Reflecting on a Career in Politics

Thanks for listening to the Rest is Politics. T to support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to thereestispolitics. com. That's the rest is politics. com There's a lot of worry about the trumpification of this worldorld Cup A quarter of the forty eight countries taking part currently facing either travel bans, tight restrictions or high visa rejection rates For the first time ever, Omar Artan, who's a referee from Somalia, arrives at the airport and he's refused entry. And I noticed your great friend Jianny An Fantino, the head of FIFA, didn't use his amazing relationship with Donald Trump to get the Somalia in. There's In Fantino saying he doesn't get involved in day to day politics and stuff. This is the guy who gave Donald Trump The FIFA Peace Prize The World Cup is the biggest sports event in the world But I think this one is going to be horribly political. This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy. 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To get the best discount of your NordVPN plan, go to nordvPN. com slash restestispolitics. The link is in the episode description. Let's talk about a condition many people haven't heard of And it turns out, it's more common than you'd think Heyrony's disisease, or PD for short PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis This can cause a curve or a bump during an erection and for some men, lead to pain during intimacy may impact mental health It may also lead to anger and frustration impression, lower self esteem and even withdraw from sexual activity and physical intimacy Because of this, some men could feel embarrassed or reluctant to talk about PD The actual cause of PD isn't always known In some cases, it may be linked to a minor injury or repeated injuries during sex or other physical activity The good news is, PD is treatable. If you notice a curve with a bump A trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it and walk you through your options, including non surgical treatment To learn more about Pyroni's disease, visit talkboutpD d. com. Welcome to the Restless Pitics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me Alist Campbell. Bory, we're going to talk about the World Cup Yay! starts Thursdays. It's gonna go for weeks and weeks and weeks of weeks We're going to talk about the midterms in the US. We're going to talk about corruption in America, you want to talk about now about Mille and a really interesting development in relation to AI And we talk about the election in Armenia. and I think my favourite question of the Week Roy is I'd be thinking a lot. is what whether we would if we had another live whereether we'd do politics. Oh, so World Cup World Cup. I know you're very very, very excited about this. The question. that we have on the World Cup is from Sunny in Lincolnhire, Is this the most political World Cup of all time? As a World Cup historian, Roy, do you think it's the most political World Cup of all time I know what kind of historians do because I've been watching Dominiic Sambrook on our Sister show very carefully What happens is you stroke your chin and you say No, actually, you know, there was a World Cup in nineteen seventy, whatever, which did this at the other. thirty four, goo for thirty four if were you? Go thirty four Brunant. Asolute Brunant. Okay No Alice tell us though a bit about the politics of the World Cup, what makes it political? I guess one big political thing is people like you are not going to the World Cup How many people do you think are going to be boycotting the World Cup? Is the sign of signs of that beginning to happen? Well, anecdotally, I know quite a lot of people. Look, the World Cup is the biggest sports event in the world evenven bigger than the Olympics in terms of, you know viewership around the world but I think this one is going to be horribly political for all sorts of of different reasons. The reason I mentioned nineteen thirty four is that was That was in Italy And it was at the time that Mussolini was really kind of on the march as it work But I think this one is going to be pretty horrible for all sorts of reasons. helpp me understand. So all I understand about World Cups, I was at the Qatar World Cup. whichich actually I really loved. there were the kids because the stadiums were very, very close to each other. So it was amazing. I mean you could watch two matches a day easily and you could just move between them And it was a real I think very, very unusual to have these enormous stadiums all within about twenty minutes of each other. Yeah Well it's not going be like that in this one No, So tell us about this one and how this is going to be very different from my experience. Well, it's going to be very different in lots of ways. First is it's the first time they've ever done a worldld cup across three countries, USA, Mexico, Canada. The first game iss going to be in Mexico between Mexico andouth Africa It's been expanded so as they can make even more money and TV rights and the rest to forty eight countries. So it's going to be longer than previous World Cups as well But it's really interesting you remember guitar. I bet you don't remember this that On the day that the Qatar World Cup started The BBC, I think, did not cover The opening ceremony Instead they did a documentary on human rights in Qatar. And then Russia, you had Russia the World Cup and a big part of that debate was sport washing Put in using sport to kind of brandish a different sort of image to the world. And also another big story is the corruption in the bidding process I would argue you know, when when we were in, um in Finland And I did the same at an event