Pod Insights The Rest Is Politics 218. Could the Democrats replace Joe Biden? What’s next for Imran Khan? Why are young people deserting British conservatism? About this episode What do Trump’s Nato threats mean for Europe? Could Pakistan’s military have the final say in the election? Why are young people turning against the Conservatives in Britain?
Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more on today's episode of The Rest Is Politics.
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]
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript 11,233 words · 13 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:04 Rory Stewart? This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
0:06 Alastair 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.
0:19 Rory Stewart? I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creef. 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.
0:42 Alastair 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?
0:49 Rory 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.
1:06 Speaker 02 This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.
1:34 Speaker 03 When you think about Crocs, you think the classic clog. But did you know there's also a canvas clog? A vegan suede clog, a coastal-inspired style. A style with studs, straps, and lots of sass. Honestly, I could keep going with the surprises. You've got to see them for yourself because there is literally a style for every kind of girl. So do your thing and head to crocs.com or a store near you now.
2:09 Alastair Campbell? Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell.
2:12 Rory Stewart? And me, Rory Stewart.
2:14 Alastair Campbell? As we said last week, The Rest Is Politics election tour pre-sale is now live for members of The Rest Is Politics Plus for 48 hours. And as members will have read in yesterday's email, it went on sale at 8am GMT this morning, Wednesday.
2:30 Rory Stewart? Exactly, Alistair. The link and pre-sale code have been distributed to members via email. The pre-sale will close at 9am on Friday the 16th of February, head of the general sale public, which is going to run from 10 o'clock on Friday. So book quickly.
2:43 Alastair Campbell? So a few tour de details. We will be kicking off in Brighton, Sunday, October the 6th. We'll then go for a further six shows in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff, to all those who say we never go to Wales, before closing terrifyingly at the O2 Arena in London on Tuesday, the 15th October.
3:07 Rory Stewart? Actually, this London performance, the O2, is set to be quite something. Our show is going to be hosted in the round, a bit like a boxing bout, Alistair, or like that play, cabaret, I try and make you go and see.
3:18 Alastair Campbell? I will, I will, I will.
3:19 Rory Stewart? It's the first time the O2 will have hosted a live podcast on stage.
3:23 Alastair Campbell? Excellent. Tickets are limited to six people per transaction. I assume that's to stop all the touts, Rory. If you're late to the party, you can still sign up to the pre-sale by becoming a member by going to therestispolitics.com. You'll receive the link, pre-sale code in your welcome email. And if previous shows are anything to go by, tickets will sell quickly.
3:41 Rory Stewart? And if you don't manage to get tickets in the pre-sale, you have another chance in the general sale, which opens 10am Friday, 16th February. We'll tweet a link the minute it goes live.
3:48 Alastair Campbell? Now Rory, I know you're very excited to be going to perform in Wales for the first time. But also, did you know the venue in Glasgow is called the Armadillo?
3:57 Rory Stewart? Yeah, Armadillo. I'm getting my scales on. I'm all ready to be reptilianly defended against any attacks.
4:03 Alastair Campbell? Okay, well, listen, let's get on with today. And there's not that much going on domestically. There's this Labour chaos in Rochdale. There's Rishi Sunak. I didn't watch it. I couldn't bear to watch his GB News thing. So I think we should have a very kind of a broad focus today. I think we should talk about Trump and Biden. There's two incredibly big, important elections. One that's already happened in Pakistan.
4:30 Alastair Campbell? And one that is about to happen in Indonesia, the third biggest democracy in the world. So we should talk about those. So does that sound okay with you kickoff with America?
4:41 Rory Stewart? Absolutely. And I guess there are lots of news coming out of America, but one of the first things is this whole question, which we're going to keep coming back to about people's comments on Biden's competence. And it may be very, very unfair. I mean, many of my, you know, my, my in-laws, who I keep quoting on the show, keep saying Biden is fine. And this is just a Republican attack line, but there is absolutely no doubt that this is going to be central to the election. So over to you.
5:07 Alastair Campbell? Well, I guess this, the reason this became so kind of big again in the American media and around the world, because this is such an important election for the world, was because of this inquiry by a guy called Robert Herr. Now, I, this troubles me that when he was doing his report, all the American news media was saying, you know, the well-known Republican lawyer, and it is a problem this, that we do have this sense now of this political polarization in the American legal system. But this was an investigation into Biden having kept classified documents after he stopped being vice president. Now, the prosecutor, this guy Herr, he said there were no criminal charges to bring. Clearly Biden had taken documents that he shouldn't, but there were no criminal charges to bring.
5:50 Alastair Campbell? But he came up with these absolutely devastating, it reminded me of the Comey report on Hillary Clinton. Just devastating comments about Biden's inability to remember things. He said that he wasn't bringing a case because he thought that Biden would probably persuade a jury that it was an elderly, an elderly man who couldn't remember anything, which if you're the president going for your second term is devastating. Said that he couldn't remember when he was vice president, which I frankly just don't believe. Couldn't remember when his son had been killed, and that really did seem to get to Biden.
6:22 Rory Stewart? It's extraordinary that, isn't it? Just, just some of the, the quotes. You know, Mr. Biden's recorded conversations in 2017 are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events, straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries. In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse, said six years later, did not remember. When he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began. And I mean, interesting for people like me who are sort of obsessive watchers of US policy on Afghanistan. He got very confused about his view on Afghanistan in two thousand nine and his relationship to General Ikenbry. Ikenbry was the American general who became the ambassador and who, like Biden,
7:05 Rory Stewart? was very skeptical about the surge and was in favor of more of a light footprint in Afghanistan. But he says his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him, amongst other things. He mistakenly said he had a real difference of opinion with General Carl Ikenbry, when in fact Ikenbry was an ally, who Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memory to President Obama. Now, the the the defense, I guess, mounted by, I'm sorry to keep pulling Shashana's parents to this, but I think they will be representative of many, many loyal Democrats, is to say, yes, his memory may be gone and older people struggle to remember things and that's normal. But that's not the same in any way as saying he's senile and that he's still able to make decisions well.
7:48 Rory Stewart? The performance, the economy implies that he's presiding well over the United States. And that if he was genuinely suffering from some kind of dementia, you'd have many more people from his administration resigning and breaking away and complaining about it, which isn't happening. So I guess the defense says, yes, he's old and old people's memory goes. But that isn't the same as him being unfit to be president.
