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- [00:00]
Alistair Campbell
Thanks for listening to the Rest Is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com
- [00:09]
Rory Stewart
that's therestispolitics.com the Supreme Court has just slapped him. Not on something marginal. I mean this is something right at the very core of his power.
- [00:19]
Alistair Campbell
It's fundamental both to his economic policy and to his foreign policy.
- [00:22]
Rory Stewart
It's his favorite instrument. It's the thing that allows him to play the mini emperor.
- [00:26]
Alistair Campbell
The violence of the language he uses when he doesn't get his own way does underline the worry that people have that he basically, as a wannabe king, a wannabe dictator, he actually said at one point, I have the power to destroy the country brackets if I don't get my way. We really are now looking down the barrel of somebody who wants to run this country like Putin runs Russia. That's why I think it was so significant. Welcome to the Rest Is Politics Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell and with me Rory Stewart. Apologies if you're confused about Question Time, the main episode. That is because for the main episode, Roy and I are going to talk the whole episode about Ukraine, the war four years on from Putin's so called special military operation, which of course was a full on invasion. It's the anniversary of the war. Indeed, it's also the anniversary to some extent of this podcast because you may remember we started the whole thing roughly around the time of the Ukraine war. So that will come a day after this Question Time where we're going to talk about Trump and tariffs, we're going to talk about former Prince Andrew and Epstein, we're going to talk about the school's white paper. Rory, where do you want to start?
- [01:43]
Rory Stewart
Why don't we start, as you say, with tariffs, which we got a lot of questions on. And I'm going to take one particular one which has come in from Ben. Could Trump simply just ignore the Supreme Court ruling on tariffs? My understanding is Supreme Court decisions have been ignored before C Andrew Jackson and his callous slaughter of Native Americans. If you instructed the government to ignore it and try to suggest the people that he alone was the sole answer to America's existential crisis and exploitations. Could he? I mean, it's not like Congress could impeach him. Let's, before we get into the sort of details of Ben's question, try to just remind people where we are because I think oddly this is something we covered a huge amount on this famous Liberation Day tariff. So about 10 months ago, Trump announced these astonishing array of tariffs where people will remember islands full of penguins were getting tariffed. Lesotho was getting terrible treatment, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That was sort of one big wave. Listeners who are really paying attention will also member. He used tariffs violently against India and Brazil and indeed Switzerland for different reasons. So India was a spat about Russian oil, Brazil was about prosecuting. Bolsonaro slapped 50% tariffs on Switzerland, as he confirmed in Davos, was because the president of Switzerland, he thought, had not been polite to him. So he whacked their tariffs up to 37%. Canada and Mexico has been a different form of psychodrama, back and forth endlessly with different types of tariffs going up and down. But the end of the story, because I think we often, like, I suppose many people in the news, we often tell the story at its height, but we don't necessarily keep people up to date with what's happened since. The broad story is that since then, after countries like Brazil and India and Switzerland went through really sort of four months of hell, eventually most of these things settled down with what people call napkin deals. In other words, Trump made these back of an envelope deals, which in the case of Britain's deal seemed to be a blank sheet of paper. But anyway, broadly speaking, what happened is that he would say to Vietnam or to wherever, if you agree to be nice to me, and in many cases, if you agree to give me a lovely present or invest a lot in the United States and give me some pretty non specific promises about not doing too much with China, I'll bring the tariffs down to what on average ended up mostly around the world being about 15.
- [04:00]
Alistair Campbell
I want to give a shout out here, Rory. You talk about how we cover the big moments, but maybe not all the little details in between. VOS selections are a wine importer who took the Trump Administration to the U.S. court of International Trade. Learning resources and hand to mind, they are the ones who challenged the legality of Liberation Day tariffs in the federal court. And essentially they have won. The court granted, in their favor, the administration went to the Supreme Court and they, via several other courts and the Supreme Court, struck down Trump's authority to impose these tariffs without Congress. That's the key point. In a vote of 6 to 3, cue Trump going absolutely bonkers, doing an immediate press conference, one of his mad, rambling press conferences where he basically attacked the judges, praised the ones who'd backed him, attacked the ones who hadn't, and then the next day, having slept on it, he then produces this. You know how I love analyzing his posts because they're so clearly written by him, usually in the middle of the night. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy.
- [05:16]
Rory Stewart
Most of us are buying energy in the dark, not knowing what it costs. You wouldn't do that with your weekly food shop. But with energy, you're often charged first and only find out the number later.
- [05:26]
Alistair Campbell
When you don't have that clarity, you usually end up paying more than you should, which is what Fuse Energy is working to change about how energy works
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Rory Stewart
the average household switching to Fuse can save around £200 on their energy bills.
- [05:39]
Alistair Campbell
Fuse handles the practical side. The app shows what you're spending day by day and what that actually means for your bills.
- [05:45]
Rory Stewart
For listeners to the show, there's an added benefit. Use the code Politics when you switch and you'll receive a free trip subscription.
- [05:53]
Alistair Campbell
Switch to Fuse Energy and save around £200 on your energy bills. Use the code Politics for a free trip subscription. Fuseenergy.com politics a better help ad we get it.
- [06:07]
Rory Stewart
February is full of flowers, candy, and of course, lots of talk about relationships. It can feel like everyone else has it all together in their love lives, but the truth is, we're all still figuring it out. Whether you're working on your marriage, navigating the dating apps, or prioritizing staying single, no matter where you are, you're right on time. Therapy can help you find your way and take some of the pressure off yourself so you can determine what you want, what feels heavy, and how you can feel lighter. Just a little bit of outside perspective from a professional can lead to new understanding and a lot of progress. So the next time you're feeling iffy about your love life, try therapy with BetterHelp and see where it takes you. And remember, you're right on time. Visit betterhelp.com restpolitics for 10% off that's betterhelp.com restpolitics this podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Car shopping shouldn't feel like preparing for a marathon of paperwork. That's why Carvana makes buying and financing your car easy from start to finish. Search thousands of vehicles with great prices, all online, all on your time. And when you're ready, your new car shows up right at your door. It doesn't get better than that. Buy your car the easy way on delivery fees may apply
- [07:29]
Alistair Campbell
based on a thorough, detailed and complete review. Yeah, of the ridiculous. Poorly written, as if he could judge. Good writing and extraordinarily anti American decision. What could be more pro American reckon than standing up for the Constitution on tariffs after many months, many in caps of contemplation. The contemplation, he's saying, is by the court, not by him. He doesn't really do many months of contemplation. Please let this statement serve to represent that. Now, the next word is meant to be I, but he's actually used the figure one, so which is kind of baby represent. The figure one as President of the United States of America will be, comma, effective immediately, raising the 10% worldwide tariff on countries, many of which have been ripping in quotes, the US off for decades without retribution brackets, until I came along to the fully allowed and legally tested 15% level. Get this bit. During the next short number of months, the Trump administration will determine at issue the new legally permissible tariffs, which will continue are extraordinarily successful process of making great again. Then we go into full caps greater than ever before. Exclamation, exclamation, exclamation.
