196. Why are the far-right on the rise?

Should Britain give the Elgin Marbles back to Greece? Will people be financially better off following Hunt's Autumn statement? Why have populists like Javier Milei and Geert Wilders performed so well in recent elections? Join Rory and Alastair as they discuss these topics and more in today's episode of The Rest is Politics. 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Crete. And of course, the thing flashed up, saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. It was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think, are you not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

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• 2:28Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to The Rest Is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 2:30Rory Stewart?

  And with me Rory Stewart.

• 2:31Alastair Campbell?

  And we've had a busy week with the Autumn Statement, the net migration figures. I'm going to talk about all of that. And I think we're also going to cover in the second half, the far right, in particular in the context of the elections in Argentina and the Netherlands and these shocking riots in Dublin. But I think we should kick off with something that's sort of just happened in recent hours. And that is, I think, unless there's any deeper explanation, only be described as a temper tantrum by little Rishi.

• 3:00Rory Stewart?

  Or misplayed politics. So to give people background, the Greek Prime Minister came to the UK and he saw Keir Starmer and he was planning to see Rishi Sunak. And in some of the reporting that came out of his meeting with Keir Starmer, there was press stories saying Keir Starmer was open to the idea of at least lending the Elgin Marbles back to Greece, which then led astonishingly to Downing Street, it seems, cancelling a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister.

• 3:27Alastair Campbell?

  But what they say, the reason for the cancellation was Mitsotakis doing an interview where he said that having the marbles partly in London and partly in Athens is like having Mona Lisa cut in two and in two places. And this is, this is what's being briefed, I don't know. But the whole thing just strikes me as ludicrously petulant.

• 3:50Rory Stewart?

  And you don't think it's a very strange attempt to try to grab headlines that they were jealous that Starmer had got press out of meeting with the head of government and people?

• 3:59Alastair Campbell?

  In which case it's even worse.

• 4:01Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. Can I just sort of on that one quickly, presumably if you're a leader of the opposition, it's a big win if you can meet a serving head of state.

• 4:08Alastair Campbell?

  Well, yes and no. I mean, so Chris Mason, the BBC, he, he said this thing that it would irritate the Prime Minister, that a visiting Prime Minister would meet the leader of the opposition. That's complete nonsense. I mean, you sort of assume that if a visiting head of government is here, and unless it's just a quick in and out, if they've got time, most of them.

• 4:30Rory Stewart?

  Will meet the head of the opposition.

• 4:31Alastair Campbell?

  Probably, usually. So I just don't think it's. That bigger deal.

• 4:34Rory Stewart?

  Am I right, though, that it was a big coup when you went to the US in opposition and you got to meet the president, that that was a big deal?

• 4:41Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but it was a big deal because it was the president of America.

• 4:43Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 4:43Alastair Campbell?

  But, you know, when Neil Kinnock was lead of the opposition, he met Ronald Reagan as lead of the opposition. As it happened, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher sort of conspired to make sure it was a disaster. Uh, not least with the help of our frank, fearless and not very free press.

• 4:57Rory Stewart?

  What? Just remind us that.

• 4:58Alastair Campbell?

  This was a time when Labour was still committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament. So it was a big deal. Neil going to see the White House, sit down with Reagan. And I think just from memory, they didn't allow cameras in. Once Neil had briefed about the meeting going well, they then briefed out that it had gone badly and that it wasn't very long and very, very, it was awful. It was awful. I wrote a piece for the New Statesman, which did adhere me to my colleagues at the lobby. Because I remember the headline was you guys are the pits. And it was about basically how Reagan, Thatcher and most of our press had conspired to make this a disaster.

• 5:35Rory Stewart?

  And it must have been incredibly disappointing because you say it would have been a really big deal, a big chance just before, presumably just before the ninety two election to establish Kinnock as a significant figure.

• 5:44Alastair Campbell?

  So when we were in opposition, because Clinton was in in office and and that went really, really well, partly because they wanted it to. But the idea that the Greek prime minister, and bear in mind, this is a guy who the previous home secretary, Ms Braverman, is on record as saying that, you know, we have to work very closely with the Greeks in terms of managing some of these asylum and immigration issues. But I think the message this sends to the rest of Europe and the rest of the world is just bizarre. So unless there's a deeper explanation, I think it's a massive own goal. And where do you stand, Rory? As I'm I'm guessing, I'm guessing you're going to be, they're ours, we keep them. Where do you stand?

• 6:27Rory Stewart?

  Finders, keepers, losers, weepers, the Elgin marvels, rats. No.

• 6:32Alastair Campbell?

  Is that what they taught you?

• 6:32Rory Stewart?

  That's what they taught us. Yeah, exactly. First thing, just quick background on this. So these are obviously these amazing sculptures that were on the face of the Parthenon, the great temple in Athens. And when Greece was a province of the Ottoman Empire, ruled from Istanbul by the Turks since the Middle Ages. Lord Elgin, British aristocrat with a lot of money, a lot of interest in antiquities, came in.

• 6:57Alastair Campbell?

  Your title was?

• 6:58Rory Stewart?

  What was his title?

• 6:59Alastair Campbell?

  Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty to the Sublime Port of Salim the Third, Sultan of Turkey.

• 7:07Rory Stewart?

  Very good. So he was the big ambassador of the Ottoman Empire and then came over and decided, and this was part of the whole tradition that had started in the Renaissance, of getting hold of antiquities and bring them home. But he pulled off the most extraordinary thing, which is that he convinced the Turkish government to allow him to buy the Elgin marbles from them, get some sort of paperwork and export licence and took them back to Britain.

• 7:30Alastair Campbell?

  About which there continues to be huge dispute.

• 7:32Rory Stewart?

  And even at the time, there was huge dispute. So, you know, the the kind of people that would impress you, sort of Byron and Shelley and all the great romantic.

• 7:39Alastair Campbell?

  I'm about to quote his poem.

• 7:40Rory Stewart?

  Oh, very good. That were very, very cross with it. Go on, give us a quote of it.

• 7:44Alastair Campbell?

  So Byron wrote, dull is the eye that will not weep to see thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed by British hands, which it had best behove to guard those relics ne'er to be restored. Curse be the hour when from their isle they roved, and once again thy hapless bosom gored, and snatch thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred.

• 8:09Rory Stewart?

  Yep, there we are. So that's that's absolutely right.

• 8:12Alastair Campbell?

  Good polarising issue back in the day.

• 8:14Rory Stewart?

  Polarising issue back in the day. So I guess the obvious question for the British Museum, which is filled with antiquities from all over the world, you know, huge chunks of Egypt, chunks of Greece, bits of China, et cetera. And this is not just British Museum, it's the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Louvre, et cetera. I mean, after all, the Louvre has one Mona Lisa, you know, which the Italians could well say they'd like back and the other, is of course the question, when you begin returning things, and maybe it's inevitable, you know, Benin bronzes are on their way back. There's big moves from the VNA, I think, to return some of the Mandalay treasures. In fact, I think they've already begun that. And there's been returns also to Ethiopia, or at least strong discussions about returns to Ethiopia.