in Retford at the Retford Book Festival of the weekend. I did my question, which is the greatest threat to global stability right now? USA or China. USA is winning every single time hands down. So I think there's a lot of worry about the trumpification of this world Cup Just to give you some of the things thated that have happened in recent days For the first time ever, a referee from Somalia called Omar Artan, whose You know, this is a guy who's done African Champions League finals. He's a proper professional referee And he and he was coming in to do the refereeing for the World Cup. So he was being brought in for that So there are fifty two referees from different parts of the world, There's a couple of Brits all over the world. First time ever, a referee from Somalia, he arrives at the airport and he's refused entry despite having vis desp by having been okayed by FIFA, he's given no reason. He's just told you're not welcome the Senegal team now I think you can guess what colour most of the Senegal team are rory. They arrive in the United States. they arrive in the United States. Now when England and Scotland arrive in the United States, they were warmly welcomed. They were brought through the security, onto the bus, off to the training camp, blah, blah blah The Senegal team were searched on the tarmac In front of the cameras, asked to take their shoes off I think it's now fourteen members of the Iran staff have been denied entry. n the referee, I heard an interview yesterday with Rudy Giuliani's son is the White House liaison man for the World Cup. and who was basically saying, why is this guy not being allowed in We're not going to allow anybody in who threatens the security of the United States of America. No reason given whatsoever. And I noticed your great friend Gianian Fantino, the head of FIFA, didn't use his amazing relationship with Donald Trump to get the Somalia in. inststead, he's put out a solemn statements saying FIFA does not get involved in the internal immigration practices of another state No. So therefore, you're going to have a situation of bear in mind Rory I think I'm right that all of the American stadia are in blue areas, Democrat areas, okay They've been open about the fact there's going to be an ice surge in some of these stadium cities so that they can be on the lookout for people who are in America supporting their national team and maybe not there not shouldn't be there. A quarter of the forty eight countries taking part currently facing either travel bans, tight restrictions or high visa rejection rates. Four competing countries, Iran, Haiti, Senegal, Ivory Coast they have faced full or very heavy partial bands There's Inantino saying he doesn't get involved in, you know, day to day politics and stuff. This is the guy gave Donald Trump The FIFA Peace Prize since when we've had God knows how many more wars. And this is the guy who in a previous I don't get involved in politics said. Qote Today I feel black I feel disabled I feel gay In other words, has been there have been times when he's felt a plan to different agenda Okay, Roy, I've just had a brain wave. I'm texting Mark Carney Prime Minister Canada, he should make a big, big political point. Give the Somali ref. visa Get in touch with Infantino and say Ch change the refing schedules, you can refra the games here. And if there's any refs who are mented in Canada, they can go to America. find it obvious that they're white And they can swap down. Great idea The other thing that I think could be life threatening Is the heat The Wld Weather, the Climate Research Group reckons a quarter of the one hundred and four matches are going to be played in conditions which are over the safety limits recommended by the Global Players Union There are protocols for electrical storms. They're predicting that several games will be interrupted by electrical storms. stadium evacuation. you've then got the whole thing about the pricing So Bit too host the World Cup was won in twenty eighteen Okay Now, okay, Trump was in power, but it was a very different to America to the one that we've got now And the promise at the time was that the tickets For the final biggest sporting event you know, of the qu of the four year period The final, the maximum would be fifteen hundred and fifty dollars, okay When they went on sale, The most expensive was listed at eight thousand six hundred and eighty dollars Then what you have is all this sort of trading of the tickets on the FIFA platform And every time you're trading your ticket, they're taking a thirty percent cut Hotels are reporting you I don't know if this is a boyct, but hotels are reporting they're really struggling to fill their rooms. So I think it could be a bit of a mess. I mean, I don't want it to be a complete mess, but I'm not feeling the joy that I normally feel in advance of a W upp and you know, the fact that I am I will feel very when Scotland kick off their first game. I will feel maybe you should be there, but I don't know. I think it's going to be pretty horrible, Alsie Right. Okay, well, that brings us, I guess onto the midterms, which is going to be the next. big story coming out of the US and which maybe we should have been covering more. There's been a lot of shenanigans and a lot of critical stories le it's just Let's try to get to the first thing. So it's a question from Harriet. Please could you give us an update on the U. S. midterms? Will Trump manage to keep the Senate How much does it actually matter if he loses it First thing is there's been a lot of hope invested in the midterms is unpopular more unpopular than he was last time round. A lot of focus has been put on the price of gas In some states, you're