8:10 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, and I suppose part of the defense as well is that this did seem to be a very, very political act. I don't think there's getting away from that. You get the feeling that this guy, Herr, couldn't nail him for having broken any laws that justified bringing criminal charges and all the complexities that would bring with a serving president. But at the same time, felt he had to land a few blows, and these were devastating blows, sufficient for Biden to feel he had to go out and address the media and address the country. And of course, wasn't helped by the fact that having already mixed up Mitterrand and Macron, he then mixed up Sisi, the ruler of Egypt, with the president of Mexico. So these kind of little missteps and.
8:50 Alastair Campbell? By the way, Joe Biden is quite famous for his gaffes through his entire career.
8:56 Rory Stewart? Yeah.
8:56 Alastair Campbell? And I don't know if you saw, Rory, I sent you a picture of yesterday was the forty ninth anniversary of Margaret Thatcher becoming leader of the Conservative Party. And there was a picture of Margaret Thatcher in her first year as opposition leader almost half a century ago with the then Delaware Senator Joe Biden. So experience he most certainly has, but he's always kind of made these gaffes. But I think your point about the economy is interesting as well, because the economy, if you look at the numbers, is doing well. You know, you've got disposable personal income, unlike here, for example, in the UK, rising. You've got real GDP up two point five percent. And, you know, he does have very good economic numbers.
9:41 Alastair Campbell? And yet, a poll the other day gave Trump a double digit lead on the economy. So it's almost as if the sense of what is actually happening in the country related to what's happening politically, there's a disconnect which he's not at the moment able to fix.
9:58 Rory Stewart? Yeah, so that's an interesting thing. I mean, this great line, which we keep coming back to, it's the economy, stupid. And often when journalists cover this, or when I guess commentators cover this, they look at big macroeconomic figures. So and they're looking at the US, you know, growth has been very strong in the US, two point six percent, you know, compared to hovering around zero for Germany, Britain, and a lot of European countries. The stock market's been performing well and wages in the US have gone up above inflation. And inflation is now coming steeply down in the US compared to the UK again, which is really struggling to come on top of inflation. So the assumption is you look at those big top line economic figures and that should mean that he should have an easy run into the election.
10:42 Rory Stewart? But the reason I've always been a bit skeptical about this is I'm never sure how much top line figures produced by economists really translate into how people actually feel in their pockets. And to try to illustrate that, maybe I'm getting this wrong, but I guess if you're on a low income in the US or in Britain or anywhere, you almost certainly have a lot of debt. You're almost certainly struggling to afford housing. Housing is much more expensive in the US to where it was. Your petrol bill is up. Food bills are up and even if your salary has gone up a little above inflation, you are still very, very anxious. It's a sort of marginal change. It's not exactly as though these macroeconomic figures mean you're suddenly dancing in the streets and desperate to vote for
11:27 Rory Stewart? someone. But anyway, over to you on that.
11:28 Alastair Campbell? Well, no, that is true, but my God, Rishi Sunak, what he wouldn't give for the numbers that the Americans have right now. Look, Joe Biden is, he's clearly not stepping down. That seems pretty clear to me. There was a real rallying around of him. Kamala Harris went out to speak in his defence and say how well she thought he was doing. Senior Democrats went out, very significantly, I think his wife Jill went out, did an interview, spoke publicly, doesn't do that that often, said that, you know, he's vigorous and he's fit and all this stuff. But you're right that this is going to become huge. And of course, if he was up against a reasonable, mild mannered, fair sort of opponent, it would be, you know, probably you could get through it.
12:11 Alastair Campbell? With Trump, who is an absolute, as Robert Sapolsky in the absolutely wonderful episode of Leading This Week, Rory, and thank you for getting him on. I thought he was absolutely brilliant. But the whole, you know, Trump is the biggest baboon in the jungle and he is going to pit every weak point of Biden that he can. And this, of course, you know, yes, we talk about Biden's age, but I do think in terms, certainly in terms of UK's relevance to this election and what we need to get out of this election. I do think the far more significant this thing this week was this stump speech that Trump gave. You know, he stands up at these big rallies and he just sort of blathers on. And you don't know, I mean, we go on about Biden's sort of mental capacity. Heaven knows what's going on inside Trump's head.
12:56 Rory Stewart? Can I come in on that one quickly? Because I think that's, that's of course what Democrats are now saying. They're, they're saying, look, Biden may be a bit forgetful, but people increasingly saying Trump is showing signs of actual proper dementia. I mean, they, they point to him doing an extraordinary speech where he keeps saying, you know, of the Democrats, when they're going to change the name of Pennsylvania. And he certainly seems to often speak as though he thinks Obama's still president and he confuses Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley, but it, but it's more than that. Paul Krugman uses this word of kind of a word salad that really something very, very odd goes on in the neural networks of Donald Trump. But again, His defenders say, well, that's just Trump. He's always been a bit like that.
13:38 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, but you know, two things this week. The first was you mentioned Nikki Haley. He said, you know, this is a guy, by the way, whose wife Melania, nobody ever sees. And I think who was he? We were talking on leading this week to Anthony Scaramucci, who was very briefly served as Trump's communications guy. And I've talked to him before and he said, you know, he was telling me about how much his wife hates Trump. And he says, you know, my wife hates Trump almost as much as Melania does. So that's a given that Melania and Trump are not exactly the closest married couple in the world. And yet he decides to go out and make a thing of saying, where's Nikki Haley's husband? Why is Nikki Haley's husband not on the scene?
14:23 Alastair Campbell? And Nikki Haley's husband is serving abroad. He's a military guy who's serving abroad. So Joe Biden comes straight out and says, this guy wouldn't know service if it hit him in the face. But the other thing, I think the really significant intervention from Trump was this thing that he said about Russia and NATO. And this is back to his old thing, which he did when he was president. And he's fair enough to sort of call people out for not paying their dues into NATO. But he said this, you didn't pay, you're delinquent. No, I won't protect you. In fact, I would encourage them, the Russians, to do whatever they want. You gotta pay. So this is an American president, America being the most powerful country within NATO, essentially saying to Vladimir Putin, just as he said to Vladimir Putin,
15:06 Alastair Campbell? I think it'd be great if you hacked Hillary Clinton's emails. He's basically saying, you know, if you want to invade Finland, you want to invade Latvia, you want to invade these little countries around the place, just go ahead and do it.
