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Transcript 6,816 words · 10 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? Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.
2:13 Rory Stewart? And with me Rory Stewart.
2:14 Alastair Campbell? And Rory, we won't be taking any questions on the budget because that is happening Wednesday and we will be doing our response to it on Thursday morning, UK time. You will still be in Australia. So my first question, Peter Judge, if you had to come up with a single target for the world, you can rule the world now Rory, in 2050, what would it be? Mine, I think, would be climate. I think it's got to be, we've got to get this climate crisis under control and I really worry that we're not doing it right now.
2:47 Rory Stewart? Yeah, I mean, I think a very achievable target for the world to aim for is to eliminate global poverty. There are 770 million people living on less than $2 a day and we could, for very little money, for actually less than we currently spend on the international development, bring them out of extreme poverty. And that's very doable. The other thing I was thinking about though, I was talking to Shashana about this in the car today, just how much can change in 25 years? I mean, if you think the sort of period 1945 to 1970, I guess, how much the world changed, because that's kind of the first time that people went from the minority of people having flushing water, electricity, indoor lavatories,
3:32 Rory Stewart? telephones, et cetera, to almost everybody in the developed world having those things. Or the change in the 25 years from, I guess, 1914 to 1939. So what the world felt like before the First World War, British Empire dominating the world, everything seeming very peaceful, no war in Europe for nearly 100 years since Napoleon, or no major big continental wars. I suppose Franco-German exception, but basically a pretty peaceful time. And then suddenly it erupts, First World War, Second World War, Hitler, madness. The world in 25 years' time, if you and I are still around, is going to be a very, very different universe. One in 10 children born in the world will be born in Nigeria by 2050. And that's before we even think about whether Elon Musk has managed to make
4:17 Rory Stewart? it onto Mars in the next couple of years.
4:18 Alastair Campbell? I think he'd be beaten to by China, by the way, but anyway.
4:23 Rory Stewart? Right, here's another question for you coming up. Spoil ballots. Caroline Spellman. So Caroline Spellman is a former colleague of mine, Conservative Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, an MP. As the Conservative leadership contests are narrowed, I've heard voters discussing spoiling their ballot papers as they no longer support either candidate in the running, something I, of course, would be tempted to do. Can you explain the unintended consequences of doing this? So Caroline is obviously pointing out that although you might feel morally really good about spoiling your ballot paper, in effect, it's not such a smart thing to do. Over to you.
4:57 Alastair Campbell? Well, I think, I guess the point she's making about those who are spoiling the ballot in that contest is that they're going to end up with one of the two, Badenoch or Jenrick, and maybe they just feel that they can't bring themselves to vote for either. But the spoilt ballot that I worry about is in relation to the United States at the moment, and not just the spoilt ballot, but also what I see as the wasted vote. It was very interesting to me that Robert F Kennedy was one of the speakers at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally. Scaramucci has always said that these third candidates have been all part of Bannon's plot, Steve Bannon, the sort of hard right, alt-right activist and strategist. So Jill Stein, who's in there still fighting and, you know, very much on the kind of environmental
5:42 Alastair Campbell? agenda and also very much in favour of greater action on behalf of the Palestinian people. So people might think, well, they can vote for her and that's a way of sort of sticking it up to Biden, Harris over the Middle East. But then, effectively, what that's doing is voting for or helping Donald Trump, who is, let's not forget, the guy behind the Muslim ban. So I think that's what I would worry about in relation to that. If I had a choice of Conservative leader between Jenrick and Badenoch... I find it very hard to vote for either.
6:15 Rory Stewart? Yeah.
6:15 Alastair Campbell? Who would you vote for, by the way?
6:16 Rory Stewart? Well, it's it's a tough one, that one. Uh, so it's a tough one, but the point that Caroline would make would rather kind of
6:22 Alastair Campbell? Go and ruin their day by saying you'd vote for one of them. Go on, ruin their day.
6:25 Rory Stewart? On and on and ruin their day. Um, the way she put it quite simply is that by spoiling your ballot paper, you are increasing the power of those who do vote. So basically you're giving power to the people you don't like by spoiling your ballot paper. So don't spoil your ballot paper.