• 8:57Alastair Campbell?

  And George Osborne is the current head honcho at the British Museum. Seem broadly sympathetic to doing something.

• 9:03Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, his compromise is a sort of loan programme where technically they're only on loan to the Greeks. And the Greeks send us some antiquities on loan to the British Museum. But if you go to Athens, the most beautiful museum has been produced right next to the Parthenon. With gaps for the marbles and it's actually, in my personal view, a much more stunning space than we have in the British Museum. Would be a real.

• 9:29Alastair Campbell?

  Which would presumably get fewer visitors.

• 9:31Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, argument might be fewer visitors. The old argument that the the British Museum used to make quite pompous here is that they were good at protecting these antiquities. And of course, they get very excited about the fact that there was an explosion in the Parthenon where an Ottoman munitions depot exploded and might have destroyed the marbles if they hadn't been removed before it exploded.

• 9:49Alastair Campbell?

  But the Greeks now say that they've become damaged over here because of all sorts of.

• 9:53Rory Stewart?

  Exactly, damage over here. And furthermore, partly, I think we painted them with things that we thought would protect them. And it seems to have partly corroded the imagery. So actually, the plaster casts taken off the marbles in the 19th century are actually crisper and cleaner than the actual marbles themselves.

• 10:08Alastair Campbell?

  Now, before we go into the Autumn Statement, do you want to know the polling on the.

• 10:11Rory Stewart?

  Give us a poll.

• 10:13Alastair Campbell?

  So, at Ipsos Mori Poll in 1998, that's some time ago, just after we were in power, found 39% in favour of returning them to Greece, 15% in favour of keeping them. And 40% had no opinion or would not vote if the question were put to a referendum. I don't believe that was ever a proposal, by the way. In 2002, 59% of British respondents thought the Parthenon marbles belonged in Greece, 18% that they belonged in Britain, and 18 did not know. So if Sunak is bizarrely trying to play this for politics, it's not at all clear to me who he's pitching this at.

• 10:50Rory Stewart?

  That it's a huge culture war.

• 10:52Alastair Campbell?

  And it feels a bit like a bit of a terrible own goal.

• 10:55Rory Stewart?

  No, it doesn't sound very exciting. I guess there might be some bits of the sort of British nationalist right that might be a bit more finders keepers, losers weepers about this.

• 11:02Alastair Campbell?

  I suspect so. The people who think that we won the war on our own and all that stuff. Yeah, okay. Autumn Statement.

• 11:08Rory Stewart?

  Autumn Statement. So we talked about the Autumn Statement. In advance.

• 11:10Speaker 05

  You were tipped off, weren't you?

• 11:11Rory Stewart?

  I.

• 11:12Speaker 05

  Expensing.

• 11:13Rory Stewart?

  Expensing, yeah. I pushing for expensing, yeah. Well, let's let's have a big context. We we talked about this last week in the lead up to it. Because of inflation and because income tax thresholds were frozen, more and more people have ended up paying income tax, which meant that the government ended up with more than twenty billion pounds extra. And the question was, what was it going to do with it? And broadly speaking, there are three things that it could have done with it. I would have liked them to save the money in a prudent fashion, because you never know what's going to happen in the future.

• 11:44Speaker 05

  Or pay down debt.

• 11:44Rory Stewart?

  Pay down debt, yeah, another way of doing it, exactly, because debt interest is high. Second thing you could have done is you could have invested it in public services, because of course, as inflation kicks in, in real terms, the money for public services decreases, so the pressure on the NHS, pressure on schools is growing. The third thing you can do is you can give the money away in tax cuts, and the government decided to do that last thing. And I think that was primarily, at sort of macro level, a political move. Because what it is doing is taking away money that otherwise could be handed to an incoming Labour government. And it's presenting Labour with a challenge to say, we've decided we prefer tax cuts to investments in public services. Are you going to go along with that? Or are you going to say, actually, we'll do something else?

• 12:29Rory Stewart?

  Now, that's the politics of it. And then, once you've taken the politics into account, which is a big thing, what did they actually do with their tax cuts? Well, there, I am very sympathetic. When it actually came to the decisions they made, I think they made some good ones. They decided to do things which you pointed out were probably less headline catching. So allowing companies to put off against tax capital investment, which is a good thing for growth, because it encourages companies to invest more in plant machinery, which were light on Britain. They've also made a cut to national insurance, which is also a good way of addressing taxes.

• 13:01Speaker 05

  It's better than a cut in the basic rate.

• 13:03Rory Stewart?

  Better than the cut in the basic rate of tax.

• 13:05Speaker 05

  Because it basically helps working people as opposed to rich pensioners.

• 13:08Rory Stewart?

  Exactly. And then they've also uprated benefits. So I think the details of it, if they were going to make the big decision to do that, are not bad. And Labour is broadly speaking endorsed it, haven't they? They haven't actually distanced. But that again may be political.

• 13:22Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think it is political and it's also rather strange because you're now going into a general election where Brexit, which has caused a lot of these economic problems, the O B R report confirming we'd be four percent richer if we hadn't left the European Union, that's not going to be part of the election debate. Both sides would seem to be saying, and now it would seem that the massive spending cuts which are locked in. There's a splendid graphic which we should put in the newsletter, which I think the Institute of Fiscal Studies did, where it shows the money that is being used to pay for these tax cuts in the coming years is almost directly correlates with the spending cuts they are going to have to be.

• 14:01Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 14:02Alastair Campbell?

  So he's basically locked in spending cuts.

• 14:04Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, but sorry, but locked in in the Tory plans. So the challenge to Labour is are they going to go along with these plans?

• 14:10Alastair Campbell?

  Correct.

• 14:11Rory Stewart?

  So it's sort of austerity.

• 14:12Alastair Campbell?

  So if they're not, and by the way, it's austerity that is almost on a par with Osborne's austerity. You've got your protected budgets.

• 14:18Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Alastair Campbell?

  So for example, you've now got local authorities, Tory and Labour, really essentially saying they are pretty much cut to the bone already and they're looking at huge cuts after the next election. You've got prisons, which you and I talk about a lot, double digit

• 14:35Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 14:35Alastair Campbell?

  cuts. You've got cuts into virtually every service apart from probably health and probably education. And I saw an astonishing stat. So in two thousand, year two thousand, the share of overall public spending that went on health and social care was twenty six percent. Two thousand and ten, thirty two, today forty, two thousand and twenty eight on these plans, forty five percent. So in protecting health, and by the way, we've now got this consultant's pay deal, which is not included in these figures. That's another two hundred and fifty million.