15:15 Rory Stewart? Yeah, it's completely appalling because, I mean, firstly, because the words of an American president really matter. So small, small signals from the US led Saddam Hussein to feel that he could invade Kuwait. Small signals from the US encouraged Putin to believe it was okay to go into Crimea. This is not a small signal. This is a huge signal. And of course, the reality is that NATO countries will not meet the 2% before Trump is in office. So I think that's first thing. Secondly, a little bit of background just on where we are with NATO funding. So NATO has committed, all the countries NATO, and just to remind people, North Atlantic Treaty
15:56 Rory Stewart? Organisation, set up after the Second World War, initially arranged around countries like the UK, Canada and the US and others, but increasingly encompassing most of the countries of Europe. And broadly speaking, NATO countries fall into a third who are paying more than 2%, a third who are on track to get there, and a third who are nowhere near getting there. So the ones that are already there, UK up at 2.2%, places like Poland up in the high three is even maybe low 4%, a big expenditure, the Baltics, so the closer you are to Russia, the more you're spending on defence. And then countries like Spain, well, well below, Italy, well below.
16:34 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
16:35 Rory Stewart? Germany and France on track probably to get to 2%, which matters because they're enormous economies. The trend since Trump came in, actually, if you wanted to defend Trump for a second, whether to do with his pressure or whether just to do with the way that Russia's behaved, these countries have massively increased their spending since 2016. So I think there's an additional $350 billion of NATO expenditure compared to what it would have been if they hadn't increased. And Germany's increased to 2%, it's a big thing.
17:03 Alastair Campbell? I think Germany's in particular, there was very much a response to Russia, Ukraine. That's when the big, the big hike came. But this is, you know, we've just had the election in Finland, where, dare I say, Rory, my friend beat your friend.
17:16 Rory Stewart? And that was not good. That was a depressing thing, just as my friend was offering to come on the podcast.
17:22 Alastair Campbell? Well, we'll get, we'll try and get the new president, Alexander Stubb, on, as former Prime Minister. And, but, you know, that debate about defence and relation, you know, how you deal with the threat from Russia was absolutely central to the campaign. And then literally in the week of that final week of voting, up pops Trump. I wouldn't even think about the consequences to these other countries. I very much doubt it. And of course, when we spoke to Guy Hofstadt, the former Belgian Prime Minister on leading recently, he was making this point that, you know, Europe has to think more seriously now about its own defences, because if Trump does win, Europe cannot rely on America in the same way as it can right now.
17:59 Rory Stewart? And the problem is that it's got an unbelievable hill to climb. I mean, I think it would be a mistake to think that even if these countries were spending 2%, they would be anywhere close. To being able to deal with this. I mean, as I've pointed out, the US is producing 10 times as much support to Ukraine as any other
18:16 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
18:16 Rory Stewart? single country. And it's not just the 2%, it's that the under expenditure, this peace dividend since the end of the Cold War, has meant that capability is so eroded. Most of these countries haven't been doing proper training exercises. There's been a real lack of investment in basic stuff like ammunition. And then there's been this fact that really, since Iraq and Afghanistan, insofar as countries have been doing anything, they've been doing fights against insurgent groups like the Taliban. And that's a very different type of fighting compared to fighting Russia. So they haven't been investing in tanks, they haven't been investing in artillery, they haven't been investing in these very complicated command and control things which have become central in Ukraine. So really building up, I mean,
19:01 Rory Stewart? even if they got to the 2%, really building up to be in a position to begin to defend themselves against Russia.
19:08 Alastair Campbell? And meanwhile, Rory, we've got this big NATO exercise that's about to happen. UK, as you say, one of the few countries that is spending 2% plus. And yet, aircraft carrier one gets ground docked, can't go. Don't worry, says government, we've got another one, we can send that one. And now it turns out that one can't go either. And meanwhile, our Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, is writing articles for the Daily Express, saying that he's going to wage war on woke inside the army. This is not a serious government.
19:42 Rory Stewart? Yeah, I think the Britain situation is a really good way of looking at the problems that are going to face all the non-US NATO countries as they begin to build up. Because you're right, Britain's spending 2.2%. And when I was Chair of Defence Committee, I was one of the people leading this campaign to get the 2%, which we got through. But of course, the actual debt of the military is unbelievable. There are tens of billions of pounds in the red. And they bought these very high status things like aircraft carriers. But of course, an aircraft carrier is a floating target unless you surround it with a lot of other ships that we can't afford, and unless you pay for planes to go on it. So these things can take over thirty planes. We can't pay for the planes to go on the aircraft carrier. So the whole thing is, you know, that's just one example you've pointed to of
20:27 Rory Stewart? problems right the way through the military. And to actually sort those problems out would probably cost, you know, tens of billions of pounds more a year. And the question is whether a Labour government's going to produce that, probably not, with all the other priorities they have on their table.
20:43 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, I do think, though, that defence and foreign policy should be playing a much bigger part in the national debate right now. You know, you and I did an event the other day for fourteen hundred people in the business world, and I did a couple of other events last week, and I've added to my
21:00 Rory Stewart? I seem to remember you did four in twenty four hours.
21:02 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, but they weren't
21:03 Rory Stewart? An evening event, morning lunch, an evening.
21:06 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, but some of them were of a charitable nature, Rory. It wasn't just a sort of, you know,
21:11 Rory Stewart? It's still exhausting.
21:12 Alastair Campbell? It's quite exhausting, yeah. But I've added, you know, when I like to get show of hands, I've added one, which is, do you think the world is more or less safe than it was ten years ago? And it's like, everybody is saying, a hundred percent of people are saying, the world is less safe. Now, that does mean, you would think, that we should be having a more serious debate, which is right at the centre of political debate right now, about defence and security. And, you know, I don't think we're really having that debate.
21:42 Rory Stewart? One small update for people, which is just sort of breaking news as we're recording the podcast. Listen, this will be very work, as we talked about a lot, that for months now, the assistance package to Ukraine has been delayed in the Senate. And there was a breakthrough, Monday, US time, late Monday night, US time, where finally, key senators, key Republican senators in particular, voted with the Democrats. Seventeen Republicans joined the Democrats to pass it by sixty six thirty three, which means that probably on Wednesday, we will be in a situation where that bill finally goes through, which is a huge deal. That's ninety five billion dollars, with sixty billion for Ukraine. And it's encouraging in a way, because these are Republican senators breaking directly against Trump. I mean, Trump has basically
22:27 Rory Stewart? Given orders that this bill is to be stopped. Supporters of his have been out saying this is a deliberate attempt to undermine Trump by baking money into the system before Trump takes over. But most of the Republican leadership, Mitch McConnell, a lot of the armed services and veterans are remaining relatively traditional Republican and have voted with the Democrats to get this through. So that that will make a huge difference that Ukraine front. I mean, literally $60 billion worth of difference.