6:41 Alastair Campbell? Now, Rory, my favourite question of the week was from Brian Crawford. It asked us, Rory Alister, are you working people?
6:49 Rory Stewart? Very good. Now, this is a reference, people who don't follow the micro details of the British news. Keir Starmer was giving an interview in which they were trying to push him on the budget, and he seemed to suggest that people who made income from shares and investment were not what he meant by working people. Con, tell us a little bit about what you thought about that response. Was that good, bad, indifferent?
7:10 Alastair Campbell? Well, ask yourself this question. Is that what you wanted to be talking about just before the budget? That people who own shares aren't necessarily working people. Look, I think Keir Starmer does have a real problem with the way the media at the moment just seem absolutely hell bent on taking the smallest thing and whipping it up into the biggest thing. But you've got to be very, very careful about that. As you go into a budget, there should be a framing strategy, which I think to some extent there has been, you know, the black hole, tough decisions and so forth. But look, I would argue that we are working people, but we're not the sort of working people that Keir Starmer has in mind when he's talking about working people. I think what he means by working people are people who essentially are, you know,
7:51 Alastair Campbell? living paycheck to paycheck, who are doing a paid, uh, salaried or possibly even, you know, hour by hour, working for a living. I think one of the things that's changed in our politics is the definition of class. I mean, normally when you think of working people, I think of working class people, but working class now, you know, what is the working class? Is it the the gig economy? Is it delivery people? Is it the people who ride around delivering your food at night, whatever it might be? I think we've lost the traditional Working class and we're struggling really to find the language to describe what we mean by, if you like, the new working class, because part of what we talk about is the importance of the
8:33 Alastair Campbell? middle class and aspirations for the middle class. So I don't think it's a great debate to be having just for the budget.
8:38 Rory Stewart? I also think without being pretentious, this is a big issue because politicians need to imagine citizens or voters. And it was easier in the past where it was easier to sort of stereotype people as voting in line with their work and working in, you know, big industries or big unions. What I noticed when I was in Cumbria, ninety two percent of my constituents worked for businesses employing less than ten. Twenty seven percent of them were self-employed, nearly a third worked from home. And I realised that every door I knocked on was different. You know, I'd knock on one door, it would be somebody who was working as a telecom consultant in Dubai. The next person would be an aromatherapist. The next person would be doing fencing for
9:22 Rory Stewart? the sheep industry, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You can imagine this in almost any kind of part of Britain. And the result is that it's very difficult knowing what an economic development strategy looks like, because it's not, I'm going to build a big Pirelli calf factory here, nor is it very easy to know exactly who you're mentally addressing if what you're looking at is sixty thousand constituents with almost sixty thousand different jobs and which aren't really even documented. This is a sort of dirty secret I hadn't realised till I became an MP, which is the local councils don't actually know what people are doing in the constituency. We don't collect data on this stuff. When I said, you know, can you break down, you say, you know, eighty percent of people are working in services,
10:05 Rory Stewart? what does that mean? People get a bit vague and a bit elusive. They can't actually tell you.
10:09 Alastair Campbell? That is interesting. Yeah. Coming on from something I just said there, this is from End Populous Lies. It's proving to be a hideous mistake, says End Populous Lies, by Labour not to implement Leveson two, as we've seen a full-on Bannon playbook insurrection attempt against a new government driven by the mainstream media. What can be done to remove the corrupt Tufton Street stranglehold on the once world-renowned UK media? Well, I think we know where End Populous Lies is coming from.
10:38 Rory Stewart? Can I quickly tell people what Leveson two was? So Brian Leveson was a judge who started this investigation after journalists at the News of the World hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Millie Dowler. And the first part of the inquiry looked at culture, practices and ethics, the press, and the second part, meant to be an investigation through relationship between journalists and the police. And it was abandoned by Matt Hancock, who was then the Culture Secretary. And there was a lot of hope then that Labour would bring it back. And oddly, and this is a couple of questions are getting at this this week, Labour decided not to do that. And the other question I'm going to get us on to in a second is a question of Freeport's, where again, Labour hasn't gone against the old Tory policy. Tell us
11:20 Rory Stewart? whether you think implementing Leveson two would have made a difference, would have been helpful.
