as well, Jackie Fischer, Admiral Jackie Fisher and so on. The idea of the choke point is something you really have to pay attention to and manage very carefully. You then have the Panama Canal obviously coming on stream in that period as well. This is something that has been core. And there's a guy called Jerry Hendricks who was until pretty recently on the staff of the National Security Council, who literally wrote a book about Theodore Roosevelt's naval diplomacy and knows about this stuff. People who were clearly close to him were writing about this on some military websites until relatively recently. So the idea that they've just sort of forgotten that this is something you need to take seriously and manage and that it is something which, you know, there is a tacit agreement, as you were saying, tacit agreement underneath which is keeping it open, but that's all it is. And you go around blundering, smashing tacit agreements, and you actually end up with a much worse situation. It's something that. It is genuinely almost funny that they. They have forgotten.

D (11:28)

I mean, they could just look at a map. You can also. You can see it. You can see what?

C (11:31)

A map. For sure?

B (11:32)

For sure. Yeah. It is not a complicated proposition.

C (11:35)

No, it's not. It's not. They have managed to turn it into a kind of a theory which they've then sort of forgotten anyway.

B (11:39)

But just finally on this one, Rachel, is this toothpaste going back in the tube? Because there's always been this implicit threat by Iran, we'll close the Strait of Hormuz, which to be clear, they have no right to do it is international water. They are not legally in any position to demand toll or tribute from anybody going back or for done it. Everybody knows they can do it. Everybody knows that in extremists Iran will do it. It's not quite as safe as it once looked, is it?

D (12:08)

No, certainly not. And not only do they know that they can do it, they know they've got a very real set of figures of consequences of what happens when they do do it. With everything from energy prices to the cost of fertilizer to US stocks to global stocks. They've got a real, real time data on what it means for the global economy if they hold a fifth of the world's oil hostage, which they have now done. And to go back to this being a sort of botched intervention from the US One, obviously they should have known that this was an option. But two, the lack of strategic thought that goes, we're going to give one of our adversaries information about the power they have over the rest of the world. Maybe let's not. And also they can do it with most of their military vastly depleted from the bombardment and they've got very little navy. They're doing this kind of with makeshift missiles and attack weapons. I don't see how it does go back to the way it was before.

B (13:12)

Well, in related news to NATO and the hardy perennial of whether the United States is still functionally a member, President Trump has spent much of the duration of the war with Iran whining that America's fellow NATO members were not hastening to assist, and now insists that said fellow NATO members should act to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which, lest we forget, was free to all comers as recently as six weeks ago. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is visiting Washington, D.C. and has had what was called a very frank meeting with Trump, very frank being a diplomatic euphemism denoting a certain amount of crockery hurling. Phil first of all, it's important to be clear that the United States, thanks to a law co sponsored by then Senator Marco Rubio and so signed by President Joe Biden, almost as if they were worried about exactly this, cannot leave NATO formally without two thirds of the Senate signing up for that, which seems unlikely. But of course, whether or not the US Responds to an emergency is entirely in the gift of the commander in chief, that is President Trump. So does everyone else have to start thinking that the US has effectively left?

C (14:20)

Well, I was having a conversation with a, a very senior former military officer in the last few days about this. And certainly from their point of view, that is the sort of view that seems to be forming. Yes. I mean, you know, the very basic, simple psychological underpinning of this is that in order to work in a situation where you have treaties, you have to have some sense of keeping to a promise of reciprocity, of there being something beyond your own personal needs and wants and whims. And Trump fundamentally doesn't think like that. I mean, he is absolutely famous. He is absolutely. Not only is he zero sum, but he's not even logically zero sum. Zero sum comes from game theory. He's not a theoretical guy. He's very impulsive and instinctive. So, yes, he may very well butt up against that restriction. And coming out of a treaty generally is not particularly easy. But there's the de jure, the de facto of it. If he starts to behave as though America's not in NATO, as you say, given his considerable power as commander in chief, it then starts to devolve down to how does the Pentagon conduct itself, how does the military conduct itself? Do they start sacking generals who are resisting? So I think it's very hard to see how you sustain it if you don't have at least a modicum of basic goodwill, which seems to be going

B (15:35)

Rachel Secretary General Ruta has come in for an amount of criticism, indeed ridicule, not just in the last few days, but in the last year, and a bit for his somewhat oleaginous approach to President Trump. I don't honestly get the sense that Rutte enjoys this, but does he actually have a choice? He is somebody desperately trying to hold this alliance together, and he is desperately also trying not to be the secretary general on whose watch the whole thing fell to bits.

