← The Rest Is Politics
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- [00:01]
Alistair Campbell
Thanks for listening to the Rest is Politics. Sign up to the Rest is Politics plus to enjoy ad Free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to the restispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com.
- [00:13]
Rory Stewart
The rest is politics is as ever, powered by our friends at Fuse Energy.
- [00:18]
Alistair Campbell
And if you've got an electric vehicle or you're thinking of switching, Fuse can help you with that. They're offering a new overnight charging tariff that that makes things very, very simple.
- [00:27]
Rory Stewart
It's available now through their iOS app and Android's on its way. It works with a wide and growing range of home chargers.
- [00:35]
Alistair Campbell
No obscure hardware, no complicated setup. You just plug in, you charge overnight and you're on your way.
- [00:40]
Rory Stewart
And you can even get that electric vehicle charger installed at home in as little as seven days depending on your setup, hardware fitting, the whole lot handled.
- [00:47]
Alistair Campbell
Which, let's be honest, is not something you hear about every product you deal with.
- [00:51]
Rory Stewart
And when you sign up, you'll get 20 Tripp membership completely free. That's not just ad free listening, that's the amazing bonus episodes and unique interviews that we do, early access to Question time and pre sale tickets to our live shows.
- [01:03]
Alistair Campbell
So while your car charges, you're also helping our podcast.
- [01:08]
Rory Stewart
Just head to getfuse.com politics Download the app and use the code Politics when you sign up.
- [01:14]
Alistair Campbell
Practical, painless, no committee required. Hello and welcome to the Rest is Politics with me, Alistair Campbell and me.
- [01:29]
Rory Stewart
Rory Stewart and Alistair. Our first question is from Susie who asks when are you next doing your trip live show?
- [01:35]
Alistair Campbell
Ah, if you weren't listening to the main episode yesterday, you'll know that we're on the road again very soon. This November we'll be in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Bournemouth for a brand new run of the Rest Is Polity's Live. And to those who complained, as many did, why aren't you going to Ireland yet again? The Mooch and I are going to go to Belfast and Dublin sometime thereafter. Brilliant dates to be announced.
- [01:58]
Rory Stewart
One more thing while we're talking about this. We've done an interview on Wrestlers Politics plus for members with Ken Rogoff. And Ken Rogoff is an economist. He was the chief economist of the imf. He's a chess grandmaster, he teaches at Harvard, but he's really interesting, I think for a lot of dimensions. He, some people call him the kind of great architect of austerity. He has interestingly, quite controversially favorable things to say about Rachel Reeves. But he's also very interesting, I thought, on us, China. What do you think of the Rogoff interview?
- [02:30]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, really interesting. I was glad we did it since you introduced him to me. I sort of see him around the place everywhere. He's one of those economists who really pops up and I've actually. I've started his book about the history of the dollar. So, yeah, definitely worth listening to. Very, very smart guy and doesn't like being defined as the godfather of austerity. No, no. Maybe that's because he knows that it didn't go terribly well here in the uk. Now listen, talking to the uk, we said on the main podcast that we're going to kick off with immigration. So yesterday was a pretty big day. I watched a lot of news yesterday. This story took up the first half of the BBC, ITV and even Channel 4. So here we go. Chris Newton, South Yorkshire Trip plus member. When I was born, the population of the UK was 51 million. Now it's approximately 70 million. He's asking whether we should have a limit on population. Joe McMahon, Tite, also a Trip member from Bristol. Why are Labour trying to cater to reform voters so much? They have access to polls and data showing that a large chunk of reform voters have never voted Labour. Why alienate your base by trying to attract unlikely voters? Jason, in Ireland, recent BBC headline Labour to unveil big immigration plans next week. But will they win back votes? Does this indicate the real problem of the age? The media's concern about hypothetical vote winning, not whether the policy is good for the country? And finally, Nimro trip member on discord. The UK government's immigration white paper states an intention to take back control over who comes to and stays in the uk. How do Rory and especially Alistair feel about Labour using the vote leave campaign slogan directly in their paper? Rory, how do you feel about that?
- [04:07]
Rory Stewart
Well, let me begin by just summarising what the immigration proposals from Keir Stamara. So background, obviously for people, is that it's happening in the context of reform, having performed very, very powerfully in the local elections. 31% of the vote and the two major parties now looking like they're getting under 50% of the vote. So Starmer introduced this big shift. First thing is he's extending the residency period required from citizenship from five to ten years. This makes the UK a real outlier. This is the kind of levels of beyond sort of Japan and Switzerland, which are famously difficult places to get citizenship in. He's changed the threshold for skilled workers. So again, in the past people could come in with A levels. He's now demanding for most things, degree level qualifications. And he's paused recruitment for people for social care positions. This is a big deal. So if you go into a care home, very, very large numbers of people are immigrants. And last year I think over 50,000 people who came in were coming into work in the care sector. And the care sector is really short of stuff. He's saying that UK workers should be able to fill those jobs with the right training. So he's paused allowing them in. He said the post study visa duration for international students should be reduced from two years to 18 months. He's changed stuff on asylum policies, making it clearer in law how you could remove asylum seekers who've broken the law. And he set up a new Border Security Command. And the hope of all these things is that they model that they might be able to reduce migration by well over 100,000 by doing all these different things. And I guess there are many, many different ways of thinking about this. Will these policies work? Will it bring migration down? Is he targeting the right things? Questions around Labour party politics, question about the tone of the whole thing. The way I think he used the phrase we don't want Britain to become an island of strangers, which I think for some people maybe resonates a little bit with what theres may got into trouble with, talking about citizens of nowhere and this kind of stuff, this kind.
- [06:08]
Alistair Campbell
Of language comparison has been made with Enoch Powell who said, you know, we're creating risk of creating a country where people feel strangers in their own land.
- [06:15]
Rory Stewart
Let's start with you. I mean, what, what was your reaction? What did you feel about it?
