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A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 3rd April 2026 on Monocle Radio.
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Europe declines the suggestion that it finish what the US started in Iran. Where would you even start rebuilding Syria? And can Britain preserve its marmalade? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now. Hello and welco. Welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests, Hannah Lucinda Smith and Emma Nelson will discuss the day's big stories and we'll have our weekly wrap up of what we've learned these last seven days. 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 Hannah Lucender Smith, Monocle contributor, formerly based in Istanbul, and Monocle Radio to Emma Nelson. Hello to you both.
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A
Good evening, Andrew. How are we?
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B
I'm all right. I can only speak for myself. How are you?
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A
Fine, thank you. I think I was sitting in that chair about 12 hours ago.
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B
Well, this is what I was going to ask. Are you disoriented being on Monocle Radio at this hour of the day?
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A
I'm actually quite physically disoriented because I normally look from your position on the chair and now I'm in a different chair and I'm actually quite discombobulated, which makes me think that I actually should belong in a home. That's my chair and I'm now really scared.
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B
Hann, you are no longer in Istanbul. Clearly you are here in London. Apparently this is going to be a thing you are doing now, but you also possibly not the last time we will mention this on these airwaves. You have a book coming up?
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C
I do, yes. Thank you for mentioning it. So I have a new book coming out in June. It's called Hinterland's Journeys Around Europe's Unfinished Frontiers. And it's a journey around the frozen conflict, disputed territories, around the fringes of Europe, which have really become central to the continent's security. Security since Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
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B
Any in particular? I mean, there is a rich bounty to choose from.
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C
Well, this is going to sound like the holiday list from hell. So Cyprus. There we go. That's not bad. Places in the Balkans, Bosnia and Kosovo, Transnistria, which if you've never heard of it, is a sliver of Moldova, aesthetically, basically hasn't changed since the Soviet Union. Crimea, which of course has been occupied since 2014, and also Nagorno, Karabakh, in the South Cork.
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B
Well, we look forward to both the book and a couple of months worth of, you know, increasingly desperately shoehorned plugs for it. We will start tonight's show with Iran and with the United States attempts to interest Europe in sorting the whole thing out. Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump in a televised address that otherwise could have been an email or perhaps an all cap social media blurt also complaining about windmills, water pressure and Bruce Springsteen suggested that if Europe wanted the Strait of Hormuz open so damn much, they should go down there and do it themselves. As of this broadcast, it would be inaccurate to characterise the attitude of Europe as enthused. In other developments, a US Air Force F15E of the 494th Squadron, usually based in the UK at RAF Lakenheath, has been shot down in Iran. As we go to where one of the two person crew has reportedly been rescued. It is the fourth F15 lost during this conflict. The other three were shot down accidentally by Kuwaiti air defences. Emma, first of all, does this make any particular big difference to anything or is the United States anticipating at least the rescue of the other crew member? Just going to chalk this up the cost of doing business? I mean they've flown 15,000 or so sorties over Iran. Losing one aircraft is sort of law of averages territory.
- [03:59]
A
Well, I mean I was down at RAF Lakenheath about 10 years ago in 2015 and I remember distinctly then and just looking at, you know, when I heard the name RAF Lakenheath mentioned a few moments, it suddenly made me reassess the alliance that I experienced then and the alliance that we are experiencing now. And I spoke to a couple of the pilots when I was down there. It's a huge base, it's three miles square, it has almost 6,000 US personnel on it plus their families. If you live in that neck of the woods, you will hear the F15. The three squadrons that live at Lake and Heath will fly, they'll do dog fights once a day, your kids will go to school with American kids. There is a real sense of community and enmeshed. And one of the pilot said to me, well, first of all, most they had a track record and this is in 2015 of 140 0, which is 140 wins and no losses. So this will be a loss. This will be absolutely, deeply, deeply felt by Lake and Heath and by the local community as well. But this pilot also talked to me about the question of alliances and he said that the relationship between The United Kingdom and the United States is what he would classify as dependable. If we want them to do something, they will do it for us. If they want something, we will do it for them. This was 11 years ago, and the world has absolutely changed now because that alliance is so. Many would say that it is in the light of what's happened since January when you were out in Greenland, that's just gone.