22:53 Alastair Campbell? And that that coming a week after the European Union finally got its package through by putting Mr. Orban up against a wall and putting his arm up behind his back and saying, listen, sunshine, you've had your fun. Now you're going to get, you know, you're not going to block this. So that is, that is good news.
23:10 Rory Stewart? Can I just on a sort of final thing, we talk about these events we do together. One of the questions we've been asking when we're doing live events, we'll do it again when people come and hear us in the O2 and elsewhere, is who thinks Trump's going to win and who thinks Biden's going to win?
23:22 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
23:23 Rory Stewart? But I've been on an obsession since, I guess, the end of last year, that we're going to end up with a president who's neither Trump or Biden. And structurally, we've talked about the problems with their aging and memories. We've got the legal challenges against Trump. I, I think there's an increasing chance, I don't know whether it's 30, 40% chance, that we could end up with a president who's neither Trump or Biden. And I think we need to start discussing maybe in future podcasts, who could be a Democratic replacement for Biden, even though people think that's never going to happen, even though it seems structurally almost impossible to bring in a replacement.
24:01 Alastair Campbell? Yeah. We should just say, by the way, that at that event that we did together and at the other events I did last week, there has been an absolutely massive shift towards people think that Trump is going to be the president. Now, I, I think it is not going to be Trump. That may be wishful thinking. But I do think, you know, you and I have argued about this for well over a year now. I thought the age thing would not become the issue that it is clearly becoming. I saw a poll, an American poll the other day, saying it's now, you know, it's the number one kind of talking point in terms of, you know, when people talk about Biden, it's the first thing that they, that they talk about. There is sort of. There is a kind of thing running that Michelle Obama is going to just sort of pop up at the last minute. And now I think that's highly unlikely.
24:44 Alastair Campbell? But yeah, you're probably right. We should talk about some of the others who who may be involved. Maybe before we we leave America, Rory, we should just point out that Taylor Swift won the Super Bowl. Quite an amazing achievement. She, I don't think she played exactly, but and so I can't remember who it was, but my favorite tweet of the whole. Well, first of all, Andy Murray, shout out to Andy Murray, the tennis player. He did say, congratulations for Taylor Swift for winning the Super Bowl. But somebody else said, you know, great victory for the deep state. The deep state always wins in the end.
25:15 Rory Stewart? What could just help me because I'm I'm missing this. My mother's now talking all the time about Taylor Swift. Why is the public suddenly more focused on Taylor Swift than ever before?
25:23 Alastair Campbell? Well, first of all, because she is a massive star. I don't know whether she's the biggest, but she's one of the biggest sort of musicians on the planet. She's got a massive following, very, very loyal following. They call Swifties, Rory. And the Republic, because she's pro Biden, the Republicans have decided to go for her. She has this relationship. Her boyfriend is this guy Travis Kelsey, who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs who won. And it was an amazing, I'm not a big NFL fan.
25:52 Rory Stewart? And you told us, you told us last week that the theory from the Republicans is it was all going to be rigged so that he could win.
25:58 Alastair Campbell? Correct. And adding fuel to that theory is the fact that they got a kick. They they scored like with seconds to go in in the game. So it went into what's called overtime and they won in overtime. So incredibly kind of dramatic win. Cameras all around Taylor Swift the whole time. And then the sort of big hugging and kissing with the boyfriend. Since when Trump has come out himself attacking Taylor Swift because he says that the changes that he made to music legislation when he was president is what's made her rich and famous. I mean, as you know, nothing can happen in the world. So so I think we should, I I've become a huge fan of Taylor Swift just for the fact that she so clearly gets under the skin of Trump and all his supporters.
26:43 Rory Stewart? Very good. Okay. Now, the final, final thing you brought to our attention before we go to the break is. The fact that the UK is an outlier in the number of younger people who are voting Labour and against the Conservatives. Now, that wouldn't normally be surprising. I mean, normally we expect younger people to be more left wing. But actually, in many countries, as you've pointed out, strangely, younger people, and particularly young men, are often actually quite conservative and are voting for populist right wing parties.
27:10 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
27:10 Rory Stewart? But in the UK, that doesn't seem to be true. Over to you on some of the reasons why that might not be true in the UK.
27:16 Alastair Campbell? Well, I don't know about the reasons, but this guy, John Byrne Murdoch, who if people don't follow him, they should, because he's very good at sort of drilling down on on data. And essentially, what it's showing is that, I think it's fair to say that the young are pretty much giving up on the Conservatives. Whereas in other countries, as you say, there is still this sort of propensity to believe that, well, maybe conservatism, strong leadership, all the sort of patriotic stuff that the right tries to take for itself.
27:45 Rory Stewart? Do you think there's also possibly an incumbency thing, which is that young people often around the world are pretty angry about their economic prospects, pretty angry about the way the world's going. So if you've got a a left wing government in, they will gravitate towards the right. And if you've got a right wing government in, they'll gravitate against.
28:02 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, possibly. But the thing that that's happening here, if you look at the numbers and the graphs, the thing that really seems to be driving this is the fact that the the young generation in our country, and there's plenty of evidence why they should feel this, feel that there's been a kind of effective breakdown of upward social mobility. And a lot of that measured in in housing and the difficulties young people are finding to get on the on the housing ladder or to get any housing at all other than with their with their parents. So, for example, the share of 25 to 34 year olds who own their own home in the US is six percentage points lower than it was in 1990. In Germany, it's eight points lower.
28:44 Alastair Campbell? In France, it's three points lower. In Britain, it's 22 points lower. That's a huge drop in people who feel that they cannot get into a situation where where they can get their own home. And bear in mind, one of the big things of conservative leadership, I think the last five prime ministers have all promised that this kind of thing of people getting their first foot on the housing ladder is a big thing, and it's just not happening.
