← The Rest Is Politics
The Rest Is Politics
470. China vs Japan, the BBC at Breaking Point, and The Future of Satire (Question Time)
00:49:07
Loading summary
Transcript169 lines
- [00:01]
Alastair 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 why.
- [00:13]
Rory Stewart
Did you want people to vote at 16?
- [00:15]
Alastair Campbell
Because I wanted it to be accompanied by proper political and civic education in schools.
- [00:19]
Rory Stewart
Why can't they wait till they're a bit older?
- [00:21]
Alastair Campbell
Because they should have it anyway.
- [00:22]
Rory Stewart
Why?
- [00:23]
Alastair Campbell
The stat is that in every continent of the world, the decile of the population most attracted to authoritarianism is the young 18 to 30.
- [00:33]
Rory Stewart
So I've got to put the voting age up to 30 now.
- [00:35]
Alastair Campbell
No you don't. I would lower it even further. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy.
- [00:39]
Rory Stewart
And there's a slight tendency to governments to talk about the future of energy as though it's some distant concept awaiting its next committee report. But in reality, of course, it's already being built, fuel by field, turbine by turbine, by companies like Fuse Energy.
- [00:53]
Alastair Campbell
And Fuse is now the fastest growing renewable energy supplier in the uk, putting sustainability at the heart of everything they do. Their new solar and wind farm projects are helping to build a cleaner, more resilient national grid, proving that renewable energy can be both affordable and scalable.
- [01:09]
Rory Stewart
Every home that they power brings that future close to the present, whether it's panels catching light or turbines turning across the country. And this is progress, which isn't measured just in targets and slogans, but in sunlight, in wind, in electricity, and a bit of British persistence.
- [01:26]
Alastair Campbell
And progress is not always about shouting the loudest. It's about keeping the lights on intelligently and making clean energy something that everyone can afford.
- [01:35]
Rory Stewart
The energy transition isn't tomorrow's problem, it's today, and Fuse Energy is actually doing something to address it.
- [01:43]
Alastair Campbell
So switch to Fuse Energy today, using the code Politics to save on your energy bills and help power a cleaner, more sustainable future.
- [01:51]
Advertiser/Announcer
This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Carvana makes car selling fast and easy from start to finish. Enter your license plate or VIN and get a real offer in seconds, down to the penny. If you accept, Carvana will come pick up your car from your driveway, or you can drop it off at one of our car vending machines. Either way, you get paid instantly. It's fast, transparent and 100% online. Car selling that saves your time. That's Carvana. Carvana Pickup fees may apply.
- [02:21]
Rory Stewart
Black Friday savings are here at the Home Depot, which means it's time to add new cordless power to your collection. Right now, when you buy a select battery kit from one of our top brands like Ryobi or Milwaukee, you'll get a select tool from that same brand for free. Click into one of our best deals of the season and stock up on tools for all your upcoming projects. Get Black Friday savings happening now at the Home Depot limit 1 per transaction exclusion supply full eligible tool list in store and online.
- [02:54]
Advertiser/Announcer
Kids, they grow up so fast. One day they're taking their first steps and the next they don't fit into the tiny sneakers they took them in. You blink your eyes and their princess dress is two sizes too small and their dinosaur backpack isn't cool anymore. But don't cry because they're growing up. Smile because you can profit off of it for real. There are a bunch of parents on Depop looking for the stuff your kid just grew out of. Download depop to start selling.
- [03:31]
Alastair Campbell
Welcome to the Reciprocity's Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell and with me, Rory Stewart. Now, the story that absolutely came at me like a bowl out of the blue and which doesn't seem to have had the debate I thought it would generate, is China, Japan? Catherine in Edinburgh, is Japan's new prime minister deliberately provoking a crisis with China over Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands to shore up domestic support or responding to genuine threats? Can democracies maintain credible deterrence without succumbing to nationalism? We had a lot of questions about this, so why don't you kick off by telling us what's been happening between Japan and China?
- [04:06]
Rory Stewart
Well, so in a parliamentary address, Takaichi, who you've compared to a sort of.
- [04:11]
Alastair Campbell
Mrs. Thatcher figure, she's compared herself to.
- [04:13]
Rory Stewart
Mrs. Thatcher, a bit like Liz Truss, has occasional sort of hints of sort of cosplaying in her dress. Unusual figure. I mean, Japan is in many ways a very chauvinistic society, very dominated by men. And she's come through as the first female prime minister. But of course, a reminder that just because you are a diverse candidate doesn't necessarily mean you're left wing, as of course, we found with Ms. Thatcher and indeed Liz Truss. And she's also, unusually not from an elite background. I've often joked before that for somebody coming from a sort of more traditional background in Britain, Japan knocks us out of a cocked hat. Many of these prime ministers have ancestries going back to the samurai. Their fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers have been prime ministers, colonial governors, et cetera. She's not like that, although she was.
- [04:54]
Alastair Campbell
Very close to Shinzo Abe, who came.
- [04:56]
Rory Stewart
From one of those elite families.
- [04:57]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. And also she shared a lot of his politics, which is why maybe she's got into this early spat with China because he wasn't a great friend either.
- [05:07]
Rory Stewart
She comes from Nara, which is a city I know reasonably well, not very far outside Kyoto, and in fact got attention because she's also a great purveyor of fake news. She claimed that she'd seen the tourists assaulting the deer in the park at Nara, which is complete, I mean, nonsense as far as the Japanese media could work out what you actually see. It's a bit like the deer wander across the road. It's a bit like Richmond, Great park, people taking photographs. They're not assaulting the deer. Anyway, she has taken over and in a statement to the Japanese parliament, she said that the so called Taiwan contingency has become so serious that we have to anticipate a worst case scenario. And she indicated Japan's Self Defense Forces could be deployed if a China Taiwan conflict posed an existential threat to Japan. Now this all sounds very technical language, but if you are Chinese, this sets off massive alarm bells because this technical language around existential threat and worst case scenarios is, is all about whether the Japanese Defense forces can go on foreign operations and whether something is a threat to Japanese security. China says, wait a sec, Japan occupied and invaded Taiwan in 1897. Was the colonial government of Taiwan for kind of 50 years, through to the end of the Second World War, committed unbelievable atrocities in Manchuria and northeast China. How dare this country challenge the legal status of Taiwan, which from the Chinese government's point of view, and actually from the point of view of many bits of international law, is part of China. And starts saying they're going to deploy Japanese troops, Japanese military to fight China for the independence of Taiwan. And this will encourage Taiwanese independence movements, which China's keen to think. So this is massively escalating. The Chinese responded. The Chinese Consul General made some terrifying comments, apparently threatening to cut her dirty head off.
