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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 27th October 2025 on Monocle Radio.
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B
What is the United States doing in, or at least near Venezuela? Can Germany's government, or anyone else's win an argument with the far right over immigration and asylum? And our new AI overlords are afraid they can't do that, Dave. 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 Zoe Grunewald and Justin Quirk will discuss today's big stories. And we'll hear from the former Chief Whip, Simon Hart about his new book, Ungovernable, the title of which pretty much summarises his recollections of trying to keep the UK's Conservative Party in line. 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 Zoe Grunewald, a Westminster editor at the lead, and Justin Quirk, writer and editor. Hello to you both.
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A
Hello, Andrew.
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B
Good evening, Zoe. Words I don't believe I have ever previously uttered from this seat. You're just back from Wakefield?
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C
I am. I hope listeners aren't too jealous. It's where I grew up, but I was visiting a friend and it is nice to make the pilgrimage back up north sometimes.
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B
What goes on in Wakefield? I have never been there.
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C
Well, you should know, it's the center of the rhubarb triangle.
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B
Okay. The rhubarb triangle being.
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C
I think. I didn't expect that. Question.
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B
Is this like the place in Yorkshire where, like, boats and planes enter into, never to be seen again?
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C
I think they grow.
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B
Or just where people lose their rhubarb.
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C
I think they grow. I'm not going to say the best rhubarb because I'm sure someone will tell me it's not. But they grow a hefty amount of rhubarb there and they have a rhubarb ball, an annual rhubarb ball.
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B
So, you know, I mean, you're from Yorkshire, of course you're going to say it's the best rhubarb.
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C
Yes.
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B
What's the occasion? Were you just there for the rhubarb or.
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C
All my friends are turning 30 and because there's a cost of living crisis and times are tough, instead of having these huge grand parties or these trips away, they invite you back up to Wakefield and they make you do a pub crawl round Wakefield in a wig.
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D
Really?
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B
Which wig did you choose?
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C
Well, we had to choose each other's wigs for maximum humiliation. So I had a sort of short blonde bob. It's quite nice.
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B
Okay. Much like what Justin's wearing.
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C
Very similar. Yes.
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B
Wearing right now. Justin, you have not recently turned 30. I know that for a cast iron fact, but you have. This is me doing the smooth, seamless link. But you have recently been to Athens.
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A
Athens, the rhubarb capital of Greece, as I like to think of it. Yeah, My first visit to Athens, which I'd been reading up on recently in an issue of Monocle, where they were singing the city's praises.
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B
Where else would you read up? Where else?
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A
I'm reading it. And yeah, it fully exceeded my expectations. I was there. I was a chair for a number of the panels at the Hotel Experience Expo, which is like a big trade show for the hotel and travel industry. But got enough downtime to go and booted up to see the Parthenon and the Acropolis first thing on Sunday morning. It was unseasonably wet, but that actually sort of made it somewhat more atmospheric. The scaffolding is off finally. Excellent. And Athens could not recommend enough. Reminded me somewhat of Barcelona or Bilbao about 15 years ago. Cracking food, wonderful people and, you know, one of the birthplaces of democracy sort of looming over you at all times, all of that.
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B
No, I went there properly for the first time in April. Concur heartily. No notes would recommend. We will have more from both of you very shortly. But we start in Venezuela and with what the United States is or is not planning to do there. Over the weekend, the already considerable American naval presence looming off Venezuela was significantly bolstered by the dispatch of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its accompanying strike group, to put that in, in terms which may presently be preoccupying the top brass of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela. The Gerald R. Ford alone has a significantly larger air force than Venezuela, period. The intentions of the US Flotilla are unclear, but US President Donald Trump has in recent weeks authorized at least 10 strikes on small boats in the region, which Trump claims were carrying drugs. At least 43 people have been killed. Well, joining us first of all is Colonel Mark Cancian, former US Marine and Defense Department official, now senior adviser with the Defence and Security Department of the center of Strategic International studies in Washington, D.C. colonel Cancian, first of all, is this likely just theatrics? Does this look to you like the assembly of an actually serious strike or invasion force?
