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See site for details. Welcome

0:51

to the rest is politics with me,

0:53

Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell. And

0:55

today, there's actually some really interesting international

0:57

news. We're going to do France and

0:59

Germany and the relationship between French President

1:01

Macron and Chancellor Schulz. We're going to

1:03

be looking at the Russian elections, which

1:05

sounds a bit weird, but will justify

1:08

to you why Russian elections worth looking

1:10

at. We'll do a little bit on

1:12

the current problems of the UK Conservative

1:14

Party and stories over the weekend that

1:16

there might be a leadership challenge against

1:18

Rishi Sunak before the end of the

1:20

year. And then we'll look at

1:22

the election of a new first

1:24

minister to Wales, bringing the first,

1:26

I think, black leader into leader

1:28

nation anywhere in Europe. But let's

1:30

start on France and Germany, which

1:33

we're lucky enough to have with

1:35

us. A man who loves

1:37

France and Germany speaks very good French and

1:39

German. Introducing a new guest.

1:41

That's right. Exactly. So give

1:43

us a sense on where you think things are,

1:46

because there are actually very few people I know

1:48

who've got such a kind of sympathy for both

1:50

countries and understanding of both in the British world.

1:52

Well, they had a meeting the other

1:55

day with Donald Tusk, and it was

1:57

set up really as this new prime minister of

1:59

Poland. and of course very well known

2:01

to both of them because of his leading role in Europe. And

2:03

I think it came at a very,

2:05

very difficult time for them. I don't

2:08

think there's any doubt that they're not soulmates, Macron

2:10

and Scholz. I think

2:12

Macron sees himself as a

2:16

European leadership figure. Scholz is a

2:18

chancellor of Germany, which is widely

2:20

seen as the most powerful country

2:22

in Europe. But they then, things

2:24

really kicked off when they had this

2:27

meeting on Ukraine a few weeks ago.

2:29

And Macron talked

2:31

about troops on the ground.

2:34

And Scholz went straight out to say

2:36

this is just not going to happen.

2:39

Macron talked about cowards. He

2:42

reminded people that... With a side implication that

2:44

Scholz might be one of those. Well, he

2:46

also reminded people that there

2:48

were countries at the start of the Ukraine War

2:50

that talked about sending helmets, which

2:52

of course was Germany. The

2:55

Germans are very slightly

2:57

fed up. There's a thing called the

2:59

Kiel Institute, which does an analysis of

3:01

who sent what and says that Germany

3:03

is second behind the United States and

3:05

France is well down the list. The

3:07

French have got very uppity

3:09

about that, saying actually there's a lot more.

3:11

A figure produced from Germany, which has been

3:13

repeated in the press and this will be

3:15

what's disputed. The claim is that Germany has

3:17

promised, I guess the word is promised, 17

3:21

billion euros worth of

3:23

munitions supplies and France is providing only 3%.

3:26

So that's the German view that

3:28

France is really not putting its way. And then

3:30

presumably the French say that statistics nonsense and they're

3:33

putting in more than that. Well, and they also

3:35

say that what they're putting in is more effective.

3:37

So the current argument going on, one of the

3:39

current arguments going on is the fact that the

3:41

British and the French have provided cruise missiles. Right,

3:44

which allow you to find much longer range. Correct.

3:46

And the German cruise missiles

3:49

is Taurus system, which is

3:51

deemed To be more effective. Scholz's

3:53

argument seems to be that if the

3:56

Germans do provide those, they also have

3:58

to provide troops who have. After

4:00

v on the ground and

4:02

that that is. Brisk.

4:04

Be very same as looked at. Too

4:06

complicated to twenty credits threesome through right

4:08

now Ukraine is argue that they could

4:11

do that. Ukrainians have been complaining the

4:13

lots of these promises from lots of

4:15

different countries just have not been fulfilled.

4:17

anyway. So then had this meeting with

4:19

Tusk and they all came out is

4:21

called the Weimar Triangle. The three countries

4:23

and they came out Salt said use

4:25

his strengths, Macros said they were good

4:28

nights and Turbans Tusk said that is

4:30

so is it? All these terrible rumors

4:32

of bickering overstated, but you do hear.

4:34

Constantly that both personally and the

4:36

teams do not get on very

4:39

well. The his to this is

4:41

really important because Germany and France

4:43

has been the instances European integration

4:46

since the forties. People such as

4:48

talking about what is Dakota Franco,

4:50

German said Russian so us the

4:53

Sec mobile these countries which been

4:55

really at loggerheads violently from ancient

4:58

sentencing when process took Paris and

5:00

then seized Alsace Lorraine than than

5:02

the French sees the Rhineland. That

5:05

Lisa discuss just west of the

5:07

Ryan unless you to the and

5:09

it's have more Office of Mobile

5:11

Aids really concerts it attempts made

5:13

by German freshly to set to

5:15

get the on that and talks

5:17

at she about single currency season

5:19

Italia, Sat, single army, single governments

5:21

and this continued. I think I've

5:24

been through a loss of very

5:26

interesting relationship so at an hour

5:28

and to go who fifty or

5:30

sixty three Branson Pompidou Smith and

5:32

just got this Now miss medically.

5:34

Probably cola me trump my duty

5:36

to tonight's of holding hands and

5:38

famously. And then we had Shredder

5:41

and Chirac and then Melco with

5:43

Sarkozy on on the macro on

5:45

most of those relationships seem to

5:47

source of work and the some.

