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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 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.
- [00:30]
Rory Stewart
They've listened carefully to their customers and the number one request was gas tariffs. So now at last you can switch both your gas and electricity to Fuse. One supplier, one bill, one less quagmire to navigate.
- [00:43]
Alistair Campbell
It's also cheaper. Fuse gas and electricity customers typically save £150 versus the price cap.
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Rory Stewart
Today's political climate is full of talk about control and clarity. Well, Fuse have quietly exercised some, at least when it comes to your energy bill.
- [00:57]
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.
- [01:12]
Rory Stewart
Fuse's support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with real people replying in under two minutes.
- [01:20]
Alistair Campbell
So go to fuseenergy.com forward/politics to switch your gas and electricity to Fuse and get your £20 credit and free trip plus membership. Welcome to Arrestus Politics live stream. Trying to make sense of what we saw in Alaska yesterday. With me, Alistair Campbell and with me Rory Stewart.
- [01:47]
Rory Stewart
And just as a sort of opening to this, one of the extraordinary things about this is that world leaders, particularly people like Zelensky, will have been watching their televisions, essentially trying to do what you were doing last night, which is staying up half the night trying to guess what on earth was happening during that three hours. And just quick reminder people, we're in Alaska. Putin flies into the United States first visit of the Russian president, the US For a long time he's an indicted war criminal. Essentially he's been frozen out by the world and suddenly he arrives. There's pomp, there's circumstances, bombers flying overhead. Trump is clapping as he arrives. There isn't this preamble where they sit down on sofas and get questioned by the press. They go straight into a three hour meeting and everybody is very, very nervous because the assumption is that they're going to come out with a deal and that whatever deal they cook up isn't going to work. Now what was your sense? Because presumably what you went through staying up all night is actually pretty Similar to what Zelenskyy, Saha and others will have done, just staring into this hole for three hours, waiting to find out what was happening.
- [03:00]
Alistair Campbell
I mean, it'd be interesting to know how many of them actually literally did stay up all night or whether they went to bed and said with instructions to their staff to wake them up. But I kept thinking, I kept sort of thinking, what must this be like for Zelensky? I was channel hopping between and everywhere you went in the world, this was big news everywhere. You know, you go to Japan, you could go to Australia, you go to Canada, you go to anywhere in Europe. It was 24 hour coverage. And of course, we said in the main podcast this week that this is Trump's dreamland. Everybody's been talking about it all week. The trouble is, I think from Trump's perspective, it has been a complete disaster.
- [03:49]
Rory Stewart
Can I just quickly on that, just before we get into the substance, just tell me what your reaction was when the press conference finally happened. Was there a moment when you heard Putin speaking when you thought, there is a deal? When did you realize in the course of the press conference that maybe there hadn't been a deal? I mean, what was the actual live experience of what?
- [04:08]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I'll tell you what happened. So, first of all, they announced that they were going to have this meeting three on three, Trump, Rubio, Witkoff, Putin, Lavrov and Ukhov. And then they were going to have this broader meeting or they were going to have something to eat and they're going to have this broad meeting. So I was actually thinking, oh, look, it looks like it's going to be happening more quickly. I'll tell you what, I thought there might be no deal was Steve Wyckoff walked in and I thought he might just have been attention seeking because of course, as soon as he walked into the press room, oh, I got his Steve Wyckoff, but he looked very gloomy and then he walked out again. But I'll tell you the moment I thought, this is weird. Do you remember when Trump was in Turnberry was in Scotland with Keir Starmer and we were saying it looked like Trump was the host. Putin opened proceedings at the press conference.
- [05:04]
Rory Stewart
Which is unheard of, isn't it? It's completely unheard of.
- [05:08]
Alistair Campbell
It's like the host would normally say a few words and Trump said, and this has always been arranged. You don't go into, I've been in these meetings with Tony Blair and Putin where you, you know, and some of them went very badly wrong. But you, you Basically, you plan what's going to happen. And so they'd obviously planned. Vladimir, you speak first. And he spoke three times longer than Trump did and then took no questions. I'll tell you what. In the minute Putin started, it was basically a history lesson. And then he said when he started to go on about the root causes, Donald understands the root causes. We know what. This has been his line the whole way through. And so at that moment, I thought, unless there's something to come from Trump, then this is a disaster, particularly, I think, for Trump. I mean, you could argue from Zelenskyy's point of view. And Zelenskyy's going to Washington tomorrow. They've announced that at least he wasn't brutally sold down the river. They didn't come out and say, we've agreed that Russia should have 20% of Ukraine, which they might have done. But I think that watching it live was like. I remember the title of Bob Gelder's book After Live Aid is, that was literally what. Sorry, what just happened there? Because if you think about it, the only justification, when I was channel hopping, there was an American general. I saw one of the channels saying that he found the site of American soldiers rolling a red carpet out to a Putin plane for him, an indicted war criminal, to walk down and have Donald Trump, as you say, applaud him as he walks toward him and then do that. I didn't realize until later that when they got to the thing with the Big Alaska 2025 for the photo, one of the reporters shouted out, are you going to stop killing civilians? And Trump sort of. Putin went, oh, I can't hear. I can't hear. And then the whole thing about getting in the car together, and that was weird. Putin's car was parked alongside Trump, I suspect, said, why don't you drive with me? Putin looked very, very happy to be doing that. We'll probably never know what was said. But the feeling you got from watching Trump live was, one, this guy's tired. Two, he's not his usual confident self. When is he ever in a room with journalists? And he doesn't take questions. When does that ever happen? So they agreed, no questions on that one.
