Law and Order Models

Does Andy Burnham want to win power only to give power away? On Monday, the man who will soon be Britain's prrime Minister set out his political and economic vision with devolution central to both, including a number ten North and a warning to Whitehall not to block him. There was a lot of passion, there were big promises across a range of policy areas, including quite a lot that Rory and I have been calling for, which Andy Burnham summed up with the phrase good growth in every postcode in every heart. As visions go, I have to say I found it pretty compelling. Let's see if Rory does too This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. Right now, Fuse Energy's tariffs are up to two hundred pounds below the off gem price cap. Plus, they've just launched a new referral offer that can bring your bill down even further. 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Give your outdoor space a glow up. whatever your budget is, with savings on seasonal plants starting at five dollars. With the grill fired up and your backyard set to perfection, you'll be able to invite friends and family over to kick off the party Start celebrating with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. Prices may vary by stor exions of pricey Home Depot com sl priceash for details So good, so good, so good New summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to sixty percent off brands like Rag and Bone, Levi', Adidas, and Free People. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack Welcome to the rest of politics with me Rory Stewart. And me, Alista Campbell, and we're going to talk about Andy Burnham's big speech on Monday and what it says about the pending Burnham premiership. And then in the second half we're going to be talking about a series of very interesting elections ross Latin America. Sir Rory, Andy Burnham. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester is now almost certain to be our next prrime Mister. In fact, I would say certain to be our next Prime Mister, barring something really weird happening. Kirst Aarmer will step down. Andy Burnham take over. what's the rough timetable on that just to sort of bring people back to the basics. Well, he'll be in there before the end of July. sort of the third week of July, he'll be Prime Minister Because had there been a challenge, there would have been a leadership contest within the Labour Party and then it would have properly dragged on to just before Labour Party conference. September. So yeah, he's going to be Prime Minister by the end of the month. And yesterday I had lunch with the Palestinian Ambassador Hussean Zimroat, who we interviewed and he pointed out, I think that he's been in Britain seven years and has so far known six prime mininisters We're gonna try again. And I suppose that's probably the starting point, isn't it? Every one of these people will have gone through something pretty similar, I guess. Thesa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Suna, Kir Stahmer. All of them came into a country where a lot of people were pretty cross, and all of them will have tried to get their advisices together and said What are we going to do to sort out Britain. And I think there are probably two things you're thinking about. One of them is how genuinely to make Britain better and the second thing which is necessary, which is how do you win an election. And most of them Probably arrived at a very, very similar understanding of what was wrong with Britain cost a living Housing too expensive. People frustrated and angry about immigration and a real sense that public services were creaking and things weren't really working So what do you do about it? Now, if you're Boris Johnson, the answer was leveling up. pumping quite a lot of money into the North of England. and we can talk about that a little bit because actually some figures have come out and actually rather surprisingly for those who were skeptical of it A lot of money went in And if you go to places like Hartley Pool, A lot was done. You had Rashi Sunak and Liz Trust who I guess were more on a P free market business growth, low tax side You had Kirama who, I think thought his job was to bring a bit of seriousness back into government, and now we have Andy Berham So give us a bit of a glimpse of your sense of what Andy Burnham's recipe and vision might be for sorting out the country. I think on Monday's speech did give a pretty clear picture of what he means. I mean, there a couple of things to say. First of all, he's shown a ruthlessness, which when he was a young MP and a young minister, I never thought he had But he has shown a ruthlessness He has basically decided that the Labour Party was on the wrong track, the country is on the wrong track And if we carried on the track that we were on, with Keirar leading Labour to the next election, age was virtually home and dry. That is kind of what's been at the back of his mind. and I think at the front of mind of quite a lot of MPs, particularly after the local elections. So what did he have to do? He had to find a seat which he did. He had to win it and he won it so big Parliamentary Labour Party moved almost like a herd from Kirstama Andy Burnham and therefore he's achieved what I knew he was trying to do, which was to become Labour leader and prrime Minister without contest. The first point you make is a kind of brilliant brave political move, a very, very unusual move, someomebody who wasn't even in Parliament, maneuvring himself to be Prime Mister against the Prime Minister with a stonking majority who you normally would have thought was safe for five years. Yeah So that's big bold dangerous, difficult, very unlike what labour politicians have tended to do historically. Then comes in and realizes he can't just do the vibes. It can't just be about, you know wearing t shirts, not shirts. it can't just be about saying Manchester's great all the time. There has to be something of a vision. And what was interesting to me about the speech was first of all, I can't think ever of a newly elected backbencher speech, which has ever had so much attention. It was covered frankly as though he was already the prrime Minister And today we're recording on Tuesday, The tension clear. You've got the current prrime Minister, the incumbent, Kir Stammer setting out a defence investment plan, but the front pages are mainly about Andy Burnham And Burnham