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1:02

The Rest Is History wherever you get

1:04

your podcasts to listen now. Welcome

1:16

to The Rest Is Politics with me, Rory Stewart. And

1:19

me, Aleister Campbell. We're going to be looking at the

1:21

domestic scene in the UK through

1:24

polling, much more on that in a minute. And

1:27

then the second half, we're going to talk

1:29

about one of the biggest elections, if at

1:31

the biggest election coming up

1:33

in a single country this year, that's

1:35

in India, which kicks off shortly, takes

1:37

place over several weeks. And we've

1:40

also got our first ever rebuttal

1:42

interview. We talked about

1:44

Gibraltar last week. And because we talked

1:46

about it in the context of corruption, the chief

1:49

minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, it turns out

1:51

is an avid listener of the rest is

1:53

politics, got in touch and say he'd like

1:55

to come on and have a word. So we're going to do

1:57

that as well. Now let's get on with this poll. Very

2:00

interesting. We've sort of mentor a fair

2:02

bit about polling on the podcast over

2:04

the last few months but we've now

2:06

done our own. The rest his policies

2:09

poll with J L Partners Now you

2:11

know about jail parlors just tell us

2:13

by them before get on to a

2:15

poll says work till Partners was set

2:17

up by tensions and who was the

2:20

chief polling pests and for Theresa May

2:22

So I saw Scotsman when he was

2:24

working right in the hundred number ten

2:26

running polling for the premenstrual the government

2:28

and then he worked with me when

2:30

I was running to be matter of

2:33

London. he's now does lot in the

2:35

Us working with democrats, republicans and is

2:37

that's very interesting on on Trump but

2:39

it's wonderful thing for us to have

2:41

our and poll because it's a fully

2:44

plus I suppose just as a two

2:46

thousand versus selects it's me represents demographically

2:48

across the United Kingdom. And it

2:50

will allow us to get regular updates on

2:52

what's happening in Uk politics and this on

2:54

which is a Sixty four Pittsburgh goes into

2:57

an enormous amount of of detail. But just

2:59

before we get into the nuts and bolts

3:01

of what we sound that I think with

3:03

some amazing discoveries in this post tell us

3:05

a lot about Britain, tell us a little

3:08

bit about. Polling. In your

3:10

experience and how oppose used by politicians,

3:12

how did you use and the new

3:14

Labour to lead on your polling? Did

3:16

you get involved in discussions on result

3:19

Suppose can give us a sense of

3:21

the place of polls when you were

3:23

government. I. Was always very skeptical

3:25

of the state of the party stuff

3:27

was still am I think you you

3:29

look at trends us important I did

3:32

look very very carefully. That's focus groups

3:34

are the folks keeps a little bit

3:36

different and under six and could convert

3:38

a focus group as well as census

3:41

is group of people sitting in a

3:43

room and east Jerusalem gold who of

3:45

us who is in charge of are

3:47

holding so it was bizarre main sort

3:50

of person who would be looking at

3:52

numbers all the time. liquid. you look

3:54

at there's so many poles now the republic polls

3:56

you your own polling you can live from all

3:58

of them, but I felt that we were much

4:01

more focused on what was called qualitative polling and

4:03

really trying to dig down on issues. Now you

4:05

can do it. What I think we've done with

4:07

this poll today is actually a little bit of

4:09

both. We've got stage of the parties. We've got

4:12

what people think of the leaders, but we've also

4:14

asked an awful lot of other questions which give

4:16

you more of a feel for things that

4:19

I think you can maybe draw deeper conclusions.

4:22

I was never obsessed with polls because

4:25

I think that there's a real danger in

4:27

politics that you use the poll to, as

4:29

it were, devise your strategy. Whereas I always

4:31

felt that polls should be there to instruct,

4:33

hopefully to confirm your strategy. But I think

4:36

too often in politics, people look at the

4:38

polls. There's a very interesting finding in this

4:40

one which we'll come on to where the

4:42

guy who did the poll basically said, don't

4:44

be surprised if the Tories go on this

4:46

strategy because the polling suggests that's the only

4:48

thing that they might have left, which

4:51

is to go on anti-woke and stop the boats and

4:53

the kind of stuff that they're doing. So

4:55

I think you should

4:57

not underplay the importance of polls,

5:00

but I think there's a danger sometimes of

5:02

overplaying them. Well, just to give a brief

5:04

history of this, polling really got going in

5:06

the United States in the 20s and

5:09

30s where a particular newspaper

5:11

started sending out little letters

5:14

to two and a

5:16

half million Americans and got them to send

5:18

back who they were proposing to vote for.

5:20

And this was very, very successful for a

5:23

series of elections in the US through the

5:25

20s and 30s. It was kind of revolutionary.

5:27

It was called the Literary Digest. So they

5:29

predicted Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover,

5:32

Calvin Coolidge, and Roosevelt in 32. But then

5:35

in 36, they predicted

5:37

that a guy that you or I, I don't think I've

5:40

ever heard of called Al Forlandon, maybe you've heard of that.

5:42

I know well. I know well. Was

5:44

going to defeat FDR and they

5:46

were completely wrong. And this

5:48

opened the way for the man who really is

5:50

the kind of, I guess the

5:52

kind of founding father of modern polling

5:55

called George Gallup. And

5:57

George Gallup came along and said, look, there's

5:59

a problem. them with what you're doing. And

6:01

it's the problem, I think, at the heart of

6:03

all polling today, which is that people who respond

6:05

to your questions are not representative of general voters.

6:08

And what he worked out is that generally speaking,

6:10

more prosperous people with more time on their hands

6:12

were more likely to respond. And therefore, that gave

6:14

the impression that they were all going to vote

6:17

Republican, they were going to vote out of London.

6:19

And so he set up the thing and he

6:21

started using much smaller sample groups, instead of, you

6:23

know, asking two and a half million people, you

6:26

ask a few thousand people, but you use some

6:28

very smart sampling to try to make sure

6:30

that that group is representative. And we've

6:32

then had these incredible moments with elections.

6:35

So Gallup's organization was the only

6:37

organization that predicted that Labour would win

6:39

the 45 election. This was the

6:41

famous upset where Winston Churchill having basically won the

6:43

war and everyone thought was going to cruise into

6:46

when the election lost it. And Gallup was the

6:48

only person who called it. And

6:50

then we've had, I think, some

6:52

pretty interesting things which have shaken

6:54

the polling industry quite recently. So

6:56

I remember, obviously, I was a

6:58

conservative MP at the time running

7:01

into the 2015 election. And

7:03

the opinion polls were pretty consistent,

7:05

including the pollsters that we had inside

7:07

number 10. That there was

7:09

no way that David Cameron would win a

7:11

majority. And this is important because it's one

7:13

of the reasons I think that he felt

7:15

that he could offer a Brexit referendum is

7:17

that he felt he'd never win a majority

7:19

anyway, he'd have to go into coalition with

7:21

the Lib Dems. And as part of the

7:23

coalition agreement, he could weasel out of doing

7:25

a Brexit referendum. And actually, all those polls

7:27

were wrong. So 2015 was then one as

7:30

a conservative majority leading to a Brexit referendum.

7:32

2017 worked the other way. So... Yeah,

7:35

hold on. Yours, Adroy, you had the

7:37

polling on Brexit. The conventional wisdom through much

7:39

of the polling was that Remain was going

7:41

to win. Absolutely. Let's take that as an

7:43

example. Do you think, looking back on that,

7:45

do you think the fact that the polling

7:47

suggested that Remain would win might have had

7:49

a bit of an impact on the way

7:51

that David Cameron conducted that campaign? I do.

7:53

I think if you add together the feeling

7:55

that they had the right arguments on the

7:57

economy, the feeling that they'd won the Scottish

7:59

referendum. them, they were playing pretty much

8:01

the same playbook vis-a-vis Brexit, and the

8:03

polling, generally saying, and most of the

8:06

sort of conventional wisdom of most people

8:08

saying, remain are going to win, I

8:10

think it stopped them doing things that

8:12

you should do in a campaign. For

8:14

example, they did not properly rebut the

8:16

lies that were being told by Johnson

8:18

and Co because they didn't want to

8:20

do so-called blue on blue attacking each

8:22

other. So yeah, I do think it

8:24

played into complacency. And so your sense

8:26

is that if the polls had shown

8:28

that they were behind, they probably would have

8:30

rolled their sleeves up more, laid into Johnson more, that

8:32

they had become, as you say, because they felt

8:34

they were on course for victory, that they didn't

8:36

need to do those things. Exactly.

8:39

I also think that in that one, it's

8:41

why you, I think you need a bit

8:43

of panic in a campaign every now and

8:45

again, you need to feel, my God, this

8:47

is a lot closer than we thought. And

8:50

I felt that the Brexit campaign, the Remain

8:52

campaign was a little bit complacent the whole

8:54

way through. Let's get back

8:56

to the polling then results that we've

8:58

now got. And maybe we can scoot

9:01

back later in the show to talk about

9:03

the bigger receipts. So what struck you looking

9:05

at this very first, the Restless Politics JLP

9:07

poll? First thing to say is that for

9:09

those who want to see the whole thing

9:11

in full, we're going to send it out

9:14

today to our Trip Plus members on the

9:16

newsletter. And if you want to sign up

9:18

and become a member, you just go to

9:20

therestlesspolicies.com and also to say that we're going

9:22

to do this kind of thing roughly around

9:24

once a month, different questions, different approach, love

9:27

your ideas on that as well. And

9:29

we'll put them in the newsletter. And there's lots

9:31

of interactive stuff as well, lots of

9:34

graphics that you can sort of play

9:36

around with. I think the first thing

9:38

I'd say is that they're pretty disastrous

9:40

for Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

9:42

Interestingly, on the state of

9:44

the parties, Labour 18 points ahead. And

9:46

this pollster, he does a lot of

9:49

kind of modeling around don't knows undecideds.