- [06:19]
Alistair Campbell
This is an area, I think, where we need more show, not tell. I think that the, the line I would have taken on immigration and by the way, I get how difficult this is politically. And there's no doubt that one of the reasons reform did well was because this immigration issue has been building the fact that it quadrupled in the years after they won Brexit referendum on take back control. So there is a real problem to be addressed. However, I think the way to address it is by saying because this plays to the way that Keir Starmer's tried to project himself as a leader. Do you want to fix this problem or do you want to exploit this problem? Farage, we know, will exploit any problem that comes along his way. Badenoch and the Tories, they're trying to exploit it as well. Trying to get away from the fact that they were responsible for this quadruple. But also they're fighting Farage on that territory. In terms of the policy, the substance of the policy, I think there's a lot of it that I would support and agree with, but I didn't like the way that it was projected and presented. I think the fact that I saw an interview that Yvette Cooper was doing this morning. Now, they may feel this is where they want to be fighting the charity, but she was asked constantly, what does an island of strangers mean? What does that feel like? And the other thing I feel is that, you know, I said last week, take Farage on where he's weak, not where he's strong. This, I feel, is playing into Farage's strengths. It's basically accepting his narrative that all our problems are caused by immigration. One of the reasons I think that's dangerous is because it lets the Tories off the hook. A lot of our problems in the areas that we're talking about, they're caused by underinvestment in communities. They're caused by the Tories not having policy solutions for some of these areas where immigration is high that actually don't have that much to do with immigration. And, you know, one of the things I've always been struck by, and I'm not denying it's a problem, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this isn't a problem that has to be dealt with by policy, but I think they should have focused much, much more on the policy and less on the rhetoric around it. So when Keir Starmer says that immigration has done incalculable damage to our economy, that goes right against what he said most of his career, which is that we've got a lot to thank migrants for, and indeed, right now we need them. So, for example, one of the most interesting angles out of this that's come of this has been one of the specific policies about the care sector. Well, you talk to anybody who's running a care home, try to get local Brits to go in and do these jobs, they're not doing them.
- [09:01]
Rory Stewart
So I think that's right at the core of the policy problem, isn't it? So the first thing is this very, very weird jump that you're talking about. So Cameron used to talk about keeping immigration down to the tens of thousands, but in reality, over the last 10 years, I think it sort of hovered around about 200,000. Then there was this massive jump post Covid, where it was heading up to almost a million. 950,000, 750,000 and even with Kiyo Salma and Nivette Cooper's current reforms, it's only coming down slightly. The graph, if people are watching on YouTube, is very, very weird. It basically goes like this and then what he's doing is just bringing it down up at the, the top here. Why is this? Well, some of it was short term Covid humanitarian stuff for Ukrainians and people from Hong Kong, but clearly there's something else going on. And I think the other thing that's going on is that we have enormous numbers of people who've retreated from the workforce. I mean, this story that we've talked about before of maybe as many as a million people who could be working, who are choosing not to work, which is being backfilled. Care sector in real trouble, agricultural sector deeply dependent, and businesses crying out for labour and saying to the government, if you want growth, bring it in. Add to which, we have the university sector. So something has gone very, very odd with the university sector. Part of the problem is the government won't either allow tuition fees to go up or provide more funding for the universities. So the only way that a lot of these universities keep their head above water is by bringing foreign students and a very, very large number of the migrants coming in. If you look at these numbers, hundreds of thousands of them, in fact, the majority of them are not coming into work. The majority are either family dependents or people coming in on student visas. And the government's refusal also to be serious about proper national ID cards. There's a little fudge here. There's some talk about electronic visas, there's talk about being able to trace people, but a lot of this would be helped if you had an ID card that could actually identify whether people are staying or leaving. Final thing. Even on the politics, I think there's a glaring hole. James Johnson, who worked with us on the polling before the election, has always emphasized that a lot of the issue, and this is something that my friend Gerald Knauss would say too, isn't about legal migration. If you ask people, it's about illegal migration, it's about stopping the boats. And that's a small number, which is why if you're a technocrat looking at it, you think, well, it's irrelevant. You know, it's a few tens of thousands as opposed to a few hundreds of thousands. But a lot of the polling data suggests that what people care about is the sense that they're in control, that the government can determine the numbers. And therefore the failure of the Labour government to come up with A replacement or an alternative to the Rwanda scheme to really think about how you can return people unnecessarily crossing on boats. Let me just keep re emphasizing this. These are people coming from France and France is safe, right? There is absolutely no reason why we should be taking these people from France. I think if they could fix that, it would probably have more political impact than doing this other stuff.
- [12:13]
Alistair Campbell
What reform of with the help of the media, which love stories about immigration because it sort of plays to all the, you know, the stuff they want to do and clickbait and all that stuff, they've successfully, within the political debate, they've merged legal and illegal migration. So yesterday the reform line was this doesn't go far enough. And this relates to another of their absurd things about net zero. We have to have a policy of net zero migration. In other words, one in, one out, which given the numbers that you often cite about how many people we now have for an aging person, for a young person who can work, that idea is absurd. Now look, it all depends on whether the policy works, okay? But my worry is that when you elevate this area of debate. So Farage's line yesterday was this has now overtaken the National Health Service as the most important issue in the country. Not convinced by that at all. It is an important issue, but its saliency has risen because of media and Farage and because of the numbers, the real numbers. I'm not denying that's not part of the the picture, but I think once the Prime Minister has come out, I mean, I probably would have left it to Yvette Cooper. Once you're doing it as a big thing in Downing street, you're basically saying, now judge me on this. Okay, now you've got to sort the problem. But when I say show, not tell, I think better to have the policy to and yes, to say if we need to do more, we'll do more. But over time and once you've made it such a big issue of your leadership, you're going to have to have very, very good numbers. And the fact is with somebody like Farage, those numbers are never going to be enough. Why have they set themselves down with this number of net zero? Answer Partly to play into the climate change debate, which is another things, but secondly, there is no immigration that they are going to allow you to define as successful. I go back to the point I've been making for ages. A combination of the main parties and the media let Farage away with murder. The guy had a two page spread in the Daily Mail the other day, what I would do as your Prime Minister, my manifesto for Britain, it was a mixture of slogan and policy that was not remotely costed. So for example, Tice was on the. Richard Tice, one of the five MPs they've got, was on the news last night saying, you know, one of the first things we do, we would stop anybody earning, earning less than 20,000 pounds from paying any tax whatsoever. Okay, now the first question has got to be how much does that cost? Nobody asks them the question there from Nimro, how did I feel about Labour using the take back control slogan? The entire context of take back control was Brexit, which wasn't mentioned in relation to any of this. When you look at your graph. The other big deal was the referendum when lots of Europeans who worked here thought, okay, well we're not welcome here, we'll go back home. So the Poles go back and lots of the Italians go back. My local Italian restaurant has now got 100% non European waiting staff. Okay, now why? Because the Italians have gone back. So what's happened instead is that in all these sectors you've had people coming from Nigeria, from India, from Pakistan and often why wouldn't they want to bringing their family and dependents with them. So the sort of younger European who came here for a couple of years to sort of try things out and have the sort of UK experience, they've gone back and meanwhile we've got, I suspect, the sort of immigrants that a lot of people who angry about immigration didn't want in the first place, we've now got more of them. So the policy goes back to rightly people are angry about the promises that have been made. I think Kirsten was right not to put a target on it, but I worry that the rhetoric that was out there yesterday, both the rhetoric that has angered people on the left, but also the rhetoric that says I get this and judge me on it and mark my words and all that stuff, they've really got to deliver it.