seeing gas going up twenty five percent above where it was before And there's been a lot of hope that if he is roundly trnced in the midterms, this is going to make a real difference to Trump's administration and future chances I got a lovely exchange with my nephew Charlie Freeman in the States, whoses eighteen has been following this for me and has sent me incredible amount of data on these races. He's operating for me almost as Rory operates for you But the basic story seems to be that the prediction is that the Democrats will take the House of Representatives to the lower House that at the moment the Senate looks too close to call over you H That's exactly what Mory says. He says Democrats currently three to one on take the house. So that means veryer, very likely Sena is on fifty fifty. I don't mean fifty fifty. That's going to what the makeup is, but it's fifty fifty. who takes her U I mean look, I do think it's interesting the point you made maybe we don't talk about it enough. I sort of feel that even though Trump dominates a lot of our conversations, I feel that you and I have been even subconsciously maybe looking not to talk about him as much as we were at one point. And I think we have that in common with the public. I've been really interested how Sometimes I mention things to people that Trump has said or done that I'm just assuming because he says and does them so loudly that they will know and there' someone to't know about that you know, because I think a lot of people just are just turning off the news. Look, I think these elections are going to be bad for the Republicans The one that M Rory says we should really keep an eye on. he thinks is the most interesting is Texas becausecause and what happened there in the run up, you had this situation where the two wings of the kind of traditional Republicans and the MGa crowd have made it the most expensive, one of the most expensive primaries in Republican history And what they've done is they've ended up And this is where I think Trump becomes a problem because they've ended up Picking as a candidate. Trump's man, this guy Ken Pck Txton who is just terrible. And he's going to be a terrible I think it's going to be a terrible candidate. He beats somebody who was a four time John Cornan, fourull time incumbent traditional Republican actually had voted with Trump mainly, but you know, he said a few critical things. so Trump decided to go against him Paaxxton, meanwhile, the guy who's now going to be representing the Republicans, He's been reported to the FBA for bribery by eight people who worked for him. He was impeached for bribery in Texas, his wife is a Republican senator who filed for divorce on what she called Biblical grounds he's been indicted for securities fraud. and he's up against this very interesting We're looking we're always looking for kind of interesting democratic talent. and this guy James Talorico. retty young mid thirties very, very, very Christian and seems to sort of ally his Christian faith to everything He talks about But if If Trump lost Texas, which he won by fourteen points in twenty twenty four, so it will be tough for Talore Rico. But the fact that they're even talking about this being too close to call is You know, I think evidence of how much trouble Trump is potentially in. Quick, quick explainer again, and thank you to Charlie Freeman for reminding me of this all the time It makes a difference whether the Democrats take both houses or not, just in terms of constitutionally what can happen So constitutionally, if they take just the House but not the Senate, they can legislation, Trump won't be able to get any laws through Q question there, does he really govern by legislation? Increasingly, he governs by executive orders If they take the Senate as well affects his ability to make appointments, affects his ability to appoint judges Ambassadors officials, all of which have to go through a Senate confirmation process Maine is a place to look People will remember Susan Collins in Maine is a very, very widely controversial figure And up against her is a man called Grahem Platner And grand Pner is a sort of Democrat larger than life wearing a very strange inappropriate to two army veteran Is it not is this the guy with the sort of Nazy flavorered Tattoo Yeah Exactly a totem cop to two He's a really interesting character I mean, we should try to get him on the show and he seems in some of the polls to be narrowly Leading Susan Collins in Maine. I think Maine, Michigan, Ohio. the main races to watch. We should start drilling in more into this though, because I think losing both houses will make a significant difference to Trump. And I think we should maybe get listeners engaging between now and November in what's up and what's down and setting the stakes around that a little bit more. Okay, can we not cover opinion polls too much because they do my head in They do, head. Maybe some of the characters. I liked your point about how Trump's own endorsement of Republicans against incumbent Republican senators is going wrong for him but also extraordinarily gets away with it. I mean, it shows the sort of residual power of Trump that he can do this. He's still got the power in the party, yeah Yeah. And I think that's partly because a lot of them Look, I wrote my column last week about this extraordinary encounter I had with a Trump supporter. I just bumped into them in the airport lounge in my recent travels and I was on the phone to Fiona And you know as you know, Rory, I always speak very quietly in public places if I'm on the phone. Absolutely But this guy heard me saying pretty disoblliiging things about Trump And then literally the minute I came off the