9:51

And I think this is what we

9:53

can call a pretty

9:55

reliable 18 point lead. So let's just

9:57

part of that for now. I think the One

10:00

of the most interesting things is

10:02

that essentially it shows that although

10:05

Kia Stama is,

10:07

you know, there's a lot of

10:10

don't knows around both Rishi Sunak

10:12

and Kia Stama when it comes

10:14

to qualities that they have. But

10:16

essentially Kia Stama is well ahead

10:18

of Rishi Sunak in terms of

10:20

most of the qualities that have

10:22

been tested, some of which I

10:24

find historically funny. So

10:27

one of the questions, who out of Rishi

10:29

Sunak or Kia Stama would be best at

10:31

putting up a shelf? Okay,

10:34

no guesses there on who wins that one.

10:36

Well, 11% Sunak, 48% Kia Stama, 39% don't know, but

10:42

all these these are kind of the human

10:44

stuff like being in charge of a map

10:46

for a road trip. Again, Kia Stama well

10:48

ahead looking after kids while you're out. The

10:50

only ones of these that Sunak wins out

10:52

of a fairly long list is negotiating a

10:55

discount and solving an

10:57

escape room. But in terms of the

10:59

thing I'd be slightly worried about from

11:02

a labour perspective is the number of

11:04

don't knows, including on values and including

11:06

on general attitudes. But even

11:08

within that context, on the

11:10

question of who do you think would make

11:13

the best Prime Minister, if you total Rishi

11:15

Sunak 29% Kia Stama 43% that's

11:17

adding together probably Kia Stama

11:19

and definitely Kia Stama. One

11:22

in five people who voted

11:24

Tory in 2019 would now

11:26

choose Kia Stama and three

11:28

in 10 of people

11:31

who voted leave in 2016 would

11:33

also choose Kia Stama. And the

11:35

only place where Rishi Sunak as it were

11:37

comes ahead is amongst the demographic of people

11:40

who say that they might vote before where

11:42

he's about twice as popular as Kia Stama.

11:45

Can I comment then? You've just led

11:47

us into something that you mentioned at

11:49

the beginning but is really important here

11:52

because Jane Johnson who did this poll

11:54

was a number 10 pollster And

11:56

internally, the Conservative party will be

11:58

running its own poll. In which

12:00

they will not be sharing with the

12:02

public and they will be running polls

12:05

Very similar to this because the teacher

12:07

said she ran that machine that cel

12:09

being run at number ten by I

12:11

said was he doing his campaign team?

12:13

So when they look at this there's

12:16

something very troubling. which is that there's

12:18

a lot of stuff in this poll

12:20

which will encourage people in the Conservative

12:22

party to try to move further to

12:24

the right. And that is because the

12:27

Tories only lead in this poll on

12:29

he sees. Like stopping illegal migration,

12:31

fighting with culture, reducing migration, and

12:33

tackling Islamist extremism and they're losing

12:35

to life. Reminisces: Absolutely catastrophic. So

12:37

conceived is there leasing to labour

12:39

on inflation? Economy cutting crime. So

12:42

labor's managed to to establish itself

12:44

as the lead on the economy

12:46

in crime. A problem with that

12:48

is that they will may think

12:50

looking at this poll or posed

12:52

like had to sell have a

12:54

poll very much like it that

12:56

they don't have enough time and

12:59

they don't have permission. To cousin

13:01

to the labour lead on t

13:03

a seaside concise economy crime and

13:05

that that best hope is to

13:07

lean into the as his were

13:09

that currently stronger illegal migration white

13:11

coats migration which will mean trying

13:13

to take they says reform because

13:15

again in this poll it suggests

13:17

that about a third of the

13:19

reform and again reformist are so

13:21

you can bricks posse Voters may

13:23

be prepared combat the concept is

13:25

now. that wouldn't be enough for

13:27

the Conservatives to win in a

13:29

majority. But it's they were in tude

13:31

damage control the would be a strong. Attempts

13:34

his plus right and and just finished.

13:36

For me this is very boring because

13:38

of course. I. Desperately want the

13:40

concept of proceed to return to the center

13:42

and what will happen when they least the

13:44

next alexa so perhaps to fight about whether

13:47

they lost because they were to. Left.

13:49

or to right and posts like this will

13:52

be used by the swell above man pretty

13:54

patel saxons to say oh no no we

13:56

lost the selection because we were to left

13:58

wing and we lost all these rights

14:00

to reform. Yeah. Just

14:02

to give people the top line voting

14:05

intention figures, as we're now talking about

14:07

the reform, Labour 42, Conservative

14:09

24, Reform 13, Lib Dem 10, Green 5,

14:11

SMP 4, Plied 1 and another party

14:17

1, I don't know who that would

14:19

be. Now the one bit of good

14:21

news in the Sisperusi Zunak is when

14:23

people ask whether they thought that the

14:25

Tories should actually get rid of him

14:27

and put somebody else in. And on

14:30

those, he's not great,

14:33

but by and large,

14:35

so for example amongst Conservative voters, 19%

14:38

think they should get rid of the Sunak and change leader, 72% don't.

14:42

That's current Conservative voters. If

14:44

you go back to 2019 Conservative voters, some

14:46

of whom have switched to Labour, some of

14:48

whom have switched to Reform, then 29% think

14:50

they should change him and 54% don't. So

14:55

that's the one small piece

14:57

of good news. On the overall

15:00

numbers, a third, just under a third,

15:02

31% think that it'd be

15:04

a good idea to get rid of him. The other thing

15:06

in this though, Rory, is that although Keir Starmer

15:09

is well ahead on, I think on

15:11

all the qualities when we get down to

15:13

things like trustworthiness and charisma and

15:16

all that strong determine, gets things done,

15:18

tells the truth, the fact is Keir

15:20

Starmer leads Sunak on all

15:23

of the positive attributes and Rishi

15:25

Sunak leads on all the negative

15:27

attributes. So for example, sleazy, untrustworthy,

15:29

posh, unprincipled, insincere, Sunak leads

15:32

them all, understands normal people,

15:34

decisive, competent, caring, tells the

15:37

truth, Starmer leads.

15:39

Now, that being said, the

15:41

other thing that comes through pretty strongly

15:43

is just this very general anti-politics

15:46

mood. Keir Starmer is

15:48

the only politician of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

15:50

7, 12 politicians who were named.

15:54

He's the only one with a net positive rating and

15:56

it's just plus eight. So 40% have a positive view.

16:00

32% of a negative view, the rest of the don't know, so that's plus

16:02

eight. Rishi Sunak is the most

16:04

unpopular politician in the country. He has a

16:07

positivity rating of minus 29. Boris Johnson

16:09

is the second most unpopular politician of the

16:12

ones that his names were put forward. He's

16:14

minus 27. Some surprise to me, the third

16:16

was Siddiq Khan. I think that might be

16:18

because there's so much sort of stuff pumped

16:20

out against him the whole time. Nigel Farage

16:23

is next up pretty unpopular, minus 20, but

16:25

very popular with those with whom he is

16:27

popular as it were. So reform voters, he's

16:29

very, very popular. But Farage is not

16:32

a popular politician. Jeremy Hunt, very negative.

16:34

Well, your point about the general negativity

16:36

is really striking, isn't it? Just

16:39

a footnote on Siddiq Khan. I mean,

16:41

that is interesting. And of course, the

16:43

YouGov poll also found that his net

16:45

popularity was even worse. So there's clearly

16:47

some issue there. And whether it is

16:49

a question around people feeling that he

16:51

hasn't managed to deliver on housing and

16:53

transport in London, or whether it's the

16:55

fights around ULAZ, or whether it's negative

16:58

campaigns, he has a suit. That doesn't

17:00

mean that he's likely to lose the next London election.

17:03

He's well ahead in the London election.

17:05

Yeah, I think also to remember, it's

17:07

a national poll. And he's

17:09

involved in I know London is a very, very, very

17:11

big place, but it's essentially not a

17:14

national campaign. So those people outside London

17:16

are probably just getting a sense of the

17:18

general negativity that is pumped out against him

17:21

all the time, whether he'd be front of

17:23

mind in the way that Rishi Sunak and

17:25

Keir Starmer is, I'd be very, very surprised.

17:27

And then a footnote on, on Samra. I

17:29

mean, as you say, he definitely is the

17:31

most popular, but in historical terms, not just

17:33

in this poll, but in all polls, he's

17:35

well below the average for an

17:37

opposition leader at this stage going in. I mean,

17:39

that's part of the general discontent position. So Blair

17:42

at this stage had a much, much

17:45

higher net popularity rating, even Cameron going

17:47

into the 2010 election had a

17:49

much higher net popularity than Starmer's

17:51

messaging on Rishi Sunak. Rishi Sunak

17:53

is now as unpopular as Liz

17:55

Truss was at the end of

17:57

her time and significantly below. Theresa

18:00

May and David Cameron. So

18:02

can we just stop on that for a second?

18:04

What do you think it feels like to be

18:06

Rishi Sunak, to be sitting in number 10, seeing

18:08

these kind of polls? I mean, how would you

18:11

react if you were the Prime Minister and someone

18:13

came in and gave you this deck? What would

18:15

you say to your team? I think you probably

18:17

would. The only consolation you might find for yourself

18:19

is this sort of general, well, this is the

18:21

world we're in, people don't like politicians. They liked

18:24

me when I was Chancellor spreading out money. They

18:26

liked you when you were a challenger. But when you get to

18:28

the top, it gets very, very hard. And there's some

18:30

truth in that. There was a

18:33

very interesting piece by Tim Shipman in the Sunday

18:35

Times at the weekend, though, which gave the sense

18:37

of Sunak being a bit of a whinger about

18:39

all this. He can't understand why people don't like

18:41

him. He can't understand why they get agitated that

18:44

he spends, you know, tens of

18:46

thousand pounds on his kid's education, that he flies

18:48

around in helicopters, that he wears these four and

18:50

a half thousand pound shoes, whatever it is. And

18:53

he basically is in that slight victim

18:55

mode of thinking, I'm working really, really

18:57

hard. I'm trying my best. I'm better

18:59

than Truss. I'm better than Johnson, you know, kind of

19:01

giving me a break kind of thing, which is just, in

19:04

a way, I think if you're

19:06

in those positions, don't get

19:08

too hung up on this stuff because otherwise

19:10

it'll just drive you crazy. So I think

19:12

I don't know what his attitude will be. I

19:14

suspect if he is a whinger, it will

19:16

just increase the whinging. And it must create

19:18

a very, very difficult leadership culture in number

19:20

10. I mean, it will mean that in these

19:23

inner circles, he will be confused, angry. And

19:25

of course, there's something terrible that I... So just

19:27

to go back to the personal, I mean, I

19:29

ran polling when I was running for Mayor of

19:31

London. And there were a couple of things I

19:33

took away from it. One is the

19:36

terrible disconnect between what my priorities were and

19:38

what the public's priorities were and how difficult

19:40

that was to get my head around. So,

19:43

you know, for example, as we've talked in

19:45

the past, I was absolutely obsessed with planting

19:47

trees in London and the public... Roy,

19:50

because of that, we asked them to poll

19:52

on trees. And it's the

19:54

most popular policy in the world. If

19:56

somebody came out and said, we're planting

19:58

half a billion trees... trees, it's

20:01

got 92% approval. Well,

20:03

that's absolutely wonderful. That was not sadly, maybe

20:05

the world is changing, but when I was

20:07

running, they kept coming to me and saying,

20:09

please shut up about planting trees. And every

20:11

time I sent out a tweet

20:13

about planting trees, they were like, shut up about it.