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B
Well, indeed, Hannah. A decade is a long time in the transatlantic alliance. We did see this week. UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper convened this virtual meeting with 40 other countries. The United States, rather pointedly not among, as far as it's possible to tell, did they actually come up with anything, or was the point of this to actually say, yeah, here we are, 40 countries who are all really quite annoyed with the US at this point?
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C
Yeah, I think absolutely the latter. I mean, it's really clear that, you know, this war is not going to stop until Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to stop. And they might be talking about, you know, it's going to be over in a matter of weeks. Do we believe them? Probably not. But for Europe, I mean, already, even before, you know, Trump came back into the White House, it was European countries, including the UK that were kind of keeping a dialogue with Iran going, trying to keep the way open for some kind of humanitarian trade, trying to keep things on an even keel. And then Donald Trump comes over and kind of just upsets everything. And I think really the bigger question, as you were just talking about now, Emma, is what is this going to do to the alliance between both Europe and the US and also Europe and
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B
the UK we have heard some fairly punchy chat this week, Emma, from President Emmanuel Macron of France. In particular, he suggested that the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz would have to be done in concert with Iran, which, given where the Strait of Hormuz is, does appear something of a statement of the obvious. But he also took issue with, and he has up till now, tried to be quite careful with Donald Trump, but he has taken issue with Trump's tone, saying, this is not a show and be serious.
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A
And it is one of those statements which, when you see it in isolation is like, of course, this is not a show. Be serious. He's not saying anything incredibly risky at that point. But when you start to layer this together with the reactions of other European leaders, then you start to see a stronger sense of determination. So what we saw right at the beginning of the war, we had Spain immediately saying, this is an Illegal war. France followed quickly as well by saying this is an illegal war. The likes of Germany and Italy took their time. The United Kingdom as well. You know, Trump accusing them of sort of dilly dallying when it comes to support. But then when you look at what's happened in the last week, you have the United Kingdom, you have Keir Starmer saying, whatever the pressure, this is not our war. And this sense of determination is something which I don't think countries by themselves would have dared to do. But now they have an alliance, things have really changed.
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B
But just to follow that up quickly, Emma, and perhaps being somewhat cynical about it, these people are, of course, politicians. And for European politicians, has, has it dawned on them that actually it plays pretty well with your voters if you publicly and volubly tell Donald Trump and the United States to get knotted?
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A
It depends. Because Donald Trump has his own base. He was voted in a second time by people who genuinely believed that the world would change. But you make the very good point that when we look at any kind of international involvement, we have to look at two things. Firstly, look at 9, 11. That was when there was an Article 5 mutual defense invocation there which meant that other countries joined the United States in Afghanistan. Countries were prepared to sacrifice their own. They were prepared to shed blood for that. So there is a sense that there is an alliance. But then we also have 2003 and we have the Iraq war, which is what here in the United Kingdom. People are incredibly, you know, keen to remember, especially the labor government. They know that the invasion of Iraq was one of those great things which brought down Tony Blair. And that was done in terms of it was done legally insofar as all the protocols were followed before they actually enacted this. Donald Trump just went to war with Iran. That's different.
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B
Returning to the Strait of Hormuz, just finally on this one, Hannah, there have been a couple of ships that have passed through in the last 24 hours. A French owned Malta flag container ship and a Japanese owned Panama flag LNG tank. I mean, obviously this is easier said than done. None of us are sitting in the bridge on top of an enormous slow moving floating bomb. But is there something to be said, especially if your tanker is owned ultimately by a power like France and Japan, of just calling Iran's bluff, saying we're coming through the Strait of Hormuz and don't try anything funny?
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C
I mean, I think that is a massive, massive risk to take, not only for the companies that are operating these ships. And of course, they have all kinds of considerations, considerations to make about insurance, you know, the safety of their crew, obviously, but also politically, I mean, once you start getting ships blown up and governments, if they're just saying, oh, let them go through, I think that's the kind of thing that's not going to go down very well at home.
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B
Well, let's move along to the United Kingdom and other European countries this week who have kicked out the red carpet for President Ahmed, Ahmed rather, Al Sharar of Syria. It has all been literally and figuratively quite a journey for a man who as recently as about 16 months ago was known and feared as Abu Mohammed Al Julani, commander of the Idlib based Islamist militia Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, designated terrorist and wanted jihadist with US$10 million on his head. Al Sharra was, among other things, soliciting funds for the reconstruction of his nation, which will be quite the project. Syria requires the rebuilding not only of its physical infrastructure, but its national identity and social cohesion. Hannah I have not, much to my regret, been to Syria since just before the war. So that's going back 15 or 16 years or so. You have been there rather more recently. How recognizable or otherwise would I find it?