- [07:52]
Rory Stewart
Sorry. This one I'm also obsessed with, because as you've pointed out, one of the reasons why so many world leaders have been through these very uncomfortable and in some cases profoundly humiliating events happen in these moments before the meetings with Trump where you get all the questions coming in. That was the moment at which Zelenskyy was ambushed and humiliated by J.D. vincent, Trump. That was the moment where the South African president was put through this completely mad series of allegations about genocide against white farmers. Those were the moments, actually, where there were slightly uncomfortable moments, even for Starmer and Macron. So I guess, given all that, Putin concluded, quite rightly, that the last thing you want to do, going to a meeting with Trump, is put yourself in one of these ridiculous sit on a sofa things where Trump chucks things around and 200 journalists throw questions at you. But I suppose my question is, why was Putin able to demand that, in a way, that Starmer Macron present to the European Union? I mean, why couldn't Starmer just say, look, I'm not doing that.
- [09:02]
Alistair Campbell
He could. He could. And I wonder whether I actually, if there's anybody from Zelensky's team listening, absolutely insist tomorrow there is no media beyond the pictures. There is no media before you have the meeting. Putin will have insisted in that. I suspected, I suspect. Look, let's be honest. The whole. The whole pitch of the thing was Putin's in charge here, even though he was in America, although Trump called it Russia earlier and said last night, I'm going back to the United States. And then, even though it was in the Beast, his car, nonetheless, it sort of looked like Putin was in charge. And I can remember from some of our encounters with Putin, he's got this smirk that he sometimes does, and it sometimes means that he's happy and it sometimes means that he's threatening. And I think last night it was a bit of both. He was smirking because he knew that in terms of how this is going to be seen by the world, because let's just go through what we were saying before about what they wanted from this summit. What did Putin want? Above all, he wanted the event. He has been a pariah. He's an indicted war criminal. He cannot go to many countries in the world because those countries would then have a duty to arrest him. America is not a signatory to the icc, so it wouldn't happen there. He wanted. He did not want to be put in a position where he had to agree to a ceasefire. And the C word, the ceasefire did, was not even mentioned. It may be mentioned in the meeting, we don't know, but at the press conference, not a word. So he didn't get pushed on that.
- [10:55]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, well, furthermore, there were drones actually falling. Russian was fast.
- [10:59]
Alistair Campbell
As they were speaking.
- [11:00]
Rory Stewart
As they were speaking. Let's just. But I want to get onto a question from Embraer, which will bring you to your previous encounters with Putin. But I just thought maybe let's just take a quick time to remind people of how the world we're looking at now in August would have seemed in October last year a complete disaster. From the point of view of the US And Europe, our expectations have got lower and lower and lower and lower. So back in October last year, the debate was, should we be trying to defeat Russia quickly or stop Russia winning more slowly? And there was absolutely no doubt that the whole of NATO, us, Europe, were completely behind Ukraine. And the reason for that is it was inconceivable that Russia could invade a neighboring country, take 20% of its territory, spark a war which has ended up with more than a million people being wounded and killed and get away with it. Nothing like this has happened since the Second World War in Europe. It's unbelievable, Right? Then Trump comes in and suddenly things change. We get into a debate about will America continue to support. So will it continue to provide money to Ukraine? No, won't. Then Trump says, and by the way, I'd like $500 billion worth of minerals. Okay, $500 billion worth of minerals. Then it's like, will America even keep its satellite and intelligence coverage? Will America even be prepared to sell weapons to Europe to give to Ukraine? Fast forward. And the last discussion, I guess, over the last two months has been to say to Trump, whatever you do, do not meet Putin one on one. It's got to be a meeting with Zelenskyy, and please, please don't do that. Suddenly a week ago, oh, we're going to beat Putin one on one. Then presumably the European position became simply, and this, I think, was a call on the 13th of August, whatever you do, just don't sign a deal. Just don't agree to any land swaps. But the story that I'm telling is just the expectations getting worse and worse and worse. And my instincts, and I love your sense of this, is that behind all the blarney and the news stuff, fundamentally, Trump's instincts remain unaltered. His instincts are pro Putin, pro Russia, contemptuous basically, of Europe and Ukraine, believing, as he just said on the Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, that Russia is a really big, strong, powerful country and Ukraine isn't, and that ultimately he's going to get peace by essentially giving Putin everything that he's captured so far and calling an end to it. And all that's happened, really, over the last six, seven months is a sort of miraculous attempt by Ukraine, Europe, his own officials, sometimes at the cost of immense self humiliation, including committing 5% of GDP spending on defense to try to just stop Trump from doing what it almost feels like he's inevitably, eventually going to do, which is sell out Ukraine.
