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The Rest Is Politics
390. Question Time: India’s moment, Qatargate, and do young brits want a dictator?
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- [00:01]
Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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- [01:12]
Alistair Campbell
So download it now. Use the referral code politics after signing up, visit getfuse.com politics for the terms of conditions and to learn more. Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question time with me, Alistair Campbell and with.
- [01:34]
Rory Stewart
Me ro Maurice Stewart LaRue we had.
- [01:36]
Alistair Campbell
A very, very, very foreign policy related main episode. Let's start with a question very much about the UK this room. Lily, what are your thoughts on the John Smith Center's Youth poll? It's being pointed to as proof that we shouldn't believe this doom and gloom narrative around young people, but I think there are still some pretty concerning findings. So the John Smith center set up in honor of John Smith, who was the Labour leader one ahead of Tony Blair, whose death led to Tony Blair becoming leader and sort of life changing for me and many, many other people. And the John Smith center does a lot of fantastic work, really trying to sort of boost political engagement, political involvement, political education, and they've done a survey, interestingly. Maybe this is because we do feel so negative. I did see it in a very, very positive light. I don't know what you thought, Rory.
- [02:29]
Rory Stewart
Well, I was talking to Theresa May about it recently and what struck her, of course Is that although there are some positive findings, it's still very striking that, I think, is it something like 27% of young people say that they would prefer to live in a dictatorship than a democracy. Now, I don't know whether this is a kind of constant theme, but that is interesting because, of course, a lot of the support for the far right in Germany comes from young people. Be interested to see the gender split on that. You know, I'd like to know how many of those are young men, because the, the normal story that we see repeated is that young men are getting more and more right wing and young women are getting more and more left wing.
- [03:10]
Alistair Campbell
I guess, I guess the other thing would be the way you frame questions. This is why surveys and polls, you have to be a bit careful sometimes. That might be an answer to a question about whether you think democracy is working very well or whether you. But, but if you're given a black and white, you can either have democracy or dictatorship. And then there might be people tempted to say, well, I don't think democracy is working very well. Let's give the other one a go. Just in general, just go through some of the findings, the ones that gave me a bit of hope. Only 20% said they were pessimistic about the future for themselves, their own lives. 63% optimistic. 63% say their lives will eventually be better than their parents. Only 14% say it'll be the worst. Now, economically, that doesn't look like it's the case. So it's interesting that they have taken that on for their own lives. 72% describe themselves as rather happy or very happy. 28% say not very happy or not at all happy. But this is where maybe Lilly's question about the concerns is. 56% say they feel anxious either daily or weekly. And as you say, 27% would actually be happy to live in a dictatorship. And 63% think that British democracy is, quote, in trouble. So, you know, there is. I took the hopeful bits out of it, but I can see why Lilly might look at the more pessimistic outcome.
- [04:35]
Rory Stewart
James Johnson, who is a poster that we used a lot in the run up to the UK election and has been doing a lot in the US at the moment, has done some polls in Grimsby recently, focus groups in Grimsby recently, and he got in touch with me to say that he was really thrown off balance because he's been used to last couple of years doing American focus groups which have been pretty apocalyptic and terrifying. What people say. He, for example, is somebody who did predict the Trump victory in the election on the basis of those things, and usually comes to UK and finds it kind of gentler and kinder, but actually his recent stuff in Grimsby was pretty terrifying. Not a single person in the focus group could point to a single positive achievement from the Labour government. Almost everyone he spoke to gave this sort of completely dystopian vision of a kind of country, country swamped with crime, swamped with immigration, swamped with mental health issues, long hangover of COVID junkies, homelessness. So, I don't know. I mean. And what's your instincts, actually? I mean, if we step aside from sort of contradictory things of John Smith sounding positive and James Johnson sounding negative, how do you sort of feel your way towards this? I guess if you were still in office, you'd be doing focus groups yourself, wouldn't you?
- [05:53]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, absolutely. Look, there's no doubt there is generally a. About politics right now and about the state of the country, quite a negative mood. That's why I did take some hope from. And I've said to you before, every time I go into schools, I always feel that the younger generation has actually got a better outlook on some of these things than we often give them credit for. But it is a generation dealing with a whole succession of very, very big challenges. And when you ask them, the John Smith center asked them about what they saw as their main contributors to anxiety. Number one was financial worries, number two was work pressure, number three was job insecurity or unemployment. What would make them happier? The most popular answer was higher wages and financial stability, affordable housing, massive problem, state of the health service, massive problem. And then the other thing about politics, and again, this may be as me, again looking for something that I believe in and therefore want to believe is true, but they, they do say that they, they really want politicians to be more open with them, to be more honest. They want more young people in leadership roles and they see politics as not functioning very well and in part because of the terrible division within politics. So it's. Yeah, it's a very. It's a mixed bag. I think Lily's right. I read it with a very optimistic lens, but I think that she, she may be right. A couple of other issues that were interesting. 67% think that social media for under 16 should be banned. 28% disagree. 67% say toxic masculinity is becoming more common. Against 21% who don't think that it is. And when we talked about adolescence last week, we had a huge response to that discussion. But I think one of the things that we maybe didn't focus on enough given the context of the film was this issue of violence, misogyny, violence against women and girls, which of course was at the heart of that story. But the toxic masculinity, again, I don't maybe the sort of kids that come and see me when I go to schools, I, I always come away with a sense that a lot of the young boy, boys and young men in schools and colleges, they get that it's a problem. They're the ones who kind of often bring it to the fore. But I guess maybe the ones who would think it's. There's nothing wrong with going around saying that, you know, girl, women are inferior or women have taken all the rights or women are now you running the world, which on an objective level is such nonsense. But it's sort of part of that misogynistic language. Maybe they're not the ones who come and hear me talk. I don't know. Okay, let's go abroad again. Jonathan, for more. The media focus is so orientated towards the usa, Russia and China in a highly globalized world. Please can you provide some insight on something beyond those three countries? And he specifically, Jonathan, specifically mentioned in his, in his question India. And I know this is something that you're into. Well, we're both interested in this, about the role of India in the world. So why do you kick off?