knew that with the interest so high Monday was a real opportunity to set out a vision One which related and this is absolutely key in all communications, related both to his own story and to that of the country. So his own story years as part of Westminster White Hall politics, which he blames for a lot of our ills. Next chapter, showing in Manchester that there can be a different way of doing it, more collaborative, more focused on what he kept calling place knock party and now suggesting That's the way forward for the whole country. So it is a vision. It is an idea, it is a different way of thinking about politics and about government. Iteems to me that there are two big things. One of them is devolution, which is shifting political power out of London and down. He feels, and I think we would agree, you and I would agree anyway Manchester seems a pretty impressive example of what can be achieved if you give a mayor significant power tribute, a lot of this goes back to George Osworne, who leent in hard into the idea of setting up Greater Manchester as having power. and this was a devolution agenda that David Cameron embraced. fifteen years ago but the results seemed to be pretty good after ten years of Andy Burnham. It looks as though and it makes sense, if you're driving an industrial strategy or vocational training in a local area, you're much more likely to get the kind of training and the kind of industry that suits that area So that's good and it also brings you closer to people. So we've talked about how in France, you know local mayors are there for you to prod in the chest when you go into the supermarket. And that's definitely something I felt a lot in Cumbria that Cumbrian problems were very, very different from things that people thought about in London, I would have liked much more pattern. The second thing is a claim about infrastructure and industrial strategy. So a lotoss of this seems to be about thinking about house building thinking about how to take control of water utilities M government control of energy And this is a sort of second idea that the economic lever is goovernment playing a bigger role. partartly reationalisation part the government spending driving stuff forward. Am I right are those the two main bits? Yeah. I think look he went through a lot of policy areas and some of them you mentioned. I think it was also interesting he had a very different take on education, apprenticeships Utility ownership, as you say, I thought maybe the most notable to me was the promise of the biggest council housing program since the war. And it was interesting to me that he called it council housing, not social housing. And even though you're right that the first wave of devolution, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland was essentially under us And then George Osborne, as you say, came in Northern Powerhouse, which never really took off But he did do the, you know, Manchester and other Northern regional city mayors But I think one of the interesting strong lower order themes in Andy Bernam's speech on Monday was a rejection of thatcherism. and the blaming of thatcherism for a lot of our current problems. Now the truth is a lot of this for it to work is going to have to involve the rebuilding and restoration of local government, a shift in power, as you say, that's going to require also a shift in mindset and a shift in resources at a time when resources are pretty Sarce. But just to illustrate your point, Rne, I know you've written about this in your middleland book is that he was very, very careful not to be anti London. two or three times was trying to make that clear But he was saying we have to have a more balanced economy Now London has roughly fifteen percent of the national population But it accounts for about a quarter of all growth and a third of our exports You go to Germany and it interestially mentioned Germany at one point In Germany, Berlin generates five percent of economic output in Germany Skilled jobs, you see them all over the place. Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, the ruror area Then when you look at taxation And I think this is where the treasury is going to really have to have to get with the program. Otherwise this thing's not going to work Six percent of British tax revenues are collected by local government. Here in FrM, in France for the moment, you mentioned Mors, in France is's fourteen percent. In Spain, it's twenty four percent and in Germany it's thirty two percent. Sorry, the figure for Britain against Germany again, that sounds very extreme. Six percent of tax revenues in Britain are collected by local governments. fourteen percent in France, twenty four percent in Spain, thirty two percent in Germany. So six percent to thirty two percent. I mean it's unbelievable. I mean six percent means ninety four percent of the tax revenue in Britain is collected centrally, which means I guess what you're getting ono, which is And the reason this matters is that if you are a local mayor, you have to be accountable and responsible. and a lotos of that is money It's about not spending money that somebody else collects and occasionally lets you have as a favour but spending money that you actually generate in your local economy taxing local people spending locally. Now of course, the big, big difference with Germany is that Germany is a federal structure. You have the sixteen lender which are more than just you know local authorities. They have real power, including for things like policing and but also economic regeneration. Now, really I'm very, very grateful to the conversation. You know I like the conversation for alerting me to a new book which is called the Myth of Treasury Control. It's published by Oxford University Press It's written by four academics. and you can tell that this book is for academics Rory because It is currently priced at one hundred and twenty five pounds. You can also tell from the title because I wonder how many listeners really know what the myth of treasury control is. That sounds like You're really the subtitle. The subtitle is even better, public spending in an incoherent state. Anyway, it's very, very interesting. and they've based it on one hundred and fifty interviews with senior civil servants, people who make policy, politicians, people who deliver public services, including one Andrew Burnham. So I think this book actually by advice talks