149. Question Time: How to end a civil war, psychedelic treatments, and will the Orkney Islands join Norway?

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0:50Welcome to the Restus Politics Question Time with me, Roy Stewart. And me, Anastakambo. So before we go on, just to thank everybody who bought tickets for the Albert Hall in December, sold out in under a day, thousands of people trying to get through who couldn't. We are so grateful. We're actually quite shocked, to be honest, that yet again, we sold it out. We've also already sold out Bath and Edinburgh that we're doing in September. Sorry to those who didn't get tickets, but we will hopefully be doing more shows in 2024. And Alice Rennel apologising if this comes over the podcast. I'm sitting in Blazing Sunshine in Cape Cod, and there's some very hardworking American out there with some kind of lawn mowing device, Bath and Edinburgh.

1:39And you have a bit of a sniff I'm picking up. Are you ill? Got really, really bad hay fever. Oh, I'm sorry. And I'm breathing badly. Have you always had that? Well, I've always had it. But some days I get it, the last couple of days has been horrific. And I barely slept last night with just been horrible. I'm sorry. This is what happens if you spend too much time watching cricket.

2:01It's a hay fever, particularly bad. It's because they keep mowing the lawn or something. I don't know what is. No, I think there's something going on in the air at the moment. Grace, my daughter has got it really badly as well. I mean, it's been horrible here in the states. In New York, I went for a walk along the High Line, which is that amazing, planted tram line. And the Canadian wildfire particles in the air. Oh, yeah. And all the websites saying, do not go outside dangerous levels and people taking their kids out of playgrounds. It's very, very unpleasant. And I do know that, you know, I know that Cedetcarns, you, you, Les extension plans are quite controversial.

2:36But I do feel when I'm in London, compared to say when I'm in, you know, I don't know Scotland or, you know, Scottish Highlands or you know, the countryside ran burnley. I find it much harder to keep my breath at the levels that it needs to be and not get weasy. I do get very weasy in life, I spend a lot of time with them. Oh, it's a terrible thing. And I mean, I know my my criticism as Cedetcarnatch is that he didn't move more quickly. I think the air quality in Britain is a total disgrace. Probably, you know, 26 ,000 or more people a year dying prematurely because of our all types of pollution.

3:13That's the night shouldn't dioxide. That's self -adioxide. This is particular marker. But here's the facts on this one. The forest fires in Canada's early May have generated nearly 600 million tons of CO2. That's equivalent to 88 % of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions from all sources in 2021. Well, talking of total discracers, James Reese, watched the I watched the dispatches program on Johnson Lebedeff. Why hasn't there been immediate action taken to investigate treason? I thought that was a really, really strong series of things. And I thought they did it well. Did you know finding credible?

3:50It didn't get, I think got picked up by the rest of the media because it was a channel for documentaries. The BBC didn't cover it as far as I saw. I thought it was absolutely scandalous. And actually, they told the story very well. They had some very strong people to interview, including some ex MI6 figures and Simon McDonald, who was the permanent section, the foreign office. They told the story well. It was a shocking story. But anyway, we've talked about that. So, I like it. So, anyone interested? They can go back to the last week's show. Here's the question. Jesse Grimmand. No, Jesse Grimmand, I think I might know Jesse Grimmand.

4:24After many years of debate about Europe, is it time to wage a weary peace unbrexit and devote the oxygen of politics to waging a climate and biodiversity war? As Zach Goldsmith has pointed out, the PM is clearly not committing his troops in the small window of opportunity for mitigation. So, to remind listeners, a Lord Goldsmith resigned as a junior environment minister. And in doing so, criticized Rishi Sienak for not doing enough on climate. And we should point out, Zach Goldsmith is a big, big supporter of Boris Johnson. And this may well have played into this. What did you make for that? Look, I think Zach Goldsmith, despite that, those connections to Johnson, I think he does have relatively serious credentials on the environment.