- [14:22]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. I mean, but if that is the case, why not? Why not just do it? Why this endless game playing? Because the other thing I kept thinking as watching this last night, because if you're looking at this from particularly when I was watching these American generals talk about and said they felt this was a real humiliation for the United States to see this happening and then to see him to get nothing for it. And I've got to be honest, Rory, I did end up thinking, well, maybe the whole thing was just about getting Epstein off the front pages. And maybe Russia really, really, really does have something on Trump that none of us have really thought through, because we know he survived so many different scandals. So it would have to be something quite amazing. I'll tell you something that was interesting. When you watch, and of course, watching all these TV channels last night, they talked endlessly about the optics and the body language, because that's what they do when there's bugger all else to talk about. But if you want to think so, he arrives. Clap, clap, clap, clap, Pat on the hand, pat on the hand, Jokey, jokey, Get in the car, big smile out the window when they then have the photo call with no questions, again with the three on three in the meeting. Something had happened between the arrival and that meeting because they suddenly looked, they weren't communicating to each other, they weren't looking at each other. It had got, I think, very, very chilly. Now, was that something that was said in the car? Was that Trump suddenly realizing, oh, because remember, he said one of the many stupid things Trump has said in recent days. I'll know in the first two minutes whether there's going to be a deal. Putin may have thought the first two minutes, well, let's see if I can get him one on one for that. And he got him one on one. And of course, if you remember when we talked to Fiona Hill, who Trump's last meeting with Putin in Helsinki in 2018, whenever it was, she said, I was thinking about that. It was so bad. At the press conference, she honestly contemplated faking a seizure so that he could, because it was very similar. He was siding with the intelligence agencies, with Russia against his own intelligence agencies. And on that, the one about the thing about Putin, he's very good at working out which buttons to press with the person with his interlocutor. And what did he say? I can confirm like this is an empirical fact. I can confirm that if Trump had been president, there wouldn't have been a war, which of course is one of Trump's utter obsessions. What was the first thing he said when he's talking to Sean Hannity? You know, and Putin agreed with me that Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. If I'd been. I was very happy he said that Putin said, if I'd been president, there wouldn't be a war. This is Putin playing 100% to his narcissism.
- [17:34]
Rory Stewart
We had a question from Martin Rooney, Trip plus member from Leeds. Thank you, Martin. In the event Trump agrees that Zelensky must go, would Russia accept a democratically elected president in Ukraine, or would they insist on installing one of their own? Now, this just sort of brings us back. Thank you, Martin. Just to the bigger issue of what the peace deal might look like, which I guess for all of us is almost here, as with Gaza, is a thing that we don't talk about enough. I mean, what could peace look like? We're almost just taking it for granted that these wars grind on forever and we're almost losing the hope or the ability to imagine peace. I was talking this morning to Shashank Joshi, who is this wonderful Ukraine and defense analyst at the Economist, and he was making me think about a lot of things. But one fundamental thing is what this deal could look like, what the best possible deal for Ukraine could look like. And the best possible deal for Ukraine now feels as though it would be Russia probably keeps all the territory it's taken, but it's not officially recognized. So they don't concede that it's actually part of Russia, but they keep it, that Ukraine gets real security guarantees. So maybe that actually might even involve a few British or French troops on the front line as a tripwire, with the Americans saying explicitly, we're behind you, we're defending the front line. Zelenskyy being able to potentially join the European Union, no cap on Ukraine rearming and defending itself. And then on the other hand, we've got what Putin's pushing for. And you began on this, but just to sort of lay it out just once more in a bit more detail, it would be disarm Ukraine and as Martin's put in his question, probably hold elections in Ukraine with the hope that Putin can get rid of Zelenskyy and bring in a more pro Russian figure. Absolute guarantees of no NATO membership, no EU membership, total recognition of the bit of territory that Russia's already taken as Russia. And here the image is really A sense of, you know, like in, I don't know if we remember in Tintin, Captain Haddock has like a blue happy angel and a red evil angel on his shoulder. And here these roles are played by Witkoff and by Kellogg, General Kellogg, the American. So Witkoff is the evil angel and basically Wyckoff is selling Putin's line. Kellogg is the better angel who keeps trying to do these more subtle resolutions that actually work for Ukraine. But it was very noticeable that Kellogg was not invited. It's Witkoff who's in the room. Back over to you.
