117. Trump's indictment, Dover delays, and Sanna Marin loses

25:41Deir Kernich Charles. Yes, so the king. I mean, I'd love your sense of this. So from my point of view, the king's visit to Germany, which is the first state visit that he's made as monarch, and it'll be the one that he does before the coronation, has been an extraordinary success. He was going to do France and Germany, France got cancelled because of all the uncertainty and troubles in France. But he gave a speech to the Did you held right? I did not held right, but huge congratulations to whoever did, because I think some of the references, for example, to the German -Band Kraftwerk and maybe beyond his majesty's cultural reference frame.

26:24He also met, I think in Hamburg, he met the German winner who will be taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest, who is called something like losses of the Lord, or spoke to a couple of people who were involved in one on the German side, one on the British side, who were involved in the organization. They were apparently a little bit worried about whether they would get crowds. And in Hamburg in particular, they got huge crowds, huge. And much, much larger than you would have got for a prime minister's visit. I mean, this is something, but I remember in Cumberier, I remember bringing David Cameron up to visit one of my constituency towns, and I think probably 15, 20 people came out in the streets.

27:13Prince Charles came up, and there were two and a half thousand people in a town of about two thousand standing in the driving rain for us. And it's interesting that it's not just in Britain. And also, if you think about the difference, I think of what would happen if you took an elected politician to Germany, whoever they were, it would be much more controversial left against right. And if you think about a visit by Macron or a visit by Biden, if we hadn't elected president in that way, whereas there was such sort of warmth, it was in a sense very uncomplicated the German reaction. They were happy to celebrate, I guess, the cultural relationship to Britain.

27:49And I think you talked about Hamburg. I think the other thing that he does very well, the King does very well, is being able to get the balance on talking about very difficult historical events. And in this case, the bombing of Hamburg, and the way that as well as visiting the statue on the Kindertransport and remembering the Holocaust, he also later wreath to the victims of the Allied bombing in Hamburg. One of the people who was involved in planning the visit, apparently, was a child of a Kindertransported child. Now, I thought it was the German media coverage, as you know, I've tracked the German media quite closely.

28:23And it was huge, it was really huge. And I wonder whether that also affected the way that it was covered in the UK as well. That I think a lot of our, you know, we mentioned doing Brian Cox on leading. And one of the things that I talked to Brian about was the fact that he was always convinced that when the Queen went, the molecule would collapse and that they wouldn't be able to kind of replace her, as it were. And yet, you know, you'd have to say, despite the hiccup of the French trip getting cancelled, that first of all, the Germans really pushed the boat out. Apparently, that was the first time ever that a foreign leader has been given the reception, the honours that he was given at the Brandenburg Gate.

29:05That's never been done before. And I was also, I was genuinely surprised that he speaks German. I didn't know he spoke German. I mean, I have to say, Rory, I'm going to be a little bit of a stickler. His accent, you know, I'm a bit of a bit of a d 'aruba. Vouda, I feel like the Zanex and Fébeson, Aber, it was pretty brave to do it. And he did it in the, there was a wonderful cutaway in the Bundestag. And you've got a standing ovation in the Bundestag, you don't see many of them. But there was a cutaway, no, it was at the banquet, at the state banquet, there was a cutaway to Angela Merkel. And I think she was utterly stunned to see a British head of state standing there, making jokes in German.

29:50It was, yeah. No, you can argue, I know there were lots of our Republican listeners going, well, you know, they're basically Germans anyway. And he had, of course, he, the other thing he said, he'd been to Germany 40 times. That's a lot. It is a lot. He also, of course, made a lot of effort to learn Welsh for his big speech when he took over as the young man as Prince Wales. I think also, in a way, his concerns, the things that really motivate him and that he cares about, which are things like the environment really matter and are really central to the German political debate. And I think he got the balance right on people admiring him for his environmental stances, representing a part of Britain that jumps from different parts of political spectrum can be comfortable with.

30:37And also, I think he got it right on Ukraine. I think one of the reasons he got the standing ovation in the Bundestag is he found the right tone to be genuinely appreciative and supportive of German positional Ukraine. Just briefly, you mentioned the Welsh, him learning Welsh when he was Prince of Wales. And I don't know whether William will do the same, but when Fiona and I were in Wales recently, Fiona was, was at an event with the Welsh Education Minister, a very, very smart guy called Jeremy Miles. And really interesting, they have a plan to increase the proportion of children in Welsh schools, doing what is called Welsh medium education.

