120. Question Time: Macron and Xi Jinping, the rise of the right, and Tony Blair vs. UFOs

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1:06Welcome to The Rest Is Politics Question Time with Mi Rory Stewart. And me, Anastagamble. Anastagamble. I want to hit you with something. Macron China interview. So you've been following the French press. You're actually in France, aren't you? We can hear the tweeting of the birds of the French spring. I think I heard what sounded like a black bird outside your window Disney. Now, Cosmoisella, what do you make of Macron's recent interview following on from his China's visit? Is he really keen on establishing a third world power block? Or is he trying to hedge his bets in the light of potential Trump resurgence?

1:44Is there some strategy behind this or is it driven by ego over you? Well, so President Macron accompanied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had a big trip to China. President Xi certainly rolled out of the red carpet. Certainly for Macron, less so for Ursula von der Leyen. And it seemed to go in terms of the China perspective. I think they felt that it went well from their perspective. And Macron, I think, thinks it went well from his perspective. A couple of points I would make right at the top. I think our friends from the stop -weager genocide movement will be alarmed each thing to which that did not feature.

2:28And the second thing is that the controversy in Sephiras, there is one that seems to have emerged from the trip, has flowed from it into these interviews that he gave on the plane coming home, where he did talk about, this was in the context of particularly of Taiwan. I think the sense that America and China are talking themselves into a conflict. And you and I have reflected on this before. There does seem to be this, you know, so we've just had the Taiwanese President, as this is an America, and there's a consequence China have done these pretty spectacular military exercises over three days including, I don't know, and he's basically saying that the European Union is the only force in the world that could be big enough powerful enough to operate as a third pole in a multi -pole world.

3:24Okay, and let me come in here for a second and just sort of sharpen up the criticism. So in the interview, he said that there's a great risk if Europe gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevented from building its strategic autonomy. Yeah. The question Europeans need to answer, is it in our interest to accelerate a crisis on Taiwan? No. The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must be followers on this topic and take our Qufu Newest Gender. Now, this has made the Taiwanese very, very angry and many parliamentarians across Europe very, very angry because it slightly sounds as though he's posing as being neutral on the subjects of China Taiwan instead of what we would expect, which is absolutely in the lights of what happened with Ukraine, defending Taiwan's total right to self -determination.

4:14The Taiwanese do not want to be part of China. They've made that clear and vote, self -to -vote, and you would expect the West to absolutely defend their right to be independent and not give into Chinese aggression. Yeah, I'll listen to a French radio debate and as we're driving down and where this is, it felt very much like some of the debates related to Iraq where you had a sense of they were even talking about, you know, there's the Anglo -Saxon world and of course, Orcas, the military tie -up between the United States, the UK and Australia, that is perhaps added to that sense. So, and then the point about strategic autonomy, this is a big, big thing for Macron that he wants Europe to become, when he's talking about strategic autonomy, he's talking about security, he's talking about defences, talking about an economy that is able to compete with these two kind of giants.

5:11And that seems to ruffle feathers within different parts of the European Union as well. I think there are parts, there are other countries in the European Union that think maybe he's going to, to fast. And I suppose, Cosmazelle's question, is there some strategy behind this or is it driven by ego? Well, there's a bit of both because it is a strategy. He wants a strategic objective is to build the strategic autonomy, but at the same time Macron sees himself as and indeed is a key figure in the development of European foreign policy and economic policy. So, I do wonder whether he slightly overstated what he thinks on the plane.

5:50It often happens when you've had a very successful, what you feel is a very successful trip. You get back on the plane, you think, well, that's gone really, really well. I landed all my points. I said everything I wanted to say about Ukraine. I made them feel that they have to step up more than they've done. He had a plane load of business guys who are obviously often in deals with the Chinese left -right and center. And then he sits down with a few journalists and you maybe just sort of, you know, kicks his shoes off a bit too much. But you know, as you rightly say, the Taiwanese not happy, the Americans not happy, but at the same point, I think he has landed the strategic point that he wanted to.

6:20Right. Okay. Every year for a question. Leigh Hayne, I live in a constituency where well -organized tactical voting will be needed to unseat the Tory incumbent. What can be done to ensure that a truly independent tactical voting movement or poll will emerge closer to general election, one that's widely trusted and therefore effective. Where do you stand on tactical voting? I'm very, very pro tactical voting. And people did try in the last two elections to set up quite complicated websites, which did the mathematical calculations on the polls and tried to give you advice on how you should vote if you believe in certain things could be on Brexit remain, could be whether you wanted the Conservatives to stay on or not.

