← 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 therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com coming up on the show today.
- [00:15]
Rory Stewart
This is probably the biggest opportunity we have to demonstrate that we can control immigration while doing it legally and humanely.
- [00:24]
Alistair Campbell
I think that Labour's probably got another year to 18 months and they've got to engage better on that with the public. Robert Jenrick, who who's trying to sort of vie with Farage for the same space by doing sort of snappy Instagram posts. He said, do these politicians and these civil servants live near these asylum hotels? You, Robert Jenrick, until quite recently were the minister in charge of this fact. The numbers currently is a lot lower than when the Conservatives are in power. The Rest is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy and Fuse are now offering £20 credit and free trip plus membership if you switch to a fixed tariff before the end of August.
- [01:08]
Rory Stewart
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- [01:21]
Alistair Campbell
It's also cheaper. Fuse gas and electricity customers typically save £150 versus the price cap.
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Rory Stewart
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- [01:35]
Alistair Campbell
And they began with a mission, which was to make electricity cheaper, cleaner, simpler. And Fuse now supplies over 50,000 homes across the UK, all done quietly, efficiently and without a single campaign bus tour.
- [01:50]
Rory Stewart
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- [01:58]
Alistair Campbell
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- [02:15]
Rory Stewart
Welcome to the Rest is Politics. Question time with me, Rory Stewart.
- [02:19]
Alistair Campbell
And with me Alistair Campbell. And Rory, you said in the main episode you were going to be nice about Yvette Cooper. Well, we've had a lot a, a lot of questions about all that's going on on the immigration front. Let me just give you a few Hailey Bright. Not everyone protesting immigration can be lumped into the far right category. Many of us are simply concerned about our children and community amidst rising levels of crime squeeze public sector. Do you understand the legitimacy of these worries? Sean Traynor with the One in, one out treaty being applied without having received parliamentary approval. Are you worried that Parliament's role in our democracy is being undermined? Marion Benny, why is STARME reluctant to call out and fact check Farage? I might have a go at that one in a minute, but where do you want to start, Rory?
- [03:02]
Rory Stewart
Let's start with the deal itself, I think begin by massive praise for Yvette Cooper pushing ahead with this. This was something that was trailed in their policy before the election. And it gets to the nub of the issue, which is, as we've often said on the podcast, France is a safe country. There is no humanitarian reason why you would need to leave France and move to the United Kingdom. And doing it with people smugglers in very, very unstable, dangerous craft threatens people's lives. And also, of course, is being used by the far right to stoke massive anxiety and is contributing to the possibility that we could end up with Nigel Farage as a very, very major force in government. So you've got to deal with it. And the correct way to deal with it is a deal with France which says everybody who lands in Britain on a boat will be returned to France. That's the positive bit. Pro sweet vet Cooper. The negative bit. I'm afraid I'm going to have a bit of a go at your friend President Macron here, because France somehow is missing the whole point of the thing. They're saying that they'll take people back up to a certain number. Now, that exactly misses the whole point. The whole point is deterrence. If every single person who arrived on a boat was automatically returned to France, the numbers would cease.
- [04:25]
Alistair Campbell
Right?
- [04:26]
Rory Stewart
There'd be no point you getting on a boat anymore. That's what happened with the EU Turkey deal. Furthermore, it's ridiculous for France to say every time you return someone to us, you take someone for us, because again, if the policy works, nobody would be coming to the uk, then they wouldn't be taking anyone from France, and then France wouldn't have any incentive to collaborate. The real structure, which is what Yvette Cooper and I think the British government wanted to push for, says everybody returns back to France, but Britain will undertake to take a set number of asylum seekers from France every year, regardless of how many people arrive. And final thing, if Macron can develop the courage and the detail to get this right, and I think Germany should get behind it, the European Union should get behind it, we have a model for what could happen in the Mediterranean, for dealing with immigration, the Mediterranean, because we would have proved that there is a Legal court approved, perfectly reasonable method of dealing with this kind of illegal migration. And it could then be extended to safe third country return from people arriving on the European borders.
- [05:33]
Alistair Campbell
Interesting. The reason you were, I gave you the open door to mock me over my calls to some of the securocrats about Palestine action was because actually we said last week we were going to talk about immigration. So I was talking to people in the Home Office and elsewhere. And it's really interesting that you say that, because I think one of the things they feel at the moment is that largely because of our media and because of populists like Farage and now Robert Jenrick, who's trying to sort of vie with Farage for the same space, is that the government feels they're not getting remotely a fair deal on this debate at all. Just to give you one example, at the moment, virtually every day you pick up the right wing newspapers and they're covering these. This relates to Haley's question. Not everyone protesting immigration could be lumped into the far right category. These are people often presenting themselves as concerned mothers outside hotels that are currently housing asylum seekers. Now, fact, the numbers currently being held in asylum hotels is a lot lower than when the conservatives are in power. Is that a fact that the government has been able to land with the public? It would seem not much, much harder when you have the media that we've got and the populist politics that we've got. This relates to Marion's question, why is Starmer so reluctant to call out and fact check Farage? Very good example. This week Farage posted a video purporting to be of men with brown skin arriving on a beach shouting Allah Akbar. And Farage saying, these are sort of people that Starmer's sort of letting into our country. Turned out it wasn't our country at all. It wasn't 20, 25, it years ago. And then Generic. I'd be fascinated, Rory, what you think about Generic's positioning, because what Hayley's question relates to Generic had a social media post and he's becoming like Liz Truss. He thinks he can become leader of the Conservative Party by doing sort of snappy Instagram posts. And he turned his Instagram post, presumably at the Mail on Sunday's request, into an article headline, I care more for my daughter's safety than the rights of foreign criminals. That's why I support every peaceful protester outside in a asylum hotel. If you want to study populism at its most venal, there you have it. I care for my daughter's Safety more than the rights of foreign criminals. Find me a parent who doesn't. But what he's saying is, and in his video he said, do these politicians and these civil servants, do they live near these asylum hotels? No, they don't. Well, I assume that includes you, because you, Robert Jenrick, until quite recently were the fucking minister in charge of, of this. And the policy pursued by Yvette Cooper, as your former colleague Rory Stewart seems to have acknowledged, is at least beginning to work better than the expensive gimmicks and the bullshit you came out with.