5:50

Muslims. living them say on assessing

5:52

tell me a little bit about your

5:54

sense of self french gem relationships worked

5:56

when they were strong maybe this of

5:58

comatose thread osirak years You

6:01

shouldn't overstate, understate rather, the whole

6:03

issue of ego in

6:05

politics. So I think Chirac

6:08

Schröder, who we saw very, very close

6:10

up, you always had the sense of

6:12

Chirac being Le Gondem, the

6:14

big guy, but Germany was

6:17

the big country and that sort

6:19

of balanced itself out. I think with

6:21

Schulz and Macron, it does feel less

6:23

integrated than those. I think

6:26

Merkel understood that Macron likes the

6:28

big moment. Okay. Schulz is very

6:31

quiet, steady, incremental. So

6:33

when Macron, one of his early statements, and he

6:35

said that NATO was brain dead, which of course

6:38

if Trump said it, we'd be going, this is

6:40

absolutely terrible, but he said it. And

6:43

Merkel came out and said to him, look,

6:45

I'm really fed up of having to sort

6:47

of, I like your grand gesture, I love that you're

6:49

a disruptor, but why should I be the one to pick

6:51

up the pieces afterwards and try and put it all

6:54

back together again? And I think with

6:56

Schulz, he just finds the whole big

6:58

vision thing a bit irritating. So

7:00

in relation to what's going on

7:03

with Ukraine, I think he finds

7:05

it irritating that Germany is spending

7:07

more money on this. I think

7:09

he finds it difficult that the

7:11

French don't understand sufficiently why this

7:13

is so difficult psychologically for Germany.

7:15

Interestingly, although Schulz is not doing

7:17

very well in German public opinion at the

7:19

moment, the one place where he's doing quite

7:21

well is in his handling of Ukraine. Can

7:23

I tell us about why it's psychologically difficult

7:25

for Germany? I mean, I was talking to

7:28

somebody in Germany yesterday who said that, you

7:30

know, one of the first things she mentioned

7:32

was her grandfather in Stalingrad. So their historical

7:34

experience of war with Russia runs

7:36

very, very, very, very deep. Schulz knows

7:38

that. You mentioned Willy Brandt there. There's

7:40

something in the German psyche that thinks

7:43

that Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, this sort of

7:45

let's try and get on with the

7:47

East even during the Cold War, was one

7:49

of the reasons why eventually the Berlin Wall

7:51

fell. Reagan likes to take the credit. Thatcher

7:54

likes to take the credit. But I think

7:56

they think actually it was Germany's more cooperative

7:58

approach. Yeah, really interesting, isn't it? You're

8:00

exactly right. The narrative in the States is

8:03

that the Soviet Union was crushed, the

8:05

Berlin Wall came down because Reagan was very

8:07

assertive and confrontational. And as you're saying, there's

8:09

another narrative that actually the more cooperative approach

8:12

was what made the difference. Yeah. And

8:14

so now, and bear in mind, we're in the European elections here.

8:17

So Macron feeling under pressure

8:19

from Le Pen, Le Pen

8:21

identified as being sort of

8:23

Putin in Poodle and therefore

8:26

Macron emphasizing that with the

8:28

tough guys. Meanwhile,

8:30

Scholz is now

8:33

presenting himself as Friedenskansler, the

8:35

peace chancellor, which again is

8:37

how Brandt presented himself. So

8:39

there's a really interesting difference

8:41

between these two. They both

8:43

face a similar challenge, which

8:45

is that in both cases,

8:48

the far right and the far

8:50

left in France and Germany are

8:52

basically pro-Putin. I mean, in the

8:54

case of the AFD in Germany,

8:56

violently pro-Putin, I mean, actually, financial

8:58

links to Russia, very, very clear

9:00

that they would turn on

9:02

the Russian gas again, that it's

9:04

the cutting off the Russian gas, which is driving the

9:06

cost of living crisis in Germany. They

9:09

would not provide any weapons to Ukraine and

9:11

really blaming the US for blowing up the

9:13

gas lines. So that's the right in Germany.

9:15

And by the way, one of the reasons

9:17

why they're doing particularly well in

9:19

the East, where there's still that sort of

9:21

nostalgic historic sense of, well, we've always been

9:23

different and we've always been a bit closer

9:26

to them anyway. Right. So

9:28

there's more good feeling there. And actually, I'd like

9:30

you to bring you back to that, because another

9:32

factor that Scholz is facing, we talk about election

9:35

years, but of course, in Germany,

9:37

it's a bit more complicated as

9:39

a federal country where state elections

9:41

matter more. And there are going

9:43

to be elections now in Saxony,

9:45

Cyringia and Brandenburg, which are significant

9:48

states which are in former East Germany, where

9:50

the far right and the far left

9:53

are doing well. So we

9:55

have that in Germany. So you've got this sort

9:57

of push for peace and the response from Scholz

9:59

in Germany. is to try to

10:01

mollify them by being the peace chancellor.

10:03

In France, you have a similar situation

10:05

where the right and left are more

10:08

inclined to take Putin's position on Ukraine,

10:10

but Macron has decided that his response,

10:12

instead of mollifying them, is

10:14

to confront them. Whereas at the start

10:16

of the war, he was very much, you know, do you

10:18

remember the phone calls with Putin and quite warm and quite

10:20

friendly and trying to bring him in the whole time?

10:23

So he has definitely shifted. And he's sort of

10:25

taken a kind of Churchillian tone, isn't he? He's

10:28

very much, you know, talking more radically than everyone

10:30

else. We may have to put troops on

10:32

the ground and all that stuff. I mean,

10:34

they've slightly wound back from the troops on

10:36

the ground. I can remember during Kosovo the

10:38

argument about Borden-Toppen, as they're called in German.