D (16:07)

I mean, it's not that different from Keir Starmer's approach to Donald Trump, which is we don't want to have to work with this guy. He is the guy we have to work with. And therefore we will try and work with him on his terms, and we will try and use flattery, we will try and appeal to his ego, we will try to use language that chimes with him in order to get what we want, which is the US to remain a steadfast NATO partner. And in the case of Keir Starmer and other European leaders, to provide more support to Ukraine, which I'll come back to in a moment because I think actually Russia and Ukraine is really key here. So I can understand what Rutte is doing here. And I don't think he really has a choice because it's not like he can go, well, fine, if you don't want to be part of NATO, NATO doesn't want you. I do think the the future prospects of the alliance look pretty bleak, considering before we even get to Iran. It was only a couple of months ago that Trump was talking about invading a NATO country itself in the form of Greenland, talking about it again, prospect

B (17:15)

he has raised again in the last couple of days. I do want to come back to that as well. But before we do, Phil, it is probably reasonable to note that more than 40 countries have, in fact offered to help with the Strait of Hormuz, although there are significant strings attached, possibly emblematic. Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would back a mission to open the strait and keep it open, but he wants a UN Security Council resolution backing him up, something I think he's well aware is unlikely. Not for the first or I'm sure the last time I am put in mind of a line from, yes, Prime Minister, is this the political tactic known as offering every assistance short of hand help?

C (17:58)

I mean, it may be, but it's also not unreasonable to want to put some caveats into situations. The problem with Trump sort of blundering around in the geopolitical environment is it starts to normalize that sort of behavior just by force majeure. But, no, it's absolutely fair enough to insist on caveats. So, I mean, you do, and it is pretty limited. I mean, you do have stories of American pilots sort of taking go pills to kind of do the extra flight time that they have to do because it's hard for them to refuel. They're not allowed to refuel in places that ideally they would and Trump would like them to. But there's a separate thing, though, about the death of NATO that I want to just touch on briefly, which is, I think one thing this brings up is this slight misconception about how NATO began. And I think not only in Europe, but also on the left, there is this sort of misconception, and it's a slight sort of America is the only country with agency. The idea that this is something that was foisted on reluctant Europeans is quite the opposite of the truth. And so, you know, the fact that you have America now talking about pulling out does go back to the origins of it in the first place. The point of NATO, Ernie Bevin's whole project was to do what America achieve, what had never been achieved before, which is to keep America in Europe, which it didn't stay after the First World War. It had stayed out of Europe the whole period before that. So the fact that this is now coming to an end does speak to where it began.

B (19:15)

Well, as the first Secretary General, the Baroness may put it, the purpose of NATO was to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down. But just times have changed somewhat. But just to return briefly, Rachel, to Greenland, how worried should Europe be be that that bee has started buzzing in his bonnet again?

D (19:37)

I mean, who knows when it comes to the inner workings of Donald Trump's mind, I don't think it ever went away. I think he's looked at A map and just decided that it should be part of the us. And I think he's also worked out that it gives him leverage, which potentially it does. But I think we've got to start thinking of the US as being not hostile to Europe's interests, but completely disinterested. And some of them, in some senses, you would say hostile. And therefore we go back to the perennial conversation about European countries funding their own defence, which we all agree needs to happen, but then we get stuck in the well, how and who's going to provide the money?

B (20:17)

Well, on the subject of people funding their own defence to Toronto, that was smooth. To Toronto and to yet further evidence for the bleak proposition that one of the things most prized by the wealthy, perhaps even the reason they wish to become wealthy in place, is distance from the riff raff. The fancy neighborhood of Rosedale is stumping for funds to establish what is being called a virtual gated community, an AI powered surveillance system that will scan the license plates of passing vehicles. This would work in conjunction with the private security guards already paid to patrol the area. Rachel, first of all, are similar discussions happening in your fancy gated community?