20:15

It doesn't matter to people. And

20:18

so that was a really interesting thing because it's

20:20

a challenge to your values as a politician. There

20:22

I am passionately interested in planting trees and you've

20:24

got the polling people saying, look, it's not relevant

20:26

to voters. Please don't talk about it. And then

20:28

there was other stuff. At that stage, the

20:30

number one issue in London was

20:33

crime. And essentially

20:35

the polls showed crime as being an issue,

20:37

you know, 10 times more important than any

20:39

other issue to people. And therefore the entire

20:41

campaign was trying to push me to say,

20:44

your campaign needs to be make London safe

20:46

again. And I didn't like the feeling

20:49

of that because it felt very, very right wing.

20:51

And it was slightly misleading, in fact, in terms

20:53

of the real crime statistics in London. And

20:55

I was very reluctant to get dragged in that

20:57

direction or make that my slogan. So that's the

21:00

first thing. The second thing is these tracking polls.

21:02

So every month or so you get a new

21:04

poll and I, and I guess Rishi Sunak, every

21:06

month goes in with a slight thinking heart thinking,

21:08

have I managed to improve my polling position? Have

21:10

I managed to push it up? So running for

21:13

London Mayor, I'd be up at 13%. I

21:16

think I'd do an incredible month, wonderful

21:18

press releases, great initiatives, come back.

21:20

And I'm on 13.5%. I

21:23

barely move by half a second. And

21:27

you get more and more desperate. So

21:30

just to come back, I guess, to how one deals

21:32

with it. Did you have a

21:34

sense of what happened maybe with, well,

21:36

I guess what were the most difficult

21:38

bits for you with Tony Blair? It's

21:40

presumably the Iraq war began to have

21:42

an impact on polling. So the 2005

21:44

election felt more tricky for you than

21:47

the two elections before. Is that right?

21:49

You would have gone into a more negative environment? You were

21:51

always ahead. I

21:55

think there was only one period of an entire time when

21:57

we fell behind and it was, I Think

21:59

it was. it was.. The run to the shoe protests a

22:01

car member will one period. When we we sort

22:03

of selby i briefly but it wasn't we were

22:06

ceiling the things we're was because of the polls

22:08

without things worse because we sense we knew that

22:10

there be the change in the public mood but

22:12

we also knew that we was we were still

22:14

ahead to is still a fight to be had

22:16

Lucille probably going to win it. A by the

22:19

way I think what? what you talked about their

22:21

relations, your London experience I think you were right

22:23

and they were all the so for example if

22:25

you look at these polls only get one with

22:27

the ones we've done. When you go through what

22:30

people. Think to most important issues so

22:32

unique all voters he goes improve

22:34

the Nhs were to for them

22:36

growing the economy, people's incomes supporting

22:38

be with cost of living, reduce

22:40

inflation and then twenty percent say

22:42

stopping illegal immigration Small boats you

22:44

go to Tory voters, current conservative

22:47

voters and it's economy, health service

22:49

and small boats you go to

22:51

labour voters a small boats his

22:53

way way down. Now I think

22:55

the reason why the small boats

22:57

issue is so high in the

22:59

Poli. now has less to do with

23:01

them thinking order will be up in

23:03

arms about these mobos is the fact

23:05

that the conservatives have made it such

23:08

a big thing so when like today

23:10

you see the story i think is

23:12

in the times that the properties that

23:14

similar brabham a went to his home

23:16

secretary went out to rwanda to see

23:18

as it on these mobs issues feel

23:20

compelled to christians say i'd happily live

23:22

here and blah blah blah and in

23:24

out sounds other lots of them have

23:26

been so hot to rwandans said still

23:28

to say whole i'm in a what

23:30

you're doing they made that the issue

23:32

rather than it being the issue citing

23:34

this is this this illustrates my point

23:36

it's the duty and the role of

23:39

a politician and the campaign's is to

23:41

drive the debate on the issues that

23:43

you want the debate to be on

23:45

to the conserved is made a choice

23:47

to make this a big issue don't

23:49

they should therefore be surprised that their

23:51

own voters are saying this is the

23:53

most important a third most important issue

23:55

them and eight if you clarified one

23:57

thing which we always to get with

23:59

says The most important question isn't

24:01

what does your party lead on, but

24:04

the most important question is what is using the most

24:06

of those devotions. So the problem

24:08

is for the conservatives, they may lead on

24:10

stopping illegal migration, fighting woke culture, and tackling

24:12

Islamist extremism. But if these issues are not

24:15

that important to voters as a whole compared

24:17

to the NHS and the economy, it doesn't

24:19

really matter that you've got a lead. When

24:23

people look at it, there's a really good graph which overlays

24:26

the salience issue and how important it is

24:28

to people against what different party

24:30

leads on. And that's where Labour's in

24:33

a very good position because they're leading

24:35

on the issues that matter most. The

24:37

only people who really care about Islamist

24:39

extremism, woke issues, and migration and really

24:42

put them at the top are the

24:44

reform voters. And the reform

24:46

voters are very different from other voters. And

24:49

they represent these sort of tend to

24:51

maybe a stretch 20% of the vote

24:53

that makes up far right populism in

24:56

a lot of other European countries. They

24:58

are all about culture wars. They're

25:00

totally different if you look at the graph and people can have a look

25:03

at this in the newsletter. But

25:05

you'll see that they don't really care

25:07

that much about the economy and the

25:09

NHS. They're putting these issues like migration,

25:11

woke issues right up there. And

25:14

the issue then, I guess, is,

25:16

well, let me turn it around and again put

25:18

you in the uncomfortable position of being Rishi Sunak.

25:21

If you feel that you've got a

25:23

bit of a lead on those issues and

25:25

that you might be able to chip off

25:27

a few reform voters by leaning into those

25:30

issues and that you're not likely to get

25:32

much chance now of taking back the lead

25:34

from Labour on issues like the economy, would

25:37

you not feel a huge temptation to slightly lurch

25:39

to the right in the hope that you can

25:41

minimize your defeat? I think that is playing completely

25:44

into their strategy. So I think ultimately

25:46

that would help them just to go through the reform.

25:48

That would help reform. I think

25:50

it would show them as bigger players. It

25:52

would say that they're inside his head. It

25:54

would say that he wants to play on

25:56

their pitch. So if you go

25:58

through them, so reform voters. Forty six

26:00

percent say stop illegal immigration, small bug

26:03

crossings. Forty six percent of current reform

26:05

voters say that is the number one

26:07

priority. As it happens, health is second,

26:09

just almost the same as reducing migration

26:12

over or an interesting. Yesterday was one

26:14

of the most absurd things I've heard

26:16

since the three hundred and fifty million

26:18

pounds. And for those of us and

26:21

Twenty C C. Richard Choice, the Reform

26:23

leader without saying that they're going to

26:25

get rid of Nhs waiting lists in

26:27

two years by stopping all spending on.

26:30

Net Zero. then he makes some some fantastical

26:32

figure thirty billion or something the we're having

26:34

to spend on the Zero as his asshole

26:36

going to go. This is pure populism. Straightforward

26:39

populism, What they're trying to do their just

26:41

as in the brakes had debate he say

26:43

let's take the issue that are voters are

26:45

really care about illegal immigration. Net Zero was

26:48

also very high up a less sort of

26:50

you know somehow related them to things other

26:52

people care about as well. such as soon

26:54

as the House of is some bad news

26:56

in here for reform though by the way

26:59

and I'm pretty. Soon as post Oxbridge

27:01

when he sort of stuff such as

27:03

changes in a zero strategy, there's still

27:05

a significant majority of people who would

27:07

want more policies to reach that zero

27:09

wrong with your policy research zero and

27:11

and climate senses reassuringly said he'd let

27:13

you in the reassuringly high in people's

27:15

lists. The practice: In the general population,

27:17

it's it's it's not right down there.

27:19

It's it's down. It's had a number

27:21

six or seven, which is, yeah, pretty

27:23

high and the messages on that one

27:25

real a lot less satisfying for some

27:28

did I may as I see them.

27:30

As labour voters getting better

27:32

deal out of Europe is in

27:34

the single figures so this is

27:36

succeeding More brace opportunities. Is.

27:39

Two percent negotiating close relationship with

27:41

the you. Is. Eight percent so

27:43

well well well down on how serve

27:45

his way out in front of everything

27:47

is another one as has his business

27:50

that a very I'm is very strong

27:52

numbers for people who know. Would.

27:54

Prefer to be in the European Union than

27:56

out. Yet, but. The problem is

27:58

the said own really what is. Ways they don't

28:00

really want to be given the choice of

28:02

the decision way for Interpol, have you given

28:04

the choice? Then there is now a pretty

28:06

sizeable Athena Fifty Seven Forty Three saying you

28:08

know we would vote to rejoin and the

28:10

West Midlands is the only region the country

28:13

that went against us. as West Midlands I

28:15

was going the West Midlands. There's also the

28:17

only reason the wouldn't get rid of the

28:19

House of Lords. By the way I am

28:21

couple of things that maybe before would you

28:23

go to break a very strong support in

28:25

every region and all demographic groups for Joe

28:27

Biden over Donald Trumps of the we Don't

28:29

Have A vote. In that one will.

