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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 27 March 2026 on Monaco Radio.
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Iran remains disinclined to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Can anyone make them? Should tourists be charged more than locals? And if you can't trust the online reviews of funeral directors, what can you trust? 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 Bertieu Ersherlik and Quentin Peel will discuss today's big stories and we'll have our weekly wrap up of what we've learned. 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 Bertu Ershelich, a senior research fellow, Middle east security at rusi, and by Quentin Peel, journalist and regular Monocle Radio contributor. Hello to you both.
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A
Hello.
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C
Hello.
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B
Quentin, I put it to you, and I know this for a fact because you told me about 10 minutes ago, not only have you recently attended a performance of musical theatre, you found the experience broadly tolerable. Please explain.
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C
It was about going to hell.
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B
Well, okay, this is pretty much my idea of musical theatre. So far, so.
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C
Well, I was encouraged to go by my son's partner and girlfriend who loves musicals, and I thought, well, we'll give it a go. It's called Hadestown. Fantastic show, wonderful music. I mean, it is. It's about Orpheus and Eurydice. So it's a rather sad story about a bloke who loses his girlfriend. Having said that, the music is great. You. You absolutely. Blows you away. So I rather enjoyed it.
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B
Okay, four stars. Quentin Peel. The Monocle Daily will be appearing on their posters in due course. See how seamless we can make this? I know you have been virtue to Ankara. Did you happen to. To a musical while you were in town?
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I did not. I'm sorry to disappoint and I don't know how to top that, but it was a. It was a good trip, a productive trip. I had delayed travel to Turkey for some time, given what's going on in the neighborhood. Out of some concern that I might not be able to make it back. But Turkish airspace has not been impacted yet. But I shouldn't jinx that. But yes, in Ankara. Returned a few days ago.
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B
For our listeners who may be curious, because I think when people travel to Turkey, they tend to either pick on the beaches and not Unreasonably or Istanbul? Again, not unreasonably. It's fabulous. Is there an argument for going to Ankara if you've just got like three or four days and you fancy going to Turkey?
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I'm digging real deep into my. I'm trying to make a strong case. It's calm, it's well ordered and organized relative to Istanbul. If you do not, where isn't.
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Well, true, true.
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There you go. See, I have failed already miserably to make a case for it. But it is the nation's proud capital and the center of its history.
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Well, we will start in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf pinch point through which an inconvenient proportion of the world's energy needs are serviced. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, who appear increasingly to be making such decisions, have announced that the strait is closed and that, quote, harsh measures will befall any shipping which takes its chances. The IRGC have, however, permitted themselves an amount of wiggle room, clarifying that it is shipping to and from ports of allies and supporters of the Israeli American enemies which is prohibited. Bertra, does anyone not fit that description? Are there people who will be trying to read between the lines there and think, I think we might be all right?
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Hardly. It's highly uncertain. The Iranian regime is using its strongest point of leverage and pressure. This was coming. It's not unexpected that Iran is blocking the Strait of Hormuz or asserting sovereignty over it. In this sense, initially it was a de facto control. Now there's been a harsher statement about closure. There's also been reports that certain vessels or flag carrying vessels, those deemed to be friendly to Iran, have been permitted to make that passage contingent on the paying of a rather large fee. Effectively, Iran then has set up a de facto tall booth along the strait, and that's caused massive global ripple effects and disruption. So the question now is, what can be done to roll this back?
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I mean, can Iran play this game forever, though, Quentin? Because there are overland pipelines across Saudi Arabia. There's the Abu Dhabi Oman one, there's the Iraq Turkey one. Like everybody, I have become an instant expert on the subject of gas and oil transport. It is my understanding that the combined total of all of those is about half the capacity of Hormuz. But it might make Iran's leverage slightly less of a thing.
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C
Well, its leverage is still pretty substantial. And it's not just gas and oil. It's also fertilizer and food. You're really talking about massive disruption of global food markets. And, you know, the Greatest disruption in global trade. I think the Secretary General of the WTO we'll come back to was saying for 80 years. It is quite extraordinary. This is very difficult and I think utterly underestimated by Israel and the Americans in launching this whole exercise, the degree to which that they could actually manipulate the Strait of Hormuz.