- [20:18]
Alistair Campbell
No, you see, when you were setting out what might be palatable to Ukraine, there they were a million miles away from any of that last night. So when Trump stood up and said, you know, we've agreed on a lot, they didn't say what they'd agreed on. And we've got one or two disagreements. I would imagine that the fundamental disagreement is on the so called root causes, which is basically Putin's view that Ukraine isn't a proper country and it should be. Indeed, in his head, it is part of Russia. And nothing, nothing that Trump said pushed back that against that at all. He went straight, Putin, who spoke, as I said earlier, three times longer than Trump, he went straight into stuff to do with the economy and sharing up the Arctic and minerals and all that stuff. He had a big business delegation with him on the plane. And Trump, when he started to talk about, you know, he said, we've agreed a lot, we're not there yet. We don't have a deal till the whole thing is agreed, et cetera. But then we're straight back into his favorite subject, which was his relationships. I have a great relationship with President Putin, Vladimir. And when he was on, what about this? We're rewriting the geostrategic geopolitical map of the world. In his interview with the ludicrous Hannity, who's kind of basically part of the White House press office, we are number one and they, Russia are number two in the world. They've got an economy the size of Spain.
- [21:55]
Rory Stewart
No, it's amazing, isn't it?
- [21:56]
Alistair Campbell
He could destroy their economy.
- [22:00]
Rory Stewart
I've been playing this game, risk, with my children. And I think that Trump's entire worldview is sort of based on the fact that he may have played risk in the 1980s, partly because Russia looks enormous, but also because Greenland is actually part of the United States and the color picture of Risk. But it's this funny obsession, isn't he? He's really obsessed with land. He keeps talking about how big it is. He's obsessed with minerals, he's obsessed with oil and gas. A very odd worldview because it's nothing actually to do with what makes America wealthy. America's wealthy largely because of innovation, technology, these huge, big tech companies. AI Trump is really, on Trump's logic, the most successful countries in the world would be countries like Nigeria, which have a lot of oil, or countries like Afghanistan, which have trillions of dollars worth of minerals. I mean, it's a really kind of interesting. It's as though his games of strategy are kind of children's games of strategy, which, A, big countries do better, and B, the minerals that you have in the ground are what really matters. I've been playing another game called Settlers of Catan, which is all that.
- [23:15]
Alistair Campbell
I'm glad that you've been missing the occasional episode to play these wonderful games with your children. That's excellent news, Rory. But he. The childlike. He does speak like a child in many ways. He's got a very, very simple way of talking. I'm doing that thing again with my hands. I've got to stop. So on the way to Alaska in the plane, because, of course, he loves talking to reporters, except at the end of an event with Vladimir Putin. And he said that if he doesn't get a ceasefire, he's going to be very unhappy. Well, he didn't get a ceasefire, so we assume he's very unhappy. But he also said this. He said, you know, Zelensky says none of it's going to go, but Putin wants a bit more. And he said this. We're not putting up money, we're making money. They, the Europeans are sending us big, beautiful checks, okay, for the arms that we're going to give them, because Europe's got to step up. I mean, to go into that meeting with that is what's sort of in the frame of his mind. And, you know, to go back to Fiona Hill and John Bolton has confirmed this as well, that he doesn't really read briefs, he doesn't study things. He doesn't. Insofar as he goes in with a plan, it's in his head. So all of those people who went there, and, you know, I hesitate to say I felt sorry for Pete Hegseth and Scott Besant, but they were basically just hanging outside the room because they. They weren't brought in. There was no structure to the meeting at all. And I suspect Putin, Lavrov and co, they, they will have worked it out minute by minute.
- [24:50]
Rory Stewart
Well, given all you've said, the very Strange thing is, it's almost a miracle that it didn't go much, much, much worse. Putin got a lot from that. All this talk about sanctioning Russia has now been forgotten. People remember there were 50 days. I'm very angry with Putin, I'm going.
- [25:09]
Alistair Campbell
To sanction 10 days, 12 days.
- [25:10]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, that's all. Out with it. But no ceasefire, international recognition. But Putin could have got even more. Ideal for Putin would have been one on one with Trump with no advisors in the room. Ideal for Putin would have been, I've brought all these business people with me, we're going to make a big public business deal here, oil, gas, minerals, investments. And he would have been ready for that and prepared for that. An ideal for him would have been, I've shaken hands here, this is the land deal. We've made the decision, we're the grownups in the room and we're now going to tell Zelenskyy in Europe that this is it, our way or the highway. So it's a miracle in a way, given all that and given all the pressures that must have been on Trump to declare a success. I mean, the reason I was so pessimistic is I thought if I was betting I was wrong about this, that Trump had put so much political capital on the summit that he would find it almost impossible not to agree to some kind of deal just so that he could claim he had a deal.