for the University Press is Bring the price down romote the fact that you've got an interview with Andy Burnham in there, and I think it could actually become quite interesting. Let me come in with a plug. So thirteenth of September, people who are feeling like getting their diaries out, I will be in the Dominion Theatre Sitting down doing what you call pultery with Louis Goodall. Oh for God's sake, for God's sake So Royie and Lewis Middle are going to be talking about Manchesterism through the lens of my book Middleland, talking a lot about I think what devolution could feel like in Britain, how local democracy could work in Britain and how it could be a model for the rest of the world. I think it's really relevant to Andy Bern and Matches terism. And anybody who's interested, you get tickets fain. co. uk Forward slash Rory dash Stuewart. look forward to Sing people for a discussion thirteenth September. So Rorory, when you put it in the in the podcast WhatsApp group, does anybody have a phone number for Louis Goodall? And I sent you a phone number for Louis Goodall? It was so that you could Cit this terrible act of pultery to plug a bloody book olutely absolute. I also thought I was being kind to you because you don't actually want to come out in a Sunday evening and sit on a stage with me. so I thought give you an evening off. Okay, that's very kind. That's very kind. Well if I can go back to the one hundred and twenty five book, but what they've done, they've looked actually in real detail at three areas that we have talked about and that we're both very, very interested in. One is prisons One is special educational needs and one is homelessness this book, what it tries to do is to work out how the systems and in particular the way the treasury operates And there's a lot of talk about silos, there's a lot of talk about short termism And essentially, when you get to Andy Burnham's interview in the book, that is what he's talking about. He's basically saying, I want to break that apart Now A lot of focus will be, I think, eventually. D didn't really talk about this, but I'm assuming that eventually we're going to have to get to greater tax raising powers to local government. That is a total anathema to the treasury. This then leads us to a question that's getting a lot of attention already Wh will Andy Burnham appoint as Chancellor? Because this has to be Prime Minister and Chancellor in absolutely in lockstep saying, this is our vision. This is what we want to do I think this will be Ed Milliband and I think it probably should be Ed Milliband becausecause I think if you're talking about the need to change the mindset in the treasury, then I think you need somebody who shows that they've got the capacity to do that. Now Ed Milliban knows the treasury, having worked for Gordon Brown, having been alongside Gordon and Ed Balls when they're winning quite a few big battles within the treasury. He's also shown, I think, on the climate agenda and by God is this weaker reminder of how we need to sort of really face up to the realities of climate change. He's shown that he can take difficult positions and fight for them. I don't know and anymore and Andy Berer was right to point out yesterday, any speculation you see about this appointment, that appointment justust wait until I you know make those appointments. But I think it will be Ed Milliband, and I don't know what you think, Royie, but I think Ed Milliband would be the right choice, even though I know it'll be controversial If that maybe even partly because it will be controversial. depends on what your growth strategy is. and I think I'm more comfortable with the idea that Devolution down to Manchester or down to Cumbria is really good at accountability, good at getting people closer to voters producing policies that are more relevant, good at supporting good local sectors If he really wants growth Let's take let's take his biggest thing, which is council house building. He doesn't have the the money levers on that. I think the fundamental problem that Andy Burnham faces is that he's just signed up to the same handcuffs which Kir Stara and Rachel Reef set themselves when they said they weren't going to increase income tax, national insurance corporation tax or VAT. In other words, he's basically destroyed the revenue that he could get to invest in the kind of grand industrial schemes that he might want to do from housing through to energy. because he can't borrow much more money because of the fiscal rules and he You can't raise much more through taxation. and I think it's heartbreaking because this is the opportunity if you actually want to go for a M Swedish or French style capable state of increasing the income tax. particularically the main income tax, I'm afraid, on medium In commanders. I guess his Thinking will be that on something as central to the Labour Party manifesto, that if he were to go against that, he would probably have to have a general election and as things stand, I'm not sure he wants that And then but it was interesting to me. yet again, he was determined to emphasize his sticking to Rachel Reve's fiscal rules, which of course, is partly about keeping the bond markets settled, which they appear to have been, the ractation yesterday was I suspect exactly what they were planning for. That means the only thing he can really do to get his council houses built is radical reform of the planning system radical deregulation And that's why it's worth looking at these Sam Friedman's written a really interesting piece, which we can put in the newsletter in which he points out that Singapore, which is seen as a great kind of free market economy, has eighty percent public Housing. all sounds great.. until you look at the details. you know Singapore very well. and of course, the way in which it's done in Singapore is The Singaporean government owns an enormous amount of land, has a very strong compulsory system of funding from taking it from average taxpayers And it has incredible powers to drive through building of this public housing against public opposition So if he really wants to do this What we're not hearing about is how's it going to make it easier to build? What's he going to do about the Green Belt? What's going to do about environmental regulation? And how iss he going to deal with all the stuff that you talk about every year when you go up to Leeds and you sit down with house