11:24 Alastair Campbell? Well, they obviously made the judgment that politically, they thought it would be unhelpful, because it would make the press very angry, running into an election. And therefore, I think Keir Starmer made it clear, without it being a big deal, that Leveson two, as it were, was going to be dropped. And I think a lot of people were pretty angry about that. The question from Npopulous lies, well, it wasn't a question, it's a statement, they call it a hideous mistake. I don't know whether it's hideous, but I think there is an element in the politics of this that I think is a mistake. Because I think once you've said to the press, well, okay, we know you got up to all sorts of terrible stuff, all sorts of corrupt stuff, all sorts of bad stuff. And we were very angry about it at the time, but we've decided because we've got all these other challenges to face now,
12:08 Alastair Campbell? that we're not going to bother with it. I think that sort of gives the green light to the press to do what the press likes to do, which is basically try and build up and destroy. Now, when we talked to Lisa Andi on leading, she was clear that the media landscape has changed so much that now it's much more, the focus has to be on social media and the impact that's having on young people, all that sort of stuff.
12:31 Rory Stewart? Podcasts, got to go after the podcasts.
12:34 Alastair Campbell? Exactly. So I don't know whether N. Populous lies thinks that we fall in the category of mainstream media or not. So I do think there was an element of it being a mistake. I think it was essentially, I don't think you should be giving out too many signals of weakness. And I think, I'm afraid, I think the media did take it as a green light to sort of do the kind of stuff which they're now doing. Now, maybe they would have done it anyway, but I definitely reached a point of thinking that the extent of the way that our media culture had changed was doing real damage to the country and to our reputation. By the way, one of the key figures in the whole Murdoch-Leverson phone hacking stuff was Will Lewis, the guy who's at the centre of this Washington Post stuff that we talked about in the main podcast.
13:18 Rory Stewart? But part of the thing is this whole story about, as Lisa Nani was getting at, as you getting at, just how much media's changed. And part of that is the story about Google and Facebook and what's happened to advertising revenue. I think as long ago as 2018, something like 90% of all advertising revenue was somehow being intermediated by Google and Facebook. And somebody explained this to me very well, that one of the problems for the newspapers is that now that Google can offer to sort of micro-target exactly the segment of buyer you wanted, I know, let's say I'm setting a Nature Valley Crunchy Bar, it can get me the 32-year-old man who's interested in buying, I don't know, stretchy workout equipment. There's no longer the demand to put a big ad in The Times in the hope that that 32-year-old
14:02 Rory Stewart? man who buys stretchy workout equipment might read the ad in The Times. So they lost, by 2018, they'd lost £100 of revenue for print and only gained £3 in return in digital, which implies a kind of 97% collapse in their revenue streams.
14:20 Alastair Campbell? I'm very, very critical of our newspapers a lot of the time, but one of the worst things that's happening in relation to the American election debate at the moment is that Putting to one side the debate we had on the main podcast about the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times not endorsing either candidate is actually around the US and around the UK, that financial change that you've been talking about has had a terrible effect on dozens and dozens and hundreds of local newspapers, which did play for a long time, a very, very, very important part in local democratic and other debate. And that's the part of this equation that I really lament.
15:00 Rory Stewart? We talked about this a little bit. So 200 local newspapers vanished, I think, in the years running up to 2018. When in 2019, when I was running to be mayor of London, I think there was still almost a million people reading the Evening Standard. When it finally shut and went online just a few weeks ago, it had collapsed down from almost a million down to 200,000 in just five years. And everything that I did in my constituency was all about the Cumberland and Westland Herald, which my constituents were reading it and we could really get into local detail. It's very bad for democracy. And the other thing, which I think connects to what you were saying with with Jeff Bezos, who owning the Washington Post and not endorsing Trump is it makes these newspapers now essentially
15:45 Rory Stewart? loss-making enterprises for billionaires rather than reasonable businesses. And given that Bezos basically is financing the Washington Post to lose presumably tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars a year because there's no advertising revenue coming in, that suddenly gives him the power to wake up in the morning and announce he's not going to be, you know, he's going to ignore the journalists and he's not going to endorse anyone, etc. And we're about to see the same presumably with The Telegraph, right?