- [26:17]
Alistair Campbell
And so what he did was he said, we don't have a deal till we have a deal, but we're making progress towards a deal. But nothing that has emerged since the meeting ended and there were hundreds of reporters there and people who'd be well plugged into the administration and lots of Russian media would be well plugged into the Russians. Very, very little has emerged what was actually discussed. We assume that will that may happen. But. And the other thing, Roy, just, just to sort of. The other thing that further depressed me last night was on the way in the plane, who does he phone up and have a nice friendly chat with and then put out a post saying that he had a great, wonderful conversation with the highly respected Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus. The highly wonderful conversation with the highly respected. This is a guy who's rigged more elections. This is the guy who helped Putin start the invasion. So we're back into this thing of once he's with the strongman leader, this is what Fiona Hill said to us. You can give him all the advice you want. Once he's in the room with the strongman leader, he identifies with that person. And Putin played him, let's be absolutely frank. Putin absolutely played him.
- [27:36]
Rory Stewart
And it is bizarre, isn't it? Because Lukashenko doesn't matter. I mean, he's the head of this bankrupt, marginalized, struggling dictatorship. I mean, it's extraordinary that Trump is going to spend any political capital praising Lukashenko, reaching out to Lukashenko. The question now is what happens next. And my guess is what happens now is that Trump begins to lose patience again with Europe and Zelenskyy. He will either say, here's a land deal, sort of Wyckoff Putin land deal and take it. And if you don't take it, I'm going to lift sanctions on Russia. So that's scenario one. And in that scenario, if sanctions are lifted on Russia, then basically Putin's under no economic pressure at all. Zelenskyy will have to reject it because actually the Ukrainian people are not going to put up with that and the war will roll on. But Ukraine is not in a strong position if Russia had sanctions lifted. They are in a position where they have momentum and morale and Ukraine is in trouble. Second scenario is he just loses interest and he just thinks, okay, I can't do this, I can't get the results I want, but probably lifts sanctions on Russia anyway. So maybe the two scenarios end up being the same. What we don't, I think get to is the scenario that we are hoping for, I'm afraid, which is really convincing security guarantees for Ukraine, Russia accepting Ukrainian rearmament. Because I don't think Putin has any incentive to do any of those things.
- [29:09]
Alistair Campbell
But Roy, just one of the, before we go to a quick break, one of the other sort of, not that common comment upon that much, but I thought was, you know, because these guys don't do anything by chance, Lavrov to arrive in Alaska wearing a sweatshirt with the letters cccp, which is the Cyrillic for ussr as somebody said on, on social media. It's like a British spokesman, a British minister turning up to a conference about the future of Germany with, with two world wars and one World cup on a T shirt. And it's not just what it says about Ukraine, what does it say to the other former Soviet, now free, now west leaning republics. So I think that's why, look, I'd love to have been on either plane going back because you often, that's when you sort of have a real, you have a real kind of, you dump everything, you talk about it, you talk through what happened. I'd love to have been on either of those planes, but I've got to say, Trump will have been keeping his spirit, will have been whistling to keep his spirits up. Putin will have been laughing all the way back to Moscow.
- [30:25]
Rory Stewart
Well, it's unplugged because Putin has sort of snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Because actually, Putin is in a pretty weak position. His economy is not doing well. He's in this position where he could lose all the revenue he's getting from India from selling oil because tariffs are going on. He's basically had to betray his allies in Armenia, Azerbaijan, took Nagorno, Karabat. He did nothing about it. He had to completely abandon his ally Bashar al Assad in Syria. So Russia's been humiliated in Syria, ended up with exactly the situation it didn't want. So a smarter American president would say this is a moment where Russia is on the back foot, losing around the world we can hold firm. Instead of which, you save him from the situation and you hand him a victory.
- [31:06]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Quick break. This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
- [31:14]
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.
- [31:26]
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 sitting still, go online with very limited protection. No password, no encryption, no idea who's watching.
- [31:39]
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.
- [31:46]
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.
- [31:55]
Rory Stewart
And it also helps avoid dynamic pricing. Flights, hotels, subscriptions, all less likely to spike when your location's masked.
- [32:01]
Alistair Campbell
Simple and secure, keeping the noise out and your data in.
- [32:04]
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. There's a 30 day money back guarantee. Links in the description. Hello, I'm William Dalrymple.
- [32:20]
William Dalrymple
And I'm Anita Arnand. And we're the hosts of another goal hanger show, Empire.
- [32:24]
Rory Stewart
And we are here to tell you about a recent recent series we've done on partition.
- [32:30]
William Dalrymple
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 rushed and violent division resulted in the deaths of well over a million people and the forced migration of over 14 million more.
