144. Question Time: The War On Drugs, a Tory Green Party, and Long Covid

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0:50Welcome to The Restus Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell. And Alistair, where do we see you today? France. Oh, lovely. Lovely, lovely. And it's the sun shining. The sun is shining. I've just been on my bike. My legs are really hurting. I wonder, I just wondered, Rory, whether we shouldn't try to get through the whole question time without mentioning the former Prime Minister, former member for Oxbridge. Oxbridge. How much do we try that? We'll try very hard. And indeed, just as a little plug for leading, John Major also very much recommended that the correct way to approach the former member for Oxbridge and the former member for Henley is perhaps not to mention him at all.

1:38Yeah, he was very, very good about that. There's a lot of love for John Major at the moment, nice sense. And his two part first part was in your feeds on Monday, second part next week. And if you remember, you'll have both by now. So now talking of leading, Rory, we've got a lot of questions this week about our previous interview with Kate Rayworth. Let me just bang out a few. Nick Simpson, I thought you're leading into you with Kate Rayworth as brilliant. Thank you. Is there an argument, says Nick, that capitalism is approaching collapse? Paul Skolls, I suspect that is not the footballer. There are scientists protesting with just stop oil.

2:14They're reporting off the scale surface ocean temperature and Antarctic ice anomalies, yet mainstream media seems to be mute. Finley Carroll, listen to the leading episode with Kate Rayworth on Thursday before going into my A level politics exam the next morning. Quite amazing what the essay question was, nature must be preserved regardless of the cost to humans, discuss. Did you have prior knowledge? That's the main reason most people listen to our podcast because you and I are actually setting the exams. We said when we did a job major that there was, they caught one of their questions this week.

2:49This year was in the politics paper was to what extent did John Major lose in 1997 and Tony Blair won? And we now have both on the record. So students can just listen and use that as part of their source. So what do you think about this? Is capitalism approaching collapse? What do you think of that? Well, I came across a very interesting review by Brankham Melanovic, and I know you keep telling me off as using word distinguish, but anyway, the guy is a big deal in the world to be economics. And he has written a review of Kate Rayworth's book on something called BraveNewEurope .com, which we'll share with people.

3:24And in it, he particularly gets into the question of what happens on growth. So he says it becomes apparent that Rayworth's book is a book of miracles as well as why in such a world of miracles, the real miracle, which is Chinese growth that has pulled out of abject poverty, some 700 million people goes all but unmentioned. The reason is that poverty was eliminated by dirty growth that has polluted Chinese cities in the countryside and yet made the lives of millions incomparably better. So he's putting there in a pretty raw, tough way that growth, dirty growth in China has lifted 700 million people out of poverty.

4:04And it's very, very difficult to work out how you're going to be able to help the poorest people in the world without growth. Well, I guess that's what we were thinking, but I think the thing that troubled me about the whole interview was that one of the questions said this, when somebody said, when will you and I wake up and smell the coffee and understand that this is the only way to go? And I sort of want to think that, but I'm struggling to work out how and you're right that if China had not grown in the way that it did, would we still have my guess the Americans that argued that would be a good thing if the Chinese were still were still reduced to poverty?

4:43But anyways, I think it's good that we were challenged and it's also good that people seem to really fell. And she's put her finger on something very important, hasn't she? Because her challenge to you and I is to keep saying, okay, you're probably right. I mean, she sort of concedes our point that we're probably right that the consequences of trying to do what she says are going to be unbelievably painful that, you know, cutting the GDP of a country like Britain by 75 % would basically mean cutting half our government services and more. But her challenge to us would be what is the alternative?

5:19And if she keeps insisting, we live on a planet with finite resources, infinite growth just doesn't make sense. Now, it reminds me a bit, I was sort of thinking about this, that it's a little bit like when Buddha or Jesus pose a very radical vision of extreme poverty to people and people respond, well, that doesn't really work in the real world. It's a very, very, very difficult working out what you do with an idealism that seems incredibly rigorous and truthful, but whose consequences are so completely at odds with the way that our world works. Now, very much in the real world, LW, and this is, LW is going to get our weekly award for Perseverance because this is the 10th week in a row that he has asked us to give us our thoughts on the current situation in NHS dentistry.

6:10Oh my goodness. Yeah. Now, I did have a little, because he had us to solve and I thought we should sort of give him an answer. And Rishi Sunat keeps saying, and has said many times in Parliament that we have more dent in NHS dentism, it turns out this is not true. And the British Dental Association had a conference last week where they were very, very critical of the fact that he, that he keeps saying it, I had a look at the Health Service NHS website and the official government, it says the NHS will provide any clinically necessary treatment needed to keep your mouth teeth and gums healthy and free of pain.