16:10 Alastair Campbell? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, well, I think a lot of it is about vanity and a lot of it's about what they think is the power that goes with being a media owner. But, you know, query, I don't know the answer to this, but who is the more powerful media owner, Elon Musk or Rupert Murdoch? Don't know, but Elon Musk, I worry that what the new media world has created is a different form of oligarch that frankly at times seems worse than the old form of oligarch, which is pretty bad. So Rory, as you know, we are powered by Fuse Energy and we get loads of questions on energy and I want to ask you this because you're quite critical about a lot of Labour
16:51 Alastair Campbell? ministers, where streeting sometimes you're pretty praiseworthy of, ditto Peter Kyle. But what about Ed Miliband, how do you think Ed Miliband is doing, because he has got one of the big jobs, the mission, one of Labour's missions is about green energy. So what's your take on Ed Miliband so far?
17:06 Rory Stewart? Well, I think he's very interesting and I think he's very interesting first because he is somebody who was the leader of the Labour Party, could have been Prime Minister. And unlike so many other people, including me, who've sort of sloped off out of politics, he stuck around. And I think that's the first thing that, and he's really committed obviously to this job, which he's been leaning into and putting thought into for so, so many years. So I think that's the first thing. He's a completely different to quite a lot of the Labour Cabinet. I mean, he's been in the game much longer, he's much more senior, he was right in there, I guess in the early days with you in 97, and he knows this stuff backwards. And he's quite radical.
17:48 Rory Stewart? I mean, I think presumably one of the things that must be going on with somebody who's chosen, having been leader of the party, to serve in somebody else's cabinet, is that he's become very mission driven and that this is above all the portfolio that he cares about.
18:03 Alastair Campbell? Before he was back in the front line, as it were, he wrote a book, Go Big, and he was talking about sort of some of the big policy decisions that needed to make, not just in energy but right across the piece. And I think it is, I mean, you know, if you go through the five missions, I know you constantly complain that Labour don't communicate them well enough, but we know what they are and one of them is the, this clean energy mission. And, you know, I think the strength of his commitment to cutting carbon emissions over the next decade and to getting an investment, to driving innovation. Without it, then Labour are not going to be able to meet that mission. So I'm with you on that. I think it's, I think it's good that people who have been at the top level of their party stay in even when they've lost the, the top jobs. They stay in because
18:47 Alastair Campbell? they've got something to give. And I think I'm a bit of a, a bit of a convert. He knows that I didn't vote for him in the leadership election against his brother. I still think David would have been a better bet for Labour at that time. But I think Ed Miliband is, he's really found his passion. I think he's found the mission that drives him and I wish him well.
19:06 Rory Stewart? I guess the big question, just to finish on this before we go to the break for Fuse Energy and others. So just to remind people, Fuse Energy is powered completely by renewables and is putting its profits back into investing in renewables. But the challenge for Britain is that in a sense, we've got the low hanging fruit. A loss of the very dramatic reductions in carbon emissions in Britain were achieved by charging towards gas and closing coal-fired stations. Ed Miliband is now facing the really tough stuff. What do you do about the Drax Power Station, which is burning an incredible quantity of wood and is receiving enormous government subsidies? How do you sort out battery storage? How do you sort out transmission lines? I mean, to really make renewables work in Britain, there's going to be wires
19:50 Rory Stewart? running across the countryside in every direction. How are you going to do all this when the cost of energy in Britain is nearly twice as much as it is in a lot of our competitors? And this is having a big effect on industry. What do we do about hydrogen, et cetera? So so much to talk about. And I guess the question for your friend Ed Miliband is, apart from the big vision stuff, where's he going to be on the politics, dealing with communities, implementation, civil service, arguments about hydrogen, arguments around transmission? Anyway, all of that, all of that to come. And I think you had a final reminder about our signed copies.
20:24 Alastair Campbell? I know. And more book plug in Rory. You can win a signed copy of our books with personalised messages by switching to Fuse and using the code POLITICS. Learn more at getfuse.com/politics. That's getfuse.com/politics.
20:39 Rory Stewart? Okay, Alistair, quick break, then back with more questions.