10:41

I've ever sure to be very, very agitated

10:43

by Borden-Toppen. But what's happening

10:45

in relation to Macron, I think he was

10:47

pushing it. He was saying we should rule

10:49

nothing out. He got picked up as being

10:51

they're going to send in ground troops. And

10:54

he's unwound from that. However, he

10:56

is definitely out as a pretty

10:58

hawkish figure on this and underlining,

11:00

as Biden did in his State of the Union

11:02

speech, that if Putin wins

11:05

in Ukraine, then that will

11:07

not be the end of the matter. Whereas

11:10

Germany still don't talk about

11:12

Ukraine winning. They talk about

11:14

them not losing. They talk about Putin

11:16

not winning and Ukraine not losing. And I

11:18

think the other thing to understand about

11:20

the Germans is that a close relationship to

11:23

the United States is a fundamental pillar of

11:25

their foreign policy. In a way with France,

11:27

it's always a little bit more ambiguous. So

11:31

we have this almost kind of conflict

11:33

of personalities, which you've laid out. You

11:35

know, Macron is a very colourful

11:38

provocative figure. Shultz, a bit duller. I

11:40

mean, Shultz really seems, at least from

11:42

the outside, to really struggle to be

11:44

able to communicate and dominate a big

11:46

stage. I wonder whether I'd like

11:49

to explore this, whether actually in a

11:51

funny way, his story doesn't echo Rishi

11:53

Sunak's. He was the kind of

11:55

finance minister during Covid like Rishi Sunak got a lot

11:57

of products because he was handing out a lot of

11:59

money. during the Covid period, struggled

12:01

to win his own party election, found

12:04

himself inserted as Chancellor, and then has

12:06

really struggled to do the charisma,

12:09

public-facing stuff. I mean, he's been a kind

12:11

of pretty big national figure for a long,

12:13

long time in a way that Rishi Sunak

12:15

wasn't. It is interesting though, but if you

12:17

think about Merkel, she's not

12:20

what you'd call traditionally charismatic. She's

12:22

not a macron or a

12:24

shirak. She's more chalts. She probably

12:26

has a broader appeal. But I

12:28

think he has struggled, and I

12:30

think he's... The

12:33

word you hear a lot in Germany is that he's

12:35

disappointed that he hasn't quite risen

12:37

to it. He would

12:39

argue that people knew what

12:41

they were getting with him. He is the

12:44

kind of more staid, sober sort of type.

12:46

The quiet man is turning up the volume.

12:51

No, he can do volume. I've seen him do

12:53

volume. I think

12:55

that macron does seem to be able to

13:00

provoke strong feelings in other people. Tusk, I think,

13:02

probably did play a useful role in basically saying

13:04

to them, listen, this is not good. And there's

13:06

a very interesting speech. I don't know if you've

13:08

had time to see it. I sent it to

13:10

you from Mertz, who's the

13:12

opposition leader. Yeah, he's leading the right-wing

13:14

CDU party. Yeah, and he actually made

13:16

the point. He couldn't think of any

13:19

chancellor in German history who would have

13:21

allowed this relationship to become

13:23

so publicly so difficult. Even Schroeder, he

13:25

said. So we've talked about the fact

13:28

that the left in Europe in general

13:30

has been in trouble. We looked at

13:32

the statistics since the high point of

13:34

Tony Blair to today. Fewer

13:37

and fewer sort of social democratic

13:39

parties in Europe. And in Germany

13:41

now, under real threat. So there are three

13:43

people in the coalition, the liberals, greens, and

13:45

the SPD. And

13:48

they are doing incredibly badly in the

13:50

polls. The sort of center-right party CDU

13:53

is doing very well. AFD, now very

13:55

strong, says, serenely when we're watching these

13:57

elections this year, they look like they're

14:00

above 30% and probably

14:02

with this left-wing party which we

14:04

haven't discussed much. The linker. Yeah,

14:06

which is, this is, this is Wagonknecht. Oh,

14:09

the new one, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's

14:12

like a sort of populist leftist.

14:15

Possibly she combined with AFD may get over

14:17

50% of the vote in during it. And

14:20

then you've got these splits within the

14:22

German coalition. So you've got big chairs

14:24

of parliamentary committees from the CDU and

14:26

the Greens putting out joint op-eds, attacking

14:29

shorts. You've got senior liberals voting against

14:31

the government. The Green Foreign Minister clearly

14:33

seems to be actually more pro-Ukraine and

14:35

seems to be saying she would be sending to her.

14:39

And then you've got this weird phrase coming

14:41

out of the SPD where they're talking about freezing

14:43

the conflict later in Parliament. And nobody quite knows

14:45

what freezing the conflict means. Well, I think it's

14:48

back to this point about, you know, nobody wins,

14:50

nobody loses, you just kind of hold the line

14:52

on it. Maybe there's a bridge

14:54

into talking a bit about the Russian election.

14:56

Just on the last poll, 60% of

14:59

Germans oppose supplying Ukraine with

15:01

these Taurus missiles, And

15:04

that's up from 49 in February. 20%

15:07

of Germans think they should be doing

15:09

more to support Ukraine. 40%

15:12

think they've sent enough weapons. And

15:14

40% think it's gone too far. So

15:16

Schulz is very much in line with

15:18

the public. Yeah. It's getting

15:21

increasingly cold feet about getting involved.

15:23

The other thing that I think

15:25

has been really interesting is the

15:27

way that German politics is all

15:29

about Ukraine and very, very little

15:31

about Gaza amongst the political parties

15:33

themselves. It's not like Britain where

15:35

it feels as though Israel-Gaza is

15:37

actually a much more important international

15:41

issue in defining politics than Ukraine

15:43

today. But it's closer, isn't

15:45

it? He is open about saying he

15:47

does not want to provoke Putin into

15:49

thinking that Germany's also in his sights.

15:51

And he's saying that. And the Gaza

15:53

thing though is interesting. You quoted 60%.

15:57

60% of the German population wants an immediate seat.

16:00

foreign Gaza, not a

16:02

single political party is even talking

16:04

about that. So there's a huge

16:06

gap emerged between all the political

16:08

parties and Germans, particularly younger Germans.

16:10

But again, just as they feel

16:13

emotionally, the Russian issue affects them

16:15

much more deeply. Likewise, I can

16:17

remember Angela Merkel always used to say the

16:20

two absolute fundamentals of foreign policy, apart from

16:22

Europe, were closeness to America

16:25

and absolute support for Israel, because

16:27

of the, you know, the history that brought

16:29

Israel into being. And presumably that could change.

16:31

I mean, there's a very big Muslim population

16:34

in Germany, young people are taking a very,

16:36

very different view of this. Yeah. Okay, on

16:38

to Russia. Right. So Rory, Putin

16:40

won. We got that one right. We predicted.

16:42

We knew he was going to win. Unfortunately,

16:45

we're getting few too many, right? It was a

16:47

little bit too easy to predict that Bangladesh was

16:49

going to go in the direction it was. It

16:51

was a little bit too easy, but easy to

16:53

predict India where Modi is going to win. Yeah.