29:10 Rory Stewart? Yeah, and I think the other thing that you brought to my touch that article is is the percentage of young people thinking that hard work is going to bring rewards is much lower in Britain. It's now thirty nine percent in Britain compared to forty nine percent in Germany, sixty percent of the US. And that's interesting because actually, if you go back to twenty twelve, this statistic on whether hard work would bring rewards actually had the UK quite high. I mean, the US has always been much higher, partly because Americans are astonishingly optimistic, often against all the evidence on these kinds of things. But it has dropped dramatically in the UK. Actually, these things are dropping all around the world, which is one of the things that's fueling, I think, far right populism. But it's more dramatic, the drops in the UK than elsewhere.
29:54 Alastair Campbell? The other factor that does come up is Brexit. Before the referendum, the share of eighteen to thirty four year olds in Britain who said they strongly dislike the Conservative Party was at around twenty percent, and it's more than doubled since then. And I do think Brexit is a big part of that.
30:10 Rory Stewart? Very good. Okay.
30:12 Alastair Campbell? So there we are on young people loathing the Tory party. Let's take a break.
30:15 Rory Stewart? Thank you. Let's have a break on that subject. Thank you.
30:19 Speaker 02 This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.
30:48 Speaker 03 When you think about Crocs, you think the classic clog. But did you know there's also a canvas clog, a vegan suede clog, a coastal-inspired style, a style with studs, straps, and lots of sass? Honestly, I could keep going with the surprises. You've got to see them for yourself because there is literally a style for every kind of girl. So do your thing and head to crocs.com or a store near you now.
31:14 Speaker 04 Chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life.
31:21 Speaker 05 Botox, anabachilinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment.
31:32 Speaker 06 Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.
32:08 Speaker 04 Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.
32:20 Rory Stewart? Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics with me Rory Stewart.
32:23 Alastair Campbell? And me Alastair Campbell.
32:24 Rory Stewart? And Alistair, thank you at the beginning for calling out our Robert Sapolsky interview on Leading, which just to remind people who haven't got this yet, we've got a separate stream called Leading, which has these amazing interviews, which I think almost one of the things we're most proud of, where we've had everybody from Bill Gates to Arnold Schwarzenegger to, in this case, Robert Sapolsky, who isn't as famous as either of those. He is an expert on the human brain and primates' brains and spent years sitting in the Kenyan desert studying baboons. What did you make of Sapolsky?
32:54 Alastair Campbell? I thought he was brilliant and I'm in France at the moment and Fiona and I were driving down through France, listening to it. And, you know, I don't know about you, when I'm doing these interviews, I'm so sort of focused on doing the interviews and the next question, thinking what is being said, that when I get out of them, I sort of forget them. So it was almost like listening to it again. And Fiona had been saying to me, when I said, we're doing this guy called Robert Sapolsky, who's he? Oh, he's a famous scientist. What on earth are you talking to a famous scientist about that nobody's heard of kind of thing? But she said it was, and I agree, she said it, she thought it was one of the most interesting we've done. I got messages from people as Brendan Foster, the great athlete, sent me a message saying he thought this was one of our best.
33:31 Alastair Campbell? Svarna Gisela, who is the founder of the Abetas, Mrs Abba, she sent me a message saying, God, this was amazing. I got, we got loads of good feedback.
33:42 Rory Stewart? Well, I'm so pleased. Well, maybe we should occasionally, I mean, not all the time, but occasionally branch out and do more people that we think are kind of interesting provocative thinkers as well as as kind of leading politicians.
33:54 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, because I also thought the thing about, you know, we, you and I talk a lot privately about the whole kind of thing of mental health and and politics. I thought he was very, very interesting on the psychology of politics and and I just love the idea of him sitting there looking at baboons hitting each other on the arse and relating that to how Donald Trump behaves in public life. It's, no, I really recommend people listen to Robert Sapolsky, it was great. And do check out the pictures of him as well. He's a very interesting looking guy too.
34:23 Rory Stewart? Very good.
34:24 Alastair Campbell? Pakistan.
34:25 Rory Stewart? Pakistan, yeah. So quick introduction to Pakistan. Pakistan, obviously the country that formed after partition from India around an Islamic identity, ruled by a military government for many, many years from the forties, but settled into basically a two-party system. It's got an electoral system like the UK, first past the post, and its two-party system pitted the PPP, which people will remember because it's connected with Benazir Bhutto, who was tragically assassinated, but will be very well known maybe to many international listeners. And the government that was in power most recently, the Muslim League, run by a man called Nawaz Sharif, who's prime minister and has been prime minister in the past.
35:05 Rory Stewart? These two parties basically dominated Pakistani politics and they had two very different electoral bases. So the Muslim League had a big base in the Punjab and the PPP had a big base in Sindh, there around Karachi, until an incumbent emerged. An incumbent was Imran Khan. And Imran Khan set about from the 1990s onwards, trying to launch a third party that was going to break through. And Imran Khan, as you've pointed out on the podcast before, has been literally the most famous person in Pakistan since he was about 18 years old. Great, you know, Pakistani cricket champion, amazing sort of charismatic, very good looking figure.
35:47 Rory Stewart? Famous for his social life and it very difficult to think of a UK or US equivalent to somebody quite so central to the culture and famous. But even with all of that, of course, he really struggled to break through in a two party system. So when he first ran, got almost no seats. Next time he ran, I think he got one seat. And I remember in the past, when I used to spend a lot of time in Pakistan, so end of the nineties, early 2000s, everyone would just sort of laugh at the idea that Imran Khan could ever break through. And then he did.
36:15 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
36:16 Rory Stewart? Broke through. He became prime minister, took over the country and was then toppled essentially by a no confidence vote in parliament. So it's again a similar system to the UK in that way. He was taken down and then he was charged with a number of criminal charges and is currently in prison. And in this situation, an election was held with Imran Khan in prison and an astonishing upset because Imran Khan's party got more seats than anyone else and they would claim would have swept an incredible overwhelming majority if it had not been for amazing election interference.
36:52 Alastair Campbell? We should say, actually, you say Imran Khan's party. In fact, they all stood effectively as independents because a large section of the Pakistani population don't read or write and symbols in elections become incredibly important. And the PTI, Imran Khan's party, the symbol, unsurprisingly, has been a cricket bat and they were banned from using the cricket bat. All sorts of sort of attempts to to stop them running, all sorts of accusations of pre-poll vote rigging. And yet, as you say, those candidates who support Imran Khan and his party, the PTI, they have won 93 seats.
