Book Recommendations and Final Closing Remarks

Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts, and get early access to episodes and live show tickets. Go to the restispolitics.com. That's the rest ispolitics.com . Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. Now Rory, I think we may agree on this one. Lucy is a Trip plus member from Warrington. Love the Warrington Wolves. What did you make of the government's announcement last week that it is cutting the development budget from 0.5% to naught point three percent? Surely it says Lucy at, a time of increasing war, worsening global security, we should not give up on tackling both the root causes and consequences of these conflicts. Yeah, I I think it's completely shocking. I don't think people have concentrated on this. So firstly the Labour government, when the Tories decided to cut international development, attacked them repeatedly in the House of Commons, and Keir Starmer made these great value speeches about how the Tories need to understand that international development is national security and there's no trade off between the two. He said that when he did the podcast in opposition. Absolutely. And everyone was very cheered up when he said the podcast in opposition that he was going to hold to the.7% commitment and they were all very much signed up so as soon as fiscal conditions allow we'll come in. Then they came in and they said they were going to increase spending on various things, but in fact not on international development. And the fact is that what Keir Starmer's government has done with international development spending is worse than anything that happened during austerity, worse than anything that happened on international development under Boris Johnson or Liztruss or anyone in France. So austerity was a twenty five percent cut in departments. This is almost a 70% cut in international development spending from where I was as the international development section in 2019. I was spending about 20 billion US dollars a year. We're now down in practice, if you take out the amount that they're they're now using that money to spend on refugees in Britain. So you take that out, we're down to about something like two four percent. This is the lowest level of British spend on international development since 1970. We were spending more on international development during the oil crisis of 73. During the moment when we went to the IMF in the 1970s, we were spending more on international development on Mrs. Thatcher, we were spending more on international austerity. Keir Sammer has taken us down to the lowest level in fifty six years. So you're not happy. Well it's extraordinary. I mean, it doesn't make moral sense for the Labour Party that cares about these things. I mean you created the point seven percent commitment, you created Department of International Development under New Labour. It was one of the few things that the Tories got behind. David Cameron got behind it. Theresa May was under a lot of pressure after Brexit to cut it, but she decided actually I think rightly that when Britain left the European Union the last thing it could do is start retreating from the world by cutting international development. So she kept that commitment forward. Add to that, we're now in a world in which Trump has cut international development spending, apart from the moral and political stuff, it's the context. Completely changed world. So we are in the world of the second Trump administration. We're in the world of Elon Musk and Doge. We're in the world in which Musk comes in and destroys USAID, cuts all that spending, destroys all the support for PEPPHA AIDS programmes, malaria, T B all of that in crisis. The US has stripped all its funding from key UN agencies. And yet we are now spending less as a percentage of our GDP than Trump's United States for America on international development. Okay, let's take a quick pause. Back in a moment . This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy. Energy policy rarely stays in Westminster for long, usually arrives with a bill. And from the first of April, 75% of renewables obligation costs will come off electricity bills and move into general taxation. 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It'll make you a unique logo, it'll create a custom website, it'll write social posts for you and even set you up with a social media calendar. Get started at GoDaddy.comslash arrow. That's Godaddy.comslash AIRO . The other thing to point out, this is a really kind of nerdy point, but I'll make it anyway. It is British law that we spend 0.7% of GDP on O C Z A. So Parliament has to have a vote on this, surely, to with there has to be a new law power. That law has to be changed. I mean I f I find it very depressing. I think we said at the time that okay, Ukraine happens and the costs are going to be uh enormous. That to me was the point at which Labour could have and would have got away with putting up tax.stead In of which they wanted to play this div overseas aid versus defence argument, which is what they're doing now. And I actually I read yesterday the Hansard on Yvette Cooper's statement on it. Oh my god, she was given a really, really rough time. Very, very good. Across weirdly across the house. Across the house, yeah. You had Bambus Terolumbus who's Labour, obviously you had Greens, Lib Dems, but you also had a lot of conservatives. Harriet Baldwin also Yeah. I think it's bad. And also your point about America is absolutely right. And there are some countries, and I know it's easier for Norway because unlike us, they didn't spaff the oil money. They created the sovereign wealth fund and they're a extraordinarily successful wealthy country. But they're currently at one point naught two percent of gross national wealth. Which is nearly four times as much as GP. Ireland four point five percent increase last year, currently at naught point five seven percent. South Korea it went up admitted. South Korea went up twenty four percent. From a low base. From a very, very low base. Japan, Australia. So these are countries which you know you talk about uh the middle powers and creating a new alliance. So those countries who are on the front lines, South Korea, Japan, they really are places that matter. Norway worrying about the Arctic, they're all deciding to increase international