phone, we entered into an argument which And I actually said in my calendar, four years of podcasting with you, means I have sort of learnt much better to kind of control my aire when it sort of rises. but I can still I can still rise to it. This guy, he abolutely there's nothing I could say, notothing I could say. that he didn't come back with Trump is the greatest president that we've ever had. I mean, he wouldn't accept that he lied. He wouldn't accept that he did things he wouldn't accept that he was making money. orr if he did, he said, why shouldn't he's such a clever guy? He's got to do something when he stops being president. I hope he never stops being president. It was just horrific. I ended up say, Oh, there's my flight being called, and I walked down You know, went to a bookshop U So there are more people like that that I think we fully understand It's a bit like some of the kind of Brexit people who in their hearts know that it's been a disaster, but they can't ever quite bring themselves to say that in any terms. And I think we've got a lot of that with Trump. But look, I think what we should do is as you say, maybe focus on some of the interesting characters and some of these debates and maybe also I'll tell you the other thing I think is quite interesting is what the Democrats strategy is going to be in these winnables places. Are they going to try to come up with a positive agenda of their own. Are they going to be anti Trump or are they going to do you know, very localized kind of campaigning that relates to their particular area. I'd find that interesting , let's get into the mechanics of it because the stakes are huge and it certainly is politics. I also I do think that Trump wants whoever follows him to fail. I'm convinced that as' an absolute It's a strand of narcissism that I think we underrate. I think he wants whoever comes after him to be a total failure Alison, I think maybe time to take a break and just before we take a break th, maybe in Tombi has Eddie Rama sold out Albania's natural beauty to the Kushna money grab. But That was really an incident. Ivious you know, I know Albania quite well, I know Edie Rham, the Prime Minister very well. and he's been sending me his rebuttal of this with increasing sort of anger and frustration because he actually says this is like Albania's wag the dog moment. Now there is something clearly going on. I can't believe that Kristna and Ivank will just say, not really, we're buying this island. And the conspiracy theories are now saying it's going to be the new Epstein Island, that they're going to get a new Epstein Island. They're saying it's going to be a great tourism thing So look, I've seen different shades of coverage. I've seen some extraordinary stuff online I can't remember a name it was an Irish Um Somebody online who was Irish, I think an Irish journalist who was really deep into the detail of who is behind Kushner and Ivanka and their money. And it's a lot of very, very, very politically connected people I've seen other stuff that says This isn't about building a kind of luxury tourism place It's actually about them just creating their own escape from the world if it all goes tits up and the, you know, and and and the masses and the the peasants come, you know, with their pitchforks to get the get the the super elite and the super rich like Kushna. And I've seen Eddie Rama's messages to me when I keep saying, what the hell's going on here when he basically says that this is all been kind of bllown out of all proportion. Iranians are behind all the social media stuff protests are nowhere near as big as the pictures that you're seeing on television. He's got a spat this morning online with Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders talks about one hundred thousand people out there. Eddie Ram says it's no more than two thousand. The maximum was eight thousand. So I don't really know what's going on to be absolutely honest But I'm very suspicious of anything that has Kushner at the heart of it. Yeah, and you're right to be. Listen, I think it's obvious why Edie Rama did it. and I think everyone knows and he'll deny u til he goes blue in the face, but he's doing it to curry favor with Trump That's basically what it is. It's part of a pattern. Look all the way through the Bulkans Eddie Rama hands over a pristine island to Jared Kushner It's going to build ten thousand room luxury resort and destroy one of the last pristine islands. off the coast of Albania. Dodk hands over mining concessions. The Bosnians give fuel. And in Serbia, they were trying to let the Trump family build hotels on the side of the Ministry of Defense that that hoping by doing so that they get invitations to Mar Lago, that they get U. S. support on sanctions This is why they also want to join the Ball of peeace and all this kind of stuff in no way Is this anything like a transparent procurement process. This is not You know, let's say Kir Sammer got out of bed in the morning and thought what he'd want to do is turn the Isles of Silly into a luxury resort, and the British government owned the Isles of Sy There would be a huge process, presumably of environmental impact assessments, community consultations, and then you would go out to some sort of tender and procurement process My guess is Jared Kushner wouldn't be getting it for a knock downown price in building ten thousand flats Hm I wonder but you mentioned when we were in u Serbia right next to the place where Kushner and Witkoff's money grabbing kids were trying to build a hotel And it's not being built because of the protest. So I guess what's happening here is the protests are going on in the hope that this thing doesn't go ahead