buildilders, which is skills, building supplies, materials, construction costs and all the stuff. And again, you the reason I'm raising this is the biggest house building cououncil house buildilding project since the fifties Weirdly, it's the kind of stuff that we were talking about even fifteen years ago in government. know we were obsessed with the fact McMillan had built an enormous amount of council houses And as I keep saying, a lot of the most talented Tory ministers were made into housing un there as an attempt to drive through and they failed And Labor also is going to fail massively on these incredibly ambitious targets which were set by Kir Sammer at the beginning of his thing. So that all comes back to my question around Ed Milliband. Look, I think he's a great Treasury Pfizer, I think he'll be able to drive change through, I think he'll probably be able to change taxation structures, give more power to local government. I think what he's not likely to do is really deliver on the deregulation making it easier for business, dropping energy prices, freeing up planning regulations, which is what I think we need for growth. Of course, Andy Berham having made this sense of place before party and I guess localism suchuch a big thing, such a big part of this vision, that will be taken by people who then want to sit in opposition to big building programms in their own area. as a sort of you know an anti localist point. So this is going to require a lot of change. In this book, the myth of treasury control. I'd completely forgotten this, but back in the dying days of the new Labour government, after Tony had gone and Gordon came in and Andy Bernam was then ch Chief seecretary to the treasury. So he knows the treasury. He knows how the treasury works and he knows it from that side of the table as it work. But there was a programe. I'd completely forgotten about this, but it was called Total placeace. And it was this was in two thousand nine and was it was backed by the treasury at the time, and I'm wondering whether Andy Bernam was pushing this. And essentially the point behind this was that you map all your public spending in an area and you then build the services around what they call place based outcomes. And of course what happened twenty ten, David Cameron came in, Austerity posted the crash and this just got you know, basically kicked aside. So it' would be interesting to see whether that approach comes in. This's an amazing report which has been put together by Dami Yanti Chassji, who's the Director of Public F. And what he's been looking at is all these attempts to put money into less afflent areas. So nineteen billion pounds of national funds, nineteen billion pounds national funds have been allocated by Torian labour governments. This is what me' talking about What happened from Boris Johnson leveling up onwards This is lots of different eds, shared prosperity fund, leveling up fund, toowns fund, Pide in place fund. And they've followed what's happened. a lot of this money's been spent. So Hartley Pool, for example twenty five million pound town fund, which focused on the economy, so not just cosmetic improvements Hartley Pools received nine hundred and seventy four pounds per head since twenty sixteen compompared to one to three pounds per head for councillors in London So huge difference. And there's been a massive transformation, not just if you go up to Harleypool and how it looks but also setting up vocational training colleges getting behind businesses. However, the punchline that they've discovered is that these areas which have received the most money, Hartley Pool, Great Yarmouth Ashfield, Boston have all got reform MPs or in the case of Great Yarmouth, a restore MP, and putting a lots of money into those areas huge amounts, like nineteen billion pounds hasn't changed remotely people's willingness to vote for these far right populist parties. In fact, Weirdly, it's the opposite. There is a correlation they found, the more money these areas get the more likely they are to vote for restore reform. If you equal across poverty diversity and all other indicators, all other things being equal, the more money you get and levelling up funds, the more likely you are to vote for reform or restore. that's very interesting. I mean, I guess that what Andy Burnham, I think is trying to say is that if we just carry on with this politis of people at the center in Westminstrer Why Hall decide what you in Hartlepool and Great Yarmouth need And we give you a few bob here and there and we ask say, why didt you build this with it and build that with it What he's trying to do, and I think this number ten North, we should talk about this number ten North and what that means And he says it's going to be the nerve centre of a rewired Britain. And he was very careful to say, even though he wants it to be based in Manchester because he's got to be based somewhere that it's also and I've got these I've got a friend in Scotland, Stephen Bonroe, who every time you and I talk about the North, literally every time He will send me a message saying The North is Fort William. The North It you know so Andy Birdard now every time he talks about Lumber ten North, he's got to watch the Scottishs reaction to that. But I think what he's saying is that this isn't just about giving money, this is about empowering local communities. And it was interesting the way he talked about what he's done in Manchester invol he kept going on about collaboration, working with the parties, working with the trade unions working with faith groups, working with businesses, etceta. Now, how will that approach survive the reality of parliamentary politics and parliamentary combat. And if you saw the reactions both in parts of the press and also from the Tories and from reform Yesterday to Andy Berham's speech. It's going to be very, very hard. I hope he does it by the way, but it's going to be very, very hard to stick to this you know, not point scoring, not doing party politics all the time, not just sort of saying you got everything wrong and to hold to this sense of a more collaborative approach. I hope he achieves it But I think that is where you know He's going to get very, very tested once he's actually in Parliament because the nature of parliamentary politics is such that it's just a very hard thing to do I hope he does it, but it's going to be tough. Presumably one hope would be, but maybe