- [16:28]
Rory Stewart
There's quite a good analysis in the Times trying to mark the likelihood of success and the impact of their different policies. An enormous amount of them get one or two out of five. I mean, a lot of these things they're doing are going to be marginal and have to be marginal because in fact, if they really went full on, they would have really crippled their growth agenda. They would have all these businesses shouting at them.
- [16:50]
Alistair Campbell
What they tried to do yesterday was to say that growth and migration, there's no link between growth and migration. You can have an argument about that, but what you can't have an argument about is the fact that our public services, our care sector, our agriculture sector, as you say, that's the context. I think that was slightly lost yesterday because of the politics which is being driven by the Right now. Let's stick with a very important question, Rory. The Pope.
- [17:14]
Rory Stewart
The Pope.
- [17:15]
Alistair Campbell
Duncan Goreward, Trip plus member in Brisbane. Does Pope Leo's appointment send a message to Trump about Catholicism, political posture? Can soft power influence American politics? So, Rory, we've got this American Pope who's. If I mentioned him last week in my Runners and Riders, I only mentioned it because I saw his name in the New York Times that morning. I knew, in common with the rest of the world, I knew nothing about him.
- [17:38]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [17:39]
Alistair Campbell
But he seems to me to be going down very, very well.
- [17:41]
Rory Stewart
Well, it's amazing. I mean, I think first thing to. To bear in mind is that I spent a lot of time talking to clergymen about this and they know very little about him. The leading contenders. I mean, I don't know how you'd make an analogy from British and American politics for a character like this coming through, but, you know, he would have been sort of number 10 on the list as the kind of.
- [18:02]
Alistair Campbell
He got 1% of the betting market.
- [18:04]
Rory Stewart
Right. There we are. That's a really good way. Because the people they were talking about was Pietro Parolin, who had been the Vatican sectionist state. I was talking about Robert Sara, who was the Guinean conservative. And you were talking about Cardinal Zuppi.
- [18:19]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, just liked his name.
- [18:21]
Rory Stewart
Cardinal Tagle from the Philippines. So he's a bit of a mystery. And it takes some time to know what kind of pope someone's going to be. Because the consistent story is going back over the last hundred years is popes who people think are going to be radicals turn out to do almost nothing, and popes who people think are going to do nothing.
- [18:40]
Alistair Campbell
It's like budgets today, the budgets the day after, they turn out to be the biggest failures, usually hailed as the biggest success.
- [18:47]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [18:48]
Alistair Campbell
I've got high hopes for this Pope, though.
- [18:49]
Rory Stewart
Good, good. Well, good. Well, let's. Let's hope. Gosh. I've had a really interesting experience on this recently. I had to give the main university sermon, the commemoration sermon in Oxford on Sunday, and that was a pretty extraordinary. Have you ever had to give a sermon?
- [19:05]
Alistair Campbell
No, I don't do God Rules.
- [19:07]
Rory Stewart
No, no, no.
- [19:08]
Alistair Campbell
I've spoken in churches, but usually at funerals.
- [19:10]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think even for me.
- [19:12]
Alistair Campbell
So what did you do?
- [19:14]
Rory Stewart
I'm a very much a baby Christian, but the idea becoming a lay preacher standing up. Well, no, I'm definitely not the kind of late preacher.
- [19:19]
Alistair Campbell
So what did you talk about?
- [19:20]
Rory Stewart
But it was very interesting. I mean, did you plug the podcast? I didn't plug. I didn't see it as suited for this. Plugging the podcast. I talked about hope because I think one of the things that we often are asked is, you know, give us a bit of optimism. The world's all a bit dark. And I was trying to talk about realistic and unrealistic hope and the ways in which unrealistic hope can be a form of pessimism.
- [19:40]
Alistair Campbell
This Pope gives me hope.
- [19:42]
Rory Stewart
Good. You sure it's not unrealistic?
- [19:44]
Alistair Campbell
It might be. It might be, but I think sometimes you have to look for that. I was also at Oxford. I was doing a talk to some students, and I noticed two or three of them thought, you know, these rude bastards, they're on the phone and they're not. They're not taking notes on their phone. They're looking at something, and then suddenly one of them shouts out, we have a Pope. And this is the white smoke coming out. And then what was really interesting, I did a little book signing and went outside and. And then somebody came up with their phone. And it was fascinating watching students on their phones watching this thing. And so I was with these students when. And I got enough of my kind of schoolboy Latin. I heard his name in Latin. I thought, my God, it's the American. Immediate reaction from some of the students, oh, God, not an American pope. But I think what's emerged since, actually, this is in answer to the question about whether he will sort of maybe be a bit of a problem for Trump, is that actually he does seem to be, in terms of his. Because everything he's ever said or tweeted has now come out. And by the way, he was right on your side, Rory. In the battle with J.D. vance on the Ordo amoris, he said at the time he said these words, J.D. vance is wrong. And then, of course, he's also. He's been very, very strong on Ukraine. And he's already had a phone call with Zelenskyy. That was his first call with the world leader, was with Zelenskyy. The other thing that I find absolutely fascinating. So I was watching it with these students, as I say, and I said to them as he came out, I said, isn't it incredible? They're. That guy. Now he's gone from being unknown by all of us to. He's going to be overnight one of the best known people in the world. I can't think of anything else like that.