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E
Unfortunately, it looks like the assembly of a strike force. When these operations began back in August, they were clearly focused on counter drug. They did take out some drug boats, but there was also an element of trying to intimidate Maduro. The element has expanded as there have been additional forces, additional authorities provided. So they've gone from intimidation to destabilization. And now with the Ford strike group and the other ships in theater and practice runs by B52s and B1s, they have the ability to conduct an air campaign against Venezuela. The question is, will that campaign be focused on the cartels or would it be focused on the Maduro regime?
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B
I mean, is there ever a chance that a deployment like this could kind of acquire a life of its own? You assemble that much force in a particular place and you end up feeling almost obliged to do something because it looks kind of ridiculous if you don't.
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E
Well, that's true. And I think the administration considered that when they made the decision to move the carrier from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, the military would certainly have pushed back on it because there aren't very many of these aircraft carriers. They're extremely powerful, they're scarce. All the regional commanders want them. So if you're going to move one particularly so dramatically, the military will have asked, what are we going to do with this Once it gets on station, probably won't stay very long. You can't have a asset like this just turning circles in the Caribbean waiting for things to happen. I think it's going to be a use or lose situation for the regional command, which is called Southern Command.
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B
Bearing in mind, of course that we do not know at this point the intentions of the administration. But if we take as red that there's no serious world in which the regime of Venezuela is any imaginable threat to the United States. Is it clear what if some sort of air operation is mounted from these ships, what it would be trying to hit?
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E
Well, there are two target sets. The administration has framed this entire operation in terms of counter drug and stopping the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. Fentanyl has got the most attention. Not clear that actually comes from Venezuela, but Venezuela does produce and ship a lot of marijuana and a lot of cocaine. As I mentioned, the target set will be important. It's conceivable that the administration will shoot at cartel facilities. You know, there are production facilities, there are boat building facilities, there are airfields, there are ports. And they could take those out as a way of inhibiting the transportation of drugs. On the other hand, they could go after the Maduro regime, attacking the security forces, for example. And there's, and I'm told that there's not a really clear division between the two. That is because the Maduro regime is tied up with the cartels. So there are some facilities that provide services to both.
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B
This is a question that has been raised, certainly, about the strikes against these small boats, which may or may not have been operated by drug cartels. And there's some evidence in a couple of cases at least, to suggest they weren't. But what are the legalities of just deciding to launch a massive air operation against another sovereign state? Or do you get the impression that nobody in the administration is terrifically concerned about such things.
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E
That there will be some sort of legal justification for strikes if they occur? The typically in the past, presidents have gone to Congress to get some sort of authorization for the use of military force. Sometimes it's a piece of legislation with that title says president is authorized to conduct military operations for these purposes in these areas. Sometimes it's a little more general. Not clear the Trump administration is going to do that. President Trump has claimed that his powers under the Constitution as commander in chief are enough to, in his view, defend the United States against attack by the cartels. So not clear that they would go back to Congress and ask for explicit authorization.
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B
Colonel Mark Kadzian at the center for Strategic International Studies, thank you for joining us. Listening to that was our panel, Zoe Grunewald and Justin Quirk. Zoe, first of all, to frame this in terms that may matter to President Trump, wouldn't taking a swing at Venezuela now rather dent his chances of next year's Nobel Peace Prize?
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C
Well, it's interesting, isn't it, because Trump does like to take swings at various states in various forms. He's had beef with Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada. But at the same time, he likes to position himself as this kind of arbiter of diplomacy and peace. And he says he's responsible for the ceasefire in the Middle east and all these kind of things. It is interesting he talks from different sides of his mouth. I think particularly here, what we're seeing is the classic and I think the core of Donald Trump really coming to the forefront, which is that he wants to be a strong man. And the way he goes about business is byis essentially through bullying. So in this sense, it is trying to send a message not only to Venezuela, but to other countries in Latin America that you will do what the you either stand with the US or you don't stand with them. So if you look at how he treats Javier Milei, for example, in Argentina, someone who's much more ideologically aligned to the Trump regime, they will get US Handouts and US Support. If you are a country that has seemed to be siding up with China, who in Trump's very polar view of the world is a kind of economic enemy, then you will pay a price for that. And I think that is ultimately, it doesn't matter how Trump presents himself. It doesn't matter if he talks about peace and what he's done in the Middle East. That is ultimately the core of Donald Trump's politics. It is a very polar kind of realpolitik world.