- [08:52]
Rory Stewart
So much to unpack here. But I had a lovely long conversation yesterday with my tariffs hero, Dmitry Grozubinsky, in Switzerland. He's in Switzerland, I'm in Switzerland. And he is just wonderful on this stuff. And again, I find myself slightly parroting his views. But the thing that he's good at pointing out is that right at the heart of this whole thing is that Congress is supposed to have the power of the purse. They're meant to be the people who are really in charge of taxing and spending. And tariffs are a massive part of the power of the purse. In fact, Trump has generated about $200 billion worth of revenue off these tariffs. And what the Supreme Court ruling did, and very unusual six to three, big slap to Trump, is to challenge his use of emergency powers. So he essentially said that there was an emergency. He used something called ipa, which is a particular act, and he tried to use it to say that he could, as president, unilaterally impose tariffs on basically any country for any reason, on any sector, and for any duration.
- [09:56]
Alistair Campbell
Rory, did your friend explain what the emergency was? Because at the start, in relation to Canada and Mexico is fentanyl, but then with every other country, I'm not aware that Switzerland has a big fentanyl relationship. So what was the emergency that he was addressing?
- [10:12]
Rory Stewart
So that's absolutely. So that's one big problem which the Supreme Court could have looked at. And actually they decided to stay off the emergency thing. They got onto another thing. But the emergency thing, you're completely right, was nonsense. He decided that anything he wanted was an emergency. So two classic examples, when Ford in Canada put up some advertisements quoting Ronald Reagan on free trade, that was considered an emergency. An emergency that justified putting tariffs up on Canada. Again, you would have heard in Davos. I don't know whether you were in meeting or listening to it, but when Lutnick was talking about why they were threatening to impose tariffs on Europe over Greenland, he said it was an emergency because in some non specified time in the future China might occupy Greenland. So it was an emergency. Right. So the Supreme Court could have really got into that. They decided not to because they decided that they don't want to get involved in micromanaging what a president does or doesn't regard as an emergency. Instead, what they said is that quite clearly, in their view, the act act did not allow him to raise tariffs. If Congress who passed this act had intended the President to be able to raise tariffs, they would have said tariffs in the act. The fact that they talked about economic instruments and not tariffs from Supreme Court's view makes it pretty clear that Congress was proposing to retain its traditional control over tariffs. Now that then has given Trump a big, big problem because we've just removed his flamethrower that he's been throwing at the world and it pushes him back basically to three other options that he can use. There's something called 232. So that's something that he could use in a national security emergency. So a classic example of that could be you could say, for example, I'm going to put tariffs on Chinese steel because I need to make my own steel in order to make battleships. That would be 232. He could use something called 301, which is what his guy who does all the trade negotiations is now threatening. And 301 is about unfair trade practices. But instead, what you're seeing in that truth social post is that he's gone with something called 122. And 122 gives him the right if there's a balance of payments crisis in the US to impose 15% tariffs for 150 days before it goes back to Congress. The reason I'm being boring about all these different things, and I could also talk about something called 338 is that they're all very cumbersome. They're not going to work for him in the way the other stuff worked. And they're all open to legal challenge in different ways. And the problem is they're more bureaucratic and procedural. So for a man who wants to play the hokey Cokey and say, you were rude to me in a meeting and I'm going to put up tariffs by 7%. And now you've given me a gold Rolex. So I'm going to bring tariffs down to 15%. These instruments wouldn't really allow him to do that. These are instruments that usually require a full investigation by U.S. commerce, huge documentation. Once they've gone up, yes, he can bring them down. But if he brings them down, he's then open to legal challenge right across the board. That could be very expensive. I mean, it's possible he's going to have to repay $150 billion to all these companies because his tariffs may be illegal.
- [13:16]
Alistair Campbell
Although the dissenting judges, the three arch conservatives who will largely view that Trump can do no wrong, they pointed out that it is very, very, very complicated process for people, be they countries or companies, to try to get refunds. But that is going to set off a whole new wave of activity for the lawyers. The section 122 that you're this is the first time this has ever been used, and it was part of the Trade act of 1974. Now, what's really interesting about this, given that the original judgment is about the powers of Congress over the power of the presidency, is that this can only apply for 150 days, at which point Congress has to step in. Now, of course, this is all leading us to the midterms in November when people assume there is going to be a shift of power. But what I think you've seen is both in his reaction and the sheer violence of the language against these judges. I mean, the reason why they talk about the founding Fathers and their love for the Constitution is because you have these three parts of it, one of which is this Supreme Court. And for him to come out and basically say, I don't need to worry about Congress, he actually said at one point, I can destroy the country. You let that sink in. I have the power to destroy the country brackets if I don't get my way. And the interesting thing, I think for me, you and I both being very critical about the Supreme Court, the seeming willingness to go along with all these businesses and the tech bros have all caved in when the media caving in one by one. And I think once you get the habit, any institution, once you get the habit of saying, right, I've crossed that Rubicon, I've given him that slap on the face, maybe there will be more of that down the track, especially when he reacts in the way that he has. I mean Calling these people a disgrace to their families, anti American. The violence of the language he uses when he doesn't get his his own way does underline the worry that people have that he basically is a wannabe king, a wannabe dictator.
- [15:25]
Rory Stewart
But it is interesting, isn't it? My mother, that great figure on our podcast, was saying to me last night that she was very surprised because the impression she'd got reading the news was that the Supreme Court were total Trump loyalists, thanks to some of the recent appointments, and that basically the Supreme Court and Congress weren't going to stop him from doing anything. So she was very surprised to discover they'd voted six to three, particularly on something that, as she points out, is so central. It's an issue. Tariffs is something he's made core of his brand. It's something he thinks about all the time. It's his favorite instrument. It's the thing, as we've said, that allows him to play the mini emperor because every company has to come in and bend the knee and he'll give him a few percent here or take off a few percent there, and every country has to give him gifts and all this kind of stuff. So the Supreme Court has just slapped him not on something marginal. I mean, this is something right at the very core of his power.