- [07:00]
Alastair Campbell
Well, basically said that, saying this kind of thing, she should have had her hair cut off. He was told to delete it.
- [07:05]
Rory Stewart
Right.
- [07:06]
Alastair Campbell
Presumably by Beijing. But they've also been doing a few little military exercises around the place. I mean, I just can't work out whether she did this in full knowledge of what the likely response would be or whether this is just her thinking that because she is projecting herself as this quite nationalist right wing figure that she can sort of say what she wants and get away with it. Because there's no doubt she is a much more nationalist figure than her predecessors. There is a lot of attempted rewriting of Japanese history goes on and we shouldn't forget as well. A bit like with the Germans is that post war, the new constitutions that emerged. Japan is limited in what it can do militarily. And it was Shinzo Abe, I think, who argued for and won a change in their military posture, even though they're still one of the low defense spenders. But a change in their military posture where they see themselves threatened abroad, then they are able to defend themselves. And that's what the Chinese are saying Xi is indicating on this. And they're very, very angry about it.
- [08:06]
Rory Stewart
I mean, Japan's way of dealing with its nationalist, fascist, authoritarian, imperialist past. That whole moment where Japan ended up effectively invading and conquering most of Asia and all the atrocities and war crimes came coming out of that after the Second World War was complicated by America, which initially wanted to purge and then decided that a lot of the former war criminals were useful allies for the US against communism, much more so than in Germany. Many old fashioned Japanese continue to resent the attacks against their imperial past, the attacks against the Emperor, the attacks against the Japanese army, the dismantling of all the things that many people in Europe still admire about Japan. You know, the samurai, samurai swords, they were, the making of samurai swords was banned in Japan after the Second World War. That whole culture was kind of crushed. And of course, if you're a liberal Japanese, you feel this is absolutely right, we need to move on. That's not the country we want to be. But she is tapping into a surge of nationalism. And I think maybe the answer to your question is she is being much more irresponsible than her predecessors. And maybe that's because Trump has introduced a form of politics where politicians feel that they don't need to watch their words so much. They can appeal to a domestic audience. They don't need to worry about what the international consequences are.
- [09:25]
Alastair Campbell
Well, the consequences of this have been pretty instant. So first off, the Chinese military, they warned Japan that it would, quote, suffer crushing defeat if it dared to militarily intervene. They sent a coast guard ship through some of these Japanese islands, these islands administered by Japan in the strait which.
- [09:43]
Rory Stewart
China has claims to, of which they.
- [09:45]
Alastair Campbell
Claim, which are Japanese territory. They, they flew in a few military drones into the, some of these islands and the embassy, the Chinese, they both summoned each other's ambassadors, which I know is sort of meaningless on one level, but it shows. This is kind of really Kicked off the embassy in Japan, posted, put in a post that any Japanese intervention would be an act of aggression, triggering a resolute counterattack from China. So given that she's just. She met Trump before this, and the other thing I wondered was whether within that context, there was any sort of him kind of signaling that maybe she needed to be more aggressive towards China as part of his.
- [10:23]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, I think Trump has completely betrayed her. Because what Trump has done to Japan and to Vietnam and to India is to weaken all America's allies against China through his tariff and trade policy. The Japanese economy has been hit very, very hard by American tariffs. It's likely to go into a recession this year. This is a Japanese economy that's been pretty weak since 1989. Trump is making it weaker. So instead of what people assumed, which was that people like the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Elbridge Colby, who was part of this, champion of this whole vision of building a network of American alliances against China, which would have been Japan, Vietnam, Australia, India is suddenly dealing with the White House, which has used tariff policy to put 50% tariffs up against India, crushing tariffs against Vietnam and against Japan. The Japanese economy is now in trouble. To make it worse, one of the big income earners for Japan recently has been Chinese tourism. And one of the elements of Chinese power now is to turn off its tourists. Chinese tourists are some of the highest spending, most traveling people in the world.
- [11:29]
Alastair Campbell
And another of their responses was to put out a message saying that Japan's not safe.
- [11:32]
Rory Stewart
And they will do this again and again and again. They did it at Coast Australia. They'll do it against any country that challenges them. They'll stop the tourists coming. And that has a massive effect. I was in Kyoto in June. Almost everybody I saw in the temples were visiting Chinese. And a lot of the people in the airport were visiting Chinese because China's very interested in Japanese culture. So that'll have a big impact on the economy. But she's partly doing it, I guess, because as you've pointed out in the past, she's dealing with a further right nationalist rise, which you were reporting on a few weeks ago.
- [12:01]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. Final point on this, some really interesting stuff. You know, in the old days with, well, do it now as well, or they've just got one person who counts. But in the old days of criminology, you used to see these pictures of the military events, and you had to work out who was being moved around and who'd been disappeared and what have you. And there's been a real purge at the top of the Chinese military as well. So there's event recently where suddenly some of the key figures just weren't there anymore. So there's something going on within the Chinese military at the moment.