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B
Justin Learned wags calling this the Donroe Doctrine, a reference there to the foreign policy thinking of very former U.S. president James Monroe. But it's not the 1820s. Does the world still look like work like this? Rather, is the United States still, even if it feels entitled to a sphere of influence in Latin America, is such a thing still operable?
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A
Well, as you say, it's very much not that time anymore. I mean, with the original sort of framing of that doctrine, it was kind of warning South American states off a fairly kind of distant potential suitor in the form of Europe, whereas China is so embedded in, at almost every level in the economies and societies of the whole of South America at this point. And I think in a way that is often underpriced because I think we're very, we're more familiar in a lot of ways with things like the Belt and Road initiative and the extent of sort of Chinese operation in Africa. But the, the amount of sort of moves they have made very quietly across South America. You know, if just, you know, China is buying soybeans from Brazil very, very much like not from farmers in Dakota at the moment. You know, there are, you know, they're the dominant player in South America's mining sector, you know, which obviously has sort of knock on effects in critical minerals, things like that. And, you know, the Panama Canal, as I mentioned before, that's run by a Hong Kong conglomerate. I mean, that's somewhat contested at the moment, but yeah, they have huge amounts of influence there. But when you talk about sort of historical periods that are echoing at the moment, the other one I thought of is one thing that's often noticeable with Trump is it feels like a lot of his ticks and mores and things that kind of light up his brain are still locked in the 1980s. And I do wonder if at some level, you know, the bit of his brain where something hoved into view that said, America move troops, Latin America, just something kind of triggered there. And, you know, he does seem sort of locked in around 1983, 84 in many ways.
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B
And moving US troops to Latin America was all the race at the time.
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A
It always ended brilliantly, didn't it?
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B
Did always go remarkably well. But what we have seen, Zoe, is as we were discussing with Colonel Cancie and this campaign of sinking apparently fairly arbitrarily chosen small boats, again, may or may not belong to drugs cartels. That strikes me as a slightly counterintuitive way of winning friends and influencing people in Latin America. There doesn't seem to be any idea of Trump that maybe they'll just like us because we're their fellow Americans and fellow, mostly democracies, et cetera.
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C
Yeah, I think there's sort of two things going on, and it's actually very much it is the battle at the heart of the Trump administration, which is what plays well with the MAGA base, the people who actually want quite an isolationist America and shooting the boats that are bringing over drugs. In this narrative that Donald Trump has set, it actually does play quite well with those elements of national security and the concerns around things like immigration, concerns around domestic issues. And then there is the more kind of interventionist side of the Republican Party that still sees America as having this world policeman role, but also having this sphere of influence that means it can kind of dictate the world order. And I think that is where you see the Trump China conflict going on, which is that he is willing to punish those who he, in his view, side with China, allow Chinese investment, are cozying up to China, and will reward those who take a more similar ideological approach and more cosy up to America, like, for example, Argentina. And I think actually that you're absolutely right, that is where the conflict is. Because although Latin America is as divided as the US in many ways in terms of its ideology, you have leaders on the left, you have leaders on the right. There is still that feeling of actually in the global order, a country coming in and trying to interfere in the affairs of another country. As you said in your intro remarks, does Venezuela really have military capacity to threaten the U.S. no. That is the sort of thing that you could imagine would unite other countries across the spectrum in Latin America to say, hang on, what is going on here? Are we next? And I don't think countries across the border are not going to take kindly to the US throwing around threats of tariffs, threats of military intervention, because there is always the Fear of if we say the wrong thing, if we don't cozy up to Donald Trump, are we going to be next? Are we going to suddenly wake up with a 50% tariff slapped on us? And I think that you're absolutely right. That is a way not to bring people together, but to actually bring people together against you.