20:44 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.
21:13 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.
21:43 Alastair Campbell? Before we get into the second half, I think we should definitely plug our interview with Tim Snyder, the American historian. It seems to me more relevant than ever as we're just a few days away from the American election. His take on Russia, Ukraine, his take on tyranny and the threat to freedom. I think people will find it very interesting and also quite alarming that we could be so close to seeing a Trump presidency again.
22:10 Rory Stewart? Required listening, definitely for anybody voting in the American election. I thought, I think he's so lovely and self-deprecating and funny and wise. And no, it was great. Alison, just before we get back to you for a question, one of the things that's very interesting is this question around free ports. And you've raised them, I think, probably half a dozen times on the podcast because you were very interested in what these conservative governments had done, which is basically set up free ports as special economic zones, which are kind of areas that avoid normal regulations and taxes and are almost sort of weird kind of anarchic fantasies. And there've been corruption allegations and T's port has been investigated a lot by Private Eye and others. So you've been very critical of it.
22:55 Rory Stewart? I guess you then might agree with Mitchell Bennett and Andrew Rivlin, who are both very disappointed that the Labour Party doesn't seem to be reversing the Tory party policy on free ports, given you were against them. Shall I quickly read those questions? So. Mitchell Bennett, you're both pro-EU, but the continued positive Labour stance on free ports is incompatible with closer realignment. Do we know enough about these ports? What are your thoughts on them? Andrew Rivlin. Do you think the Labour Party adoption of Tory free ports explains their refusal to return to the EU single market of customs? How can they justify free port adoption, given the loss of tax revenue and workers' rights? Sebby, over to you.
23:32 Alastair Campbell? Well, I haven't changed my view. I think the free ports are a bad thing. The free ports, as they were designed by the last government, and I haven't heard anything to suggest Labour are going to be that much different on them. I think they're a bad thing. I think they do allow organised crime, greater access into our economy. I also think that some of the corruption that's already been attached to some of them is not being properly investigated. And I think that we're coming up to the budget. If we're talking about taxation across the country, it should be something that we all understand and we all, as it were, share in. Now, I must read you, Rory. I bet you haven't seen this. I
24:12 Alastair Campbell? know you've been busy travelling around Australia. There was a headline about this on the BBC yesterday or today. "No new free ports in budget after, quote, "comms cock-up." So let me just read the story. What happened, I think where those questions are coming from, is the fact that there was a story that came out the other day. The Rachel Reeves is going to be announcing five new free ports on the budget.
24:35 Rory Stewart? Oh, my lord. Well, that would have enraged you, wouldn't it?
24:37 Alastair Campbell? Well, it now says, "Instead of announcing five new free ports, as was reported, the Chancellor will outline plans and funding for some existing designated free port sites to become operational." There has been a, quote, "cock-up with the comms," a government official admitted to the BBC. So I don't know quite what is going on. But some of these free ports that already existed have not been operational and have not had designated tax and customs sites. So I don't know. I honestly don't know what's going on. But I do see these as a retrograde step. And also, you're right, it's much harder to get closer alignment with Europe if you're going down this route.
25:18 Rory Stewart? Tommy Heatley. With a general election within the next few weeks here in Ireland, why is there never much interest in the UK re our elections here in Ireland? UK elections are always well reported on here with RTE having an election special for many hours during the recent UK election. Thanks.
25:35 Alastair Campbell? Well, the buzz is, the buzz is that the Irish election is going to be on November the 29th. And the only reason I know that is that the Late Late Show, on which I've appeared several times, have said they might be doing an election special if it is and do I want to be on it. Now, it's a very fair question. But I don't think it's just Ireland, to be absolutely frank. I don't think we take enough interest in all sorts of elections around the world, which is why you and I try to. But I think the other thing about Irish politics is it's very different to ours. You've got these two main parties, Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gáil. And you've got to be in deep into the culture really to kind of get the big differences. And I think the other thing that's been interesting in Irish politics
26:18 Alastair Campbell? recently that does seem to me that Sinn Féin are struggling. There was a while not long ago when we were talking about Sinn Féin looking like they were going to be dominant north and south. I'm not sure that's going to happen. But I also think, to be absolutely frank, the British people don't, they just don't take enough interest in in Ireland unless they've got a direct connection. And I'd like to repeat for the 11th time on the podcast, any Irish government minister listening, I still would like an Irish passport, please.