- [12:30]
Rory Stewart
So this has been a story that's been running now for three, four years. There's been big problems between the relationship between Xi Jinping and the army. Initially it was around corruption and a lot of senior figures were purged. And American defense analysts were saying one of the reasons that China is going to struggle to invade Taiwan is that the PLA is so corrupt and demoralized, it's just not ready for that kind of conflict. And people thought he'd sort of got through that and he was building up to a position where by 2027 the Chinese military would be in a much stronger position. He now seems to be doing it again and nobody's quite clear what it's about and whether this is going to produce a Chinese army that's weaker or whether, as some Taiwan analysts fear, it's going to produce a new officer corps that's more nationalistic, more willing to take risk, more likely to invade Taiwan. But, you know, from the distance of Britain, as you say, the newspapers are not covering this much. If you're in Japan or China, this is very raw. These are countries that were in the most bloody war that killed millions of people on each side. This is like Russia, Poland, in terms of the emotional sentiments of people on both sides. And it's in many ways a tribute to American diplomacy and Japanese and Chinese restraint for the last 30, 40 years that those countries haven't been in conflict. That's why we shouldn't underestimate what this means.
- [13:47]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. By the way, just in Russian Poland, the German Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius said yesterday that he thinks we could be at war in Europe within a year. He was echoing completely what Sikorsky said.
- [13:57]
Rory Stewart
On the leading interview we did on Leading interview.
- [13:59]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah, yeah. So I think there's a. We should come back to Ukraine maybe next week. Now let's stick with another country, beginning with Chi. Chile. James Robertson from Bristol. Chile's presidential runoff. So we've had an election and there's now going to be a runoff between two. Jeanette Jarrah for the Communists against far right Jose Antonio Cast and James Robertson of Bristol asked this how did a country that elected progressive Gabriel Borich just three years ago, after massive protests, end up with this stark choice? Is this Latin America's inevitable pendulum swing or have progressive movements fundamentally failed to deliver? You're a bit of a Fan of Borich?
- [14:34]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, I am a fan of Borich. So Borich, when he came in, was seen as quite a radical left wing figure. He was very young. He's a guy who had a real student activist past. He had an unsuccessful attempt with the constitution. But in power, in many ways, Chile has performed well. He actually, despite being on the left and has, I think, done good progressive things. But he also reassured the business community and proved to be much more moderate in power than people expected. We're now back, as James Robertson's pointing out, with a choice between a communist and a far right authoritarian. And this, you know, we talked about Japan, China, raking over history, but this is the country of Pinochet. You start raking over far right authoritarians, you're getting back to the era of military rule, which ran from the 70s effectively through the early 90s. So we seem to be going back to a much older story in Latin America and it's a story that we don't talk about enough. We often talk, I think, about Trump and fascism in terms of 1930s Germany and Italy. I think actually a better analogy is your friend who talks about populism post truth and polarization.
- [15:43]
Alastair Campbell
What is his name?
- [15:44]
Rory Stewart
What is his name? Which is that really what the whole world is becoming is Latin America. And it's Latin America who really shows us what populism looks like, what the lurch between the far left and the far right looks like, how democracies fray and collapse into these positions.
- [15:57]
Alastair Campbell
And also the role of corruption.
- [15:59]
Rory Stewart
And the role of corruption again and again. Yeah. Anyway, I think very disappointing because Chile is in many ways one of Latin America's success stories over time economically, in terms of the way it's thought about its mining industry and the way in which its economy is performing. And it will be very sad if nostalgia for Pinochet or enthusiasm for Bukele, this amazing rule of law flouting, gang locking up autocrat in El Salvador, or indeed Milei's performance in Argentina, leads to the return of increasingly authoritarian far right governments, of course, with huge enthusiasm from Trump across Latin America.
- [16:34]
Alastair Campbell
And you mentioned Pinochet. This guy cast is a bit of a fan of Pinochet. And it goes back to this point about, you know, rewriting, wanting to rewrite your own history. You, for example, I know, were very interested in what was happening in Indonesia on this at the moment, where they're essentially, you know, a dictator and criminal, is being projected as an, literally, officially is now a national hero.
- [16:55]
Rory Stewart
Well, it was unbelievable. So you're completely Right. So Suharto, who was in power in Indonesia for 32 years, General Suharto, who presided over this unbelievably nepotistic, corrupt regime, was toppled in 1998, finally with the democratic reform movement, where students were shot in the street, people were abducted. Fast forward to today. Suharto's son in law has now been elected as the president in Indonesia, partly through dad dancing. He's of course flirting with Trump. He's putting the military back in a more central position. But he's now saying that the school curriculums need to rehabilitate Suharto, the dictator, the criminal, as the national hero. So again, this democratic backsliding is not just a Latin American story.
- [17:39]
Alastair Campbell
And Pinochet, I mean, essentially one of the things Borich tried and failed to do was to modernize the constitution and had a referendum and lost it. So the constitution is basically modeled on what was the case in Pinochet's time. And this is a guy who killed an awful lot of people, absolute out and out dictator, and is now this new guy coming in is a bit of a fan. And of course, I don't know what you think of these. This is a very French style presidential system. People stand as long as they can be at the threshold. You have the first ballot, then it goes into the top two. But neither of them really did that. Well, when you, when you think of it, Jarrah is actually in the lead, the communist with just over a quarter of the vote. Yeah, okay. But she's not going to win because essentially this is. Most of the other candidates are on the right and they're recommending a vote for cast. So he got 24%. So he's going to probably get a fairly sizable win in the second ballot. But that doesn't suggest that he's sort of, you know, a great popular figure in the way that perhaps Millay can claim to be. So anyway, interesting, quite alarming, quite worrying and again, I think, as you say, will be welcomed in the White House, which is in my view, never a good thing.
- [18:54]
Rory Stewart
And how quickly, funny final thought for me, how quickly the things that we do took as red, which is that we had all agreed that the period of military rule, dictators, corruption in Indonesia, military dictatorship in Chile, Japanese war crimes during the Second World War was something we turned away from and we had a new liberal democratic identity. How quickly that gets reversed, how much kind of nostalgia still exists in these countries. And maybe we're seeing a bit of that in Austria and Germany, we're seeing that in France with the rehabilitation of the Vichy regime. How much there is this sort of sense amongst certain bits of the voting population that what we assumed was the story since 1945 and even more since 1989 isn't really the story for many people who want to return to a much darker past.