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C
I mean, certainly the center of Damascus. I also was in Damascus just as the protests were kicking off in 2011, and I went back there for monocle a year ago. So a couple of months after the fall of Bashar al Assad. The very center of Damascus actually is pretty much unmarked. There were only, you know, the fighting was mainly in the Damascus suburbs. Occasionally a rocket would land, but it escaped unscathed. But as soon as you go out of Damascus center and you reach suburbs like Jobar Guta, the places that were absolutely epicentre of the fighting, they are destroyed. There is nothing left. These are areas that have been emptied of people for years. The buildings have fallen to the ground, looters have come in, scavengers, taking anything they can. Even some of these areas we found shepherds kind of bringing their sheep across to, you know, graze on some of the plants that had grown there. So there are huge swathes of Syria which are both unrecognizable and just completely uninhabitable. You know, the amount of physical destruction in the country is absolutely huge. Also Aleppo, around, you know, half of Aleppo, very badly damaged places like Homs as well. There are also parts of the country which are still not entirely governed by Damascus. There's of course, the area in the north, the Kurdish controlled area, but then also areas out in the desert. Which is still pretty ungoverned. You've got the danger of ISIS cells and then socially as well. You know, this is a country which has been through a generation long sectarian war, destroying pretty much every part of the state. The state was, you know, hollowed out, basically turned into an instrument for Assad and his family to make more money by the end of the war. And in areas that were controlled by rebels for years, what you had was a, you know, mishma of different organizations, charities, businesses, opportunists just coming in and running different parts. So you've got a really, really messy, both physically and also in terms of the state place in Syria.
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B
Emma the eyebrow arching headline certainly of President Al Sharra's visit to Germany was him and Chancellor Mertz appearing to agree that ideally most of the 1.2 million Syrians in Germany should go in the next three years. Again, I think we may be in the realm of easier said than done there, but obviously it's possible to take that suggestion askew. But if you are President Al Sharra of Syria, it's not a terrible idea, is it? Because these are 800,000 people who have now a decade's worth of knowledge, experience, contacts, Savings acquired in 10 years Living in a modern functional state.
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A
And also it's quite a desirable thing if you are in leading Syria to a, bring back those clever people, but B, to tell the rest of the world that your place is now safe and desirable, especially when you have this huge amount of instability surrounding you. I mean, one of the most incredible things that's happened in the last couple of weeks is when Syrian airspace became the safest thing to fly over in the Middle East. And everyone's just like holding themselves in astonishment. What I find amazing when I read about this is, and Hannah, listen to Hannah, you were describing it so vividly, is that you have to try and work out what they're actually coming back to because they don't even know what a nation is. It's been under the Assad regime for 30 years and now, as you said, it's highly sectarian. So you've got to actually define what your country is. And then you've got to have the infrastructure, you've got to have the electricity, you've got to have the agriculture, you've got to have the roads, you've got. It's not just a question of rebuilding housing and you have to do it in it in concert and you have to do it in agreement with all the, with all your other parties involved in the country itself. And then you have to try and work out, well, who do we need to help us? And if you look at something like Iraq when it was rebuilt in 2003, post the invade, post the allied invasion of Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein, when you look at it now, the Iraqis are experiencing daily electricity shortages because GE went in, Siemens went in to try and help them rebuild the electricity infrastructure. But they came up against political barriers, bureaucratic barriers, geographical barriers, things that actually you need to know before you can go in and rebuild. So, yes, by all means, those 800,000 people will have to go back at some stage, because that is what the rule of law suggests. But what they go back to is going to be unknown to Hannah, as
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B
far as it is possible to tell so far. Is Al Sharra going to be the person who can actually get all this to happen, the social as well as physical rebuilding of Syria? I mean, this is a job that would daunt anybody. And though I'm sure the people of Syria would hope that this is all possible, I'm sure there are also a lot of people in Syria who are having trouble seeing past aspects of his somewhat colorful cv.