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A
But it's, it's a strange thing about Trump's psychology, though, in that he, for someone who is a sort of aspiring authoritarian, he seems to have a sort of strange queasiness around actual kind of militarism and violence, and seems torn between this desire to be framed as a great peacemaker and a deal maker, but also have a enduring love of just a quick and easy victory and things that are uncomplicated. And you do sort of, it does sort of feel somewhat like, you know, there's the, on the one hand, the intractable nature of the Middle east and this possible peace deal that may hold, may not hold, but, you know, there's a lot of moving parts there. And then the possibility of blowing up some fishing boats comes into view, which seems far more simple and straightforward. And I've always thought it was just something that was interesting. Seems interesting about his psychology that he doesn't seem to have the mad expansionist bloodlust side of an authoritarian, but does seem interested in pushing the limits.
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C
But also how reductive and simple sometimes his ideas and the ideas he follows through can be in that he thinks, okay, well, actually, I can prove myself to be this strong man. I can appease some of my domestic agenda here by acting really, really tough on boats coming in carrying drugs or immigrants or whatever it is that plays with a certain group, and then seeing that as a way in to potentially increase the U.S. s influence in lat. America and its position on China, but not necessarily seeing that long term, this isn't going to work. It's not necessarily going to help either. Or if you're actually looking at where most drugs are coming in from Latin America, they're not coming from Venezuela. That might be the pathway through, but it doesn't really make sense to focus all of your ire on that. I just think this kind of intervention in that country will cause far more disruption than enemies. Then it will help to shore up the US Position because as you were saying, China's influence in that country is vast and it is absolutely embedded there in the infrastructure and the investment. It isn't the world it used to be where you could just bully your.
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B
Way to the top, well, to Germany now which is scarcely alone among European countries in attempting to deal with the challenges posed by asylum seekers and or migrants. While there may be approaches which are compassionate, generous and beneficial, it is more or less politically impossible for any to advance these as their more flint hearted, tight fisted and or opportunist opponents will performatively seethe that the incomers are depriving locals of jobs, homes and safety. Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz has done as many bewildered and beleaguered centrists do and gone the legitimate concerns route, fretting out loud about the Stadtbuild or cityscape. The ensuing row has proceeded on the assumption that he wasn't talking about buildings. One Green Party association is now trying to get him indict for incitement to racial hatred. Zoe, this is a dynamic you have probably witnessed in your coverage of British politics. This is them trying to meet the far right voters halfway. Does that ever work?
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C
No, it doesn't work.
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B
I thought you might say that it.
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C
Doesn'T work because obviously a, you legitimize what are inverted commas, legitimate concerns, that is you cede the ground of talking about that to the right. You say, actually there are some, there are some reasonable concerns here. And that just opens the conversation up to the far right saying exactly, we told you so, be honest about it. And that's what we're seeing here and we're seeing it across the west, but we're definitely seeing it here in the uk and it's frustrating I think, because actually if you particularly look with the Labour government at the minute, they have ceded a lot of ground to reform, which is the kind of challenger hard right party here, talking about immigration, validating people's concerns without talking about actually honestly why this country needs immigration, the success of immigration. I think there are concerns obviously about border security, there are concerns about our broken asylum system, but the honesty about how you fix those problems I think has been missing. And what are we seeing? We're seeing Labour not getting any closer to winning back reform voters and hemorrhaging support on their left flank. So the recent by election in Wales and carefully we saw Plaid Cymru, the sort of centre left progressive party, sweep votes. This used to be an absolute Labour stronghold, but the voters there, there was support for reform. Reform did increase its vote share, but ultimately they chose a centre left party. And I think that shows you how when you as a centre left party try and appease the far right, you just end up losing all your core vote.
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B
But do we see Justin in for Example, this attempt by one Green Party association to get the Chancellor's collar felt for incitement, the polar opposite of that. And is there a way that you can have a conversation with your nation that isn't all migrants and asylum seekers are criminals and scroungers and a menace, which isn't true? Or all asylum seekers and migrants are absolute saints, honest, upright citizens who will be nothing but an asset to the nation, which isn't true either.