• 15:07Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I think we've talked about this. The N H S Workforce Transformation Plan on its own will add something like an additional two percent to government spending of G D P over a period. So it's huge changes in the government budget. Now, Tim Shipman, who is a Sunday Times journalist, has written an article which my friend and mentor David Galk drew my attention to. Who's saying that he thinks it's almost inevitable that there will be more tax cuts in the spring budget. David thinks this is very unlikely and he points out that this is because actually if you look at the forecasts, the finances are under more pressure than people understand because traditionally every year the government is supposed to put up fuel duty by five pence plus inflation and there's a temporary cut of five pence on fuel duty.

• 15:52Rory Stewart?

  Every year, certainly since I've been in government, they haven't done it, which means the government has to find at least five billion pounds in order to keep this cap on fuel duty.

• 16:01Alastair Campbell?

  He's also set a precedent with alcohol in this one by freezing that. I mean, are you saying that you think he sort of tried to do, project a bit of crowd pleasing as it's called, before the budget? I still think you'll find room for tax cuts because, look, the general judgment of the serious economists, if you look at people like the I F S and Resolution Foundation, some of the others that you sort of go to to kind of dig into the detail on this. I mean, even Paul Johnson, who's pretty sober in his analysis, he said, you know, a lot of these figures are basically just made up. And somebody else talked about fairy tales and fiscal illusions.

• 16:34Rory Stewart?

  So then the challenge is, so, I mean, listen, I, I think there's, there's something in that. I don't think there's going to be tax cuts. I don't think he can afford to do tax cuts in spring budget. And the question is, is there smart politics in making the cuts now because some of these things kick in in January, so people will feel benefits.

• 16:49Alastair Campbell?

  The, the national insurance cut, yeah.

• 16:51Rory Stewart?

  But the real question is, what on earth is Labour going to do?

• 16:54Alastair Campbell?

  Do in opposition or do in government?

• 16:56Rory Stewart?

  Do in government because they're signing up to the Tory cuts presumably because of the memory of ninety two. Remind people of the tax bombshell in ninety two and why that went wrong.

• 17:04Alastair Campbell?

  That was when Labour essentially committed to higher child benefit and pensions.

• 17:08Rory Stewart?

  And, and what happened there is that the Tories had come up again with a pretty tough budget. And Neil Kenner quite understandably said, no, no, no. Given the promises we've made, given what we believe in, we believe there should basically be higher taxes and higher public spending. And that was completely consistent with Labour's position. But that then allowed the Tories to go into the ninety two election and talk about Labour's tax bombshell. So is that the fear this time around?

• 17:30Alastair Campbell?

  It might be, but it's quite hard to do that when even on this autumn statement, the tax burden is higher than it's been at any time since the late nineteen forties. It's only because we've got these. Lying newspapers that all said this was a huge tax cutting budget, autumn statement, it wasn't. The tax burden is still going up.

• 17:47Rory Stewart?

  But we've talked about that, the tax burden in Britain is still considerably lower.

• 17:50Alastair Campbell?

  So it's quite hard, it's a lot harder, I think, for the Tories to project themselves as a low tax.

• 17:54Rory Stewart?

  But I guess there are two different questions on this. There's the tax burden overall, which is lower in Britain than it is in other European countries, but higher than it's been since Athley. But the question for Labour is presumably, ideally, to find the money for public services, they would like to tax people more. So do you think it would be impossible for a brave Labour Party to say, actually, we disagree with what they've done, we disagree with these cuts. We would be investing more in public services, this is the wrong way to go, or would that be catastrophic for their election?

• 18:23Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, it's a tough call. I'm not convinced it would be that catastrophic. Because I think that, I think millions of people kind of think this is just end of the road time. It was very interesting to me how Hunt, in the statement, projected himself with an awful lot of confidence and brio. But it didn't last very long. And by the time they were doing this tour in the studios later in the day, they were very much on the back foot. Now, Labour, I think, have to get themselves in a position where the public feel an understanding of how tough economic conditions are. And have the belief that Labour will make better choices. Now, would it be sensible to go into an election saying we're going to tax more, we're going to borrow more, so that we can spend more?

• 19:03Alastair Campbell?

  I think that is quite a difficult thing to do politically. But I do think there's something unreal about the fact that we're going into an election where neither Brexit nor projected massive cuts in public spending are really going to be on the agenda because neither party wants to talk about it.

• 19:18Rory Stewart?

  It's very odd, isn't it? Because Labour presumably will have to find thirty, forty, fifty billion pounds a year more if it's to make a real impact on things it wants to do on public services, on growth, and there's a huge amount of expectations around that. But at the same time, Rachel Reeves, who seems to be impressive, steady, competent, is absolutely refusing to do that. So there's a real risk that Labour's going to take over and be signed up to really tough Conservative spending cuts.

• 19:47Alastair Campbell?

  And then, and all the chips are on growth. And where's the productivity going to come from? Because that's the other thing that you didn't, I couldn't find in this autumn statement is where, where's all this productivity going to come from to offset the, the problems we've got in the health service, school service, and in, and the economy more generally. The other point I think Labour should be making. Far more aggressively is that essentially this is a government that now exists to try to lay traps for an opposition as opposed to a government that's trying to govern, which says to me that it's sort of run out of reasons to govern.

• 20:19Rory Stewart?

  On that second, I mean, I think that's a bit niche for public communication. I mean, I think exists to lay traps. I'm not sure that really plays with the average voter.

• 20:27Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I tell you what does.

• 20:28Rory Stewart?

  Because the average voter would be like, what do you mean by that?

• 20:29Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I tell you what I mean. I tell you what I mean. I tell you what I mean is that this government seems to me as it's going to be the first parliament ever where disposable income is lower at the end than the beginning. Right. And this is their big idea. This expensing thing and cutting national insurance paid for by public spending cuts to come.

• 20:48Rory Stewart?

  But then the question is, what would Labour do?

• 20:50Alastair Campbell?

  No, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me finish my point about why I think this is irrelevant. So when a government reaches that point, I think there are people out there thinking, for God's sake, can we just have a general election? And the reason they're hanging on, rather than going for a general election, which they probably looking at the polls think they're going to lose, is actually a kind of crash and burn to try to lay traps for Labour. And if Labour do get into power, screw them over so that they're probably only for one term. And I think that is part now of some of the Conservatives' thinking.

• 21:16Rory Stewart?

  So the problem, I think, though, is a public line, is when you explain what laying traps means, is it can sound a bit like you're challenging Labour to tell you what their position is and they're refusing to do it. They're just going along with what the Tories are saying.

• 21:29Alastair Campbell?

  And there's something in that. But I think this notion that the government has given up on governing, I think strikes a chord with people.

• 21:35Rory Stewart?