this is unrealistic, is that he can try to reach over the head of Parliament directly to people I mean I guess he would feel that his style in Manchester has not really been very party political. The lovely thing about a lot of these meors. and we saw it when Andy Burnham and Andy Street were in feed on leading together with us. We did this tale of two Ands. What's greatace about them is that they're really able to say, I'm speaking for everybody in my city regardless of whether you voted for me or not and I'm not getting drawn into silly party political Point scoring I guess the gamble is that he's charismatic enough, he's appealing enough to be able to reach directly to people through social media, through television, and It doesn't matter too much that The House of Commons is still up to its old gam, which frankly One of the things I haven't come with and one of the reasons I really like talking to him is that like me He was totally disgusted and horrified by his experience ultimately in Westminster and felt that actually the most fulfilling bit of being a politician is when you're down into a local area where you can actually see concrete problems, get things fixed, talk to people in the street rather than being stuck in this kind of airless chamber. of mad exchanges This week's episode of Leading with Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian Prime Minister, which I think people will enjoy. And he sent a message yesterday said he and his wife he said We're watching Burnham's speech in Manchester live now. Now how many backbench Labour MPs speeches get covered live on Australian TV? He says this, he will do well, I think. He's a much better speaker. I think he means Link a Stammer But he's offering a politics of disruption which will appeal to a lot of the angry voters who are supporting reform. And I think it's getting that balance between basically saying I am a disruptor But the way I'm disrupting it is actually by taking on he's not saying this is all down to populism a lot of is, but he's also saying this is a lot to down to the way that we did politics when I was a politician in London. Now, Along the way, you've got to be delivering the big changes. but I think I felt very hopeful from watching as a labour person because I feel that what's been missing has been this sense of, you know What's the big kind of what's the big vision here? What are we saying? And Peter Hyman, I know you're a big fan of Peter Hyman'. sububstat and a very good piece analyysed in the speech today. And he says this, whereere Farage offers victimhood, Burnham is offering agency, where Farage offers scapegoats, Burnham is offering common purpose, where Fage offers a return to the past Burnham is offering hope for a better future And he says his narrative launched into the mayhem of the attention economy has the potential to be a long running box set rather than the thirty second TikTok clip There's a side issue to that. Yesterday, Roy, don't know if you followed this, but a lot of the journalists were really angry that he didn't take questions at the end of his speech. A I got a load of grief from lots of people because I've been trying to tell Kirstana for two years. Please stop doing that thing of taking questions at the end of a speech Because all you do is give the broadcast jour journalists in particular the chance to say Well, he didn't answer my question properly about this or you know, let's say yesterday, one of the journalists would dis you, willill Ed Miliband be your chancellor Andy Burnham said, Well, I'm not going to announce the cabinet. they'll be very presumptuous d d da. Andy Burnham has not ruled out Ed Milliband's Chancellor. and away they go. What happened on Monday Was that even the hostile media, not all of them, the Daily Mail, did some ridiculous thing about, you know, he's planning to punish the South. but most of them actually gave proper pretty sensible, serious coverage to what he's said Now, that is an important part of strategic communication. So I hope he sticks to that. He's got to do lots of interviews, he's going to be held to account in parliament. He should definitely not ever seem to be running away from the media. But the idea As soon as you make a speech, the first thing you say is I'd like to call and I'd like to call Chris Mason, Beth Rigby, the guy from GB News, Robert Peston, etcetera. No Let them read, digest, discuss a proper speech. Well, this is I can hear my friends who worked in number ten under Boris Johnson and Rushie on streaming at the podcast at this moment. And remembering the tweets that you sent attacking Boris and Rashi for refusing to take questions from the press when they were running exactly this logic. Oh no. no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. no, absolutely not. No, no, no. What I used to attack them for, particularly Boris Johnson, was at those ridiculous COVID press conferences where he just talked throughad of crap and he sort of he took questions and they' part of showbiz No, no, no, you're going to be very hard pressed to find those already. Okay. I'll you go and you go and find them. You find them I'll float some maybe in the newsletter to see what readers think. But I don't want to get into gotcha. let me finish with a sort of sensible point before we go into thing The one thing that I regret him not doing and where I was hoping he was going to go because I think he agreed with me when he was in Westminster is that so much of what is wrong with the country is just the lack of seriousness It's true in Parliament. He's very, very good at identifying how MPs are frequently not serious and we're just less than the sunbar parts But if I think about my jobs in government You know, what was really wrong with prisons? Well, a lot of that was down to what's happening on the landings, how governors are trained, managed, prison officers work What's really wrong with the foreign office? It's down to the right kind of diplomats and the right jobs with the right language skills. What really was going wrong, you know is what Middlelands partly about in rural policy is having civil servants who really understand and care about rural issues know how to talk to farmers are sensible about taking on things And what really matters in schools, I mean, this is something that Fiona I think, would resonate with. reallyally comes down to the quality of the teachers and the head