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C
Colorful is the word, isn't it?
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B
I mean, tactful obiturist mode over here.
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C
Yeah. I mean, it just. It doesn't get any less astounding every time I hear it. You know, sort of brief overview of where he's come from and where he is. It still kind of takes me aback
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because he's probably quite bewildered himself, I should think.
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C
Yeah. I mean, he probably sometimes wakes up and thinks, God, where am I? Where am I? But, yeah, look, when Schirra and his men came into Damascus in December 2024, this did not come as a, you know, huge shock to the West. The. Even though he had been on this terrorist list, in fact, I think he still is. I think officially he still is.
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B
I think he may have been, or his organization have been taken off a few lists, but. And it's. I mean, there may still be money available if you fancy your chances.
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C
Right, Exactly. But he was basically seen as the best or perhaps the only chance to get rid of Assad. And Assad, of course, was by the end, particularly a vassal leader of Iran and Russia, politically, particularly Iran. And, you know, for places like the uk, like the us, like the Gulf countries like Turkey, it's Iran in Syria that was the biggest threat. So he was kind of seen as, you know, somebody with, as you say, a colorful, not ideal cv, but somebody who they could work with. So he has had support, you know, behind him as he's come into the palace in Damascus. And we've seen this incredible readiness on the part of Western countries, particularly the us, to overturn some of the sanctions, or all of the sanctions at this point that were put on Assad, that were really crippling the country. I mean, they turned Syria into a country that was entirely cut off from the banking system, from financial systems, from world trade. You know, those. Those have been overturned. You know, there's everything there basically set up for Syria to start trading and to start rebuilding like a normal country. But of course, it's not a normal country. It's a country that's utterly destroyed. It's got more than half of its population displaced, as you were just talking about. Many of those are people in places like Europe who would be so advantageous for Syria once they come back. The problem is, what do they come back to, as Emma was saying. And that's, I think, the main challenge that he has. You know, he's pretty much got Western countries on side. As long as he kind of stays on the path that he's on, doesn't allow any big outbreaks of sectarian violence within Syria, that support's gonna stay there. But it's. How does he people to start coming back?
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B
Well, staying in the United Kingdom. One of the many losses incurred by Brexit was that of the EU regulatory nontraversy. The widely enjoyed ritual whereby the Daily Telegraph, or similarly inclined newspaper similarly beloved by mad retired brigadiers in Surrey, would light upon some or other bureaucratic minutiae in some or other edict delivered from Brussels and proclaim at the end of the British way of life as we know it, possible reason to brick up the Channel Tunnel and or refight Agincourt. However, it appears that that the UK government's planned EU food deal may once again serve up such delights. It is giddily reported that under these strictures, British marmalade may have to be labelled citrus marmalade. Emma, should we strike now while Belgium is weak?
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A
Yes, because they just talk waffle.
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B
You worked on that all afternoon.
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A
All afternoon. Days, days and days and days. You really enjoy Brexit, don't you, Muller?
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B
It's fabulous.
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A
It's a gift that keeps on giving.
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B
It is. But do you for one, understand care what the actually is here?
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A
I think I'm interested in it, but that's more my problem than anybody else. So this is a really, really, really British problem because.
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B
Well, problem is a big word.
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A
Exactly. Well, it's so Marmalade and the word attached to it is a very British thing because marmalade and the word are made from things which aren't British, like Seville oranges. Bit of a clue from where they come from. And sugar. Haven't seen many sugar crops when I looked out of my window.
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B
Not successful.
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A
Near Edgeware Road this afternoon. Not successful ones. So. But it's become an incredibly quintessentially British thing. Apart from the fact that none, nobody in Monaco today who isn't British understood what marmalade is.
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B
I understand what marmalade is.
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A
I know, but you're not British.
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B
Yeah, but we have it in Australia. That's my point.
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A
I'm so pleased.
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B
Okay.
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A
But we also have this thing that the British are really good at, taking things and making them their own and then getting cross when people want them back. So, example, fish and chips is not a British dish. Chicken tikka masala, the most eaten thing in the United Kingdom. Right. And the word marmalade is not a British word. In fact, it means jam. It doesn't mean marmalade. So if you go to Italy, the word for jam, marmalade.
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B
Okay.
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A
If you go to Germany, marmalade. Sweden, marmalade.