D (20:58)

Yes, every day. No, actually, there is actually an equivalent, which is, sadly, there was an assault that happened near where I live and the police are appealing to people who live on the street for their ring doorbell footage. And I thought that was interesting just how ubiquitous, firstly, ubiquitous ring doorbells have become, but also how we've all kind of got used to the idea that these cameras are everywhere and that AI, you know, is already being used in law enforcement proceedings. And I don't think I'd real. I got that announcement in my local area. It's a long way away from this virtual gated community idea though. And I have to say, it really freaks me out. And what particularly freaks me out is how easy they want to make it. You know, like you can feel very safe. These cameras will scan number plates, they'll have a green list, they'll have a red list. You don't have to worry, they'll alert the police immediately. And I think you get sucked into the sense that, yes, you are trading some degree of civil liberty for security, but the security will be worth it. And you don't think about the consequences of, well, hang on, if they can do that with cars, what else can they do it with? And who decides what's a green list and a red list? And where might this go in the future?

B (22:14)

Well, exactly that, Phil, because, I mean, it's arguable that Londoners Certainly should be more used to this sort of idea than most people. We are among the most surveilled people on earth. And that has been the case for a while. Does one more layer of this sort of thing make any difference?

C (22:33)

I think it does, and I think it's partly because of the involvement of private companies and the way that they. And we're used to this in all sorts of areas of life in Britain, where we're particularly good at this as well, of outsourcing from one company to the next to the next. Now every point there's another shift, there's a drop in responsibility, there's a sort of gap. And so what's happening with this company Flock, which is doing this, is they say, well, it's not up to us to police the police whilst giving the data or their services to the police, who then share them, naturally, even though police services are obviously local in the United States, where they primarily operate. And then that data is given to ice and there's all sorts of surprise, surprise, all sorts of cases of abuse by the police as well, of people using this. So, no, I mean, I think it's one thing to have surveillance that is on the sort of model that we've seen in Britain for the last three decades or so of CCTV cameras. This is because of the technology and also because of the heavier involvement of the private sector. I think this is much harder to control and the sense of it sort of the sense also that it's connected to. To the future and you have to just embrace this or you're being a Luddite, which is really insidious and surrounds all debates about AI, seems to have crept into this as well. So now I do think it's more dangerous. I mean, I'm with Rachel on this. I think it fills me with horror.

B (23:46)

I mean, is it also somewhat theatrical, though? Because just thinking what you were saying about police in your area, appealing for doorbell footage and so on, all of this stuff does presuppose or asks people to invest in the idea that if some sort of alert is issued to the local constabulary, they will actually turn up. Which I can tell you from where I live in London has. Has not been the experience of me and my neighbours.

D (24:13)

Well, that's a really interesting question, because one of the reasons that the residents in this story are open to the idea is because they don't think that the police have been active enough when there have been security risks. So you sort of have a sense where the private companies step in to fill a perceived gap in policing. But that also then requires more police time as well. I think it depends how good the AI scanning of it all is, how good the pattern recognition is, how joined up it can be. And one of the disturbing things for me, reading a bit more about Flock and how it works and how it has worked in other parts of the US rather than Canada, is that the police may have it say we want to keep residents safe or we want to, you know, track stolen vehicles or whatever, but individual police officers can then use it for just stalking individual citizens, which has happened. And the lack of accountability that Phil mentioned means you don't have a sense of which police officers are using this for which purposes. So I think it kind of cuts both ways.

B (25:16)

Well, now to the happy prospect of the first airborne seat clearing brawl prompted by the righteous desire to visit richly merited vengeance upon sociopathic morons braying into their phones. British Airways and Aer Lingus have gamely agreed to host. This, at least, is what may be reasonably inferred from their inexplicable announcement that they will allow passengers to make voice and video calls in flight with their new Starlink powered onboard WI fi. The two airlines are outliers. Most of their competitors warn passengers off such behavior, although disappointingly, none as of this recording, punish it by pushing offenders out of an Emergency exit at 35,000ft. Rachel, who on earth wants this?