- [16:17]
Alistair Campbell
It's fundamental both to his economic policy and to his foreign policy. So that's why it is a kind of double slap. And the other thing, because we know that Trump, a little bit like Putin, we know that Putin values loyalty to his vision of Russia almost more than anything. If you don't share that loyalty, if you become disloyal, then you risk. I'm just reading this extraordinary German book at the moment called Der Stille Krieg, the Silent War. And I'm on the chapter about Putin's use of murder. And we know all the famous ones that have been dropped out of windows and died in baths. But there are so many others who, if they are deemed to be disloyal, they get dropped out of out of hotel window balconies. And Trump seems to save his greatest bile for the two conservative in quotes justices that he appointed, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. John Roberts was appointed by George Bush. So he's seen as a conservative, but he's not Trump's conservative. So the absolute total disloyalty that Trump cannot stand is where it's somebody that he has appointed. And it's interesting that they in a world were the key arguers on this. So I think it's going to be really interesting how this plays out. There will be. The legalities are complicated. Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, he said something very interesting. He talked about this being a poison in the world economy. He's really hitting back Britain, I think, which got this sort of slightly special deal that we don't know whether it's actually been implemented and we don't know what the effect of this will be. So those countries that did well before are kind of sitting back. Those countries that maybe got whacked a bit more are using it to really go for Trump.
- [17:59]
Rory Stewart
My sense is that I think people like Amy Coney Barrett, yes, are very conservative, but often when we say that, we mean that they have been very conservative on issues such as abortion. I don't think that necessarily means that we could have assumed that she's always going to give in to Trump. I mean, she's an extremely bright. In fact, actually, to be fair, most of these Supreme Court justices are technically very, very bright, very well qualified, most of them lawyers. And I think she's a very good example of that. She's just very conservative and I think quite religiously conservative in her views. The reason it's cheering up, though, deeply, deeply cheering, is that it shows that US institutions are beginning to function because the way in which populism really took off around the world. And you can see this in Venezuela, where the Supreme Court basically upheld Maduro stealing the election. You can see this in Turkey, you obviously can see this in Russia, all these countries where elections continue to happen. But what really goes wrong is that the courts get seized. You saw this in Bangladesh. I mean, that was one of the things that Sheikh Hasina was really doing. She stitched up the courts. And I guess 250 years of American democracy is really paying off here. In the end, these institutions are holding better than people feared.
- [19:18]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I don't think we should get too cheered up because I think this is getting such attention because, as you say, it's so fundamental to his overall foreign and economic policy. But they've let quite a lot go by. And I was reading a piece at the Weekend, one of the progressive think tank had done an analysis of Project 25 and it is pretty amazing when they go through line by line just how much of Project 2025 has been carried out. Stopping foreign aid, stopping the DEI stuff, the really tough stuff on immigration, going for the public, public broadcasters, Venezuela, a big, big thing, part of this. So I think we should still be worried because Trump is doubling down the fact that he could have that response, A normal response of an American president would have been, well, I'm very disappointed by the judgment. We now have to make sense of it, instead of which, your family's ashamed of you. You're a disgrace to America. Now, hopefully that will shake up the legal system and these media cowards to think, hold on a minute. We really are now looking down the barrel of somebody who wants to run this country like Putin runs Russia. That is what we're getting to on this. And so that's why I think it was so significant.
- [20:39]
Rory Stewart
I guess in the back of their minds, in the Supreme Court's justice minds, is they're balancing two things, aren't they? They're balancing what they think is their responsibilities and constitution and the law. But the background, and I think you're right to raise Project 2025 here is that the big narrative, the big populist narrative in the broad sense, is that we're being crippled by the law. And you hear it from the right in Britain, you hear it from the right all over the world. The story is that we've become too slow moving. As somebody who I saw in Munich said to us, we've gone from a world where the people running our countries were engineers to a world in which the people running our countries are lawy. And we talked about the fact that every Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidate for 40 years, with one exception, was a lawyer. And of course, Keir Sahm is a lawyer. And there's a general sense that governments find it very difficult to get things done. You talk about how come China can build all these airports, we can't. Why are we still talking about the third Runway since 1997? And so there's a general sense in modern politics that we're being out competed by authoritarian states like China because they don't have to worry about public inquiries, consultations, planning processes, and above all, lawyers and of course, ministers. You know, when I was a minister, I felt this a lot when I wanted to try to put metal detectors at the gates of prison. The first thing I was told by my civil servants is, it's illegal. You know, the lawyers won't let you do this. Right. And you have to spend a lot of time endlessly talking about what's legal, what isn't. So I suppose the Supreme Court, and we get a hint of this in their decision to say we're not going to double guess whether or not something's an emergency, we're going to look at this narrow subject around tariffs, is they don't Want to be drawn into the culture wars, of being accused of the lawyers and the blob stopping governments getting on with things.
- [22:33]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Anyway, we will doubtless be coming back to Trump and his tariffs because he is not going to let this lie. But I think you're right. I think the world was broadly cheered up by this. You certainly saw a lot of positive reaction from different parts of the world, albeit worried in terms of whether they can now waste lots of money trying to get their money back or whatever it might be.
- [22:55]
Rory Stewart
Final thing they're worried about, I think, is that we had sort of settled into the mad old system. We were beginning to get a sense over a year of what he was doing with his AIPA powers and how to deal with him. He's now going to be working with his own teams to try to come up with other ways of torturing the world with tariffs. And so there's going to be a moment where countries and businesses are going to be lurching around trying to understand what this means, what other tricks he's going to try to pull out of the back of his pocket. And if he decides that somehow he can't quite continue using tariffs as his tool of torturing people, what other things is he going to try to find? Because he's going to want to continue torturing people. He's going to want to continue to have short term transactional things that allows him to humiliate, bully, extract concessions, threaten, intimidate. So what's next? And that's where I begin to worry. What's he going to do with American control of tech, cloud computing, AI sanctions policies and others at the dollar payment systems, Other tools that he could have to torture people.
- [24:03]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, or move to the sort of dropping people out the window phase. I mean, don't forget, we have got eyes out killing people on the streets and Trump defending it. So, you know, we're on a very dark path, I would say.