development. Because as Keir Starmer told us when he was criticising the Tories for doing it, this actually helps our defence and security. Yeah. And that if you really want to think either about how do you stop the root causes, the kind of things that drive conflict. Of course, it's not the answer to everything, but providing a bit of support in a humanitarian crisis, providing a bit of support to governments, providing support to refugees, reduces conflict, which doesn't get to us. But also if you're thinking about SOFPA, I mean the spending in Africa is now a fraction of what it was. So even when I was the Africa minister back in 2016, I think our bilateral and multilateral aid to Africa was probably running at about six, seven billion dollars. And it's probably now less than a quarter of that. And meanwhile, across Africa, Russia is moving in with hard power and China's moving in with soft power, China's just done this amazing deal on visa travel for lots of the African countries. So add to that that we are really struggling to think about values and we're looking for a way to describe, let's say your Canada, the UK, Europe, why there should be your Alexander Stubb four corn ers. Right? We can see what China represents, we can see what Russia represents, we can see what Trump's America represents. What is Europe's defining feature going to be? It's presumably not going to be we are the richest, most low-tax, entrepreneurial, tech savvy country in the world. That's gone. We're not going to be we are the command and control authoritarian communist state, nor are we are the nuclear armed disruptor of the European Order. No. We're supposed to be liberal democracy values are part of that value has got to be look I'm and I'm internationalism. It can't be very difficult this argument. So the argument isn't we're going to give all our money to other people's countries, but every pound we spend abroad in the most extreme poor countries goes a hundred times further than it does at home. I mean in in very real terms, a thousand pounds for a family in extreme poverty on the Kenya border is a hundred times more valuable than it would be for you or I. And 0.7% is not a lot.3% is still spent in the UK. We're just asking for a tiny fraction to reflect the fact that in some ways people are suffering And also as well as being a British law, 0.7%, is also a United Nations target for all countries, and right now only four are meeting it. That's Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Denmark, and Sweden are actually cutting. And if you go you look at all the overseas aid budgets that have been cut, so between them US, UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Austria, New Zealand, Canada, they accounted for nearly three quarters of the total global overseas development budget in twenty twenty four. Okay. So when you've taken out some of the really big spenders, particularly us and and the Americans, that's a catastrophic catastrophic impact upon a lot of people, a lot of countries. Why can't Keir Sama see that if we're serious about a world after Trump and we're gonna have our our own values and our own international system and our new alliances, we need British diplomats, we need development almost more actually than we need the hard power. If we're going to renegotiate a new relationship with the European Union, think about new institutional structures, think about China, what we actually need is Britain leaning out into the world, being a bit more global Britain, not less. So why are we retreating? Well we'll have to get him on the podcast and ask him won't we? But I agree. I I do think that we underestimate the extent well we underestimate the opportunities of our soft power potential, because it is still enormous, but I think this sends out a pretty bad message about how we think about things. And I get the politics of pitting against defence. The other thing that annoys me is that normally there's an absolute outcry when a government breaks a manifesto promise. There's been next to no outcry over this. It's in the manifesto we're going to stick to 0.7%. And now we're not. So it's all very well to say you need to make tough choices, but this feels like one of those choices that doesn't feel that tough because a lot of people in the country are thinking, well, these are faraway places of which we know nothing. And that's what depresses me. Anyway, uh you mentioned the European Union there, Rory. Yeah, absolutely, Alistair. And I've got a question for you. Okay. Dale Fletcher, Warwickshire. Are current calls for the UK to rejoin the EU misdiagnosing the problem? Leaving the EU was supposed to remove the longstanding habit in UK politics of attributing domestic failings to Brussels. What we've seen since is the exposure of underlying weaknesses in our own governance, productivity and policy execution, leading to ever increasing economic difficulty. Is there a risk that the rejoined debate becomes less about fixing those issues and more about restoring an external point of blame? Well only the answer to that is only if we embrace this debate with the lack of confidence that I'm afraid was part of the reason why we left in the first place. So it needn't be like that. It needn't be like that. Well I do feel I mean this is part you've got to be careful about, you know, your own desires getting in the way of rational assessment. I do feel this debate is moving. And I feel it could move quite quickly. So Sadiq Khan does an interview in an Italian newspaper and basically says Labour should have it in the manifesto that we're going back in. Okay. Why in an Italian newspaper is a weird way to reveal your big policy movement? Well probably because he was asked.. Right Probably. And it was Larry Publica. I don't know, maybe not a bad thing. But anyway, I thought was interesting was the lack of screaming habdabs about it. And also I sensed that Mr Farage he didn't really go for it either. And I'll tell you another thing we've noticed. So we've done recently we've interviewed Pedro Sanchez, the uh Prime Minister of Spain, Alexander Stubb, the President of Finland. Do you think it was interesting how they both were very, very clear in stating as a fact without sort of rubbing our nose in just saying, well look, you know, we all know Brexit's been a disaster for the UK. And if you came back, we