127. Question Time: Communists in Austria, the collapse of First Republic, and the political power of Ben and Jerry's

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1:06Welcome to The Rest Is Politics question time with me Roy Stewart. And me Anastak Campbell. Very good. Anastak, communist and Austria. I think you've been thinking about Austria recently. I don't know if you've been following but the Communist Party has been making grounds in Austria recently. Is there something you've seen in other countries or is it a one -off? Any thoughts about the Communist Party or Austria in general? Well, this is interesting. It was a party called K .P .U. Carpe U. Plus. The Communist Party in Austria and there was a election state elections in Salzburg last Sunday and they came forth which doesn't sound so what kind of thing.

1:44But they got 11 .7 % of the vote and the other big story from it was that the far right F .P .U. made the second largest gains and I just think it was interesting that we generally think of Austria as being a pretty right wing country and the communists did do well. Have I noticed it anywhere else? Not to that extent. No, I haven't but it's quite interesting. So they came forth. The far right came second with 25 % and they are making pretty steady gains at the moment. Now it also means you could. They're just about as strong enough if they want to do to make a coalition which I think that would be interesting.

2:25Far right and communist in coalition. So that's still sort of working its way through but I did think that was quite an important election. Very good. So here's another question from the alien university. Manix who's a professor at the Jackson School of the Alien University. Was the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum an accident generated by an unlucky pile on of crises or was Brexit likely to happen within a generation anyway? Given the status quo and the UK as an EU member state gradually sidelined by the Eurozone is untenable and the alternative deeper integration and eventual Euro membership are unacceptable.

3:05So just as a spoiler, Manix teaches a whole course on the European Union. Why did you know the answer then? The answer. Well I think his instinct is that Britain probably was in quite an uncomfortable position having not joined the Eurozone with more pressures for deep integration that its position on the margins would have put it ultimately in having to choose between more integration or some kind of Brexit. What do you feel about that? I've just read a book by an economist called Russell Jones. It's called The Tyrone of nostalgia and it's an analysis of the economic policy of every government since Ted Heath.

3:41Right. And I did enjoy reading it. I'm not sure you'd enjoy it that much because he's quite nice about the Blair Brown government and he's absolutely scathing about the Cameron Osborne government in two respects. No, several respects actually. One is he felt that Osborne, this is something that we've discussed with Osborne in a leading episode that we're putting out in a few weeks. He felt that Osborne was really driven by politics, not economics, and politicised the treasury to a great degree. He felt austerity was a very, very political choice and it didn't secure the recovery and that's one of the reasons we're in a mess now.

4:20And the third thing is he thinks Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster and he thinks it was as I do something done to resolve political problems inside the Conservative Party rather than a genuine national need. So I'm afraid I'm afraid I'm of the view that the referendum did not have to happen. I know that David Cameron profoundly disagrees with that. I actually think that George Osborne agrees with that and he tried to persuade Cameron not to have it. Look, where we would be if we hadn't had the referendum, none of us know that would the Tory Party still be arguing about Europe? Yes, it probably would, but it is anyway.

4:54Would the country be economically stronger? I think it would. So listen, there were complicated factors behind the referendum. The biggest answer to the question why do we have the referendum is because David Cameron decided to have it. Yeah. I do think that Monix has points about the medium term as an interesting one. Many, many of my constituents in Cumbria, including people who voted remain, had a vision that where Britain was with the European Union, was fine, but they didn't want it to get any deeper. One of the things I'd hear again and again is if we can just have an agreement that where we are with EU is fine and we stop there and we don't go any further towards things that made people uncomfortable, which could be the European army discussions, etc.

5:39But of course, I think Monix's point is that Europe is a dynamic enterprise. It doesn't stay still and it's an enterprise which was driven by a desire for ever closer union. No. That may not be fully realistic anymore because I think Europe has come through Brexit surprisingly strongly. I mean, it held together over Brexit, held together over COVID, held together over Ukraine. The support for the EU in the European countries has broadly risen since Brexit rather than fallen. Yeah. And in many ways, Europe's performed much better than people anticipated in those three crises. But it's got some pretty significant challenges.

6:16I mean, one of them is sure what's happening with Poland and justice at the moment, how they're going to deal with Viktor Orban. And above all, maybe we should discuss this at a later stage, the French presidency because it really matters if the pen becomes present to France because the present to France really defines foreign policy and the EU in a way that Georgian Maloney doesn't in Italy. Yeah. And especially with shulks, perhaps not being as assertive in those fields as Merkel was. I watched a brilliant documentary on Merkel over the weekend, by the way. I think it's just called Merkel. And it was on Netflix.