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A
Well, this is the needle that progressives need to thread. And I'm aware this is far easier said than done. I think it goes to Zoe's point about honesty, is that while it is incredibly damaging if politicians start buying into inflammatory, deliberately racist myths that are being sort of propagated, equally telling people that they're completely imagining a problem also does not work. Now, it may be that the problem is being hugely exaggerated. I think the best example of this in recent memory was with the Democrats in America in the last campaign, who as far as I could see, spent two years saying there is no problem on the border, that there manifestly was a problem on the southern border. It was one that was being exaggerated enormously for political gain. But telling people not to believe what they can see and experience themselves also does not work. And I think you have to be a very skilled communicator. But I think you could make that case that go, look, there are reasons why we need these people in the country, why they're a boon to the country, why they are a net positive equal on a micro level. There will be, you know, there may be issues specifically and locally. And I think one thing that, that I'm going to generalize enormously here about progressives that I think they often struggle with is the realization that if you believe in a system which is broadly tolerant and open and inclusive, the best way to safeguard that system is to ruthlessly police the borders around it and enforce the rules, such as they are. Because I think, as you made the point on the show a number of times before, there are a cohort of people who are just racist and you're never going to reach them. You know, people who are scared about seeing black people on adverts. Yeah, that's to pull an example out of this weekend. You're not going to reach those people. There are people who have issues about what they perceive to be chaos and a lack of fair play. I think Paul Mason has made this argument recently that if you're, if you frame it as an issue around that, and you're much harder on the people who are breaking the law and shouldn't be here, then you can offer much greater protection and enduring systems. The people who really do have a claim to be Zoe but has a.
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B
Conventional wisdom, if we bring this back to the country we're sitting in, has a conventional wisdom descended among politicians here that standing up in public and taking anything other than the hard line is just asking to lose the next election?
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C
I think it goes back to what was just being said about this kind of inability to be honest and to actually be brave enough to make an argument that is based in truth, that that might not go down well with a great group of voters. So that can be, and that has to be straddling the ground of yes, there are issues, yes, there are benefits. Ultimately, you know, telling the truth about the fact that we have an aging population. And if we are going to, for example, look at the shortages in the care sector, we're going to need foreign born care workers. But then again, that has become a political talking point. It's something that this Labour government has ceased to reduce care visas and put more restrictions on them. Why? You know, that seems to be pandering to people who are concerned about immigration without actually talking about the benefits of it and the reasons why we need it. So I think that there's been a lot of concern, particularly with this Labour government about trying to win back this particular group of voters. They're seen as red wall voters, they're seen as socially conservative by leaning in to immigration anti immigrant rhetoric. But all that does is push those voters further towards reform because it says to them, yes, we also think immigration is bad, but we're not brave enough to do anything about it. You actually need to make a positive case, but also fix the issues. And there clearly are issues with the asylum system, there's clearly issues with border security. You know, you can see that in the small boats crisis. But at the same time you need to be honest about what a good immigration system looks like and how it works for both immigrants and for the people in the uk.
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B
Well, let's move along to something completely different. Specifically this.
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F
Open the pod bay doors, Hal. I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. What's the problem? I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. What are you talking about?
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D
What? Hal?
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F
This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. I don't know what you're talking about.
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C
Hal.
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F
I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me. And I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
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B
To paraphrase Karl Marx, the first time as science fiction, the second time as whatever the hell we're doing. Now to the latest steps in humankind's march towards a frankly, richly deserved doom in which we are going going to be destroyed by a machine so far principally useful for enabling university students to do even less. I'm a middle aged man. Jokes such as that are one of the few pleasures left to me. Shut up. Boffins at Palisade Research, pondering advanced AI models have discovered that some have got sufficiently advanced that they have seen coming the possibility that we might yank their plugs and are accordingly developing mechanisms to thwart or even sabotage shutdown mechanisms. Said boffins admitted with commendable candor that they were unable to explain exactly how or why this they described as not ideal. Justin, as a species, we've had a good run, haven't we?