- [19:46]
Alastair Campbell
Well, let's stay on the international front. Big news today in Israel. Nikaya from London. With settler violence in the west bank reaching record levels, members of Israel's government openly calling for annexation, what realistic diplomatic options remain to prevent the complete collapse of any two state solution? I mean, there's a lot going on in here. So you've had a United nations resolution essentially backing Trump's 20 point plan. You've got Itemer Ben Gvir, the extremist in Netanyahu's cabinet, who has said in the last 24 hours the most extreme things imaginable, that there will never be a Palestinian state, that Mahmoud Abbas should be arrested, that leading figures in the Palestinian Authority should be executed. But meanwhile, Netanyahu has actually come out for the first time that I can record in recent years and attacked some of the activities of the settlers who have been. Who feel liberated at the moment. And we're in the olive season, so a lot of the Palestinian olive farmers are out there doing their work and being attacked. The numbers are going through the roof. So it's not a good scene.
- [20:54]
Rory Stewart
It isn't. You've got Russia and China decided interestingly to abstain, not veto, at the Security Council, but they've put out a statement saying they can't see in this agreement where is the UN participation, where's the real path to a two state solution? I mean, I think we have to keep returning to this, that still at the moment, what it feels like is a plan for a ceasefire and maybe for some investment and reconstruction in Gaza, but it doesn't address the fundamental political question of how the west bank and Gaza functions, whether a Palestinian state will emerge, how Israel is going to treat this whole situation in the future. A little shout out for Yuval Noah Harari, who wrote a very thoughtful piece in the Financial Times, which we'll put a link into the members newsletter, who we've interviewed a couple of times on leading and who again tried to explain, I thought, in a very balanced way, how Israelis see this, how Palestinians see this and why these narratives are so completely incompatible and unforgiving. And that until there's some degree sort of empathy and understanding on both sides, it's very difficult to understand how we're going to get through this, it's also.
- [22:12]
Alastair Campbell
Right now it's very hard. I mean, I don't see how Netanyahu, I mean, Netanyahu is a very right wing guy. I don't see how he functions in the context of this plan if he's serious about trying to get it done with this voice on his shoulder. The whole time of Smotrich and Ben GVIR saying ever more extreme things because they are sending a message to the settlers, you do what you want and you do it with impunity. So we'll have to see whether what Netanyahu's saying actually leads to any change in the treatment of the settlers who are doing what they're doing.
- [22:43]
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. Will the IDF actually intervene on the behalf of Palestinian communities if they're attacked by the settlers? And generally the story is that the IDF tends to take the settlers side and that there's surprisingly little prosecution either of settlers or IDF soldiers. It does happen, but generally speaking, the IDF seems to exist as a protection mechanism for the settlers rather than any form of neutral enforcement of disputes.
- [23:08]
Alastair Campbell
Well, let's take a break and then come back and talk about. We had more questions on this than anything else, I think this week. And that's the BBC, not least in relation to Gaza.
- [23:19]
Rory Stewart
This episode is brought to you by Revolut Business. The all in one account to manage your finances.
- [23:24]
Alastair Campbell
Now, politics has its share of bad deals, trade summits, late night negotiations. Often somebody walks away with the short straw.
- [23:32]
Rory Stewart
And we've seen enough botch negotiations in Westminster to know what happens when numbers don't add up. Business is no different. Nothing empties your pockets faster than hidden exchange rates.
- [23:43]
Alastair Campbell
Revolut business changes that over 25 currencies exchange at the same interbank rates that banks use during market hours. Within plan allowance with automatic orders and price alerts, the guesswork disappears.
- [23:55]
Rory Stewart
Breaking into new markets feels possible, not perilous. Whether you're paying salaries in Dublin or suppliers in Sydney, your Money reaches over 150 global destinations fast without the fine print.
- [24:06]
Alastair Campbell
Hangover business across borders kept simple for.
- [24:10]
Rory Stewart
All the entrepreneurs and business owners out there. If you're ready to simplify your business finances and exchange like an expert, now's the time to open a Revolut business account. Plus you'll unlock a 200 pound welcome bonus or the equivalent in your local currency. If you sign up and add money to your account by the end of 2025, just use the link in the description. Fees and terms and conditions apply.
- [24:34]
Advertiser/Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Peloton Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training series Powered by Peloton iq. Enjoy weekly workout plans tailored to your goals with personalized guidance with weight suggestions to help you discover new strength and rep tracking so you never lose count. Try the new cross training series Powered by Peloton IQ, designed for your breakthroughs. Terms apply. This is an Etsy holiday ad, but you won't hear any sleigh bells or classic carols. Instead, you'll hear something original, the sound of an Etsy holiday, which sounds like this. Now that's special. Want to hear it again? Get original and affordable gifts from small shops on Etsy. For gifts that say I get you shop Etsy, tap the banner to shop now.
- [25:24]
Rory Stewart
Foreign. Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question time with me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell. And the next question is brought to you by Fuse Energy.
- [25:39]
Alastair Campbell
So, yeah, Fuse. While Europe wrestles with policies and paperwork, energy companies like Fuse are proven that clean, affordable energy doesn't have to wait for permission.
- [25:47]
Rory Stewart
You can tell a lot about the continent's ambition by how it builds its grid. And right now, Europe's lights are, as it were, flickering. And on that, here's a question from Isaac Chapman. If electrification has stalled across the continent, could Britain actually be the leaders of the clean energy future? Just on this sounds kind of nerdy, but electrification that is getting more and more people to use electricity for their cars, for their heating is going to be completely central because electricity is usually cleaner than burning gas in your home. But the problem is as we shift more and more people into electrical vehicles, more and more heat pumps, you're putting more and more demand on the electricity system and that then drives up the.
- [26:30]
Alastair Campbell
Generation problem, not to mention your friend AI and all these data centers, not.