And the hope is that they I think people are hoping they can shame Edi Rama to back out and not hand over prime Albanian pristine real estate to the Trump family in the hope that they can by concessions. Yeah. Well, just to give you his official line to todayate. The planning process is ongoing, the environmental process is ongoing, the design process is ongoing. No project has been approved, no construction blueprint exists, no final development scheme has been presented. This is a process, not a project Anyway, it does mean there've been these pretty large protests, but I think it is interesting how there's clearly something going on, and like I said, I wouldn't trust Krushner even though my friend Tony Blair keeps telling me how clever he is and how much hard work he's doing on the board of peace with him. I think this could be an example Both of a government trying to carry favour with Trump by doing something to his family and that the kind of online world and the misinformation world is also kind of at play here. It's a It's messy and complicated when what you get online is something that looks very, very simple Very good. Well let's take a quick break. and when we come back from break, we've got an election in Armenia, which we don't talk qu enough, also an amazing announcement from Mille in Argentina who's announced that AI is going to be able to form its own corporations which has the dangerous possibility that there's going to be no humans responsible that you can put in prison behind these corporations and some very reckless activities can follow. And then there was a question you wanted to do on whether you'd choose politics again. So let's speak after the B This episode is brought to you by Vauxhall. 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Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms or if you need a vaccine Imagine being a million miles away Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about trmphayia. Tap this ad to learn more about trimphayia, including important safety information Welcome back to the Rescipolitiv Quion timee with me Alis Cumbe And with me, Rory Stewart. So let me start you with a question which relates to something you've been looking at Harry, are the elections in Armenia positive for Europe's future? Tom. What do the Armenian election results mean for the UK We've had tons of questions on this Take us through the Armenian election and maybe tell us why we've had tons of elections questions on the Armenian elections. I think we've probably had tons of questions on the Armenian elections because people are aware that it was very significant, even though it's a relatively small country, about three million people But it was significant in this seemingly never ending battle Vladimir Putin is waging to keep any country that is in his sort of reasonably close orbit under his wing and what you have with the The guy who has won the election, this is the guy who was serving as Prime Minister Nikool Pashinan. He has won and he's won pretty bigly, as Donald Trump might say. So Armenia was once probablyro Russia's closest ally in the South caaucus, they've had really deep ties historically. And Putin has been getting more and more angry, more and more agitated A week before the elections, he actually recalled his ambassador in protest that Armenia's growing ties with the European Union. He warned them that unless they stop this sort of drive towards Europe and the EU in particular, that they face what he called the Ukrainian scenario You can make your own mind about what that might mean. He's putting all sorts of economic pressure on, suspending a gas deal that they had. They were talking about kicking them out of the Eurasian economic Union And you know, it all that pressure is coming on. plus all the stuff that they do. We saw how they did in Moldova. You send in the spies, you do the disinformation, you get all the online stuff going U and Ifin had held his ground, he hosted a big defense cooperation agreement with France. This is the one that really would have got to Putin He's recognized the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court which has got a contract out. Anyway, he won a majority. The party that came second was Russian backed and it won twenty five percent of the seatason in the Parliament. So d say I'd say in answers to the question, I think it's pretty significant and it is good news for Europe. One of the things that struck me quickly on this is, we covered on the podcast, peopleople have very long memories back in twenty twenty three the final loss of Nagono Karabak. Nagono Karabak was an Armenian enclave surrounded by Azerbaijani territory Am mean, Azerbajah have been in a conflict going back decades. One of the great kind of caucuses conflicts, international conflicts, the nineties. And u Esentially what's happening is Azerbaijan has become much, much richer on its oil revenues than its neighbor Armenia. itss military has become very strong. The Turks have pumped in drones and weapons. And they captured Nagor Karabakh, displacing, I think, one hundred thousand or more Armenians under this guy's prrime Ministership. So you would have thought that he would be punished for that actually interestingly It seems as though the Armenian voter blames the Russians more for failing to help them against the Asseres recognized there was not that much the Armenians could do and this was a kind of unwinnable fight And he's been rewarded for something quite difficult in a country whereether there' be big strands nationalism, which is sort of acknowledging reality. So instead of Everything that I thought would happen on the back of Nagonic Cura. which is this kind