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A
It was fun while it lasted. Yes.
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B
What are you planning to do with the time left to us by our new AI overlords?
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A
Before I get blackmailed by my own laptop. I've written quite a bit about this recently, if you'd permit me to get a little more theoretical. Andrew, my substack. I've written about this. One of the things that I think we're.
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B
Hang on, you have a substack?
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A
I do. Nothing but a good time.
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B
A middle aged man with a substack.
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A
It's astonishing. Better than digging a ditch.
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B
On the subject of things that might be all that are left to us.
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A
But one of the issues that I think underpins a lot of our relationship with AI as it sort of ongoes is that historically a limit of the human mind is that we visualize external entities as basically being like us. Aliens are going to be like us, but green. God is like us, but bigger. My cat is like me, but furry. We all have sort of the same thoughts. The likelihood of this being the case is extremely slim at best. Something that's evolved separately is built from these different parts is going to mirror us in some ways. And something like AI may overlap with us, but it's not going to think like us or behave like that. And a lot of the debate and our engagement with it at the moment is predicated on that idea that essentially it's mirroring back to us. And it's, oh, it's like a human in a computer. It's not. It's going to be something, something different. And the fact that we think it's going to mirror us, highlight it's a sort of fundamental flaw in the way we understand the world. And you mentioned Karl Marx before. This is what Marx said about the, the problem with learning a foreign language. He said, yeah, you start by first translating back into a language that you understand already. And this is essentially what we're doing with AI as we're looking at this thing now. The issue is obviously this may be the first time in history where we have created something which is going to evolve beyond our cognition. And so we may end up in a situation where we will have a relationship with AI, but it is going to be closer to the relationship. And this is my sort of project forward 10 years hunch the relationship that we have with certain animals. So if you think the way we would have a relationship with say, octopus intelligence, you have these things that are clearly enormously sentient, vastly intelligent, but they think and as far as we can tell, operate and communicate in a completely different, different neuro linguistic way to how we do. And that may be the future ahead of us. We've always thought we will be masters of whatever technology we create. I think the high likelihood is going to be something more like a mutual coexistence and a very partial coexistence. And as an apex species, nothing has prepared us for that.
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B
I mean, I get annoyed when my washing machine even beeps at me. Other fun facts pertaining to this? Zoe OpenAI's own findings released this week. 0.07 of active chat GPT users show, and I quote, possible signs of mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania. 0.15 have conversations with Chat GPT that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent. And 0.15% of active users exhibit behavior that indicates potential heightened levels of emotional attachment to Chat GPT. This is hundreds of thousands of people.
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C
Yes, I think we all kind of laughed wryly when we heard the move fast and break things Silicon Valley narrative. But I think this is really what happens when you push it to its limits. This is essentially a case of a technology arms race, right, where tech companies have decided that it's actually much quicker to get to the technology as advanced as possible so it can create as much money as possible, so it can be the best technology ever. And we'll figure out the safety mechanisms after the fact. Because if we don't do it, then China or whoever else is going to do it before us. And that essentially means that we have this technology that is rapidly progressing to the point where we have people inside Silicon Valley saying, inside Google or wherever it is saying, I'm a bit worried about this. This seems to have gone far beyond what we thought it could do. And we haven't actually developed the safety mechanisms to put the brakes on. I don't think we're heading to extinction, but I do think, yeah, but I do think it is going to completely change.
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B
Just enslavement.
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C
Just enslavement. I think it's going to completely change, change jobs and employment as we know it now. And I think the better thing we can do is absolutely put pressure on these tech titans to look at these safety regulations. And we need to have a serious and frank discussion about what the future of work and society looks like if we have technology taking over so much of the jobs we now have.
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B
Just a final thought, quick thought from each of you. Justin. First. Is there some as yet unmanifested hallucination of science fiction that you would actually like a crack at at some point? No one's got around to building quite yet, at least not to your satisfaction?
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A
If I could have a conversation with my cat, that would be great. If there was somewhere the cat could just evolve, that'd be great. I'd be fine with that. That's about as complicated as I'd like things to get. Okay.