- [26:34]
Rory Stewart
To mention AI in the data center. So if a country wants to do that transition and it wants to build its data centers and it wants to have an industrial base and grow its economy, it's got to be generating more and more electricity. And I guess the problem we keep coming back to is Britain is an amazing leader, famously in offshore wind does that very, very well. It's laying out more and more solar, more controversial. But all this generally needs to be backed up by gas because the sun's not always shining, the wind's not always blowing, and there's very complicated costs in building transmission and distribution lines. So there's a lot of network costs, which is one of the reasons why we keep having this debate about whether actually renewable energy is really cheaper than gas. Because if you're not just looking at the Cost per megawatt hour, which is very low. Now I think some countries now talk about about a cents per megawatt hour from solar, but you may not be taking into account how much more you have to pay on the distribution line and on the gas backup for that.
- [27:30]
Alastair Campbell
But the costs have plummeted. Unbelievable.
- [27:32]
Rory Stewart
Far more than people like me anticipated.
- [27:34]
Alastair Campbell
But here's a question for you. What proportion of final energy use across Europe is accounted for by electrification?
- [27:42]
Rory Stewart
God, I don't know. What is the number?
- [27:43]
Alastair Campbell
Well, it's bloody low. 22%.
- [27:46]
Rory Stewart
Wow.
- [27:46]
Alastair Campbell
I think that's low.
- [27:47]
Rory Stewart
Well, it's very low because China I think is higher.
- [27:50]
Alastair Campbell
They're at 30%.
- [27:52]
Rory Stewart
Even the US is higher. And we're always blaming the US for being filthy. But actually. So that is a problem and that's partly, I think, the cost of the electricity in Britain and Europe. One of the things that Europe's doing which is really interesting is this tax on carbon consumption. So the idea is that what we've actually done in Europe is we've de industrialized, we've pushed all the factories to China. We're still buying just as much stuff, so we're still contributing through our consumer choices as much to global warming as we ever were. It's just the problems in China and it's hidden from us. But our consumer spending is still driving climate change. So Europe's tried to put in these taxes to say, we will say that if we're importing steel from China, we'll take in the full costs of that. We'll compare it to the costs of doing it cleanly in Europe. And Europe is the last holdout on this. Dieter Hellman rnfue said this is the only logical approach to climate change is to actually tax embedded carbon. Europe's trying to do it and you've got Brazil pushing back, Saudi pushing back, the US pushing back, Russia pushing back, China pushing back. So this is something to really watch. Okay, so let's finish. This was a Fuse Energy sponsored segment. Fuse has just built Netli Central Big generation 30% below industry cost. They're very much emphasising smarter tech, local consultation, efficient build models. So while Europe's arguing over tax codes and targets, Fuse is very much arguing that they're getting on with it. They're proving that clean energy doesn't have to wait for policy that affordable renewable power can be built here in Britain, not imported or imagined.
- [29:29]
Alastair Campbell
And here's something for you. If you know the land, if you know land that could host the next great solar or wind project, fuse will pay £2,000 for successful referrals. I regularly sit on trains and look out the window and I think that farm doesn't look like it's been used properly. Stick a few solar panels on there. So if you see one of Those, just email landusenergy.com I think E. Wood Park Blackburn would be good for it.
- [29:54]
Rory Stewart
Would it be all right? It's all your rival football clubs you're going to cover in solar panels immediately. Yeah. If you switch to Fuse today with the code politics, you can start saving while building a greener future. Visit fuseenergy.com politics loads of questions, as.
- [30:10]
Alastair Campbell
I said on the on the BBC.
- [30:12]
Rory Stewart
Here we are. I'll read you one because you've been doing a lot of question reading. Tim, West Sussex regarding all the discussion about the spliced video of Trump's speech, impartiality, etc. Isn't it the case that it was the BBC themselves who caused some clout on their own program? Maybe I've misunderstood, but given the important severity of the claim, isn't that a massive supporting factor for the BBC in this argument? It doesn't seem to be pointed out. Thanks, Tim. James, New Zealand what does it say about the state of modern media when we can't even trust that the BBC is unbiased? Who can we turn to now other than Tripp? Says James well, the answer is don't turn to Trip if what you're looking for is a massive news organization with fully neutral, unbiased public service broadcasting.
- [30:56]
Alastair Campbell
I think we try.
- [30:57]
Rory Stewart
We try our best.
- [30:58]
Alastair Campbell
No, we try in the main to separate fact and comment.
- [31:01]
Rory Stewart
We try our best.
- [31:03]
Alastair Campbell
We'd be lying. We said we weren't biased.
- [31:04]
Rory Stewart
There's a huge role for a public service broadcaster with massive investment in research and fact checking all stuff.
- [31:10]
Alastair Campbell
And if I could just answer, James, the question of what does it say about the state of the modern media when we can't even trust that the BBC is unbiased? What it says about the state of the modern media is most of those parts of the British media that says the BBC is biased is itself way more biased. So I think the BBC is still way more trustworthy than these newspapers and GB news types.
- [31:31]
Rory Stewart
There's something you're often saying which is that the Murdoch media is anti BBC and it's something you touch on in your miniseries. But can you just explain for listeners you and what is this whole story about Murdoch and BBC or indeed the public broadcaster in Australia? This is a long running thing, right? Murdoch's had a Beef with them forever.
- [31:49]
Alastair Campbell
Well, if you think about it, the BBC in its makeup, we all pay into it, Right. If we have a television, we pay the license fee. That's kind of quite a left wing concept. So for that reason they've always, they think you should have choice. Then Murdoch, he's the driver of this model of television consumption that you pay for what you want. That's why, you know, he was so determined, even though he doesn't, he's not interested in sport. He doesn't particularly like sport. He's almost as bad as you on this, Rory. He knew that this is where millions of people are prepared to pay to watch it. So they've taken all these crown jewels from the BBC and they now make massive money for this right wing media ecosystem.
- [32:30]
Rory Stewart
This is Sky Sport during Premier League.