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B
Because there is, I guess, as well, Bertu, a possible game. And a well game seems the wrong word of bluff and counter bluff that goes on here in that it is apparently feared in some circles that were traffic through those pipelines to be stepped up, pipelines are not hard to hit, and Iran might therefore set about those.
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A
Well, that's exactly right. There are alternatives, as you said, but they are limited. They're vulnerable to exploitation, and they are vulnerable to being struck by drones, which have proven to be a persistent problem that we saw in Ukraine continue to see and now most certainly see in Iran. There's the option of turning increasingly to overland ground transportation. But again, these pale in comparison to the overwhelming, overwhelming dependency really, on passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So this is a significant problem, but it's also one that should not have come as a surprise because it's been war gamed and rehearsed in various scenarios for decades. Back in the 1980s, Iran had made it very clear and in fact did conduct what became known as the Tanker Wars. So the issue was there. Big question is why did it. Why was it allowed to escalate to this level? And does this point to poor planning, poor foresight on the part of the United States and Israel?
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Well, on the subject of escalation, Quentin, there are, of course, still reports that the United States is sending more actual troops to the vicinity. Elements of the 82nd Airborne Division to Marine Expeditionary Units. Is that just theatrics as military manoeuvres can be because you're trying to demonstrate your seriousness to an adversary? Or does this seem like something they might actually instruct to go ahead if they can't think of anything else?
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C
When they were building up all their forces right at the beginning of this whole thing, I was inclined to think it was all theatrics. I thought they wouldn't be mad enough to do this. The Strait of Hormuz is a stranglehold on global trade, and I was wrong. Now, am I wrong to say this is all theatrics now? The trouble with somebody like Donald Trump in the White House is it is extraordinarily unpredictable. And I think, okay, that's part of his negotiating tactic with the Iranians that they don't know either. Is he suddenly going to throw a whole lot of Marines ashore? But that does not go well for him politically back home. He doesn't want dead bodies coming home.
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Yeah. According to recent polling, 59% of Americans already think this whole escapade is a bad idea and, or excessive.
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C
Yeah. Which is extraordinary. Therefore, that he, he, he's so bloody minded that he's gone ahead with it. He seems to think that in a very curious way, it is all a war game itself rather than war.
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My own suspicion, Bertu, is that he was told that it would be extremely easy all over very quickly and would make him look wonderful. But that hasn't happened, at least not yet. From where we are sitting, if we don't like the idea or don't think it will even work, of sending troops ashore on Carg island or other islands or Iran proper. Does the United States have any other options? Are they in this so deep that it would not be possible for Trump just to say, well, we've won, we've made our point, let's all go home. I'm great.
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Well, again, it's so hard to predict what Trump might do. One point, though, that's important is it's not just up to President Trump. Iran also has a say, as he's described. Yes, as he's discovered, as well as the Gulf states, the GCC monarchies, who have suffered greatly the consequences of the decision to go to war with Iran. There is a growing fragmentation within the GCC with respect to whether to join the effort against Iran to take offensive action. They have been on the defensive posturing front thus far. But the UAE in particular has really suffered hard strikes against its civilian infrastructure, energy. So has Qatar and Saudi Arabia, all of the GCC countries, including even Oman, although to a much lesser degree. So the point being that any type of security agreement that is to emerge in the aftermath of this war, but short of that, in the immediate period, any type of ceasefire or secession of hostilities agreement must, I think, also include the GCC country. So it's not going to be only up to Trump and whoever he decides can be his counterpart inside Iran. But the GCC countries are being very vocal in making demands about their right to be part of that process.
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Well, to Yayunde now, where trade ministers from all over are spending the weekend in the Cameroonian Capital at the 14th World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference. This may be somewhat less excruciatingly dreary than usual, if for reasons nobody will be much enjoying the WTO like many transnational enterprises, presently trembles beneath a sword of Damocles. If one imagines not so much a sword as a roly poly game show host inexplicably elevated by American voters to earth's most powerful office, officially or otherwise. Somewhere near the top of the agenda will be the question, can we do without the United States? And if so, how? Quentin, what would be your estimation of how advanced the panic will be?