- [21:28]
Rory Stewart
And at the age of 69.
- [21:29]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. And then suddenly everything he's ever said, everything he's ever written, everything he's ever tweeted, his brothers, suddenly, one of whom apparently is a bit of a Trump fan, the other of whom seems to me is very much not, but his brothers suddenly appear on every television station. And brothers are a bit of a.
- [21:44]
Rory Stewart
Problem in public life, aren't they?
- [21:45]
Alistair Campbell
They can be.
- [21:45]
Rory Stewart
I mean, John Major had a brother who kept popping up. Did Tony Blair have a brother?
- [21:49]
Alistair Campbell
Tony Blair has a brother, Bill, who is the perfect political brother.
- [21:53]
Rory Stewart
Oh, good.
- [21:54]
Alistair Campbell
Unbelievably supportive.
- [21:55]
Rory Stewart
Good.
- [21:56]
Alistair Campbell
Very smart. And never gets his name in the papers.
- [21:58]
Rory Stewart
I have a sort of memory of John Major's brother, who, I think you're absolutely right, was called Terry Major Ball, British columnist, banker and media personality.
- [22:07]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. You don't want your brothers to be a media personality. I actually think the brother. There was one bit. I. Look, the trouble now with social media is you never know if it's fake or not. But there was a clip of the more Trump leaning brother who gave an interview on television and said, you know, he said. So I saw, I saw him talking in Italian and then he switched to Spanish and I thought, stop showing off, you jerk. And then there was the other brother, the other brother who talked about. He speaks to the Pope. He speaks to every day. Yeah, right. And he's on, he's on his iPad. And the Pope phones him. And the Pope says, why have you not been answering your phone? And the brother says, we're being filmed, by the way. Pause now. Yes. So I don't think. God, he's going to have to get a grip of these brothers. But I've got to say, I think he's got a lovely manner. I think he's got a lovely manner. He did a speech to the media yesterday.
- [23:03]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [23:04]
Alistair Campbell
6,000 journalists giving him a standing ovation. I mean, which other world leaders ever going to get that? Trump would want it. He's not going to get it. But his speech, you should look at his speech because I think it was directly a message to Trump.
- [23:16]
Rory Stewart
Very good.
- [23:17]
Alistair Campbell
He was talking about the importance of soft communication, how we need to get anger out of our public life. I'm finding hope in the Pope. I could be wrong.
- [23:25]
Rory Stewart
Very good.
- [23:25]
Alistair Campbell
Okay, let's have a quick break, then we'll come back. We're going to talk about China, trade Deal with us. UK trade. Deal. We'll go Australia and this wonderful battle between Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
- [23:37]
Rory Stewart
Very Good.
- [23:40]
David McCloskey
I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst turned spy novelist.
- [23:44]
Gordon Carrera
And I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.
- [23:46]
David McCloskey
Together we're the hosts of another Goal hanger show, the Rest is Classified. And we bring you brilliant stories from the world of spies.
- [23:53]
Gordon Carrera
That's right. And this week we're talking about one of the most significant stories of the 21st century, Ed Edward Snowden and how he orchestrated the biggest leak of classified secrets in modern American history.
- [24:05]
David McCloskey
It was 2011 when Snowden shocked the world by revealing that the American government was bulk collecting data on its own citizens and even spying on our allies.
- [24:15]
Gordon Carrera
And it's a story which really also gets to wider questions about what privacy means in the modern world, how technology has changed our lives and what the government actually and companies can do with data we might have thought was private.
- [24:28]
David McCloskey
We will take you through the whole story, from Snowden's early career in the CIA and the NSA to his life in exile in Russia.
- [24:35]
Gordon Carrera
If this sounds good, we've left a clip at the end of the episode for you.
- [24:45]
Alistair Campbell
This episode is sponsored by NordVPN.
- [24:48]
Rory Stewart
Now, most people wouldn't leave their doors wide open, although my colleague Oliver Lettman was accused of doing something similar. But every day, millions log on to public WI fi with no protection whatsoever.
- [24:58]
Alistair Campbell
Well, for years, guilty as charged. But I've finally joined the sensible Crowd, started using NordVPN, and it's made life online feel a lot less exposed. No drama, no faff, no fiddly settings.
- [25:10]
Rory Stewart
It encrypts your connection, hides your IP blocks, trackers, all quietly in the background, essentially, if you're working on the move, checking sensitive emails or just trying to stream in peace.
- [25:19]
Alistair Campbell
And if you're abroad, Nord can let you access all your usual services from back home. No buffering, no borders or very civilized.
- [25:26]
Rory Stewart
One account protects up to 10 devices, so you can secure everything from your phone to your laptop to whatever else Alistair uses.
- [25:33]
Alistair Campbell
To check polling data, conversations with the public, visit nordvpn.com restispolities to get started. It's risk free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. And if you're smart, you'll set it up before your next airport WI FI encounter. The link is in the episode description box.
- [25:56]
Katie Kaye
Hi, this is Katie Kaye from the Rest Is Politics Us and this is Anthony Scaramucci. I've spent over two decades reporting from Washington. Presidents, well, they come and go. The chaos that never changes.
- [26:07]
Anthony Scaramucci
And I've been inside the eye of a storm. 11 wild days in Trump's White House. I have seen how the sausage gets made and who's holding the knife.
- [26:16]
Katie Kaye
Yeah, that's not a nice image. But on the Rest Is Politics us we break down the stories that are behind the headlines and we actually look at what they mean to America and the rest of the world as well.
- [26:26]
Anthony Scaramucci
We're not just talking politics, we're talking about power.
- [26:29]
Katie Kaye
We've got both of us access, experience, and just enough cynicism to know when something smells a little off and how to trace it back to the source.
- [26:39]
Anthony Scaramucci
No spin, no filter reporting the stories you won't hear anywhere else.
- [26:45]
Katie Kaye
If you want smart analysis, global context and a front row seat to the world's loudest democracy, this is the show.
- [26:52]
Anthony Scaramucci
It's from two people that have ringside seats, occasionally center stage in a country where court cases and campaign rallies share the same parking lot.