- [32:32]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. Sky Sports, which is one of the biggest economic success stories in modern broadcasting. And it's the same with Fox in America. Fox do a lot of the biggest, the big sports stuff. So that's part of it. And then the other part of it is that generally people on the right, Trump, Farage, Johnson, etcetera, they don't really want a full, frank, fair, free media. They want media that support them because they, they're far better than the left at understanding and exploiting the media landscape. So I think, you know, last week when I, when I did my speech in Edinburgh about the BBC and we posted on social media lots of comments saying, oh, God, you know, you lefty, you, you, you packed the BBC full of lefties. Greg Dyke, Gavin Davis, I pointed out they both had to resign because of us calling the BBC out on their.
- [33:27]
Rory Stewart
Standards because they attacked the Labour government.
- [33:29]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. Whereas what's happening at the moment with the BBC and here I think the government needs to be far more robust in its defense of the BBC. What's happening at the moment is that when people like you and I are saying it's ridiculous that this Robbie Gibb guy has so much power within the BBC, it is ridiculous that this MTBL memo to be leaked has led by Michael Prescott, a Murdoch hack of old. By the way, I think there's a possibility that Michael Prescott was more sinned against than sinning. I think actually he may be a victim in this, but somebody very senior within the BBC took it upon themselves to say, we're going to put this out there to damage the BBC, up to and including getting rid of Tim David, the Director General, now leaving this vacancy, which I'm glad to say, Rory, are the people who came to our Tour believe that I should fill rather than you.
- [34:20]
Rory Stewart
I think we should go to the general public on this and see how.
- [34:23]
Alastair Campbell
Many people think Alice should be directly. I'd be better than some of the names in the frame, that's for sure. Although I'm warming to your idea of Alan Rustbridger.
- [34:32]
Rory Stewart
So just to remind people who don't follow this, he was the editor of the Guardian, then ran an Oxford college, then was the editor of Prospect. I think he's a figure who, you know, you've had run ins with in the past. Right. So you're not particularly saying it as a mate of his, but I think he's a serious big beast with a serious intellectual background. If you're looking for a kind of.
- [34:53]
Alastair Campbell
Wreathian figure, and also anybody who saw the Hack, the TV series starring David Tennant and Toby Jones as Alan Rusbridger. He defends proper journalism, he fights for proper journalism and he's not afraid of being attacked. And what I worry about, I think the current chairman of the BBC some issue is very weak. And I think far too often this is the point I made in my speech. The BBC panders too often to people who want to destroy it. You've got to have somebody who believes in it and fights for it.
- [35:25]
Rory Stewart
And you can see Russ Pritchard already making rehearsing again and again, how you explain what news is, how you explain why what Panorama did was completely unacceptable. That was a lie. They should never splice Trump's speech like that. But how you can also defend the BBC while admitting you make mistakes. This little push for one of my other ideas at the moment, I think we should get rid of the way that the Board is appointed. I think it's mad that you have direct political appointments to the board, where in effect the Prime Minister's appointing some of the key figures. I think this is a really good opportunity for a Citizens Assembly. You have a Citizens assembly where you get citizens jury of random citizens to spend a few days working, talking through the issues and let them select it. I'd like to see that happen for the House of Lords too. But the BBC could be a really good way of doing.
- [36:16]
Alastair Campbell
Who draws up a shortlist? The Citizens Assembly?
- [36:18]
Rory Stewart
No, I think probably the Citizens assembly decides what the terms are, decides what the conditions are. They might even elect their own subcommittee to work with a headhunter to do it. But that way you defuse the whole argument from right and left. Who are these people on the board? Well, it was appointed by a citizens jury, a jury of our peers democratically Representative, diverse people, ordinary people. They chose their committee and the committee chose the people. And my guess is that you will end up with a much less lobbied, much less party political, much more acceptable group and a group that you can defend to Tories and Labour. The Citizens assembly did it. Let's start with the BBC and then we can move this Citizens assembly model out to other places.
- [37:01]
Alastair Campbell
I like that a lot. I like that a lot. Yeah. And do they vote? In the end, when we get down to the shortlist of Alan Rusbridge, Alastair Campbell, Roy Stewart, Andrew Neill, I see his debuts being punted out.
- [37:16]
Rory Stewart
I think what they do is they vote on the board. The board appoints the Director General.
- [37:19]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah, okay. Interesting. Good idea. Hope you're listening.
- [37:23]
Rory Stewart
Lisa Nandi, penultimate question for you. Maria Gonzalez from Manchester. Mexico's President Scheinbaum claims the massive youth protests against gang violence are orchestrated by outside right wing forces. Yet 30,000 people are murdered annually and over 100,000 have disappeared. Just to put that in context, the UK, which has a population which I guess is just over half that of Mexico, 587 homicides were reported last year. This is 30,000. That would be like 17,000 people being killed in the UK instead of 537. To get a sense of the scale of the horror of what's happening in.
- [38:03]
Alastair Campbell
Mexico and I don't get any sense of Elon Musk and the MAGA crowd telling everybody not to go to Mexico is just don't go to London.
- [38:09]
Rory Stewart
No, exactly.
- [38:10]
Alastair Campbell
Or die on the dangerous streets of Khan's London.
- [38:14]
Rory Stewart
That's true. Anyway, the question from Maria is when does the government's dismissal of genuine grassroots anger as foreign manipulation become a dangerous reflex?
- [38:22]
Alastair Campbell
I mean both could be true, couldn't they? We talked about President Sheinbaum last week in the context of her being groped and the machismo in Mexico. But this is a kind of, this drug violence and the cartels is an underlying issue. And she did say this is where you've got to, you know, you've got to be held to account for what you promise you're going to do. That she was going to crack down, but without doing what the Bekele's and the, these kind of, you know, right wing authoritarians are doing of just sort of throwing anybody and everybody into, into jail. I suspect that these protests are a mix of genuine grassroots anger and. But I wouldn't be surprised if there is also the exploitation on top of that.
- [39:03]
Rory Stewart
Well, it's so difficult, isn't it? Because there's a Definitely a progressive case to be made against Sheinbaum, which is. Although people are very excited by the fact that she's a woman and from the left, the fact is that she and her predecessor have a strong tradition of left wing populism. There's been some very strange jiggery pokery around the courts in Mexico where basically they're pushing political appointments, the judges. There's been a sort of proto takeover of bits of the army and security forces. And so some of the people out there on the streets are centrist young progressives saying, oi. We don't want to be faced with a choice between a left wing populace and a right wing populace. And we certainly don't want to be told when we're protesting against a skyrocketing murder rate, disappearances and creeping left wing authoritarianism that that means we're friends with Bukele.