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I think the mood is going to be really gloomy and I think partly because the Americans have made it perfectly clear that they do want to undermine the organization. They really, in Trump's first administration, they basically pulled out of the whole appellate system, which it depends on where people can appeal against wrongful trade actions. And now they're going for the most favored nation principle, which means that if you give somebody a good deal, everybody's got to get the same deal. Trump does not want that to happen. And that is really fundamental to the wto. So here we see an organization who's, in a way, whose fundamental values are being challenged by the Americans. Have they got the guts, the rest of them, to stand up and say we can do it without the Americans if necessary? The trouble is it's all obviously overshadowed by what's happening in the Gulf. So, you know, is this the moment where everybody really stands up to the Americans? Well, they are pretty horrified by what's happening and what Trump is doing. But having said that, I just don't see the WTO moving fast in any direction. It's a very slow moving multilateral organization, 166 members who seldom seem to have able to agree. And it's not just the Americans who actually undermine. So you've got a country like India which has for years been also undermining the double.
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There are some suggestions that the European Union and those countries bracketed beneath the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership, the absolutely hopeless acronym cptpp. I mean, you can't say that out loud. You need something snappy like EU or NATO. But there's some sort of thought that they will get together to try and forge some sort of rules based trade order doing an end run around the United States. Is that going to work, though? I mean, I know this is an idea that so many organizations are now having. Can we do without this country, but can they?
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That's the big question, isn't it? And this will be a test case of what is possible and what isn't. The limitations of trying to go it alone without the United States. It's important because basically what we're going through right now in this era of great power politics is a sharp offensive against consensus driven multilateralism. That's what really this is about. And that's at the heart of the international order and to be able to protect the values that are enshrined in that order. And it is, you know, this is a whole nother discussion. Its various shortcomings and deficiencies and hypocrisy. Yes, of course. But it is under attack by the White House at the moment. And this isn't just the wto. It's NATO, it's the European Union, it's certainly the United Nations. And what Trump appears to be trying to do is create alternative or parallel institutions in his own vision. Consider, for example, what he created in the Middle east, the Board of Peace. Right, to try to resolve the issue
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in Palestine of which we sadly hear so little these days.
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Well, exactly.
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I'm very interested to see what the Chinese are going to do in Yaounde because China actually now full member of the wto, the target obviously of quite a lot of what the Americans are trying to do in trying to undermine the organization. But I think China will want to get together with as many other countries and so on and say this is an organization that we want to keep working. We're the good guys, eh? We're the ones in favor of the rule of law. So watch for China. And rather embarrassingly, in some ways, I think the Cameroonians in the chair of the meeting have actually managed probably in trying to please China, to completely alienate Taiwan, who they apparently referred to as a province of China. As a result, Taiwan is boycotting the meeting. Wasn't a very good start to the whole exercise, but nonetheless, I would say
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watch China, Bertra, just finally on this, because I know it is a question that various members of such organizations are asking themselves with possibly increasing denial and desperation. Is there any kind of opportunity here for these places or these institutions to remake themselves if the United States has checked out? This was the gist, of course, of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, talking about how middle powers had to find a way to work amongst themselves if we were going to live in a world in which the real behemoths like the United States, China and Russia were just not going to be bound by anything.
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The question is one of enforcement. I think these kinds of statements, these lofty statements are inspirational or aspirational. But the question then becomes, who is the power, if not the Great power, the greatest power to then enforce these principles and agreements and frameworks. I think we're most certainly in the throes of a very rapidly shifting global order. We've been talking about the rise of multipolarity for some time, but we're seeing now what that looks like in the competition, the push and pull, how uncomfortable that is in the day to day, in the everyday, even for the average person across the globe. So I think we might see a greater shift towards regionalism, which is part of what middle powers might be more accustomed to working or navigating in that type of ecosystem. Navigating a smaller subset of alliances that are highly interest driven. Enforcement is more straightforward because they are rule bound. There is some type of collective action or punishment for those who fall outside of that what the agreement is. But it's very much a system that's right now in flux. It's fluid. And the rules are being both tested and remade in real time.
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And when the rules are being tested by the single largest and most powerful economy in the world, it's hell of a difficult to stand up against that. Because if you say no, no, but the rules count and the Americans simply ignore them, then you're in trouble.