- [08:57]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, well, let's start with the basics. So India is on track to become the largest country in the world. Its population will overtake China. And unlike China, it's at the moment a younger population. China's population is now declining, getting older, one child policy begin to shrink. So India has this amazing demographic boom of a lot of young people and its economy is growing reasonably fast. So, you know, up above 6% and don't need to say that it's done very, very well in the tech sector. And of course it has an opportunity. As China becomes more isolated from the American system, companies beginning to look at de risking from China putting manufacturing bases in India. And it's invested an enormous amount in infrastructure, roads, airports. And every time I go to India, I'm more and more kind of startled by the changes and transformations there. So there would be a story that India is the next global superpower. And there are certainly people in India who want to feel that. On the other hand, there's another story which is that given all of that, India's economy may be not all it's cracked up to be. We can get onto that in a second. But certainly its foreign policy is a real mess given all its strengths of democracy, English language, its economy. It's completely failing to come up with a consistent foreign policy. It tried to position itself as being sort of part of the alliance of democracies and lean towards the west and separate itself from China. But then it decided to play footsie with Russia over Ukraine and welcome Putin and therefore lose its opportunity to position itself as this kind of part of this alliance of Western democracies. It's tried to position itself as a kind of regional hegemon, but it's completely mishandled that. So it backed Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, which we covered on the show, and Bangladesh then blew up. It's mishandled its relationships with Sri Lanka. It's never really worked out what's due on Myanmar, which we can talk about a bit later. And even its relationships with Nepal are not good before you get onto Pakistan and Afghanistan. So it doesn't quite know what it is. It talks in very pretentious terms about kind of multipolar engagement and it's got a whole series of theoretical discussions. But on the basic view of what position is it taking on the rules based international order, what position is it taking on the un what position is it taking on state sovereignty? What position is it taking on Trump, Putin, China? It's a real muddle and there's a real sense that actually it's underplaying its hand, that its foreign service isn't sufficiently invested in, it doesn't really have the confidence in international military engage engagements, a lot of potential in the economy with some problems in over to you.
- [11:52]
Alistair Campbell
I mean I think first of all on the economic story, I mean they've gone from being a country recognized around the world as being one of the poorest in the world and they're now depending which measurement you take, some say the fifth biggest economy, some say well on their way to being the third biggest economy in the world. It's interesting, Roisy, because I think they would argue in response to what you've just said that actually they're being quite clever in their foreign policy because there's a lot of strategic ambiguity around the place. And it's interesting Modi made a speech last week where he actually said that we've moved from being equidistant that was essentially between east and west if you like, to now being equi close. And I think you could all oh my Lord. I thought that was interesting because the other change there's been India, the great Non aligned power. I think you could now argue that they've started to become multi aligned. And when we talked to Moises Naim on leading this week and he had this phrase minilateralism, this idea of countries getting together on certain issues. We mentioned the quad in relation to Australia. India's part of the quad. But the other word that I think we maybe have to get used to, which I think is in their thinking at the moment, is tripolarity. I think there's an everybody accepts, everybody says USA and China are the two superpowers. Will there be a third pole and could that third pole become India? There is a sort of set of thinking that America wants India to develop in that direction as a check on China. Now they're not going to be, they're not as big as China, they're not as powerful as China. And also don't forget they've had wars with China, including you know, just a, just a few years ago they had that big border clash in which led to quite a few soldiers being killed. But they are, they have sort of slowly improved relations with China. I think where you've got a really big point is on Russia because I don't, I think this predated Ukraine, you know, during the Cold War they were quotes, as we say, equidistant, but actually they get most of their military stuff from Russia. We've talked on the podcast before about the way that India has been used to help Russia get round sanctions on oil. But I think they would say yeah, but we do it, but we don't get condemned by America for doing it the whole time. So I think they'd say they're being quite canny in the way they're approaching this stuff.
- [14:22]
Rory Stewart
Well, yes, there's a sort of Macron tone, isn't there, to all these amazing sort of tripolarity. Multiproximate, multi vector is another one that Modi's produced. Well, they had a real, real opportunity, I mean jargon aside, to become a champion of the rules based international order at exactly the moment where the us, China and Russia are moving away from it. India, which has spent 50, 60 years saying the rules based order is stacked against them and that it needs to be reinvented and that it should be a permanent member Security Council and that we should rethink multilateral institutions, had a real opportunity over the last, well since 2014 really to reconsider how India positioned itself. And if they had taken a principled stance on Russia, Ukraine, I think they could have crafted a very, very interesting leadership position and could have bound themselves closely to the European Union. Now, some of that's historical, you're right. They're completely riddled, I'm afraid, with Russian espionage, Russian influence, and Russian connections going back a long way, which makes it quite difficult for them to distance themselves from Putin. I also think there's an interesting question, though, about the Indian economy. I mean, this is going to make a lot of Indians very angry, because there's understandably, a huge amount of pride and even more understandably, not much interest in people from a former colonial power criticizing India's economic development, given that Britain is responsible for.
- [15:52]
Alistair Campbell
By the way, that is worth emphasizing in relation to why they do want a bit of strategic autonomy, because what they don't ever want to be is to feel that they are being controlled, let alone colonized, by another great power. So I think they do want to keep America and China slightly at bay. Although Modi does have a pretty good relationship with Trump.