would like to have you absolutely He did, he did, and you sent that to me because I've always been a bit worried that we might get raked over the coals. And a year ago people were still talking that town, but maybe they become more friendly. Chris Bryant, interesting, I was just quoting him yesterday on the House of Lords. But he he said, and I I think this is a a message to the whole government. He says, um the UK's relationship with the EU is not a series of policy decisions, but instead one great big decision. And I think there's a lot to be said about in general about the way the government does stuff. Mm A little bit more binary this is the big vision instead of lots of tiny little decisions we have to do. Well as you know, I really like Nick Thomas Simmons, who's the the minister in charge of this. And he is following the brief. He is basically improving step by step here, there, and everywhere. But there's definitely got to come a point where we do make that big step because it's it is a big step, there's no doubt about that, and there are massive political risks attached to it. But my view in politics and particularly in political strategy is always best to have fights about things that really, really matter. And Rachel Reeves again was interesting last week, so she did the May's lecture and she said, you know, red line, not joining the single market customers. But within it, she's bas she said she's put the estimate of the loss to our economy now at eight percent. I've been merrily quoting five to six percent for some time. We now have the chance for these checkers saying it's eight percent. So I do feel this is moving. Interestingly, at the Fulham Burnley game on Saturday, Burnley fans are always projected as you know being all these sort of you know Brexiteers and da-da-da. Guy came up to me and and and just said he he was getting married to an Italian yeah and he said you know I'm finally gonna get sorted he was an absolute blancastrian yeah but he was basically saying Brexit has sort of ruined his life up to now ruined his business his, personal life, etcetera. So he's now going to get married to an Italian and get a passport. Do you think um international development could have also been a big fight, quite an unusual fight that you wouldn't necessarily be expecting the Labour Party to have, but actually could be quite inspiring for people. Could Sama not have got out there and said, listen this is the move we're on. We've inherited a difficult situation, but we're we're getting back towards point seven. And let me say, when we were in opposition, it was a big part of our inspiring agenda. It was a big progressive thing. And you know, Tony Blair used to make speeches and you know, when you're writing a speech, I I always used to sort of as we were planning the speech, I would always put a little red tick against what I knew was going to be a clapline in the speech. In international development always. So it was inspiring. People did want to hear things like that. So look I think we're on the move on Brexit. I could be wrong, but I really do. I think a lot of people I did that in I did um the Troll podcast the other day with Marina Perkins and Gemma Forte. They've got full-time jobs, they've got families and what have you. They were quotes radicalized by Brexit. And they are, you know, adamant they're gonna stay involved and stay engaged until this thing gets undone. Question for you. Mm-hmm. Uh one of your favourite places in the world, South Australia. Yep. Marie, who's such a trip plus member from Adelaide. We have a lot of Australian listers. I've got a lot of stuff about this election. Does the election result here in South Australia over the weekend show that liberals and centrists aren't doing enough to counter the rise of the far right? Or are there any lessons for leftist centre parties worldwide in the second term landslide win of Peter Melanoskis Could. you begin, please, for listeners who are not in South Australia by just reminding people what happened in that election? Well Peter Melanolskus is a guy that I met in Adelaide at their book festival a couple of years ago, and you and I did an event, you were online, and I was in the in this amazing hall in Adelaide, and Peter Melanuskas introduced us. And that's how I got to know him. And I I found him incredibly impressive from the off. And we had lunch together on London. And we had lunch together when he came over here. We've had him on the podcast. And he has just pulled off a remarkable win. The answer to the question is it's both of those things because the two big outcomes of this election, one is Malinowskus has got a huge landslide win, but the second thing that has happened is that the one nation party, which is the kind of the UK reform with a bit of Rupert Lowe tucked in with That's the first time for for decades. So this is extraordinary. This is like a shift from a traditional two party system. And I think the two main parties, Labour and Liberals, just got into the sort of high fifty percent of the vote when as in the UK, you go back in time, they would have been a much more substantial two party system. So and Pauline Hansen, when you and I were in Australia just gonna uh come to your m your conversation with Peter, but people were congratulating themselves on the fact that Pauline Hansen was a bit useless and a bit of a joke and you know, we were often saying on this podcast, as recently as twelve months ago, isn't it great that compulsory voting and preferential voting means that they don't have to deal with Nigel Farage and now they are dealing with Nigel? And it was a very interesting acceptance speech was really interesting. He thanked family and friends and campaigners and all that. And then he congratul he thanked his opponents for being so gracious in defeat. And then he said that he'd had this phone call from the one nation candidate and the audience, all Labour Party members and supporters, started to boo at the mention of the guy's name. And Malinowski says no, no, no, no. He said, this is a this was an impressive campaign that they fought and we should duh da da. And it so I think his positioning with it is going to be we have to show respect to their views. But but but but but but respect for views, but he's not endorsing their views. He's not going down the star map.. I'm gonna lean into it In