26:46 Rory Stewart? I think that's corrupt. Isn't that freebies or something?
26:49 Alastair Campbell? Why is that corrupt? If I'd be open, I'd be transparent. If there's any Maltese ministers listening, I'd like one of theirs.
26:56 Rory Stewart? Advice to any Irish politician listening, it doesn't sound like a good reason to give him a passport because he mentioned it on his podcast, doesn't it?
27:02 Alastair Campbell? But I did think around the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, they could have given honorary Irish citizenship to all the Brits who were involved in that process. That would have been a very good thing, wouldn't it?
27:12 Rory Stewart? That would be good, yeah. But I mean, I think actually, given what Labour's about to do to your taxes, you could just ask to move to Ireland for tax purposes and then get a passport that way. Question from Sarah Abdullah. UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed has been making around international visits. Countries been signing agreements with the IMF, strengthening their position in global investments. Can you give an analysis of the UAE's position and role in the world, as well as touching on how Gaza and the growing wars in the Arab world, see Yemen, Lebanon, impacts their efforts to build strong global partnerships? That's a long question, a complicated question. Well, let me just quickly do UAE and then maybe throw Canada at you as we come to the end. So, United Arab Emirates, the ruler of UAE in practice is a man called Mohammed bin Zayed.
27:56 Rory Stewart? An amazing country. Mohammed bin Zayed's father presided over a very, very poor country with a population about 100,000 people just after the Second World War. Really, one of the poorest countries in the world. You just have to kind of read descriptions of Bedouin tribes moving around that area in that period to see how poor they were. And became, of course, one of the richest places on earth. Population shot up since 2005 from four and a half million to nine million. They've got a GDP per capita which is impressive by British standards. But they've also increasingly are one of these countries which are playing a big international role.
28:40 Rory Stewart? So they are deeply involved in the conflicts in Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen. And in many of these cases, they are directly allied with Saudi Arabia and Egypt against Turkey and Qatar. So we've talked about what they seem to be doing in Sudan, which is running covert operations through Chad to back this man, Hametti, who's leading one of the civil war factions in Sudan. But you could also see them getting behind General Hiftar in Libya, getting behind the Puntland government in Somalia. UAE also, Mohammed bin Zayed, trying to acquire ports along the Red Sea coast.
29:22 Rory Stewart? And all of this, I think, is part of the fact that the world may not be going into a Cold War between Russia and China, but into a situation where there are just many, many more players, of which UAE is one of probably a dozen players around the world, that are going to be making things ever more complicated.
29:39 Alastair Campbell? We mentioned this at the time of October 7th. That one of the big changes in recent years, and one of the reasons I think why the world took its eye off the Middle East peace process is because a lot of the developed countries really shifted their focus into the Gulf states because of the economic and political power that was growing there.
30:00 Rory Stewart? Yeah, so Alistair, given that I've just pontificated about the United Arab Emirates, a couple of questions on Canada for you. Alex Bowes, though overshadowed by its southern neighbour, Canadian politics are pretty lively right now. What are your insights? Owned by two cats. What's your take on the current Canada-India situation? With reported Indian interference, including politically motivated murders in Canada, how will the deterioration of this relationship impact the wider political isolation of India and Modi?
30:27 Alastair Campbell? Alex Bowes is absolutely right that the Canadian politics is completely overshadowed by the United States, but frankly, at the moment, politics in virtually every country in the world is overshadowed by that. I've been amazed going around my usual European news websites, the extent to which Trump Paris, Trump Paris, Trump Paris, you just read about it all the time and hear about it all the time. But look, I would say that Justin Trudeau is in a pretty bad state. He's lost a couple of by-elections recently, including in an area that is usually very, very safe for the Liberals. And by the way, we talked in the main podcast about Australia, the Liberal Party is basically the Tories, and in Canada, the Liberals is much closer to Labour, but a bit to the right, as it
31:12 Alastair Campbell? were. But this is a guy who was one of the kind of pin-ups of progressive politics, but losing by-election, very, very low polling polling rates, and he's he's just had one of those terrible meetings where he's had to go and meet all his MPs and several of them saying to him, listen, you've really got to think about going. And him saying it will take a little bit of time to think about it, then within a few hours, he said, I've thought about it, I'm not going.