- [16:14]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, of course, many, many of the problems that India has struggled with date back to the British Empire, partition being one of the most fundamental ones. But also the entire structure of the Indian economy that we created, we did not succeed during the British Raj in creating a proper, viable economy. India at independence, 1947, was extremely poor, very, very divided, very underdeveloped. There's a lovely book by a man who's got the office next to me in Yale, David Engerman, who looked at six extraordinary South Asian economists who studied in Cambridge in the early 50s and the way in which they began to reconceptualize. How do you do development economics? How do you turn a country around? And as you said, there's a lot positive about India's development. And this is the. But if you wanted to make the counter argument, it has not succeeded in doing what Vietnam did. It hasn't really even succeeded in, in some ways in keeping up with Sri Lanka's performance the 70s and 80s, or Bangladesh's performance more recently. And Bangladesh came from a much, much more difficult starting point, let alone Malaysia. And it's difficult to know quite why that is. I mean, is that because many of the great Asian success stories got a lot of US Subsidies during the Cold War and India didn't, which is something David Engelman emphasizes. Is it that they didn't invent the right reforms? Is it that actually there are too many caste colonial structures still stopping important things like land reform and agricultural reform? But the risk for India is that it's in its golden age now. This is the moment where it should be China, this is the moment where it should be taking opportunity of global trade, opportunity of its young population and it should be becoming the world's largest manufacturer and exporter. And it isn't managing to do that. And that's partly because it hasn't addressed primary education properly. Basic standard of education in India isn't good enough. It isn't becoming a manufacturing superpower. And although its growth rate is great, it's not good enough. China in its glory days was growing 10, 11%. So that by the time demography turned against China, it was already a pretty impressively wealthy, well established place that had dominated all these key strategic industries. We talked about how China literally thought we are going to dominate the green economy. We're going to get into this position on critical minerals, et cetera. India may be missing the boat. There's a real risk that by the time demography turns against it, it's found itself in a world in which tariffs are going up, global free trade is stopping, it's not moving at the rate it was 20 years ago and therefore it may end up becoming old before it gets into that upper middle income status that it wants to achieve.
- [19:00]
Alistair Campbell
Interesting. You've clearly got a much more negative assessment of how they're playing their many, many cards than I have. I'll tell you the thing that's interesting, I think about Modi is that, you know, we talked at the time of his election because he didn't do nearly as well as most people in the polls certainly indicated he would. He actually was weakened, but he has not behaved remotely as if he's been, if he's been weakened. I've been looking into some of these examples of sort of political economic pragmatism and one of the most interesting actually relates. We got a lot of questions this week probably because of the interview we did with Francesca Albanese and also we're going to talk later about Netanyahu's current troubles in relation to Qatar. But very interesting, India's relations with, with Palestine, which have evolved and have evolved much closer towards the sort of, you know, the Trumpian position. If you go back to Gandhi, Gandhi, I'll give you a quote from Gandhi. It's wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. Nehru, and this is all about anti colonialism. Nehru actually opposed the partition of Palestine back in 1947. And India became, I think, the first non Arab country to recognize the PLO as the legitimate government representative of the Palestinians. And now Israel is India's second biggest military partner. So Modi was the first ever Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel, signed really big military defense agreements with the United States and with the Israelis. So that has evolved, that has adapted. And yet I think for most of our listeners, even though they follow this stuff pretty closely, say our listeners in Europe, in Britain and Europe, would they be aware of that? Because I think they remind me a little bit of China. When China is developing is they do a lot of the foreign policy slightly under the radar. They do the big showy stuff and they've got 45 million people living in the Indian diaspora in different parts of the world. So when Modi goes to America, he does these massive stadium rallies. When he comes to London, he might do a rally at Wembley Stadium. He's got this huge following around the world and that becomes the story. So he takes the domestic story into his travels abroad with the Indian diaspora. But on the foreign policy stuff, I think they just sort of motor away under the radar. And they actually coined the phrase India first as the current foreign minister as their approach to foreign policy, I think. Before Trump did for America.
- [21:39]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. Well, I think what you've got with Israel, Palestine is those two contrasting sides of India. There's the Nero nationalist, independence, non aligned view, which as you say, would be very sympathetic towards Palestinians. And then Modi, which is a Hindu nationalist populist tradition, which of course is profoundly anti Muslim in its rhetoric and its action and very, very nationalistic, very believing in sort of indigenous, ancient claims to land, which makes it very sympathetic towards Israel. Just to sort of defend myself because I guess I've been very negative on India. Two books maybe, that people, if they want to get into this.
- [22:20]
Alistair Campbell
How many books have you read this week? This is the sixth book you mentioned.
- [22:24]
Rory Stewart
I've been on airlines a lot, which helps me a lot. When I'm stuck on planes for seven, eight hours. I do a lot of reading. Two books. So on the positive case for India, making the kind of Alastair Campbell optimistic, bullish case for India breaking the mold, Reimagining India's economic future was very upbeat, partly written by one of Modi's first central bankers. And on the negative side, a book called India is Broken A People Betrayed. The book maybe gives the content away by somebody called Ashoka Modi, no relative, who is much closer to my position, which is total failure to invest in education, failure to follow through on land reforms, a lot of which is to do with Modi's inability to form proper coalitions and get consent, his very authoritarian style of government. Actually means that he hasn't been able to bring through economic reforms often because he can't bring other people with him.
- [23:15]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, just Rory, I know we always like to correct ourselves if we make mistakes on here. We have some very, very high up listeners at the United nations who wanted to point out last week when you said that you were surprised that the Secretary General had appointed Francesca Albanese as the special rapporteur, it turns out that they're not appointed by the United nations, by the Human Rights Council. So. And he did go on to say that he thought that both you and Rory would be excellent special rapporteurs if there was a particular part of the world you were interested in. So where would you like to be a special rapporteur? I think Greenland. I think he'd be a good special rapporteur for Greenland. And I'd like do the Balkans.
- [24:01]
Rory Stewart
Maybe both of us should have a, have a go at Myanmar now because we got a question from Tilly. What's the significance of China leading the response to Myanmar's earthquake? Do Trump's aid cuts provide a perfect opening for authoritarian governments to spread influence by helping vulnerable countries? So that's the comment on the fact that the USAID office in Myanmar, like USAID offices around the world, has been completely eviscerated, all the staff laid off. And whereas the US Would normally be playing a very leading part, there's basically no staff on the ground to get involved. And then, Liv Sigel, will the earthquake in Myanmar have a political effect on the civil war? Because Myanmar's been for the last four years since the tappling of Aung San SUU Kyi, but actually before that too, stuck in horrible edges of armed conflict. Over to you.