  Well, I'm not sure they've given up on governing. I mean, I think that was given the hand he's been dealt. I think a lot of the things they did were smart, thoughtful, but the overall picture, as you say, is catastrophic. I think the big problem for the Tories is not Jeremy Hunt's budget. The big problem for the Tories is Liz Truss and Kwasi Koting. I think that they are not going to be able to recover from that blow to their economic credibility. They can do all they want to seem with Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, steady as you go and technocratic, but they've lost the ability to be a safe pair of hands because of what Truss and Koting did.

• 22:11Alastair Campbell?

  Even with, you know, so if you look at the OBR, growth forecasts. Actually down, borrowing figures were slightly better, taxes up, increased inflation, fiscal drag drawing more and more people into higher tax bands and debt at best stable.

• 22:27Rory Stewart?

  Well, the the economy is in a terrible situation. I mean, there's no doubt at all.

• 22:31Alastair Campbell?

  I think it's very hard for them to pin it all on Labour somehow.

• 22:33Rory Stewart?

  No, no, no, I don't think.

• 22:34Alastair Campbell?

  Or make it make it all a question for Labour.

• 22:36Rory Stewart?

  I don't think they can pin it all on Labour, but I do think as we get closer to the election, people are going to say, and how's it going to be any different under the next law?

• 22:42Alastair Campbell?

  For sure, for sure.

• 22:44Rory Stewart?

  And and Labour hasn't explained where they're going to get growth from either, have no idea where they're going to get growth from.

• 22:48Alastair Campbell?

  Well, they've come up with this symbolism, you know, talk about planning and all this sort of stuff. And by the way, Rory, on planning and on NIMBYism.

• 22:54Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 22:55Alastair Campbell?

  Which we agree is a big thing.

• 22:56Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 22:56Alastair Campbell?

  I got sent something from one of your former constituents.

• 23:00Rory Stewart?

  Ah.

• 23:01Alastair Campbell?

  Who wants to know whether you stand by something you did in twenty fourteen, okay? Rory Welk, this is from your own website, Rory Welk's decision to block wind turbines. And you launched, Rory, I cannot believe you did this. You launched something called Cumbria Wind Watch to stop wind turbines.

• 23:23Rory Stewart?

  One hundred percent, and I'll defend it to the hill.

• 23:25Alastair Campbell?

  Go on then.

• 23:26Rory Stewart?

  Because our income in Cumbria is from tourism. It's a national park area, our landscape is very precious and it is catastrophic.

• 23:34Alastair Campbell?

  But where we're going to wind turn, you've got a lot of wind up there.

• 23:37Rory Stewart?

  We do have wind, we do have wind, we do have wind in Cumbria. No, I think it's a very, very poor, short term decision for Cumbria. Those things will be up there for fifty years. They would destroy the landscape of Wordsworth, of Turner. We're bringing in seven and a half million visitors a year. We have a tourism economy of two and a half billion pounds a year.

• 23:53Alastair Campbell?

  But isn't this classic? Don't you think that every area of the country could say that something good about their area? Even Stockton, the famous, what did he call it?

• 24:02Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, exactly, James Cleverly on Stockton, yeah.

• 24:05Alastair Campbell?

  Have you ever called, have you ever called another hub being a shithole?

• 24:08Rory Stewart?

  No, I don't think I've done that.

• 24:09Alastair Campbell?

  Do you know, do you know of anybody who's ever called another hub being a shithole?

• 24:11Rory Stewart?

  It sounds like a place reference, not a person reference.

• 24:13Alastair Campbell?

  It certainly does.

• 24:14Rory Stewart?

  Um, no, on on NIMBYism and and your good challenge to me, I think this is a good transition to Holland, where the question of building houses and affordable housing is central in the next election. Shall we take a break?

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• 26:16Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to The Rest is Politics with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alice Campbell. And one thing, Alice, that I'd really like, and I think we both like to do, is to encourage people to pick up on some of our leading episodes, which are these interviews that we have done with world leaders, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, some amazing recent interviews. If you want to understand Israel, Palestine and the two-state solution, got interviews coming on COP and climate, probably, I think, some of the best ways of understanding the issues of our era and encountering some fascinating people is through the rest is politics leading. Would you agree?

• 26:51Alastair Campbell?

  Fundamentally disagree, Rory. No, I do. And, you know, I find it a bit weird that we get, we've had far more listeners for you and I blathering on about the Middle East, say. And I'm not saying we don't kind of know a bit about it, in my view, but actually, the feedback we've had for the last two on leading with Simon Sebag-Montefiore, historian, and Tony Klug, who's, who has worked for both Israelis and the Palestinians, has been phenomenal.

• 27:16Rory Stewart?

  Before that, Saad Awasi and Palestinian ambassadors. So there's been a lot, actually, on.

• 27:21Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, we'll do lots more. We'll do lots more. So, yeah. And then if you go back a bit, people like Francois Hollande.

• 27:28Rory Stewart?

  Yes.

• 27:29Alastair Campbell?

  Tony Blair.

• 27:29Rory Stewart?

  Yes.

• 27:30Alastair Campbell?

  Mary McAleese.

• 27:32Rory Stewart?

  Yes.

• 27:33Alastair Campbell?

  So, yeah, people should check it out. I think you'd, you'd enjoy it.

• 27:36Rory Stewart?

  And, and there's something for everybody. There are public intellectuals, there are writers and thinkers, there are heads of state, there are former primacists, there's people like Hillary Clinton taking you into the centre of the war room when she's making, when the calls are being made on the attack on Osama bin Laden, et cetera, et cetera. So give it a go.

• 27:54Alastair Campbell?

  Excellent. Now, shall we talk a little bit about Mr. Wilders in Holland, Mr. Millay in Argentina, and also these shocking riots in Dublin? Where do you want to start with all that?

• 28:06Rory Stewart?

  Well, let's, let's, let's start with the Netherlands and, and the victory, basically, of Heert de Wilders, whose extraordinary organisation, which isn't quite a political party, called the PVV, has just taken the largest amount of seats by a big margin. So just a little introduction.

• 28:21Alastair Campbell?

  Still a relatively small proportion, though. Thirty-seven out of one hundred and fifty.

• 28:24Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. So just an introduction to the, the Dutch electoral system, because it's fascinating. I mean, it is pure proportional. So a hundred and fifty seats, if you can get one hundred and fiftieth of the vote, zero point eight percent of the vote, you get a seat. And it has been run by coalition governments almost forever. And it's been a very, very rigid system. Hertha Willems is famous for being the longest serving member of the Dutch Parliament, but he's only been in since nineteen ninety eight. And this is partly, my friend Manik Salmont, who teaches at Yale, points out, because being a Dutch politician is unbelievably boring. I mean, to put it in contrast, the father of the House, when I was in the House of Commons

• 29:07Rory Stewart?

  as late as twenty nineteen, Ken Clark, had been in since the early seventies. So the fact that the longest serving MP has only been in since ninety eight gives you a sense of it. And the reason it's so boring is that everything is run on a partyless system, so much so that Manik jokes that you might as well just have one person representing the party in Parliament, because there's absolutely no disagreements within these parties.