37:36 Alastair Campbell? Nawaz Sharif has come second and he has the backing, he's thought to have the backing of the army, which is incredibly powerful in Pakistan. He's got 75 seats. And then the PPP, led by Bhutto's son, Bilal Al-Bhutto Zardari, they came in third with 54 seats and are now sort of trying to play a bit of a kingmaker role. And although, as you say, the system is similar in many respects to the UK, one of the big differences is that they have three hundred and thirty six seats, two hundred and sixty six are decided by the voting that we've had, and then seventy are reserved, sixty for women, ten for non Muslims, and these are given out according to the votes
38:19 Alastair Campbell? that the parties got. But of course, in the what's going on now, the coalition sort of discussions, they are not being given to Imran Khan's party because these were all standing as independents.
38:31 Rory Stewart? Because he's not formally a party?
38:32 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
38:33 Rory Stewart? You you mentioned the military, and I think that's the big difference. We we've talked a lot about Bangladesh recently, and we'll be talking about Indonesia. But of these three enormous Asian Muslim countries that are having elections this year, the big difference with Pakistan is the military. And it's one of these countries, Egypt's another example, Turkey was, until recently, another example, where the military is almost everything. The military has a huge share of the economy. So when you retire as a general, you get to take over some military company. They get incredible preferences in the economy, they're immune from strikes, and their position is bizarre. I remember talking to a Pakistani friend who went into the parliament and went to see the chief
39:17 Rory Stewart? whip and discovered a full colonel sitting in the chief whip's office, basically telling the whip what to do. Again, Asma Jahan Gheer, who's an amazing human rights leader in Pakistan, her daughter has a big TV programme in which she criticizes the military, but an army major literally sits in the studio, and every time she's critical of the military, he presses a button and cuts her out. So if you watch the TV show, it's just sort of beep, and then she talks to another, she's saying beep again. So the military is the key. And the story of Imran Khan's rise to power is, of course, a bit more complicated, because you could present him as this sort of plucky democratic outsider. But the reason he got into power is that in those days, the military was behind him. So the military were fed
40:00 Rory Stewart? up with the Muslim League, fed up with the PPP, and put their weight behind Imran Khan, and they vote rigged and started. In his favour last time round and got him into power.
40:11 Alastair Campbell? And he now says they got him out.
40:13 Rory Stewart? And they now definitely did get him out. And why did they get him out? They got him out because when he was in power and took a lot of their tips, he then turned against them and began railing against the military and tried to do what Erdogan successfully did in Turkey, but Imran Khan was less smart about it. Erdogan in Turkey spent nearly 10 years working out how to undermine the Turkish military. There was then a coup d'etat, attempt against him, which he used very skillfully to shut down finally almost all the military opposition to him and create a secular state. And that's what I think Imran Khan was hoping to do. He was hoping to be the person who led Pakistan out of military rule.
40:55 Rory Stewart? And when he was taken down by these corruption charges, there were attempts by his supporters to storm military checkpoints. They got into a military barracks and all that, of course, has terrified the military even more. So they're even more determined to make sure that he remains in jail.
41:10 Alastair Campbell? This thing about the military is interesting. When I was with Tony Blair and we went to Pakistan a few times and the sheriff was in charge and of course he, military background. And yet, I can remember that you always had a feeling of the guys who were, as it were, current military. You really had a sense that even if, you know, those times where they say, let's just go and have a chat head to head, just the two of us and Tony Blair and the sheriff would go and have little chats. But you sort of had a feeling that the ones that were left outside the room, the military guys actually were just as powerful, if not more powerful. And the head of the army, Azim Munir, he and Imran Khan now are, I think it's fair to say, pretty sworn enemies. But what will really be worrying the army?
41:53 Alastair Campbell? Because what has to happen now, they have a few weeks to be able to put a government together. Very hard to see how this is going to happen because the various coalitions that are possible, you could have Sharif's party, PMLN, joining with Bhutto. But then they'd need a few other parties for that. You could have Bhutto joining up with the independents. But I think that then the question goes, well, who's the prime minister? Who's going to actually take the the lead in that? It's not at all obvious how this is going to pan out. So actually, it could be that at some point, the army say, well, look, amid this chaos, we are actually going to have to impose ourselves.
42:31 Rory Stewart? Yeah. And I think the most likely scenario is that you end up with Nawaz Sharif taking over again with a PPP coalition because Imran Khan says he's not going into coalition with anyone else, so that bunch of independents won't go. Some of those independents are already being picked off. Some of them bribed, some of them literally put in jail until they declare for the Muslim League. So he's losing some of his independence. And as you say, the army is now such sworn enemies of Imran Khan, they're not going to accept the idea of Imran Khan becoming the next prime minister or getting out of jail anytime soon. It's also a sign, I mean, we've talked a lot about the way in which in many countries, court cases, and this is true in the US too, are used against political opponents to rule them out of the
43:12 Rory Stewart? presidency. And of course, the background story around that is that these countries have incredible challenges around corruption. I mean, corruption in Pakistan permeates deeply the Muslim League, permeates deeply the PPP. And although Imran Khan himself may not personally be corrupt, he probably isn't personally corrupt. Boy, did he have a lot of corrupt ministers. And it certainly seems as though Bush Rabbibi, who's his new wife, I mean, so you remember, Imran Khan was married to Jemima Goldsmith, this sort of very prominent British, I don't know how to describe Jemima, she's very interesting, I mean, she's very interested in foreign policy, she's very interested in many things, but she was famous initially for coming from
43:56 Rory Stewart? a very wealthy British family. And he's now married to a woman who is his sort of spiritual guru. And she told him before the election that he wouldn't win the election unless he married her, which he did. And she wears a full niqab. And he's very superstitious. He believes a lot in Sufis. She's associated with a very famous shrine in Pakistan. And these Sufi shrines are incredibly important in Pakistani culture. These are people who brought Islam to that part of India in the early Middle Ages and who continue to have these kind of amazing magical powers. And Imran Khan's
44:30 Rory Stewart? Very into that. So he's been put in jail around allegations, some of which are very trivial compared to the kind of stuff that other Pakistani political leaders have been done for to do with, you know, a bottle of olive oil is one of these cases, whereas previous leaders have been in trouble for much, much bigger gifts.
44:46 Alastair Campbell? We're taking a gift, yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:48 Rory Stewart? It was, I think it was the allegations particularly are that he went to Saudi and Mohammed bin Salman gave him a series of gifts which were then pawned instead of being properly declared. But essentially, what we have repeatedly in Pakistan is that your opponents get put in jail for corruption. And then if the army wants to bring you back again, miraculously, the judges then suddenly declare that there isn't enough evidence and you win on appeal and you lose all your cases.