- [32:47]
Rory Stewart
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.
- [32:59]
William Dalrymple
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.
- [33:10]
Rory Stewart
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.
- [33:24]
William Dalrymple
So if you'd like to hear more about the five partitions that completely transformed modern Asia and how the weight of the memory 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.
- [33:45]
Rory Stewart
Welcome back to the Rest is Politics.
- [33:48]
Alistair Campbell
With me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell.
- [33:51]
Rory Stewart
Caroline Kernkamp, Trip plus member Amsterdam. Has there ever been a successful negotiation stroke deal with Putin? And what is the best approach now? And this I'd love to hear about your previous meetings with him. And you were looking at diaries, weren't you?
- [34:05]
Alistair Campbell
Well, look at that, Roy. There they are. There they are. Just the three relevant volumes. No, I'll tell you what, because last night there was just sort of all this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was thinking, you know, we're probably going to end up doing a podcast. It'd be interesting just to look and see whether there's anything from the memories from the diaries. And there's a lot of very, very interesting stuff in there. So give you an example. After 9 11, Putin said and did all the right things. Indeed. There's a, there's a reference in one of the diary entries to both Tony and Putin feeling that America is very cagey about getting this support from Russia. There's a point where Putin is suggesting to Tony that he goes to Tajikistan to check out some of the bases there and maybe you could use them. And what have you. And the Americans saying, oh, hold on, do we really want to have the Russian bases so closely involved in this? But what I found fascinating going through chronologically, literally just looking up Putin index and going through chronologically is your point about Trump never changing. I'm not sure I totally buy that. But with Putin, absolutely, I buy that. So, for example, when we, our first meetings, a lot of the Discussions. Ukraine barely figures. It's all about Chechnya. And Putin absolutely hard over. I remember there's one meeting I described where Tony says to him, look, you need to explain why you're doing this and you need to be proportionate and you must understand that people expect there to be proper punishment for violation of human rights.
- [35:48]
Rory Stewart
Okay, so just remind people for a second before you finish this story. So Chechnya, there's been a terrorist attack in Moscow and Putin is responding in Chechnya with brutality killing, murder, disproportionate civilian casualties, sort of, kind of unimaginable. And Tony Blair is trying to say, you're going to show restraint, respect international law. Over to you. Yeah.
- [36:20]
Alistair Campbell
TB urged him to proportionate any human rights violation should be addressed. Putin said point blank, there aren't any. He was full on. You'll love this one, Rory. Then on the domestic front, he said he intended to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. And he was determined to be modern and reformist. And that's interesting because that's him pivoting to something else, saying something that flattering. Just like he said to Trump in the meeting, you know, if you'd have been, if you'd have been president, this war would never have happened. And the other thing, did you see that? He said to Sean Hannity that Putin had said to him the election was rigged because of the mail in voting. That was really interesting. Putin said that to me. He said, anyway, we then go through a series of meetings where he just gets tougher and tougher and tougher and tougher.
- [37:16]
Rory Stewart
One more quick question. I wanted to know, Alistair, quickly on this question of Tony Blair saying that this is somebody that he can do business with.
- [37:26]
Alistair Campbell
Oh, yeah, no, it was worse than that. It was worse than that. This was the very, very first time we met Putin before he became president. And Tony said, I think this guy's going to be okay. Which is even worse than do business with. And also Rod Line, who you will remember was the UK Ambassador to Russia, he said something very wise. He said, be friendly without being too chummy, just in case he turns out to be very bad. So we, we did a bit of, as well. So just to kind of, you know, go through some of these and, and I'm looking now to frozen Rory Stewart. So I don't know whether. Oh, there he's back now. So the other, the other, the other one we had, Roy, that I think maybe actually we should put this in the newsletter because it's. So it brought Back some pretty powerful memories. This was after the Iraq war where Putin phoned us up or the Kremlin phoned us up and said, you think it'd be really good if Tony went out and they just had a day together and rebuild a few bridges and what have you. I warned the press not to expect major front page stuff. Unbeknownst to us, Putin was gearing up for a big whack on wmd, weapons of mass destruction and plenty more besides. When we did the pre press conference meeting with TB and Putin, I was very clear our press would be looking for the differences on Iraq and wmd. I asked Putin what he was likely to say. He said he would simply say we should carry on looking. But he had that silly look in his eye and TB was on edge when it came to the event. He let rip, made clear he doubted WMD were there, painted a comic picture of Saddam in his bunker sitting on his arsenal. TB was doing his best to look unfazed. And then we went into a room after the event where Tony said to me, what was that? What do you think of that? And I said, well that was pretty explos. And Putin absolutely laid into him in a way that was pretty unpleasant.