- [08:36]
Rory Stewart
But I do think there's a very interesting question about all these leaders, Yvette Cooper, Macron, in the sense that they had an incredible opportunity here with this big summit between Macron and Starmer, to come out with a really big, bold, courageous statement, which is every single person now arriving on British shores will be sent back to France. It would have been a fantastic headline and achievement. I'm very confident it would have stopped the issue overnight. So why didn't they do it? Why did they both miss the opportunity by going for a sort of technocratic fix? And this is where I think the flaw is that they're not doing spectacular courageous stuff when all the world media is looking at them, which allows them to appear decisive. They get into these sort of slightly overly detailed half hearted things which in the end run the risk of being the worst in all worlds, because somehow the French government doesn't get it. The point of this needs to be to stop this. And the way you stop it is every single person who comes over is returned.
- [09:42]
Alistair Campbell
This is what we said at the time when this deal was done, is that it's a step. I think nobody should project this as the sort of, you know, the thing that's going to end.
- [09:50]
Rory Stewart
They shouldn't do it as a step.
- [09:51]
Alistair Campbell
No, but wait a minute. But Rory, the point I was going to make, we said at the time that we wondered whether the European Union, the Commission and all the member states would buy this, because there was a worry amongst some of the European Union member states that this would be basically France able to lob its problems further south to some of the countries that were already dealing with this. So I think having got the principle accepted, I hope that what then happens, that this is taken to the next stage. So I agree that it's not the. I think one of the points that Yvette Cooper does quite well, she doesn't. And this is in direct contrast to when Generic was in charge. She does not say we're doing this and this is going to sort it. She says this is really quite difficult, really quite complicated, involves a lot of international cooperation and that is what we're building. And I asked them at one point last week, I'll send it to you and you can have a look at it. I asked them to send me a kind of catalog of all the different things that they've been trying, that they've been doing, the different initiatives, the different meetings, et cetera. Nobody can say she's not putting the work in. And I think that is part of the battle because where you're right, listen, I really worry about this issue because I think that Farage, he's becoming ever more reckless, I think, in his exploitation because I think he will be feeling slightly under pressure from Generic. And I'd be fascinated to know what you think of Generic's kind of transition from this sort of Cameroon figure to this sort of, you know, list Truss on steroids, Instagram guy wandering around making ever more kind of extreme statements because he knows that's what plays into this kind of right wing Conservative Party vote that he wants to have when Kemi Badenoch falls off her perch. But I think that Labour's probably got another year to 18 months to carry on with this style, to do the sort of detailed stuff and at the end of it to be able to say, look, it's not perfect, but this is the progress that we've made, bearing in mind that their opponents, including the press, and it is amazing if you think about it, Rory, if you read the sun, the Mail, the Telegraph, the Express, the Times, etcetera, you would think that there had been no asylum hotels until Keir Starmer became Prime Minister, when in fact Labour have got fewer people in fewer hotels than was the case when they were elected. Now that's a communications issue and a political issue and they got to engage better on that with the public and better at challenging reform and at challenging Jenrick, who's clearly decided to. This is his issue.
- [12:19]
Rory Stewart
This is the big challenge for everybody who cares about the Progressive Centre, because here's an opportunity, this is probably the biggest opportunity we have to demonstrate that we can control immigration while doing it legally and humanely. This is the opportunity, if we can get this right with France, which is to say everybody arriving in Britain from France will be returned to France and by doing so, who's going to pay €15,000 to a people smuggler if every single person who arrives gets sent back? In fact, what they found with Turkey when Greece did this is you only have to return the first hundred people and the thing stops almost immediately. If we can get this right, we can prove that we can do it while respecting the European Court on Human Rights, the European Court of Justice, the Refugee Convention, the Convention on Child Rights, the Convention Against Torture, all these things. The next stage to that would then be Europe making a deal with, for example, Kenya or Senegal or another EU Turkey deal to do the same thing in the Mediterranean. Because what they will have established is exactly what the far right keep claiming, from Farage to Trump to the AfD, which is we've got to ignore all international law, we've got to rip up the European Convention on Human Rights. Because the only way to deal with this issue is to break the law, break all international conventions, take the world back to where it was before the end of the Second World War. So Britain and France get this right and then Europe's got to get this right because it's in Europe's existential interest actually to make sure Farage doesn't end up leading the United Kingdom and that the AfD doesn't end up leading in Germany. It's on 25% even though the German economy isn't in the trouble it might be in in two or three years time. So yeah, I think the stakes couldn't be higher, but. And because of that, we need to hear the courage and final point to you, I still don't quite get why Starmer is not calling out Farajmur. There should be huge possibilities in saying, no, you're lying about your crime statistics. I mean, you see people, oddly, people like Fraser Nelson, the ex editor of the Spectator, very much on the right, seems to be more consistent in making the arguments for multi ethnic Britain, making the arguments around crime than some of the Labour leadership is. I mean, given it's a progressive government, why are they not finding this huge opportunity to stand up for the values that most Labour voters deeply care about?