31:17So, you know, based around the Welsh language, it's currently a 16%, the plan to raise it by 30 % by 2031 and by 2050, 40%. So there is a real kind of growth in the Welsh language. And whether that's politically to kind of stave off nationalism, or whether it's just because they're feeling a sense of their own pride in their culture more, I think that's part of it. But it's an interesting contrast with Scotland. Yeah. In 2012, I think there were more people in Scotland who spoke Polish than spoke Scottish Gallic. It's about 60 ,000 now. Your father spoke Scottish Gallic, is that right? Yeah, that was easy.

31:58He didn't learn English to do, he went to school, yeah. High goodness. So he grew up in a Scottish Gallic scheme, but that had begun to fade by the time he got into his teens. I mean, what was your experience through your family and of those islands and the linguistic inheritance there? No, we used to go there most summers. And so when he was with, for example, my uncle Hector, his brother, they would speak Gallic. We still have relatives there who, they wouldn't necessarily, I think their assumption is that most people that they bump into won't be native Gallic's natural Gallic speakers, but the ones that know that they are, they will still speak Gallic, but it's gone from the thousands to the hundreds.

32:35The population has fallen. The proportion of Gallic speakers in the population has fallen. But no, my dad was, it was English was very much his second language. Do you regret not having spent more time on your Gallic? No, not really, because I think the interesting Gallic was in part what fueled my interest in other languages. And I did learn, as a kid, I did learn, my dad taught me the backpipes, Andy Torsk, Andy Tore Gallic, but the backpipes I've kind of kept, the Gallic I've lost. But the other really interesting thing that was happening in Wales, which I don't think is happening anywhere in Scotland, is that you have English -speaking Welsh parents who are sending their children to Welsh medium schools, because they feel that, for some reason, they feel that's better for those kids.

33:26And I think there's an element of it being a bit of a middle -class thing at the moment. Interestingly, the only private Welsh medium school is in London, but the numbers are really, really growing. And as you say, it's very different in Scotland, where despite BBC Alba and all the rest of it, Gallic is still very much in my knowledge of language. Well, the culture and the House of Commons is fascinating. I remember walking into the cloakroom of the House of Commons, this sort of funny, members -only thing on your way into the chamber where people traditionally were supposed to hang up their swords.

33:55And I remember walking in one day and hearing six colleagues speaking Welsh to each other, and that sudden sort of being taken aback, it took me a moment to work out what language I was speaking, and then realizing how deeply informed they were about Welsh literature, how interested they were in the fact that I represented a Cumberin constituency because of Ihenogled, which is the Old Norse, the Old Welsh North, and the Gadoddin that they were able to recite huge verses from all of this coming from my Welsh colleagues. There were two concerns raised when we were down there. One was from a head teacher who was the head teacher of an English language school who said that she worried that in small rural communities those schools would eventually have to shut down because the kids were being bused free of charge to Welsh language schools.

34:38And the second thing was whether it dilutes the interest in learning other languages, such as French, Spanish, Chinese, etc. And language, language is always at the heart of all national projects all the way. I mean, right in the 19th century, most of these movements for nationalism in what's now the Czech Republic, in Estonia, all these things revolved around reviving local languages. And it's very, very raw these questions in Asia, in Africa, many, many countries in Africa. Malawi, for example, Uganda have insisted that everybody in school has to study in English, not in their local language.

35:17And that has been very problematic because the teachers don't necessarily themselves speak good English. The students certainly don't speak English. And it's been holding people back in literacy and numeracy. But at Tanzania, I think, is another example where they insist on English medium education. But it's part of the aspirations, the dreams, the political leadership that you can create in English speaking culture in Africa at the same time as you say well, so it's going in the other direction. Russia, Russia, sorry, we're talking too much about Welsh language. Well, I think Welsh language is quite interesting.

35:53But security council and around the world, including Sylenzki in Ukraine and lots of other people saying, this is utterly absurd, the time that Russia is waging war, is invaded in another sovereign nation that they should be, the lava of all people, Sergei lava of the Russian foreign minister, should be the guy who will hold the chair of the meeting of ministers at the United Nations Security Council. And the US mission also, this speaks from the US mission, said that a country that's invaded a smaller neighbor has no place on the UN Security Council. I disagree with this very passionately. The UN was set up in order to include all the major powers.