- [39:30]
Rory Stewart
Okay. And I saw quite a lot of questions coming in now in the comments and also from some of the members questions around how Europe should respond. So Helen Lane TRIP Member Wirrall, for example, the handshake spoke volumes. What do you think the optimal appropriate response should be from the Europeans? And in reality, what do you think Europe's response will end up being? To let me just because obviously I've been absent for a little bit on this. I think they're in real trouble. I think that we are in a world in which they just have to hope against hope that they can keep delaying and holding off the inevitable. They're never improving Ukraine's position. Ukraine's position is objectively much worse than it was eight months ago. So all they can hope to do is, is just every week hope that they can convince Trump never quite to sign up to a deal with Putin, never quite to lift the sanctions. But I would hate to be Starmer or Macron in this position because they make presumably the same case to him every time they talk to him. And they talk to him a lot. He loves the phone, doesn't he? So they actually probably speak to the American president much more than people spoke to other American presidents. And every week I guess they're saying the same thing, which is you're being as politely as they can. Well, I guess they don't say you're being played by Putin, do they? Listen, what do you think they do? Well, how do they get across the message to him? You're being played by Putin. Please don't sign up to a land deal. Please include Zelenskyy in the talks. And by the way, Europe is at existential threat from Russia. And the best hope for Europe and the US Is to be firm with Putin and make sure he doesn't get a victory in Ukraine. How do you say that to Trump?
- [41:13]
Alistair Campbell
I think they probably do say versions of that, but I think they probably. This goes back to the point you were making about David Lammy and J.D. vance, is that, I mean, Trump is clearly somebody. And this is something, by the way, that Putin kept saying about America when George Bush was in charge. They only hear what they want to hear, was his constant line about them, whether it was about Chechnya, 9, 11, the whole world has to go and help them. But when people care about other things like the Middle east, they don't care unless they care. And I think there's an element of them only hearing, and particularly Trump hearing what he wants to hear. We saw that yesterday. He heard what he wanted to hear. Russia hoax, election rigging, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think they do need to be clearer. And by the way, I was really hopeful that Friedrich Merz might be the way into this, because in that first meeting at the Gate 7, when Trump was basically saying, isn't it a pity that Russia aren't here? And Mertz with the cameras on him said, no, the guy's a criminal and we should not be sitting down with war criminals who are trying to destroy Europe. I think we need a bit more of that. And I understand how hard it is. I understand. And you keep going about Rutter and the daddy and the sort of seconds, in my view. But I think European should see this, what happened yesterday, as a bit warning shot that their diplomacy is working up to a point. Up to a point. Because the worst didn't happen yesterday. However, I think what we also saw yesterday is that the worst could happen. And I think they just need to be a bit stronger. One of these generals, he kept saying, America, American. Trump could destroy the Russian economy overnight. He could put on the sanctions. He could go for this 300 billion that's locked up and he could give it to Ukraine. He clearly doesn't want to. So Europe has to raise more pressure on that. And I think what my hope out of what happens out of this Trump, he believes in ratings. Well, he got great ratings yesterday, massive ratings. But because he was being watched all around the world now, all around the world, you have the media saying this was a bit of a damp scrape whip, and Putin was the outright winner and Trump was the loser. He's going to hate that. Therefore, as that. That's a moment of leverage, I think, for the Europeans to put a little bit of pressure on. Say, listen, you almost came a complete cropper there, and we've now got to get serious about this, and you've got to be part of it in a way that you've not been so far.
- [43:56]
Rory Stewart
Final point for me, I just think Putin's ability to pull these things out of a hat is so bizarre. If you are the Gulf, let's say you're Saudi, or you're Qatar or even uae. Looking at Syria, you thought for a moment, oh, Russia is actually a bit of a superpower again. It's managed to save Bashar al Assad, it's defeated what US and Europe were trying to do, and then the whole thing collapsed like a pack of cards. They're very conscious of how vulnerable Russia is. China was kind of embarrassed, in a way, by what Russia was doing initially in Ukraine and thought, Putin's lost the plot and this isn't really working. Iran feels completely betrayed by Russia. Remember, Iran was meant to be Russia's great ally, and yet when Israel and the US attacked Iran, Russia did nothing to help Iran. And so we should be in a world in which Russia is increasingly marginalized and where nobody thinks that Russia is the second most important country in the world, where they remember, it's got an economy smaller than Spain, and the world was shifting in a very different direction. That moment a few hours ago has allowed Russia once again to present itself to the world as the great superpower. This is the USSR back again. This is like Kennedy, Khrushchev summits. This is like Reagan, Gorbachev summit. And that, of course, is the world somehow still, in Trump's mind, that's what he thinks he's doing. And he talks about it, doesn't he, when he said it's the second most powerful. So it is extraordinary that Putin pulls it off, and it's extraordinary that Trump facilitates this criminal, bankrupt, irresponsible, disruptive regime. And here I'm speaking in this case about Russia, not Trump's regime being able to promote itself as a global power.