- [24:15]
Rory Stewart
Should we take a quick break?
- [24:17]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, quick break. And then back for more. Now, just a quick pause in the podcast to mention our sponsor, NordVPN.
- [24:24]
Rory Stewart
So February is when routines take over. We drift back into doing serious things online, but in places that are convenient rather than careful. Stations, cafes, hotels. Moments where the margin for error with your data quietly creeps back in.
- [24:39]
Alistair Campbell
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- [24:48]
Rory Stewart
NORDVPN also includes Threat Protection Pro, which acts like a cyber bodyguard that quietly helps block malicious links and checks downloads. Particularly useful in February when inboxes fill up with expense claims, half term travel and ticket confirmations.
- [25:03]
Alistair Campbell
It doesn't change how you use the Internet, it simply removes the assumption that everything is Safe by default.
- [25:09]
Rory Stewart
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- [25:14]
Alistair Campbell
To get the best discount on your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com restispolitics you'll get four extra months free on the two year plan, plus a 30 day money back guarantee. The link is in the episode description.
- [25:32]
Rory Stewart
Now. Just a quick pause in the podcast to mention our sponsor NordVPN.
- [25:37]
Alistair Campbell
We are in February and that is the month when the year stops being theoretical. Good intentions turn into systems, accounts, passwords, payments, and life starts running through logins again almost without pause.
- [25:50]
Rory Stewart
And it feels completely normal. And it's also exhausting. So there you are, whacking on all this sensitive information day after day, simply as part of your everyday life.
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Alistair Campbell
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- [26:09]
Rory Stewart
And we can't begin to tell you how much danger there is if you start having sensitive information and passwords and locations out there. And privacy as provided by NordVPN tends to work best when it's built in.
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Alistair Campbell
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- [26:27]
Rory Stewart
To get the best discount on your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com restispolitics you'll get four extra months free on the two year plan, plus a 30 day money back guarantee. The link's in the episode description. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. Now it's Mother's Day coming up and an Aura frame is what I'd call a proper upgrade from the usual Mother's Day flowers from the gas station.
- [26:57]
Alistair Campbell
Now, flowers only last three days, Rory. On average.
- [27:00]
Rory Stewart
Exactly. This doesn't this is a wonderful photo frame, but it's a photo frame where the photographs change. You preload it with family photos before it ships, it arrives already full of all those memories and you can keep adding those photos from anywhere you put it up. We've got one at home and it's really lovely because you see all these beautiful high definition images scrolling through throughout the day.
- [27:22]
Alistair Campbell
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- [27:40]
Rory Stewart
That's auraframes.co.uk, promo code politics. The deal is exclusive to listeners, so order yours now to get it in time for Mother's Day. Welcome back to the restless Politics Question
- [27:57]
Alistair Campbell
Time with me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell. Dave McGlade is a trip member on Discord. There are few dramatic changes in the relationship between monarchy and Parliament. Is the arrest of former Prince Andrew of such a scale? It will be seen as a similar sort of change and be in school history books a century from now. Or will it be forgotten except by specialist historians? Now, you always sort of, I think, get the feeling that I get very emotionally disturbed when things, bad things happen to the Labour Party. I get the same feeling with you at the Monarchy.
- [28:30]
Rory Stewart
I'm sure that's right. I'm sure that's right. I think it's a good challenge and I think it's certainly true of you and me. I suspect it's probably more true of the whole world than we want to acknowledge. There are certain kinds of things that outrageous and certain kinds of things that don't, and a lot of that is to do with where we're coming from. So it's easier for the two of us to get really outraged by Boris Johnson's conflicts of interest. We agree violently on that. And then once we get onto Peter Mandelson or the monarchy, we tend to differ.
- [29:00]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I think I was fairly frank about Peter Mandelson. What did you make of Charlie Faulkner's take on the emergency podcast he and I did where he basically said he thought this was potential, potentially a real crisis for the monarchy?
- [29:13]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. So I think firstly, if anybody's not listened to Charlie Faulkner and you, they should. I thought he was great. I mean, you know, this is a guy who was the Lord Chancellor and boy, he knows his law and he's extremely good at expressing complicated ideas powerfully. So what did I think? I don't know. I mean, what's your. I mean, my instinct. But again, this may be my prejudice, but my instincts in relation to Dave McGlade's question is that it's not something that will be in school history books a century from now. My suspicion is that actually it will be forgotten except by specialist historians and that that's because in the end, I think institutions survive scandals and I think that will be. And so I'd be very, very surprised if in a century's time people were going to be studying this in history books. What do you think?