- [27:02]
Katie Kaye
The Rest is Politics US New episodes every week.
- [27:12]
Rory Stewart
Welcome back to the Rest is Politics. Question Time with me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell. Now, this has also been in a bewildering week, also the week where the US has signed a trade deal with China and a trade deal with the.
- [27:25]
Alistair Campbell
UK they haven't signed a trade deal. They've done a deal on the tariff row.
- [27:30]
Rory Stewart
And what news, though? I mean, just no paperwork, Tory, Just, just to remind people where we were right, Trump announced not very long ago, now, just a month and 11 days ago, he announced his Liberation Day tariffs. And you remember, we all woke up and penguins were getting tariffed and Vietnam was getting tariffed and boy, oh boy, was China getting tariffed. This lasted for a few days and then almost immediately he dropped tariffs on absolutely Everybody, down to 10% or almost everybody, except for China particularly was the most dramatic example. And China just went up and up and up because the Chinese were not budging and they were not interested in dealing with the US so the eventually we ended up with 145% tariffs on China.
- [28:19]
Alistair Campbell
That's basically, don't bother sending your stuff.
- [28:21]
Rory Stewart
It's a total trade in market between the US And China. And China added into this that it was going to control the supply of rare earths and critical minerals to the U.S. now, understand, China has deliberately set out over the last 15 years to dominate 85 to 90% of the global market in not just lithium, cobalt nickel, even copper, but a lot of these rare earths, which are completely vital in technology and the energy revolution. So China struggled that all off not surprisingly, businesses started coming in to see Trump, and we posed the question on who was going to blink first. The macroeconomic impact on China, pretty considerable, because China still relies a lot on exports to the US the microeconomic impact on American businesses, unbelievable. US Car manufacturers, you know, Musk screaming, Walmart screaming. We saw this immediate exemption for iPhones, and the markets began to sense that fundamentally Trump and Lutnick are jokers, that they were going to blink and that this whole thing was madness. And it's been very weird because I was talking, like me, you talk to these kind of banking finance types. So if you'd be talking to them in January, they were still surprisingly optimistic. And in November, December, you know, you could sit next to these people, they said, don't worry, Trump's going to be fine. We're all going to get rich. You know, he talks a big game, but he's never going to do anything that affects the stock market. Then when Liberation Day tariffs were announced, they were completely thrown off balance. Oh, my God, what's going on? And then they produced another story. Their new optimistic story was, don't worry, this is going to be great. Musk is going to raise a trillion by Doge cutting spending, and Howard Lapnik is going to raise a trillion through the tariffs. And then they're going to go to the Congress and they're going to announce massive tax cuts. And then they wake up, of course, a few days later, to see that he's dropping all these tariffs. The income stream's disappearing, and it's becoming clear that he's almost certainly going to lose a staring contest with China. Trump begins to desperately say, xi Jinping's been ringing me. We've been calling. And China's like, no sitting still, thank you very much. And Trump folded. He blinked, folded 100%. Complete humiliation.
- [30:33]
Alistair Campbell
And then got Scott Beston to go and do this, whatever this agreement is, that essentially is a climb down.
- [30:39]
Rory Stewart
I mean, basically just returned back to where they were before the whole thing.
- [30:43]
Alistair Campbell
Not quite back.
- [30:44]
Rory Stewart
Basically, nothing's changed. So the entire Liberation Day tariffs, the entire last six weeks has turned out to be complete nonsense. But being Trump, of course. And the markets have responded positively instead of allowing anyone to actually relax and imagine we're back to normal. He's as normal. Said, this is just for 90 days. And he's proved in the past, because he did it with Canada. You remember, you know, Trudeau made this move, changed stuff on drugs, tariffs came down, and then popped up again. Yeah, 90 days later. So what on earth, anyway, that's why.
- [31:11]
Alistair Campbell
I think we've got to stop talking about them as trade deals. What Keir Starmer and Donald Trump agreed with my friend Peter Mandelson standing alongside Donald Trump, grinning away and also having his handheld. At one point, I don't know whether you thought it was Theresa May suddenly back in his life, he suddenly grabbed Peter by the hand. But it's, look what they've done. And I completely understand why Britain was so keen to do it. Although it's interesting how many economists are saying this has been a sort of deliberate divide and rule and, you know, pick everybody off one by one, which is kind of what Trump wants to do, further break down the kind of international institutional side of this. But it's a tariff deal. It's a. And. And what, you know, what Trump does, he creates chaos, and then the chaos calms a bit. And he says, aren't I great? I've calmed the. The chaos.
- [31:56]
Rory Stewart
Well, I was just thinking about this after we recorded the last podcast, because you've put your finger on it, I'm still starting to understand the logic of this, because I had dinner with one of Trump's friends who was like, yeah, they're amazing. They just chuck the cards on the floor. But, of course, your Nobel Peace Prize bit reveals a bit of it for me. What he does is he creates a world of conflict so that he can be a peacemaker. Creates a world of economic chaos so that he can be seen to.
- [32:23]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And also, within this context of every day is a show, every day is a different story. Essentially, when you mentioned the penguins there, I'd completely forgotten about that. On the day he did Liberation Day, when he did that was where. That was the islands. McDonald Islands or something.
- [32:37]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [32:38]
Alistair Campbell
So so much happens that we just forget because he's on to the next thing.
- [32:42]
Rory Stewart
And part of the problem, of course, is, you know, we do a detailed podcast analyzing the impact of the terrorists on Lesotho, and they stay in place for 48 hours and then they're gone.
- [32:50]
Alistair Campbell
But just recently, we did a podcast on Lesotho, just not just on Mandelstand Emergency.
- [32:55]
Rory Stewart
No, you do quite a lot on Lesotho and people actually congratulate us. Isn't lovely that, you know, you're really taking countries like Lesotho seriously? Mandelson, a Conservative Cabinet minister, writing to me, I can't bear seeing Mandelson be so supine to Trump. When will we get some backbone and stand up for our values? We won't even publicly stand up for Denmark. Excellent exclamation. Mark.