16:56

UK, absolutely confident in my prediction. I know

16:58

you are. But I think there is a

17:00

paradox between the fact we're having more and

17:02

more elections with more and more people voting,

17:04

but we're not necessarily a more democratic world.

17:07

And it was interesting when Putin

17:09

announced that he won almost 90% of

17:12

the vote, which was just

17:14

about 12% lower than Saddam

17:16

Hussein got in his biggest tribe when he got

17:18

100% of the vote. I

17:20

think Kim Jong Un's record was 99. Yeah, it's good

17:22

when you get over 100. That's when you really, you

17:26

really, really want it. But it was

17:28

interesting who, who congratulated and

17:30

who didn't. So North

17:33

Korea, China, Venezuela,

17:36

Iran, Iran, they sent

17:38

their heartfelt congratulations, Modi

17:41

in India. Yeah. One congratulations

17:44

from India. Yeah. Congratulations from

17:46

UAE. So India

17:48

and UAE are obviously more surprising than Venezuela,

17:50

Iran, and North Korea. And really does suggest,

17:52

you know, these are countries where UAE, India

17:55

are really meant to be part of the

17:57

sort of America would hope, you know, your

17:59

friend. and Jamie Rubin would very

18:01

much want to emphasize that the balance against China

18:03

and the Pacific is

18:11

India and that the US relationship with UAE

18:14

is very strong. But it's

18:16

very, very challenging for the US when

18:18

an election has happened, which is, I mean,

18:21

just to talk people through how bizarre

18:23

it is, essentially Putin was supposed to

18:25

step down, supposed to finish his present

18:27

in 2008. And

18:30

he did the strange thing of putting Medvedev, who

18:32

was the prime minister and as president from 2008,

18:34

2012, and he became the prime minister. I

18:36

think we all know who's in power then. Yeah. And

18:39

then he came back again technically in 2012, same time

18:41

as Xi Jinping, and then changed

18:43

the whole constitution in 2020 to allow himself

18:45

to run for at least two more six

18:48

year terms. So he now feels like his

18:50

presence. He runs

18:52

against him every time, a few sort of

18:54

candidates, but they're never a threat. So he

18:56

had three candidates. He had a communist, he

18:58

had a nationalist, and then there's this weird

19:01

party that's been created called the New People's

19:03

Party. All these people get

19:05

a tiny percentage of the vote. One

19:07

of them, the main policy was execution

19:10

of all Ukrainian prisoners of war. Right.

19:12

Yeah. So not exactly...

19:15

Yeah. So not exactly

19:17

challenging the central narrative. And

19:20

in Kateronov, I think, real kind of old

19:22

communist, but you can sort of see

19:24

what the former KGB, the FSB is

19:26

doing there. Let's have one

19:28

party which is communist, one which is ultra

19:30

nationalist, and one called the New People's Party,

19:32

which sounds as though it might be sort

19:34

of liberal democratic, although actually it's

19:36

massively prey to the opposition. We talked on

19:38

the Q&A, was it last week or the

19:41

week before about why do these dictators hold

19:43

elections? But you could see from the way

19:45

they presented it. If

19:47

you're a Russian citizen who just watches state TV,

19:49

you think, oh, this is an election and Putin's

19:51

won again, and they all look very happy. And

19:54

he's then out using this to say, I've

19:56

now got popular support for any reforms I

19:58

bring forward in the future. future, many

20:01

of which will be more oppressive. And I've got popular

20:03

support for the war in Ukraine. So

20:05

it's very helpful. If he doesn't do it,

20:07

he doesn't have this wonderful opportunity to kind

20:09

of festival of people, doesn't have the events

20:11

to turn up and can't claim those mandates.

20:13

Yeah. And even though he's surrounded

20:15

by voices from America,

20:18

Europe saying this is not a free

20:20

and fair election, people

20:22

in Russia are not hearing that in the

20:24

main. I wonder from a propaganda point of

20:26

view, actually, whether those kind of states wouldn't

20:28

want to hold elections even more frequently if

20:30

they're quite useful ways of appearing on a stage,

20:32

mobilizing people. Well, the fact that we, you know,

20:35

you could argue that we shouldn't really call it

20:37

an election, because it's not it's not an election

20:39

in the way that we would understand it. And

20:42

yet we talk about, you know, Putin winning

20:44

another term, winning another term, like he's been

20:46

democratically reelected. It's more like a sort of

20:48

medieval royal procession, isn't it? Maybe, you know,

20:51

I think Kingswood sort of comes through

20:53

the streets of London every three, four years

20:55

to get people cheering and give us a

20:57

general. It was very interesting as well when they

20:59

when they played the national anthem, he reminded me

21:02

of, you know, sometimes you see footballers who

21:04

look like they don't quite know the words.

21:06

Yeah. And he was sort of

21:08

mumbling that I slant them. And I wonder whether

21:10

he now in his head is so grand that

21:12

he shouldn't even have to sing it. Yeah. Essentially,

21:14

it's about him. It's very much he is the

21:16

state now. Even more troubling would be if he's

21:18

beginning to slightly lose the plot so that we

21:20

can have a fantastic kind of, you know, it's

21:22

very elderly, doddery people. And I think that's one

21:24

of the top classes. Kim

21:27

Jong Un becomes the only one. Finally,

21:30

I'm on peace. I mean, I

21:33

guess it makes me wonder whether we're

21:35

not slightly missing our labeling and

21:37

that we shouldn't be talking about

21:40

an age of monarchies coming back

21:42

that Erdogan, Putin, Modi,

21:45

Xi Jinping, if you were a

21:47

Martian looking at us, you might think these

21:49

things actually resemble more kind of kings, the

21:52

way that monarchies used to operate them. Among

21:54

the successes. Yeah. Can they get their kids

21:56

lined up? We know that

21:58

Trump would. I don't

22:00

know who Putin's successor would be. And

22:03

I think part of his strengthening

22:05

of his power within Russia is

22:07

that there's nobody. I mean,

22:09

there's nobody that anybody is talking about as

22:11

a possible successor. Mason- Because

22:24

when Putin and his

22:26

then wife, Lord Miller, came to

22:28

London, he brought the kids. My

22:31

daughter, Grace, does a whole comedy sketch about how

22:34

the wife wanted to go shoe shopping

22:36

and Grace advised them to go to Clark's.