- [15:00]
Alistair Campbell
Well, you see what's interesting about this, I said ages ago, even before they got elected, the Labour should have a team of people, including MPs who basically get on with their day jobs, their MPs, they're doing, their constituencies of it, et cetera, but give them the job of taking down Farage and taking down reform and you see bits of it. There's a guy, Mike Tapp in Dover, I think does quite good stuff on social media. But you know, with all due respect to him, how many of our listeners would have seen that, been aware of it? Don't know. Keir Starmer then made that big speech really going for reform. But that was a one off. I didn't see the sort of campaigning coming through on the back of it that said, right, we say you're going to be, you're a big threat to the country. This is how we deal with big threats to the country. We take them down. And I still think they're in that mode of not quite deciding whether if they go after him very, very hard, it somehow plays into his hands. But I think if you, you cannot allow somebody like Farage to get away with constant misinformation, with constant polarization, with constantly getting this line that all of these people are decent people, some of them are decent people, some of them are decent people with a genuine concern that you have to address. You've made that point, they have to sort the issue. But where it is being whipped up by the Tommy Robinsons and their ilk and you've got to call it out. And then the other thing to bear in mind, we're going to talk about Corbyn in a minute. Jeremy Corbyn's always been a. Who doesn't really like having people to the left of him. Okay. And that's why he's going to be quite comfortable in this position that he finds himself in now. Nigel Farage wants people to the right of him. He wants the Tommy Robinson, Stephen Yaxley Lennons. He wants to be able to say, they're not us. I think Labour should be saying, I'm sorry, you actually, you're part of the same tribe on this and call that out a bit more and you know, and repeat my point, which I'll repeat probably in vain till the day I die. The other way that Farage has got to be hit hard. The one thing you've done with your life and your career, you gave us Brexit and look where it's got us. So are we really going to give you over the whole country?
- [17:19]
Rory Stewart
Well, and I think that, I think everything you say, I mean, Labour MPs I talk to, and admittedly they may be more in the center left of the party, would be complete music to their ears. They're horrified because what they see is that everything from the statements on immigration to the Palestine action stuff all feels to them as though Labour is chasing Farage votes rather than standing up for the values that most Labour MPs profoundly believe in. And one of them obviously would be consistently talking in defence of minorities. And that's also, I think, why they were quite worried, why some of the positions the government took on, on trans issues too because as one of them was saying to me last night, there is a very, very strong belief, rightly or wrongly in the Labour Party that if you start attacking one group of minorities it doesn't stop. You should stand up for minority rights. Full stop. Here's a question for you from Tom Yardley, trip plus member from London. In the scenario where Labour became as unpopular as the Tories were prior to the last election, it's coming down to Corbyn vs Farage. Who would you vote for? There we are, Alistair, gone. We're putting you on the spot here.
- [18:31]
Alistair Campbell
No, Rory, Tom Yardley did not pose that question to me. He posted to both of us. So Rory, who would you. No, I would, I would. Look, I have, I've. Despite being expelled by him, I did at one point vote for Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister. I voted Labor.
- [18:48]
Rory Stewart
Not a complicated question for you.
- [18:50]
Alistair Campbell
No, but you know what I would say I don't think that is going to happen. I don't think that is going to be, be the choice. But I do think this is what's so interesting about what's going on is that we are on the cusp certainly and maybe we're already in it of becoming a kind of European style multi party democracy in a first past the post system. So it's not impossible that somebody could end up becoming Prime Minister and including with a majority in some scenarios by getting a quarter of a very low turnout. So I've answered the question very directly Mr. Stewart, who would you vote for? Corbyn or Farage?
- [19:34]
Rory Stewart
It's a pretty horrible choice, isn't it? But probably narrowly I'd go with Corbyn and not just because of his beautiful ears. Now Alistair on this, just remind us for a moment because this European story is very interesting, isn't it? As you've reminded us on France but I'm not sure everybody's fully taken this on board. Basically the French equivalent of Conservatives and Labor kind of almost disappeared and were replaced by a center, a far right and a far left and that's happened in other European countries too. Just quick reminder on that because I do think it's relevant to your point about European democracies.
- [20:09]
Alistair Campbell
Well take Germany, the biggest country in the European Union. So they've currently got another grand coalition. So the two main parties have now come together to form a government. Right. But nobody should read from that that that's basically the public saying, you know, we really support the two parties. This has happened because they're the only Two that could come together and form a majority. We've talked a lot about Holland where the Wilders is a very, very, very, very powerful force. And he's the kind of, you know, the Farage of the Netherlands. Even in the kind of Scandinavian democracies we've seen, we've seen coalitions forming between parties that you wouldn't necessarily expect to work together. So sort of European trend. One of the other things I read this week was actually about the numbers of parties when you put them into the different families. The numbers of parties on the far right is still growing. I mean, it'd be very, very interesting to see what goes on with Corbyn because of course I think Labour's response on this has to be very careful and quite clever because I think part of them think, well, their initial line was, well, the guy has been rejected twice. Well, okay, but he got almost 40% of the vote. And Labour and Tory between them in the polls right now are around about that, if not slightly below it. The other thing I think Labour should be careful of is to understand that Corbyn is going to become, in terms of when he gets this party up and running, if he does get up and running, you can have Farage to the right, Corbyn to the left, Corbyn in previous elections the media has been trying to kill him because he might have become Prime Minister. Okay? This time the media will be using him like they're using Farage now to try to undermine the Labour government. That's a very different dynamic.