fact, his you you shared a poem that he read. Shall I read you the poem? Yeah, good give us the poem because it gives you a sense of the fact that he's standing up for his he's a bit more Sanchez like on the subject. So he he said he had two reflections. And the first was don't be satisfied at winning, only be satisfied by what we do with the victories. That's the first thing. Don't gloat. And then he then said that when he was in the when he was voting himself, he was standing alongside this guy who came from Vietnam, who's a boat person from Vietnam, and the guy just spoke to him and had a chat and he and he was describing this guy's sense of patriotism to Australia, being a Vietnamese boat person. And then he then he quoted this poem by a guy called Henry Lawson, who's a famous Australian poet. His face is actually on their $10 notes. And the poem is called The Duty of Australians. I won't read all of it, I'll read the bit that Peter Malalaskus read out. 'Tis the duty of Australians in the bush and in the town, to forever praise their country, but to run no other down. When a man or nation visits in the heyday of its prize, 'tis the duty of Australians to be kind, but dignified. 'Tis our duty to the stranger landed maybe but one hour, to give all the information and assistance in our power, to give audience to the new chum and to let the old chums wait, lest his memory be embittered by his first days in the state. 'Tis our duty when he's foreign and his English very young, to find out and take him somewhere where he'll hear his name How cool is that? And that he's a Lithuanian. I mean Malinowskos is second gen you know his grandparents went there, they were from Lithuania and Hungary. So I thought you're right. He was basically saying we stand up for all Australians, we stand up for immigration, we look after everybody, we welcome them. But I think the point he was making is don't fall into the trap of saying just because they've suddenly voted for a very right wing party as opposed to a right wing party, that they're somehow all sort of beyond the pale. Well for what it's worth, the kind of conventional wisdom seems to be uh that his strengths were competence, kind of sort of he's just seemed competent. Some winnable reform fights, which we you know we talked about a lot, him banning social media, But they were big things. Really big things. Big things. Really big big, risky, not necessarily popular. I mean he actually explained on the podcast that most of his advisors were advising not to do them. Yeah. And finally not, letting the opponents pick the terrain on the culture wars. He's sort of he's got a clear position, but he's sort of kind of slightly diffused it. It's really weird, though. Let's just just for a second. I mean, I huge congratulations to Man Oskers. One of the problems, though maybe and this maybe relates to some of these questions we got, uh Marie's from Adelaide, um that it's difficult taking lessons across because he may be just a pretty exceptional politician. And that saying to me or Keir Starmer you need to be more like Peter Malonoskis may not really work. Or maybe I'm un I'm undermining a lot of your entire life, which is going around telling people how to be more like the new Labour government. But but presumably people might say to you, it's actually quite difficult because you don't actually have Tony Burr and Gordon Brown. It's no good just saying to some round up politician you need to be more like that. Look, you can't say to somebody be something that you're not. I mean Malinowsk is a bit like Sanchez, he's very tall and very handsome. Yeah. He's a good looking bloke. But I think you've been saying something about me and Keir Summer on that. I think you'd have to grow a bit to be like Peter Malinauskus. I think but I'll tell you the other thing is that what you described there is he he takes bold, clear position s and he then fights for them and he's seen to fight for them. And they're positions that Starmer could have taken, I'm afraid. There's no reason why Stama couldn't have run something on social media. Absolutely. Which they're now doing. Yeah. But we always say whenever he does it, but he couldn't but but can we see it? I mean with Manuskus, it defined him. He made it the biggest hue. He let us see the stakes. We sensed Google moving against him, Twitter moving against him, and then Albanese made it federal. Yeah. It's that's leadership, I agree. But I think the where the Marie's question is right though, and this is what Peter Malaska said when we were, you know, exchanging text over the weekend is the you know, this is an amazing win. And let's just be let's just look at it. He's got you know, the Liberal Party, the traditional opposition got four seats, Pauline Hansen's One Nation got one seat, the Greens have got zero tr seats on ten percent of the vote. So it's g they're gonna have to work out how do you have an opposition when he's got such a big majority within the South Australian Parliament. I think there's there's something in the it's the Boltness and it's the clarity of and it's the relentlessness of communication as well. Oh he's not. I got some nice texts from friends of mine who are part of the the old Liberal Party, the sort of Tory party in in in Australia. And I'm quite struck that yeah, they've they grumble, but they're not really chippy about Pin Malinoskis. I mean they they occasionally suggest he's populist, but that's pretty close to suggesting he's popular. But boy oh boy the one nation thing. We shouldn't underestimate that. I mean just just to move off the good news onto the bad news. The bad news is that in twenty-six of these contests it was a label one nation contest. Yeah. And only twelve was it against the Liberals. And one nation, Pauline Hansen, which was a joke, is not a joke anymore. I mean, it's a little bit reform. And what we're discovering around the world, unfortunately, is nobody is immune. There was an Iberian exception, Spain and Portugal weren't supposed to have populist parties. Now they have them. Australia was meant to have a system that defeated populism. Now it's got it. So something's happening. And Melonovsk's a great clue on how you might beat them, but they're a real reality and these and the right parties, this is true in Britain, and it's true of the Republican Party in spades, are in such trouble