teachers. and the really big challenge for fixing Broken Britain is the much tougher business of how do we over ten or twenty years produce much, much higher quality operations, kind of execution delivery, rather than an idea that somehow there's some big model out there in Scandinavia or the states that we can import and then everything will be fine. Yeah. My final point before go to the break. I guess if there were three things in the speech that made were missing. He didn't mention AI Now, we mentioned tech and he mentioned innovation, all that, but I think that it would be interesting to hear what he thinks about AI what a government strategy under Andy Burden would be. Can I interrupt on that? I had a very worrying thing because I was talking to one of his staff about this If you are looking for a magic trick AI is about as close as you're going to find. That is the big industrial revolution of the next decade. If you're really looking for really big strategic shortcuts in your economy It's gott to be about AI. And I was talking to one of his staff who said And he's not interested in AI. It was completely devastating Oh In other words, they were suggesting this is a guy who's less interested in it than Rishi Sunk or Kirana And that's really bad Okay, OkayK, well we'll have to press on that. Maybe I should talk to other members of his staff and find out. Okay. The second thing was he mentioned Brexit on Passon, but the truth is, this was a speech about Britain's future economy that has to involve a clear sign about where we're heading in terms of our relations with the European Union. And the third thing, given that we are in the middle of this hideous European heat wave I think that there is an economic impact of climate, which I also maybe feel you could have he could have addressed. My final final point are a couple of appointments that I think are welcome. The first Really good news. I think Jonathan Powell is going to stay on his national seecurity advisor. I think that's really good And James Panonell as Chief of staff, I think that's a good move. James Panll is somebody who was an MP He was a special advisor in Downing Street. He was actually He actually worked with Tony Blair when Tony Blair was a young MP and he was at university But he was a minister, junior minister, a cabinet minister. He's had lots of experience in the private sector outside also with the BBC So I think that's a very, very, very good pointointment. and it shows that he's serious and I also like the fact that it happened without any media speculation whatsoever I think that and I thought he was right to say just ignore anything you read about cabinet appointments until I make a cabinet. And I know the press got pissed off yesterday, but your point about seriousness Sious government is not about making sure the press have fed every single day. That is somebody's job But it is not the Prime Minister's job. And so I was quite pleased by that And then I thought the other my final sorry' keepiving you final point of Joy, when Donald Trump Donald Trump, of course, you know did that disgusting sort of pososted about Kdama announcing his resignation before he'd resigned He then felt it took it upon himself to say what he thought about Andy Burnham And he said, I've never heard of him But I hear he's extremely liberal and he ought to drill in the North Sea Now, if I' have been Andy Burnham Because Sy Burn's quite Quite good at these little sort of responses. He did a good one to Kamy Bado When she said all is is a pair of eyebrows and a black t shirt. and he did a very short clip saying it's dark blue actually. I think he should have said to Donald Trump, you may not have heard of me, but you must have heard of Manchester. We've got thirty two players from our two clubs at the World Cup And and we've done this, this, this, this. I think I think Ben we interviewed Ben Rose this week, Barack Obama's speech writer And that'll be coming out soon. And I thought it was interesting why he his view is that Burnham should probably pick a few fights with with Trump. We'll see whether that's what he does or what he doesn't do. But I certainly think the Maloney Carney approach Probably reaping a few dividends right now. Very good Okay, well who thought the day would come when you would finally endorse the love actually approach to politics? And that's'sad I didn't want to give you a chance to come back. You're going to come back. I shouldn't have said that full break. Let's take a break and then we'll come back afterwards OkayK, welcome back to the restest ofess politics with me, Roy Stewart. And with me Alista Campbell, and we're going to talk about Latin America for this second hour. First of all, I think we should acknowledge this awful, awful, awful earthquakes in Venezuela, as if the country hasn't had enough to get through in recent years, but this is pretty horrific. And also to tell you that in our newsletter this week, we're going to explore the thing that we you and I are going to discuss now which is the nature of Trump's intervention in South America right now. becausecause if you look at the if you look at the political big picture in Latin America It is possible to see something of a shift to the right from what was called the pink tide of the early two thousands when left parties seem to be in the ascendnder. And given how close some of these elections have been I think it is quite reasonable to speculate that Donald Trump at least has been a contributor to that shift. Let's have a look at this. So it's an amazing story. So as you said, there was this famous first pink tide which happened in the late two thousands, which happened at a time when Latin America was kind of booming on commodities in China And that was Ugar Chavis, Evaorales Rapael Carere And then there was the second pink tide. And the second pink tide actually coincides with the rest is politics. So listeners who've been with us for Since the beginning, we'll remember So it was Borich, who was this amazing student leader taking over in Chile Gustavo Petro who was Cnect to this terrorist group, the M nineteen terrorist group taking over in Colombia And perhaps most dramatically of all, Pedro Castillo, a basically unknown rural schoolteacher taking over in Peru And also you had Lula winning fousy in Brazil and Shinbaum remaining in Mexico. So there was a pretty strong story that Latin America a couple of years ago felt