5:09But I've been involved in a few resignation letters in my time, Minister of Resignations. I thought it was one of the most brutal I've ever seen. And it really was quite personal about Sienak. And obviously, there is politics involved in that, probably related to Boris Johnson. Yeah, the politics on that was that Sienak's reply said, didn't he, that in the first paragraph before he thanked him for service, he said, we'd ask you to apologize for your attacks on the Privilegeist Committee. This is the Privilegeist Committee, which had criticized Boris Johnson. And you declined to do so. Although I think Zach Goldsmith then subsequently come out saying he had apologized for his attacks on the Privilege Committee.

5:46But Sienak doesn't really, you don't get the sense when Sienak is out there talking about things that matter to him. You don't really get the sense that he has any real commitment on the climate. I mean, it's not one of his five priorities that he takes around with him in that backdrop. I can't recall, I actually, I look at, for example, I can recall David Cameron making speeches about the environment. I can recall that photograph of him up in the Arctic Circle. Yeah, I can recall him even though he didn't deliver it. I can recall him saying he was going to lead the greenest government ever. I don't sense that Sienak is on this pitch or thinks that he should be on this pitch.

6:26And I think this goes back to this problem with the right wing who frankly think this whole net zero thing is for the birds. I mean, the right wing papers are always sort of, you know, taking the side that I would argue is sort of pretty close to climate change denial. One of the things that's made me very sad and this actually is another listener who wrote in, who's asked to remain anonymous. But Sir Frenemain has said that one of the things that we should focus on is how sad it is that by leaving the European Union, Britain has dropped out of some of the very good moves that the Commission's now making on reuse of glass, for example.

6:59I mean, one of the disgraces in Britain is that the glass companies under both labor and conservative run these extraordinary lobbying operations to try to convince politicians that somehow it's not economical to recycle glass or reuse glass, which is mad. I mean, all the way across Europe, people do it. Glass can be reused a hundred times without any degradation in it. And yet it suits the bottom line of these companies to pretend it can't be done at all and keep making new stuff. Now, here's a great question. Steve Phillips, was there ever a meeting where you felt completely out of your depth and didn't know what to do?

7:38And how did you react? Panic, bluster or other? It's something we've likely all encountered at one time and other, interested to know if you too haven't how you handled it. I can remember going to a lecture at university by somebody called George Steiner. George Steiner, I can do a good impression at George Steiner. Can you? I remember going to hear him at the university as well. He went, he said, in the Talmudic tradition, in which there is a prohibition not just on the name of God, but on the name of the name of God, we approach Plato's nomi, his latest and most terrible work, whose only word I can find to describe it is enormatee in which the Epsilon stresses not privates emphasizing that, which is outside the norms.

8:20How can you remember that? Well, it's a rather struck me at the time. What I was going to say is that I went to see this lecture and I then sort of hung around thinking, I'd likely sort of have a chat with him afterwards. And then I just felt completely unworthy. I thought this case is too clever. I cannot go and talk to him. I'm not on his level. Nobody in politics has ever had life at home. He has to say. I think the experience of a politician as a working politician is that we're perpetually out of our depth and we're completely out of our depth all the time. I mean, the idea that we can actually have our minds around all the different countries in the world, all the different departments, the government.

8:59And of course, that's the assumption you go on question time or somebody sticks a microphone in your face and you're supposed to have a snappy answer to which taxes would you cut if you had a choice or what are you going to do about the ambulance service in the northwest of England? And so you're perpetually kind of blanking. And one of the reasons why politicians seem so grotesque and artificial is that we're very bad at saying, frankly, I don't know. No, that is absolutely right. I mean, I look on a more superficial level. So when we were talking to Paul Nurse, the great scientist at the Krik Institute, which is a future episode of leading, I mean, I felt out of my depth in that when he talked about, you know, cell splitting.

9:41I didn't really have a sense of what he was talking about. But the great thing I think about being in the political world or being in the media is you can ask questions. And, you know, that's how you get on their level is in a way by asking questions. But I felt with George Stider that there was any question I asked he would sort of look at me and think, you know, I pretty, pretty, probably, probably would like to, probably would like to write our labor to blame for Russian influence in UK politics. Next one, the whole Russian influence in UK politics and the X KGB sky. So this is Alexander Lebedev.

