157. Question Time: Knocking over Liz Truss, Oxbridge dominance, and life under the Taliban

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1:35Welcome to TheRestisPolitics Question Time with me, Maurice Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. And Alistair, how are you? Where are you? I'm alright. I'm in France. I had a very nice time in Bucsden at the book festival. Oh yes! I loot everywhere or everywhere if you're ready. It was pouring with rain rather depressingly because it meant the cricket didn't finish because I was kind of hoping to get from Bucsden over by the test match. But no, I couldn't see anywhere. Absolutely nowhere. But they're all looking. They're all still looking, Rory. Right. Question time. Question time. Right. Let me ask the first one because I think you will be interested in this.

2:08Kelvin Zhang. Rory, based on your experience in Afghanistan, what do you think about Tobias L Woods media campaign to establish diplomatic ties with the Taliban run Afghan government where his videos portray Afghanistan as running things rather well? What are the implications for women's rights and other major points of contention with the Taliban? I mean, I think very few people will have missed this story in the UK. Tobias L Woods, who's the chair of the Defence Select Committee, returned from a visit with the Halo Trust, which is a great British mind -clearing charity. And he was an Afghanistan and came back and posted a video talking about how things in Afghanistan were better than he had feared and encouraging people to reopen diplomatic relationships with the Taliban government.

2:53And he found himself under a barrage of abuse and attack that you cannot believe. And at the end of a week, I think he retracted his video message, delicited it and apologized. Some of it was incredibly unfair. So people like Mark Francois and other sort of right -wing Brexitiers and the Defence Select Committee turned against him and basically tried to accuse him of being a sort of traitor or not patriotic enough for what he said, which is outrageous. I mean, Tobias L Woods was a serving British soldier in the regular army. His brother was killed in the terrorist attack. In Bali, he's the guy who was involved in tackling a terrorist at the front door of Parliament.

3:36So it's particularly horrible to see him being accused of somehow being a traitor. Especially by something like Mark Bloody Francois. I think Tobias L Woods is one of the more impressive Tory MPs and that's not just because I find he says the right things on things like Brexit. I think he's actually of he thinks quite deeply. I think he looks at stuff from a pretty rounded perspectives and I think he's clever. And also, when we talk to my good friend Jonathan Powell on leading a few weeks ago now, he is always of the view that no matter what the state of play with whatever government or whatever organization you may have to deal with, you do have to deal with them.

4:13I thought the the reaction was over the top. Yeah, I mean, so on Afghanistan, which is obviously a country where I used to live and where I still have many, many friends and Shishana was there three weeks ago. I think it's very difficult getting the balance right on how you talk about it and I guess this is where Tobias got in trouble. On the one hand, the Taliban is a chauvinistic patriarchal organization that is banning women from school, banning women from working in NGOs in the U .N. and appears to make taking women out of the workplace and education completely central to their policies. But it's also true that Afghanistan is more peaceful now than it was during the intervention, the U .S.

4:58UK intervention. So 20 years of extreme violence, it's now much more peaceful. You can travel from Kabul up to Bamiya in the mountains and stop for picnics by the roadside security is good. It's questionable whether you should be giving much credit to the Taliban because of that because the Taliban, of course, for the people mounting the attack. So of course, it's a bit more peaceful because they're not blowing people up anymore, but it is more peaceful. And if you are a woman from Hellman province in southern Afghanistan and there's a really, really good article which we can share a written by a U .S.

5:30journalist called Anam Gopal about this. In many ways, their lives were horrifying during the 20 years, the intervention. And what the Taliban has delivered, which is a bit more stability, peace and security, will be for women in conservative villages in the south. Feel more important than the loss of rights which they felt were largely a privilege of people living in cities like Kabul. So it's a complicated story. And I think the big question, though, is the one that you've posed from Jonathan Powell, which is, doesn't make sense to keep trying to punish and sanction the Taliban. If it has no impact on the Taliban government, on all it ends up doing, is leaving the Afghan people in extreme poverty and destitution because the idea that you can change the Taliban's behavior by sanctioning them is, I think, for the birds that the Taliban are not kind of politicians who want to go shopping and harrots.