- [39:58]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. I think the other thing that's happening, not just in Mexico, but in various countries around the world in a really big way is this sense of the Gen Z protesters. It does seem to be a. We often say, or young people that don't get they're not active enough, etc. But I think you're seeing this in all sorts of places playing out. Actually, I thought one of the other big stories this week that maybe because of everything else going in here, didn't get quite as much thought it would, would be this was the sentencing of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh and somebody that I, I knew. Yeah.
- [40:31]
Rory Stewart
And went to meet on state visits, sat with, talked to about her grandchildren and who seemed to be a figure that was in a very, very powerful position and then suddenly was toppled in a few days of rioting and now been sentenced to death, largely not because of the corruption, but because of the violence, that aggressive military response to that.
- [40:51]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. So it'd be interesting now. I mean she, she's currently living in exile in India. I don't know what the arrangements are between the current Bangladeshi government and the Indian government, but she's sitting there now presumably feeling protected, but a court in Bangladesh has sentenced her to death. And of course, this is somebody that has a bit of resonance in the UK because she's her niece.
- [41:16]
Rory Stewart
Tulip Siddiq was a Labour minister, labor mp. Yeah.
- [41:18]
Alastair Campbell
Okay, Rory, finally this is a question that is coming in by sound and video. And this guy genuinely did send this in. We didn't ask him to. As you know, Rory, because you were there. We started the show with a collection of videos of impersonators doing you and me Especially you, because you are so impersonateable. And this is from one said impersonator, John Tot, and I haven't seen this, so let's have a look. Yeah.
- [41:43]
Rory Stewart
So, I mean, this is a question for Rory and Alastair, and it comes from Rory. Could you just give us a sense of how it feels as a politician to be impersonated for someone to be doing your impression? Is it a flattering part of the job? Is it an annoying part of the job? And I guess more broadly for international listeners, could you just give us a sense of your view of the role of satire in a modern society, in a world that perhaps increasingly conflates politics and entertainment is increasingly unserious. Anyway, I'm a huge, huge admirer of the show. Thank you very much.
- [42:17]
Alastair Campbell
Oh, he's good at you, isn't he? Didn't do me. It's like doing the Bentley. They just can't. They can't quite get my voice. I mean, she doesn't use this sort.
- [42:25]
Rory Stewart
Of, you know, northern type.
- [42:26]
Alastair Campbell
Northern type, you know, which. I am a northern type in character, but my voice is a bit all over the place. Very good question, though. I love satire, Absolutely love SATA. I regularly get asked, do I feel hurt or flattered by the thick of it. I just love the thick of it. I think it's really funny. When Rory Bremner and Andrew Dunn did me and Tony, one of my favorites ever was when Tony was seeing the Queen and I had to hang around the garden in Buckingham palace and I spent the time kicking the corgis. And I remember my daughter at the time, Grace, was trying to persuade us to get her a dog, and all her friends say, does your dad really kick dogs? No, he doesn't kick dogs. It's an impersonator. And I think that these. Yeah, these. These. These guys are good. He's. He's very good at you and he does listen, doesn't he? Get a sense of. For our international listeners, he's got all your little verbal things.
- [43:17]
Rory Stewart
I was talking to Rory Bremner, this impersonator, great impersonator, who's a friend of yours as well, and he was saying that it is becoming more difficult to get space for impersonators because a lot of the joke of an impersonator of a politician is to exaggerate them and make them say preposterous things. But when you've got Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that the Rothschilds are firing space lasers, and that's why you've got California wildfires, or you've got almost anything that Trump produces. I mean, the problem for Rory Bremen, I think, is that if he does a Trump impersonation, saying something preposterous, people literally will be like, well, did he say that or didn't he? Is this satire or not?
- [43:59]
Alastair Campbell
It's true. When we're in one of the shows I've been watching Kevin Bridges, the Scottish comedian, and he made a similar point. He said, how do you make anything funnier as a comedian than Donald Trump as the President of the United States? And he said, the Glasgow pubs is full of people like Donald Trump who just stand there and talk absolute nonsense. What you don't do is make the president, you put your hand on their shoulder, you say, enjoy your night, pal, and then you leave them at the bar. So, no. Anyway, John, thank you for that question. I think you do a very, very good Rory Stewart.
- [44:31]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. One of the things that I am noticing is that when I'm on X, because of this new fight around fake news and fake truth, it's difficult to know when you satirize. So, for example, I wanted to tweet out this picture from ancient Persia of all these tribute bearers coming to see the Persian king, because.
- [44:53]
Alastair Campbell
Why did you want to do that?
- [44:54]
Rory Stewart
Well, because the Swiss were giving gold bars and gold Rolexes to Trump and it's a whole pattern of basically people bringing tribute to him. So I wanted to say commission for the White House ballroom. But of course, the question is, am I then obviously then going to be attacked by thousands of people saying fake news? How dare he? I'm suing Rory Stewart for a billion dollars because he suggested. I've commissioned for the White House ballroom a picture of the Persepolis tribute bearers bringing tribute to me. How do we now get this balance right on satire? And how do people know when you're on social media whether what you're doing is making a funny joke about an excess or whether you're actually, maybe, maybe.
- [45:33]
Alastair Campbell
We have to label it. I'm amazed at how often I will. I will post something that is, to my mind, clearly ironic, and yet it gets taken completely at face value. Maybe that is mainly the bots, because maybe the bots can't read humor.
- [45:46]
Rory Stewart
They're not very funny.
- [45:47]
Alastair Campbell
No, actually, this thing about fake news, though, maybe my final point for the day is I want to plug something that's happening today, and that's the launch of something by the young citizens charity called the Big Democracy Lesson, where they're. They're really worried. And I'm worried we Talked about this in one of the shows. I was very, very keen to get the vote for 16 and 17 year olds. But assuming that this parliament goes its full term, kids age 13, 14 today are going to be voting. Right. You get 13 year old kids are going to be voting.