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Alistair Campbell
Well, on the second point, given that a lot of the fighting and some of the bombing going on from the junta is still going on, suggests that maybe not. I think the point on aid is fundamental and I don't think it's just about the aid. I think a combination of the way that the global debate is currently framed largely around Trump and the things that he says and does allied to the, and let's be frank, not just America, but also the UK and Germany and France and Belgium and Holland, other countries that have that are cutting back on international aid and add to the fact that there is no access for international media into Myanmar right now. So people tend to be reporting this from, from Thailand. So that multi story building that collapsed in Bangkok seems to be coming the defining image of this earthquake. Whereas in fact that was a long, long, long way from the epicenter of this 7.7 earthquake. So I think that all of these are combining for us one, to know less about what's happened. Secondly, I'm afraid for a lot of the world to care less. I heard on the news last night that the British government was sending water and equipment and I think it was a total of £10 million. Now, I think when you were Secretary of State for International Development, an earthquake of this scale, the British government would have mobilized.
- [26:10]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. So big, big humanitarian crises. We were often being asked to put in 100 million or more. If I think back to the sort of contributions we'd make to Yemen or Somalia or South Sudan, you're talking now about a tenth of the amount. Just quick update to remind people. So the junta ran Myanmar. And then Aung San SUU Kyi, the lady who was famously under house arrest, this very sort of dignified, very courageous individual emerged from house arrest, created the beginnings of civilian government with huge hopes of democracy. Slightly thrown off balance by the Burmese army massacring the Rohingya, and Aung San SUU Kyi not coming out in support of the Rohingya, in fact seeming to endorse the actions. The Burmese military, in coming under a lot of criticism and becoming discredited, credited having won the Nobel Peace Prize. And then four years ago, almost exactly to the day, the junta toppled that government. And it was one of the signs, this is 2021, of something we've reported on a lot, which is the way in which democracies are collapsing around the world. But it was one of the early bellwethers. And then we saw seven coups in Africa. The result has been that there are now four complete eight different factions in Myanmar. There's the military that still controls most of the center of the country. There are these armed groups and particularly powerful up on the Chinese border and in the west, funded by China. So there's the Arakan army in the Rohingya area, but it's horrible for the Rohingya because the Arakans and the military are both very, very Islamophobic, but they're fighting each other and killing, killing the Rohingya. There's the pro democracy group spread around the country, but some of them seem to be almost at a village level fighting each other. And then there's Aung San SUU Kyi herself and her vision of a sort of peaceful path to Burmese revolution.
- [28:02]
Alistair Campbell
So I saw a map and it was explaining just how many of these different armed groups and resistance groups are in operation. And this Worked out that in terms of full control of the country, the junta has got about a fifth of it. So we say military junta and we imagine total control, but actually they don't. And if you imagine then trying to operate in a disaster zone and imagine being one of these now weakened international agencies trying to operate in support of that, it is pretty unimaginable what is happening in there right now. And in terms of disease, in terms of the rebuilding that's going to have to be done. And I just worry that we don't have the international responses now that will get the place back on its feet.
- [28:51]
Rory Stewart
As the questioner implied, we've got these actions from China. So that's Tilly's point. But again, China is involved because there are factions in the Chinese security intelligence services which are funding some of these armed groups. China's also trying to prop up the regime because they think that they want some stability. China also struggling to work out what it wants to do as a superpower because it doesn't want to get trapped in another Afghanistan or Iraq. And it's always criticized the US for overextending and trying to do things it can't do. Modi's India is now sending a response. But again, India's a bit confused about what exactly its policy is and returns. The general question of Indian foreign policy, what does this really mean? What are they really going to do about this? Bangladesh is trying to force Rohingya refugees back across the border. That's Muhammad Yunus's government, the new government in Bangladesh. And missing in all of this is of course, the un and that's where you're completely right. I was just in Geneva meeting quite a senior UN official who was talking me through just what the USAID cuts mean to the United Nations. And it's unbelievable. I mean, some of these agencies were getting 50% of their flexible funding from the US government. And the United nations does not begin to know what to do because it's not just that Trump is withdrawing from critical UN agencies, but the US provided 22% of the funding for the United nations. That'll be removed 50% for a lot of key agencies. China is just a little bit behind. So China is about to become by a large margin, the major funder of the UN because people like Britain are also dropping their funding. So when China is the dominant funder of the un, what does that mean for the whole culture of the UN compared to a US UK funded un and none of these agencies know what to do because they've all got staff pensions, allowances and the US was already in arrears. Even under the Biden administration. It was about a billion dollars in arrears, which is definitely not going to be paid by new so the UN is collapsing financially. These agencies are struggling to keep their head above water and there's just no leadership. The Secretary General doesn't seem to have a vision. He seems to become a lame duck. He's going to be replaced in I guess about 18 months time and nobody has any sense. And this is exactly where the UN should have mass at Myanmar. It's nowhere to be seen.
- [31:18]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, well, I think the UN will be part of the relief operation, will be part of the humanitarian effort. We talked to Tom Fletcher about that. We but I think you're right, but the UN is being weakened deliberately by some of its biggest powers and that is a problem. And just finally before we go to a break, Rory, I was reading on the Australian version of the conversation a really alarming piece by people who are working at the Burnett Institute on the effect of the USAID cuts on the HIV issue. And they have modeled this and they are predicting that the cuts will lead directly to more than 10 million more HIV infections by the end of this decade and 3 million extra deaths. Now, Elon Musk goes around the place saying that Doge and all this sort of cutting USAID was just a sort of corrupt organization, blah, blah, blah. And I honestly can't for the life of me understand why George W. Bush doesn't say anything about this. This was his great legacy. The US President's emergency plan for AIDS relief PEPFAR was great legacy and it's because it's being scrapped by Musk and Trump. 3 million extra deaths from HIV AIDS. Anyway, let's take a break and then we'll come back and talk about two of your great passions, Cumbria and Qatar.