10:18Buying British newspapers started while labor were in part. Boris Johnson was the end destination, but labor helped get it all started. And I still always seems to gloss over this. I think that's where I'm fair on you actually, to be honest, in the last thing you did actually mention the fact that Peter Madison was involved and it was John Gondelis. Anyway, never seems to wants to discuss it at length. I'd be interested in hearing about more about this, why labor let it happen, what they hope to achieve from letting X KGB spies settling and buying influence. And also what should be done about it now?

10:45Okay, well, maybe a question related to that from John Dennis, how might a labor government reform the media? What could Starmer do to stop the likes of GB news during to the UK? What Fox News did to the US? I've said before I do think that actually there would be nothing wrong in having some sort of nationality recognition in relation to media ownership. I do think it's wrong that so much of our media is owned by people who have got who don't pay tax here, who are parts of bigger global political entities, their players, not, I mean, the numbers, the figures of the sums that are being lost by the people back in GB news, because they don't care about the money, it's about buying influence.

11:26When you see Peter Madison speech on the House of Lords justifying Lebedev taking over the standard and the independent, which was on the documentary. Yeah, which was on documentary. He points out that, of course, without him, these things are going to crash. And one of the fundamental problems is these things are massively lost making. And so long as you're asking for people to take over completely lost making enterprises, you are inviting people either with unbelievable sums of money, many of whom live overseas, or people with an incredible conflict of interest who had prepared to invest hundreds of millions of pounds into lost making enterprises to achieve political objectives.

12:05So one of the problems structurally is that these things are not going businesses, are they? No, exactly. And that's why people I refer to Murdoch have made themselves not as powerful, but one of the, you know, he's also incredibly wealthy. But I think today you're not going to get rich by one of these old fashioned newspapers. Indeed, I don't know if you saw that the the Venus Cytle in Austria, which is the oldest national newspaper in the world, it's printed its final edition after 320 years. So the newspapers are struggling. And if you look at the even standard, I mean, it's a very, very, very thin paper now.

12:44So somebody like Lebedev wants it in part as the, as Nick Swan rightly says, to be an influential player within British society. Well, I mean, there's an incredible graph online on the decline of newspapers. So on billions of today's dollars, it rises from 1950, newspaper print revenue, 20 billion dollars by the year 2000, it peaks 70 billion dollars. And then it falls off a cliff by 2015 down to sort of just over 11 billion dollars. And it's, this is partly isn't it about the collapse and advertising. And one of the things that the rise of social media is done is move a lot of the advertising revenue away from printed newspapers to other places.

13:29Absolutely. And, you know, newspapers, and newspapers are not newspapers are fighting for their life. And, you know, some of them, frankly, it wouldn't bother me if they went to the wall. But I do think at the moment we need good, healthy journalism more than ever, because we're living in this post truth political world. The problem is that a lot of our media are part of that post truth world. They're not actually challenging the liars. They're part of them. And what financial strategies they have to pursue is very difficult, isn't it? So most newspapers around the world dropping a readership by two or three percent a year, year on year.

14:03The number of newspaper firms is absolutely, extraordinary. The US, if you look at a graph goes from 6 ,202 ,000 to about 4 ,200 today. It's just in every bit of the industry is collapsing and that leaves you very vulnerable to unscrupulous billionaires come in. Absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, I don't think I've glossed over it. And I think I broadly agree with the thrust of the question. But I think I guess the point was the one that Peter Mandel was making. And I can't remember at the time, to be honest, was there anybody else that was into buyer? I think you're always fine people who want to buy newspapers.

14:36But those figures you've just given us show that it's a story, you know, moving from their perspective in the wrong direction. The POSNOT has Alistair ever thought of returning to the classroom and teaching as Rory did, but not the royals. I think he means not for me to teach the royals. He, that's me, always seems so great with the students he makes. Thank you very much. Beautiful. And they need modern languages teachers. I am going to a lot of schools at the moment. And I'm actually, I can't tell you Rory. I don't know whether you're going to do something like this with your book when it comes out, but it's giving me so much sort of hope that things might not be as bad as I thought when I was writing the first part of the book.