28:31

So we also have other views on

28:33

Israel, Hamas and you know it's clearly

28:36

we as people who the some more

28:38

sympathy with some are or Israel and

28:40

it's basically hammers twelve percent Israel, twenty

28:42

two percent Alison A lot of these

28:45

questions an overlord, don't nose and if

28:47

I was just arm of the one

28:49

thing that would worry me and all

28:51

this is just how many people are

28:53

saying don't know on issues and or

28:56

attributes and on and I despise feeding

28:58

always general sense of sort. Of disgruntlement

29:00

about policy as an old and again

29:02

we to combat system it's and next

29:05

question if we next and ethics and

29:07

asked almost gaza israel exam and he

29:09

possess a different reason for every that

29:12

salaries as the and final depressing kicker

29:14

and we said our system the next

29:16

somebody this poem as would love questions

29:18

from this has helped the fullness and

29:21

please rights and and suggest questions like

29:23

tossed as you're into the stuff i

29:25

think we should else what would happen

29:27

of for us combat and my series.

29:30

That looking at this they said you'd probably

29:32

see a big jump in the reform fate

29:34

of fresh can back as reform leader and

29:36

a drop in the conservative fate and you

29:38

could almost and up the situation doesn't seem

29:40

unrealistic to me that for us could end

29:43

up on twenty one percent the consensus on

29:45

nineteen percent dang next election of convinced that

29:47

because our our thing that in a surprise

29:49

his own net positivity based on this potus

29:51

minus twenty which is not that much as

29:53

of johnson and soon as I think we

29:55

we got maybe got two little bit peep

29:58

for hours from I could bureau of. Thank.

30:00

You time for it. Was.

30:10

About the resources with me Oh scandal

30:12

I'm with me Rory Stewart a know

30:14

we can assist to a place where

30:16

polling is that see much more sparse

30:19

an unreliable which is India book where

30:21

I think basis of pretty confident what's

30:23

gonna happen in the in the Us

30:25

Coming in the an election over the

30:27

side of the first thing say why

30:29

India is stating the obvious It's very

30:31

very very big on treats population. One

30:33

point four billion and more than nine

30:35

hundred and sixty million will have a

30:37

vote and this elections going to take

30:40

place Sauce. Next week nineteenth of April

30:42

it's happening and seven sizes across the

30:44

country of this is for the lox

30:46

ah by which is that kind of

30:48

that parliament and then we'll get the

30:50

results on. during the fourth of I

30:52

think we're both very very confident that

30:54

door and remote he will get his third

30:56

term. and I mean he's an incredible

30:58

operator. He really is an incredible operator and

31:00

I'm in front of the moment and

31:02

the of his passes through Paris. The

31:04

other day I went into the railway station.

31:07

I picked a Blue Moon Diplomatic which

31:09

is a very good newspapers. I'm sure

31:11

you have no ruses, would have

31:13

been mostly foreign policy French newspaper

31:15

and they have done a huge

31:17

say on India and the From

31:19

Pace headline Land in Demo C

31:21

Question Mark India A Democracy Question

31:24

Mark The Question Mark is meant

31:26

to cast doubt on the side

31:28

that it that is still a

31:30

democracy. Now I know the Indians

31:32

will get very very angry at

31:34

the suggestion but the sciences, the

31:36

mood. He has done an incredible

31:39

job as cemented his. Own power and

31:41

doing in a way that is. You know

31:43

I think a lot of things that we

31:45

talk about whether it's kind of undermining of

31:47

cause, whether it's about far greater control of

31:49

the of the media and also that the

31:51

thing that I think is his powers most

31:53

worried it is peace in this paper by

31:56

a guy who's is written books of India?

31:58

nice I didn't have. You may notice. The

32:00

remote eat the to had one dietz

32:02

is essentially the sooner the use of

32:04

of the of kind of this in

32:06

a secular country that has meant to

32:08

be secular country sort of the emphasis

32:11

of the Hindu religion the mood deep

32:13

that is the combination of. Hindu.

32:15

Superiority over Muslims Right wing nationalism in

32:17

the cult of personality. the coast, The

32:20

personalities extraordinary. He told us a little

32:22

bit about the syndicate he he saw

32:24

some of this Nevada think of one

32:26

point you were priced at constraints and

32:29

some would rather see that so many

32:31

as she coming. In terms of the

32:33

politicians, we awesome Covenants nestle came to

32:36

big national Elect's prominence relatively late. I'm

32:38

in. He'd been a party organized of

32:40

from his very out he tells me

32:42

with a child when he first joined.

32:45

This sort of semi paramilitary group as

32:47

has hit with the Bjp, the Rss

32:49

and then he became a kind of

32:51

T behind the scenes partial Connecticut. Little

32:54

Little said have some reason his is

32:56

known as mid seventies born in Nineteen

32:58

Sixty and the H H. He joins

33:00

this group c then during the seventies

33:03

which is when Indira Gandhi's So and

33:05

nearest also declared a set of mess.

33:10

Around. With

33:12

considered extremists and he was running safe

33:14

houses name. Is traveling in disguise some

33:16

places seat and then in his thirties

33:19

he comes back the prominence again beginning

33:21

to organize elections for the Bjp which

33:23

is empty nesters patents i suspect

33:25

Ahmadinejad when it's forty he gets involved

33:28

in this drum right? yeah trap. which

33:30

is the we talked about this

33:32

because this was the pilgrimage connects had

33:34

with the destruction of this ancient mosque

33:37

the Babri masjid and I idiot

33:39

and he attempts by the and s

33:41

to rebuild the Hindu temple was have

33:43

their deaths as unsightly. Another, but

33:45

it wasn't until two thousand and

33:48

one when he was fifty one

33:50

that he had she became Chief

33:52

Minister, Chief Minister of Gujarat, and.

33:54

Since. Then totally consistent pattern

33:56

became the premise of India

33:58

in Twenty Four. One of

34:00

the things that you've talked about his

34:02

his use of holograms them and of

34:04

lundy to eat. the he talks about

34:06

what that look like. The other thing

34:08

that came very quickly and his campaigning

34:10

stylus people wearing masks with his say

34:13

some them so you can often see

34:15

in a five hundred Indian women and

34:17

saris all of them with Narendra Modi

34:19

is did it say some Varies early

34:21

use of aggressive social media See had

34:23

a million followers on Twitter very very

34:25

quickly and and we have do on

34:27

holograms and campaigning techniques is offering his

34:29

campaign. I use. Is cause for Medieval.

34:31

So the hologram i think he was

34:33

the first one to use this were

34:35

essentially he would be at a rally

34:37

in a big Indian city say and

34:40

have a huge crowds there. but meanwhile

34:42

around the country is in dozens and

34:44

we can do this. You can replicate

34:46

this in hundreds of different places. the

34:48

technology that has him literally standing on

34:51

the end of a truck but it's

34:53

an image of him but delivering exactly

34:55

the same speech as he is delivering

34:57

in person or you sometimes getting bigger

34:59

crowds. For the hologram the was for the

35:01

real thing analysis like kill safer avatars it

35:04

is his as the same technology exactly the

35:06

same technology and then it's and the mask

35:08

thing is all about. You know this about

35:10

his face it's about people figured that that

35:12

that part of the as it worth of

35:14

of his team does this app that they

35:17

have web cc late there's a game on

35:19

there and every time you like or agree

35:21

with something that he said you get points

35:23

on this game that you play says it

35:25

all these things in the cars scooters that

35:27

the thing about until to the media so.

35:30

that the last of the sort of tv

35:32

stations gave him a hard time new delhi

35:34

t v suddenly ends up in the ownership

35:36

of one of the the oligarchs is one

35:38

of the richest people in india one of

35:40

his closest friends is just a formidable campaign

35:42

and around the world and not others in

35:44

singapore last week is you know hadn't realized

35:46

he'd been to singapore and spoken one of

35:48

the big stadiums there when he went to

35:50

where he was at wembley when they become

35:53

was promise you had to wembley and six

35:55

your thousand people turned out here speak he

35:57

sold as stadiums is houston in new york

35:59

in sydney This is the other

36:01

thing, which was Nehru, when he was Prime

36:03

Minister, he tried to project a sense of

36:05

India on the world stage, but it was

36:07

very much for the elites. What

36:10

Modi has done incredibly successfully is to

36:12

project himself as a big player in

36:14

the world and get the masses behind

36:16

him in so doing. This sense of

36:18

saying, I'm just a ordinary guy and

36:20

I can become this big figure on

36:22

the world stage. Think what we can

36:24

do as a country if we do

36:26

that. And there's now a much more

36:28

aggressive foreign policy. So you had, for

36:30

example, when the American Secret Service discovered this

36:32

plot for Indian Secret Service, we're sort of

36:34

taking out a few people on American or

36:36

wanted to take out a few people on

36:39

American and Canadian as well. And did in

36:41

Canadian. And did in Canada. And did in

36:43

Canada. Yeah. Absolutely. And

36:46

they came out and said, this

36:48

is typical of these sort of,

36:50

you know, former global leaders turning

36:53

on us. And so much, much

36:55

more muscular, quite aggressive against Pakistan,

36:57

quite aggressive against China even refused

36:59

really to get involved in condemning Putin's

37:01

invasion of Ukraine. Well, worse than that,

37:03

Roy, worse than that. They've the

37:06

dealing in arms between the two is pretty,

37:08

pretty high profile, but also on oil. So

37:11

you've got loads of the world sanctioning

37:13

Russia and sort of, you know, saying they won't

37:15

take any of their oil. So what's happening is

37:17

crude oil is going into India. It's being refined

37:19

there. It's being repackaged as Indian oil. And then

37:21

it's being sold on to Europe. So

37:24

this is a sense of the US and Europe

37:26

as it were being between a rock and a

37:29

hard place. So

37:31

initially Europe and the US

37:33

tried to be pretty firm

37:36

with Narendra Modi. So in fact, just to

37:38

remind people, there was a horrifying set of

37:40

riots in 2002 in Gujarat. Initially

37:43

a group of Hindu pilgrims

37:45

and some activists on a

37:47

train were killed. And

37:50

in response, there was

37:52

mass killing in which probably

37:54

2000 Muslims were killed and maybe as

37:56

many as 100,000 were displaced in Gujarat.