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B
Are you going to do that?
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A
Denmark. I could go on.
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B
This is what else you've been working on all afternoon hours.
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A
Thank goodness for the Internet. And the trouble is, is that when we were given this word, we made it the thing that we eat now. And the European Union is very keen on making sure that what you eat is properly labeled. It's really important. There is endless amounts of frantically very dull case law about, you know, the great case of Cassis de Dijon. Can you make alcoholic sticky blackcurrant juice anywhere else other than Dijon? No, you can't. Ladies.
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B
I'm not even sure why they even make it in Dijon.
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A
Well, that's the only place you can make it. So you don't even. Don't even think about it. So this is an incredibly English thing that we want something that isn't ours.
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B
Hannah. I, for one, have been greatly enjoying the coverage of this. It has made me quite nostalgic. A sample of headlines from the Daily Telegraph. Marmalade to be renamed under Starmer's EU reset. I'm not making any of these up. The Daily Mail. What would Paddington think? That is, of course, a reference to the actually non existent bear who was.
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A
He does exist.
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B
He doesn't go to the theater.
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A
There's one on at 7:30 tonight.
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B
I'll explain about him and Father Christmas after the show. And, and also, also in the context of the books, is from Peru. Anyway, so what are we all doing?
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A
He's an immigrant that we've appropriated as our own.
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B
Exactly. And in the daily Expression Express the voice of reason. Iconic marmalade set to ditch classic jar and get rebrand to please Brussels.
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C
Oh my God. You can feel the fury's rising in the Shire.
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A
That's froth, isn't it?
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B
See this, this is also. This should have been part of the remain campaign in 2016. Like people, if we leave the EU, you miss all this. You used to get five of these headlines a day in British news newspapers.
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C
Well, you can see by the way that they've gone for this, that they are missing this.
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A
What did we do?
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B
They're having a whale of a time. It's glorious.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Do you have any fixed opinions, Hannah, about who should be allowed to call whatever they like marmalade? I mean, I, I really could not possibly care less.
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C
I feel the same. I don't like marmalade, Andrew.
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B
I mean, I like it. I'm not against it.
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A
I've made the stuff.
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C
Have you?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Did you bring enough for everybody?
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A
No, I didn't. I ate it. It was nice. But it requires a large kitchen, winter, an Aga and a Labrador.
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B
Okay. Do you. I mean, fundamentally though, Emma, is this actually any weirder or madder than, you know, the French getting upset about other people calling their fizzy drink champagne?
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A
Well, it all goes into the same basket as well. And it's one of those things that you, you. We like a bit of certainty and we like a bit of surety when we pick something up off the, off the supermarket shelves. We like to know that what we are eating is something that we recognize. It's a really simple thing. We like to know what we're eating. And the EU constantly churning this stuff around. They've been. This week they went bananas, metaphorically, for renaming plant based products. So there were 31 animal associated terms, which you're now not. Which you now won't be able to say. You can't say that you've got a vegan thigh or a vegan drumstick or even a vegan breast. You can't say that anymore in your labor.
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B
I wasn't planning to. Why can't you say any of those things?
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A
Because. Because there is no such thing as a vegan thigh. Drumstick, breast, whatever. It's one of those things that you can say burger, sausage and nugget, but that's not alluding to A physical part of a body. Well, unless you're using interesting language in certain circumstances.
- [25:17]
B
Ok, well, before any of us lose the will to live, we should move along to the dicey business of separating the possessions, of separating people. Once the fairly straightforward stuff has been dealt with, both parties agreeing amiably to hand over the records, books, artwork, souvenirs, children they never liked much anyway, the process often founders over who gets the family pets. Brazil is attempting to bring legal order to bear on such disputes. Brazilian courts will henceforth be empowered to arbitrate custody arrangements should the parting couple be unable to figure it out themselves. Hannah, is this a reasonable use of a judge's time?
- [25:53]
C
I think it is, and I think it's one of those things that only pet owners really understand, is how much your pet becomes part of your family. Well, it is part of your family, and particularly, I think if you're childless and, you know, increasing numbers of people are. I've certainly noticed, moving back to London, how many more dogs are about. And I think that's, you know, something that happened during the pandemic. But, you know, it may be something that people who don't have pets or aren't into animals laugh at. But I do think, you know, splitting up, it's traumatic and when you've got pets involved, doubly so. And I can only imagine what a heartbreak it must be if you have a beloved pet and your ex is trying to take it off you. I think in that case, a bit of mediation, not a bad thing.