15:16Because I just think there is, you know, I was in a school last week where the kids were just like, they were on it in a way that I just think we don't maybe sometimes feel when we're with older people. Well, I think almost anytime I get out and meet anyone I feel cheered up, it's generally the graphs that make me gloomy. But you'd be a great teacher. Do you know the sort of teaching there, did you? I taught, I did teach for a year when I was a student because I did languages and I taught in Nisse. I was an Assiste d 'Anglais. I don't think I am a very good teacher. I think I'm a, I think I'm a good motivator and I can hopefully inspire a few people.

15:53But I think my kids would would admit I'm not very patient when it's patient. That's right. That's it. You're not famous for your patients. I don't have that patience. I think, you know, I want people to, if I explain something once, worry, that should be enough. I've explained it clearly. Why can't you understand it? So no, I don't think I'd be a great teacher. But I do love going into schools and I love the fact that I'm feeling so much kind of political passion in there right now. On language teaching, just quickly before we move off it, I really loved learning languages after I left school, really enjoyed it.

16:25And I really enjoyed just chatting to people and learning to talk. But I didn't adjust the tool well to the way in which languages were taught at my school at Eton, which was much more about formally memorising 60 words and evening, focusing on the grammar rules, very, very kind of structural approach to it rather than sort of chitchatting away. Do you think that sometimes people are put off or is it just that certain people's minds work differently and maybe the more structured approach works for some and the more chatty approach for I think you have to have both. And luckily, I did have both, but when I was at school, because we had, you know, it is interesting how you remember your teachers.

17:05I mean, my German teacher, Mr. Webster, I just, I loved the way he taught. But at the same time, we went out and had conversations with real Germans and we went, you know, this is the other wretchedness of this bloody Brexit thing, the whole kind of school trip thing. You know, the first time I ever went abroad was on a school trip, and it was, I was able to speak French and German on both, on the trip, because we went to Belgium and went to Germany. And we had both, and then we also had students who came from France to, you know, to be in our school. And, you know, you could, if you're interested, you could, you could have conversations with them as well.

17:42So I think, I think you need both, but let's be honest, we're just not, we are not good at languages. And I think it's part of the whole post -emphi thing, you know, we, we expect everybody to speak English. And, you know, I'm with you, I get such, do you get such joy out of learning you new things in front of like, it's an amazing lecture and it's, it's obviously difficult to afford, but if you can do it, my, the best experience I ever had was I had three months in, in Indonesia and Jakarta, so a few hundred miles outside the capital city, where I did two hours one on one with one teacher, then two hours one on one with another teacher, then two hours one on one with a third teacher every day.

18:21So I'd do six hours, conversation practice every day with three different voices, homework and evening, do it again the next day. And I found within three months, I'd made so much progress in a way that I never would have been able to in a couple of lessons a week in school. I don't know, I think labor, well, there's a lot of stuff to do education, but I really do wish we'd get back on the, on the languages front. What about this one? John Daniels, Australia's now legalized the use of psychedelics for treating mental health, mental illness. Do you perhaps think the UK government is sleeping on their potential?

18:53Another one, Jack Webb, Australia's legalized psychedelics and MDMA for use of mental health conditions, off the back of evidence, largely from the UK. Some US states and parts of Western Europe have already moved on this, when will we catch up to implement the science done here? Funnily enough, in this very building where I am, I'm at in Chizek. On the way I was walking in here, guys taught me and told me he was on a research program for psychedelics starting tomorrow. He's had to come off his antidepressants. I was actually offered the chance of doing it, but I was too scared to come off my antidepressants.

19:28You have to come off the antidepressants before you go on the psychedelics program. But it is really interesting that the, most of the research work has been done here. And now Australia has taken that huge step forward. And it's just something you advise the Labour government to talk about in the lead up election. Would it just create too much controversy and distract from where they're going? Well, I'd love to hear the Labour government talk about more about mental health. But I don't know whether it would. I mean, I think people are kind of ready for a more grown up discussion on mental health and in fact on drugs.