- [22:06]
Rory Stewart
A couple of quick things. I mean, firstly, there's an interesting parallel, as you just pointed out, with Germany and this, not the Wagenknecht party on the far left, but Die Linke, which has just brought in a charismatic young leader maybe there equivalent to Zara Sultana and is now up, I think well up above 10% in the polls. Second thing, what a very strange party this new Jeremy Corbyn party is. Jeremy Corbyn, of course, collects around him a very, very diverse group of people, including these people like Andrew Murray who grew up, I think I'm right in saying, and sort of proto communist Trotskyite bits of the Labour Party. And when they're interviewed by people like the New Statesman, it's absolutely extraordinary. I mean they talk in this incredibly complicated jargon about their party's procedures and their mechanisms. So one of them says, we have to aim to support extant popular institutions, organized labor cooperatives, anti war groups and build new ones, bill payers, unions, boycott campaigns to lay the foundations for an effective social electoral challenge. And then Murray replies, an umbrella alliance would fail to articulate a coherent oppositional politics, while a centralized party could struggle to incorporate independent forces. A party with an affiliation model might be one way of squaring the circle. But whereas Schneider envisions a largely extra parliamentary organization, Murray hopes to establish anyway goes on and on and on in this kind of way, a credible parliamentary block that could use its national profile to mount a genuine system challenge. Its main goal should not be to create such forms of associational life. Rather than using the party to reconstitute the working class, the party could create the space for the working class to reconstitute itself.
- [24:00]
Alistair Campbell
Ah, well, when you were coming into.
- [24:02]
Rory Stewart
Labor politics, were you somewhere on the fringes of your world? People talking in this highly kind of theoretical. I mean it's almost. He sounds like a sort of, he sounds like a, a German philosopher at times. Right.
- [24:13]
Alistair Campbell
My newspaper, the New World, one of my fellow columnists, Paul Mason, flirted with Corbynism for a while, but he's become like a lot of people who dip their toes into this sort of politics. He's come out absolutely horrified and he's written a very good column this week analyzing the education of people like Andrew Murray, James Schneider, who you mentioned, Seamus Milne, Corbyn's right hand man. Seamus Milne went to Winchester, Schneider went to Winchester. And according to Paul Mason, the school that Andrew Murray went to, the. The current annual fees are £45,000. So, and this is, if you go Back to the 30s, Paul's very interesting. This is where you go back to the Communist Party of Great Britain, which is kind of back in the 30s where these guys would probably be. It was full of public school educated kind of, you know, intellectuals who were telling the working class what was good for them. And of course these people wouldn't really understand the lives of the working class much at all. And the other thing you've got to say about Jeremy Corbyn, when he was leader of the Labour Party, he was kind of doing his own thing, but he was a lot more constrained than he will be with this. And my point about not wanting anything to the left of him means that this thing is going to be wide open to all sorts of kind of people that ultimately got, he got in enough trouble be getting selfies with dodgy people. But this time it's going to be. But we'll have to see, I think.
- [25:40]
Rory Stewart
The other thing that most listeners in Britain will be aware of, but maybe international listeners won't be Aware of is a large core of his MPs seem to come from this independent group which were predominantly Muslim candidates who ran against labor candidates in often Muslim dominated constituencies. This is an alliance which will have highly progressive people who are very much in favor of, of transgender issues. You know, might get Clive Lewis sympathetic towards them, labor mp, but on the other hand it's going to have Muslims who's maybe much more conservative in their social values.
- [26:18]
Alistair Campbell
I got sent this from somebody I don't know who emailed me on my website and it's a voice note from a young man called Jacob Stokes and I've checked out with him, he's happy for us to use this. I'd be really interested in your reaction. I've edited it down a little bit, but he's a young guy, early 20s, from the north of England, currently studying in the south of England. But just have a listen to this because I think this speaks to what we've been talking about in this episode so far, about immigration, about Farage and how he exploits it, and also about Corbyn and Labour.
- [26:51]
Jacob Stokes
I think I record this because I'm disillusioned, disenchanted and probably distraught by the way that the UK seems to want to do politics either on the far right with Farage and the weaponization of immigration, the lack of care for detail, the lack of care for complexity, typical populism and the proposition that we'll leave the ECHR and become brothers in arms with Russia and Belarus as the only three nations to opt out of the echr. And then on the far left we've got Corbyn promising to re nationalize everything that ever existed and to bring about world peace and bring about human rights across the world. For me, as a person who genuinely believes in the center ground, I don't relate to either of those parties. I don't relate to either of those people and either of those people's history. What I do relate to is rational debate, a rejection of populism and a true belief in the centre. But come free as time, when the UK goes to the ballot box, who the fuck do I vote for? I can't vote for Labour. Massive failure. Failure in communication, a pandering to the far right, a government that seemingly changes with the wind, a reactionary government that cannot communicate what it actually believes in. I can't vote for the Tories. 10 years of failed leadership, a no deal Brexit and a tendency to appease the far right in their own party reform. Need I say anymore? Of course I won't vote for reform. And then you've got Jeremy Corbyn's new party, which fragments the left and makes it more likely for a reform government based on the polls. So where the hell do I go? Where the hell do many people that I do genuinely believe we represent? Not just me, but the fact that Rory and Alistair have the most popular political podcast in the uk. Where the hell did those voters go? We cannot wait and let this pass us by. And now I'd love to step out of my door and create a movement, but the reality is I don't have that leverage. But you, you two do. You both have that leverage. Please, I beg you, create a party for the center ground and let's fight.