6:54Conmerge when it was on, but it was absolutely superb. A lot of it about her early life. Now, here's one from Tom Rory. In light of the latest cultural battleground in the US over Bud Light, teaming up with a trans -social media influencer, could you see brands in the UK involving themselves in marketing campaigns around political issues? Do you know about this story? Would tell us a bit about it. Can't tell us with a well -known trans -social media influencer for a marketing campaign. And there's been a pretty big backlash against it, up to and including, according to my daughter Grace, who's in America at the moment, people kind of, you know, going around taking bottles off and smashing them and not drinking them.

7:36They've seen a big drop in sales. The riles have seen a rise in sales. So it just shows that it can cut both ways because I do, I have noticed more brand activism around the place. I was at a sport industry awards dinner the other night, which I've been going to for years and years and years and years. I used to be a judge on this. A huge thing is like two, two thousand people inside that big conference center in the central batters park. All the kind of great and the good of the sports industry are there. There's always a charity. And the charity this year was their own, a sport together fund.

8:09And the fund was asking all these people with quite a lot of money in the room to fund organizations which support refugees. And I noticed on the same day this amazing. I don't know what I'd call it really, but it was from Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Safe routes for refugees wherever we come from. We all have a right to feel safe. And I've read the whole thing. I'll send it to you. You should read it because it's actually one of the best briefing notes about the refugee issue I have actually ever read. It's almost it's the sort of thing you'd expect from a political party or an NGO or a, I don't know.

8:41So that's Ben and Jerry's and can I come on on that and then bring bring your back because you were going to talk, I think, goes about body shop. But just, I mean, just for listeners, it's an fascinating story. Those particular brands, body shop, which have been very much against anti animal testing. But Ben and Jerry's, I mean, they launched this amazing ice cream in 2018 called the Peacan Resist, which was an ice cream against Trump. They've done a lot on asylum seekers in Sweden. They closed all their operations in Israel Palestine. Yeah, they called it sanctions. They've got a new brand no, they haven't they?

9:16I think they're. Yep, they did defund the police. They pushed for the impeachment of Trump. So they're on the far edge of brand activism. And there's a reason for that. It works very well for those brands, partly because millennials very, very much known all the surveys well over half feel that they're going to go with a brand more that has a strong activist narrative. And it allows you to get an enormous amount of free advertising and publicity because you're picked up by the major news outlets who then spread you around. But it can, as you say, also backfire. If you don't have it in your DNA from the beginning and you suddenly try to do it, the classic example was Pepsi Refresh, which tried to rebrand itself for the 25 million community investment fund and found themselves losing $350 million in a year and Diet Coke shooting ahead of them in the in the rankings.

10:06Well, and, and Disney are involved in this sort of massive row with Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor at the moment because they were getting involved in the in the gay rights campaign. Your friend Airbnb Rory. Yeah. Just after Trump signed an order to close down America's borders to refugees, Airbnb, aired an ad during the Super Bowl, which is not cheap. They was called we accept. And the ad was just a montage of people of different nationalities along with the words, we believe no matter who you are, where you're from, who you love or who you worship, we all belong. The world is more beautiful, the more you accept, which is kind of deliberately taking a kind of antithesis to something that that Trump might say or do.

10:49And you mentioned the body shop. I did an event last week with the body shop, which was about this voter ID thing, you know, the fact that we're forcing people to take voter ID and the unfairness in the fact that young people. Was it also pushing for votes 16 instead of 18 for those who seem to be, which I think you and I disagree agreeably about? We do. And I think though I also wonder whether it doesn't help appeal to a particular group that they want to bring into their shops. I mean, the ethical sustainable brands is this enormous exploding industry. My wife Shashana works in this because a lot of the crafts people we work with in Afghanistan and certain refugees in Jordan and others are producing ethical sustainable products.

11:31And it's been growing 9, 10 % a year. You know, ethical fashions now are 7 trillion industry, ethical food, 132 billion. But on the other hand, with inflation taking off with energy prices rising, there have been some real setbacks. Organic food had a big setback last year. Patrick O 'Neill is another one that's sort of had social and political activism sort of into what you call it's DNA. And I saw one of their campaigns at the bottom. And this is where they're using social media and all the kind of algorithmic stuff. Depending on where you live, you get a message at the bottom that says, not ask your MP, but it says ask Bradford's MP to take action for warm homes, ask Bedford's MPs.