- [26:42]
B
Interestingly, Emma and I use the word advisedly. Under UK law, this nation that prides itself on being one of animal lovers, pets are actually regarded as inanimate.
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A
They're a thing, they really are, but you just need to look at them. The headlines that fall in the same category as a marmalade thing. Very soon there will be more dogs in the UK than children. And one of my favourite things is, I think it might have been in the Daily Express. I've taken my sausage dog to swimming lessons. We're taking it pretty seriously here.
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B
Sorry, that does sound like a euphemism for something. France. It says here Hannah has regarded animals as living and feeling beasts since 2014. Is that perhaps a more enlightened attitude?
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C
I think it is. I mean, I think there's some, you know, strange loopholes going on in British law, because obviously, you know, famously, if you hit a dog with your car, you're legally obliged to report it to the police. Cruelty to animals, you know, very, very dim view taken on that. You can go to prison if you're cruel to animals. And yet British law classes them as inanimate objects, the same as your table or your pen or. Or whatever else. It seems to me a complete mismatch in the way that British law looks at animals.
- [27:57]
A
We've got a lot of catching up to do because actually abuse of animals is still one of those areas of crime, of the criminal law, where you are not actually punished that much. I think it was very, very recently then they introduced custodial sentences for people who had been abusing their animals. It is something that there is that big drop. Whereas what we're seeing now is in addition to the sausage dogs going for swimming lessons or what have you, something that Monocle has been going quite loopy about for the last 20 years is dogs in prams. And I'm seeing so many dogs in prams nowadays, and that is getting people nearly as frothy at the mouth as it is about the marmalade. Because there are people saying, why are you taking a dog which essentially needs to move, wandering around as if it's a baby in a nappy.
- [28:42]
B
Well, just finally on this, though, Emma, what. What is the limit here? Because I can see that there is a case to be made for having to come to some sort of decision about dogs, arguably even cats, though they clearly don't care all that much. What if we end up in the position of somebody turning up in family court with a goldfish bowl under one arm? I mean, where is the cutoff?
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A
Well, if you've got a good story to tell, you know, I'll have a great moment arguing the toss over, you know, the pet iguana and that kind of stuff, because if you have that attachment, as Hannah was saying, then this is absolutely part of your family. And I am not a pet owner. I am not a massive fan of dogs. I hate to make that massive confession on the Monocle daily and indeed on Monocle, but I have a very good friend who has very lovely dog and I'm currently being trained as a human to. And it. It is now it is decided that she has decided that she wants me to be part of her pack and she. She wants to train me to be a proper human. And I'm suddenly engaging in the realization that, yes, were this to come to court, that, you know, speak quietly but carry a big stick.
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B
And Hannah, would you engage counsel to protect your access to an axelology?
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C
Absolutely. And I just have to say, Andrew, I do take issue with your. With your comments about cats there. My cat I shall tell him when I go home. He's incredibly emotional and feeling.
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A
What does the cat say back?
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C
I mean, all kinds of things. He's being incredibly vocal since he moved to London. I think he can smell the foxes and the squirrels outside the house.