- [30:08]
Alistair Campbell
I think they might be. I mean, obviously a lot depends on what now happens. I mean, you've. You've got a. You've got the situation where until recent, quite senior member of the royal family has been arrested, is being investigated for really serious offenses, misconduct in public office, which could lead to him being imprisoned. That's not impossible. They arrested him, they're still searching his properties, they've taken away electronic devices. And this is not about the sexual offences, which he's always denied. This is about misconduct in public office. When he was a trade envoy and
- [30:44]
Rory Stewart
in particular the allegation is that he, within five minutes of receiving his government briefing for his trade trips, forwarded them
- [30:54]
Alistair Campbell
on to Jeffrey Epstein and should say Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Charlie did make the point and he's right. There's a very, very high bar. This is a really, really difficult thing to prove. But my point is, if it does go down that route, if it does go to what Charlie calls the trial of the century, and it does lead to conviction, I think that is a really big problem for the monarchy as a whole. You're right that they've survived a lot of scandals, but I think this has the potential to be. To be, to be more serious. Now, the other thing, Roy, which I think we should. You know, I spend a lot of time criticizing our beloved media. But the other reason why I think this, is, this, this might be studied in history books, is because sometimes a photograph will be central to history. The photograph taken by this Reuters photographer, Phil Noble, who'd waited, he got a tip off that Adri was at Aylsham police station. There are any number of police stations he could have been taken to. He gets taken to this sleepy police station, this sleepy part of Norfolk. This guy, along with others, gets a tip off. That's where he is. He spent six hours or five or six hours waiting. He drove from Manchester, so he. Five hours drive from Manchester to Norfolk. He gets there and. And I've worked with photographers, a lot of photographers in my time, and sometimes, and he's honest enough to admit it, sometimes it's just luck. They see the cars leaving and he gets this. He just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Using flash, which is why you've got the red eye in the picture. Bang. Bang, bang, bang. It turns out most of the pictures were of the police or whoever was in the front, one of whom had remarkably looked like the driver, looked remarkably like Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy. Don't know what he was doing there. Anyway, there's Andrew in the back and it is just such a picture of panic, devastation. And the guy's admitted it's luck. He just banged him off. He didn't know whether he was sitting in the front or the back. It was getting dark and he gets this picture. That picture was on every single front page in the uk and I have hundreds of front pages around the world. That I think is one of the reasons why this, because it captured something truly phenomenal. This is a guy who spent his entire life being entitled, obnoxious. That's the generous description of most of the people who've ever had anything to do with him. And he's suddenly like a mortal human being in the back of a car, filled with absolute panic about what he's just been confronted with and what that might mean for the rest of his life. So I think this has the potential to be really serious now, where I, Charlie and I both agree that your friend the King, I thought his statement was very, very well put together and the timing was right, because what they're obviously trying to do is to build a total firewall between the institution and Andrew. And that, I think, is the right
- [34:02]
Rory Stewart
approach in terms of media management. I guess one of the lessons, at least as far as I understand it, is that you need to try to move as quickly as possible and get ahead of these. I guess if we go back on how they've tried to do this, the first step, and this is some years ago, was to sack him from his trade envoy role. I think that was maybe 10 years ago. Then he was taken off public duties, so he ceased to be a kind of public member of the Royal Family. He became a kind of private citizen. And then in, I guess, September, he was stripped of his titles. Then he was evicted from Royal Lodge, stripped of the Night of the Garter. So I guess what they've been doing is to try to move quite quickly. The temptation in all these scandals is to hope that it can pass over, to try not to comment, to just be like, well, let the law take its course. In which case there would be a continual drip, drip of people saying, how come this guy's still a prince? How come he's still in this grace and favour lodge.
- [35:06]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, you see, I think you could make the case that They've actually been very slow to deal with. With this because it's not as if Prince Andrew doesn't have a certain reputation. I think there were lots of sort of rumors and stories about the. The way that he conducted himself. And so once the Epstein thing started, and this is. This is where I think they will be perhaps a little bit worried, is that there will be. I mean, I don't know what the police will be able to have access to. You know, there was a time, in fact, I think there still is a time when you're. The police are not meant to enter royal palaces without permission. That's why Charlie and I had the discussion about was the King tipped off? And Buckingham palace was clear that he wasn't. But the precedent was that you couldn't go into a royal palace without being invited or being summoned. I don't know if you know this, Roy. This is why it's good that you spend so much time with the King. If you ever get up to anything wrong, you're still not allowed to arrest somebody in the presence of the monarch. I'd be looking at some of these crazy laws, I tell you.
- [36:07]
Rory Stewart
This is one of my favorite for extraordinary moments in my early time in Parliament where a Labour MP had got really drunk in the bar and had started hitting some Tories and someone called the police and the police came and they grabbed him and he turned on them and he said, you are not allowed to arrest someone within the palace of Westminster. And they were.
- [36:31]
Alistair Campbell
So this wouldn't have been. This wouldn't have been Eric Joyce with it.
- [36:34]
Rory Stewart
It was Eric Joyce and they let go of him for a second, giving him just time to get across and headbutt one more Tory MP before they finally brought him down. Anyway, he was making the same argument about no arresting in palaces.
- [36:46]
Alistair Campbell
Well, the other one, the Cultural Property Armed Conflicts Act 2017, so that's less than a decade ago, that forbids police from searching royal estates for any stolen or looted artifacts.
- [37:00]
Rory Stewart
But just to come back to this, I think, think what has happened is that instead of hiding behind those kinds of laws, they have moved very, very quickly to say, a, we weren't informed, B, let them in. Let the police do their job. And in that statement, the rule of law must pass its thing. So I think the one thing that. The one thing that they're not doing is trying to claim royal privilege and exemption on Andrew.
- [37:21]
Alistair Campbell
I would argue that they've moved. They've moved very quickly in relation to what happened last Thursday. I think, think the more this goes on the questions that will be asked and evident. We heaven knows what evidence is going to emerge from, from Andrew's phones and laptops, not just in relation to Epstein, but in relation to everybody else that he's had dealings with. And of course, the other thing that's happening, Rory, the Liam Burns Select Committee, Business Select Committee, they're looking at the whole issue of trade envoys because, you know, as you well know, we keep bumping into people say, oh, Keir Starmer's appointed me trade invoices this and that and the other. And sometimes it's to. Is to let somebody down who thought they were going to get a different
- [38:00]
Rory Stewart
job or always in, in the Tory system, always it was about managing backbench rebellion. And we ended up, Cameron ended up appointing dozens of these people. Some of them were backbenchers who were going to cause trouble, some of them were ministers who'd just been fired. And it was a really disturbing thing because almost every little country ended up with a trade envelope, countries with whom we did almost no trade at all. And the embassy would then have to deal with an MP who wasn't considered by the government to be the kind of person they actually wanted as a minister, suddenly rocking up, taking the Ambassador's time, trying to get a meeting with the President and claiming what they're doing is promoting British trade with the country.
- [38:38]
Alistair Campbell
So There are currently 32 trade envoys covering the world and according to the government website, they play a crucial role role in supporting the department's growth priorities. Well, they don't get paid, so they might get their expenses paid. But that to me is an open door to say, well, okay, I don't get paid, but what I've got these other business interests going on, I'm not tarring them all with the same brush. Some of them will be genuinely driven by a desire to support the government, support the country, etc. But you can't say to me that there isn't at least the root to double to conflicts of interest, which, you know, I suspect Liam Byrne will get to the bottom of.
- [39:18]
Rory Stewart
The final thing, which I hadn't taken on enough, which you're completely right on, is if they get into all of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's emails, whatsapps, it's going to be terrifying. It's going to be a monstrous hornet's nest. I mean, even before you get on to whether there's crime, as soon as you start going through the emails of somebody like that, that it's unbelievable what you'll find. I Mean, one of. And it sort of brings me back to my main point, which is at the heart of the Epstein scandal, is that for the first time we are actually released to the public 3 million emails of this almost billionaire who knew all these presidents and billionaires and tech people. We don't normally get to see that. And as soon as you get to see it, it's very, very, very nasty, even I suspect, for people who aren't engaged in criminal activity. And I don't know whether this is going to continue to happen. Are all of Mandelson's emails and whatsapps seized? Are they all going to be released? Because that's going to be not pretty. Because what do we know about all these people? They are flatterers, networkers, pushing the boundaries, striking deals, trying to get themselves invited to parties. I mean, I can think of another 20 people in public life whose emails you would not want to see released to the world. And the number of people they would drag down in the context. Yeah.