because they cannot hold together people like me, who are sort of I suppose centrist Mm. Very interesting though how in the mayor elections in Well that's that's encouraging, although the AFD's up ten percent. The F D is doing horribly well at the moment. Uh but again there was an election in one of the lender last week and it was the CDU who took it from the SDP right and then the AFD did rise but they didn't they didn't but I'll see the other thing that's interesting this is something else I talked about with Malauskis. We often say we Brits that we're always in terms of political campaign techniques and so forth, we're always a bit behind the Americans. I hope we stay behind the Americans right now. But that's been historically, you know, if something happens in America then we do it. And the Australians then tend to be a few years behind us. Yeah. Of course Pauline Hansen's talents haven't changed. Still pretty ghastly politics and not a great politician. But the debate has changed, and the traditional right wing party has kind of looks like it's imploding a bit. It's not nationwide, but there it was a really, really bad defeat. But anyway, well done, Mr. Melanowskus. He's a really interesting guy, and I'm very, very pleased that he that he walked it. Brilliant. Let's take a break. Take a break. And when we come back after the break, we're going to be talking about Islamophobia in Britain. We're going to be talking about a new King Charles footpath. You have a lighter question for us, and we're also going to share some book recommendations. Excellent . This episode is brought to you by Free Trade, the award-winning free investment platform. 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Your emotional well being matters deeply. Find support. Feel lighter in therapy. Sign up, get ten percent off at better help.com slash restpolitics. That's better H E L P dot com slash restpolitic s welcome back to the rest is politics question time with me Rory Stewart and me Alistair Campbell. Okay, here's one for you, Ray's about your old party. Ian, why do you think the Tories have adopted reform strategy of Islamophobia as a popular policy? Hm I think Islamophobia is a very, very, very, very real thing. I also think anti Semitism's a real thing. What seems to be difficult is acknowledging that both those things are happening in spades. There's this very weird thing going on at the moment called the Judeo Christian culture, which you're now hearing for It's really weird. I mean uh we now have uh Robert Jenrick, his mini me, uh talking about Psalm Sunday. So what what's going on with Psalm Sunday? What you notice? Yeah, yeah. What you notice. Yeah, exactly. What you notice is that i even you as an atheist know that. These guys were not talking about Christianity. Tommy Robinson's march, you know, was a lot about Judeo-Christian culture. Yeah. And it's extraordinary. The stuff you see on social media. Unbelievable. The repeated stuff that you see. And I I get it in my feeds of ten is stories saying the head of education in Britain, who's a Muslim, has decreed that. And then you have to search and find out that whoever they're referring to is not the head of education in Britain and he hasn't decreed that, right? By which time it's been shared with you know ten thousand people, hundred thousand people. One this morning saying that one of the independent MPs saying that they want Muslims to take over the whole of Birmingham, although Mohammad is the most popular name in this and now the most recent thing is Nick Timothy complaining about uh a prayers in Trafalgar Square. And it's it's heartbreaking because actually that was Muslims welcoming people. So what was it? This is an event in Trafalgar Square. It's been going on for years. Yeah. In different places. Community and the Hindu community go out of their way to welcome people. It's one of the lovely things that Jewish communities do. They invite Muslims and Christians to come to synagogues, and Muslims are increasingly inviting other people to come and pray with them to show that actually So why does Nick Timothy not like it? He says it's an act of domination. Who's dominating whom? Uh the idea is that Muslims are dominating everybody else. But there's there's something so sad about being unable Why can't we get to a stage of accepting in the way that we've made progress on so many other things and well, right? K ofind views that we used to have about women or about uh I don't know, people who were gay. One of the stories we tell ourselves is that as people have more gay friends, they're less homophobic. That the kind of prejudices people had fifty years ago was going to no only gay people, and you know, now no gay people, they're less worried about it. Why are we not getting there with Muslims? Because anybody who makes friends with a Muslim immediately sees all the human qualities: the generosity, the love, the dignity, the friendliness, and all scary people. Well, I think the answer is that all of these issues are being very, very successfully weaponized. So the front page of the Financial Times review at the weekend was a whole huge piece about the way that the right here are trying to engender the same sort of politicization of religion as you've had in the United States. GB News, the the owner of GB News, who's spaffing hundred million quid whatever is on their losses to try and sort of propagandize for the right. A lot of it is about this Judeo Christian thing. This Judeo Christian thing is interesting because not to make too fine a point on it. The attachment of Judeo to Christian is very odd, right? Actually a more sensible way to talk about it is Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all being people of the book. They're actually broadly, in many ways, Islam has more in common with Judaism than it does with Christianity. But broadly speaking, there's three religions that are very, very close. One God, similar traditions. Islam actually venerates Jesus, venerates Moses. I mean so this weird thing of Judeo Christian unlopping off the Islam bit is really weird. I can see the logic for Christianity, I can see the logic for Judaism, Islam and Christianity, but Judeo Christian? So you're a Christian? Yes. I'm an atheist. Y es. And I'm probably more driven by politics than faith. Right. Okay. So I look at Robert Jenrik. Yeah. Now, as