- [32:48]
C
Hello, I'm William Durham.
- [32:50]
D
Paul and I'm Anita Arnand. And we are the hosts of Empire, also from Goal Hanger.
- [32:55]
C
And we're here to tell you about our recent miniseries that we've just done on the Troubles.
- [33:00]
D
In it, we try to get to the very heart of the violent conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the 1960s all the way up to 1998.
- [33:09]
C
It's something that we both lived through and remember from our childhoods, but younger listeners may not know anything about it. And it's a time when there was division along religious and political lines. Neighbours turned against each other, residential city streets became battlegrounds, thousands were killed and the IRA bombed London it seemed as.
- [33:30]
D
If an end was out of reach. But in 1998, a peace process finally brought those 30 years of violence to an end.
- [33:39]
C
But the memory of the Troubles is still present, not only within Northern Irish communities who experienced it, but in international relations and political approaches to peace. And new audiences are starting to understand this national trauma through films like Belfast and Kneecap and TV shows like Derry Girls.
- [33:58]
D
In fact, our guest on the miniseries is Patrick Radden Keefe. Now he's the author of the non fiction book that inspired the hit TV drama say Nothing.
- [34:08]
C
It's one of my favourite books. It's I think the kind of Inko blood for our generation, extraordinary work of nonfiction.
- [34:15]
D
To hear the full series, just search Empire wherever you get your podcasts.
- [34:24]
Alistair Campbell
This episode is brought to you by NordVPN. Long term partners of the rest is politics.
- [34:31]
Rory Stewart
And I guess we could say the Internet's a bit like politics, isn't it? Sometimes on the surface, things seem to be moving smoothly, but underneath all strange and slightly troubling things are happening.
- [34:40]
Alistair Campbell
Just like politics. You have to protect yourself on the Internet because these days, hackers, trackers, data harvesters, they're all over the place, even when you're doing something as simple as logging onto public WI fi in a cafe.
- [34:52]
Rory Stewart
And that's where NORDVPN comes in. It secures your connection, it encrypts your data, helps keep your online activity private wherever you are. It's quick to set up, easy to use and works away quietly in the background.
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Alistair Campbell
And our listeners can get an Exclusive deal@nordvpn.com RestisPolitics One subscription covers up to 10 devices that's perfect for work, home, travel and indeed the whole family.
- [35:15]
Rory Stewart
That's nordvpn.com restispolitics completely risk free with their 30 day money back guarantee. The link's in the episode description.
- [35:24]
C
Hello, I'm William Dalrymple.
- [35:26]
D
And I'm Anita Arnand. And we are the hosts of Empire, also from Goal Hanger.
- [35:31]
C
And we're here to tell you about our recent miniseries that we've just done on the Troubles.
- [35:36]
D
In it, we try to get to the very heart of the violent conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the 1960s all the way up to 1998.
- [35:45]
C
It's something that we both lived through and remember from our childhoods, but younger listeners may not know anything about it. And it's a time when there was division along religious and political lines. Neighbours turned against each other, Residential city streets became battlegrounds. Thousands were killed and The IRA bombed London.
- [36:05]
D
It seemed as if an end was out of reach. But in 1998, a peace process finally brought those 30 years of violence to an end.
- [36:15]
C
But the memory of the troubles is still present, not only within Northern Irish communities who experienced it, but in international relations and political approaches to peace. And new audiences are starting to understand this national trauma through films like Belfast and Kneecap and TV shows like Derry Girls.
- [36:33]
D
In fact, our guest on the miniseries is Patrick Radden Keefe. Now he's the author of the non fiction book that inspired the hit TV drama say Nothing.
- [36:44]
C
It's one of my favourite books. It's, I think, the kind of Inko Blood for Our Generation, extraordinary work of nonfiction. And if you'd like to hear more about this very recent conflict that put Northern Ireland on the global stage and hear from Patrick Radden Keefe, we've left a clip of the miniseries at the end of this episode.
- [37:01]
D
To hear the full series, just search Empire wherever you get your podcast.
- [37:11]
Alistair Campbell
Now, Rory, we said we can talk about Cumbria. The reason for that is that Pete has sent us a question about a debate that's been going on in Cumbria, a climate assembly, to which you contributed a video. And Pete's question was this. You said that democracy doesn't work and the idea that an MP goes to parliament to represent their constituencies, out of date. So what is the alternative? 2. How do MPs ensure that young people's opinions are heard? Please give an example of where this has worked. Is the plan that these might be responded to on the podcast. Etc, Etc. Etc. So I guess what Pete's wanting is your alternative forms of representation. Rory, tell us about the climate assembly first.