36:33I cannot believe that a spokesperson for the US mission could be stupid enough to say there should be no place for Russia. The whole point about the UN is to keep all the enemies and adversaries around a single table. If you start excluding the major global powers who are causing the problems from the UN Security Council, you're going to end up in a mad world. I can see why the Ukrainians are pushing for it. But for the US to endorse that is, misses the whole point about the UN. The Russians didn't agree with the US and the UN right the way through the 60s, 70s and 80s either, but it mattered that they were there.

37:05Their own charter says that the Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It has 15 members and each member has one vote. Under the charge of the United Nations, all member states are obligated to comply with council decisions. By the way, people seem to have forgotten Russia. Do you know the last time that Russia was in the chair? No. It was the month that they invaded.

37:31It rotates monthly, doesn't it, between the different members and the permanent members are not permanent members. Exactly. There are five permanent members, the United States, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia. Then there are ten who rotate. They're elected, I think, for two -year periods. They are elected. If there is a sort of periostate, you're unlikely to get there, although quite often they do. At the moment, the non -permanent members of Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland and the UAE. So you get a fair mix. This is not a new problem. I remember when Libya was chairing the human rights council just at the moment when Gaddafi was crashing into Benghazi.

38:14This is a perpetual issue. In fact, often it's a joke at the UN. But its purpose, though, was always to make sure that people like Castro or Gaddafi were included. It would make no sense at all if you said the only people who can participate or people who share a Western worldview or agree on Western interests. Also, we talked a lot about Iraq a few weeks ago. But just as there are people at the moment who think that Russia has no place there. There were people who made similar points about the US, the UK and Denmark and Australia when we were engaged in the Iraq war. And I think sometimes there's just this complete misunderstanding of what the United Nations is.

39:02I think people somehow see it as a sort of a supernatural power that sits above all else. But it doesn't. It's just a reflection of the politics of the world. And it's tries to make peace where there is war. It tries to deal with humanitarian crisis, where there is humanitarian crisis. And it's becoming more and more difficult. But I agree with you, if populism infects countries so much that they say, right, because we don't agree with what the Russians are doing at this moment, that means that they have no place at the top table. Then you've got to completely change it and get rid of the structures that it's got.

39:40And this is part of the polarisation. And it sort of relates back to the beginning of this part where we were talking about, well, I suppose this is that at the heart of a populist age is that both sides in the debate begin to think that their beliefs and their mission are more important than the constitutional structures, the traditional structures that exist and really want to divide the world between people who agree with them and enemies who are to be cast off into the darkness with whom any action is legitimate. And I think it's incredibly important if we had to preserve what matters about politics, that we preserve this idea of decent disagreement and not treating people who disagree with you as though they are such villains that anything is justified in getting rid of them.

40:27And I think that's also why, although we've said on the pod before that, expanding the security council to include South Africa, Brazil, India. European Union? Yeah, but particularly those first three would not necessarily lead to a more moderate global order because under Modi, India is not necessarily going that direction, of course, under when Brazil was under Bolsonaro, you also would have had the same feeling. But that isn't a reason not to do it, in fact, in a sense, one of the things going wrong in the way that we think about China is we're struggling to articulate how to cooperate with and compromise with the strategic adversary as well as challenge them.

41:08Well, I mentioned last week being in Singapore and some of the things that were being said there, and there's a guy who used to be foreign minister called K. Shanmigan, who's now the minister for law, I think. He's amazing, I think. Should we try to interview him? I met him, I think last year, I think he's maybe getting him on leading. Well, I think that would be interesting. He's one of those politicians that I really find quite impressive. But he made a speech about Russia, about Ukraine, about China. He was making the point that Singapore had been one of the very, very small number of countries in that part of the world that put sanctions on Russia, very, very clearly, clear in its views that the invasion was wrong, and also, as I indicated last week, a little concern about their own security interests, if something like Ukraine was successful.

42:06But he also said this, and I've just looked it up while we've been talking. The truth is that in the 1990s and 2000s, Russia was treated as a has been. It was not seriously consulted in major issues, and it was not treated with a great deal of respect. The Neocons in the United States saw the US as the hyper power in a state of the world, but it was seen as we, America could do pretty much what it wanted, invade or interfere in countries when it felt threatened or so, have its own interests, and the others just had to accept. So that is, now I'm not saying that is his view, but he's saying that is a strongly held opinion by a lot of people.