• 29:30Speaker 05

  Does it make you less keen on proportional representation?

• 29:33Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think definitely this form is bizarre, really bizarre. And they signed coalition agreements where they have, over the last few coalitions, specified every single law that they're going to pass. So there's actually literally no point in Parliament at all. If you're in the government, you vote with every law that was agreed three years earlier. And if you're in the opposition, you vote against it.

• 29:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, but the reason we have this election is because that system broke down under the last coalition.

• 29:57Rory Stewart?

  And it breaks down when a surprise happens. If something that wasn't in the agreement happens, suddenly it breaks down. So Holland, moving forward, has gone through, I guess, what's happening in a lot of European countries. We talked about it in France. It broadly speaking had three big parties, had a Labour Party, a Liberal Party, which is the party whose prime minister's been in for the last four elections, and it had a Christian Democrat Party. And these three parties sort of dominated Dutch politics for a long time, and then it began to fall apart. And the left in particular, in the Netherlands, has really collapsed. If you put together all the left wing votes in Parliament, they're only about a third of the seats.

• 30:41Rory Stewart?

  And that's largely because the traditional manual working class has completely deserted the left, just as they basically deserted the Socialist Party in France. And I think it's a problem for the SDP in Germany as well. So Rotterdam, for example, which is a kind of big industrial port city, which was their bastion, doesn't vote for them anymore. Instead of which, those votes have begun to go towards far right anti-immigrant parties, of which the Wilders movement is a big example. Over to you.

• 31:11Alastair Campbell?

  I think it's right we pin him on the far right, but he started out as an advisor to Rutter, the outgoing prime minister. And it was when Rutter started to talk about supporting Turkish accession to the European Union that Wilders decided not for him and off he went. He's been around, as you say, for a very long time. I think he looked utterly stunned on the night of the election. And I think there's a warning in here for all parties that are way ahead in the polls, including Labour, actually. Because it's interesting how many young people voted for him and also how many people voted for him who didn't vote before. And I suspect a lot of people who told pollsters they were going to vote for somebody else.

• 31:54Alastair Campbell?

  But the other thing that happened is that the Rutter successor, who's a woman from Turkish immigrant background, she became the first of those sort of mainstream party leaders to say, well, yeah, maybe we could do some sort of arrangement with Wilders party. Which, in a sense, I think, pushed people who maybe were a bit reluctant to vote for Wilders, think, oh, well, he can't be that bad then. And I think that was a huge mistake by her. Now, we've got a very interesting message from my friend Jan Argo Fjortoft, who's a former Norwegian footballer, now commentator. And he said he'd like to hear, his favorite podcast, he called it, talking about why

• 32:35Alastair Campbell?

  we think, what are the positive reasons that people vote for people like Wilders and Millet? And I've been trying really hard to think of it. I think a lot of it is a protest vote. But I think if you look at Trump, Make America Great Again, I think it's they've somehow managed to capture alongside this vote for us against them, a sense almost of optimism. Provided you stick within your own culture and your own barriers.

• 33:01Rory Stewart?

  Which was true, actually, of course, of Boris Johnson, because he, you know, for his many flaws that we keep talking about endlessly, projected this sort of boosterish optimism. And a sense that things we don't get done. And the problem, of course, always with the centre is because it's been running things since the, I guess, the nineties. It always gave an impression of defending the status quo and defending the status quo often involves saying, oh, it's all too difficult. You know, we can't really do this. We can't really get immigration under control. We're not allowed to do that. So politicians who say nonsense to that, we can change things, are really important. And Het Wille dus is, of course, not the first of these guys in Dutch politics.

• 33:38Alastair Campbell?

  Pim Fortun.

• 33:39Rory Stewart?

  Pim Fortun.

• 33:39Alastair Campbell?

  He was assassinated.

• 33:40Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely.

• 33:41Alastair Campbell?

  That's why, by the way, why Wille dus, one of the reasons why Wille dus has been for years really surrounded by strong protection. He's not allowed windows in his office because they're worried somebody will pop him off.

• 33:51Rory Stewart?

  That's right. He's exactly, he lives this very, very odd life. So Pim Fortun, very different figure from Het Wille dus. He was much, much more intellectual, much more flamboyant, very openly gay and celebrated his sexuality, as well as being radically anti-Muslim. And that gives you a sense of how different Dutch populism is to American populism. So there's no space in Dutch politics, for example, in the way there is in the US for being, you know, anti-abortion or taking on LGBTQ issues.

• 34:20Alastair Campbell?

  But you do have that in some of these, but like Orban, part of his shtick is very much in that sort of social conservatism.

• 34:25Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely. But in the Netherlands, being on the far right is largely about Islam. And this began with Pim Fortun. And again, it tells you something, again, I'm quoting my friend Monix, about what Dutch tolerance means, because Dutch tolerance, going all the way back to the wars of religion, didn't really mean liking or understanding the other side. It meant despising them, but leaving them alone. And there seems to be, its dominant culture is aggressively secular. And there's a sort of sense of total incomprehension of Islam. And Pim Fortun really developed this. He said, you know, Islam is completely incompatible with secular liberal progressive values. Wilders has leant into that. He's also, of

• 35:08Rory Stewart?

  course, talked about leaving the Euro, leaving the EU. He seems to like Putin. He's interested in banning the Koran on sale in public.

• 35:17Alastair Campbell?

  He's already retreating on quite a lot of these things.

• 35:20Rory Stewart?

  And saying he wants to put them in the fridge. He says, I'm going to leave my crazy ideas in the fridge.

• 35:24Alastair Campbell?

  So, and that, I presume, is because he's trying to see what sort of coalition he could form. I think when you've won 37 seats, which is fair few more than those who came second and third, you, I think it's fair to say you can have the first go. Several of the parties have already said, no way they're going anywhere near him. That could create his own problems.

• 35:42Rory Stewart?

  I think he, I think he has to be prime minister. I think it's almost, I mean, I think, you're right, constitutionally, theoretically, the liberals and the left could gang up and stop him becoming prime minister. But I think for the people who voted for Wilders, that would be such a catastrophic.

• 35:58Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. But it's, but it's interesting how he's already trying to unwind, a bit like Maloney has done in Italy. Orban's the only one who's survived a long time, actually. He's been, do you know that Orban is now the longest-serving European Union leader?

• 36:10Rory Stewart?

  Amazing.

• 36:11Alastair Campbell?