22:39

I don't think Mrs. Putin was really into

22:41

Clark's shoes. Even

22:44

back then, they were absolutely paranoid. Paul was

22:46

great at that. Grace was, well, this was,

22:48

she'd have been a child, and they were

22:51

children. So her advice on Clark's was based

22:53

on her child. Oh, it wasn't based on

22:55

fashion. It wasn't based on fashion. But I

22:57

remember even back then, although their daughters were

22:59

quite small, they'd be late 10,

23:03

12, something like that, they were paranoid about

23:05

not being photographed. And Grace went shoe shopping with them?

23:07

No, they didn't go shoe shopping. They went to London

23:09

Eye. All three of my

23:11

kids were Putin's kids, went to London Eye,

23:14

and sort of wandered around there

23:16

with Cherie and Fiona and Mrs.

23:18

Putin. Mrs. Putin didn't

23:20

look very happy with Vlad, I

23:22

have to say, a lot of the time. It's

23:24

a bit of a sort of Melania feeling. Not

23:27

quite as bad as that, but it didn't feel close. And

23:31

anyway, that's now gone. I'm not sure what

23:33

the daughters do now. There are rumors

23:35

that he's got other kids with other women.

23:37

Am I right? Is Ice Skater a ballerina

23:39

or something? I think it was a

23:42

ballerina that he was sort of quite friendly with, and

23:44

maybe still is. Maybe a confusing

23:46

fact that he's an amazing ice hockey player, isn't

23:48

he? He says he is. He wins every year.

23:50

He has an annual match where he always scores

23:52

the winning goal. And does he play famous ice

23:55

hockey players like you playing Maradona? I don't think

23:57

there is a nice hockey player that's quite as

23:59

famous. He plays with the best. He plays with

24:01

the best. Yeah,

24:04

that's right. And they organise it so he wins

24:06

wins. The, can I just very quickly, before we

24:08

go to break, the president of Afghanistan, I remember

24:10

once saying, Ashraf Ghani, invited up to the presidential

24:12

palace. And Ashraf was a kind of a man

24:14

with a doctorate who'd been a professor at the

24:16

size of John Hopkins in his early 60s. And

24:19

he invited up the Afghan Olympic

24:22

sprinting team. And he said to these young

24:24

men, you know, I'm pretty good at sprinting.

24:26

I'm going to race you. And so these

24:28

18, 19 year old Afghans are like, you

24:31

see, in the face of the presidential palace,

24:33

Ashraf Ghani takes off his shoes. And

24:35

in his shot, Ghani stands at the start line

24:38

with these sort of astonished 18 year olds. And

24:41

they set off. And the president managed

24:43

it, I think, about six steps before

24:45

he falls on his face. Did he

24:47

honestly think he could win? It

24:50

was the moment where I thought there is something genuinely

24:52

wrong. Yeah, genuinely wrong. Because

24:54

actually, it's not even as though he's a

24:56

particularly sporty individual. He's not just 40 years

24:58

older than he's a kind of slightly weedy.

25:00

Did you see, talking of politicians and sport,

25:03

did you see Rishi Sunak and

25:05

the rugby team? No. Oh,

25:07

my God. I mean, that sounds like a bad

25:10

moment. Why would you put Rishi with a rugby

25:12

team? Anyone less like a rugby? Well, because he's

25:14

on a permanent campaign mode. But this

25:17

rugby player, you know when Tony Blair headed the ball

25:19

with Kevin Keegan in 2008? Yeah. Kevin

25:22

Keegan is such a good footballer, he could

25:24

literally plop it onto his head every time.

25:27

This rugby player threw the ball at Rishi

25:29

Sunak in such a way as a two

25:31

year old could have caught it. OK. But

25:35

sadly, Rishi Sunak is clearly a lot too, because

25:37

he couldn't hold the ball. One sort of would

25:39

have predicted that he's not likely. And you can't

25:41

really see him as kind of rugby club guy.

25:43

No. He doesn't have that kind of air,

25:46

does he? No. Anyway. There we are.

25:48

I suppose the other sort of maybe

25:50

finally on Russia that it was interesting,

25:53

albeit possibly just an expression of kind

25:55

of The impotence of dealing

25:57

with this guy. It was quite interesting that...

25:59

protester via the word went round around the

26:02

world at twelve o'clock noon against to to

26:04

the edge of Nevada the line somewhere one

26:06

of our last request was tough would say

26:08

that protests get bitten by turning up putting

26:11

this at midday because as he pointed out

26:13

the regime could hardly stop pretending up to

26:15

they submit that is he is a claim

26:18

that just when he got off work to

26:20

the queue he i didn't see about services

26:22

been some do views outside the Russian embassy

26:24

is here in London the said it went

26:27

right to you know on for a couple

26:29

of miles so me that that that that

26:31

was a sense of protests births you know

26:33

you remember one of his previous elections it

26:36

led to pretty close to riots people around

26:38

the streets protesting roads are didn't see much

26:40

of that the stone or right quick break

26:43

and will come back. Welcome.

26:51

Back to the rest as politics of

26:53

more his shirt on me I was

26:55

Campbell and we must talk briefly about

26:57

the fact that the front page to

26:59

the Sunday nice take this this week

27:01

was reporting that that we're gonna be

27:03

an uprising against receipts and that sentence

27:05

have some peace with think you've replaced

27:07

him and then the worth a lot

27:09

of quotes from Penny More than saying

27:11

i don't know where this has come

27:13

from, nothing to do with me I

27:15

know I wasn't intending to run and

27:17

then there is sort of Tory grandees

27:19

who on the record saying. This is a

27:22

suicidal idea. why would be tough love leaders.