12:14So they're targeting you in your constituency and they're giving you a link that you can directly start to lobby MPs. So I think it is, I think it's something that is, that is picking up. But the Budvisor, the Bud Light story will perhaps alarm some of them. But as you say, I think it's about whether you're, whether people feel that it's authentic. Museum recommendations. And she built them. You recommend books to read what museums would you recommend to visit? What gallery or exhibition stayed with you? Jack Braille Museum, the Jack Braille Museum in Brussels. I love. Tell us about that. What's that museum about?

12:49What is quite Jack Braille? It's my favourite musician of all time, a great Belgian singer. And there's a museum, quite a small museum, but you get his life, you get a lot of his music. And I think the other museum, which I strongly recommend people who are ever driving down through France, the Charles de Gaulle Museum at Colombele Derserglies, is beautifully done. Yeah, definitely worth a visit. Well, so my two, I'll start also with the French museum, the museum, the museum, Gime in Paris, which is Aix -Nart, the most extraordinary ground floor dedicated to particularly Camerca, Cambodian Buddhas.

13:26And I was there just just last week. And you can follow the development of images, the Buddha from Afghanistan, right the way through to Java and Indonesia, through India and China. It's extraordinary. I also huge shout out to Vindalandar, which is a museum arranged around a Roman fort, up on the Cumberin Northumberin border just below Hadrian's Wall. The Burley family, over 75 years that academics, tradition at Newcastle University, worked with their students to excavate. What was then a pretty obscure Roman fort, and have discovered the most incredible things, including tablets with preserved Roman writing of people sending letters up and down the wall, inviting people to dinner parties, discussing oil and fish paste.

14:10And it's just beautifully done. There are whole walls of shoes, which you wouldn't have thought sounds very interesting. But when you've arranged probably 75 Roman leather shoes in a case, it's just stunning. It's like going to fashion. And the final one I think is the Victorian Albert Museum. The Victorian Albert Museum really would drive people towards, I drive them towards the Japanese gallery. I love the Japanese gallery in there. And you can read about samurai swords. Okay. I drive them to Tristram Hunts office, given he runs the place, just knock on Tristram's door and say, Alistair said, I could come and have a cup of tea and you'd give me a personal tour.

14:47You can totally do that. And can I just a shout out for the conservative governments that usually accused of only favouring their own political friends, that it was under a conservative government that the wonderful Tristram Hunt, who was then the Labour MP, became the director of the Victorian Art Museum. And it was under a Labour government that free museum entry was introduced. Very good. Which do you think was more significant for the many not the few? Now, my final one is the National Football Museum. Used to be impressed and known Manchester, good to have these things in the North. And here, I'll make a pledge that when I die, if the National Football Museum wants the shirt that I wore when I played with Maradona, signed by Maradona, and all the other players, they can have it.

15:29How about that? Oh, that's that's very kind of you, Alistair. Isn't that beautiful? I thought you were going to offer them your entire Bodleian Library archive for a moment, but that... No, no, no, no, we're still talking about. Right, Alistair. We've got a few more questions to come, so let's just take a quick break.

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17:28Okay, we're here as one for you. Harrison, should we be paying more attention to what's happening in the United States with first Republic bank and JP Morgan? Yes, absolutely. So again, for listeners, this is the second largest bank ever to fail in the United States. It went down after nearly $100 billion had been sound -contrast This is a very sensitive issue to talk about. We were criticized for talking about bank failures on previous podcasts because obviously people in the banking industry are extremely conscious of the fact that on social media and on podcasts like this, if we are loose with our language, we can actually encourage bank runs.

18:05But the fundamental driver of all these failures, and remember, we've had credit suites, we've had Silicon Valley bank, and now we've had this bank is to do with rising interest rates and them being caught off balance by the drop and the value of the bonds that they had before, which were at lower interest rates. So the question is, is this going to go further? And that, as everybody keeps saying with the email in, we need to be very cautious talking about, but it's certainly something that's worth having a conversation with your financial advisor about and thinking about because there are some systemic issues.

18:40And if interest rates remain high, and if there isn't a significant recovery in the European and American economies, you know, there are things to be concerned about. Yeah. And Joe Biden went out yesterday and did a fairly calming doorstep at a piece of camera at the White House. And just on on Joe Biden, Roy, we've got a few questions as we go about ageism. We're both being accused of ageism. Joe Butler is ageism the last accepted stereotype. Personally, I think Joe Biden is a class act who's been a calm ship through rough waters. It's exactly what the world needed. But what are the little downsides to his age?