38:00

including the killing of a very senior

38:02

Muslim politician, S. S. Jafri. There was

38:05

rapes, the word mutilation, and at no

38:07

point did Narendra Modi, who was then

38:09

the chief minister of Gujarat, condemn this,

38:11

and that was because he is very

38:13

much a Hindu nationalist, and he's a

38:16

Hindu nationalist who projects himself frequently against

38:18

Muslims. He was also, that led to

38:20

him being, there was a travel ban

38:22

placed on him. He couldn't go to,

38:24

I think, America, I think, UK, Europe.

38:26

No, UK or Europe, exactly. So all

38:29

these countries, and the UN did

38:31

formal investigations. So initially, the international community

38:33

tried to freeze him out. But of

38:35

course, over time, over the next decade,

38:37

as he became more and more powerful

38:40

as chief minister, and then eventually became

38:42

prime minister, the international community flipped. And

38:44

instead of banning him from traveling, they

38:46

began to welcome him. And why? Well,

38:48

because the US doesn't have many options

38:51

in Asia. They're looking for a counterbalance

38:53

against China, which is the fundamental strategic

38:55

threat. And so they have had to

38:57

pursue a policy of reconciliation with him

38:59

despite that. And we can talk about

39:02

some of the other things which mark him

39:04

out, not just as a very popular politician,

39:06

but a very worrying politician. He 2019 revoked

39:09

the special status of Jamal Kashmir.

39:11

So that's the area which is

39:13

disputed between Indira Pakistan and has

39:15

been the site of very, very

39:18

intense tensions between Muslim and Hindu communities. He

39:21

introduced something called the Citizen

39:23

Amendment Act, which basically fast

39:25

tracked non Muslims who wanted

39:27

to get Indian citizenship and

39:29

discriminated against Muslims. And

39:31

then there's all the stuff that you've been

39:34

talking about, which is, you know, the courts

39:36

have not challenged this stuff in the way

39:38

that one would have expected. And he's used

39:40

the intelligence bureaus to investigate a lot of

39:42

NGOs and opposition politicians. Absolutely. And one of

39:45

the problems with India, in a sense, and

39:48

this is true, maybe lesser,

39:50

but to some extent in places like Bangladesh

39:52

too, is that it's a strange combination of

39:54

a very rule

39:56

bound bureaucratic society with

39:59

also strange flexibilities around the rules, which

40:01

means that almost anyone at any

40:04

time can get in trouble with the courts because they

40:06

haven't quite got their tax right or they haven't sold

40:08

out a bit of form. So you

40:10

had investigations not just of organisations

40:14

supporting gay rights, but also

40:16

Med-Sain-Sain-Frontier, the Sierra Club, Avar's

40:18

kind of big international NGOs.

40:21

And this is all about this horrible jargon

40:23

phrase, the shrinking space for civil society. And

40:26

then, as you say, big moves against some

40:28

of the leading media, particularly the English language

40:30

media. On the popularity, though, there's a thing

40:32

called the Morning Consult, which does this sort

40:34

of poll and it tracks sort of popularity

40:37

of leaders around the world. Modi is number

40:39

one in his own country. 78% of Indians

40:41

approve of his leadership. And the nearest rank

40:44

behind that is Mexico, 63%. So he's

40:46

genuinely very popular. But of course, it's

40:48

easier to be popular if you do

40:50

have such control or you do have

40:52

the opposition tied up and decimated and

40:54

so forth. But I think the point

40:57

on foreign policy with China, in

40:59

a sense, he probably gets more leeway

41:01

because he is not China and he's

41:03

in that part of the world. And

41:05

he knows that and he plays that

41:07

very, very well. So for example, when

41:09

the Canadian thing happened where the Sikh

41:11

separatist guy was killed, the Canadians protested,

41:14

they were attacked for their troubles,

41:16

and Joe Biden was not at all happy about it.

41:19

But his only protest was to say that he wouldn't

41:21

go to their National Day rally. He didn't do a

41:23

big thing about it. He just said, I'm not coming

41:25

to your National Day rally. So who went? Emmanuel

41:28

Macron. So they

41:30

still were able to project Modi and project

41:32

India as this sort of huge player in

41:34

the world. And it is interesting to me

41:37

how he's managed to make a big part

41:39

of his domestic appeal, the fact that he

41:41

is a major player

41:43

in terms of the global profile of India now.

41:46

And of course, when you see that there was

41:48

a poll recently of young people and 88% there

41:50

was a poll of 5000 people, 88% said that

41:52

they felt it was important that India

41:58

in the near future got a vote. of permanent

42:00

seat on the United Nations Security Council and

42:02

that India should be part of the should

42:05

be added to the G7. So they've got

42:07

this sense now of a bit of swagger.

42:09

Now that's the he's got to be careful

42:11

about that. But I think it is because

42:13

he is able to he knows the point

42:16

you made the Americans want the counterweight. So

42:18

he probably gets away with a lot more

42:20

than maybe other countries could. And incredibly frustrating

42:22

for opposition politicians in India, because they really

42:25

are failing to land a blow. So one

42:27

of their problems is there are certain arguments

42:29

they want to make. One of them

42:31

is that he hasn't actually performed much

42:33

better on the economy than his predecessors,

42:35

you know, man Mohan Singh had actually

42:37

generated really significant growth before the 2008

42:39

financial crisis. I think he's done

42:41

pretty well on infrastructure. I think they're very

42:44

much as he's done a massive it's an

42:46

interesting economic policy, because we talk a lot

42:48

about this, he's massively increased the amount they

42:50

spend on infrastructure from about 5% GDP to

42:52

about 1.7%. But he's

42:54

reduced expenditure on health and

42:57

education compared to his predecessors. And he's gone

42:59

for a lot of these free

43:02

port, special economic zone type things which

43:04

we've been talking about. So he's a

43:06

real believer in stuff that makes you

43:08

uncomfortable. He likes going and saying, let's

43:11

define a zone, let's get rid of

43:13

the planning regulations, let's allow more pollution,

43:15

let's fast track businesses, let's get rid

43:17

of labor regulations here in order to

43:20

bring investment in. So he's pretty right

43:22

wing laissez-faire in his economic policies. And

43:24

of course, the opposition politicians also get

43:26

infuriated because he's perpetually taking credit for things

43:29

that other people have done. I mean, anything

43:31

that's happening on a state

43:33

level that has nothing to do with the

43:35

federal government, he'll put his face all over things

43:37

that have been done by his predecessors, he'll

43:39

put his face all over, and yet he manages

43:42

to do it. I mean, what would be

43:44

your advice to an opposition politician dealing with someone

43:46

who's so brilliantly nimble at taking credit for

43:48

things that he hasn't done? Well, very hard. And

43:50

what does the politician do when, for example,

43:52

the Congress Party, the main opposition, came

43:55

out the other day with their manifesto, which

43:57

covered all sorts of different issues. And

43:59

his line... was it's been written by the

44:01

Muslim League. So essentially

44:03

taking it straight to one of

44:06

his points. Look, he's a

44:08

very, very difficult opponent. I guess all you

44:10

can do is sort of keep going, but

44:12

it's harder and harder and harder the longer

44:14

that he's there. Because I think one thing

44:17

we should not, I think

44:19

we can argue about Putin, whether he is genuinely

44:21

popular or not, I think with Modi, it's very

44:23

hard to say he's not genuinely popular. You know,

44:25

people will be able to vote against him if

44:28

they want to. But he's got the media completely

44:30

wrapped up. This guy that's taken over ND New

44:32

Delhi Television, I mean, he's like he's been

44:34

one of the guys that's backed Modi from

44:36

the word go and lots of journalists left

44:38

there. So I think it's very, very, very

44:41

difficult. I think that the one thing I'd

44:43

say is about in relation to the economy,

44:45

they have this sort of idea running that

44:47

they're, they call it the great Asian replacement

44:49

that they're essentially replacing they're becoming the dominant

44:51

force in in Asia. And I think on

44:53

the economy, that's a bit far fetched. Yes,

44:55

they're growing faster than China, and they probably

44:57

will do for a while. But they've got

44:59

problems with their economy as well. So I

45:01

think let's be honest, he's gonna win the election. It's

45:05

pretty unprecedented, isn't it? He's gonna likely to

45:07

end up with a single party majority and

45:09

coming in again, you know, been in since

45:11

2014. And very much defining the era. I

45:13

mean, he's one of these figures that represents

45:16

a whole new age, isn't he? I mean,

45:18

Putin was reelected back as president in 2012.

45:20

Xi Jinping came in in 2012. Narendra Modi

45:22

came in in 2014. And these have become

45:26

the big central figures of that age,

45:28

haven't they? One of the opposition figures

45:30

you've mentioned there, so

45:32

Rahul Gandhi, he basically says

45:34

he's been excluded from parliament, because

45:37

he has chased what he calls irregularities

45:39

in some of the business dealings that

45:41

Modi has with some of these billionaires

45:43

that have backed him. And, you

45:45

know, that's hard. There was this scandal

45:48

related to price fixing. This

45:50

is by this guy, Adani, price

45:52

fixing and inflating his wealth. And

45:55

there was not much of a debate about it in

45:57

parliament. And eventually, the Supreme Court named the group to

46:00

investigate, three of the six who

46:02

were investigating had conflicts of interest. Surprisingly

46:04

enough, they concluded there was no evidence

46:07

of wrongdoing whatsoever. Very hard to find

46:09

that. This, I think, is the big

46:11

sort of not fully explored story

46:14

in India because, generally speaking, these

46:16

populist authoritarian rulers end up becoming

46:18

very, very close to business elites.

46:21

And you can see this in

46:23

Modi's India, that the Indian

46:25

economy is increasingly dominated by just

46:28

20 companies. There's a very dramatic

46:30

change over the last 20 years of how these

46:32

20 companies are taking a

46:34

bigger and bigger role in the

46:36

Indian economy. And some of them

46:38

are basically still exploiting licenses and

46:40

special permissions to get themselves in

46:42

key positions in the economy.

46:45

And Modi presents himself as this

46:47

very ascetical, amadmi, ordinary man, you know,

46:49

boasts about having sold tea, been

46:51

a chaiwala, fasts very publicly, lives through

46:53

this ascetic Hindu image. The question

46:55

is, are the opposition going to really

46:58

be able to land blows on

47:00

what his relationship with these businesses are

47:02

and what the corruption is offering?