- [37:51]
Rory Stewart
Well, yeah, so I think that's the first thing. This is Cumbria trying to take the initiative. And Cumbria's been the lead in this. I mean, obviously it's the most sparsely populated place in England. It's right at the sharp edge of questions about land. Where are wind turbines located? How does small farms survive? It's got a lot of national parks. People are really trying to think about everything from carbon emissions to land use to biodiversity. And it's a place that attracts a lot of people interested. So this assembly's met to try to talk this through. And I guess my answer is that I increasingly think that we need to reconsider democracy. So I'm going to be outrageous to you here for a second, Alison, and then throw it back to you. I think that our system of democracy, which is this kind of representative system where you send off people like you or me or Rachel Reeves or Kemi Badenoch off to Parliament to speak on behalf of their constituents feels increasingly strange. And you can feel this all the time. When you talk to people, they're like, well, you know, I voted for this person, they don't really represent me. What do they mean by that? What they mean is this person is often not saying anything they believe in. They find it very difficult to relate to this person. And we understand society. I mean, how am I supposed to represent people with completely different identity? To me, people say, you know, Rory, you've never lived on benefits, how can you represent me? Or you're not from an hierarchy background, you're not a woman. And all these are completely right. You know, how am I supposed to represent all this stuff? So I'm increasingly excited by an alternative model, which is the model of citizens assemblies. And I'm not sure it fixes everything. But the citizens assemblies, as we've discussed before, are like a jury. It's the totally separate system. It works on sortition. So you randomly select people and then you bring them together for a period of time to discuss policy issues. And it's usually quite well organized, so there'll be experts that can be brought in to talk about things and they discuss together. The great thing about it is it's not party political and it's ordinary people. And it's not the question of one person representing others. It's 300 people who are very, very democratically diverse discussing things. And in my experience, it doesn't matter whether you're talking about climate discussions in Cumbria or whether you're talking about bicycle lanes in London or whether you're talking about abortion in Ireland. Actually you end up with a much more thoughtful Nonpartisan discussion. And MPs hate it. They say Parliament is a citizens assembly. They're pretty anti democratic, they're pretty terrified about the idea of ordinary people having a view. They somehow think they're much more qualified and know what they're doing. And of course I've actually been spending a bit of time in Switzerland recently, which takes all this stuff to whole different levels of kind of endless referendums, this extraordinary canton based decision making. I've got an instinct which I can't quite prove yet, but that if Britain went down more of a sort of Swiss citizens assembly devolved model, it would end up in a much, much happier place than trying to cling on to the old style of elite representation. There we are, back to you.
- [41:06]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, I've been disappointed that there hasn't been more given that this is a government that's talked about change, change in our politics. Now they're going after the heredity peers. I'm all in favor of that. More devolution, all in favor of that. But I sort of feel that. And this goes back to the discussion we had about people's attitudes to politics more generally. I sort of feel the system is creaking and the respect for it is not there in the same way that it was. And the only way you're going to maybe rebuild that is to recreate a new sort of system in which people think, feel much more directly involved in its creation. Now you will always have to have somebody leading the country, a prime minister type figure. You will always have to have legislative decision making bodies who have final say, final votes on situations. But I completely agree with you. And also if you look at the, we've talked about the assisted dying debate and I saw a survey the other day of public opinion, that's the one piece of legislation. That and the winter fuel payment are the two things of this Parliament so far that have really got through to people. This is happening in this Parliament and yet you look at what's happening at the moment. I've not followed every sort of twist and every turn, but there's the bill, private members bill, it gets passed, the government sort of says it's going to give it a fair wind, then goes into committee. And now there's all this talk about whether actually it's going to be what people thought it was and the scale of the change attached to it. And I just would wonder if we did on some of these big social and moral issues in particular, if we took them out of Westminster, built that Citizens assembly model and then at some stage brought them back. You know, you keep talking about the abortion issue in Ireland. I mean, it's incredible what happened with that. That was driven by people.
- [42:50]
Rory Stewart
Here's an idea that an Australian academic. I'm always deferring to Australia now because they're the source of all wisdom called Nicholas Gruen's come up with. So he says that what we could do in Britain is you could have a third chamber which was the Citizen Citizens Assembly. So House Comms, House, Lords Citizens assembly and the Citizens assembly would have the right to refer legislation back. It's not that they would make the final decision. The final decision would still be made by the House Department, but they would have the right. If the Citizen assembly decided that something very bizarre had happened, they could bounce it back again for a second look and that could be a very good way of giving them prominence, getting the media in to cover them, getting the debates aired properly, and triggering it back into parliament for the final decision. Finally, on Switzerland. Switzerland is amazing. And we should, I think at some point do something on Switzerland. We've talked about it in the past. The trust in government in Switzerland is something like more than twice the OECD average. This very, very radically decentralized, very citizens involved model does seem to have a kind of robustness and a vigor that we're lacking. And Switzerland, which used to be a kind of outlier because it is so strange. French population, German population, Italian population, Roman population, none of whom often speak each other's languages. I'm really sort of struck by the fact I go from French speaking Switzerland to German speaking Switzerland, try to speak in France, and I don't get as French, I don't get anywhere that it sort of bucks the trend of nation states in Europe and yet somehow feels like one of the most stable, peaceful, successful, prosperous, trust based systems.
- [44:35]
Alistair Campbell
Are you saying that the wealth and prosperity may in part be a consequence of the politics or that the politics is a consequence of the wealth and the prosperity?
- [44:43]
Rory Stewart
Well, you wouldn't have bet on it, would you? I mean, if you look at it, it doesn't have many natural resources, a lot of mountains and not a lot of of fertile farmland there. So if you'd been betting 700 years ago on which country was going to end up rich and which was going to end up poor, you'd bet that Switzerland be pretty poor and places like France and Britain would be really rich.
- [45:02]
Alistair Campbell
They also have, Rory, a very, very good relationship and a very good economic partnership with the European Union, which could be applied as a model for other countries that might need to boost economic growth through greater trade flow with their closest and biggest market. I've got to say, Roy, when we were going on there about our love for citizens assemblies, Peter Kyle popped into my head. He'd be sitting there singing his favorite wet, wet, Wet songs. As you know, I'm never going to get over him calling me wet. But just to say that for members and non members, we did a very interesting session for members with Peter Kyle specifically, taking your questions on artificial intelligence was a big part of his brief. So if you want to become a member and take part in those sorts of episodes on the back of our interviews, then it'd be great to have you. Now, Rory, I said we're going to do your other great love, Qatar.
- [45:56]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, well, okay, here's a question from Susie Please discuss the arrests of Yonatan Ulrich and Eli Feldstein, Netanyahu's top advisors.