- [30:14]
B
And like all cats, Hannah. He will remain emotional and feeling and just until he figures out how to operate a tin opener. Hannah. Lucinda Smith and Emma Nelson, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, our W weekly assessment of what the last seven days have taught us. We learned this week that it was that happiest time of year for the compilers of whimsical news monologues. We learned, yes, that it was CPAC week. Oh, no. Oh, yes. Cpac, the Conservative Political Action Conference, is an annual gathering of the finest minds and and deepest thinkers in American conservatism, which could be more snappily and indeed accurately rebranded as Crankstock. The lucky host city this year was the Texas settlement of Grapevine. And yes, there was a great deal of wine ing. They were raisin hell. Is that anything? Come on, just get on with it. We learned, however, that this year that the usual object of CPAC's glassy eyed veneration, US President Donald Trump had found other potential chance, better things to do and that the responsibilities of headlining had therefore devolved to US Secretary of Health and man, who in a more logically ordered world would be screaming at the bins outside a betting shop. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Who wowed the crowd with some illuminating, heartwarming and above all, absolutely believable anecdotes about the boss. He has encyclopedic molecular knowledge on these, this wide range of very, very eclectic interests. Well, quite. Golf, the Village People, fake gold, homewares. He's basically Isaac Newton. But we learned that RFK2 had once himself been very nearly as skeptical. You know, I basically drank the Kool Aid, which, to be fair, would not make the rankings of the top 10,000 or so weirdest things Kennedy may have drunk over the journey. But we learned that though President Trump may indeed, indeed appear to the untrained eye to be some sort of bloviating buffoon who not a single private corporation in America would hire for fear of bankruptcy, HR lawsuits and meetings being derailed by 30 minute improvised disquisitions on the depravities of windmills, this was very far from the case. You know, now I know exactly the opposite. He's the opposite of a narcissist. He's an empath. You will see that every Time he talks about the Ukraine war. He talks about the casualties on both sides, but especially the Russian side. Right, Bob? We learned anyway that whatever criticisms one may legitimately have of the commander in chief, generally, one still could not complain that operations in the Persian Gulf were not going according to plan. Because there isn't one. We learned, or at least very strongly inferred this from the President's address to the nation, which could have been an email. When this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It'll just open up naturally, we learned, yes, that operation. It'll all somehow be fine, don't worry. Remained figuratively and literally run aground in the Strait of Hormuz, the pinch point through which the fuel which may well be supposed to be keeping your lights on three weeks from now is presently not passing. And the closure of which by the Islamic Republic of Iran in circumstances of war has come as an immense shock to nobody apart from the President of the United States and his Secretary of Defense, though we learned that Pete Hegseth for it is he did have a plan which was that someone else should deal with it. There are countries around the world who ought be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well.
- [34:07]
C
It's not just the United States Navy.
- [34:08]
B
Last time I checked, there was supposed to be a big bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that as well. It would be tempting to suggest that we learn from this that Hegseth has absorbed his understanding of the Royal Navy's present capabilities from Horatio Hornblower novels. But some of those are quite thick and don't have any pictures. Also the occasional three syllable word. We learned, however, that while the world watched what in respects looked like a 21st century remake of the Suez Crisis of 1956, member or members of Transatlantic alliance embark on harebrained Middle Eastern adventure to seize a vital waterway. France and Britain issue a 12 hour ultimatum that all fighting must cease within hours of its exploration. Britain's warplanes are winging their way to Egypt and its bombers attack five key cities including Cairo. Other member or members of Transatlantic are alliance wonder aloud what on earth they think they're doing. The United States was not consulted in any way about any phase of these actions, nor were we informed of them in advance. In the circumstances I have described, there will be no United States involvement in these present hostilities. Someone was contemplating posterity. We learned that Eric Trump, oh no apparent custodian of the ticking parcel that is his father's legacy, was delighted to share with an agog planet a preview of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library to loom a characteristically tasteful and restrained 50 stories over Miami.
- [35:43]
A
Also featured what appears to be recreations
- [35:46]
C
of the Rose Garden he paved his presidential walk of Fame. And then, of course, his controversial $400 million White House ballroom. And did we mention the theater featuring a giant gold statue of Trump with his fist raised in the air?
- [36:03]
B
We did not learn of any provision for any books, though are going to hope, slash assume that the bathrooms will be lavishly decorated with boxes of stolen classified documents. But. As the dogs of war continued to chase their own tales, we at least learned definitively whose side God was on. And we learned this from a just absolutely not normal ceremony in the White House convened by the President's irreproachably sane and in no respect, obviously completely off her rocker spiritual advisor, Paula White.
- [36:38]
C
And, Mr. President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life. You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused.
- [36:52]
B
It's a familiar path pattern that our
- [36:54]
C
Lord and Savior showed us. But it didn't end there for him and it didn't end there for you,
- [37:00]
B
which is why he is now at liberty to protect the world from the prospect of weirdo religious fanatics having nuclear weapons, which would obviously be terrible. Am I right?
- [37:12]
A
Yeah.
- [37:13]
B
Yeah. And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Hannah, Lucinda Smith and Emma Nelson. The show was produced by Tom Webb and researched by Annelise Maynard. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time on Monday. Thanks for listening. Have an excellent Easter.