6:28They are people who've been living in caves fighting an extreme ideological fight and who get energy from being excluded by the world and marginalized. And particularly not providing development assistance is not hurting the Taliban leadership. It's hurting ordinary Afghan people. What about this one? How do you oust an absent MP? This is from somebody called Joe Tyler, who identifies as a mid -betfature constituent. Why is it so difficult slash impossible for us constituents to demand a violation? There are 30 ,000 of us, unrepresented at the moment, is hugely frustrating. Good MPs really do make a difference on local issues and they do good work on behalf of their constituents, whatever their party allegiance.

7:10Because this is about Nadine Dorries, who very, very, very, very close friend of Boris Johnson, didn't get sent to the House of Lords, has been throwing a sort of very, very high profile tantrum in the media and on television ever since. He's making shed loads of money from newspapers and television stations. Never goes to Parliament. Said at the time she was immediately resigning from Parliament to violation and it hasn't happened. So we did pass and I think I voted for it, an act in 2015 called the Recall of MPs Act. So it doesn't allow constituents to initiate proceedings, but it is an improvement.

7:46So if an MPs found guilty of a wrongdoing and there's a petition, which at least one in 10 voters, the constituency sign, the successful petition can force the recalled MP to vacate the seat. And that's happened two out of three times so far. So the classic examples would be people like Dennis McShayne after a court case, which triggered the 2011, rather than by election. And it's called a recall procedure. And it was used against Fiona on a Sanya, who was the Labour MP, who got a custodial sentence for a year. There was an unsuccessful attempt against Ian Pacey Jr. And then there was a successful attempt against Christopher Davis, who was the Conservative and Breckner -Radnischer.

8:24So one Conservative, one Labour MP have been taken out by these new procedures we brought in in 2015. Presumably would it be used against Johnson? How do you not jump? Yeah, I don't know whether it would have pushed the threshold. I mean, in the cases of Fiona on a Sanya and the Conservative MP, they had done some pretty bad things. And if Fiona on a Sanya, I think got a suspended one year prison sentence. So these were sort of criminal offenses that allowed young citizens to trigger. But probably not the threshold to get rid of Nadine Doris in midbedfature. I mean, it is very enjoyable to see Peter Kyle.

9:00He's running the bio -electric campaigned midbeds without a bio -electric at the moment, but because she still hasn't resigned. And there's some talk that she's going to, she's writing a book. And she will, I think the talk is that the book will come out just before the Tory party conference, to do maximum damage to Sue and I can then she'll have the bi -election. So we could be talking about October and November. Yeah. She's vicious. She's vindictive. She's part of this very small extreme Boris Johnson fan club. She seems to hate Richie Sue and Ike. And of course, as we will have seen with the three last bi -elections, bi -elections are things that can really upset the narrative for a sitting government or even for the opposition.

9:42So if her bi -election had happened at the same time as all the others, it would have been lost and the general narrative about whether to celebrate Selby or if you're from the Labour point of view, be worried about Uxbridge. But by making it something of her entiming, she will be doing it in a completely disloyal way to damage the Conservative party in Richie Sue and Ike. There's absolutely no way she's doing it for any other reason. No. For a Labour to take midbeds is even bigger than Selby. And of course, the other difference is that both the main opposition parties will think they're in with a shout.

10:12So it will be a very interesting test of whether Labour and the Lib Dems can actually maybe come to some sort of arrangement. Question for you. Rob McIver. In the run up to general elections, the latest polls get more media attention than policies and arguably can influence how people vote. Should it be illegal to publish a poll once an election has been called? Well, in some countries, it is illegal to publish polls within certain time frame. And look, I sometimes call opinion polls the junk food of political journalism. They're the easiest way to get talking points, to get coverage, to get stories going.

10:48I find them unattributedious. And I completely agree with the questioner, election campaigns are meant to be the place where the country gets the chance to argue about and debate the differences between the parties on policy and the ideas they have. And yes, the personalities as well. But if every day all you read about is the kind of tactical expression of what's happening in the campaign, I don't think it adds to the sum total of knowledge at all. So I think polling is important. I think it's pollsters, serious pollsters, I think have an important role to play. But the way that polls get used in the sort of incessant, blah, factory that the 24 or 7 users become, I think we need fewer of them and let's talk about them.