45:15 Alastair Campbell? Sort of nice little bridge to the election in Indonesia, which is absolutely fascinating, is AI. Imran Khan has been speaking from jail, as it were, by his supporters, releasing these AI videos and sound of him speaking. So he's obviously not, he's in jail and he's not allowed to put stuff out.
45:37 Rory Stewart? Just on that, because it's such a big theme that we keep talking about coming into this year of elections. Also really interesting, he's huge support for Imran Khan in the UK and the US, you know, many people will have picked that up in the UK, talking to Pakistani friends. He's got a huge aspirant support and they invested very heavily in tech and AI. So one of the reasons they pulled off this miracle of effectively his party, even if they were independents, getting so many votes is that you could ring up a hotline and this AI would tell you exactly who to vote for with which symbol in Imran Khan's voice in whichever seat you were in.
46:10 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, yeah.
46:11 Rory Stewart? And the military seems to have massively underestimated this. And the military itself seems to be also splitting the stories that actually there were junior army officers stuffing the ballot boxes in favor of Imran Khan in Hyderabad, Tunwalla, so in the northwest frontier, while other parts of the army were stuffing ballots against him in Punjab and Sindh. And final thing, if I wanted to be Dr. Gloom for a second, I think there is a significant chance now of a revolutionary moment in Pakistan. I think the military has massively miscalculated. I think this has shown that the military is split. There will be a lot of very angry people who felt that Imran Khan won a massive majority, was cheated of it by military interference.
46:53 Rory Stewart? This new government will lack legitimacy and I think this is probably one of the most risky moments Pakistan has faced in decades.
46:59 Alastair Campbell? And I guess the thing he has done, which no leader previously has even really tried to do, is to sort of break that sense of the military being the most powerful institution in the country. Now, he's in jail, so you could say, well, they won. But from jail, he's managed to produce this pretty remarkable result. When we were talking about Pakistan a few weeks ago, we were all sort of pretty much, pretty clear that Noah Sharif was going to be prime minister. Well, it's not totally clear right now.
47:28 Rory Stewart? And it's, I think, the final thing there is that his time in office was pretty disastrous.
47:33 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, and the economy's a mess. Economy's a total mess.
47:36 Rory Stewart? Yeah, you know, he's not an amazing pin up for liberal democracy. He had corrupt ministers. He was pretty authoritarian. He was shutting down the media and the press when the generals told him to. So one of the cliches about Pakistan is that if he'd completed his term in office, he probably wouldn't have been re-elected. But by toppling him, the military has guaranteed this amazing electoral turnout.
47:55 Alastair Campbell? Now, Indonesia, third largest democracy in the world, largest Muslim majority nation. And they are going on Valentine's Day to elect new president, vice president, parliament, local bodies. And it's absolutely extraordinary. This is a country, you know it better than I do, but it's made up of 17,000 islands over a space as large as the USA. 204 million people are going to vote. Young people make up more than half of them. The young is aged between 17 and 40. You can vote at 17. And the story, we talked a few weeks ago about how there's often a sort of a big shift against incumbents.
48:36 Alastair Campbell? Well, of course, in this case, the incumbent, the two-term president known as Jokowi, Joko Widodo, he can't stand the guy who has gone from being second, even third favourite, to now looking like he could even win on the first ballot, the first round. Is this guy Prabowo Subianto, who's the current defence minister. But he is somebody who's, I think this is his third attempt to go for the presidency. He's tried before to go for the vice presidency. And he's done something, you talk about a sort of smart tactic. We've talked before about the importance of running mates. Now, I always think running mates in America are overestimated.
49:15 Alastair Campbell? But in this case, what he's done is he's, he's taken as his running mate, the son of the outgoing president, who is very, very popular. The son is thirty six. You can't run for vice president or president unless you're forty. So how has this happened? Well, his uncle happens to be running the court that decided, made this new rule that provided you already had a position of political power, you could run under forty. And the two of them together have actually moved the dial now, sufficient for people to be saying that this guy looks like he's nailed on.
49:50 Rory Stewart? Yeah, it's again, really, really worrying. So Indonesia, I, I was a British diplomat in Indonesia for two years.
49:58 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
49:59 Rory Stewart? When Indonesia became a democracy.
50:02 Alastair Campbell? Just on that, so this place is seventeen thousand islands. And you're working for the British government out there. How do you even begin to sort of manage the coverage of a place like that? How do you even find out what's going on?
50:16 Rory Stewart? It's completely amazing. I mean, the, we had a great ambassador who said to people like me, I was the second century economist. I had a colleague, second century political, that he wanted us to get out to every province in the country. But it was an amazing challenge and these places are incredibly different. So Bali is Hindu in culture. Other parts are Christian in culture. Other parts are animists. It includes southern Borneo. It includes enormous places like Sulawesi, includes West Papua, which is Papua New Guinea.
50:47 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
50:48 Rory Stewart? So it, it was a creation after the collapse of the Dutch East Indies, this sort of colonial collection of islands. Sukarno, who was this charismatic independence leader, created this country. He essentially ruled the country till the early sixties when a general called Suwate took over. And Suwate then ruled the country till nineteen ninety. Eight.
51:10 Alastair Campbell? He used to, he had three decades worth.
51:12 Rory Stewart? Unbelievable. And I came in as a diplomat and saw this country go through the most incredible change. Firstly, there was a financial crisis that bankrupted eighty five percent of the companies on the stock exchange, drove the economy from seven percent growth to seventeen percent contraction overnight. It was unbelievable. Then there were huge demonstrations in the streets. Suwato was toppled and democracy was born in Indonesia. And of course, this is the nineties when the US, the UK and our allies were incredibly optimistic about all these countries we're talking about, you know, direction in which Indonesia might go, Bangladesh might go, even Pakistan. We were investing a lot in supporting political parties and democracies and parliaments, all those kind of things. And Indonesia initially
51:54 Rory Stewart? seemed very, very positive. So there were a series of presidents from different parties. One general came back in, but then Jokowi, who'd done a good technocratic job as a mayor and a governor, came in and the signs of trouble began to come when Jokowi started talking about standing for a third term unconstitutionally. And now we have this very weird situation because Prabowo was the villain, the sort of bogeyman in ninety eight.
52:20 Alastair Campbell? He ran the special forces, didn't he? He also very conveniently married Suwato's daughter, which is probably partly what led his rise up the military ranks. And then he got charged with all sorts of things to do with human rights and some students who were killed and trying to sort of quell the uprising against Suwato. Then he went off and lived in exile.