7:00What tends to happen is as you get closer to the elections, the political parties get more and more ambitious for their majorities and more and more reluctant to accept tactical voting. And of course, there's huge opposition from the local parties and the local candidates who've spent two years preparing to fight this seat and don't like being told by their headquarters that they're going to have to step aside in favor of another political party. So I think it's going to be critical though for Labour because we'll see how they do in Scotland. But many of the seats, particularly in the south of England, the Lib Dems are in a much stronger position than Labour.

7:37Yeah. And if Labour tries to run against the Lib Dems there, they'll lose their seats. I mean, I think there is a carestarm as operating. I think he travels everywhere in his pocket with a list of the seats that Labour has to win. And that's where Labour will focus. But as you say, the local party will pick candidate, it's then a question of what message the party nationally sends out. And I think the Lib Dems, likewise, will they know where they need where they can win, where they need to win. There's some very interesting polling that keeps popping up on social media. I don't know how they do these constituency polls because the numbers must be pretty small.

8:12But an awful lot of them recently, they've popped up, Tory held seats, which if the Labour and Lib Dem vote and the more that those sorts of polls start to appear and local media start to report them and cover them, then I think tactical voting will take on a life of its own. Because I think that there's always a central driving question at an election. And if the election were to be held tomorrow, I think the central driving question would be, can the country really have another term of the Tories? Now Labour has to build on that to have their own positive agenda. But that I think is where the next election is being defined.

8:50And Labour, I think, are going to start to frame this question around, do you feel the country is better than it was? Are you better off? Is your family better off? Are you more or less hopeful about the future? And that's then where they hope they can get over the line. We had a question slightly related to how Labour can campaign. So somebody has asked about whether sometimes things where people agree don't become proper subjects. So see you Richardson. There's so much evidence that clean water and nature protection RSUs were truly bipartisan support. Is that why they're comparatively overlooked among the main parties priorities?

9:25Because they aren't sufficiently divisive. Now, what's your thought on that? Well, there's another question related to this by Walter Pauler Pearson. Why do all politicians think it's okay to allow water companies to pollute our rivers? If Labour get a majority, do you think this will make them brave enough to stand up to them and force them to clean up their out? Well, I certainly hope so. And there was a very good sign of it. Darren Jones, the Labour MP who's chair of the Business Select Committee. I saw him doing a very good job of really sticking it to one of the water company bosses about why they weren't investing properly obsessed with payouts, dividends to shareholders.

10:02And I really think, I think, see it reaches a right that the politics of water should become a very, very big part of the next election. It's an odd one, isn't it? Because, I mean, I found when I was running for Mayor of London that the polling was often why people didn't campaign on it. That I was trying to campaign a lot on the Thames and on trees and planting. And consistently in the polls, it was the number one issue only for about 3 % of voters. So I think it's not just that it's not divisive enough. I think it's that voters have to make it more of a priority in their lives to really get it up to the top of the agenda.

10:34I do think this sewage into the waters has really got through to the public though. I think people think it's pretty disgusting and they can't really understand why the government can't do something about it. Now, Roy, there's a question here from a gentleman by the Labour Peter McCray. I think he's giving us a challenge for our trip to Belfast. Do you think there should be a Northern Ireland version of this podcast and have the hosts be a nationalist and a unionist? That's a very, very good idea. That's an excellent idea. Excellent idea. Well, maybe we could try to recruit people. It could become known as Trinip.

11:02The rest is Northern Ireland politics. Trinip. The rest is Northern Ireland politics is very good. I like it. Very, very good. We should set ourselves to task of finding the right people. Let's have a quick break.

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13:58Donna Mae Roberson. Why is there so much coverage on the accusations about Sturgeon's husband on the BBC? But nothing about the billions in fraud written off by Sunak and the PPE profiteering by Moan and Ministers and Ministers. Well, that's a very fair question. Yeah, although it is a sort of, it's a style of question that we get sort of every week, isn't it? It's called what about free? A whole lot of it. Every time you point out a crime of any sort, it doesn't matter. I remember this was true when you will remember that when people were talking about Saddam Hussein, people would say, why are you talking about Saddam Hussein and not talking about Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe?