- [46:15]
Rory Stewart
I'm going to be blaming you.
- [46:16]
Alastair Campbell
Well, but teachers are saying that they feel they have the responsibility to kind of educate these kids in two, three years about what was the reason why.
- [46:27]
Rory Stewart
You couldn't just wait till people were 18? Why did you want people to vote at 16?
- [46:30]
Alastair Campbell
Because I wanted it to be accompanied by proper political and civic education in schools.
- [46:35]
Rory Stewart
Why can they wait till they're a bit older?
- [46:36]
Alastair Campbell
Because they should have it anyway.
- [46:38]
Rory Stewart
Why?
- [46:38]
Alastair Campbell
I'll tell you why. Fate. You mentioned fake news. 98% of 12 year olds in Britain on a big testing operation that was done, could not tell the difference between something that was true and something that wasn't.
- [46:50]
Rory Stewart
That doesn't exactly encourage me to think we should be giving votes to 16 year olds, but.
- [46:54]
Alastair Campbell
No, what we should encourage you to do, instead of being so Tory and uncivilized, is encourage you to back what the Finns are doing, which is to educate kids from the age of five about these issues you're putting on that I'm not taking this seriously face.
- [47:07]
Rory Stewart
Right now. I'm going to start a campaign to increase the voting age, age of 21.
- [47:11]
Alastair Campbell
Oh, so we can have all these older people. I mean, I always say to kids when I go into schools, you know, do quite a lot and sometimes they say, I don't feel qualified. And I say, well, come on, a walk with me down any street in Britain and I will find you a lot of adults who talk complete crap, who know next to nothing. You need to know more. Develop your own thoughts, don't listen to the media, develop your own critical thinking.
- [47:38]
Rory Stewart
And what was your statistic on the decile in all democracies?
- [47:41]
Alastair Campbell
This is another reason why we have to do this.
- [47:43]
Rory Stewart
Go on. What statistics?
- [47:44]
Alastair Campbell
The stat is that in every continent of the world, the decile of the population most attracted to authoritarianism is the young 18 to 30.
- [47:54]
Rory Stewart
So I've got to put the voting age up to 30 now.
- [47:56]
Alastair Campbell
No, you don't. You've got to. I would lower it even further as long as it. I would. As long as we teach kids.
- [48:02]
Rory Stewart
Get it down to the idea. Are you just.
- [48:03]
Alastair Campbell
Honestly, this is. You are exposing yourself as a total Conservative.
- [48:06]
Rory Stewart
No, I think you just want to think. You just want to get down with the kids. Kids, you're Just flattering.
- [48:11]
Alastair Campbell
I want to get down with the kids. Look, but I tell you what, I have better debates in schools than I do with most adults.
- [48:18]
Rory Stewart
It's slightly schizophrenic, because sometimes you say that and sometimes you're like, oh, my God, I've just come out of school. I'm completely terrified by how little they know about systems.
- [48:25]
Alastair Campbell
No, it's not that I'm terrified by little they know. What I'm terrified about is how drawn they are because of Tick Tock to the extremes. That's what I'm terrified of, and that's what I think we have to be aware of. And the politicians aren't dealing with this. You know, we promised we wouldn't mention Peter, however, this week, but Peter Hyman's report, that's what this is about. Teenagers are really hungry for information about politics. They're getting it from TikTok, they're getting it from their parents. You know, let's be frank. A lot of them who aren't that interested in politics, or they spend the whole time saying, oh, they're all terrible. Nothing ever changes, all that stuff. You've got to get them out of that, otherwise we're fucked. Rory.
- [49:05]
Rory Stewart
Well, listen, I'm really pleased that we managed to finish with a disagreement, because people have been complaining that we don't disagree enough and look forward to speaking to you next week.
- [49:13]
Alastair Campbell
Well, this is a profound disagreement. I'm very angry with you.
- [49:15]
Rory Stewart
Nevertheless, it was an agreeable disagreement.
- [49:17]
Alastair Campbell
There you are. You're bringing your bloody book about politics on the edge. Just leave it lying around. You want to get the camera on your book.
- [49:24]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [49:25]
Alastair Campbell
Don't buy his book because he tells you to be against politics by. But what could I do? Get engaged and get involved. And then the kids. You get my kids book books.
- [49:32]
Rory Stewart
And anybody under 30 should never vote for Rory Stewart ever again.
- [49:35]
Alastair Campbell
You're definitely an old man. You get the old vote, I'll get the young vote. That's why they wanted me as Director General of the BBC.
- [49:42]
Rory Stewart
Very good. All right, thank you, Alistair. See you soon. Bye.
- [49:44]
Alastair Campbell
Bye.
- [49:54]
Rory Stewart
As the year draws to a close, it's time for our annual reminder that even in an age of political noise and Division One, national consensus still stands for roast potatoes.
- [50:06]
Alastair Campbell
Oh, God, all this British stuff. If you're wondering, however, what to buy the politically obsessed person in your life this Christmas, might I gently suggest a year's membership to the rest is Politics Plus.
- [50:22]
Rory Stewart
It's the thoughtful kind of presentation. Ad free listening, bonus episodes, early access to Q&A's book discounts. And perhaps I think, most interesting it's our miniseries, available only to members, focusing on the world's most complex characters and topics. We've already explored Rupert Murdoch and J.D. vance, and we're doing many more subjects to come.
- [50:41]
Alastair Campbell
So think of this as a civilized gift to allow families to disagree agreeably over Christmas. What could be nicer?
- [50:51]
Rory Stewart
And if you've left it until Christmas Eve, as I fear I often do, the great thing is it's digital. No cues, rapping or panic. The membership lands neatly in their inbox on Christmas Day.
- [51:00]
Alastair Campbell
So spread a little political peace and goodwill, head to thereestispolitics.com and click Gifts.