47:04

And at the same time, of course,

47:06

he's heading back in the most

47:08

outrageous way against Congress. I mean, he

47:11

referred to the Congress government as

47:13

the Delhi Sultanate, you know, but in other words,

47:15

pro-Muslim government, he calls Sonia Gandhi,

47:18

you know, pasta, then you just

47:20

sister pasta, a shittagan, which means

47:22

the white woman. I mean, there's

47:24

a lot of sort of not

47:26

just anti elite, because he's obviously

47:28

portraying the Gandhi dynasty near his

47:30

descendants as being this upper class

47:32

English speaking, elite, out of

47:34

touch group compared to him. Caste, of course,

47:36

is still very important in Indian politics. And

47:39

caste is a very traditional,

47:41

very ancient Hindu division between

47:44

different fixed state and

47:47

society, of which the

47:50

Brahma, who were the

47:52

traditional priestly class are

47:55

the most famous, but there were

47:57

other upper castes, including upper castes.

48:00

of warriors, for example. And

48:02

these groups, the three

48:04

upper castes in particular, have dominated

48:06

Indian politics, Indian business, Indian society

48:08

for a very, very long time.

48:11

And since the 1970s, there has been a big

48:14

push to try to give more opportunities to

48:17

excluded castes. That includes people who

48:19

were traditionally the Dalits who in

48:21

some ways were considered untouchable, who

48:24

were condemned to do a lot

48:27

of very, very difficult, dirty

48:29

manual work and who found it very

48:31

difficult to get into positions. So

48:33

it was a big push for positive

48:35

discrimination to try to transform Indian society.

48:37

And then a new group emerged, which

48:39

is where Modi comes from. The OVCs,

48:42

the Other Backward Castes, very interesting that

48:44

this word backward is used in this

48:46

way. And certain groups, such

48:48

as his father's group, which were traditional oil

48:50

sellers, so a lot of this is about

48:53

people being fixed in the same profession generation

48:55

of generation, were identified

48:57

as having been marginalized. He's used

48:59

this a great deal to present

49:01

himself as somebody from the bottom

49:03

challenging the elite. But paradoxically, a

49:06

lot of the BJP, Hindu vote

49:08

and power base actually comes from

49:10

the traditional upper castes. And

49:12

he hasn't really done much to help

49:14

the marginalized castes. In fact, he's got

49:17

rid of some of the positive discrimination

49:19

legislation and the Congress Party is pointing

49:21

out that increasing numbers of members of

49:23

parliament and members of the civil service

49:25

and business seat are now increasingly coming

49:28

back again from these upper castes. So

49:30

he's presenting himself, and it's made classic

49:32

populist move, presenting himself as the man

49:34

and the people. But in many ways,

49:36

his policies are benefiting the rich and

49:38

the elite. Yeah, yeah. And of course,

49:41

you know, we started out by talking about the fact the

49:43

election is about to take place. And

49:46

it's such a huge country and you've got so

49:48

many different campaigns being fought. There's

49:51

going to be billions, billions are going to be involved

49:53

in this one. The 2019 campaign,

49:55

the rating cost about 3 billion euros. And

49:58

this followed laws which made Modi brought

50:00

in in 2017 to

50:03

anonymize donors. So he has

50:05

the backing of the oligarchs. They can pump the money in.

50:08

There's the bit of the old revolving door goes

50:10

on that we talked about in relation to the

50:13

UK. And back in 1991 Roy, there were

50:15

two Indians in the Forbes list of billionaires.

50:17

Do you know how many there are now?

50:20

No. 179, including Mr Ambani,

50:23

who's the third richest man in the world

50:25

after Mr Musk and Mr Bezos. He's worth

50:27

around 108 billion. And he's somebody who's been

50:30

very, very close to Modi for a very

50:32

long time. Now, nothing wrong with being close

50:34

to people. But I think if you add

50:36

together all of the different changes that he's

50:38

made, some of which we've talked about, I

50:40

think that to go back to where we

50:42

started the Le Monde diplomatique and the question

50:44

is India still a democracy? It is still

50:47

a democracy, but it's a

50:49

democracy that is being shaped very much in

50:51

one man's image. Which brings us, I think,

50:53

to a final and very different type of

50:56

politics, which is to return just briefly at

50:58

the end to the issue of

51:00

Gibraltar. And to remind people of Gibraltar,

51:02

a much, much smaller place. That's 30,000 people.

51:04

That's how it keeps mocking me. I said,

51:06

you know, connect it to the mainland of

51:09

Spain, which will be the correct way of

51:12

framing it. It's not an island. It's a little

51:14

peninsula sticking off the side of Spain, which has

51:16

been a British possession since the early 18th century.

51:19

And we've been lucky enough to get

51:22

the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, who Alistair

51:24

and I know recently well, to come

51:26

on and give his side of the

51:28

story about allegations around conflicts of

51:30

interest, corruption, the sacking of a

51:33

police chief, and search warrants.

51:35

So over to you Alistair, just to give us

51:37

a bit of a sense, the background of this

51:39

before we get the Chief Minister on to finish

51:41

our show. Yeah. So we talked about Gibraltar last

51:43

week as one of the several issues

51:46

that we were looking at under the umbrella of

51:48

corruption. And I think he's a listener,

51:50

it turns out listens to every episode.

51:53

And I think he felt a bit

51:55

hacked off that we'd sort of included

51:57

him alongside people like Med the Chucky.

51:59

in Russia and you know, Rishi

52:01

Sunak in the 15 million pound honors and

52:03

all the other stuff that we talked about.

52:06

So he basically said, look, you know, he'd quite

52:08

like to come on and just defend himself

52:10

defend Gibraltar. And so being good

52:13

public service people, we thought

52:15

why not. So

52:18

Fabian, thank you very, very much for joining

52:20

us on the rest of politics. Were

52:23

we a bit harsh on you last

52:25

week? I thought you were. You know,

52:27

there's been a number of Guardian articles

52:29

on Gibraltar in the past six months,

52:31

you happen to have chosen the worst

52:33

one to concentrate on. There was an

52:35

excellent piece in December, in which Margaret

52:37

Hodge was talking about how Gibraltar was

52:39

the benchmark jurisdiction for transparency, because we

52:41

are the only overseas territory to have

52:43

a register of ultimate beneficial ownership that

52:46

is open. And you're a

52:48

demonstration that you can do these things and

52:50

be a successful financial services center. Chief, and

52:52

thank you for joining us. This is this

52:54

is great. Can you just

52:57

take a step back and explain

52:59

in very broad terms what it

53:01

is that your opponent is accusing

53:03

you of? What's the big

53:05

story here? What's what's what's he claiming so

53:07

that we can then understand what your response

53:10

is? And also, Fabian, what what is the

53:12

inquiry being tasked with finding out? So

53:14

the inquiry is into the circumstances

53:17

leading to Ian

53:19

McGrail's early retirement as Commissioner

53:21

of Police. Those are

53:23

the terms of the inquiry. That's

53:25

what Mr. McGrail asked for being quiet and

53:28

what the inquiry should be about. In fact,

53:30

lawyers for Mr. McGrail refer to the inquiry

53:32

in a different way. They refer to it

53:34

as an inquiry into corruption in Gibraltar. Nothing

53:36

could be further from the truth. What is

53:38

it that McGrail is trying to imply and

53:41

interview speakers and newspapers so that we understand

53:43

what it is? What accusations you're defending yourself

53:45

against? What is it that he is trying

53:47

to suggest happened? The allegation

53:49

that the former commissioner puts is

53:52

that somehow I was

53:54

engineering his early retirement

53:56

because he was seeking

53:58

to execute a search warrant. against somebody

54:00

who is a partner of mine, etc.

54:03

Now, it is absolutely true that because

54:05

he lied to me about that, I lost confidence in

54:07

him. But as I said to him at the time

54:09

when he came to see me, this

54:12

is very important. Search warrants versus

54:14

a production order, there are two

54:17

completely different rights engaged here.

54:19

The right of the police to obtain

54:21

the search warrant versus the right of

54:23

a defendant not to have his privacy

54:25

improperly affected. And Ian suggests

54:28

that by giving him a piece of

54:30

my mind, I was somehow pushing him

54:32

to change the way that he was

54:34

conducting the investigation when he had actually

54:36

come to see me after the search

54:38

warrant had been executed. And this is

54:41

where the rub is. This is not

54:43

an inquiry into any form of corruption. This is

54:45

an inquiry into the circumstances of leading to my

54:48

loss of confidence in him and the governor's loss

54:50

of confidence in him. Just before we get into

54:52

the nub and the details of the controversy from

54:54

last week, tell us a little bit about how

54:57

it feels. You've been in now, I remember

54:59

dealing with you many years ago, you've now

55:01

been Chief Minister for a dozen years. A

55:03

dozen and a bit, just reelected for another

55:05

four. I remember Rory dealing with you when

55:07

you were a minister and

55:09

doing a lot of work with the

55:12

Conservative Party and with the Labour Party

55:14

and having now relationships that span different

55:16

generations of UK politicians. It gets a

55:18

little bit stickier once you're in your

55:20

second decade. That's why I said this

55:22

is my last general election as leader

55:24

of the party. I won't lead the

55:26

party into the next general election. I've

55:29

had my fill of this job

55:31

and it's my obligation to see this

55:33

through for Gibraltar, in particular with the

55:35

EU negotiations that are ongoing and repaying

55:37

the COVID debt. But after that,

55:40

people will feel free of failure

55:42

to come home.

55:45

So let's just get to the question

55:47

that we talked about last week, because it

55:49

is this issue of the the police chief, McGrail

55:52

and the the allegation that we talked

55:55

about and there's now this public inquiry,

55:57

which I think started yesterday, that you

55:59

put him under

56:01

inappropriate pressure because he was getting close

56:03

to somebody that you knew. So that's

56:05

what we were reflecting. So just

56:07

give us your side of the story on that. Well,

56:10

I'm very pleased actually that the inquiry proper has

56:12

now started. So a lot of what was the

56:14

myth around all of the issues that will be

56:16

looked up in the inquiry has become

56:19

a reality. And counsel for the inquiry, that's

56:22

the sort of independent counsel there. All the

56:24

other counsel are for different parties, myself

56:26

included. But counsel for the inquiry has

56:28

gone through all of the evidence in

56:30

his opening. And of course,

56:32

there is no evidence to suggest

56:34

that there is any corruption in

56:36

Gibraltar. And the evidence which Mr.