  And he will be looking at this and thinking, when it comes to the next European elections, he'll feel the right is on the march. He'll also feel that some of the, the policy in Ukraine, he can start to shift, and also some of the policy on, on budgeting, particularly at the moment where Germany's in this complete economic mess due to the Constitutional Court ripping apart their plans.

• 36:32Rory Stewart?

  So I think it's very likely he will become the prime minister, and people are being too optimistic who think he won't. And I think the coalition will be him with 37 seats, the old Liberal Party of Mark Rutte with 24 seats, the NSC with 20 seats, that's Omskut, who's this very interesting figure who we talked about.

• 36:48Alastair Campbell?

  Who was ahead in the polls until two weeks before the election.

• 36:50Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely, and who, two weeks ago, we were talking about because he'd come out of this scandal around child benefits.

• 36:55Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Rory Stewart?

  He'd broken, very unusually, in this very kind of conventional follow-the-party whip politics, he broke with the Christian Democrats over this issue. And effectively, the Christian Democrats turned their back on him and cheated him out of his ability to win the election. The Christian Democrats set up a separate party, and out of nowhere, really, took 20 seats, which, again, is very, very difficult in the Dutch system. Again on, on Wilders, this is also reminiscent, I believe, of what happened with some of Frage's parties. He doesn't have a proper political party. There's only one member of Vildes's party, which is himself. There's no party democracy.

• 37:29Alastair Campbell?

  His MPs aren't allowed to speak unless he gives them permission.

• 37:31Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely. He chooses the candidates. There's no party democracy. And they can't look at his finances properly because he's only technically an association, not a political party. So he doesn't come under the normal campaign finance rules.

• 37:40Alastair Campbell?

  I see that the guy that he's put in charge of the coalition negotiations has already had to step down through some scandal. And this is what often happens to these hard right leaders. We've seen it here whenever the BNP have got into local power, that they tend to founder when it comes to actually governing. Now, Vildes, as you say, is a very experienced politician. Maybe he will prove us wrong on that. I'm not so sure that part of the driving of a deal in the coalition might be that he won't be prime minister. I think some of these parties might say, well, the only way we're going to do this is if you're not the prime minister.

• 38:14Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, or he waters down a great deal.

• 38:16Alastair Campbell?

  Then loses a lot of the support that he's had.

• 38:18Rory Stewart?

  Drops most of his right wing stuff, but probably keeps big restrictions on migration, asylum seekers, refugees.

• 38:25Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 38:25Rory Stewart?

  Probably expels Muslim clerics, which will be popular with his base.

• 38:30Alastair Campbell?

  But drop all this banning the burka, shutting down mosques.

• 38:33Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. Now, one of the things, though, that might be worth watching is that he won't push ahead with a referendum because he probably wants to get the farmers' party, the BBB, on side. And they absolutely believe that Dutch farmers are on the side of Europe.

• 38:45Alastair Campbell?

  Both he and Le Pen, if there's one thing they've learned from Brexit, it's that it's not a very sensible idea. And so they've both watered that down already.

• 38:54Rory Stewart?

  But he may well be no to more European Union accession. He may be no to European budgets. So he may be a problem for Europe. I think that this is a good transition to Millet in Argentina.

• 39:04Alastair Campbell?

  I've noticed from our sort of conversational traffic and on the sort of Restless Polities WhatsApp group, you're rather obsessed with his peruk.

• 39:13Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely amazing. And I think it's

• 39:15Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think it is a wig?

• 39:16Rory Stewart?

  It's, yeah, it's our big insight that we need to share with the world. I think it's almost on the level with my great idea that if you've lost something, it is where you think it is. The insight is that populism is all about hair. And Millet is actually known by Argentinians as the wig. People draw comparisons between his ridiculous hair and Donald Trump's ridiculous hair.

• 39:34Alastair Campbell?

  And Michael Fabricant.

• 39:35Rory Stewart?

  Amazing. And and these politicians make huge jokes out of their hairstyles, don't they? Again, Gert de Wilde, the populist leader has just taken over.

• 39:43Alastair Campbell?

  His platinum dyed.

• 39:45Rory Stewart?

  Platinum dyed, yeah. And the Dutch newspaper says the most famous peroxide since Marilyn Monroe.

• 39:51Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 39:51Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Alastair Campbell?

  Johnson?

• 39:52Rory Stewart?

  A Johnson too. Yep. So I think there's definitely, definitely, maybe not a whole book, but definitely a good article to be written on hair and populism.

• 39:59Alastair Campbell?

  Or a cartoon, possibly.

• 40:00Rory Stewart?

  Or a cartoon.

• 40:02Alastair Campbell?

  But Millet, a bit like Wilde, is finally is having to reckon with some of the consequences of his crazy policies.

• 40:09Rory Stewart?

  And again, we don't know. So again, I was talking to an Argentinian who was very much saying, thank goodness we got a Millet. It's the only hope for the country. Yes, he seems crazy, but a lot of it is a joke.

• 40:20Alastair Campbell?

  Call complacency.

• 40:21Rory Stewart?

  Exactly. And I think the question as we move to Millet is, are we to be reassured by the fact that when they come in, everybody says, oh, well, they're not quite so bad as people thought. They water down their policies, or actually they bring in quite good advisers and it's the people on them.

• 40:35Alastair Campbell?

  Trump didn't do any of that.

• 40:37Rory Stewart?

  Exactly.

• 40:37Alastair Campbell?

  And he's not dead.

• 40:38Rory Stewart?

  Exactly. And of course, without overdoing it, when some of these nationalist fascist movements took over in Europe in the 20s and 30s, there was a real tendency in the early days, say, oh, it's not too bad. They're probably going to be more moderate when they're in power.

• 40:50Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I don't think we should complacent at all. We should put in the newsletter a piece I saw in The Conversation from a guy called Aurelien Mandon, who I'm assuming is French or Belgian, but anyway, he's at the University of Bath. I think he sort of thinks people like you and I possibly have fed into this by the constant use of the phrase populism.

• 41:14Alastair Campbell?

  And I have, in the past, have worried about this because populism sounds quite popular. It's like, you know, if you're a populist, that means you're doing things to please the people. What's wrong with that? Whereas what he's thinking, his argument is that the far right is a dangerous political force and that the mainstream has done far too much to pander to it rather than challenge it. And I think that's what I was saying. Perhaps about the the leader of Rutter's party when she started to say, yeah, maybe. And when we talk about, you know, these people have legitimate concerns, which a lot of, for a lot of people, is just racism. So I think I think that there's, we'll put it in the newsletter, it's a very interesting read, suggesting basically that neither Wilders nor Millay are shocked

• 41:56Alastair Campbell?

  that actually we should have seen them coming. And in fact, we have seen them coming, but haven't worked out how to handle them.

• 42:02Rory Stewart?