31:36 Rory Stewart? Is this an opportunity for our friend Mark Carney, thus interviewed on Leading, to come in? Is this his chance to try to come in as a potential Prime Minister of Canada?
31:44 Alastair Campbell? Well, I think Mark Carney would be a pretty formidable political figure, but I wonder whether... This has gone too deep now and that the party is in real trouble. And the other thing, they're up against this guy Pierre Polievre, who's their Tory party equivalent, as it were, and pretty effective populist campaigner, like a lot of them are. I honestly do think Justin Trudeau is in the position that Joe Biden was, not for the same reasons. But once you have your own party thinking, we just don't think you can win anymore, which again is what happened to Boris Johnson, it's what happened to Joe Biden, I think that's a very difficult dynamic to counter. I suspect the Japanese Prime Minister that we talked about in the main podcast, he's
32:29 Alastair Campbell? going to be facing the same thing. And the point about, the second question by owned by two cats, I'm assuming that's not a real name, is this whole thing about the row between Canada and India, because Canada has directly accused India, Indian diplomats, of orchestrating the murder of a guy called Hardi Singh Nija, who was a prominent Sikh separatist in Vancouver. And it's led to all the usual stuff of ambassadors being called and diplomats being expelled and all sorts of things. India, of course, denying any involvement at all, and accusing Canada of sheltering extremists.
33:11 Alastair Campbell? And in the meantime, Canada maintaining that they have evidence, this involved the Indian government.
33:18 Rory Stewart? Pretty amazing, because a reminder of what Modi manages to get away with. I mean, the fact that people are so worried about China and Russia and are therefore desperate to keep Modi on side, and of course, this has been Narendra Modi's great trick. He's been able to use the fact that America and Europe and Canada are in such a panic about the way the world's going, that they see India as being their only potential big ally in the BRICS. And that's allowing him to do stuff that, like assassinating people in other people's countries, and increasingly populist anti-Muslim moves in India itself, huge discrimination, interference in elections, for which normally the US would really criticize the country, but Modi gets away with because they can't afford to.
34:01 Alastair Campbell? Well, they didn't win the election in India as cleanly as he thought he would, did he?
34:08 Rory Stewart? All right, Alistair, final question for you. I'm teeing you up for this one. Matt Smith, my seven-year-old's got our local MP, brackets, one of the lesser spotted remaining Tories, going into her school this week. What would you ask them?
34:23 Alastair Campbell? Well, I always found when I was facing the press for hours most days, that the questions I always dreaded were factual questions, the answer to which I ought to know. So I would, I would ask this Tory MP, what is the capital of Benin?
34:51 Rory Stewart? Or, no, wait, wait, wait, how about something like Moldova? It's been a lot in the news and I've been listening to it on the rest of politics. What is the capital of Moldova?
34:59 Alastair Campbell? Not bad. Or you could have, your party lost the general election. What was the vote in the worst ever defeat by the Conservative Party at a general election? And I should warn you, Mr. MP, I have the answer in front of me.
35:20 Rory Stewart? That's very good. I think it's a terrifying seven-year-old vision. The vision of the seven-year-old Alastair Campbell is not one's going to help me sleep easy at night. Anyway, thank you very, very much. Nice to see you and see you, see you tomorrow for our budget special.
35:35 Alastair Campbell? Exactly. See you then.
35:36 Rory Stewart? Bye bye.
35:58 Speaker 04 We assess Prime Minister with high confidence it was Russian.
36:04 Speaker 05 Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.
36:06 Speaker 06 They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.
36:09 Speaker 07 Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself, you want to play or not?
36:15 Alastair Campbell? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing.
36:22 Speaker 08 We would need to understand the policy context.
36:25 Speaker 07 All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today. Disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO.
36:33 Speaker 05 A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia?
36:38 Speaker 07 Yes.
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