27:24

As for the Lexus and I guess this

27:26

guess that's something we've been to let for

27:28

few months. Whether aren't offensive consent is out

27:30

there who even fantasize about bringing that Bart

27:33

Simpson and I says what they're doing is

27:35

that twenty points pineapples. they're not making any

27:37

progress at the moment. they're going intellects mother

27:39

gonna get wiped out so the must be

27:41

some of them thinking well what else and

27:44

the dice again how bad can see and

27:46

in Wheaton we can't lose. Was Mccartney losing

27:48

when we try again And the highly I'm

27:50

a nice. And they could lose was given how

27:52

bad they beat us under. Look at the bows

27:55

and think, who are these twenty two percent of

27:57

people who still say he voted Tory of his

27:59

earthly reason. How would you say is either.

28:01

Let's put it, put your nonsense this

28:03

matching your number ten and Tory backbenchers.

28:05

Peace and come in and say listen,

28:08

the tree says we're taste within the

28:10

least. Lotsa seats, at least a selection.

28:12

Receipts in A is going to change

28:14

between now the Isis capacity. When why

28:16

do we spend the dice again, try

28:18

to bring in someone else the head

28:20

to. They might do that best. The

28:22

argument against it is that it could

28:24

make things even worse and if you

28:26

look at the two names that is

28:28

that are constantly being bandied. About petty

28:31

boredom and can be bad Knock

28:33

is really and see how I

28:35

look at them just think they're

28:37

not very good. End. In

28:39

sight with semi bad not does this is

28:42

go with her for a minute. So she

28:44

made a lot of waves last week when

28:46

she came out at a time when soon

28:48

I can them to tame were refusing to

28:50

say that Frank has to their ten million

28:52

fifty million pound donor was racist Him what

28:55

he said about Style Abbott should be shocked

28:57

and she makes me hate All black women

28:59

profoundly stray from would erase as but number

29:01

Ten can't bring themselves to say that so

29:03

it's a repeat his net of what was

29:05

going on with. As

29:08

lost weight but chef and they say

29:10

it's wrong but then opposite racist many

29:12

with Addison Atlas it's wrong but then

29:14

oppressed say why yes wrong assists and

29:16

know what they said with Hester is

29:18

it was wrong but he's apologized world

29:21

is apologize for he said he was

29:23

rude he's not knowledge he has not

29:25

himself acknowledged that would he said was

29:27

race and I've what grins sure he

29:29

says and values and and se dang

29:31

it's say his face was it's profoundly

29:34

reprehensible. And. Then of course since

29:36

you keep saying what can you take

29:38

the money than what what wife I

29:40

ever principal and pretty me the answer

29:42

is sixteen million pounds is lenore. My

29:44

money on the probably spends logo louis

29:46

has some chef so becoming bad not

29:48

comes and says is racist and lots

29:50

of people come and say Weldon Comey

29:53

speaking as is and yet seems out

29:55

yesterday on Monday during the media around.

29:58

The. suddenly decide the other ones talking

30:00

about this anymore, why are you still

30:02

asking me questions about this? And of course the answer to

30:04

that is because you lot still haven't cleared this up. You

30:07

still haven't explained how you can keep the money. But

30:09

I think what had happened is she thought, oh, this

30:11

is maybe I need to be a little bit more

30:13

in that space where all the hard rights are. And

30:16

she's also been issuing press releases, taking credit

30:18

for stuff, which then number 10 the following

30:21

day are issuing press releases for the Prime

30:23

Minister's quotes, which is a

30:25

real sign of her pushing for leadership.

30:27

And she likes Sohla Brahmins, is an

30:29

example of somebody in Rishi Sunak's cabinet,

30:31

and I absolutely hear this directly from his

30:34

cabinet, who he does not rate. He doesn't

30:36

think she's a good minister, but he feels

30:38

for some reason he has to keep her

30:41

in order to deal with the party politics deal with the

30:43

right. And that was a mistake he made with Sohla Brahmins.

30:46

Absolutely. Yeah. And

30:48

it's a mistake he made with Lee Anderson. I mean, the

30:50

only reason anybody knows who Lee Anderson is, is because Rishi

30:52

Sunak gave him this job as deputy chairman of the story

30:54

party. So if Rishi, if you

30:56

had been Rishi Sunak's advisor, and he kept saying to you,

30:58

I think Kemi Badnock's no good, but don't

31:00

talk to me about her, because I have to keep

31:03

her. Your view would be, be brave, get rid of

31:05

her, if you think she's no good. Well, I think

31:07

there was a moment where Sounak had

31:09

an opportunity to show a bit of strength.

31:11

We've talked about this before, first of all,

31:13

in differentiating himself from Johnson and Trust, he

31:15

failed to do that. Then

31:17

again, when the Johnson privileges committee report came, he

31:20

failed to do that. And likewise,

31:22

I think they all listened too

31:24

much to this rubbish that gets

31:26

talked in the kind of right

31:28

wing media ecosystem. Anybody

31:30

who watched Badnock's interview,

31:32

I think it was with Robert

31:34

Peston yesterday, just watch that

31:36

interview. You're looking at somebody who's just

31:38

not very good at this. Penny

31:40

Morden, I mean, great, she

31:43

held a big sword during the coronation

31:45

and she looked great. But if you

31:47

actually watch her in the House of

31:49

Commons, when she's doing the sort

31:51

of weekly Commons

31:54

questions, she's not that great.

31:56

So what they're doing is, they've gone

31:59

from Cameron, May,

32:01

Johnson, Truss, Sunak, at

32:03

every point, you

32:05

take papers like the Mail Express, they're saying, this is

32:07

our savior, this is the one that's going to do

32:10

it. They're now building up a new one. They're going

32:12

to be just as bad. So

32:14

I think actually they could make it worse.

32:16

Now they might get a short term hit,

32:18

people go, oh, this is new, this is

32:20

interesting, but honestly, the country's just had enough

32:22

of this. And I think it would look

32:24

ridiculous, wouldn't it? Because your immediate response if

32:26

they did that would be, okay, this is

32:28

totally illegitimate, we've had whatever it is, three

32:30

prime ministers since the last election or

32:32

four. It would be the fourth. And

32:34

this is a joke. We need a

32:37

election now. This would mean we'll have

32:39

had six prime ministers since 2010, the

32:42

Labour Party has had six prime ministers in

32:44

our entire history. I mean, it's mad, it's

32:46

utterly insane. And of course, you get a

32:48

new prime minister, immediately a new strategy is

32:51

announced, a new cabinet is announced, every department

32:53

wins. But it's all showbiz for ugly people.