it happens, I'm preconditioned to think the guy's a complete bullshitter because I've seen a lot of evidence he's a complete bullshitter and utterly opportunistic. So when he says the importance of Psalm Sunday, right, which is actually and even I know it's Palm Sunday. And then when I see do you remember why it's to do with it's to do with something rather. Palm oil. No, it's not, I don't know. I haven't got clue anyway, you'll tell me. But then I see Farage and it's inserting itself more and more into his communications. We've got the election coming up in Hungary quite soon, okay? Orban. He's full of this religious stuff. And it's now being praised by Netanyahu, he's just given and Trump, both people. Netanyahu went to Hungary to endorse him in the campaign. JD Vance is about to we talk about not interfering in other people's elections. J. D. Vance is about to go and a lot of advances a lot of his religion. It's a lot of the eccentric narrative there too, isn't it? Because it What happens is you take any story you want and you can politicise it. So and I've always felt maybe it's 'cause my mother was a you know a believer and my sister's a believer and and I see people who have their faith and they think it's all about doing good. Right. Right? Respecting other people and belief in something above you that's better than you and but you basically try to do good. Yeah. And also accepting that you're pretty fragile and flawed and the world's a bit screwed up. So that this is a way of talking and forgiving and thinking about the way we're all a bit screwed up. And I don't see any of that in Trump, in Vance, in Hickseth. Hickseth actually reads from the Bible at his press conferences, you know, while he's busy showing these videos of sort of you know ten-pin bowlings done up as American flags, taking out jihadists. Well you saw Joe. So Joe Rogan, who is not usually the person who presents this podcast, had an extraordinary moment of revelation where he was following up one of these American colonels, who gave a speech saying how happy he was about this Iran war, because what the book of Revelation tells us is that Donald Trump is going to unleash Armageddon on the world and this is going to lead to the second coming. And Joe Rogan was like, well, and the guy on the podcast with him was like, okay, I get it. It's not just that there are mad Muslims out there with crazy fundamentalist views who are trying to bring the world to an end. There are mad Christians out there. Well, add to that, there are mad atheists out there. You know, Adolf Hitler, famous view as an atheist. There are mad Buddhists out there. I mean, one of the sad things in Myanmar is that's one of the most you you believe it, right? One of the most peaceful imaginable religions in the world managed to generate its own violent genocidal nationalists. So look, all different things can be used like this, but there's something particularly horrible particularly horrible about Christianity, which where the whole narrative is supposed to be peace, forgiveness, love. And the Pope does keep trying to point this out to be fair to him. And actually it was a Christian bishop who came out and praised what the Muslims were doing in Trafalgar Square and try to stand up for them. I mean so I I d it's not the church the church is not responsible for this really. But just on this thing about the um the politicization of religious religion in the United States. And Trump doesn't do that much. He did it in his first term. But he doesn't sort of push it down your throat like Vance does and like Heggs does. I really think we're getting very close to the point where your friend the king should follow the Pope and saying, I'm not going to your two hundred and fiftieth anniversary stuff. I'm gonna spend the day with the poor people. What do you think of that, R ory? Well, I I think he's in a very difficult situation. I'm I I I think he's a very difficult situation. You talked about this constitutionally. Uh he is there in many ways to support this government. And I think it's a call that Kirsama's gotta make. What would you do if you were Kiersama? What would I I really do think we're very close to it. Look, just go through the last few days. You had that horrible thing we talked about on the main podcast about Robert Mul ler. I'm glad he's dead. Very Christian. You had him doing that endorsement for Orban. You've had him posting a clip from a satirical programme taking the piss out of Keir Starmer for being weak in the face of Donald Trump. But is Starmer's calculation not in a sense that the only thing he's probably thinking containment. Well isn't the only thing we know that Trump actually quite likes about the United Kingdom is the Royal Family the one that's any good the first time. We had he had the state visit, that nonsense of being driven around driven around Windsor Park with low crowds there. Yeah. Yeah. And so y you treat him like a man baby. You know, you could argue we got a few months decent treatment. Yeah. Since when? Barely a day goes by that he doesn't insult Keir Starmer. Well I'm gonna do tilt because I I think the King's in a difficult position there. But there's something that actually's got a lot of credit for recently and it's it it.'s I love the coastal path. Oh good. Okay, well maybe we should walk a part of it sometime. Oh, we should do a bit of it. Um we could do it in sections. So Osama, who's a trip plus member from Denham. So a lot of doom and gloom in the UK right now. Can we celebrate some of our recent achievements such as the completion of the world's longest coastal path? This project started under Gordon Brown, took eighteen years to comp ete. Where is the northern part of HS2 was suddenly mossballed by Rishi Sunak without parliamentary approval. Bloody sort of thing Osama's being a bit why do you stick that in? Um how can government and citizens monitor and protect long-term projects that transition between governments and generations? Well, I want to pay tribute, given that he's being nice about Gordon Brown, um, to John Major, whose national forest is now a real delight. I don't know whether you've seen it. I mean, obviously stepped down in ninety-seven. It's incredible. It went into basically an area of damage. Damage was crushed by you in an election. No, it's amazing, right? So it that was waste ground and