42:41So those sorts of people will be looking at this debate about whether Russia should be allowed to sit on the United Nations Security Council when its turn comes up in the rotating presidency and thinking what planet you people are. Good. Well, and I think that brings us, I think, to Finland. So we talked a lot about Sanemarine, who's been this very, I suppose, globally celebrated figure, almost, I suppose, in another Jacendrata and very young, extraordinary charismatic communicator. We talked about this ridiculous scandal about photographs of her dancing in a nightclub, outpolling her party, but in the finish elections, in fact, she came in third and she's almost certainly lost.

43:24Finland to a right -wing party, which make many of our listeners win. Although not as right -wing as the party, they came second. No, exactly, not an extreme right -wing party. But the right -wing party that was one of the sort of center -right party has run effectively on an austerity ticket. They run for reducing the deficit, reducing debt, curbing public spending. And it's going to be interesting as we go into the debate in Britain, whether Labour is going to run against Rishi Sunak, challenging the conservative attitude to deficit or debt, or whether there is a movement in Europe, which I think we've seen in right -wing victories in European elections of more interest from publics in cutting spending, reducing deficits and debt, even in the case of Macron, of course, making these very difficult pension reforms.

44:14Well, certainly the case, the Petri Opos, the leader of the National Coalition Party, which I guess is the one that is closest to certainly the conservatives of a few years ago. I actually wonder whether today's conservative is closer to the Finns party. I think Suela Bravaman would be very happy in the politics of the Finns party. That's the other thing that's happened, of course, because we had it in Sweden, where the Sweden Democrats, which is their hard -right party, they got 20%. The Finns party in this one, who got 20%, George and Melonian Italy. Yeah, the only interesting thing about Santa Marens party, the social Democrats, they actually increased their share of the vote.

44:53I think they were down at 17 when she became Prime Minister and they've increased to 19, haven't they? I think they'd round about 20, either to her above 20, but they're the three parties that have run each other pretty close. And it was interesting how she did sort of, she conceded very, very quickly and very, very gracefully, and congratulate to the other parties and say, what a great campaign it had been. And so forth. It's often the case that these leaders who are celebrated abroad are not necessarily as loved at home, but also I think you're right that the really interesting thing here is a party fighting on and winning.

45:26I wouldn't say it was on austerity, but it was on proper economic management. And I have to say, Rory, I think that the current conservatives, the debt and deficit figures are so bad that they'd be very, very hard pressed to defend their record on that. But I think that Labour has to be thoughtful about that too. I mean, I think to keep if they're going to win over centervators, Labour has to reassure those voters that they're going to be very thoughtful about debt and deficit. And I think you can sense that's why Kierstama and the Labour front bench are very reluctant to endorse the strikes, very reluctant to suggest that they're going to sign up to more generous paydeals because they're very conscious that they have to present themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility.

46:07And we had more strikes announced today to just try 98 % of those who voted or 66 % turn out. It's quite a big turn out of that. But again, I think we'll find Labour will not endorse their pay -demons for the same reason. And you get this interesting thing where you'll get teachers and doctors increasingly angry with Labour because they're expecting them to say, of course, if we come and we'll give you what you're asking for. And they can't. Are you suggesting that it's possible that because the Conservatives do seem and soon it does seem to be rather in the grip of this populist wing, particularly the Bravaman's of this world, that you can see him going into election promising lots more because he seems to be promising new things all the time.

46:51And Labour going in with a much more economically rigorous approach, can you see that happen? It's interesting thing isn't it? I mean, I think, I'm going to make this secret the fact, I think Rishi Sunak is a huge improvement on this trust in Boris Johnson. I think he's a much more sensible thoughtful politician. I'm very struck by friends of mine who are in the cabinet how much more they prefer working with him than its predecessors. But I think there are two things driving these moves to the right. One of them is the internal pressure from right wing factions in the parliamentary party, so I'll be rough on a big example, although he has had a bit of a temporary victory there over the Windsor Framework where the ERG, which was a big faction has been reduced to this rump of 10 leaving Boris Johnson on this trust looking like a sort of bitter minority.