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Well, here in the United Kingdom, suggestions that visitors to some British museums, very much including the British Museum, may have to contribute more bey beyond whatever change they feel like dropping in the bucket as they leave. All national museums and galleries in England have been free to enter since 2001. But a scheme is being toyed with whereby the permanent collections remain free for locals, but tourists are obliged to cough up the cash would be steered towards a generally somewhat struggling UK arts sector. Quentin, the first thing that occurs to me here is one of the admin. Would you be able to convincingly prove that you were a resident of these islands if challenged by a museum attendant?
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I just opened my mouth.
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However, this voice is my passport.
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I confess I think that's really rather difficult. I mean, I do totally understand the idea that maybe to have them completely free as they are at the moment is ending up with them almost sort of swamped with visitors. I was just at the British Museum last weekend going to see the Samurai exhibition and one it was in stygian darkness so that I suppose the light doesn't damage the ancient artifacts. So I kept bumping into more and more people because it was so crowded and it's actually quite difficult.
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Was this a paid exhibition?
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Yes, it was. So the truth is. But nonetheless, I mean, what have we just seen? We've seen that the biggest tourist attraction in Britain is the Natural History Museum, and the second biggest is the British Museum. And they're getting literally millions of people flooding here. And so I think it would be very reasonable as long as the price is set, you know, not at the sort of level that some of our churches and our cathedrals are demanding 20 quid to go and see St Paul's but five pounds or something like that would be a perfectly reasonable amount.
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Because there's an argument here, Bertra, that this is a kind of barely noticeable levy, much like the room taxes that some European capitals are charging. The thinking being that, look, if somebody has spent whatever it costs to spend three nights in Paris or Milan, they're not going to object all that much to another three quid a night or whatever it is on their hotel bill. And that all starts to add up quite quickly. As a general principle, though, do you like the idea that the locals should just be entitled to swan in and enjoy it for free or. And again, Quentin, it has to be said about the British Museum in particular, could not a few of those foreigners be entitled to say, well, hang on, that's our stuff in there?
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Yeah, that's a very, very good point. I mean, I'm not in favor of this for a number of reasons. I understand the need to fund arts and cultural programs. That is absolutely right. I'm not sure that this is the most appropriate way to do it. It's not efficient, potentially for the admin reason that you pointed to. But it's also a matter of looking as though there's some type of, yes, informal discrimination, this divide between the locals and the internationals. What about the artifacts that are on display? There is the legacy question and ownership, but also about more at home in the uk Access to these very valuable historic sites is, I think, an assertion of soft power. And that matters greatly for the way in which Britain and these various sites are presented to the outside world. And it represents certain values, doesn't it? It about show clicks, showcasing, about displaying these artifacts, being open minded, inviting inclusionary society. Again, there will be counterarguments to all those points. Fair. But I don't think this is the best way to go about trying to find new sources of funding or.
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C
The British Museum's been quite clever in recent years at organizing exhibitions very much focused on whether it's China or Japan or the Middle east. And really, therefore, for encouraging people from those countries to come and see the stuff and really enjoy their exhibitions and the fact that they've been, you know, okay, there is a price in going to a special exhibition, but nonetheless it's worked really pretty well. So having said that, I think it is a wonderful bonus that we have there, but I think to go in completely free is for everybody, including Brits. I think we should pay too. I don't see why it should be only tourists.
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Well, to prove that there is little limit to the chicanery businesses will perpetrate in order to create a favourable impression online here in the uk, the Competition and Markets Authority has launched investigations into several companies suspected of having done an insufficient, if not downright unsatisfactory amount to address bogus online reviews. One allegedly miscreant endeavour is the funeral wrangler Dignity. The CMA is looking at whether Dignity asked its staff to write positive reviews of its cremation services to. To create the impression that people were simply dying to use them. Yes, I worked on that all afternoon. Bertieu, has this revelation caused you to doubt the 4.8 stars that Dignity has on Trustpilot?