- [29:18]
Rory Stewart
I mean, it's very, very powerful. And he's right, isn't he? Because it's everything that this podcast has been about from the beginning. And look, none of this is easy because setting up a new party is shattering and often humiliating and painful. I went through a horrible experience trying to run as an independent in London, and I really, I felt that it was something that was probably not something you could do in a year. It felt to me more like something I'd have to keep chipping away at over 10, 15 before you really get into position. But part of it, it's just a small part, is this question of how does the centre ground act boldly? We talked about migration as an example. I think that's an example of how we could answer his challenge. Explain how you can be humane, respect European court and human rights and deliver and stop giving the impression that the only people who can do things are the far right. I think this is the risk. I mean, Trump's created this world which Farage is feeding into, which is we're the only people who can get anything done because we just ignore international norms, we ignore courts, we can just crash it through. But, yeah, it's a big challenge of Irish, isn't it? And I don't know, I mean, how do you struggle with this? You presumably continue to believe that the Labour Party can be the vehicle to do that?
- [30:37]
Alistair Campbell
Well, funny enough, I had an exchange with Jacob after he sent the voice notes, not least to ask his permission that we could use it it. And I think I do. Yeah. But I think the Labour Party really, really needs to listen to what he's saying. He's 23, I think, and obviously coming from quite a left wing family, left wing background, but feeling that what he sees of the Labour government so far is not inspiring him. And it's the old Harold Wilson thing, you know, the Labour Party is a moral crusade or it's nothing. I sense of him that he'll get reinspired. He'll get re engaged if he's reinspired. And what's inspiring at the moment is that is a sort of a mixture of fear and anger. And as he says, he's distraught and he's looking to us to think, well, you guys have got a lot of listeners and, you know, people seem to like your podcast. I've got to be honest, whenever people say to me, as they often do, please get back, please get engaged, please do this, please do that, there's a part of me that feels kind of moderately flattered, but inside I feel a sinking because it's the point that you make. It's like, well, well, how it's bigger than anything that we're talking about. The things we're talking about are big. But to do that. And I really. Maybe this is the tribalism. When Corbyn is asked, you know, Neil Kinnick has this line, it's going to become, you know, Nigel Farage Assistance Group. Now, up to a point that's obviously clearly right, but Corbyn's answer to that is, well, I'm the only one out here who's constantly attacking the reform agenda. That will be his argument.
- [32:10]
Rory Stewart
His argument would also be that he's partly there because Zahra Sultana was suspended by that.
- [32:17]
Alistair Campbell
And he was expelled.
- [32:19]
Rory Stewart
And he was expelled. And that if, and this is the point Labour MP was making me yesterday, that when you guys were in, you actually tolerated what Corbyn was up to and I suppose what Tony Benn was up to and the rest of them, you didn't do this. That in some ways this is a problem of Starmer's own making, that had he not been suspending and expelling them, they wouldn't have found it necessary to make any party.
- [32:41]
Alistair Campbell
Anyway, listen, I want to thank Jacob. He's given us lots of food for thought. I'm not going to promise that we're going to play voice notes every week, so. But if people do want to communicate in that way, that's fine. I just found his. I found his message. It just arrived out the blue. I found it very moving, actually.
- [32:58]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, it was very moving. And look, one small thing just for Jacob. I am wondering now, increasingly, in terms of my own personal life, whether the answer isn't for me to re engage with politics at a much more local level, so much less kind of grand, national, international. But think about you know, I keep banging on about the importance of mayors and local democracy and citizens assemblies, and I'm beginning to wonder whether I shouldn't be trying to make that work at a much more local focused.
- [33:26]
Alistair Campbell
Cumbria.
- [33:28]
Rory Stewart
Cumbria, that's right, Cumbria.
- [33:30]
Alistair Campbell
Are you dropping a very large hint here, Rory?
- [33:33]
Rory Stewart
No, this is just the beginning of a thought process, Alice. The beginning of a thought process.
- [33:36]
Alistair Campbell
But when I put this to you a few weeks ago, you said, no, that's not happening.
- [33:41]
Rory Stewart
No, I'm beginning to shift. I'm beginning to think. But of course, it may be all pie in the sky, because how on earth does one run as an independent against all these big parties?
- [33:50]
Alistair Campbell
Well, the point Jacob's making is they're not as big anymore. They're not the same things. Anyway, thank you, Jacob. Let's. Let's take a break and when we come back, we're going to talk about. Are we about to see the world's first 100 year old president?
- [34:10]
Rory Stewart
Right, good. See you then.
- [34:15]
Alistair Campbell
This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
- [34:17]
Rory Stewart
In today's world, it's more and more difficult to remain private online. A very, very difficult to protect yourself from a whole series of people trying to intrude, gather your data and commit fraud.