leftist. and now Chile, Colombia and Peru have all gone back to the right and they've gone back to the right. In two cases, by tiny, tiny margins as you keep pointing out. So Borrich went And the left turned out to be much less radical than people expected, partly because these guys weren't able to get through their constitutional changes or in the case of Castillo, they were toppled pretty quickly Jose Antonio Cast was elected in Chile My friend Michael Reid, who's the economist, Latin American correspondent says he reminds him of a sort of headmaster in a kind of second rate school. He's somebody who is extremely Catholic, extremely authoritarian, wants everyone has cabinet to wear ties and is really against vandalism but is generally failing to inspire anybody very much Then you've got Keiko Fujimori, who we've talked about, so the daughter of the great sort of controversial imprisoned leader of Peru who won on this tiny tiny margin and beat someone modelled on Pedro Castillo, so somebody from communist left And then most disturbingly all is Colombia where of course I was last year and we talked about a little bit, which is Espria. And Espriiea is you know, a proper Trump ally who's won. This is a guy who was a mafia lawyer I mean, as a lawyer, he represented organized crime groups, people who were associated with drug trafficking with disappearances, and he has very, very clearly come out in support of Nbule's policy in El Salvador, which is around these brutal prisons. Okay, back over to you. He sort of models his facial hair on Elbukele. I mean they both have this perfectly trimmed everyday facial hair, they look very, very similar. He denies his modeling himself on him, but I'd say not just he But some of these other leaders, for example, one of the other elections in Costa Rica which was already conservative and quite a safe country historically by Latin American standards But the but the incumbent there, Laura Fernanders, she came in and she won without even a second runoff. She was so far ahead Where as you say, some of these other elections have been incredibly close. Fujimure was announced yesterday. she won by fewer than fifty thousand votes, fifty point one three to forty nine point eight six likeikewise aspada, he has he won by less than one percent So it's not impossible that Trump's endorsement and the threat that he would not support them with, you know military or he might put sanctions on them, whatever it might be. And then the other one, was in Honduras back in November. Another one less than a percentage point, forty point three to thirty nine point five And the winner, this guy Asfura Trump basically said there will be hell to pay if he doesn't win. And alongside he also pardoned previous presresident Hernandez, who had been serving forty five years on drugs charges. So he is absolutely determined to get involved in all of these. And if you look at Wh who came straight out This just underlines how right wing It is now. because you've only really got Brazil and Mexico Uruguay and Guatemala that have got vaguely left of center Gvernments and of those again for people who don't follow Latin America at the time. The big story is Brazil and Mexico. I mean, those are the giant giant economies. Of the other major economies, traditional major economies, Argentina has now gone far right We've just talked about Peru, Chile and Colombia Venezuela, which was this great oil centre is now in reckx. and Brazil and we'll know really have to focus this, is about, of course, to go into an election first round in October where Lula is running against Bolsonaro, you the far right populaces eldest son. So that's a real one to watch. Now Shinbaum in Mexico, who's from the left will see Trump out Brazil is going to be the real anchor question around this. and this is relevant. I mean, the reason it's so interesting talking about this is Insofar as there's any definition of a theory of foreign policy from Trump It's what he's calling the Trump corollary of the Munroe doctrine, which basically says What Trump cares about is not what happens in the Middle East or Asia or Europe. What he cares about is controlling the Americas. and in particular controlling Latin America. That's why we have the kidnapping of the present in Venezuela, that's why we have these continual threats of intervention in Cuba. This is why we have all that stuff you're talking about from sanctioning to rewarding people like Mil who are allies, threatening people So this will be seen if you are China or if you are from the left and Latin America, as a victory for the United States and in particular for Trump's version of the United States, and you can expect him to begin putting pressure on all these countries around investing in Chinese equipment when it comes to national security. And even if he's won by a very narrow majority, and even if these presidents and this's probably be true in Latin America face a lot of opposition and they'll probably face huge street demonstrations in places like Colombia and Peru in particular He's going to do his very best to come through on his idea that this is going to become a much more right wing American dominated continent. There was a survey done in Brazil as you say, I think the first round is october the fourth. L Lula of course is eighty now and look I don't want to be ageist but I think there should be an age limit the presidents, if they've got orange hair and or they're eighty But he he's going to say but there was a survey and there was this. would a Trump endorsement of a candidate increase or decrease your willingness to vote for them And it was increase seventeen percent, decrease fifteen percent, no differentnce sixty five, not sure three. Now I don't know what the influence is. but it was interesting, for example, in relation to Free Moroney When the thing tilted away from her opponent was actually when the overseas vote came in. and the biggest overseas voting block is in the United States Now I don't know any of those people, but I wonder if any of them were actually directly influenced by Trump saying, if you're Peruvian, you better vote for F Morti. so I think Brazil is going to be absolutely fascinating. And of course, the reason why Colbia is so important is because the three most populous countries are in order, I think, Brazil Mexico, Colombia. So as you say, two of the four that are holding on to kind of left of center