of great unresolved bleeding sore. leading to continual nasationalist protests. and it may, maybe in five, ten years time there'll be another war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But at the moment, what's interesting is that the man who lost that territory and basically said there's nothing we can do about it has won an election Yeah, the other election that happened at the weekend that you just said made me think of was Kosovo. Albin Cti won the election a on a terribly low turnout though. the turnout somewhere in the thirties it' really, really bad. But he's on their election. That means by the way, Albin, if you're listening that I offer of a joint interview on the Restist polity leading with the Serb leader Alexander Vuic remains, it stands. But I also think I think we should if we can, Royory, if we can track him down and persuade him. I think we should go and talk to Mr. Pashinin in Armenia because I think it's really interesting what he's done. As you say I imagined that his what was seen as his conceding defeat. in relation to Nagoro Carabag. given how much blood and treasure was spent in trying to to keep it. I thought that would really, really, really harm him I also thought that he actually might be more harmed than he seems to have been by being so out there in terms of his projection of Armenia as a European Union focused country as opposed to, you know classic Eastern European leaning towards Russia. but he seems to have been rewarded on both fronts. So it just shows you stand up for big bold things and You can win Great just before we get to the next question, quick plug. You've been talking a lot about this incredible new book called The Nord Stream Conspiracy in the newsletter, we've interviewed the author oyan Panchevski about how you uncover a story on the sky. I this is amazing asst as you've told people on the show, it's got everything. it's got submarine divers, CIA, SVR, conspiracies, gas energy. So sign up to the newsletter. And an erotic model. And an erotic model. Sign up to the newsletter to read that interview without the erotic model on Thursday If the book, which is truly brilliant is ever turned into a film. I think the title could be Freya I think Freya The erotic model is in some ways the most interesting character in the whole damn thing. She's the one without giving too much way. She's the one who puts the bomb on the bloody pipeline Amazing. It is a truly, truly Brilliant nonfiction book that reads like a no, and it's absolutely brilliant So I'm glad we've got old Baojan in the newsletter. Now Rory, you wanted to talk about Millet, Christina from Buenz Ares, capital of Argentina Argentina is now allowing AI systems to incorporate its companies with no humans behind them and no one to hold accountable Is this the most reckless legal experiment in modern history or just the first of many countries to race to the bottom on AI accountability. My God, that is quite a story. It's an extraordinary story. So this comes out of the fact that Havi Emilee wrote an op ed in the Financial Times announcing this policy, and then you all know Harari My friend who we've interviewed a couple of times on leading, then responded with his own oped in the Fancial Times. Worth reading both pieces. I mean, the first thing that is absolutely staggering is Millet announces this policy And at the core of this policy is some idea that you could set up a company run by AI where there was not unlimited human liability behind it. Some idear either of limited liability or even that actually it's the AI that's going to end up being accountable for the companyies as opposed to the human And he introduces it, you know really to wind up most of our listeners saying The great model for this is the Dutch East India Company. If you listen to the wonderful Empire podcast, our sister podcast that William Darrinpul does with Anita Anand The Dutch and the British East India compomanies are the most extraordinary examples of rapacious capitalism in a world, you know, like a world of hyperscalers running the universe, destroying states, hoovering up money, corruption, etceter. So amazing that Millet says that his model for this 's the Dutch East India compomp The problem that Uval points out is that In the end, You cannot send an AI to jail And the ultimate backstop for a company misbehaving, there are so many incentives for a company to misbehave because An AI running a company is basically given the task of revenue and survival of the company. and if they feel the revenue and survival of the company is under risk, The AI could begin to do more and more radical things could risk bankruptcy, it could lie to people who are making loans to it, it could begin to laws around pollution and who knows what else? And when it's caught, what can you do to it? Absolutely nothing. You can't put an AI in jail that would be like hanging a pig. so to finish with Christina's point. This is the big choice that we face. Mille has made it choice, right? His choice is AI is the future of the world. And that the solution therefore is Argentina has no choice other than to lean into it either you get with the American program or you're doomed. And so Argentina is going to open up, It's going to be the most liberal, most open country to AI in the world and this amazing AI revolution is going to happen in Argentina. The downside is it might be a bit like saying America' invented the nuclear weapons, so we're going to make our economic model letting them test it all over our country teeth Yeah, so is this why is Peter Tial involved in this? Peter Tial who' flitted to Argentina because apparently doesn't feel terribly safe in America Very, very much. I