6:46It then goes to say, it goes under say, your dentist must make clear which treatment is going to be provided on the NHS and which can only be provided on a private basis, which keeps me to contradict the first sentence which says that the NHS will provide any clinically necessary treatment. And I think we have really in dentistry now. I don't, we just have it. I mean, I had a filling fall out the other day and I went to the same dentist I've been using for years and a few years ago actually, well, he does do NHS work, but a few years ago I used to get my dentistry for free and now I don't and I'm not quite sure what's changed other than that it's just sort of evolved.

7:26And so anyway, I paid £195 just to have a filling pull back in. There's an interesting guardian article on this on the NHS dentist deserts. So North Lincolnshire, one for every 3 ,199 people, each writing of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, etc. And very striking figures on the number of children accessing dentists. Pre -pandemic, the level was well over 50 % and then dropped quite steeply. Now, people are still trying to work out, I guess, how much of this is to do with the pandemic fall out. But the figures that the guardian was showing in the article that I read, which is August last year, had them falling from about half to about a third of children accessing dentists, which is a big, big problem in terms of people's or because obviously your teeth connect to a lot of life.

8:13Well, and also half sounds really low. I do remember it's in my school days, having kind of, you know, the part of the dental service was run through the school. So, I mean, everybody sort of felt they had access. I also spotted Stuart and BBC Cornwall, a mobile dental clinic has been offering NHS dentist appointments to people in Cornwall. And it's a charity called Dente's. And it quoted a woman called Mandy Francis, who said that she had not had an NHS dental appointment for seven years, said, I'm very excited at getting treatment. It's been such a long wait. I've tried everywhere in Cornwall to get an NHS dentist, and it's been impossible.

8:49I was often in appointment in Devon, but that's too far. And I did see that some of the rural communities and the Hebrides and so forth were pretty low on dentists. So, I guess the bottom line, and thank you for raising it, LW, but it seems to me that we're, we have drifted to a place where an awful lot of people are not getting a good dental treatment, and now I think that stores up. And I think a combination of different things, isn't it? It's a combination of government funding, it's a combination of workload, and it's also connected to those things, but not always directly connected to those things.

9:20Many, many NHS dentists saying they want to reduce their NHS work or leave it all together. Huge numbers struggling to fill vacancies. And I think we had another question, didn't we, from people talking about doctors going overseas, and this is a complicated thing, because on the one hand, obviously, many doctors are writing into us very, very strongly critical of even the Australian or US health care systems with reason. But many British doctors are actually going to Australia and the US to practice as doctors, because of course, you can earn much more money. Yeah, and I've seen some of the adverts at the Australian Health Service are putting out to try to attract our doctors, and they do make it look very, very attractive, not just financially, but in lots of other ways.

10:05And I do think the fact that they're respected by the government, I mean, the government do sort of talk up doctors. I feel that our government has been very, very quick to talk down public servants, and I think that's having a big impact on morale, which is another fact to which makes people believe. Now, Rory, I went to an event the other day. I'm going to raise it. Oh, yes, was this a football event? No, it's not a football event, though. I'm sure you share my joy at Scotland Beach in Norway. And there's something complicated to happen in the last few minutes again. Somebody sent in a question about this.

10:38Well spotted, somebody sent a question asking you whether you thought the Norwegian coach made a mistake in taking off Harland with five minutes to go. And that's a big mistake. Big mistake, because the result showed. Yeah, obviously. I'm sure that had a bunch to do with the final defeat. Anyway, class in the UK. So I was at this event, and I got a question about it, Damian Lowe, he says, I loved your 93 club talk. I'll explain what the 93 club is in a moment. What are the three things Rory would try to do to address inequality and class division in the UK? Christopher Chessney, I'm doing listening to Joe Biden, who says when the middle class, that's the working class in America does well, everyone does well.

11:19He goes on to say, we haven't talked about class in Britain for ages. Does Joe Biden's comment hole water? And where is the UK right now through a class distinction lens? So my 93 percent club rory is the, I think I've mentioned it before, it's set up by a young woman called Sophie Pender, who was at Bristol University. Times she was there 40 % of the students, almost 40 % of the students were privately educated. She came from a council house and quite a difficult background, and she found it very, very difficult and in the end, and she also realized that they did have these networks. And so she founded this thing called the 93 percent club, because of course the 93 percent are the majority who do not go to private schools.