  One of the the things that we just talked about in the transition is this, what they call livelihood security in the Netherlands, which is the housing crisis. And it's partly because they have a green belt, too. They have issues around nitrogen pollution. You know, many, many young people are now living with their parents or they're living in camper vans. And of course, very unfairly, the right of blaming asylum seekers for the absence of housing. It's a very familiar story, which we can see in Britain.

• 42:28Rory Stewart?

  But the litmus test, I think, really for all of this is going to be the French elections because Marine Le Pen is not going to have to need to compromise if she becomes president in the way that people like Wilders do. So the downside, and this one talk about electoral systems, of the PR system is that these people can get seats in parliament. The upside is that they're then forced to do a lot of compromises in order to try to keep her. If Le Pen manages to become president, she has, as French president, astonishing.

• 42:58Alastair Campbell?

  She'd be, as Macron has found, you can be hugely constrained by the National Assembly. But I guess if she's going to win the presidential election, then, you know, the National Assembly is probably going to shift in certain directions away. By the way, when I saw François Hollande recently, he said something very, very interesting. He said he wondered whether with Brexit, Britain had hit peak populism, but the rest of Europe has yet to to hit it. Now, I saw, I saw somewhere Fraser Nelson of The Spectator saying that the great thing about Britain is that we don't have a populist party with representation in parliament. And I think that is rather to overlook the nature of the current government. I think we have a populist government. And I actually think Sunak is becoming in his own way as populist Johnson.

• 43:42Rory Stewart?

  No, so I'm I'm going to challenge that. I don't think he's anything like as populist as Johnson. I think the, and I don't think we have a populist government, nothing like what we're talking about with Le Pen.

• 43:51Alastair Campbell?

  You don't think Braverman's similar? You don't think Braverman's like Le Pen?

• 43:54Rory Stewart?

  No, I think the challenge, there I I was about to come on to that. I I agree with you that the real question is what do the conservatives do after the election? And I also agree that if they perform particularly bad in election, it'll almost certainly be because they're flirting far too much with the populist right and not.

• 44:09Alastair Campbell?

  And that's the point that this guy from Bath is making.

• 44:12Rory Stewart?

  But I also think Hollande is on to something. I think compared to Wilders or Le Pen or Maloney.

• 44:18Alastair Campbell?

  And Sweden and Finland.

• 44:20Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, no, no. And it's also not just a question about the Conservative Party. It's also something very interesting about the Labour movement in Britain, because we've talked about how the left has collapsed all over Europe, lost its working class voters. And in cases like Holland or in Israel, the left has all but disappeared. It's barely a third of the vote. Whereas actually in Britain, the traditional left in the form of Labour is holding up. So Britain does seem to be a bit of an exception, but that's always worrying because the long term trends are the same in Britain as they are in Europe and the United States. And I think, you know, we may just be delaying this moment.

• 44:56Alastair Campbell?

  Well, let's talk a little bit about Ireland and Dublin. I did a bit of pedultery the other day, Rory. I was interviewed on a podcast which was presented by Michael Martin.

• 45:08Rory Stewart?

  Go on.

• 45:08Alastair Campbell?

  Former Taoiseach, now the Foreign Minister in the Irish Government. And he actually asked me on to talk about my book and populism, Polarisation Post-Truth. He asked me on before the riots. By the time we did the interview, it was in the middle of these riots in Dublin.

• 45:24Rory Stewart?

  Tell us about the riots.

• 45:26Alastair Campbell?

  So there was an attack on some children and a carer. Quite a bad attack.

• 45:32Rory Stewart?

  What does the attack mean? It means some Irish citizen assaulted some children at a carer.

• 45:38Alastair Campbell?

  Correct.

• 45:38Rory Stewart?

  Why? Because they, we don't know.

• 45:40Alastair Campbell?

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 45:41Rory Stewart?

  And then the news got out.

• 45:43Alastair Campbell?

  And then, like wildfire, somebody, interestingly, I think he called himself Danny Boy on social media. But he did a minute by minute account of the messages that were going out from these far right groups, including in Britain, including in different parts of Europe. So the word went around straight away that this is an immigrant who's killing our people, Ireland for the Irish, Ireland first. Then people with a, on the far right in Ireland with the following, essentially saying to people, come out, you know, without, they obviously stayed just, most of them, just the right side of the law, but essentially urging people to come out and fight. And literally within next to no time at all, there were buses being set on fire,

• 46:27Alastair Campbell?

  police, police officers being attacked. And all based on a lack of knowledge, deliberate disinformation about, about what had actually happened.

• 46:36Rory Stewart?

  It's very strange, isn't it, Alan? Because, you know, we were there together a couple of weeks ago. It seems to have a very, from, from an outsider's point of view, a very mature, successful, moderate government. It's had an amazing economic success story. It's leading European indicators across the board on a lot of key things. And yet it's also a place that, as we talked about, Sinn Féin, which is a very clear populist party, is now performing very, very well and in which things like this happen. So even in one of the real success stories of Europe with a very moderate government, you can see under the surface.

• 47:06Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, yeah. Well, Mihal Martin said in the, um, in the interview that we did, he said that it's always been there. It's always been there. And, you know, he admitted that kind of immigration was a, for some, for these people was a real problem. Now, the other thing you notice when you're in Dublin, as opposed to, say, being here in, in London or any of the big cities in, in the UK, it's, it's remarkably white. You don't, you, you kind of, if you see non-white people, you tend to, to notice them. So the fact that that could happen in those circumstances, and by the way, my favorite part of the whole horrible episode was the, the fact that the guy who stepped in and risked his own life to try and sort this thing all out, all out, was a Brazilian delivery driver.

• 47:48Alastair Campbell?

  And the good Irish people have now been setting up tons of funds for him to become, hopefully, a very wealthy delivery driver. But I think it just goes to show that, as you say, even in countries that we look in from the outside, I've got a very romantic attachment to Ireland. Most of my experience of Ireland is through the peace process, it's through lots of sort of nice trips there and lovely people that I know. So it did come as a genuine shock. But I, but I also think that both Mihal and Lea Radka, Lea Radka made a very, very good response to it. He wasn't doing what that guy from Bath University is saying. He, he really was totally calling it out. These people do not speak for Ireland, they do not represent Ireland. You know, he wasn't doing that thing of, you know, we understand your religious concerns and all that. He wasn't doing that.

• 48:32Alastair Campbell?

  And I think we need a bit more of that challenge against this hard right stuff.

• 48:35Rory Stewart?

  Now, finally, before we finish, you quite rightly wanted us to talk a little bit more about what's going on in Africa, and we haven't really had a chance to do that. I mean, there's been an attempted coup in Sierra Leone, which has been really interesting because, remember, we've had eight coups in Africa in just over a year.

• 48:54Alastair Campbell?

  You're including this one?

• 48:56Rory Stewart?

  No, this is-

• 48:57Alastair Campbell?

  This is a sort of-

• 48:58Rory Stewart?