mean, Mille denies it, but All this references the Dutch East India Company an absolutely central peter teal cod history and sovereign individual stuff. Well, non cod history, you mentioned William Dalrimple and his East India company book it's called The Anarchy. strongly recommended and You get a flavor from that title of Willie's view of how things went And I suspect I've not heard him much on AI, but I suspect he sees rapaciousness being repeated by the capitalist class, which is why we all so love the Pope. But Anis let just to sort of put you on the spot for a second before we move on. I mean, I think this will be the question we keep returning to again and again with AI, which is what do you do with a technology which looks like it could make America an incredible amount of money, give it incredible national security power, transform all its services. And China and China. And you know we could actually talk about the fact that the European Union hass just brought in an AI act and basically not surprisingly, the European Union being the European Union is very much safety first, Europe first and point of view of the AI companies an enormous amount of regulations and stopping the kind of innovation they can do in the US. Probably what will happen is Europe's been completely rational, They're completely right to be very worried about the risks The consequences of that is the US, which will not be regulating as much, which will be innovating much more, will be flying ahead and we'll find ourselves technologically even more behind, even if we feel safer. Yeah. someomebody sent me a very interesting note on the AI, the European one. And I think you're right. It says the five key requirements, AI literacy. orrganizations have a duty to ensure staff using AI, understand the risks, etcer, to human oversight, or that's something that Clearly Peter Teal and Millet don't want with their AI companies transparency, people must be informed when they're interacting with it, risk management and documentation and compliance. I guess an American would look at that and say that is why Europe's going to fall so far behind us. Or do you think there's something Is there a more positive judgment we can make of that? I think if you were going to be favorable towards the regulators, you'd say sometimes regulation actually helps innovation. And the great example of that is that introducing the brake pad, which was Mrs. Bencez as a Mercedes Bz, developed the brake pad allowed cars to go much faster. It's kind of counterintuitive. you know, having a brake allows you to go faster Having safety regulation allows you to innovate more because before that people went around in front of cars was little little red flags, but saying beware of the car and actually the sensitry of air bags, seatbelts or stuff So that's the positive case. The other positive case for Europe is that it's putting it's demanding European headquarters companies are right at the heart of our critical infrastructure. This is trying to get away from the threat after Greenland that Trump is going to try to weaponize American companies to extort concessions out of Europe and they're also trying to build a European sovereign cloud so that not all our data and cloud computing is owned by the US. But none of this is going to work Unless we can start building a lot of data centers, and it's going to be very difficult to build data centers if we don't have cheap energy. And then without cheap energy, we won't have the data centers. we won't have the weights and it's all a bit for the birds because actually it's only going to be the Americans and Chinese who can do any of this stuff anyway. Just brief go to the last question. you mentioned the Pope, who I was hero worshiping last week I therefore followed his procession through Spain U Over a million people turned out to hear him speak, but I I don't think he did himself a lot of favors with some a lot of the women in Spain when he I think if he'd done it at a mass, but he went to the Congress of Dputies to do quite a big thing about abortion I think you should have waited to the mass for that probably Certainly one of my Spanish friends was very, very, very cross with him. and she was she was part of the hero worshihiping over the Encyclical. The Pope's encyclical rememains a if you haven't read it yet I was at this book festival in Retford at the weekend and I was very upset. Only four people had read the full encyclical that two of them twowo of them were Irish. Right, last question So it's from Oliver If given another life, would you have chosen politics again? And I think we can finish on that Oh deepends when the life would be I think I would, yeah, I think I would. I think if I was young now If I was twenty five thirty now. I think I would definitely choose politics. yeah because I think it matters now possibly more than ever. In fact I mentioned the Redford Book Festal, there was a very interesting and quite moving question from A woman who said that she was standing for labour in a local a parish council election Parish cououncil And she said she was getting abuse, she was getting online threats. She was beginning to wonder whether She should be doing it And she said she was having to answer for every single thing that the Labour government was being criticized for You know, she's standing for the parish cououncil and people are saying, you know What about this in the Middle East and why aren't you doing more about this in Africa? I want to be your parish counillor. And she said to me what advice do you have? And I said, Well, don't look at the stuff online and just you know, try to focus on the good that you can do, but it's bloody hard these days