- [40:40]
Alistair Campbell
Oh yeah. And of course, what happens sometimes when people are being dragged down is they want to take other people down with them.
- [40:45]
Rory Stewart
Right.
- [40:45]
Alistair Campbell
You know, you and I, Rory, at the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, we were in Belfast, we were there, we interviewed Senator George Mitchell, sort of hero of the peace process. We were there for the unveiling of his bust at Queen's University. They're taking it down. Yeah. Because of what they say has been revealed about him in the files.
- [41:02]
Rory Stewart
I think I've talked before about the fact that so many of the people we've interviewed on leading have turned up in these emails. It would be interesting. I don't know whether he'd be prepared to come on, but Michael Wolff seems to have been very, very close to him and sending an incredible number of emails to and from Epstein. Now, none of this is an accusation of wrongdoing, but one of the things we're not getting, and maybe if Woolf were prepared to come on, he could tell us, is what was it about Epstein that seemed to make him so sort of magnetic for these people? And I've been reading these biographies, trying to understand it. And because he was this extremely evil, criminal, abusive man who did horrifying things to numberless underage girls, people are not trying to understand what it was that was attractive about him. Cause you don't want to talk about that. But clearly he must have been a man with an incredible charm, sense of humor. I mean, who knows what it was. But there was something that was trapping these people in.
- [42:03]
Alistair Campbell
Well, as I've said to you before, Roy, on my one meeting with it definitely passed me by. He absolutely gave me it. Absolutely. And this isn't hindsight, this is recorded in my diary at the time. He absolutely gave me the creeps.
- [42:18]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, gave me the creeps.
- [42:19]
Alistair Campbell
He totally gave me the creeps. But my final point on this, Roy, is I think that, that I still am troubled by the extent to which the American angle and all this is so underplayed. Here we have, we have Ghislaine Maxwell in jail, Peter Mandelson disgraced, Andrew now disgraced. Now, there have been some people, as Charlie said, Larry Summers, George Mitchell, I've just mentioned, but there is some stuff in here about Trump that for some reason the media just seem not to want to cover too much because there's so much material. So the economists have got a full time team on this. The New York Times have got a full time team on this. They're still digging in and sort of finding all these stories. And this is happening, by the way, because what we're seeing with Epstein is not just the criminality, it's the cronyism, it's the corruption, it's the total corruption of public life in a way. I mean, when you look at some of the stuff that I was reading over the weekend about the way that the markets were moving on the back of some of the, including the Supreme Court, where people were making money out
- [43:24]
Rory Stewart
of the expectation allegations that Lutnik's children anticipated. So the Trade Secretary for Trade and Commerce's children somehow anticipated that the Supreme Court might overrule their father's policy and therefore took huge positions to benefit themselves and their clients on that assumption. Now, that's pretty extraordinary stuff.
- [43:48]
Alistair Campbell
Totally agree. And we've seen the same. I saw an interview with Trump's sons, Don Jr. And Eric. Their inability to think that there might be such a thing as a conflict of interest, given their nature and what they're all about and given the nature of their father and what he's all about. So in a week when he says, I don't care about Congress, I don't really care about the courts, I'll do what the fuck I want. And they're basically saying, well, there's no problem with that as they go around the world doing deals, making, making billions, etc.
- [44:19]
Rory Stewart
So, Alison, next question for you. Connie Trip plus member from Manchester. Will the send reform. So for international listeners, special educational needs reforms in the schools White paper strengthen inclusion in mainstream schools or risk stripping essential legal protections from children with special needs can you explain briefly what it is that England, and I guess it's only England. Right. Because Scotland will have a different policy is trying to do in terms of children with special educational needs in schools.
- [44:47]
Alistair Campbell
Well, the direct answer to the question is that I hope that it will lead to greater inclusion without compromising standards either for children with special educational needs or for children who are being educated alongside them.
- [45:02]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. So in the current system, many parents, feeling that there isn't good provision for their child that has special educational needs, is frequently pressing for them to go to a specialist school, which is costing the government an enormous amount of money. And also many educational people would say isn't good, they'd rather have these children in mainstream schools. So the idea is to try to have fewer places in specialist schools and more children with special educational needs in a normal school supported in a normal school, is that right?
- [45:32]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. And also just to point out that private equity has got into this space in a massive way. And, you know, we mentioned this last week, Georgia Gould is the school's minister. She's been given the task of reviewing the whole policy on send. What they're trying to do is to get far better teacher training. There's £200 million going into training teachers on how to deal with children with special educational needs. More and what they call an inclusion premium, new funding for mainstream schools, conditional on them showing that they can can accommodate more children with special educational needs.
- [46:08]
Rory Stewart
The challenge back, I guess, will be people saying, uh, the schools are no good at this. My child has real needs and I'm in no doubt as a parent that I can get better care and education for my child. Going to a different provider could be a charity, could be a private school, could be a private equity funded school. But what I care about is my kid. And the government's not good at this. And here's somebody who is good at this in the local area and the council can pick up the bill.
- [46:40]
Alistair Campbell
Right. And the councils at the moment have got a massive double figure billion cost that they have been struggling with. So, look, this is a system that I think both the main parties accept is pretty broken and in need of fundamental reform. And just to give you some of the stats Underlying this, this 1.6 million children now identify with special educational needs. The cost of educating a child with special education needs in the state system is about worse. Out at £26,000, this private equity running independent system, we're talking 63,000. The other point that I think is worth making, that comes through the arguments about the special Education debate is that where children are accommodated, even with all the difficulties that might apply to school as a whole, you are seeing a better performance both of the children with send and children without. So I think that what the argument, the argument Bridget Phillipson is putting forward is that inclusion and standards need not be in conflict, provided you have the resources.