- [34:29]
Alistair Campbell
And also, this is of course peak season for public wi fi. Spend a lot of time in trains, airports, hotels, traveling around. Plenty of people still go online with very limited protection. No password, no encryption, no idea who's watching.
- [34:42]
Rory Stewart
And that's why I use NordVPN, because it encrypts your connection, it hides your IP and it blocks trackers, all while running quietly in the background.
- [34:49]
Alistair Campbell
And especially useful abroad. One click and you're back in the UK with all the usual news apps and streaming site services. It's as if you never left.
- [34:58]
Rory Stewart
And it also helps avoid dynamic pricing. Flights, hotels, subscriptions. All less likely to spike when your location's masked.
- [35:04]
Alistair Campbell
Simple and secure, keeping the noise out and your data in.
- [35:07]
Rory Stewart
To get the best discount off your NORDVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com restispolitics the link gives you four extra months on the two year plan plan. There's a 30 day money back guarantee. Links in the description.
- [35:21]
William Dalrymple
Hello, I'm William Durimpel.
- [35:23]
Anita Arnand
And I'm Anita Arnand. And we're the hosts of another goal hanger show, Empire.
- [35:27]
William Dalrymple
And we are here to tell you about a recent series we've done on partition.
- [35:32]
Anita Arnand
On the 14th and 15th of August 1947, Pakistan and India announced their independence from the British Empire. But as these nations gained their freedom, their rush to and violent division resulted in the deaths of well over a million people and the forced migration of over 14 million more.
- [35:50]
William Dalrymple
It's a piece of South Asian history that many people are familiar with, but in this series we want to explore it alongside four less well known partitions which continue to affect the region in monumental ways.
- [36:02]
Anita Arnand
Yeah, you're quite right. In one episode we dissect how Dubai almost became part of modern India. And in another, we're going to unpack the history behind the headlines about the conflict in Kashmir.
- [36:12]
William Dalrymple
We also explore how the separation of Burma from India is linked to the origin of the Rohingya genocide and how east and West Pakistan separated in 1971 to create Bangladesh.
- [36:27]
Anita Arnand
So if you'd like to hear more about the five partitions that completely transformed modern Asia and how the weight of the memory summary of partition has been passed down through the generations, we've left a clip of the series at the end of this episode for you to listen to.
- [36:48]
Alistair Campbell
Welcome back to the rest of Spologers Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell and.
- [36:52]
Rory Stewart
With me Rory Stewart. Now here, Alistair, we're going to catch you out with a niche question, test your general knowledge with the news that Cameroon President Paul Beer is running for another term in his 90s and will be 100 at the end of this term. Do a r envisage. Still podcasting when they hit three figures. I, I guess I'm pushing you more to talk about Cameron than about our Future podcasting in 50 years time.
- [37:19]
Alistair Campbell
I, I think it's highly unlikely that I will be alive. But Cameroons? You think you can trick me, do you? Well, well, I, I've met Paul Beer.
- [37:30]
Rory Stewart
What? When did you meet Paul Beer?
- [37:32]
Alistair Campbell
Oh, one of those big sort of EU Africa events with, with tb. Because he has been in power for a long time, Rory.
- [37:40]
Rory Stewart
Oh, you mean, you mean, you mean he's not one of these guys that first stood for politics in his 90s?
- [37:45]
Alistair Campbell
No, he's not. He's not one of these guys that I've consulted or advised either. Would I have advised them to put his name forward? Right now I'm not sure what's happened here in Cameroon. There was a guy, I think the main opposition guy, a guy called Kamto, he was ruled out. The electoral body decided no, I'm sorry, Mr. Morris Campto, you can't run. But the president, he was cleared to run for his eighth term and it means he's now 92. The election is next year. He'll be 93. It's a seven year term, so he would be 100 if he got to the end of that term. I just hope nobody tells Donald Trump as Africa minister.
- [38:27]
Rory Stewart
Cameroon largely featured because there's an Anglophone, an English speaking part of Cameroon that has a very, very difficult, fractious relationship with the French speaking part of Cameroon and where there have been huge human rights abuses and demands for independence. And in fact, actually we should next week talk about Trump now signaling things on Somaliland. But I'm very struck that his Excellency Paul Beer became prime minister in 1975. He's the second longest ruling president in Africa after the president of Equatorial guinea and the longest consecutively serving non royal national leader in the world and the oldest had a state in the world. And I'm very struck by his remarkably black hair given his advanced age.
- [39:09]
Alistair Campbell
What is it? What does Scaramucci call it? Latin Dictator Brown. Yeah.
- [39:15]
Rory Stewart
So I suppose, I suppose maybe we're being a little bit flippant because presumably it is a very, very worrying and sad for Cameroon and its development and its future that somebody is sitting there since 1982 and is trying to extend themselves into another term.
- [39:30]
Alistair Campbell
It's pretty absurd. And, but there we are. There are plenty of absurdities in the world and that story adds to them.
- [39:38]
Rory Stewart
Okay, next one for you will cave Trip plus member Somerset. Hi Rory and Alistair. Can you comment on Chancellor Metz's decision to discontinue military aid to Israel? Well, how will this affect Germany's post war relationship? Will America plug the gap? Or is even Trump beginning to sense that he has something to lose by continuing to supply weapons to the prior state?