D (25:59)

Ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it.

B (26:01)

Yeah, yeah, he's.

D (26:02)

Well, the way. The way, you know, people don't want it is if you thought people wanted it, you would have a separate section of the airline where people could do it and you charge them more for it. That would be if you thought there was actually a market for it. The fact that they're not doing that shows that they know that people do not want this.

B (26:18)

Phil, this. One of the many things that. I think one of the many drawbacks of mobile telephony etc is that it has given people a vastly inflated sense of their own importance. I have nothing to say to anybody that cannot wait a few hours. And I think that is true of about 99.9% of humanity. Does anybody actually miss anything if they can't actually go online for however long the flight takes?

C (26:45)

I think it's even worse than that. I think there's something about the fact you can't do that which adds to the specialness of flying. Actually. It's just, you know, it's quite a simple and sort of almost sentimental thing, but the idea that you just have this zone where you are a in the sky. But also you're cut off from all of that nonsense for a bit is actually a benefit. And what this speaks to, I think it's actually quite similar to the neighborhood flock nonsense we were just talking about is the very weird because obviously Starlink is Elon Musk, right this very.

B (27:14)

He just finds new and better ways to get more annoying, doesn't he?

C (27:17)

Yeah, Silicon Valley attitude to limits. You know, there shouldn't be any limits on my sense of security. Even if that puts limits on your sense of, on your civil liberties. There shouldn't be any limits on my desire to make a phone call or God forbid, do a video call in the middle of a flight, you know, even if that puts, you know, impacts on other people. And it just absolutely speaks to a kind of really teenage, naive, stupid, selfish, you know, bratty way of thinking about technology, which is completely uncivic. It's completely selfish. And you know, the idea that airlines would embrace it. Again, coming back to what I was saying before, just because it's new, just because you can there's all sorts of things you could do doesn't mean you should do them. It's really, really basic human conduct comparison.

D (27:58)

Compare it to smoking on, on planes and they always say, you know, smoking is not permitted anywhere on this aircraft at all. Some people would probably like to smoke or vape on a plane. You can't. That is a decision the bargain you make when you buy the plane ticket.

B (28:12)

I mean, which is a fair point because this makes it even weirder because we are used to being. When we are on an airplane, we are more tightly regulated than we are in any other environment. And for, you know, I think what most people would agree are perfectly sensible reasons. I do want to close then by like putting you both briefly in charge of your own airline. Go absolutely hog wild. Rachel. First, what petty rules and regulations would you impose upon your passengers by way of guideline? Obviously everybody has to check in all their bags. On my airline you can bring on board, I'm going to say a boat book.

D (28:50)

Ah, see, see. I think that airlines should sell the number of tickets that they have space for the appropriately sized cabin bag for. And if you don't have space for the cabin bags, don't sell the tickets. Don't do the thing where you charge people to check in luggage. Get everyone to take a little sort of small mini case and then at the gate, then make them check that mini case just for the fun of it. So I, I think that would be, that would be.1 0.2 would be, I think two different aisles of the aircraft. Aircraft. One of them the seats go back, the other one they don't. You can choose where you sit but you get rid of the arguments that way.

B (29:26)

I, I have, I have firm views upon seat recliners, especially on short flights. Those, those people are the umbrella users of the sky. Sociopaths to a man. Phil, what, what would you prevent?

C (29:38)

Well, at the risk of being an appalling communist, which is something obviously I try and avoid wherever possible, I do think that the, I mean one of the things that this story reminded me of is just the way that seats are getting more and more cramped. Particularly airlines on internal flights in the United States are kind of constantly gouging to push more and more people onto the flights to make them more profitable. So I would just stop doing that. I just think you should be able to fly in reasonable comfort and if that means restricting first class and having a slightly more egalitarian layout in the plane, then that would be better. But I also fully support both of Rachel's messages which seem very wise to me.

D (30:12)

Also get people to board from the back of the plane for first.

C (30:15)

Yeah.

D (30:15)

Which is just a common sense one.