- [45:49]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Interesting that you felt you had to make that clear. Isn't. Was. No, I think there is a way of Looking at this is it was like a couple of mafia bosses sort of sitting down to try and carve a few things up, but they couldn't quite get to an agreement, but they'll have another one. And then you saw the only because of course, you know, Putin speaks a lot better English than he lets on. He speaks fluent German, totally fluent German, almost flawless, with a slight Russian accent. He understands English very, very well. And of course that gives him an advantage when he's doing it all through interpreters. And maybe that's the other thing Zelenskyy should think about tomorrow. Speak in Ukrainian, have an interpreter there, because it just slows down. I don't know whether Vance is still on his never ending European holiday, whether he's still up in Scotland, but if Vance is not there, that's probably quite a good thing. Just so that we don't just go for the questions that sort of tell us how marvelous we are. Rory Nick T. Campbell, one of the West's most warmongers, criticizing a guy trying to make the world more peaceful. Is he trying to make the world more peaceful? He's definitely trying to win a Nobel Peace Prize because he's obsessed with baubles. But I don't think he has made the world more peaceful on this. He's not made the world more peaceful in Gaza because he's lent over far too much for Netanyahu. He is not making the world more peaceful in relation to Ukraine because he's, I'm afraid, allowed himself to, to be played by Putin. So I would, I'd be the first. A bit like Hillary Clinton yesterday said that if he managed to get peace, a ceasefire and Ukraine able to, you know, to be Ukraine, she would nominate him, never mind anybody else. But Putin is never going to let that happen. And that's why I say he's been played.
- [47:35]
Rory Stewart
And I think you've put your finger on it because what he actually is offering for his peace prize is short term deals, but they're completely at the expense of long term peace because he's dismantling all the organizations set up since the Second World War that kept peace. He's dismantling all those international laws, all the norms, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, the trade agreements, NATO, the UN and so our challenge for our generation is going to be to rebuild international institutions, international law and international peace. After Trump, he's an exact example of, at the best, somebody who could get some short term sugar rushes of gangster style deals, but totally at the expense of stability for the world in the future.
- [48:27]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, we've definitely got quite a few bots going on, I think today. That's nice to know that they still think we matter already. So there we are. I suspect we'll be talking about this again in the, in the main podcast, which we're recording on Tuesday, because this is going to be, you know, if Zelensky's there, how that goes is going to be very, very interesting. I really, really hope Zelensky lays the law down and says no media before we've done the talking. Let's get things agreed, let's get them written down because, you know, otherwise I think it's, it's chaos. And the one thing that Trump will have gone away from thinking, I'd love to know what he really thinks because the interview with Hannity, he was present, he said, you know, it was 10 out of 10 and everything went well and blah, blah, blah. But I, he must know deep down this was not a, not a success for him. I thought the Mooch and Katie K. They did a, a response last night and they basically thought Putin was the winner, Ukraine was the runner up and Trump the big loser out of this.
- [49:36]
Rory Stewart
And that's saying, But I'm not sure his base will see it like that. I think his base will see, won't focus on the details. They'll see a replay of an old story. And if you're not concentrating, it's the old story of American Russian summits and Reagan and Kennedy and Trump and red carpets and American planes and Trump saying, I've done a great deal. And so I think he probably gets away with it with his base. I mean, I think that the world press may think it's a failure, but I don't think you'll see MAGA turning on him about this.
- [50:07]
Alistair Campbell
Now, listen, we've already answered these, but I just want to show from a couple of our favorite countries, Jack Simpson, trip member, New Zealand Is it just me or is Trump being played yet again by Putin? Think so. Kit Garrett, Trump member, Canada Is Trump being played by Putin? What has Putin got over Trump? I think that is kind of, I think some of the MAGA people will be a little bit worried about this. This guy is meant to be America's big enemy. He has a lot of nuclear weapons pointing at them. Why does Trump like him so much?
- [50:45]
Rory Stewart
Good. Okay, on that, Alistair, thank you very much and see you for the main podcast very soon.
- [50:49]
Alistair Campbell
See you soon. Take care.
- [50:50]
Rory Stewart
Bye bye, bye. Hi, it's William Durimple here again from Empire. Another goal. Hanger podcast. Here's the clip from our recent series on the five partitions that created modern Asia. 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, etc, we lost everything in Partition and there's nothing that we have from Baelor to show where we came from. But so he wanted to pick up something from Baelor and make it into heirlooms for the next generations. You know, three, four generations from now, they'll still have a piece of Baila with them. Even if, you know, the relationship between India and Pakistan worsens again. And even if his kids can never visit Bela, they'll always have a piece of Bela with them.
- [51:45]
William Dalrymple
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, 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.
- [52:19]
Rory Stewart
To hear the full series, just search Empire, wherever you get your podcasts.