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It has. It's worrying actually, because if you can't trust a funeral service, then what can you trust? As you said at the top of the hour, I mean, you wouldn't expect that type of, that type of dishonesty from them. It was quite worrying when I looked into this in terms of what actually lies behind it and the mishandling of deceased. Yeah. So it's quite concerning, actually. Not as light hearted a story as I had initially anticipated.
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See, to be clear to our listeners, Quentin, I did not spend all afternoon writing one really quite, quite poor Christmas cracker joke. I did, however, end up spending quite a lot of the afternoon down the rabbit hole of online reviews for funeral directors, because who on earth would think to write such a thing? But Dignity, I will say, and I assume this is a genuine review because it's only two stars and I quote, the funeral director seemed jolly, which was unsettling. Would that, would that put you off? I wouldn't mind a jolly funeral director. I mean, there's a limit. I don't want the bloke wearing sort of big red shoes and a red. And you know, with a kind of lapel flower that squirts water.
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C
But you, you do want somebody. I mean, this, you know, cremation is really a very sad and, and rather depressing occasion and you want cremated. Quentin somehow provides perhaps not jolliness but charm or politeness and, you know, to get it right. But I must say, it just goes back to the fact that I don't trust any of these Write ups on, you know, whether it's absolutely Airbnb or, or whatever other thing it is online. I'm very cautious and the more enthusiastic, the more I'm likely to think it's somebody in the family.
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But should you pay any attention to online reviews of anything? Have you in fact ever left an online review of anything?
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I have not left an online review.
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B
Not even of a funeral director maybe
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unhelpfully so there have been negative experiences that I have had as a consumer. However, I have not, not then gone on my phone to write a negative review. Oh, that's when I really, I don't really derive much pleasure from that. But I do remember reading online reviews that were really well written. I remember there was sort of a social moment, maybe a trend where there was creative writing that went into, and some thought that went into reviews on Amazon for various random products.
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B
Well, there were also review threads that became all almost like works of collaborative folk art. Quentin and I did go looking for one earlier and Amazon unfortunately appear to have taken it all down. And I'm not sure the product exists anymore. But there are online some write ups of it and many years ago somebody for some reason was advertising on Amazon a small print of Paul Ross, the sort of C list British TV presenter. And I think people just became so fascinated with the, the fact of this object's existence. Anyway, hundreds of reviews were written, this picture of Paul Ross by people who I'm sure never actually bought one. I, I can imagine that it did quite well in Secret Santas that year, but it's, it's all gone. And it, it, and it was as, as Bertie was suggesting, rather joyful.
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Oh, well, that's nice then. I, I don't spend long enough to do it. Although I must admit reading comments on articles, this was something when I used to write articles in a print newspaper, I wasn't used to getting comments. Never read comments online. Don't read the comments. I totally agree. However, there was one the other day on an obituary on Jurgen Habermas, wonderful German philosopher who believed in participatory democracy. And suddenly the comments came alive because they were talking to each other in an example of participatory democracy. Wonderful.
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I would like in conclusion to give a shout out to whoever left a one star review of one of my books on Amazon with the comment, it isn't even a novel, mate. I never said it was. Bertu Ersherlich and Quentin Peel, thank you both for joining us. You are listening the Daily with me, Andrew Muller. And finally on Today's show our weekly assessment of how much the wiser the last seven days have left us. We learned this week, and not for the first time, that if you really want to know how things are going to pan out in the near term, you could do a great deal worse than tune in weekly to this the what We Learned news review on Monocle Radio every Friday, because as will already have been learned by morbidly attentive listeners,
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like there's any other kind who would
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sooner strangle their own cat than miss a single instalment. We posited last week that US Secretary of Defense, who thinks he is Secretary of War but isn't, and people should stop calling him that, Pete Hegseth had all the makings of a fall guy should current American endeavors in the Middle east continue deviating from the plan to the apparently limited extent that there ever was one. And we learned this week just how perspicacious we were.
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D
Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up and you said, let's do it because you can't let them have a nuclear weapon.