B (30:18)

Sensible policies for a happier nation. Rachel. I'll never catch on and fool Tinline. Thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, here is Monocle's Sarah Benser with a letter from Budapest.

A (30:38)

The year 2014 is a significant, significant one for the Hungarian diaspora. This was when Viktor Orban won re election as Prime Minister for a second consecutive term, his third overall. Following pleas from relatives and teachers for my parents to seek a better future abroad, our family left Hungary shortly afterwards. I have met many countries compatriots who also left that year. Many young people have only known Hungary as it has been under Orban's increasingly autocratic rule. As parliamentary elections approach on Sunday 12 April, the country's voters are gearing up for a pivotal moment. According to opinion polls, Orban's far right fittest party seems to be on the way out after 16 years in power. A major difference from previous elections is that the opposition has coalesced around a single party in figure. Tisa Party, short for Tistelati Sabaag, which means respect and freedom, was started just two years ago and is currently on track to win with a 2/3 parliamentary majority. Led by Peter Modjar, an ex fidest loyalist, its opposition represents Orban's most serious challenger to date. It's rather a movement, the movement of

C (32:00)

the vast majority of the Hungarian people against corruption, lies, propaganda, autocracy.

A (32:09)

My family remains deeply connected to those at home, with regular visits that have instilled in my brother and I a deep love for our culture and our roots. We, amongst many other young people who have left the country, are constantly seeking out pieces of home abroad. Music and literature events, community meetups where the topic frequently revolves around our country's politics. Despite maintaining pride for my country, I hadn't attended any official National Day celebrations in more than 14 years. I couldn't bring myself to stand at occasions that seemed to have been claimed by Orban and his regime. That changed. Last month, alongside almost quarter of a million fellow Hungarians, I attended commemorations in Budapest organized by TiSA to mark the anniversary of the 1848 revolution against the Habsburg rule. One half of the city thronged with people wearing revolution era red, white and green ribbons. There was a palpable sense of change in the air. Bolstering the positive vibe is the fact that a record number of the diaspora has registered to vote via post or in the country's overseas consulates. Most of us are either longing to return or have family at home whose futures we deeply care about. For people in similar situations to mine, observing the country from afar, it has been heartbreaking to watch it attain bogeyman status under Orban. The fact that Hungary has become one of the EU's poorest and most corrupt nations, repeatedly standing alone and recalcitrant against its neighbors, has contributed to steady population decline over the past 10 years. More than 600,000 Hungarians have left Western Europe, mirroring the darkest days of communist rule following the failed 1956 uprising. At least one in two young people are looking to leave. With the majority of my friends now spread across Berlin, London, Milan, Barcelona and Lisbon, not necessarily by chance choice, but because anyone who belongs to minority or thinks differently risks being penalized. This is felt most acutely by those that are at their most vulnerable being manipulated as the regime tightens its grip. Those who remain are rewarded for political affiliation, not merit. Prizes and funding are handed out to those who remain loyal to the government, not those that have made genuine contributions to the nation at the time. Same same time there are too few career opportunities for a skilled young professional to make it worthwhile to remain, or in my case, to return. Of course, there's still a chance that Orban will Triumph again on 12th April. Even if this happens, it's essential that Hungary re establishes something that it has sorely the principle that no one party or power person should govern unchecked. A functioning democracy is not measured by who holds office, but by its ability to enact reform from within and to pass power to a fairly elected successor. Whoever emerges victorious needs to recognize this and begin to arrest the country's democratic decline. In recent years, I've become deeply invested in a small Hungarian town called Sigetonostor, where I spent many summers in as a child and where I'm currently renovating my grandparents summer house. I often said, only half jokingly, that I would like to run for mayor there, but whether I could return to pursue such a career depends on whether Hungary can resurrect its democracy. The futures of many people who wish to return to their homeland are tied up in this Sunday's result.

B (36:02)

Thank you, Sarah. That is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Rachel Cunliffe and Phil Tinline. Today's show was produced by Hassan Anderson and researched by Josefina Astra Nagla Gomez. Our sound engineer was Lily Austin. I'm Andrew Mullet here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.

D (36:24)

Sa.