governments are very, very big economies and Mexico obviously with the added complication of being on America's southern border But Brazil will be absolutely fascinating. The fact that Bolsonaro Who's in jail? This goes back to the whole story about Trump. So Trump was, you know, convicted felon, but he won again. Bolsonaro is in jail. He obviously can't stand. so his son, Flavio is standing And it's all a way of saying, we're doing this very, very differently, But Trump will come out, I've got no doubt about this, will come out for Bolsonaro and we'll see whether that has an impact It didn't help in Colombia It is even though Dill Escarlla won the opponent, his opponent Chpeeda, his ratings actually went up when Trump first attacked him. So I don't know ay your money take your choice? Well, a lot of the drivers of this though are of course internal And a lot of it is driven by a perception that organized crime is out of control someome of that connect to problems spilling over Venezuela's borders S of are connected to drugs Um yeah incredible killings, disappearances. And so if the fight that the first and Second Pink Tides was about how to create more equal societies how to redistribute the income from commodities The fight now really in these elections is between people talking about inequality on the left and people talking about law and order on the right And here we've got another problem that we see a lot, which is an idea that you can import a solution from another country. So there's this horrifying model being pursued in El Salvador And there's two problems with it. One is that it is genuinely horrifying. I just want to little sumary of what's actually happening in El Salvador. But the second problem is El Salvador' a pretty small simple country compared to Colombia, which is enormous, diverse, complex, and very very un me start trying to turn Britain into Singapore. but let's just on on so people understand what's happening in El Salvador. This is Richard Madeley writing about a documentary he's just done on the prisons. He spent two days inside They're packed like battery hens in enormous cells. No mattresses No possessions of any kind allowed Nothing to read, watch, write or draw with, bright lights burning twenty for seven No prison visits. Nearly a hundred men to a cell constantly visible through the floor to ceiling bars to ceaselessly patrolling armed guards All the gangsters who once held this tiny Central American country in murderous grip, None will ever see daylight again. It's a living death and clearly a breach of human rights. I found it a harrowing experience but it's restored near complete normality to El Salvador. and guess what most people who watch the documentary say to me people of all ages, classes and types we could do with a place like that here. S Yeah Well, the and as I say, even in Costa Rica Part of the pitch from Laura Fernandez was that we're going to have these megaprs Remember when we interviewed Moyise' Naim and he talked about his three C's, crime rption and cruelty Crime is how you win Corruption is what follows and you have to express yourself in very cruel terms to show that you mean business And of course, the other thing that these Latin American governments have done, they've done deals with Trump about taking some of the people that I are lining up to send up. So some of these people in the jails they've been put there simply for not having the right papers in the United States, but they're now in one of these hellish jails and we should, you know, they are they are horrific. there are some terrible photographs that we should maybe put in the newsletter as well that show just what life is is like in these prisons. So the other thing though, Roy just these right wing guys and they're not all doing that well. Millie, for example, is facing lot of protests, casts ratings or they won the election comfortably in Chile, his ratings have fallen substantially. Bolivia, another one that's got a right wing government, they declared a state of emergency last weekend becausecause there were these blockades that were paralyzing the nation And Ecuador, another one murders up thirty percent. And I'll tell the other thing that drives me nuts really, the MAGa crowd who obviously love all these right wing guys in Latin America constantly saying that London and the UK and Europe, these kind of crime hellholes. where we've actually got crime falling, murders down. In these countries You're talking about levels of murder. that are unimaginable a European audience. And yet for some reason, Trump thinks these are great guys. Well, let's maybe finish on the on you reached out to Europe because we talk a lot about whether it's possible to think about middle powers getting together. So it's not just US and China, but this Mark Carney vision of a third prong or you know, maybe your friend, the President of Finland of Fourth anchor along with the gllobal South And there's something quite interesting there because The commommission has basically beun to implement this Mercosaur agreement, which is a European Union Latin American Free trrade aggreement It will do good things for trade and investment. I mean it's not going to replace China, which is just exploding. But Europe is still the largest investor in places like Brazil and Argentina And I think it provides another ally, another political ally for Latin America to balance itself when it's stuck between the US and China So I'm really interested in this Mercosaur thing, and I think it could be an interesting model for how the European Union and Britain thinks about arranging its relationship around the world the middle pass Cool, we'll come back to you and we'll certainly come back to Latin America at the time of the Brazilian elections in October. And on the newsletter, we've got a very interesting piece in the next edition, which is about a journalist who's infiltrated the far right And to get access to that, you just have to sign up and you can do that through the link in the episode description. And in question time, we're going to come back to Zora Manddani, the new mayor of New York And the lead up to the primaries, how on earth does the Democratic partarty which was cracked by Trump rebuild itself? What kind of candidates does it run? What's its ideological vision going to be And much more coming in question time tomorrow. Okay, Rarie, see you tomorrow S'llee you tomorrow