- [39:59]
Alistair Campbell
Well, this, this is a big deal. He hasn't, as it were, suspended all arms to Israel. He's, he's done what Britain did a while back, which is essentially saying we're not sending any arms to Israel which might be used in, in Gaza, which when Keir Starmer did it, he got criticized out of both sides. Israel saying this is sort of rewarding Hamas and people on you know, sor progressive side of politics basically saying this doesn't go far enough. But this is a really, really, really big deal for Merz to do this. And it's not without controversy. He's actually, you know, he's only about 100 days in and he's starting to come in for a lot of internal criticism because of this. So the minister president that's like the prime minister, as it were, of Hesse, one of the lender guy called Boris Rhine, as in the river, he is, was very, very, very strongly criticized, said that our support for Israel should be unconditional, that the security of Israel is what they call the Staats raison, the raison d' etre of the German Federal Republic.
- [41:02]
Rory Stewart
And sorry, just to state the blinding obvious. I mean, it would be bizarre for any country to say their support for any other state was unconditional. Except in the case of Germany because of the Holocaust. Forced.
- [41:14]
Alistair Campbell
Exactly.
- [41:14]
Rory Stewart
And therefore that sense that they have this immense moral obligation towards Israel. Germany's position though is such a major problem because France, Saudi brought together this plan for Gaza which Canada and the UK joined, but there's no European Union vision. Basically the truth of the matter is that there is the Trump Netanyahu vision, which increasingly looks like the annexation of the whole of Gaza and pushing the Palestinian population out and the end of any two state solution, the creation of Greater Israel. And then there's what ought to be an alternative peace plan, but that's being stymied because Germany won't come on board. I mean, that's the big obstacle to getting a common European position, isn't it?
- [41:59]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I guess one of the reasons why those who are very, very much on the Israel side, of course, the Israeli government, but also their allies in different parts of politics. And my God, Rory, have you seen how many American politicians have taken their summer holiday in Israel? It's quite amazing. The Republicans, including Johnson, the speaker who shut down Congress early. So I think what others are trying to work out is whether this is a step by Mertz, but he certainly had a backlash already. And of course the other thing that's happened this week is Australia. So you were saying recently, Rory, that, that you thought it would been so much stronger if Britain and France had done the Palestine recognition move together. And I think what Macron would say is that he wanted to be seen as the leader of this move. So it's gone France, United Kingdom, then Canada and now Australia also come out. So a lot of these kind of key middle countries, as it were, and of course in the UK and Francis case, members of the United nations, permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. So they go to Unger United Nations General assembly in September and they would argue there'll be momentum behind this. And I think what some in Germany are thinking, I have my doubts, I've got to be honest. Is Mertz kind of eventually moving in that direction? I don't think we're going to see that. But this is a big, big deal what Mertz has done. And he's already facing a backlash.
- [43:25]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, but just imagine a different world for a second, just before we go into the last question, which is where actually a very detailed, consistent plan was worked out between all these major countries and released together. Because the problem with what Macron's doing is it sounds great on the surface, but what he's actually created is a situation where every single one of these countries has set different conditions for recognition, different nuances on what they're doing. So it doesn't actually end up being a block. It's a divided, disunited series of people grandstanding, all of them using the opportunity to play to their own domestic audiences. But what it isn't is where the west needs to be. In the absence of America, which is confident people really getting that balance between the big picture and the detail and doing it together. It's the only hope that Canada, Australia, uk, Europe, and I'd hope Japan, South Korea and others can really have of shaping the world in the future is if they stop this business of endless sort of, of individual statements, little bilateral statements, but actually start to rebuild an idea of what their vision is for Palestine, or their vision is for tariffs, what their vision is for nuclear weapons, what their vision is for AI. Right, okay, last question from me, Bertie. Trip plus member, Manchester as a young person, he's 13. Where do you think the line should be if there is one for how aware children should be in geopolitical affairs on subjects such as Israel, Israel, Palestine, et cetera. And reminder quickly that Question Time is being released for non members on A levels results day for school students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Now, what's your view on how deep one goes into? I mean, I'm struggling with this with Sasha and Ivo because they're always either hearing fragments of podcasts and they're hearing Shoshana and me debating Israel Garza, and the eight year old keeps popping in and saying, who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? And they've developed increasingly extreme views on Donald Trump, which they share with everybody they meet on an American bus.
- [45:32]
Alistair Campbell
Well, they're big fans. Are they?
- [45:33]
Rory Stewart
No, unfortunately for their relationship with people in the south of the United States of America, they. They seem to believe that Donald Trump is. Is about as evil as they get.
- [45:42]
Alistair Campbell
Oh, well, good for them. Good for them. Well, look, Bertie, the first thing is, as a young person, as you know, Rory, I. I think politics and citizenship and engagement should be taught in primary schools. And I've written a book to that effect available in all good bookshops And I've written one for people of your age as well, Bertie. Alistair Campbell talks politics. Politics. And one of the reasons why I think Jeremy Corbyn, to go back to that subject, this is another threat to Labor. When you look at the polling, he's very popular with the 16 and 17 year old demographic, a certain section of it. So the fact is, I think it's in all of our interests for young people to feel that they should be engaged in politics. I'm horrified sometimes about how little. I met somebody the other day and a young British kid knew nothing about the history of Northern Ireland, nothing, didn't even know there'd been a peace agreement. And I thought, God, you know, we put in all that bloody work, you don't even know what we did. So I think that sort of stuff we should be teaching our kids pretty young.