56:38

McGrale relates to which his counsel

56:40

prefers evidence of corruption is simply my

56:43

view, and not just my view, the

56:45

view of the governor of Gibraltar, remember the

56:47

governor is appointed by the foreign and Commonwealth

56:49

secretary to represent his Majesty the King who

56:52

makes the ultimate appointment, both

56:54

felt that we had been lied

56:56

to by Mr. McGrale. And as

56:58

a result, we lost confidence in him. He

57:00

lied to me about that search warrant

57:03

that you're referring to the

57:05

question was not whether he should execute it,

57:07

but executed etc. He told me that

57:09

he had executed the search warrant on this

57:11

person who is well known to me as

57:13

a friend of mine and partner of mine.

57:16

After he had executed the search warrant, no

57:18

question of not executing it. And I said,

57:20

why didn't you get a production order? A

57:23

production order is designed to protect the rights

57:25

of lawyers, journalists, people with in the medical

57:27

profession who are holding privileged information of others,

57:30

so that they give the information which the

57:32

police want, but not the other information which

57:34

is privileged. And that's the protection of the

57:36

human rights of both the person who is

57:39

the subject of the order, and those people

57:41

whose information they have. So it was a

57:43

case of loss of confidence, not a pressure.

57:46

And just remind yourself of what Sadiq

57:48

did when he lost confidence in Kressida

57:50

Dick. She was gone within a few

57:52

hours. In this case, it was

57:54

a longer process to brought to law is

57:56

different. And ultimately, I have no role to

57:58

play in that although views are

58:00

relevant, it's only the governor who

58:03

can require Commissioner of Police to

58:05

resign or retire. And he was the one

58:08

who took the ultimate step after clearing his

58:10

lines with the Foreign Office, with the Minister

58:12

for Europe and Foreign Office lawyers, who as

58:14

Warrie will remember, are incredibly sticky when it

58:17

comes to looking up detail. Chief Minister, thank

58:19

you. And I think, obviously, the inquiry will

58:21

go through this and we've very

58:24

much heard your point of view. Can we

58:26

take a step back for a second then

58:28

and look at the broader story of being

58:30

Chief Minister of Malta and

58:32

what you brought it to the world and how

58:34

you would describe it and how things have been

58:36

since Brexit and what relationships are particularly with Spain

58:38

with whom you share a land border? Well, you've

58:41

been the Chief Minister of a place which is

58:43

two and a half square miles by one mile

58:45

with 32,000 people on that

58:47

land mass is always going to be

58:50

a very personal relationship with every single

58:52

one of your constituents. And

58:54

it's been an absolute privilege, of course, to

58:56

hold the post for 12 years as I

58:58

have already. We've pushed a very progressive agenda

59:00

in that time. We've brought in abortion

59:03

rights, we've brought in right for

59:05

equal marriage, we brought in civil

59:07

partnerships. And actually, we had civil

59:09

partnerships for heterosexual couples before even

59:11

the UK had that. So we've

59:13

had a really progressive agenda. We've

59:15

rebuilt every school in Gibraltar. Every

59:17

school in Gibraltar will have been

59:20

built by a socialist administration by

59:22

the time that I've left office. So a

59:24

real investment driven progressive agenda, which

59:27

I think has transformed the social

59:29

fabric of Gibraltar as much as

59:31

it's transformed the actual fabric of

59:34

Gibraltar. So when you look

59:36

back at that period in office, you

59:38

say, my goodness, you know,

59:40

this is a job that is leaving

59:42

at the positive indelible mark on the

59:44

nation that I love. But of course,

59:47

Brexit happened, and it changed the dynamic

59:49

of everything that we were doing and

59:51

made us focus principally on

59:53

maintaining the relationship that 96% of

59:55

the people of Gibraltar wanted to have, which was to

59:58

stay in the European Union. So

1:00:00

in the incoming months, we'll be

1:00:02

able to show the result of

1:00:04

that negotiation, which will be a

1:00:06

future relationship for Gibraltar with the

1:00:09

European Union, which will include in

1:00:11

effect Schengen style fluidity of

1:00:13

movement and in effect a relationship with the

1:00:15

single market which will make us feel like

1:00:17

part of the single market in goods but

1:00:20

not in services. I'm very surprised

1:00:22

that you didn't complain out of

1:00:25

last week's podcast of the fact that Roy at one point

1:00:27

said that Gibraltar was part of Spain. I think that was

1:00:30

far worse than anything that we said

1:00:32

about the McGurrell inquiry.

1:00:35

But on the kind of the

1:00:37

geopolitics, you know, clearly you said

1:00:39

32,000, it's tiny. How,

1:00:42

and you had a vote on Brexit, I think you were the first

1:00:45

vote to be counted and it was into the 90, as

1:00:47

you say, 96% wanted to

1:00:49

remain. So what has Brexit done to Gibraltar

1:00:51

and what are you doing to try to

1:00:53

fix it? So of course, the

1:00:55

current economic model of Gibraltar is based on

1:00:58

15,000 workers who live

1:01:00

in Spain, some of them Brits, but most

1:01:02

of them Spanish and other European nationalities, being

1:01:04

able to come into Gibraltar every day in

1:01:06

order to service our health and care sector,

1:01:09

in order to service our financial services and

1:01:11

online gaming sector. So the current economic model

1:01:13

doesn't work if those 15,000 people can't come

1:01:16

in and out in a very fluid fashion

1:01:19

at the end and beginning of every working day.

1:01:21

So the work that we've had to do,

1:01:23

actually working very closely and very well with

1:01:26

Spanish colleagues and working hand in glove with

1:01:29

colleagues in the SCDO in London is

1:01:31

to negotiate with the European Union a

1:01:33

way to deliver that continued fluidity, despite

1:01:36

the member state United Kingdom through whom

1:01:38

we were part of the European Union,

1:01:40

having departed the EU. And actually, Spain

1:01:42

and Gibraltar have been able to work

1:01:45

quite collegiately at that frontier until now

1:01:48

and negotiations, we hope will be able to

1:01:50

enable us to have a way of setting

1:01:53

in stone a new relationship which guarantees

1:01:55

that fluidity of persons and goods going

1:01:57

forward without in any way affecting sovereignty.

1:02:00

It's wonderful, a lot of the investments you've

1:02:02

been able to bring into Gibraltar. My

1:02:04

rate in saying quite a lot

1:02:06

of this has come rather surprisingly

1:02:08

from online gaming. Online gaming represents

1:02:10

25% of your GDP, more than 20%

1:02:12

of your employment, 40% of income. Tell

1:02:18

us a little bit about this and

1:02:21

how this industry developed and how this

1:02:23

has actually given Gibraltar economic opportunities that

1:02:25

presumably didn't exist before. When did this

1:02:27

start? So online gaming started

1:02:29

as telephone betting in the

1:02:31

old days before that thing we call the internet,

1:02:33

which is now ubiquitous. And a

1:02:36

bookie from London called Victor Chandler moved to

1:02:38

Gibraltar and started taking his bets in Gibraltar

1:02:40

rather than taking them on a show in

1:02:42

the United Kingdom. From that

1:02:44

we've developed very quickly into what is now

1:02:47

the online gaming industry. And

1:02:49

Gibraltar Online bookmakers represent the

1:02:52

top online gaming companies in the world,

1:02:54

the floated ones, the ones with our

1:02:56

PLCs. And the Gibraltar

1:02:58

Regulator is the toughest regulator of

1:03:00

online gaming in the world. That

1:03:02

is to say, we look at

1:03:04

the United Kingdom regulator of

1:03:06

online gaming and we look at the regulators

1:03:08

of other what you might call onshore jurisdictions

1:03:10

using the old lexicon. And

1:03:12

they are not as tough a regulator of

1:03:15

online gaming as the Gibraltar Regulator is.

1:03:17

And that's important for us because online

1:03:19

gaming is a space where you have to

1:03:21

be very careful with who you permit

1:03:23

to operate. We don't allow any small

1:03:25

companies, we only allow the big companies to

1:03:27

operate from Gibraltar. And that gives

1:03:30

us the confidence that we are ensuring

1:03:32

that a gamble aware, policies, etc., etc.

1:03:35

are being implemented by our operators. In terms

1:03:37

of the mixture in Gibraltar, how much of

1:03:39

this is things like playing poker online and

1:03:41

how much of it is doing adventure

1:03:44

games or role playing traditional multiplayer

1:03:46

video games? So principally what you've

1:03:48

got is casino gaming and card

1:03:51

gaming. That's one part

1:03:53

of it. Then you've got a very important part,

1:03:55

which is sports betting, which is taking bets on

1:03:58

the matches that we might be watching. on television

1:04:00

or other types of matches that

1:04:03

we might not all be watching and

1:04:05

are specific to those who are particularly

1:04:07

interested in that. There is now the

1:04:09

development of the gaming world also becoming

1:04:11

a part of how people stake some

1:04:14

of their money. But it's not

1:04:16

just that that Gibraltar does. Gibraltar also does automotive

1:04:19

insurance. We take, I think it's

1:04:21

one in five of every automotive

1:04:24

insurance policy sold in the United

1:04:26

Kingdom is sold to an insurer,

1:04:28

an automotive insurer in Gibraltar. And

1:04:31

the people who come to work in the

1:04:33

online gaming industry and come to work in

1:04:36

insurance, they're all coming across that frontier every

1:04:38

single day. So you can understand that Brexit

1:04:40

really did produce major challenges for Gibraltar and

1:04:42

for our public finance because you rightly say

1:04:45

we finance all our investment in new

1:04:47

schools, etcetera, through the revenue

1:04:49

that the government of Gibraltar receives in

1:04:52

part and in great measure from

1:04:54

those operating in the online gaming space and

1:04:56

the financial services space. Is there a part

1:04:58

of the worries that the economy

1:05:01

has become so dependent on an

1:05:03

industry that, let's be frank,

1:05:05

historically around the world has had some pretty

1:05:07

shady elements to it? And that might be

1:05:10

one of the reasons why people are

1:05:13

keener than you would like sometimes to suggest

1:05:15

that Gibraltar has a broader image problem. Only

1:05:18

if you think of the broader world

1:05:20

in online gaming and you don't look

1:05:22

at what Gibraltar has done to make

1:05:24

itself the point I was making before

1:05:26

the toughest regulator of this space. So

1:05:28

you'll find that it's not very often

1:05:30

that Gibraltar companies that are the ones

1:05:32

that are in the news, actually

1:05:35

it's companies elsewhere that are having those

1:05:37

problems. Some of them in what we

1:05:39

would in the old lexicon have called

1:05:41

the onshore jurisdictions. I think as a

1:05:43

regulator we're doing remarkably well and demonstrating

1:05:45

that we are amongst the toughest in

1:05:47

the world. Chief, can I finish for

1:05:49

me with a slightly more jolly question?