32:55

It's not actually going to change the fundamentals.

32:59

This is the difference between I think where the public are and

33:01

where much of our media is still

33:03

portraying this like a serious party of

33:05

government. I mean, to be fair to

33:08

Sunak, the one thing I'll

33:10

give him, he gets out there every day,

33:12

he tries to do stuff. He's

33:14

not a great communicator, but he's out there.

33:16

And I'd find it very difficult to be out there.

33:19

There'd be a part of me that'd be tempted to

33:21

say, look, you lot are an ungovernable rabble, I'm

33:23

off. But he can't

33:25

do that. He's got to fight an election. But

33:27

I think that you've talked before

33:30

about these sort of six, seven different

33:32

groupings within the Conservative Party now. They're

33:34

not operating like a coherent United Party.

33:36

And in an election year, that's death.

33:38

Even I, Roy, am beginning to think

33:40

they can't, they can't lossy. That being

33:42

said, I still think Labour have to do more. I

33:48

really like Keir Starmer's art speech. I wish that I'd

33:50

got a bit more coverage. But I

33:52

was in Yorkshire, I did three fundraisers last

33:54

week for Labour candidates. And I was up

33:56

in Yorkshire at the weekend. In Leeds, in

33:58

the neighbouring constituency. to Rachel Reeves

34:01

with party members and party supporters. And

34:03

do you know what the single most raised

34:05

issue was where they wanted to hear more

34:07

from Labour? European Union? Correct.

34:10

Yeah, well, I couldn't, couldn't agree more. We

34:13

had actually a very interesting time last week.

34:15

We spoke at Methodist Central Hall, you and

34:17

I to 1500 high school students. High

34:20

school? Where's the country you're living in now?

34:23

Oh, I'm sorry, secondary school, secondary school students.

34:25

And we actually, we recorded the

34:29

podcast there, but didn't really have much

34:31

of a chance to talk about it.

34:34

I found it really interesting because they

34:36

were overwhelmingly expecting Kia Sama to win.

34:38

And I think overwhelmingly would vote for Kia

34:41

Sama. But boy, boy, we struggled to get

34:43

them to stick up their hands for anything

34:45

that they thought he was doing, which excited

34:47

them. So then I thought, well, maybe

34:50

this is because he's not talking enough about the

34:52

environment. And I couldn't be more wrong because when

34:54

we asked the crowd, how many of you think

34:56

climate and the environment is, at least 16 to

34:58

18 year olds think climate environment is the number

35:00

one issue going to the election, you need about

35:02

a quarter of the hands with that. Yeah,

35:05

they were very focused, I think, on

35:07

inequality, cost of living. And

35:09

that's really interesting, actually, because you

35:11

would have thought the really core vote

35:13

driving climate and the environment would be younger

35:16

people. And if they're beginning to say

35:18

actually cost of living is more important,

35:20

because obviously a lot of older people have

35:22

been saying that for a long time. That's really

35:25

interesting in terms of what

35:27

that means for net zero, the investment we

35:30

put in the amount of taxes you put

35:32

on people, the amount you put

35:34

up fuel prices. There was a poll this

35:36

week of I think 18 to 30

35:38

year olds, it's now Labour 70 to or is seven.

35:41

Seven, 70 to seven. Pretty extreme. Okay,

35:43

what about Wales? So Wales has got,

35:45

as you said earlier, Europe's

35:47

first black leader, Vaughan

35:51

Gething, the son of a vet. His

35:54

dad, White, married

35:57

a farmer in Zambia when he was working there.

36:00

and Von Goethen who's come

36:03

up through the Labour ranks in Wales. Quite

36:06

a controversial election, him against Jeremy

36:08

Myles who was the Education Minister

36:10

and the only time the campaign

36:12

really took off nationally across the

36:15

UK was in relation to a

36:17

donation. 200,000 pounds from a guy

36:19

who'd been convicted of

36:22

environmental offenses. Given to Von Goethen? Yeah,

36:24

peanuts when you look at it set

36:27

alongside Frank Fester, but a very, Carl

36:53

Goethen was the youngest ever I think president of the

36:55

trade union Congress

37:02

in Wales. He was a lawyer with

37:04

Thompson's which does a lot of trade

37:06

union work and he was up against

37:08

Jeremy Myles. Jeremy Myles is a fluent

37:11

Welsh speaker then went to New College Oxford.