12:03And I went to this wonderful event, and there's a guy, a former broadcaster called Matt Barbet there. He said, we're not going to mention the former prime minister, but he did say that the reason why people go to schools, such as the one that you and the person we're not mentioning, went to along with Reese Morgan, quasi -quartane and others. He had this phrase, he said, privilege is bought, and entitlement is taught. My pushback, I guess, would be twofold. I don't think British society is really divided between the 93 percent and the 7 percent. I don't think you, for example, are in a worse situation than me because you didn't go to a private school.

12:45I think the real distinction in British society is between the 60 percent who own houses and the 40 percent who don't. That's the starkest, most extreme wealth inequality you can imagine. And it's that that all the political parties that try to work their way around. Do we put property taxes on? Because if you're serious about inequality, it's not about incomes, it's about assets, it's about wealth. And fundamentally, that's the thing that's going to kill younger people, their inability to get on the housing ladder, the fact that older people are holding on to houses. And I think it suits people who are gently on the liberal progressive left to imagine they're part of the 97 percent and they're being abused by the 3 percent.

13:2593 and 7. 93 and 7. But I think the truth is that about 60 percent of the British population are far better off than 40 percent. And if I push it further, 90 percent of the British population are so much better off than the worst 10 percent, which very few of the political parties focus on, because sadly the poorest 10 percent very rarely vote. So I think if you were really serious about social justice, beginning with the sort of people that you and I have dealt with who are in prison, who've been expelled from school, with mental health issues, with learning difficulties, who literally have no future at all, is actually something that I'd really like young people to focus on rather than getting wound up about the 7 percent.

14:06I thought that was a very, very elegant piece of what aboutery. I think you're I think you're former master John Claughton who's been in touch with us about his excellent letter to the times. I hadn't realized that he was the same guy who'd been sending in questions as had his son. And he was the guy who pointed out that he's he's a bit of a bit of a lefty as far as such things exist in eating teachers. Was it was always more in sympathy with you? Yeah, I think I think. Good man, good man. But I said, anyway, I do think I think as a piece of sort of destructive, destructive water boundary that was quite effective.

14:41However, I don't think it really answered the main point. I do still think that if you look at our media, you look at our military, you look at our judiciary, there is something structurally wrong in our society that so many people from those schools get to the top positions. And I think it's that the barriers, the point that the people at this meeting, the 93 percent club we're making is that they they feel there are barriers there, which I think that people who go to those top schools in our culture and our society feel there are no barriers. And I feel we have to mention Johnson in this context.

15:15Okay, I think there are people who have risen recently to very, very senior positions in our national life who would not have got anywhere near them if they had not had the privilege brought in title and thought. And I suppose that also does raise a very interesting question, which is, is it just about privilege and entitlement? Or is it actually that these schools are doing a pretty good job in educating people, giving them confidence, giving them skills, giving them knowledge? In other words, and if that's true, one of the things that's striking about private schools is that they run on a much more old fashioned discipline basis than most public education.

16:03It's a very different philosophy of education. And I think that's actually another thing that's very challenging within our education system. Was it was eaten very straight? Very, very straight. And the hours are very long. I mean, because it's a boarding school. In effect, you're, you know, I would, I can't remember, but I, you know, I would often be continuing to do things till 10 at night, having started a date in the morning. So by the end of the term, you are completely shattered. You're totally exhausted. And that's obviously privilege, but it's privilege, which is translating into the child, probably getting twice as long as school day.

16:36And in addition, very, very high expectations on discipline, results, control, order, it's not. There is a, one of the interesting things is that parents often say that they want a much more sort of as it were nurturing 1960s style education, but when they're paying for education, they're often buying a much more old fashioned style of education. I see the person that we're not mentioning did an interview with the school magazine. And it was done by somebody by the name of Peter Reese Mark. I wonder if he's at all related to the person who just got knighthood. Just got knighthood. It's a common name.

17:13There's been an extraordinary thing, which is lovely stuff from your, your favorite man, the, the academic called the red, red historian is his Twitter name. He's done a beautiful piece on just pulling out how almost every single person who defended the person that we're not mentioning has been given a knighthood or offered a peerage by him. Well, Alistair, I think time for a quick break.

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18:50Now listen, you mentioned the whole kind of inequality thing. And I do agree with you on that. But Andrea Vero, this is a question to me, but I think it's raised by your question. As an avid listener to the Spiegel podcast act milliard, which I am, what did you think of the episode poor Britannia? Now poor Britannia was on a couple of weeks ago, and it was it was very, very interesting. They did a whole episode on Britain, including a visit to Burnley, I have to say. And it was about poverty in Britain. And it was also about the inequality in Britain. They played this advert that I've never seen and never heard, but it was for sort of posh basements in London, 25 million pounds style houses that are being built for the kind of the oligarch class.