- [33:16]
Alistair Campbell
Oh, that's a bit. I think that's unfair. You can't expect Peter to go over there as the ambassador and spend his time kicking in Trump. Peter did look very, very happy to be on this, this latest stage of his fascinating and colorful career. He even got, I saw again, I don't know if it was a real picture or not, but there was a picture of him in the back of the car holding up a handwritten note from Trump saying, great work, Peter. Followed by that amazing, ridiculous signature. So I'm sure your former cabinet minister will like that even more.
- [33:47]
Rory Stewart
Okay, question for you, Rudy. Does the new Australian Cabinet signal a redirection for Albanese? What do you think about the Australian Cabinet? Alastair, as our Australia expert?
- [33:57]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I'll tell you what's really interesting about this. Anthony Albanese has this amazing victory and I'm seeing his predecessor, Kevin Rudd tomorrow, who's over, and he has this great victory and then he points to cabinet. And the thing about Australia, even though Albanese is now a pretty powerful figure, having had such an incredible majority, the factions still kind of decide who gets the top jobs.
- [34:22]
Rory Stewart
And how do the factions decide is, I mean, well, in the same sense that when you were in the Labour Party, different parts of the party, more.
- [34:29]
Alistair Campbell
Than that, I'd say it's almost like formalized and they have negotiations between factions.
- [34:33]
Rory Stewart
More like the way the Labour shadow cabinet traditionally works, which is.
- [34:36]
Alistair Campbell
No, that was a vote. That used to be a vote. It's more like you've just seen with the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats.
- [34:42]
Rory Stewart
In Germany, almost like a coalition negotiation.
- [34:44]
Alistair Campbell
Negotiation about who gets the top jobs and what have you. And this guy, Richard Marles, who's the leader of the right wing faction, he basically has forced the appointment of some of his allies. And the two people who've copped it and got the boot just happen to be the only Jew that was in the cabinet and the only Muslim that had been in the cabinet. And Paul Keating, one of my heroes, who is very much from that right wing faction, nonetheless has come out and said this is absolutely appalling. The Muslim guy, who I think is background Bosnian, Ed Husich, he has basically come out and called this guy an assassin, a factional assassin. He says that it's because he had strong views on Gaza that he's not been able to, that he's not held back, that this has gone on. So it sort of has slightly soured the Albanese victory. Now, of course the caravan will move on, but it Underlines that there are always these tensions within parties. So, yeah, good question. Thank you for that, Rudy. Now here's another one. We had quite a lot of rebuttal, I have to say, on your views on water privatization. Brian Keating, your recent discussion on water nationalisation missed the mark. The water industry, debt free pre privatisation, is now saddled with 60 to 80 billion pounds debt hitting, struggling customer side. Your comments, this is you, Rory. Your comments inadvertently reinforce the perception of a disconnected political class. Where do you really stand on water privatisation? Morally, economically, politically? Could nationalisation really be worse than the current mess you promised? Fresh thinking with Kate Raworth. Here's your chance. Perhaps Feagal Sharky should send you a couple of fish to snap you out of it. I think he's taking on both of us there. And we also had a very nice reaction from Clive Lewis mp, who asked the question in the first place, whose response was that he ought to come on the podcast to tell us why we're wrong, he says. Thanks for your chat. There are quite a few things Rory got wrong. There are alternatives. Many of them are achievable and practical. They just need the political will to happen.
- [36:52]
Rory Stewart
Well, so firstly, this is very raw for me. I was the Water Minister and what I saw when I came in as the Water Minister was a very odd industry because water, which was a sort of natural monopoly, right, big water lines and totally vital, had been privatized. And this carries with it two problems, carries with it a problem of competition because it's a monopoly, and a second problem of moral hazard, which is that if the water doesn't get delivered in the end, the government has to step in because in the end people are not going to put up with not being able to have any water to drink and not going to put up with sewage all over their beaches. And I saw a bit of this actually when I was the Prisons Minister, where we'd also privatize probation. And what happens there? Well, what happens is if you suddenly end up in a situation in which prisoners end up not being looked after by the probation authorities or prisons aren't maintained, in the end the government steps in and the private companies get bailed out. So the whole structure is very problematic from the beginning, gets even worse because with things like Thames of water, they were given much too big catchment areas and because they weren't publicly listed, they ratcheted up this debt and up till 10 years ago they were taking huge dividends. So we end up with a situation where understandably and this I think is what the complaints are about these companies, enormous amounts of debt. They were making a lot of money off this. Not recently. They haven't made much money in the last 10 years, but they were making a lot of money off this. And there's poo in our rivers and on our beaches and our water's running out. Terrible situation. A couple of quick thoughts. One of them is a problem with government. So I was thinking about this because I sat down talking to people who are very, very deeply involved in this last week, and they were saying to me, you know, why don't you do something about it in 2016, say I was the water minister. And so, thinking back on it, I realized that we're not honest enough about the odd positions that a junior minister finds themselves in. So theoretically, I'm responsible for water.
- [38:46]
Alistair Campbell
But remember, with Liz Truss as your boss?
- [38:49]
Rory Stewart
With Liz Truss, my boss, yeah. So remember, first problem, you're not a specialist. Obviously, I'm not a water expert. Number two, I was also responsible for three and a half billion pounds of farm payments. I was responsible for flooding, I was responsible for international biodiversity, chemical spills, national parks, the environment agency, natural etc. What in practice does supervising the water industry look like for a minister? And to be true, today you have dinner with the chief executives, the water industry. Occasionally you're briefed by officials and you go meet the water regulator ofwa. And I'd go into these meetings and I'd try to ask what I thought were intelligent or awkward questions. So I'd say, listen, are you sure we're putting enough investment into the infrastructure? And the answer was, water privatization been great success. The bills in real terms have been kept down to a pound. So I would then say, well, couldn't there be an argument for charging people more on their bills in order to get more investment into the water infrastructure? And they would either say, well, we're doing a Thames tideway tunnel of 40 billion, or they would say, well, number 10 says, the real priority in a cost of living crisis is to keep costs down for customers. If I then had the further conversation, really pushing the regulator and say, yeah, but it's Thames Water not taking us to a ride. They're taking too much money, they're borrowing too much. The regulator will get a bit shirty. They'd think, wait a sec, I'm the regulator. We're the experts on this. Who the hell are you? What do you know about this? Push it too far. You then enter the situation where number 10 starts getting calls from the heads of these water companies saying we've made a many multibillion pound investment in the uk. You've got a junior water Minister. I'm not sure he really knows what he's talking about. Creating a lot of trouble about these water contracts, but fragile market with that whole situation. It's very, very difficult unless the junior Minister is very clear minded, very brave and above all has the right people to brief them to really achieve change.