has been transformed this beautiful forest and now this coastal path. You can also now walk along the north bank of the Thames. So maybe if you're not prepared to do the full two thousand miles north bank of the Thames is beautiful. I love the idea of the coastal path. Sadiq Khan, your mate. The South Bank of the Thames, it's still a bit annoying. I often try to walk that. There are many bits where you are pushed away from the river, you get stuck by stuff, you can't particularly getting from Greenwich through. That's not rocket science, a really determined net I hate that phrase. Okay. I absolutely hate that. You hate that? It's a terrible cliche. It's not rocket science. What does it mean? Well w what it means is that if I were mayor of London I would promise to resign in a year unless I'd sort it out Did you say it's not rocket science when you made the prison's pledge? No, I didn't think. I'm very surprised that you're using such a profound and horrible Actually, I had a friend who who managed to use that phrase when people were actually discussing space, and somebody was able to say, actually, it is Fiona and I went this morning. We had a boardie off, went to see the Turner Constable exhibition at the Tate Modern. Good by me. So I walked here. Okay. Yes. And I noticed just before you get to the House of Lords this there's like a beach. Yeah, yeah, it's lovely. What's happening there? Can you go out there and swim? You can't get down off the wall because the go down the beach is really fun. If you go down the gravel, there's amazing things. You can find sixteenth century pipes and all this kind of stuff. I also once went canoeing with Mr. MacDonald, the SP uh MP. We went we canoeed straight past the House of Lords Terrace. Yeah, that was a fun moment. Were they lobbying abuse at you? Were you lobbying abuse at that back and forth? And my my canoe partner lobbing abuse at me. I think the coastal path is great. I think that's a good thing for the king. It was gr great. I mean I think the King's King's been uh stuff on the environment. His Amazon documentary, which I keep talking up. Yeah. Yeah. So I I think it's great that he's got involved in that and got behind that. Do you think you'll join in uh the New World's campaign to get all our readers to watch an hour of G B News? Oh Oh, yeah. I don't like G B News. Tell us about it. That's like when you tell me off and I go on on Sky News. Last week we talked about the New World and then Ed Davy. Thank you very much, Ed Davy raised it in the commons. I didn't start. I don't think he was listening much because he basically said I'm a great believer in freedom of speech and Ofcom needs to sort itself out. In other words, Ofcom should be in charge of sorting itself out when the point we're making is Ofcom is totally unfit for purpose and has been useless at stopping GB News from becoming Farage TV. So their line to us, as I said to you last week, was that well, we can only act if we get complaints. So we're asking our listeners and our readers and anybody that we meet, we're saying, just spend one hour and send in your honest views. Send in your honest views. And then if you think it's been breached, right to Ofcom. Then they'll have to investigate your complaint. So I think if the King and Camilla would like to do that, that'd be great. That's a lovely idea. You just reminded me actually, I've completely failed to praise, and this is with huge apologies because I'm so bad at these segues. My friend Simon Collins, former ambassador to Riyadh, who was very, very helpful in helping me understand what's happening in the Middle East. Right now, final question. That was a really bad segue. That was he's so bad aty PlaStation. So bad, yeah. Final question from Alessandro. Could you include some book recommendations in your newsletter? Oh yeah. Not only about Iran. Have you read anything good recently? In any language? Do you know when we were in Spain? Yes. Do you remember Sanchez's press secretary, communications director? And she was a journalist, like me before I became a communications director. She was a journalist. And she'd written a book in Spanish. Yeah . Which translates as in the womb of the Jihad. Very good. Okay. And I said, well I can't speak Spanish. I can't speak Spanish. And she said, I could probably read. But then she s then she said, well she signed it. Yes. And then she said it's been translated into French. But I honestly think you know I'm always always asking publishers to pick up German books, one of which has just been done by the way. This is Alexandre Guile. No, this is great. Because basically what what you get it is you were saying this about you know the way that we think about people. So if you think if I think of somebody who's a suicide bomber, say who went from Britain or France or Belgium, they're the three big countries. She only talks to Belgians and French people who've families of jihadis. Somebody goes and he's a suicide bomber . What are your thoughts about what their family might be like? I think it's heartbreaking. I mean, I think it's firstly it's somebody who's taking their own life. Secondly, it's somebody who's got involved in a violent, criminal, horrible act of murdering other people. I'd imagine it's like talking to the parents of people who I saw in prison who'd committed horrible crimes, which is the terrible kind of tear in your he art of the horror that your son has inflicted on the world, and asking yourself what you did to create the situation in which that happens. What often happens is that somebody gets involved in that and then the way they then' trereated by the public, by the media, is like somehow this is down to you because you're their family. And I mean I th I've I've not finished the book yet, but I'm reading one at the moment where actually the the the parents are Catholics and he was raised as a Catholic. Yeah. And he he gets radicalized and off he goes, aged eighteen. And it's just incredibly moving to get this and and she's done an amazing job. I mean it must be awful but the parents of that person who assassinated Charlie Kirk or the guy that uh tried to assassinate Trump or the parents of the um young Scottish boy who went off to fight on the Russian side against the Ukrainians. Yeah. I mean I y I don't know how you process the eighteen, nineteen year old going off to do that. No, I'm