47:38But the bigger challenge is their polling and they really don't have a path to victory, but their fantasy, their very, very narrow path to victory, is all about trying to mobilize a very particular social conservative voter base and Labour is going to have to make a strong decision to work out what it wants to do about that. And my instinct is if I were Labour, I would be confident that they can take back many of those traditional Labour speeds in the Red Wall up in the northeast of England without having to ape this kind of socially conservative rhetoric that those seats are not going to vote conservative, so you don't need to compete for their seats.

48:23Well, I hope so. I hope you're right. It was interesting to hear Keir Starmer pretty unequivocal that Brexit was part of the reason, it was a big part of the reason for these cues at Dover. Now, I might seem obvious, but actually both of the main parties of up till now, not really want to talk much about the consequences of Brexit. I didn't read the interview, but just from the headlines I saw, I sensed that he was trying to get the trans debate into a less toxic place in an interview in the Sunday Times yesterday. So I think he is trying to sort of diffuse some of the grenades, but what you're absolutely right about is the Conservatives.

49:00That guy Lee Anderson, the vice chairman, he did let the cat out of the bag when he said, last time we had Boris Brexit in Corbyn, we've got none of them, so we've got to get some new culture wars and trans. And I see today is big attack today, Lee Anderson, this great mastermind of the Tory election strategy, is to be picking on the British entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, because she said that she really hated Boris Johnson, and wish he hadn't got a bed when he went into intensive care. So that is the sort of debate we're going to be getting from Lee. I think it's going to be interesting, because my suspicion is that'll be pretty frustrating for Rishi Suneak, so he will be, well, will it?

49:42Will it? Well, I don't know how he's going to deal with it, because it reminds me of when I was running to be Mererv London, so much, much smaller stage, but I remember, you know, I really wanted to talk about planting 400 million more trees. I wanted to talk about cleaning up the air. And of course, my polling people would come to me and say, Rory, in a 41 % of people say their major problem is knife crime and the failure of the decline about knife crime. Will you stop effing tweeting about trees? Will you please get into the fight about knife crime? And I don't know how different politicians respond to this, but maybe we can finish on this.

50:18I mean, was that something that you experienced? I remember feeling very difficult, because emotionally, intuitively, I wanted to talk about a positive future vision for London. I wanted to talk about transforming the Thames, talk about environmental issues, and they would say 2 % of your voters care about these issues. You've got to talk about the things they care about, which is knife crime. I think you've also got to be authentic, though, and I think that, these are things that I think you can talk about. You can make them salient. I would think the right position is somewhere between where you were and where they were.

50:48I hate politicians who just basically say, this is what the public tell us, what they want to hear, therefore let's tell them that politics ought to be about leadership. So what you were trying to do is actually to say, we are going to save the planet, we are going to make London a better place to live, we're going to have to plant more trees. I think that was the right thing to do, but you also have to talk about the other stuff. I don't know about Sunate. See, like for example, I mentioned the interview that the interview he was doing today about this grooming stuff. He has clearly decided, I mean, the stop the boats thing, for example, the sort of politician that you're describing soon at to be, wouldn't be so rigorous about sort of relentlessly hitting that message.

51:23Probably does know that of all the big problems facing the country, it's not the biggest, but politically he's been advised that's the best one to hit that drum to keep these boats in the north of England. And likewise today, there's rather bizarre big photo call for these local election launch. It was him with three big blokes looking at this sort of huge pot hole in Darlington and then sort of doing a great big thing about pot holes. So when you say he'll be frustrated by I'm not sure because I think he is going to fight pretty populist campaign. And I think the one thing he would be frustrated by is if Boris Johnson decided he was going to become his ally and decided, you know what, Rishi, I think you're not a great campaign, but I can campaign alongside you and let me do stuff as well.

52:11And I think then that could be utter chaos for soon, that because Johnson wouldn't be able to resist sort of doing something of a trump. And it is interesting, maybe this is the way to close as we started on Trump. Johnson does not have that cut through appeal that endures with people. I meet very, very few people these days who think Johnson's got any real future in politics, whereas you see and read so much in the American debate about how Trump is probably finished as president, but you wouldn't always writing off. Whereas I think Johnson actually you can write him off now. Very good. Good to you all.

52:46Thank you very much. See you soon. See you soon.