- [40:40]
Alistair Campbell
And presumably has a Secretary of State who's on the same agenda and has the ability to influence the Prime Minister and.
- [40:46]
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. And a Prime Minister who really sees it as a priority. Because remember, the other thing is that you're asking politicians to do things the longer term. It wasn't a problem in 2016.
- [40:56]
Alistair Campbell
It wasn't such a problem.
- [40:57]
Rory Stewart
It wasn't such a problem. What you were saying is if we don't make the investment now in five or 10 years.
- [41:02]
Alistair Campbell
And I guess the other thing. So the question morally, economically, politically, I'm imagining that today if your successor went to the treasury and said, look, you know, nationalization, wholesale nationalization is the only way forward, the treasury is going to produce costings that will make. Make your eyes drop out.
- [41:19]
Rory Stewart
Absolutely.
- [41:19]
Alistair Campbell
I told you, Clive, how about this is a compromise won't have you on because we've actually got a really big backlog of guests coming on, leading, coming. Why don't you write us your assessment of what we should be doing and we will put it in the newsletter and if it's really interesting, we'll talk about it after you've done so. There you are, Clive. That's a commission from the rest of his politics. 800 to 1200 words. Get it all down, send it in and don't just recirculate a speech. One original thought here.
- [41:46]
Rory Stewart
Okay, Freya Kelsby for you. How much truth is there behind Bill Gates claims that that U.S. aid cuts are and will continue to kill children around the world? Can you give us some indication on the dependence this aid in small brackets really recommend The Atul Gawande interview we did, a lot of which was about this. Over to you.
- [42:04]
Alistair Campbell
Well, this is, this is an interview that Bill Gates did. You know, we should also remind people we interviewed him a few months ago and it's a really strong message. He basically said in front of a camera there's Elon Musk going around, you know, with his chainsaw and what they have done to USAID is leading to children being killed now. And I would argue I mentioned in the main podcast yesterday that these pictures in Gaza of children. Now, the fact is there is a blockade and the Israelis are making sure that aid does not get in in the quantities that is needed. I would argue that if we talk a lot about the American influence on the Israelis, that if in slashing USAID as they did, the American government signaled to those countries like Israel, that the world doesn't care as much as it did that political signal on its own, let alone then you go to the programs that are being cut. I think Bill Gates was talking particularly about some of the programs in Africa, malaria and HIV and so forth. So I, I think I'm really glad that he did it because I think that there are too many businesses who are bending the knee. And Bill Gates is somebody who's rich enough and powerful enough not to care what Trump thinks of him.
- [43:24]
Rory Stewart
I hope. I had dinner last week with the chief executive, the Wellcome Trust, and the head of the biggest Danish foundation that works on this. And they, with Gates, are the three biggest non governmental funders, this stuff. And what they pointed out is that the cuts to USAID and to DFID are impossible really, for them to backfill in vaccines and health. So this is also Keir Starmer's cuts, that they were the biggest funders of global health. And one of the problems that will rapidly become obvious is that dealing with contagious diseases early on, TB is a really good example, is vital for preventing its exponential spread. And the problem with cutting the money for the TB treatment now is that we will find ourselves dealing with a much, much bigger problem very, very soon. I mean, it's a very simple lesson in epidemiology and disease, which we seem to be forgetting. And we will end up with these diseases sprouting in the United Kingdom, in the United States, because of our failure to invest in places like Africa.
- [44:28]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, we should maybe put Bill Gates interview, the latest one, as well as the one we did with him, but put it in the newsletter because I think this is how can you. On the one hand, right. So before they made the decision to slash usaid, American leaders and American politicians would have said, you know, and we're saving millions of lives around the world through our commitment to this, this and this. How when you then say we're not doing it anymore, is it not logical that that is going to lead to loss of life, including of children all over the world?
- [45:02]
Rory Stewart
I think what Aswath Gandhi was really strong in pointing out in the interview is that this stuff on vaccination and global health is almost the most Straightforward, least controversial form of international development in the world. I mean, the evidence, for example, on malaria bed nets that $2 saves this number of lives is one of the most tested, evidence based, least controversial things. We're not getting into weird stories of governmental corruption, trying to do complicated programs on market reform. This is real short of the stuff that I believe in, which is unconditional cash transfer. This stuff around vaccines and bed nets is the best evidenced, most efficient, most effective way of saving lives that's ever been developed. Which is one of the reasons why Bill Gates, who's a real number person, got behind it.
- [45:50]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. All right, John Lumley, Trip plus member from Porty Said, did Mark Carney pay Rory and Alistair royalties on using Disagree agreeably in his first news conference after the election?
- [46:01]
Rory Stewart
I mean, yeah, yeah, obviously. And what's the nature of those royalties?
- [46:03]
Alistair Campbell
Well, he's giving us a Canadian Air Force plane to be the official podcast plane for our tour, as he should. Yeah, I don't think we can keep it for our library though. We have to give it back after the tour.
- [46:15]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was kind of, it's kind of nice. I'm glad we're having an influence on the world. So that's the final question coming in from Dan. Which books have you read recently, which you like?
- [46:25]
Alistair Campbell
Okay. I've read a very good book by a guy called Stan Grant which was given to me by somebody just randomly said, listen to the podcast. I think you'd like this book. I'm not going to say where because every time I mention where these things happen. Okay, I'll tell you, I get criticized for promoting the Lido. My fellow swimmers. So this is somebody who came to the Lido to give me a book.
- [46:53]
Rory Stewart
Oh, is it getting overcrowded because too many people are hearing about the Lido on the swim?
- [46:56]
Alistair Campbell
Well, it's also because his blood been hot.
- [46:57]
Rory Stewart
Right.