- [46:47]
Rory Stewart
I agree. And I think there's also, obviously one of the things traditionally that that new voters can bring is the very basic questions to our complacency. So to maybe just wrap together some of the themes for the last couple of episodes. I think people like Bertie are the people who should be asking us why we are taking for granted that Putin's not going to invade the Baltic or that America's going to provide a security guarantee, or that the AfD is not going to win in Germany. I think that our politics has become very complacent. And I think young voters ask, I mean, I feel this with, when I'm debating with Sasha about this stuff, that of course he asks very sensible questions. Why on earth are we doing this? Why are we still dealing with this country? Why are we recognizing them? Why are we allowing them to do this? Why are we not. If you say plastics is such a problem, why aren't you doing anything about it? If you say that AI has great benefits but also huge risks. And of course, I don't have good answers to those questions because of course, one operates in this sort of cozy little world of talking to people who are in the system. And that, of course, is the appeal of the far left, it's the appeal of the far right. But it's where I think young people got a point.
- [48:02]
Alistair Campbell
And also I think the other big, big factor in this is the media's role. I mean, I'm getting increasingly horrified by the way that the mainstream media covers Trump. And I understand it, they want access. But when you see these little. He very rarely gets properly challenged. And the reason may be because these journalists think, well, if I really go for him and really push back and really try to get under his skin and really try to probe him on some of the sort of corruption, some of the lying and some of the double dealing and the rest of it. They just stop getting any access whatsoever. And that's part of how autocrats and authoritarians operate. But surely the role of media in that space is not to pander and play along, it's to challenge it. So I would say to Bertie, be engaged, be interested, be involved. And actually, I think one of the most important things people can think at the moment about is actually trying to do what they can do to. To improve journalism as well. Because I think the decline of good journalism is a big, big, big part of the mess that we're in.
- [49:11]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, yeah, but there's still a lot of good stuff out there. We've just got to work out how we defend it and support it. I mean, there's some amazing reporting, but you're right, it's under so much pressure, isn't it? I mean, I keep my final depressing thought is there are exceptions. I mean, I think the economists, as the editor has been emphasizing to me, is still very well funded, still has a good set of foreign correspondents who's still doing well, but so many other bits of the media landscape, their revenues are falling, they're losing their foreign correspondence, they're losing their strings. I mean, all these countries where I used to operate, where there were always three or four really good foreign correspondents who were asking serious questions, getting into detail, they've all been gone and there's less and less space for this. I think I was joking to you that this friend of mine who was an Africa correspondent for one of the big British newspapers, because they're doing it all on page impressions. So his editor basically only promotes things that get a lot of likes and retweets. He basically couldn't get them to print any of his stuff about droughts in Kenya. They just wanted to know about some new early hominid proto Neanderthals that had been found in the Rift Valley, because that would get, you know, 2 million retweets, because people are more interested in early hominids than they are in drought.
- [50:32]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, I know, it's pretty terrifying. One sort of sliver of nostalgic good news I've had. I decided this week, really I wasn't going to do anything apart from the podcast. I've been sort of vaguely trying to not work all the time. So I've not been doing any other stuff. But I had a Whole waste wave of bids asking for me to talk about on the radio and the television and newspapers about this, apparently this new wave, this trend on TikTok of romanticized videos about the New labor era. And. And some is what somebody's called Charlie who. One of these accounts says she's engrossed by the Blair Brown Mandelson Campbell psychodrama. But I looked at a few of them. They're actually very. They were very sort of affectionate, I thought. So I think people are looking back and thinking maybe that wasn't such a bad government after all.
- [51:29]
Rory Stewart
That's social media for you. It's amazing what kind of remakes they can do. Gonna make Robert Jenrick into the leader of the Conservative Party.
- [51:36]
Alistair Campbell
Well, yeah. All right, Roy, lovely to talk to you.
- [51:39]
Rory Stewart
Bye bye. Thanks again.
- [51:40]
Alistair Campbell
See you soon.
- [51:46]
William Dalrymple
Hi, it's William Dalrymple here again from Empire, another Goal Hanger podcast. Here's the clip from our recent series on the five partitions that created modern Asia.
- [51:58]
F
And it was deeply emotional. Sparsh picked up some pebbles from the village, which he made into jewelry. Family heirlooms for his. His family going down the generations, because he was always saying, you know, my family doesn't have archives, et cetera. We lost everything in Partition and there's nothing that we have from Baela to show where we came from, from. But. So he wanted to pick up something from Bayla and make it into heirlooms for the next generations. You know, three, four generations from now, they'll still have a piece of bala with them, even if, you know, the relationship between India and Pakistan worsens again. And, you know, even if his kids can never visit Baila, they'll always have a piece of bala with them.
- [52:33]
Anita Arnand
This connection with Earth, dharti, you know, they call it dharti in India and Zamin is the Urdu word for exactly the same thing. But it is much more than just the earth. It is who you are, where you have grown from, where your forebears have grown from, and the number of people I know who have been lucky enough to travel across the border. And I count myself as one who find it impossible to leave without a scoop of earth. And I have one too, you know, in Lahore. Picked up a handful of earth and brought it back with me because I thought, you know, this is this, this is the stuff my grandfather used to walk on.
- [53:06]
William Dalrymple
To hear the full series, just search Empire, wherever you get your podcasts.