  Well, this was very, very interesting. I mean, it didn't happen in the end.

• 49:01Alastair Campbell?

  No.

• 49:01Rory Stewart?

  Clearly, units of the military seem to have tried to seize barracks. The current president himself was a brigadier who was involved in a military coup in the 1990s, but is now a democratically elected president. Sierra Leone is suffering from many problems that are across Africa. I mean, huge inflation, huge hardship, massive youth unemployment, 60% poverty. But the reason why it's worth looking at is it's a different part of Africa from where the great belt of the coups happened, which is across the Sahel. Look at it, Matt. Sierra Leone is much further down on the west coast. And it's, again, an example of the real fragility. In fact, it's a fascinating interview that the current president of Sierra Leone gave to Al Jazeera.

• 49:43Rory Stewart?

  Maybe not worth watching the whole thing, but it is amazing the way Al Jazeera does this. Did a long, patient, long-form interview with the president of Sierra Leone. About 15 minutes through, he's challenged on his own participation in coups. And he said, oh, yes, well, the coup that I did in the 1990s was a good coup because, you know, this government was corrupt and useless and so on. And then, four weeks later, they're trying to coup d'etat him. Anyway, that then brings us back to Sudan. And over to you.

• 50:06Alastair Campbell?

  Well, just on Sierra Leone, though, I mean, part of the tension that's there is the fact that people are rather worried about how he won the election. So it's not just that he was involved in a previous coup, it's just that there's a lot of concern about whether he's kind of legitimate.

• 50:21Rory Stewart?

  Which is true, and this is the sad truth. I mean, we've talked about thin democracy before. We were understandably so excited by the movement of the world towards democratic elections in the 90s and 2000s. But for many people in these countries, that the fact that there are elections is not very reassuring because a lot of these elections seem to be stolen, power remains very concentrated, the economies are not performing. And that that actually means that sadly, many friends of mine I have who follow these issues closely don't really lament the disappearance of these democratic governments.

• 50:53Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. Well, that's one to watch. And the other one, I think, we briefly should just talk about, because we talked last week about how Ukraine- People are worrying that Ukraine is being forgotten with all that's going on in the Middle East. But Sudan is utterly horrific what's happening there now. And this, we've talked before about this civil war between the armed forces, the government and this, these rapid support forces. There was, again, Al Jazeera, there was a report the other day about this violence in Darfur that was, it was horrific to watch. And interviews with people describing what had happened to them. And it was, it was honestly as bad as anything that we were seeing coming out of Israel and Gaza. And yet, it's almost as if the world's media can't cope with more than one big thing at a time.

• 51:38Rory Stewart?

  So, so a quick reminder on Sudan. The longstanding president was toppled in a coup. There was a brief civilian government. And then basically there was a military coup. And then the two big generals in the military ended up fighting. There's the traditional military, which is run by a man called Al Burhan. And against him is this man called Hamadi, Mohammed Hamdan, who runs the rapid support force, who is associated with a very disturbing group, which emerged in the 2000s called the Janjaweed militia, who represent primarily more nomadic pastoralist groups. He spent part of his youth as a camel herder from a tribal background and were used as these sort of militia groups

• 52:21Rory Stewart?

  in Darfur on these attacks, which people will remember, older people remember, will. The great human rights atrocities championed by people like George Clooney in the 2000s. And now the fighting has spread to Darfur. Again, we've got over 5 million internally displaced people, 1.2 million Sudanese pushed across the border. Many tens of thousands have killed. And again, a story that we have told when we have been analyzing Libya, for example, of proxy wars, because at the heart of this is the United Arab Emirates.

• 52:55Rory Stewart?

  So this man, Hometi, was used by the UAE to fight in Sudan. They brought him over, paid him lots of money to bring over Sudanese mercenaries, effectively, to fight for them in Yemen. Partly with their support, he then got the major gold concessions in Sudan. So he's become a very, very rich man and his brother runs his company's out of Dubai. UAE has then given a $1.5 billion loan to Chad. Put that in context, the entire budget of Chad a year is less than $1 billion. And in return, has been allowed to set up a base on the Sudan border, which has a sort of a hospital in it for public show, but with very few patients, but is basically a supply base for landing weapons, which are then moved over to Hometi to back his side

• 53:40Rory Stewart?

  in the war against the Sudanese military.

• 53:42Speaker 05

  Were the Wagner Group not involved in that as well?

• 53:45Rory Stewart?

  And the Wagner Group are also supporting Hometi and also bringing weapons in from other things. So this is really, really upsetting, obviously, for the US, the UK, who are part of something called the Quad with Saudi, which is supposed to be bringing, and UAE, which is supposed to be bringing peace. So UAE, that's meant to be part of this alliance for peace, is actually funneling weapons into one of the sides, just as they were funneling weapons into Libya.

• 54:10Speaker 05

  And meanwhile, Qatar emerging as the great broker in the hostage releases in the Middle East.

• 54:18Rory Stewart?

  And of course Qatar also has had a very complicated history because Qatar has also had close allies with particular factions in Somalia, has allied itself with different groups in Libya. So this is, it does feel at times much more, not sort of Cold War, more sort of 19th century power politics, where you have a dozen countries interfering in other states, playing these sort of complicated games. And in the case of UAE, it's partly about... Them putting a lot of money into Africa. They're buying mines in Congo. They're building ports all the way along the African Red Sea coast. They're making huge financial loans to governments.

• 54:58Alastair Campbell?

  We shouldn't maybe keep plugging Al Jazeera as much as we do, but that is the only place where I've seen significant coverage of either of these two situations. And the other thing, I was actually channel hopping the other day and Fiona came in while I was watching the Al Jazeera coverage of what's happening in the Middle East. And she made the point that you get a completely different picture to what you'll get watching. And I'd say most, much of our news, I mean, it's horrific a lot of the time, but it's actually quite sanitized.

• 55:28Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 55:29Alastair Campbell?

  There's a lot of stuff that you'll see on Al Jazeera, which we're not seeing.

• 55:32Rory Stewart?

  They're very outspoken. I mean, this interview with the Sierra Leonean president, the interviewer is much, much more blunt about what he remembers of seeing the atrocities in Sierra Leone during civil war and things. Little shout out to Declan Walsh, who's a very good British, I guess possibly British American journalist for the New York Times, who did some incredibly detailed reporting on the UAE support. And the New York Times still has the funds to do some amazing investigations. They use satellite imagery to compare the footprint of these UAE bases to the bases that they've been building in Libya. And they then used air trackers to follow in every plane. And it's extraordinary. It's sort of almost like a kind of intelligence operation.

• 56:10Alastair Campbell?

  Well, on the New York Times being an intelligence organization, which will end this interesting politics.

• 56:16Rory Stewart?

  Thank you.

• 56:17Alastair Campbell?

  See you next week.

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