19:36But it was very, very, it was very strange to hear a Britain being debated on a German podcast in a way that almost like we, you and I might occasionally talk about countries in the developing world. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the other person who do this a lot is the New York Times. And sometimes, sometimes fairly, sometimes very unfairly. I remember five, six years ago, an article written on my constituency where somebody had a New York Times journalist had gone up and found cheap farmers in Austin and had basically portrayed it as though this was the middle of the 19th century. And I knew a lot of the people she was interviewing, a lot of them are quite successful farmers doing quite well, quite confident.

20:19People being made to look on the front cover of the New York Times as though they were just sort of living in Dickensian horror. Are these the people that you used to describe as tying up their trousers with straggler? That's, that's the one you've got it, Alistair, you've got it. There's actually a very interesting book, which I, if I can plug a book, Ben Judah, this is Europe. Oh, yeah. Is very interesting. Now, he does focus on people in real trouble in Europe, across Europe, and particularly on poverty, particularly on first -generation immigrants, particularly on racism and displacement in Europe.

20:50I mean, it's an extraordinary series of interviews. He did it also a book called This is London, where he, you know, interviews people. I think in Romanian and underpasses in Hyde Park, but there is a, there is a story definitely in Britain, definitely in Britain, of extreme and total unacceptable horror amongst, I don't know. I don't know whether it's 5 % of our population, 10 % of our population, and the same is true. I think in the Bonneleur of Paris, I don't know enough about Germany, but it's certainly true for a loss of first -generation immigrants across southern Europe. The Spiegel team gave the figures for food banks and dog food banks and all the sort of different numbers of people that are using charity to get by, and they were shocked.

21:38They were shocked by just how many people in Britain seemed to rely on them. And of course, the worst of all in the developed world to remind people, this is the United States, whether poverty statistics are beyond imagining. I mean, infant mortality rates, life expectancy for the poor in the United States is just unbelievably shocking. Now, Alistair, here is a question. War on drugs, Adrian Gonzalez for you, Alistair. What are your thoughts on the war on drugs and legalisation? It seems to me that the dynamics around drugs define a loss of what happens in Latin America? Yeah, I wonder whether that question flowed from the fact that we talked briefly about Latin America last week.

22:18Well, I think I've mentioned you before the book by Johan Harry on the drugs trade chasing this scream. And actually, it was partly his analysis of Latin America and the complete failure of the American war on drugs and their belief that if they just use the help the Latin American government to kind of smash the drugs trade and smash the dealers that somehow they would break it and stop the supply into America. Well, that just hasn't worked. I think we have to accept that the war on drugs has failed. Now, whether that leads to wholesale legalisation, marketisation, I just don't know. I'd be very, I'd be quite queasy about that.

23:00But that the war on drugs has not succeeded. I don't think they can be much argument about that. There's a good review of Johan Harry's book by Deca Akinhead who interviewed us the end of last year. And it begins with an interesting first line. She says, when I heard that Johan Harry had written a book about the war on drugs, two immediate concerns sprang to mind. The first was whether anyone would trust the word he wrote. And this is because he did the most extraordinary malicious editing of Wikipedia pages of any journalist that he disliked. So he's an interesting character and he's could he written a fascinating book that my goodness as a journalist, it's been extraordinary what he what he was doing.

23:42That's true, but and I remember at the time thinking that that was quite brave room to just sort of go and do the book. The thing about what is so interesting about his book is that it literally looks at the drugstray from every possible angle you can imagine from the dealers, from the prisons, from the kids, from the governments, from the police. And okay, you can say that well, Cossi's had this reputation for play, Drizzan, you know, did he do all the work or have you, but I just I kind of read it with an open mind and it really did open my mind to different ways of thinking about our failure.

24:17It does seem to be an amazingly interesting book, doesn't it? And people have read it have just just sort of loved the pace of it and the way in which it's worked. Okay, Ross McLean, the outer Hebrides is one of the most stunning locations to record a podcast. When are you coming to the Isle of Lewis or Harris? There we are. I think if we were to do one of the Hebrides, it would have to be Tyree otherwise I would have family complaints. I'm also, what would the love was be like, there is a Tyree music festival, we could think about that. When's that on? A presumed in the summer. In the summer.

24:49Yeah. We should just remind people that we are going to be going to Edinburgh. I know it's not the Hebrides, but then we should put that in the in the category marked. We'll think about it, Rory, yeah. Here's one that I want to just raise. Carol Bruce, Long COVID. Lack of research funding for Long COVID has broad implications if many are unable to work because of an illness that has been denied and psychologized. What can I do as per Alice's new book has been our cry for a very long time, but remains unheeded. I mean, this is, I'm, I like I imagine you and many, many people listening to this podcast.