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B
We learned of this portent of Hegseth's wretchedly inevitably ushering beneath the bus amid one of those extreme normal gatherings convened regularly by US President Donald Trump, at which his various oleaginous underlings queue up to tell him how bloody marvellous he is. We will be needing the studio gong and the mallet. Hit it. Thank you. Well, first and most importantly, thank you to President Trump, whose vision and courage and determination has achieved something that if you had predicted it 15 months ago, people would have said it was impossible. If you next. I'm living the wildest dream you could possibly imagine, sir. But it's thanks to you. There was a goodly deal more where this came from. But we learned that while visiting Tennessee, as indeed he was, the president had other priorities.
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D
You know, I'm going to see Graceland after this, I think. Is that right? I love Elvis.
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B
Well, who doesn't?
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C
Yeah.
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Yeah. We learned once the presidential motorcade had dropped him off at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard that there was one thing Trump can indisputably do better than his predecessor.
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D
You never know. These are hard to sign, but they came out pretty good.
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A
Is that the first guitar you signed?
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D
Just about. Now, Biden couldn't do that. He'd have to send it out pretty soon.
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But we learned that amid discharging these vital duties of a wartime commander in chief. And who can forget Harry Truman enjoying the Coney Island Mirror Maze during the Battle of Okinawa. Something. Something about Graceland was prompting in its visitor a certain reflective melancholy.
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C
Would you imagine someday, in the very distant future, people making a similar pilgrimage
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B
to Mar a Lago?
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D
Well, I don't know. It's something I could never say, which
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B
was pretty strange when you think about it as Graceland and Mar a Lago are obviously very, very different places. 1, Yes, the Gordy Mansion, called home by a bloated, bequeathed personification of American decadence, who spent his twilight days screaming at the television while an entourage of unctuous supplicants cleaned up his messes. And the other is where Elvis Presley lived. We learned, however, that it was perfectly okay for the President to be interrupting his golf by visiting chintzy tourist attractions while the country was. Was at war, because it was all going just tremendously well. Yes, it's.
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D
It's a perfect, amazing thing. And furthermore, you know, I don't like to say this. We've won this with this war has been won.
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B
And we learned that even that wasn't all.
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D
They're going to make a deal. They did something yesterday that was amazing, actually. They gave us a presentation and the President arrived today, and it was a very big president, worth a tremendous amount of money. And I'm not going to tell you what that president is, but it was a very significant prize.
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B
We have not learned, as of this recording, exactly what said present was, but would earnestly counsel President Trump that if it is or in any way resembles a lie, large wooden horse, do not, repeat, not, haul it inside the gates. We learned, however, that others amidst or adjacent to the US Administration were pondering Plan B, specifically the seizure of Hag island, the Iranian oil port lodged near the top of the Persian Gulf. We got two Marine Expeditionary Units sailing to this island. We did. Iwo Jima. We can do this. From which we learned that Senator Lindsey Graham, for it was, he may possess an incomplete comprehension of the Pacific theatre of the Second World War. For we learned, when we troubled to look it up, that the seizure of Iwo Jima, which is about 1200 kilometres further from Japan than Hag island is from Iran, took the US Marine Corps, capable force though it was, and doubtless is, five weeks at the cost of 7,000 dead and 19,000 wounded. And we, for one whimsical news monologue, are unpersuaded that either the American public would stand for such casualties or that the American President would appreciate the disruption so many funerals would make to his usual busy workday schedule. But. We learned of one decisive victory, specifically in the annual European Tree of the Year contest, which we are annoyed we've only just found out about, as this could nicely have padded out several of these monologues previously, especially as last year's was the subject of a full blown ruckus, if not fraca, between Poland and Spain. Seriously, look it up. It was a whole thing. Oh my God. We learned that the 2026 winner is a Lithuanian oak tree, ending four consecutive years of Polish domination of a competition which is apparen regarded as a sort of arboreal Eurovision. And if you think we're not fading out on a succession of pertinent puns, you must be new here. So there's save all your kisses for tree, obviously.
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C
Oh, no.
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Puppet on a string. E Bark. Jesus Christ. Every way that I can. D Wood. Diggy Loo. Diggy Leyland. Cyprus. Johnny Loganberry. Is that any Anything? And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Bertieu Ersholik and Quentin Peel. Today's show was produced by Hassan Anderson. Our sound engineer was Steph Changu, with editing assistance by Mariella Bevan. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time on Monday. Have an excellent weekend and thanks for listening.