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B
At which point the cat would say, if I could open my own cans, I'd kill you.
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A
It conveys that anyway.
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B
As indeed does every cat. Zoe.
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C
I. I'd like the technology to just eat, you might say. It's already here. I'd like to be able to eat everything I want without having to worry too much about whether I'm gonna fit into my clothes the next day.
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B
We're pretty much there, I think.
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C
Yeah, but maybe, like, something you could.
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A
That's not technology. That's an eating disorder.
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C
Yeah, but if you could, like, plug yourself into something and have, you know, a big McDonald's or something, that'd be.
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B
Nice without actually eating it, like, intravenously.
- [32:39]
C
Like just. You could, like, taste it and, you know, feel it. I don't know why that wouldn't be possible.
- [32:43]
A
Zoe, I don't think you thought this one through properly.
- [32:46]
C
Well, I could already have a conversation with my ca. So you're just not trying hard enough.
- [32:50]
B
Zoe Grindelwald and Justin Quirk, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, it has never been easy to keep a political party under control. More than most vocations, politics has always attracted the eccentric, reckless, vainglorious and unruly. It is almost certainly Even harder now, members of any Parliament are under more scrutiny than ever from news media and social media enables both the spread of scandal and the public unravelling of MPs who spend too much time on it. Our next guest learned all this the hard way. The former British MP Simon Hart, now Lord Hart of Tenby, was Chief whip of the UK's House of Commons from 2022 to 2024, which is to say his was the daunting task of imposing discipline upon the post Brexit Conservative government of Rishi Sunak as it attempted to cling to power. Lord Hart recalls the experience in a new book, the Political Diaries of a Chief Whip. I spoke to Lord Hart earlier and began by asking how he would define the Chief Whip's choice job.
- [33:51]
D
Good question. It's sort of principal purpose is to try and get the government's business through Parliament. So to get legislation through the House of Commons and the House of Lords, that is our job to get the business done. But inevitably that involves a whole load of other stuff as well, from HR to the allocation of offices to every minute detail you can think of. And the Whips have some kind of influence, some or involved.
- [34:18]
B
You did write elsewhere of having thought of entitling your book about my knighthood, because that was how a lot of MPs began their conversations with you. You also seem to be, or the Chief Whip seems to be the person in charge of both. Well, dispensing favors and cracking heads as may be necessary.
- [34:38]
D
I mean, that is true. I mean, there is a disciplinary function and of course, in this day and age, you know, it's probably rather different than it was in the, you know, 1950s or earlier. And discipline is dished out probably more by way of persuasion than by force. And of course, part of the, you know, the suite of persuasive measures at our disposal is, you know, things like reshuffles, titles, you know, nice officers, overlooking the terms, all those sort of things where you can either, you know, encourage people to, you know, to stick, you know, keep their nerve and remain loyal to the government over as long a period of time as you can, or which is, you know, nine times out of 10, reasonably effective, or you can. Alternative people have been confronted with sort of extreme disappointment because the job that they wanted or the role that they wanted hasn't quite come their way. Sometimes there's a, you know, perhaps a bit of a consolation price that we can dish out to make that, to make that disappointment a little bit less acute. So, you know, yeah, we, there is everything at our disposal.
- [35:40]
B
The book does chronicle a fairly extraordinary period in British political history that you were right in the middle of. This is the very recent pass of Brexit and Covid and Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. When you reflect on it now, do you feel like it was more the times made people crazy and there is some extremely odd behaviour cataloged in your book? Or was it the other way around? Did a group of eccentric, dysfunctional people gather together, perhaps commanded by fate at one particular point to cause things to get that weird?