14:34The fact is we should be able to call out crimes on all sides equally and not suppress ourselves just because we think some other crime isn't getting enough attention. But the money involved in, as you said, in your excellent explanation of the Peter Merle situation on the main podcast, that you're talking about, I think, it was 600 ,000 pounds, we're talking in relation to PPE, about billions that have gone from the public purse without real accountability. The question is very straightforward. Is it crime or is it waste? If it's crime, 100%, but the accusation against Peter Merle, the reason he's being interviewed under caution, is the suggestion is that a criminal act has taken place.

15:17And presumably you're not suggesting some criminal act has taken place over the PPE contract. I'm very concerned that there might well have been crime involved in the levels of money involved that has just been peed up against a wall. Are so large that I do think that a police investigation would be in order. Very good. Now here's one for you, Roy, very much for you. Tom Hallerun, Rory mentioned in a previous episode that he'd done a silent retreat and it had changed his life. Could he elaborate what happened on the silent retreat and how did it change his life? Yeah. So I've done two silent retreats, and that means sitting meditating for pretty much every hour of the day.

15:56You wake up 4 .30 in the morning, or about four in the morning, start meditating at 4 .30 in the morning, and you start meditating at 9 .30 at night. And you don't speak for 10 days. You don't eat after midday, and you basically sit in the dark with your ice -crossed concentrating on sensations, initially on your upper lip, and then working from the top of your head down to your toes and up again. And I found it the most extraordinary experience. It changed, it gave me a patience in relation to my children I didn't have before. It gave me the space to try to think about everything from... I'm not saying that's not quite pretentious, but everything from the universe to quantum physics.

16:42It brought me closer to thinking about my own death than I'd ever been before. And really, I would be doing these things much more if I didn't have a young family and I didn't have obligations towards my work and give directly. Not to mention, Roy, it's very difficult to do a podcast if you're not allowed to speak. Yeah, I was trying to work on how to get to that. How are you going to let me off for a week of the podcast to go into my silent retreat? I don't have to get Johnny Mercer to stand in, I think. That's true, that's always what you want to do. I think you just got a record a few episodes for them.

17:17This is clearly what you're just longing for. Okay, just one thing, did it... You've talked a little bit before about, you do do God in a way that I don't, but did it sort of move you forward on that front as well? Yes, I think it definitely gave me much more space for things which I think are related to spirituality and mysticism and a much closer way of trying to understand how I would think about meaning in life. But in some ways, the things I took away from it, I guess, if you were to write them down, would sound a bit more Buddhist, probably than Christian. Here's a question for you along the same lines.

17:58Sarah Bushchorva, my partner suffers from bouts of depression and finds morning's tough, usually lifts midday. What tips do you have for the carer brackets me? Well, Sarah, first thing I would suggest is that you get a whole look of a copy of my book about depression and read Fiona's chapter because Fiona's written, wrote a chapter in that book about how she deals with it. And if I can sort of summarize it, I'd say that her main thing, it took her a long time to get to this, is you mustn't blame yourself. And I think a lot of people do blame themselves when they're living with somebody who gets depression because they think that they ought to be able to fix it.

18:41And the easiest way, when you can't fix it, is to say, well, must be something about me, so that's the first thing. The second thing is she would also say, I think, is get something for yourself that is very much yours. So if you're in it, it would be swimming. She's swum virtually every day that I've ever known her, when I've been really, really bad or not being very nice to be around. That's the thing that she's always been able to hold on to. And then I think the other thing I'd say, which we've managed to get to, but it's taken as a long, long, long time to get there, is I always have a sense of how I define it is this.

19:18When I'm depressed, I want to know that Fiona's around me, but I don't want her in my face. And so I would say, so be there, be the person that will be supportive, but don't just sort of be there the whole time thinking you can fix it, wanting to fix it, trying to fix it. And understand that your partner is the same person. It's just that they're going through a bad face, and you can help them get through that bad face. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm going to feel a bit embarrassed moving it onto a slightly more trivial note. Tony Blair and UFOs, what do you think the telegraphs report on Ryan Graves UFOs story?