- [46:05]
Alistair Campbell
This is really, really interesting. And I mean, Netanyahu, we talk a lot about Netanyahu. He's had a very, very busy few days with some of his personal and political and legal problems coming back to cause him more difficulty. So these two guys, senior advisors to Netanyahu, and they have been arrested as suspects in an investigation about their relationship with Qatar and including the. The leaking and selling of state secrets, I guess, is how you would put it. Netanyahu, meanwhile, had been attending a separate court hearing related to his corruption trial in Tel Aviv that we've talked about before. And he's now being questioned, they say, not as a suspect, but as somebody who may have knowledge of this situation. But it's been made clear that he could at some point become a suspect. And of course, the reason why this is so sort of difficult is because there's been this whole thing going on about how his difficult relations with people in the intelligence services, with the Attorney General and him, basically we talked about this in relation to Le Pen on the main podcast and Trump in his sort of convicted felon ness about the extent to which they are making a claim that this is, as it were, political. But the investigation essentially is that these two guys are accused of damaging national security by leaking documents and also by feeding pro Qatar stories to the Israeli media via an international PR firm. Now, I don't know anything more than what I've, what I've read, but it does feel this like it's, you know, you're talking about people that are very, very senior. Netanyahu's team and the police have also now summoned a journalist for testimony and he is now apparently being questioned under caution.
- [48:11]
Rory Stewart
It is interesting, isn't it, because we keep coming back to judges conducting investigations. So that's been very central in Israeli politics. We interviewed a very interesting interview on leading Ehud Olmet, whose career and indeed his attempt to get a Palestinian peace process came tumbling down because he was accused of corruption and investigated and actually convicted. And we were talking about it with Marine Le Pen. It's a sort of interesting thing that doesn't happen so much in British politics. I mean, we've had these investigations and convictions of backbench MPs and junior ministers, but we haven't had this attempt to take on the leaders of major parties. And I think it's probably quite a good thing for the stability of the British system.
- [48:55]
Alistair Campbell
Nicola Sturgeon recently and her husband now now facing charges, but it is a very good example of the difference. So the Nicola Sturgeon situation. So you have those extraordinary pictures of the police tents going up around her house and her garden and images of things being dug up and. And what have you. But mostly politics and media allowed that to take its course. So that when she came out and said she's been told the police were taking no further action, she was able to say that. And broadly, not by everybody, because you've got the whole stuff going on social media, but broadly that was accepted, even though her husband is now facing these charges, whereas Netanyahu has come out very, very clearly through this whole process and said the whole thing is a political witch hunt. So what you're seeing, and we're seeing it now in France, as you say, we've definitely seen it in America, we're seeing it in different countries around Europe, where the legal institutions are themselves being constantly undermined so that their word no longer holds the authority and the power that once did.
- [50:02]
Rory Stewart
And that's why, in a way, I know you were very keen often on the idea of prosecuting Boris Johnson for various felonies, despite the fact I really despised that guy and thought he was a real rotter. I think it's better that he's elected out humiliated as not being a credible politician or political leader, and that the risk is that if you actually go after these people in the courts, you turn them unnecessarily into martyrs, let's say.
- [50:28]
Alistair Campbell
As the COVID inquiry meanders on, let's say, if that Covid inquiry does produce evidence of what you and I would identify as straightforward corruption, and it involves a politician, I think we've got to be careful not to say that all politicians have immunity.
- [50:43]
Rory Stewart
No, no, no. They definitely shouldn't have immunity. And I think if it's real big, significant corruption, of course they should be put in jail. But you need to make absolutely clear that it's. That the judges have really done their work and it can really stand up in the court of public opinion and you can really see the dodgy brown envelope going into the poor of the politician. And then I don't think anybody minds, I think where the problem is is this sort of very, very ambiguous sense and the delight that opposition politicians take. So you've really got to say the judges are getting on with it, the police are getting on with it, not having to do this. Here's a German question for you, Jason. What is going on in the coalition negotiations? And how much role does immigration play in this and let me give you my very basic sense of it and then I'd love your feedback on it. So my basic sense is that there's a real need to get a coalition agreement together and to get the German government off the ground. And in order to do that, the center right and center left need to come together. And one of the things that is holding them apart from each other is this question of immigration. And it seems remiss since as though they're both taking completely unrealistic positions on both sides. No doubt immigration really matters, but the right and even the asylum agency seem to be taking the mad position that they're just going to refuse asylum, refuse people at the border. And this is completely contrary to the constitution, completely contrary to international law, or completely contrary to the way that German, well, the entire German and European legal system works. So that's a non starter. And on the other hand you've got the SDP basically saying, well, immigration is not really an issue, let's just focus on welfare and we're not going to do anything at all. And none of them are coming up with what they need, which is a sensible program which controls immigration, but does so in a way that's consistent with German law and the eu, which for my money, or at least certainly for my great hero and friend Gerald Knauss, money means a safe third country movement working out deals with other countries to make sure that you can deal with the flood of increasing numbers of young men crossing the Mediterranean and coming in in legal routes.
- [52:55]
Alistair Campbell
The Germans seem reasonably happy. I'm talking about the politicians here, about the pace of these coalition negotiations. You know, we said, and this may be just a difference in our culture. I felt right at the start particularly, and to be fair to Mertz, he was going to do this thing about the debt break and changing the fiscal rules. And even without being Chancellor, he was able to secure that by building the support for the argument and he got it through. But I worry that these coalition negotiations, they're trying to dot the I's and cross the T's at a time when actually getting the big agreement on the big themes, I think is far, far more important. Very interesting. The guy who's leading the Social Democrat side of the thing, this guy, Lars King, bile, he did an interview this week. I don't know how I'm going to sort of explain this, but you know, the thing about, in French, tout and vous and in German, du and sie, it's always amazing. I'm always amazed with these discussions about when you get to the point of when you know that you can. You can use the more informal, familiar, friendly version of you, when you go from VU to. To or Z to do. And he did this big interview which was meant to be about, you know, where they were falling apart and where they weren't and where they were getting together. But the biggest this was, I thought, quite clever. The big story that came out of it was that he and Merz were now calling each other do. And this was sort of taken as. This was taken as it's all coming together. I think they are getting there. Mertz has sort of set himself a kind of unofficial deadline of Easter. But look, I guess what you were saying is that when you fought campaigns on such divergent lines, it's then hard to bring them together in an agreement that you think is going to sustain political support for the duration of a parliamentary term.