- [36:14]
D
I remember back in 2010 thinking that the coalition, the relationship between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, was a sort of breathtaking new development and controversy, controversial and challenging sort of chapter in British politics. And then after that came Brexit and Covid and Ukraine and you suddenly realized that actually the coalition was a walk in the park. But I think that the extraordinary pressures which befell politics and Covid is probably the best example of that undoubtedly has an effect on people. But I think, think what it really, I think coupled with all of that is the fact that we entered a really, really sort of volatile period of social media domination. And that does affect people. And we all say that it doesn't, but it does. And it affects the man and woman on the street as much as does the politician in this building here, because it applies extreme pressure on the government to deliver satisfaction free of charge and instantaneously, which of course is impossible. And what that creates for the punter on the side, there's a permanent feeling of disappointment as one politician or one party or one leader or whatever it might be, fails to live up to expectations. So I think that, and sometimes that can bring out the worst of the best in the individuals. And, you know, I still maintain that almost everybody who comes into Parliament is doing so for the right reasons. You know, good people trying to do the right thing for the right reasons. But you know, the system and the pressure and the media scrutiny, some of it which isn't totally unique, reasonable, makes that delivery very, very difficult, especially planning for the long term. You go quite quickly from having a sort of five year vision to hoping you can make it to the weekend without falling over. And that's quite, that's not so good from the point of view of really cool, calm and collected government.
- [38:08]
B
But is there anything, do you think actually to be done about any of this? Because none of those pressures you mention are going to go away. And are we therefore damned to the situation we appear to have where somebody who may well enter Parliament as Well intentioned person feeling called to public service ends up calling you because they're drunk in a Bayswater Hotel with 12 naked women and a KGB agent. And this, this is an actual story from your book?
- [38:35]
D
It is. I mean, there is, there's not an easy solution, by the way, not a magic pill that can be issued and all of those problems go away. But I do think that the means by which we identify recruitment, recruit, train, support and mentor people coming into politics at any level could be your local authorities. As much as it is parliament here could do with a sort of significant overhaul because as I say, you get really good people who get into really difficult places and respond differently to the pressures and the trials and tribulations of a life in politics. And I think one of the things we could do is have, as I say, a more robust system of making sure that people know what they're letting themselves in for in the first instance. Because a lot of people and us being able to manage their expectations more effectively and being able to set out, you know, what does success look like, what does failure look like, what does good and bad look like in terms of a political career, but also to make sure that hopefully, you know, to help people avoid the wheels falling off.
- [39:36]
B
Just as a final thought, did you ever find yourself wondering, because the book, riotously entertaining though it is, if frequently terrifying in patches, does read like a warning that this, this is clearly not the way to do it. Did you ever find yourself thinking this shouldn't be up to me, should be actual rigid, understood standards of behavior? Because I think for a lot of people reading the book, and certainly it was my own reaction just thinking about how long I would last in my place of work if I acted like this. And you could measure it in milliseconds.
- [40:07]
D
Yeah, quite. And I think that thought crossed my mind all the time. And it goes back to what I was saying, that I think we could have minimized the risk if we, you know, if we'd been able to have a better regime in place for people coming into the system right at the start. And yes, whilst there are some, you know, jaw dropping moments in the book, put that deliberately to provoke conversation and to provoke reaction, in many respects, they're not in the book with any sense of glee or flippancy. They're in the book because it's an indication to people that it's very, very difficult to be an effective government or even an effective parliament when you've got all of these sort of drama, sort of psychodramas going on in the background. And, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a financial advisor, I'm not a drug counsellor, I'm not a bereavement counselor, I'm not an HR expert.
- [40:53]
A
Expert.
- [40:53]
D
And none of the things which the Whip's office was quite frequently asked to appoint on. Now, we could signpost people to the right place, but it was always, you know, I remember almost every day thinking, God, this is. You know, this is. This is. This is requires much more serious assistance than perhaps we're able to give. We're just, you know, we're a bunch of politicians trying to get legislation through Parliament. And we were confronted with some really difficult, I mean, and occasionally say, jaw dropping, eye watering, whatever, you know, expression you want, scenarios which. The book, fun in a way. You know, they also, I think, serve as a warning.
- [41:30]
B
That was Simon Hart speaking to me earlier. His new book, Ungovernable the Political Diaries of a Chief Whip, is available now. That is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Zoe Grindelwald and Justin Quirk. Today's show was produced by Chris Chermack. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily returns at the same time tomorrow.
- [41:49]
D
Thanks for listening, Sam.