- [47:51]
Rory Stewart
I'm really sympathetic towards this, just personally, I mean. So as you know, my little sister Fiona has Down syndrome and my parents put a lot of energy into making sure that she was in mainstream schools and these schools were very, very supportive and flexible because obviously her reading and writing skills would be similar to maybe a six year old. And it worked really well for her. And they felt that that was a much. Many parents listening to this will have different views on their child and their child's needs and this is going to be why, presumably this is going to be violent politics on the backbenches because there'll be a lot of constituency MPs under pressure from parents who disagree with my parents and who feel that their child would do much better in another system.
- [48:32]
Alistair Campbell
There will definitely be people who are worried that what they feel has been a real struggle to get the support they need, often involving the law, that any worry that that's being taken away I think will provoke a huge debate. However, I think you provided the resources there and the numbers they're talking about in terms of money are good. Where that money's coming from is another question. Whether that affects other parts of the education debate that will also come out as well. But I think the principle of trying to accommodate as many children who identify with SAND in the mainstream, I think is a good one, provided that those who cannot be accommodated have the support that they need for the very, very complex needs that they.
- [49:18]
Rory Stewart
This is probably one of the biggest problems that government faces, well beyond children with special educational needs, because it also echoes the fact the government is spending an unbelievable amount at the moment on disability benefit.
- [49:34]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, correct.
- [49:35]
Rory Stewart
And without sounding too much like a Tory, we're spending more and more of our GDP on services. We're not as productive as we should be. Our economy's not growing properly, we've got to find some way of rebalancing our books and we've got to get out of a cycle, which is very understandable, but which the Labour Party is going to be particularly vulnerable to, which is hard cases making bad law, which is endlessly Labour backed benches pointing to really moving and terrible individual cases where people with disabilities or special educational needs aren't getting the support yeah, simply because you just. Rachel Reeves isn't going to be able to run a government if the bills on these things keep going up in the way they are. So it's going to. And the result will be unfortunately, that either you're too generous or you're too mean. And if you're too mean, there will be people who are affected, but the governments. Our economy is not growing fast enough, it's not big enough. I fear for us to continue to keep our spending on these things going up. And that's a tough conversation with the backbenchers.
- [50:41]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, but that's why all this other stuff that's going on, Pat McFadden's welfare reform, Alan Milburn's review on so called NEETs not in employment, education or training, all has to wrap into this. What I like about the, the way that the government is thinking in relation to this school's white paper, a lot of the focus no doubt will be on both politically and media will be on send. But what I also read within this is an attempt to, to reframe a really important debate about childhood. There's some stunning awful facts in here. So one in five children between the ages of 8 and 16 now has a, what's called a probable mental health disorder. That's up from 1 in 9 in 2017. So whether that's due with COVID we don't know whether it's due with social media, don't know, but there's something going on. Another stat, Rory. I mean, I don't know. You know, I, I can remember when growing up, I walked to school on my own to primary school. I don't remember what age I was, but I did that in 1971. 80% of 70 and 8 year olds walked to school alone by 2020. And it's probably got worse since it's one in four. And here's one. You'll like this, Roy. Well, you might. You'll hate this, but given your interest in prisons and my interest in prisons, children now spend less unstructured time outdoors than prisoners and have 50% less free play time than their counterparts in the 80s.
- [52:07]
Rory Stewart
I'm guilty of this too. So we live only 10 minutes from school and I keep trying to cross that threshold and get our 8 year old and 11 year olds to walk to school. Of course, every time I try to stalk them and follow them to school to let them do it independently, I see them not looking as they're crossing the road and I'm just like, they're such space cadets. They're going to be talking about Pokemon and they're going to step in front of a truck. But it is very, very tough, as you can imagine as a parent to think, listen, if this idiotic child doesn't look properly fully crossroads and get flattened, I would feel really dark.
- [52:48]
Alistair Campbell
I hope they don't listen to this episode. If this idiotic child, I mean this is your son, your dad talking about. But I, I think there is something about. There's a line in the, in the white paper about, you know, getting children to regain their childhood. And I'm. I'm sorry, I mean I was on a train in France yesterday and I was, I was sitting next to these two girls that have been, what, 13, 14, the entire journey from Nime to Paris, they spent on Instagram, the entire journey. But now that letter we had last week from Seraphina Jennings. You know, there is good on social media, there's no doubt about that. There is good in the mobile phone world. But I hope that part of this reclaiming childhood really does step up the debate about how children are spending their leisure time consuming the addiction to phones, the addiction to social media and what have you. There's a few other things which I thought you'd be interested in, Roy. There's a thing called Rise Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence. When we were in power, we got a lot of credit, but some opprobrium outside London. But we really tackled the educational problems in London and it really had an impact. And this white paper is targeting the Northeast and also coastal England. And I think that identifying where there are particular problems and then taking the best people and taking the best practice and trying to integrate that into the system. There, there's good stuff on school building, there's good stuff on sport, there's good stuff on inclusion and creativity. But, and it reads to me, Bridget Phillipson gets quite a lot of flack for being seen as a bit sort of, you know, I think this is your view generally a bit sort of, you know, pro union on the left, all that stuff. But this, this reads very much like a sort of David Blunk is approach to education. But I think the big issue will be money, both in terms of the new teachers that they're promising, the new teacher training, they're promising some of the hubs that they're promising. There's a lot in here that will require money, but I think as a vision for education, I think there's a lot to commend it.
- [54:56]
Rory Stewart
Lovely. Well, Alistair, listen, we've run relatively long, so I think Maybe we should wrap it up. But I think there's three great things we've done. Tariffs, we've done Andrew Epstein and we've done, I think, quite a thoughtful piece that, on education schools in Britain. So thank you very much. And you're about to go on travels, but I look forward to seeing you on your travels in a couple of days time.
- [55:18]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. So this week's main episode will be devoted entirely to Ukraine, four year anniversary of Putin's invasion. Should also give a shout out to Olaf Scholz, who is this week's leading episode, and also to part two of our miniseries with Ken Rosen on the Arctic. But anyway, and Rory, I've been enjoying your skiing videos, but I want to test your knowledge. Who is Johannes Husflot? Clabo?
- [55:48]
Rory Stewart
Well, he's the great hero, hasn't it, who's just got all these gold medals.
- [55:52]
Alistair Campbell
Well done. How many did he get in his single Olympics?
- [55:55]
Rory Stewart
I don't know. Is it five? What's he done?
- [55:57]
Alistair Campbell
He got six. He got every. Every gold in cross country skiing. Skiing. He's a Norwegian and he would be. He as an individual would be in the top 10 of the medals table. But Norway are winning the medals table by a mile.