just reading one of a sister a sister of a guy who was involved in Islamic State and she lost her job on the back of it. Right. You know. Well parents are people who do school shootings. Ye ah. Anyway, it's a really really it's interesting 'cause if you th I don't think you I asked you what you thought, and I I'd like to think I'd have given the same answer. But the honest truth is I've probably never thought of it. You hear about somebody doing something like a suicide bomber, you get a snatch of what who what they look like because there's a picture of them, but then you probably don't think what's going on. I knew I knew someone who who tried to strap himself up and blow himself up, and he was basically a kind of troubled, naive eighteen-year-old who I knew in Afghanistan and who decided to try to was radicalized and went over to the Haqqani Network and tried to blow himself up and was stopped by the police just fifty yards from detonating himself. Um What are you reading? Yeah, so a couple of things. One is a great book by Arthur Snell called Elemental. And this is a book about geopolitics and climate. So anyone really interested geopolitics and climate, I'd really recommend it because Arthur Smell's former British diplomat. He's worked in some of the very toughest places in the world. He also did uh conflict resolution stuff. It's really relevant at the moment, partly because he talks about why desalination plants happen, how climate change affected Syria, and how unless we think about climate change we can't really understand geopolitics. This is a theme you've raised for. Another book, Sebastian Maliby's written a book called The Infinity Machine, which is about uh Serdemus Hosabis, the Nobel Prize-winning, amazing AI, Google Deep Mind uh founder, and I've interviewed him on our Restless Politics AI mini-series. And I think people should listen. I mean, firstly, Demester Sabbath is mesmerizing, but Sebastian is an incredible analyst of these tech titans. He talks so well about, if you can bear it, the culture of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Trump, and the risks of AI and the ways in which it's not being regulated, and the odd combination of good intention, recklessness, and hubris that are driving us to the edge of some real challenges. So that interview which I've done with Sebastian Maliby on Demes the Sabbath and AI is out on Friday. And if you want to listen, go to the restlesspolitiks.com to sign up. And final thing, uh, Ditchley, which does those conferences, has got a great new uh series of walking round the lake talking to the director about geopolitical issues. So people on the more geeky side of geopolitics may include may enjoy a walk around the lake with by Ditchley. The book I mentioned last week by Liam Byrne, Labour MP, Why the Populists Winning and How We Defeat Them, which we're gonna do a little mini-series on because it really it doesn't have all the answers, but maybe if we chat about it we can maybe get to some more. And are you going to be able to weave in um my new hero who I've never actually met or I've only met briefly, Peter Hyman, who's been travelling around looking at populists in the States? Yeah? Definitely weave him in man. Great. So hold on, you've gone from Alan Bilburn to Pedro Sanchez and now you're with Pete Diamond. Yeah, yeah. Well and I've never given up on Corbin along the way, have I? With his ears, his beautiful ears. His beautiful ears. Oh my other plug, my final plug. What do you think this might be? It's a badge. I went to a UEFA conference last week. Oh my goodness. Which was really interesting. It was really interesting. Remind us UEFA is. W hat? UEFA is the the Union of European football associations. So it's like FIFA for Europe. Correct. That's right. So all the I was there to sort of talk to all the F FAs, all the football associations of Europe of Europe. So England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland. So it was ri but so there was Armenia and Azerbaijan. Yep. And there was Ukraine and Russia. Oh wow. UF has not kicked out Russia. Russia is banned from competing. Right. But they can go to conferences. So there was Russia. Anyway, the guy from the Ukrainian FA came up and he said I want you to he listens to our podcast. He likes our discussions on Ukraine. He said I want you to have our new badge. And the badge is a it's a stadium and it's called Czernyhiv Stadium and it says destroyed by Russia. Just the stadium. I mean why are they bombing stadiums? Why are they doing that? That's just hitting civilian infrastructure, isn't it? So that's my new badge.. It's very good I was thinking of you recently in football because I was watching Spartacus with the kids. So you guys I was watching Sparta Prague. No, the Czech League. Um no the origin the original Spartacus. And and yeah, and that's uh I suddenly realised they're like eighty different football teams called after Spartacus, called Spartak because that legend of the slave revolt inspired the communists and they all called their football teams Spartak as a result. And what happened to your plans you were talking about your boys wanted to go to a game Yeah, I hadn't got my head around how much Chelsea tickets cost. I'm afraid I was too mean me a call to take them. Exactly. Yeah. Brilliant. Now final one for me. I know I said a final one, but this is really the final one. Mive, where did Alistair get that dashing red coat? Chloe, Alistair, where'd you get that coat? Kinda want one. Hashtag style icon and Victoria Davidson talk us through the jacket. choice W ell, I have to tell viewers and listeners it's it was a present from Rory Stewart. Uh and it's a very nice present. And I actually do love it. I've got it here. I was wearing it today. Um I gave you a nice present though. I wrote a tune for you and played it on the backpost. So that, dear listener and viewer, is a Stuart Tartan. Now whoever made it. Because actually as a gift it was a quite a risky gift. There was a strong likelihood you might never wear it. No, I love it. Great. I wear it all the time. But I want it I want a Campbell Town one. So whoever made it and Well I tried to get hold of them and I sent them a message. I've got to have a change. I really like the things. My Paddington bear coats made by them too, but I can never get hold of them to get any answers out of them.