52:41 Rory Stewart? Well, so the big moment, and I mean, I remember the moment because I was sitting in the embassy and a lot of the senior staff was away, when these demonstrations of street turned into rumours that Suwato was about to step down in the cabinet and that Prabowo was going to throw a coup d'etat. So there were really serious stories about Prabowo moving military units around and trying to take over.
53:00 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, he was accused of stirring the whole thing up, wasn't he?
53:03 Rory Stewart? Yeah. And he didn't succeed in taking over then when his father in law stepped down after thirty years as dictator. And then, as you say, he's been running for election ever since. And one of the problems is that the first couple of times he ran, you know, democrats were able to say, this is a really bad man with a bad record. But of course, by the time you're running third, fourth time, it's not new news anymore. And he just says, well, that's an old, old story. We've moved on from that. And he's also done this bizarre thing, but of course resonates with a lot of populists around the world, which is he's reinvented himself as a bad dad dancer. So he does all these. Movies where he does this really embarrassing crap dancing and it's hugely appealing to younger people.
53:45 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
53:45 Rory Stewart? And to to working class voters.
53:47 Alastair Campbell? I mean, I made the point in earlier on that, you know, there's a massive, massive number of young people, so they have no sort of personal sense of that history. He has reinvented himself as this kind of cuddly, avuncular, even grandfatherly figure. And of course, with the son of the outgoing president alongside him, who's actually very popular, the outgoing president remains very popular. His son reflects that. So they've become quite a formidable team. And maybe we should put in the newsletter, there's some amazing footage that I was watching the other night on Al Jazeera of these rallies that they've been doing together in huge sports stadiums with sort of, you know, tens of thousands of people coming out. You know, that story of the human rights abuses, there was the whole thing about the
54:29 Alastair Campbell? abductions of these students, I think that 13 of them are still missing, their parents are sort of never stop protesting against this guy. He was also accused of serious human rights abuses in Timor-Leste when they were Indonesians were were occupying that. And this is, this is relatively recent. The big thing has been since he picked his running mate, he's now looking like it's entirely possible he could get over 50% in the first ballot, which would be an incredible achievement.
54:57 Rory Stewart? Yeah, I think he's very, very likely to win. It's very difficult to beat him now. And he's a really dangerous figure. I mean, you know, this is the full on populist authoritarian leader. This is a guy, Prabowo, has openly talked against direct elections. He's openly attacks the press. I mean, and and so.
55:14 Alastair Campbell? And the courts.
55:15 Rory Stewart? And the courts. So if you are somebody who cares about Indonesian democracy, you will be voting against him. But he will portray those people as a sort of out of touch urban liberal elite. He has a huge support amongst young people and poorer voters. And it's the same story again that we hear again and again, but this time in a country of 280 million people.
55:36 Alastair Campbell? And of course, the other sort of really strange element is that, so Jacoby's son is standing alongside Prabowo. And meanwhile, Jacoby's own party, which he has been running for years and years and years, they have a different candidate who he is now, because his son is involved, essentially, he's not sort of come out and said anything that positive about Prabowo, even though he was his Defence Minister for four years, but essentially it means that the very popular outgoing president is thought to be backing a party that is going to defeat his own party, who are now basically saying, this guy's kind of completely let us down.
56:12 Rory Stewart? Yeah. And Prabowo, I mean, we talk a lot about corruption in Pakistan. It's the big theme in Indonesia too. Prabowo is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Suwato family that he's obviously married into are worth billions. And he benefited enormously as Defence Minister from contracts. And then I think maybe to wrap up, I mean, you keep bringing us back to the way that social media and AI is changing the whole world. I mean, you can see this, there's a lot of these buzzer accounts, which are fake accounts promoting messages. There's a Ministry of Communications Task Force that's been set up supposedly to try to moderate these accounts. But of course, it tends to come down on the side of Jacoby and his son and against the opposition. You can see these hashtags that suddenly sort
56:54 Rory Stewart? of flash up in Indonesia. So there was one that was called Mahasiswabajarak, which means students on the run. And then there was one called Sayabarsama Jacoby, which means, you know, I'm with Jacoby on the other side, that came up last year. But these are elections in these huge countries, you know, Pakistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, again, over 200 million people, Bangladesh, which are increasingly formed by what's happening on social media and through AI.
57:18 Alastair Campbell? And the other sort of big thing that I guess is worth sort of reflecting on as well is that China, of course, again, very, very relevant to this one, because Indonesia and China were pretty much during most of the Cold War, they didn't get on at all. China has been a very important part of the economic development of Indonesia. But they, they say they want to stay very, very neutral between China and the US as the two great powers. But again, China is watching this very, very, very, very closely. No, it's a fascinating, fascinating country. And the story of this election has been, has been remarkable. And to see the trick he pulled in getting Jacoby's son to stand alongside him, that was, that was a game changer.
58:01 Rory Stewart? Good. Well, thank you. Thank you, thank you, Alistair. And, uh, see you next time. See you soon.
58:21 Speaker 07 The Great Game: Strategic Struggle Between Britain and Russia.
58:28 Speaker 08 We assess, uh, Prime Minister,
58:32 Speaker 08 with high confidence it was Russian.
58:35 Speaker 06 Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.
58:37 Speaker 09 They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.
58:40 Speaker 07 Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself, do you want to play, or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing!
58:53 Speaker 10 We would need to understand the policy context.
58:55 Speaker 07 All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today, disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO.
59:04 Speaker 11 A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia?
59:09 Speaker 07 Yes.
59:11 Speaker 11 New from Goalhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off?
59:15 Speaker 12 You're my soldier, are you? Sergeant Tom McDuff, Duffy!
59:19 Speaker 11 An audio drama journey like no other.
59:21 Speaker 12 Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons.
59:25 Speaker 11 Devized as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller.
59:29 Speaker 12 We have two tight friendly KIA's.
59:30 Speaker 11 Where Britain plays its strongest arm He's the best. Against its strongest foe. Don't do it, Duffy!
59:38 Speaker 11 Bear Hunt.
59:40 Speaker 11 Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Previous 217. Question Time: How to cover Israel-Gaza, Labour’s £28bn green investment, and Taylor Swift vs Donald Trump Next 219. Question Time: Vladimir Putin’s strategy, Labour’s selection headache, and VAT on private schools Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