19:57So this was a US Navy pilot who said he saw UFOs almost on a daily basis with a squadron. And Alice the Campbell did Tony Blair really have a book called Left at Eastgate about the Rendalsham UFO case on the 10 Downing Street bookshelves? Well, if he did, I was spectacularly unaware of it. If he did, he never mentioned it to me. And if he had any sort of worries about UFOs beyond those that any normal person I have, I wasn't aware of them. Well, I had a friend who got very, very excited. You'll be aware, I'm sure, that there's a village called Bonnie Bridge in what's called the Falkirk Triangle between Emerald Glasgow, that has about 300 UFO sightings a year.

20:41And my friend Luke got really excited and went to Bonnie Bridge to see the UFO. He was slightly less excited when he discovered that 298 of those sightings were made by a single person. I've also noticed that the question you read out, came from somebody who goes by the name of Parallel Ball Blip. I see. Okay, so then I don't think they're going to be very happy with the jokes. Actually, they're going to explain that it wasn't one person who saw all the UFOs and that Luke's joke was off colour. Yeah. Here's one from Will. Have you got any words on all these Tory leaflets with a clear disassociation to anything Tory and even the colour blue?

21:21Have you noticed this, Roy? Lots and lots of Tory candidates are putting out leaflets that don't say that they're Tory's and they're coloured green. Absick's certainly Michael Fabrican, even, who was a massive Boris Johnson supporter and on the Brexit right, even he's putting out leaflets with no Tory association. Well, I think there's a very straightforward answer for that. The Conservative Party is consistently 20 points or more behind in the polls. I'm afraid a real sense of despair is spreading through Conservative Party headquarters. The Conservative Research Department, which back in the day was meant to be an intellectual think tank coming up with great policy ideas, you know, is consuming itself desperately, trying to mount rather lame attacks in the Daily Mail.

22:06And as a result, I think there is a real sense that nobody in the Conservative Party at the moment quite believes that they're going to be able to win the next election. So MPs are hoping that they're going to be able to campaign on the basis of their local constituency record. But hold on, do they really think that if they put their name in a picture, Michael Fabrican has a leaflet and he doesn't call himself a Tory? They really think that's going to make people think, oh, he's not a Tory's or a vote for him. I mean, what are they thinking? Oh, I know. It's very tempting though. I think it's something that I was often tempted to when I was an MP.

22:42There were moments I'm afraid when I thought David Cameron was not a great asset on the doorstep. And I wasn't sure I wanted to be handing out leaflets with a big picture of David Cameron. And I guess they'll be feeding that even more strongly at the moment. Or even with Rishi Sinek. Well, I'm a fan of Rishi Sinek. I am a fan of Rishi Sinek. But I do think that people think that it's very unlikely that the Conservative is win and the tax action and people are getting pretty desperate. They don't think the brand isn't a very good state. Tom Gorman. You're both voracious readers, often having a number of impressive intellectual books on the go.

23:14But do either of you have any guilty reading pleasures? Well, I have a lot of guilty reading pleasures. So what I give you a second to think. I've been rereading, you'd expect this when the Hornblower series about the naval content and captain during the Napoleonic Wars, which is sort of almost young adult books, but absolutely brilliant books about leadership. Hornblower is a kind of shy, introverted, insecure man who is the most extraordinary kind of courageous naval commander. So that's one guilty pleasure. Another which is actually quite a formidable book, which I'd like to recommend is by Christopher Lake, which is called the Lion House, which focuses on the early 16th century and the Ottoman quarters, Solomon the Magnificent.

24:02It's a historical novel with incredible characters, including the Venetian ambassador and fantastic accounts of the sort of palace and court life and food written by Christopher Lake, who was an economist correspondent, is married to an Iranian, speaks beautiful Turkish. He's a contemporary. I think what the question event was whether you've got to talk about Gilly Cooper or Jeff Riyart, right? And you've suddenly got a guy who works with the economy speaks fluidly. I mean, he's a really embarrassing confession. I love Colleen McCulloch's historical novels called Masters of Rome. They're kind of sex and violence, romp novels about the Roman Empire.

24:46So I'd recommend that to anyone because I think it's a great way of learning about Rome while having fun. What are your guilty sessions? My guilty pleasures. I'll tell you the one that brought into my head was there's a German novelist called Charlotte Link, who I started to read when I was doing my German courses during lockdown and I became slightly hooked on these books and I thought they were quite high brow. And then we went, we went, I went on a little trip to Germany and I was sort of sitting there really and I could tell from this I started was talking to this woman at the next table and I quickly discovered that, as far as she was concerned, this was very much a guilty pleasure.