- [46:58]
Alistair Campbell
But it's the story of a guy who became quite a well known journalist, but he's, he's of Aboriginal heritage and it's a really compelling, very emotional account of what it's like to grow up in Australia as an Aboriginal. And it's called talking to my Country. And I think what it does is because, you know, as you know, I love Australia and you on the basis of your, your one visit there, you love it as well. But I think we both have quite a romantic view of it and I think when you are confronted, it also makes you think about Britain a lot as well. Because the truth is that, you know, we shipped the People off there as convicts and then they, you know, they kind of arrive there and. And it basically becomes a white country. And, you know, so he tells the story of. He's actually part of his heritage is Irish convict. And the Irish guy becomes an amazingly successful businessman after he leaves prison, gets out and what have you, but the aboriginal side of his family. You know, the educational stuff, the poverty. So it's a really, really powerful read. So I'm very grateful to the young man who came up. And I've also actually been reading. I'm going to plug it, even though he doesn't need it. I'm reading the Mooches book as well. From Wall street to the White House and Back. It's at times it's very, very funny. It's sort of a book that's written. Anybody who listens to Anti Scaramucci is basically just a sort of. Is written. As he speaks, his insult of British food is really bad. He says that you go into a pub in England and you might as well be eating out of mop water. Oh, yeah.
- [48:34]
Rory Stewart
He's about to date, isn't he? I think he's 30.
- [48:36]
Alistair Campbell
I think our food is better than American 30 years.
- [48:38]
Rory Stewart
It's exactly coming from him. If he's French or Italian, we could take it, couldn't we?
- [48:42]
Alistair Campbell
Exactly.
- [48:42]
David McCloskey
Yeah.
- [48:43]
Rory Stewart
No, no.
- [48:43]
Alistair Campbell
Right. Rory, what are you reading? Which 27 books have you got?
- [48:46]
Rory Stewart
The ones I want to recommend are the Unaccountability Machine, why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions, and How the World Lost Its Mind. That's by Dan Davis. Really fascinating, because we're talking about this, actually, partly that is what water privatization is about. Unaccountability, how we lose accountability. And it's also about all the structures of fake accountability that we create. So all the ways that in government we set up metrics and targets that seem to deliver accountability, but basically involve everyone being able to shrug off and say, not me, some other agency, some other regulators responsible. Then a really, really old book. Book. But if people are looking, and I'll finish on this for a sort of deep and meaningful thing. It's a book that's drawn my attention by a listener in Ireland called Neil, who wrote to me, and it's by Leo Tolstoy, and it's called A Calendar of Wisdom. And these are daily readings every day with three or four of his favorite quotes from great thinkers that Tolstoy brought together towards the end of his life. It's a fun thing to do, and you may even find it deep and meaningful.
- [49:48]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, good. Okay. See you next week.
- [49:56]
David McCloskey
I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst turned spy novelist.
- [49:59]
Gordon Carrera
And I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.
- [50:02]
David McCloskey
Together, we're the hosts of another Goal Hanger show. The rest is classified. And we bring you brilliant stories from the world of spies. Here is that clip we mentioned earlier. On June 5, 2013, this first article drops. And it's a massive one.
- [50:15]
Gordon Carrera
It is a massive one. The world doesn't yet know that the source for this article is Edward Snowden. All they get is this remarkable story. And, I mean, I remember it dropping and thinking, where has this come from? It just felt so kind of unusual as a story. We should explain what it was and why it's so significant. It's a court order to the company Verizon that demands it hands over the details of every phone call in America. And what it was after was what's called the metadata, not the content of the call. So it's basically saying these two phones connected at this time for so long. Not necessarily what was said in that phone call, but it allows the idea for the NSA and then the FBI to kind of carry out searches on it to look for terrorists or other suspects. The point being, though, that this looks like domestic surveillance by the nsa. And that was stunning, partly because the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, just a few months before, had been asked in Congress by a senator almost a question which suggests that the senator knew about this program, because the senator said, does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans? And Clapper's reply was, no.
- [51:27]
David McCloskey
There is a tremendous gap between the understanding of this program, I think, inside sort of the upper reaches of Congress and the intelligence community and the White House and what the American people think is happening. And that's where this article is such a bombshell, because Americans, prior to this, ordinary people, did not have an understanding that any of this was authorized.
- [51:48]
Gordon Carrera
Exactly. I think what's interesting, if it had just been that one story, it would have been big. But actually, it's really an American story. It's about the kind of American Constitution and legal protections.
- [51:57]
Rory Stewart
But.
- [51:57]
Gordon Carrera
And I think you can imagine US Officials going, okay, well, you know, that's bad. But then the Guardian tells US officials who they're in contact with that they've got another story coming down the line. And I think that's important because it makes clear that it's not just a single document that's been leaked, but there's more. And it's coming from what looks like inside the nsa. So the next day there's a little race, but the Guardian publishes a story on something called prism. Now, this is another biggie in terms of a reveal. And I think for a lot of people, this is perhaps, particularly around the world, this is the more famous one. This is about the content of emails and communications which are coming from big US tech firms. So this is about basically the idea that the NSA had access directly to companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, to things like Gmail, Outlook, Photos, all the data that people are sending around the world. This is in some ways a more stunning revelation because everyone around the world uses American tech companies. You know, those were basically the only companies you used for email and for everything else. And suddenly this program is being revealed saying the NSA appears to have access to it and is able to target and get particular accounts and details of it. But if you go back to that time, I mean, if you then talk to people now about what it was like in gchq, you know, Britain's intelligence agency, I mean, there is blind panic. Ian Lobbin, who was then the director, later said, when I heard the news, I lay awake saying to myself, I hope this isn't a Brit, because, you know, they've realised they've got a leak. Some of it looks like it relates to Britain. He's reported to have gone round colleagues asking, is anyone in your teams at GCHQ taking a long holiday? And I think meanwhile in NSA as well, there's this kind of desperate panic as they realise their secrets are being unfurled. But what's interesting is that they are kind of narrowing it down and they're certainly kind of heading towards Snowden, if they don't know it already at this point. Typically, someone who'd done this would keep.
- [54:01]
David McCloskey
Themselves secret, but luckily he's a massive narcissist with a massive ego.
- [54:08]
Gordon Carrera
And if you want to hear the full episode, listen to the rest is classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.