19:18What would a younger man do that he can't? James Woods, please, would you consider whether you have a problem with ageism on your podcast? Last week, Alistair said, is he losing it? Well, he's into his 90s referring to Murdoch. And you have both repeated equation Biden, money for president, often citing age alone as a concern. Now, before you answer Roy, we must put into the newsletter the clip of Joe Biden in the White House last week at a state banquet with the South Korean president, Yoon Suk -Yeol. Did you see it? I sent it to you. No, I haven't seen it. How many, what percentage of the stuff I sent you to actually look at?

19:55I think I look at most of it. Okay. Well, if he's on a general waters out group, did you just say, go, he's ranting again? I'll ignore it. Because this one was Joe Biden was explaining to the audience and the South Korean president was having explained to him through an interpreter, so I presume he doesn't speak fluent English, that he, Yoon Suk -Yeol, is a massive Don McLean fan. And Joe Biden had in his hand a guitar signed by Don McLean. And the South Korean president sang American Pie, and he sang it really, really, really well. Sadly, he stopped before the chorus. Yeah, I wanted Joe Biden to get involved in the chorus.

20:36And what he showed, though, is I think this thing about Biden, he's got real empathy. And if you do see it, it's such warmth coming through it. Right, I plugged that. We'll put it in the notes. But what about Biden being too old? I mean, it is a, it is a serious problem. I mean, whatever you think about it, 67 % of Americans in the CNN poll say that Biden does not have the stammer and sharpness to serve effectively as the president. And this has gone up 16 points since Biden started campaigning four years ago. If you watch him carefully, I mean, it is very politicized because of course the Republicans keep up this attack of Sleepy Joe.

21:12But it's not difficult for them to find extraordinary examples of him tripping on steps, getting his words confused. Now, some of this has been part of his general issue all along, you know, confusing the black and tanes with the all blacks. But it is a job that requires the most astonishing mental acuity and endurance. People age in that job. And you sensed with Ronald Reagan in his second term that it was an issue his age. And I think it was a real help to Kennedy and Obama that they were very young when they did those jobs. So now, remember, his major potential opponent, Trump is the same age.

21:55Slightly, slightly younger. But I think, the same concerns should apply to him too. You may be aware that he is currently in our country. He is in Scotland. He arrived yesterday. Yeah, Trump's got his, he's up in Aberdeenshire looking at his golf course. And it was utterly hideous to having back on on new screens. He came, his plane arrived. And he gets off the plane. He comes down, reporter shouts a question at him. He said, it's great to be home. Great to be home. He said, his mother came from Lewis and then she said, my mother, she loved the queen. And it's great that I got to know the queen.

22:32She became a good friend of mine. It's a bit like your mother who loved the queen too. This is a, you're saying a father from the, from the Isle. Yeah, but she, my mother, I wouldn't go around and say, my mother became a friend of the queen. And then the reporter to his credit did point out that he hadn't been invited to coronation. Unlike other people, we could mention Rory. I'd, yeah, President Biden's wife, you're obviously referring to, you're determined, you're determined, not, you're determined not to comment on this. You're going to be seen on the TV. It's just going to, it's just going to generate even more interest in your presence there.

23:05I think, where are you going to wear? Where are you going to wear? I'm avoiding your questions. It's usually, I can't recall hearing anything about Kamala over the last three years. And the Lord, which surrounded her election, appears to have vanished, I'm sure there was a feeling at the time that her election to Vice President would surely be followed by her succession to President four years hence. What have I missed about her tenure? Has Kamala in your opinion had a good Vice President see so far? So for UK listens, I mean, this will be very, very familiar to US listens, but for UK listens, the deal there is absolutely.

23:37When she became Vice President, people were incredibly excited. Look like this was the first woman of color who was likely to become the next President. People felt at the time that President Biden was unlikely to run, run again. And the first woman, absolutely. Since then, she's had a pretty torrid time. Partly, she was given some very, very difficult jobs by Biden, given immigration, border security and voter reform, which were almost impossible. Partly, she's had some very high profile resignations from her team, been accused of bullying. But her net popularity ratings, now at 28%, a lower than almost any Vice President's lower than Cheney.

24:16And he thought some Kamala Harris? It was interesting on the back of our leading interview with Hillary Clinton. We had lots of our listeners saying, oh God, can't she run again? And also lots of people saying, wouldn't it be great if she could step in and run as Biden's runny mate? I think Kamala Harris has had a, you say, torrid. I don't think he's been torrid so much as just not being very notice, not being very central to the picture. I mean, when, if you go through, I think we can overstate the importance of number two in these situations. If you think of Trump and Pence, Pence didn't really have a sense, you didn't have a sense of Pence really until the end when he turned against Trump.