37:13

Like Von Goethen, a lawyer, part of this

37:16

thing I guess Tony Blair and Keir Starmer

37:18

lawyers, coming in to replace

37:20

Mark Drakeford who we did a great leading

37:23

interview with if people wanted to listen to

37:25

again who is much more of an academic

37:27

professorial figure, very intellectual

37:29

figure. And the real moment

37:31

of scandal was they both went to

37:33

the hustings with Unite which is a

37:35

powerful trade union to get the endorsement

37:37

of Unite. Jeremy Myles turns up does

37:39

his hustings and at the end of

37:41

the hustings votes that happen. Unite

37:44

say, oh by the way Jeremy Myles just

37:46

to explain we should inform you

37:48

now that you're not actually eligible to stand and all

37:51

our votes have to go to Von Goethen leaving Jeremy

37:53

Myles thinking what on earth is this? You know I've

37:55

been invited to this house and now I'm told

37:58

for some obscure rule change. the

38:00

previous summer to do with whether you're a

38:02

lay member of Unite and that then

38:05

got a Roger

38:07

Morgan's wife coming out remembering what

38:09

had happened in 1999

38:11

where again Alan Mitchell, Alan Michael, had

38:13

defeated Roger Morgan again with trading new

38:15

votes so she took to Twitter saying

38:18

this is the same stitch-up happening in Wales

38:20

yet again. There was a little bit of

38:22

central labor central hand

38:25

in the Alan Michael. Alan Michael was

38:27

more new labor. He

38:29

was the new guy and Jeremy Miles

38:32

ran against our friend Stephen Kinnock lost

38:34

by one vote. Are they in exactly

38:36

the same part of the Labour Party or are

38:38

they slightly different traditions? I don't think ideologically

38:42

was that much of a difference but I think

38:44

that the Von Gethin,

38:47

his opponents are saying that he won essentially

38:49

through what they call trade unions stitch-up and

38:51

it was very close. It was a rerun

38:53

of the Brexit. It was almost 52% against

38:56

office 48%. And being a trade union person, it

38:58

doesn't necessarily mean you're particularly left or right. I

39:00

mean what does it mean? No, you can get

39:03

you know there is a very

39:05

right-wing trade union tradition as well

39:07

as a left-wing tradition but I think

39:09

with Von Gethin it was very interesting

39:11

to me how he

39:13

focused a lot in his campaign on

39:16

education as if that wasn't going very

39:18

well. Jeremy Miles being the education minister

39:21

and Jeremy Miles focused an awful lot of the

39:23

Welsh economy. Von Gethin having been

39:25

in charge of the economy. So

39:27

it wasn't a big ideological battle. As

39:29

I say the only issues that took

39:32

off really were about the extent to

39:34

which they were going to represent any

39:36

sense of time for change. And I

39:38

guess if you're Jeremy Miles and you're

39:40

trying to challenge Von Gethin's trade unions

39:43

you might suggest that maybe he's less

39:45

open to big dramatic regulatory change which

39:47

challenges the trade unions. Yeah but I don't think

39:49

even that I'm not sure even that he was

39:51

really really pushing it. But I think at the

39:53

start it was felt that Von Gethin was a

39:55

runaway favorite and by the end it got very

39:58

very close and it was dominated by the these

40:00

two questions, this donation, and then the

40:02

role of the trade unions. So

40:04

I think it's going to be a tricky, you know,

40:06

it's a very narrow win. Quite

40:10

a lot of healing to be done, I would say. The

40:12

elected representative's feeling a little bit

40:14

put out. So he's going to

40:16

have to rebuild that. And then of course, these big issues,

40:18

you know, you've got the Steel Port Tolbert,

40:21

you've got the Steelworks under threat, you've

40:23

got the health service, you

40:26

know, which is used as a political football nationally

40:28

by the Tories, you've got

40:30

some pretty tough education challenges. So it's not an

40:32

easy place to be. He

40:34

did get, by the way, I mean, I was looking at

40:36

a lot of my German media, there were quite big profiles

40:38

of him because of course, you know, first black European leader

40:41

is a pretty big thing. But that

40:43

was the sort of tone as opposed

40:45

to this is the clear signal of

40:47

change of direction post-Drowkyford. I

40:49

think he's going to have to work that out

40:51

as he goes. Small conclusion, I think, again, reinforcing

40:53

something we talk about a lot on the podcast,

40:56

which is the real urgent

40:58

necessity of stopping the

41:00

way that parties have financed the British

41:02

numbers really struck that you saw in

41:04

Australia, a premier who's

41:06

trying to ban all contributions political

41:09

parties. But in a week

41:11

in which we've had Hester giving

41:13

15 million pounds, regardless

41:15

of his racist comments, which were completely horrible.

41:18

And it's obviously a horrible human being, but

41:20

15 million pounds is ridiculous. And it's a

41:22

complete I mean, I can't even imagine he

41:24

must be giving 10 times

41:26

as much as the nearest closest donor. And

41:28

that gives you so much influence. I mean,

41:31

it is that which which makes number 10

41:33

say to all these ministers, go out and

41:35

defend it. And if you can

41:37

imagine, it's not just defending him, I don't what

41:39

it means in terms of his influence of a

41:41

policy and this, I mean, you cannot

41:44

take 15 million pounds

41:46

from somebody, which

41:48

which, you know, in a normal election would be

41:50

about half your entire election campaign to watch it.

41:53

Oh, yeah. I'm expecting them to have a really

41:55

strong influence. And This is the conflict of interest

41:57

stuff. This is what we must stop this stuff

41:59

because. Either you get he

42:01

knows if you want to be a town

42:04

sinatra be balanced at it that the promise

42:06

the consensus end up getting money from business

42:08

and finance labour end up getting huge amounts

42:10

of money to the trade unions. But there's

42:12

also a question of a huge is sunny

42:15

see internationalists his and from Pittsburgh. second because

42:17

he had some donors want to say to

42:19

some the Pakistani the on Kashmir a one

42:21

focus on a particular position on Israel Gaza

42:24

it's it really distort soup on six the

42:26

money know we've got to find a way

42:28

of getting go for It Cannot make sense

42:30

that I wonder if the reason why the

42:32

government came along and homes without debate in

42:35

parliament doubled the limit was because they knew

42:37

that this fifty million three hundred and the

42:39

truck is a labor of course now all

42:41

having to go and try to move on

42:44

Rose and try to catch up because they

42:46

know that this stuff can be as a

42:48

to be a member here. We've. Got

42:50

to get his kiss and a cousin. We've

42:52

got such views that majority. To

42:55

really sort this out I know it in

42:57

going to be difficult when he won their

42:59

It's tempting to think a cutaway than one

43:01

of the turkey voting for Christmas that this

43:03

is an option to it's it's a complete

43:05

scandal that money and I think the boards

43:07

of as I think all those things on

43:09

these difficult or less we can be go

43:11

a pay rise and was usual sort of

43:13

outcry. But. I think

43:15

in the end if we don't six

43:17

the the basis of the fundamental system

43:20

them were in prolapse. Final Plug if

43:22

people are really interested in this is

43:24

an amazing book written by a journalist

43:26

nasty looking at the funding provided by

43:29

man could man embassy to the conservative

43:31

party which went to a lot of

43:33

the leading scented candles and then led

43:35

to him suing for as candidates claiming

43:38

he'd been to st that. It's a

43:40

a very very piece of the recent

43:42

complicated account of how money works. with

43:45

on that party and i think that said

43:47

at this is tom purchases but com bust

43:49

his books had add to our campaign to

43:51

clean up on in british politics is gutenberg

43:53

says constantly remind him of his very good

43:56

books we know given a very good plug

44:01

Well, that's brought us sadly to the

44:03

end. We'll be back with Question Time tomorrow.