1:05:52

Give us a sense of the food of Gibraltar, the

1:05:54

culture of Gibraltar and maybe a little bit of the

1:05:57

traditional language. Can you give us some sentences?

1:06:00

and traditional Gibraltar language and give us a sense

1:06:02

of the atmosphere and culture of the place. Yeah,

1:06:05

Gibraltar is a eclectic mix

1:06:07

of Italian Maltese, Spanish, Moorish

1:06:10

and of course British that

1:06:12

Mediterranean and yet Latin style.

1:06:16

We can switch from one language to another

1:06:18

simple of them and in Uno and you'll

1:06:20

love being here because Gibraltar is a place

1:06:23

that welcomes you with a love that's every

1:06:25

time that you want to come. Get yourself

1:06:27

down here, eat some of our special Genoese

1:06:29

chickpea flour contraptions and in

1:06:32

particular get down for Calendina night where we do

1:06:34

all of the food available in

1:06:36

Gibraltar down our main street and our casemates.

1:06:39

First time I went was to

1:06:41

interview for the mirror one

1:06:44

of your predecessors who

1:06:46

is now still an MP,

1:06:49

Joe Bassano. How

1:06:51

old is Joe Bassano now?

1:06:53

I was born Alistair in

1:06:55

1972 and Joe Bassano was first

1:06:57

elected to Gibraltar's parliament in 1972. I've

1:07:02

been 52 years on this planet. He's

1:07:04

been 52 years in parliament. He's 84 years

1:07:06

old and although I've said

1:07:09

I'm retiring from frontline politics, he

1:07:11

hasn't. He's the oldest serving

1:07:13

parliamentarian in the Commonwealth as far as

1:07:15

I can find. A former

1:07:18

leader of the Socialist Party, the founder of

1:07:20

the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party in Gibraltar as

1:07:22

a result of his roots in the British

1:07:24

trade union movement and the British Labour Party.

1:07:26

So, an icon of the British left. My

1:07:29

final final one because we didn't do this.

1:07:31

The other thing we talked about last week which I

1:07:34

think we should give you the opportunity to respond

1:07:36

to as well was this allegation that you've changed

1:07:38

the law on public inquiries so

1:07:40

that you as it were will be able

1:07:43

to interfere in this one. Do you want to deal with that?

1:07:45

Well, it's a very simple change to the law that we've had

1:07:47

to make. We updated our law from the 1888 Act to the

1:07:49

equivalent of the 2005 Act in the United Kingdom. It

1:07:54

is identical to the United Kingdom Act

1:07:57

and the reason for that was because first of all

1:07:59

we needed to modalize our law. legislation. We've also got

1:08:01

the Covid inquiry coming up. It needs to be

1:08:03

under the new legislation. But second,

1:08:05

because we knew that we had to issue

1:08:07

a restriction notice, and that restriction notice has

1:08:09

to cover a very small amount of information,

1:08:12

which is for national security purposes not to

1:08:14

be referred to publicly and in the public

1:08:16

interest of Gibraltar not to be referred to.

1:08:18

The chairman, when he opened the inquiry on

1:08:20

Monday, says he's now seen our notice and

1:08:23

he thinks he can continue to do his

1:08:25

job to inquire into the events surrounding Ian

1:08:27

McGrail's early retirement without any difficulty as a

1:08:29

result of the notice that we have issued and

1:08:31

that he can report. So I think there was

1:08:34

a little bit of international hysteria put about by

1:08:36

Mr. McGrail's lawyers as to what we were doing.

1:08:38

In fact, I understand they even said that they

1:08:40

believed that Gibraltar wasn't a place governed by the

1:08:42

rule of law. Well, you know, Gibraltar is more

1:08:44

than just governed by the rule of law. Gibraltar

1:08:46

respects the rule of law and it's the touchstone

1:08:48

of everything that I've done whilst I've been in

1:08:51

government and indeed every other chief minister appointed before

1:08:53

me. And if we were not to observe the

1:08:55

rule of law, the United Kingdom government is there

1:08:57

looking over our shoulder to make sure that we

1:08:59

do. Well, thank you for joining us and thank

1:09:01

you for listening. It was only because you listened that

1:09:03

we knew that you wanted to come

1:09:05

in the first place. So thanks for that and

1:09:07

listen all the time. Thank you. Thank you very

1:09:10

much, Chief Minister. Have a great day. Thank

1:09:12

you all very much indeed. I

1:09:16

was very struck by the fact that I

1:09:18

like the chief minister and I've

1:09:20

always liked him. How

1:09:23

strange, and this is being a bit unfair

1:09:25

to him, but how strange and difficult

1:09:27

it is for politicians when they come under

1:09:30

attack and how jargony they get. I

1:09:32

mean, it's something that you must

1:09:34

think about a lot when you're thinking about

1:09:36

politics. How do you, when you're

1:09:38

under attack in that way, defend

1:09:40

yourself without sounding overly defensive? The problem

1:09:43

is that I feel, but I think

1:09:45

quite a lot of the public feels

1:09:47

this, is that when you hear a

1:09:49

politician defending themselves, you don't

1:09:52

really listen to the detail of what they're saying.

1:09:54

You just take on the tone and the body

1:09:56

language. And of course, I

1:09:58

find myself very unfairly. Discuss

1:10:00

Just. See. Need more suspicious the

1:10:02

more the politician talk about what are

1:10:04

you not telling me whispered other side

1:10:07

not getting some A And so I'm

1:10:09

a real believer in politicians defending cells

1:10:11

with much simpler source of words and

1:10:13

not getting into the weeds things because

1:10:15

I didn't think it helps though I

1:10:17

think was going on. There is the

1:10:19

inquiries started that probably follow very very

1:10:21

closely. As. Some stage will

1:10:23

have to give evidence as you

1:10:25

and maybe not jog any but

1:10:27

perhaps a little Billie Ulysses I

1:10:29

see so he was a little

1:10:31

Franca. Than. I thought he would be able

1:10:34

to be the fact that he could come straight out as

1:10:36

a base of this guy lied to make snow know. He

1:10:38

said that before. We've now got the in Korea will going.

1:10:41

So I thought he. I thought he did a

1:10:43

pretty good job of defending himself in terms of.

1:10:45

Of the substance and and also this thing about

1:10:47

the. The change of the law think

1:10:50

this will one of those things it just

1:10:52

looks very very odd the you change in

1:10:54

the law to sign on public inquiries his

1:10:56

time such a high profile when his office

1:10:58

yes I yeah I think say i'm in

1:11:00

a in west is test type in this

1:11:03

case honestly would have been to say listen

1:11:05

this is that. The

1:11:07

sky I just sat at

1:11:09

least of admiration for me.

1:11:13

Is. That.

1:11:20

It's ridiculous to suggest that.

1:11:24

For ups. Sit

1:11:27

ups when you're working with this. And

1:11:30

this is that He elderly. I think

1:11:32

he I think he is. Point becomes

1:11:35

useful point. but given the general being

1:11:37

the person who has two points was

1:11:39

probably worth making as well and also

1:11:41

issued under all we do is bring

1:11:43

Read The Guardian. I'd read lots of

1:11:45

stuff about from the Gibraltar media about

1:11:47

this movie. Where that? I've read the

1:11:49

Guardians anyway. They was good to have him up. And

1:11:52

let's see what the inquiry concludes was

1:11:54

wait to see great. Sick.

1:12:02

Don't look where you going. Got

1:12:04

your microphone Now where are we

1:12:07

are going to. Play

1:12:11

such a legit say. I found

1:12:13

they found a body. On

1:12:15

dark more. Early reports

1:12:17

don't move things with now regarding

1:12:20

you know the signs. Are he

1:12:22

said listener regarding the who's drainage

1:12:24

you Straight years? This was the

1:12:26

home of Jeans. Try. devastating. Vagina.

1:12:29

Was an exceptional strain on the

1:12:31

biggest clubs where where he is

1:12:33

filled with my. Greatest Silver

1:12:35

bullet? Know somebody? Amazon? I

1:12:38

mean until we. Have

1:12:40

a little. Less

1:12:55

is how know placing Sables adding com

1:12:57

as if. You're saying

1:12:59

that there a silver place political

1:13:02

The little Robot I'm absolutely not

1:13:04

saying right now. So

1:13:09

this is. A Sudanese is a.

1:13:13

Few striker and so he

1:13:15

plays example of animal rights

1:13:17

activists. Out

1:13:21

of the of how many is missing

1:13:24

and a woman is going. On

1:13:29

there are. A

1:13:35

woman. In

1:13:47

a racing yacht. See how was the

1:13:49

law and allies? england

1:14:00

In the heart of Rogan,

1:14:03

our immunity is

1:14:05

wounded, but

1:14:08

the people of Gartmars do not give

1:14:10

up their search for silver slaves.

1:14:15

Also, these folkhorders believe that sports is an incredible

1:14:17

tool for the good of my first prime minister

1:14:20

backbone on silver blades.

1:14:22

Silver blades! Silver

1:14:24

blades! Silver blades!

1:14:29

Sherlock, are you trying to draw my attention to something? Yes.

1:14:33

To the curious incident of the

1:14:35

dog in the night time. Sherlock

1:14:39

& Co. The adventure of

1:14:41

silver blades begins 9th

1:14:44

April. Search Sherlock & Co.

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