- [54:45]
Rory Stewart
And we need it for Ukraine, we need it for Europe, and we need it to provide an answer to the fd, who, as I say, is rising in the polls. So if they keep faffing around too long, there really is a risk that the AfD present themselves as the only people with a credible answer to immigration.
- [54:58]
Alistair Campbell
I said to you in the main podcast that I've been with some French ministers last week, and I've got to say they were really impressed by the way Mertz is handling himself. I think because of that big, big move that he made on the debt break, but also some of the positions that he's been staking out in relation to foreign policy. I think there's a sense that the Franco German relationship can come together pretty well. I think it's fair to say Macron and Schultz was not the. Not the finest partnership of the European motor.
- [55:27]
Rory Stewart
Final question going to come to you. And just before I get on the final question, a bit of plug and praise for Tant Mint Yu, who, if people want to read about Myanmar and Burma that we discussed in the earlier part of his river of Lost footsteps, is a really, really great history. He's the grandson of U Thant and has also been thinking very hard about where the UN could go. But final question brings us to something which is, I think, more universal. Martin McDonagh. Why don't politicians ever explain why they're not going to do something, for example, Alastair taxing the rich?
- [56:02]
Alistair Campbell
Ah, I think that's a very, very interesting question. Let me just say, is the premise correct? So, for example, at the moment, have we really heard Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves Explain why they're not going to rejoin. Look at rejoining the single market or the Customs Union. Have we heard them explain why they're not.
- [56:23]
Rory Stewart
They do keep ruling things out. They don't. They. They keep saying we're not going to raise taxes.
- [56:26]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Do they explain it? Do they give a reason? I think it's a very, very interesting question that. I think that. I guess what it's saying is that when politicians are speaking, they're trying. Other than when they're talking about their opponents, they're trying to set out a positive agenda for change and the positive agenda means we are changing something to do this. But I think. Listen, Martin, I think it's great because I'll tell you what, if you were the west reading as the Health Secretary, actually making a big speech explaining why you will never undo the fundamental principle of the National Health Service could be quite powerful. I actually would like to hear. Here's a challenge to the Labour government. I would like to hear a well thought through explanation as to why it isn't sensible in their view even to think about rejoining the Customs Union. Yeah, interesting. Very good question. What's your view?
- [57:19]
Rory Stewart
And when you push them on it, I mean, so we have sort of tried Peter Carr and others on it, they basically tried to say, oh, it's all a distraction. We just got to get on with practical things. Nobody wants to hear this. But the real reason, of course they're not doing it, I think, is that Morgan McSweeney and others are still obsessed with the Red Wall and worried about upsetting people who voted for Brexit and are worried about reform.
- [57:40]
Alistair Campbell
Let me give you another one. So, and this may be overtaken by events because we're, we're sort of all sitting around waiting for Trump to do is the latest episode of his reality TV show, which is Global Tariff Day. But another one you could do, might make for an interesting speech, is explaining why you don't think it's a good idea to go after Donald Trump in the way that Mark Carney has. I think. Is it, Martin, the question. I think he's onto something here.
- [58:07]
Rory Stewart
Risky though, isn't it? I mean, if you were the comms director and Keir Sama said to you, I'm going to make a speech about why I'm not going after Donald Trump rather than just not going after him, wouldn't you a bit worried that it would draw a little bit too much attention from people to the fact that Britain is facing these steel and aluminium tariffs from the US and is refusing to respond and is just accepting them and not hitting back.
- [58:29]
Alistair Campbell
Let me give you the outlines. So you start off by saying you do it in Downing street, maybe at the top of the staircase, maybe you walk down the staircase and do it on film. And I know, you know, you've all seen the Hugh Grant, the Hugh Grant film where he decides to take on the American president and you stand there and you say, I know there's a part of all of us that love to see me really lay one on Donald Trump. And, yeah, that'd get a lot of publicity. But let's just think this through. From first principles. Let me set out what the first principles of my foreign policy are. I think you'd get more interest than if he just did a sort of speech to Chatham House about UK foreign policy, maybe.
- [59:07]
Rory Stewart
Very good.
- [59:08]
Alistair Campbell
That's a very good question. I've really enjoyed that. That's my question of the week because it's going to get me thinking all week.
- [59:13]
Rory Stewart
Very good. Well, thank you. Thank you all who've come. Thank you for those of you who've signed up. We've had a big increase in members since we started doing more and more members content, like the Peter Karl special, Question Time, the interview with the Danish Prime Minister. We're thinking about bringing special series together. So thank you for that and thank you also to our regular listeners and really enjoying the fact that we're now getting a massive uptick in international listeners. More and more engagement from the us, Australia, Middle East. I think our interview with the Syrian President heading up towards 2 million viewers in the Middle East. So thank you, Alistair, for making me part of this. As they say, have a great day.
- [59:52]
Alistair Campbell
See you soon.
- [59:52]
Rory Stewart
Bye. Bye.
- [59:53]
Alistair Campbell
Bye.
- [59:57]
D
So here's a clip from our series on the Troubles.
- [60:00]
E
This is the strangest thing about this story is that Northern Ireland is so small. And listen, there are other. I mean, you could tell a similar story about Sarajevo or any number of other types of places where there's been a conflict, Rwanda, and then the conflict ends and everybody still kind of lives in the same community. And you see these people. But, you know, there's an instance, even as adults, where Helen McConville is with her own family in McDonald's and sees one of the people who abducted her mother. There's a moment that I describe in the book where Michael McConville actually gets into the back of a black taxi in Belfast as an adult and he sees in the mirror in the front of the taxi, he realizes that the man driving him is one of the people who decades earlier abducted his mother. And the strangest, most eerie aspect of this is he doesn't say anything and he doesn't even know if that guy recognizes him. And they drive in silence. And then he just pays the guy's money and leaves.
- [61:03]
D
To hear the full series, just search Empire, wherever you get your podcasts.