- [56:10]
Rory Stewart
I once. My only boast is I once skied with a guy called Tony Seiler, who's from Kitzbuhl in, in Austria, who got I think three gold medals or certainly three World cup prizes in a single thing. This is the mid-50s. Yeah, but it's funny how these kind of legends are kind of forgotten, you know, by early 90s. You could still say to people, I skied with Tony Seiler and they sound a bit like people who say, I know that one, football with Maradona. But nowadays you say it to a young ski instructor, they've got no idea who he is. I guess that happens eventually.
- [56:43]
Alistair Campbell
What about Jean Claude Keeley was the one that I always remember as a child.
- [56:47]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, Keeley and Val d'. Is. He's from Val d'. Is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Franz Clammer, you remember Franz Klammer, the downhill car.
- [56:53]
Alistair Campbell
I remember Franz Klamar.
- [56:54]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. But we're dating ourselves here.
- [56:56]
Alistair Campbell
I'll tell you what I've really enjoyed though, Rory, is I've been. There's two things I've really enjoyed. One is Mark Carney's social media congratulating every medalist and just clearly loving it. But the other thing I've really enjoyed is these sports I didn't know existed. Some of the kind of acrobatic stuff, but uphill mountain, uphill skiing. What is going on?
- [57:15]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, they're going uphill and at such speed. I mean, at such pace. I mean, I do a bit of uphill stuff and boy, it's not like that. Anyway, thank you, Alistair. And we. Maybe we could even share my ridiculous new video of me in the trees because the snow here has been unbelievable. Yeah, snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed. In a lot of avalanches.
- [57:34]
Alistair Campbell
Sadly, no. Listen, you'll be pleased to know you talk about your mother a lot. I talk about Fiona a lot. Fiona was moderately impressed by your skiing video. Moderately impressed. And it takes a lot to moderately impress Fiona.
- [57:46]
Rory Stewart
Oh, very good. All right. All right. Have a great day.
- [57:48]
Alistair Campbell
See you soon. Bye.
- [57:49]
Rory Stewart
See you soon. Bye.
- [57:50]
Alistair Campbell
Bye.
- [57:56]
Rory Stewart
Lifelock, how can I help? The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't. One in four taxpaying Americans has paid
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Alistair Campbell
the price of identity fraud. What do I do? My refund, though.
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Rory Stewart
I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this. Lifelock fixes identity theft, guaranteed, and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage. I'm so relieved. No problem. I'll be with you every step of the way. One in four was a fraud paying American. Not anymore.
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Alistair Campbell
Save up to 40% your first year.
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Rory Stewart
Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply hello, everybody,
- [58:26]
Alistair Campbell
and welcome to the Book Club, a new podcast from Goal Hanger, hosted by
- [58:31]
Rory Stewart
me, Dominic Sambrook, and me, Tabitha Syed. As some of you may know, I have been Dominic's producer on the Rest Is History.
- [58:38]
Alistair Campbell
And we even did a miniseries last year about all things books. And since we enjoyed that so much, we have decided to roll it out as its own show. So it'll be coming out every Tuesday. We'll be doing a different book each time and digging into all the stories behind them. And we are going to be talking
- [58:55]
Rory Stewart
about the historical contexts behind some of the greatest and most famous books of all time.
- [59:00]
Alistair Campbell
We're going to be digging into the
- [59:02]
Rory Stewart
remarkable people behind them, the unexpected stories behind the stories, and also unraveling the plot of each book a bit and delving into the depths of the story.
- [59:12]
Alistair Campbell
Now, you don't have to have read
- [59:13]
Rory Stewart
the books to listen to the show,
- [59:14]
Alistair Campbell
but we hope that by the end of each episode, you will be able to pretend to people that you've read them. That is the key thing. And either way, whether you read them or not, we hope that you'll learn lots of fascinating facts, you'll do lots of great stories, and maybe tabby the odd laugh.
- [59:28]
Rory Stewart
We will be looking at thrilling gothic bodice rippers like Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein, as well as iconic stories like the Great Gatsby or Little Women and then also some more modern stuff. So Game of Thrones, Normal People, the Hunger Games, Hamnet, all manner of exciting stories.
- [59:47]
Alistair Campbell
So please join us on our journey into all things books. Wherever you get your podcasts, just search for the book club every Tuesday and hopefully we will see you there.
- [60:10]
Rory Stewart
Troy, the Odyssey, the Iliad. All of these great ancient epics depict a monumental collapse that destroyed the interconnected
- [60:18]
Alistair Campbell
empires of 3,000 years ago.
- [60:20]
Rory Stewart
And to understand the Bronze Age apocalypse that homer wrote about 400 years after it happened, subscribe to Empire World History, a fellow goal hanger podcast where we are deep diving into the biggest imperial collapse in ancient history. To get a flavor of the series, here is a clip from our episode with none other than Stephen Fry.
- [60:39]
Alistair Campbell
It is one of my favorite subjects, the story of the Greeks and the siege of Troy and Odysseus return home. Of course I say Greeks. Homer called them the Achaeans, the Danaans, the Argives. The word Greeks is a much later one, but it refers really to the Mycenaeans, a warrior aristocracy essentially obsessed with honor and reputation that would give them an eternal glory. A kleos, as they call it. It's the Kleos that's in the name of so many Greeks. You know, Cleopatra and all the Socrates, Heracles, who's Hercules, you know, Hera's glory. He was actually named Heracles because she hated him, because he was a love child of Zeus. And she never liked Zeus's love childs. Her husband, her errant husband. And so, as an attempt to placate her, Tiresias, because he was born in Thebes, suggested that he change his name as a baby. This was to Heracles, the glory of Heracles.
- [61:38]
Rory Stewart
It didn't help much.
- [61:39]
Alistair Campbell
It didn't help at all. Athena even even put her on Hera's breast when Hera was asleep because it would bond them if he suckled her milk. But she woke and saw it and tossed him away and her breast milk spread across the sky to form the Milky Way. I didn't know that story because Galaxy, of course, is from the Greek for milk, galactic, as in lactic. So the chocolate makers are right. Anyway, this is completely separate. Cleop, keep going, don't stop.
- [62:06]
Rory Stewart
Well, we really hope you enjoyed that clip here. More on the the Bronze Age apocalypse and how it shaped the ancient Greek epics just subscribe to Empire, wherever you get your podcasts.