20:02I mean, when we were talking the main podcast about France, we didn't really get into the issue of drugs, but there's a lot of people in the Marseille area saying that they could stop all this trouble down there. They think, or most of it, if they just took the cry amount of drugs and created a market and then created proper health care system around it, etc. When I made a BBC documentary about depression, I followed this guy who was on this psychedelics program and he had cried. I mean, such awful depression and it had ever since a really horrible abusive childhood. And he said that when he was on this program, it was the best he's ever been.

20:42But then he had to come off it because it's not legal because it's a close -to -class -aid drug. Yeah. Okay, Neil Lawson, Mark Ravett asks, when 83 % of Labour Party members want proportional representation, but a small creek at the top of the Labour Party try to hound out people like Neil Lawson. What should members trade unions and local parties do? So what's this Neil Lawson sorry because we had another Labour Party senior Labour Party figure hounded out about a month ago, didn't we? Forgetting on a stage with Ken Lich, what's Neil Lawson done? Oh, that's right. He retweeted people. Then he retweeted somebody suggesting that they might want to vote for another party to do some tactical voting.

21:21Is that right? I don't think he's been in spell. I think he's been sent a letter asking for an explanation because it is against the rules of the party to recommend voting for somebody else. However, this is one of the reasons why I'm perhaps a little reluctant to rejoin the Labour Party because when it comes to the general election, I am going to be urging tactical voting. We've got these violations coming up shortly. If I were living in Somerset, Labour not going to win this violation in Somerset and Froome. So I would vote Lib Dem. If I was up in Selby, I would vote Labour. But I don't know the full story.

21:58I do remember Neil Lawson when he was running Compass. He could, you know, he was a thorn in our side at times. Tell us about Compass. Tell us about Compass. What is to think tank is sort of left -leaning think tank, come up with the occasionally come up with some good ideas. And, you know, like a lot of think tanks, they get coverage and attention sometimes legitimately by criticising government policy and we were the government at the time and they could be quite critical. But I don't think we're ever a thought of kicking them out of the party. You know, the one we talked about before, Jamie Driscoll, I did have quite a lot of people in the Northeast contacted me and say, look, you know, I get what you're saying on the point of principle about sharing a platform, you can't loach, but Jamie Driscoll's not been a very effective mayor.

22:39That's not a reason to expel it, isn't it? No, but if we go back to the Australian winner or cost mentality point, you know, put it this way, that to me is a better reason than the fact that he shared a platform is somebody. Yeah. So I think Labour's going to be a bit careful on this run. The Neil Lawson Otton Guardians says that they've got rid of their even mildly radical policies. They seem to be backing away from policies on rent controls, backing away from the 28 billion poundier green transition, flirting with Rupert Murdoch. And at the same time, putting so much effort into the sort of cleaning house business of asserting the authority or the discipline of the party leader, is and why is that?

23:24Is that the Kierstame feels sort of traumatised or haunted by Labour disunity in the past? I mean, why are they so? Why would you, I mean, does it make sense to pick a fight with Neil Lawson? Why would you want to do that when the guy can immediately write an article in the Guardian saying this is outrageous attack on progressive politics? I don't think that worried about Neil Lawson as it were in particular as an individual. But I think there's no doubt that Kierstame wants to keep communicating to the public the message that this is a change Labour party, this is a serious Labour party, this is a party that's not going to allow the sort of nonsense that we had in the Corbyn years.

24:03So I guess that's what's behind this, but I'll be honest, I haven't followed it as closely as it stands that you have. So here's another question. Celia Richardson, the Times reports today that national trusters are the key to winning the next election. So what should the main party's been saying to convince the nearly six million members of the national trust and then brackets clue? We know they care about nature protection and clean waterways. The clue is an interesting one, isn't it? Because of course, I love the national trust. I mean, one of the jobs I've always dreamt of is being chair of the national trust, things the most incredible institution.