11:31Right. Westminster's drinking culture. Andrew Douglas, why is Westminster still built around a drinking culture? It feels very outdated. Six subsidized bars, here of MPs running back drunk when the division bell's ring. My experience is just sort of quickly, there was a Labour MP when I joined with the MP for Falkert called Eric Joyce, who was an eccentric character. I remember him, I asked him what he was doing with his summer holidays. We were chatting in the members lobby. And he said he was volunteering as a bodyguard to man a heavy machine gun on a boat to protect it against Somali pirates.

12:03He was proposing to spend his summer recess manning a heavy machine gun on a boat in the Red Sea. Sounds like you're kind of guy. Yeah, well, exactly. So obviously we bonded a little bit about that. But then his great De Numon, he unfortunately left a parliament for I did because he was in the House of Commons bar, got in a massive sort of physical bus stop with various Tories in the bar, when he had a few drinks he really didn't like. And as it was described to me by the MPs who were in the bar, the police came running. Security for House Commons grabbed Eric Joyce. And Eric Joyce massively drunk had this moment of cunning where he said, it is forbidden to lay hands on a member of parliament within the precincts of the palace of Westminster.

12:48And they let go of him just for a second. So he could leap across the room and head bath another MP at the bar. I should laugh. I sometimes think that my two worlds have been journalism and politics. And actually I was at a funeral the other day of a wonderful woman called Gloria Sharp who was secretary at the Daily Mirror. Although she was a lot more than that. So there were lots of my old mirror colleagues who were there. And I would say that those two cultures journalism and politics, I think the drinking culture has gone in the opposite direction to the rest of the country. It's true there are lots of subsidized bars.

13:22But I think when I was a journalist in the commons, it used to people see people like Eric Joyce literally bouncing off walls the whole time. I don't think you see that very much anymore. I could be wrong. No. No, I think it's got, I think it's got better. I was reading Churchill's sort of lesser, I think, or maybe a diary entry from Churchill describing being the House of Commons and watching Asquith who was then Prime Minister. Getting up at the dispatch box late at night, the votes used to go obviously to two, three in the morning. And Asquith was so drunk that he could barely hold on to the dispatch box and barely get a word out as Prime Minister.

13:55And Churchill says it's only the kind of mafia code of or murder or silence that we have with the House of Commons that prevents us exposing this. I mean, and that's something I was thinking about when I was writing my book. I mean, the politics on the edge is sort of which I'm obviously plugging now. Is an attempt to really take you behind the scenes and show you what it's like being an MP. Oh my God, you'd have really the publishers blurb. I can spot publishers blurb. But one of the things that I'm doing there is to try to get around this code of silence. The sense that what Churchill picked up a hundred years ago is that MPs for more parties sort of look after each other and don't reveal very much of what's going on because they think it'll reflect badly on them.

14:40And that what I'm hoping to do in the book and I'll make a lot of enemies in doing it is lift the veil on that and try to explain just how bad and embarrassing and humiliating a lot of what's going on in the back benches is. What do you mean that now there is no the the murder is gone that people just see each other as enemies? No, no, no, no, I think it's it's there's still a huge on murder. I think people still don't actually understand the public basically obviously think politicians even what I was there are corrupt and incompetent and this and the other, but which most of which most are not which most are absolutely not many are very very you know studios hardworking generally often very hardworking constituency MPs.

15:17Nevertheless and this isn't so much a point about alcohol it's a point about the sort of humiliations of the way that the parties work the way the whips work the way that campaigning works the lack of seriousness in our system. I mean I think you're right it's not as drunk as it used to be but I do think the level of scrutiny the level of speeches all of this is calamitously low and the public doesn't know the half of it so should we take a quick break?

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16:59this is a really good question the end of prime ministers in for a decade Cameron Gray do you think Tony Blair will be the last prime minister to serve two full terms or that David Cameron will be the last to serve one five -year full term are we in a cycle of constant early dissolutions a parliament I mean you think about it so there's Tony goes from 97 to 2007 Gordon stays till 2010 David Cameron comes in serves the term leading a coalition government since when we've had one two three four prime ministers and possibly we'll have a fifth within a year well it's it's amazing is that but it's a I think a sort of global phenomenon too we you know we've seen it we've been talking about Spain yesterday on the on the main podcast and there you've seen a pattern of going from somebody sitting in 13 years to seven years to six years to five years in Britain of course it's more and more mad because you have the very short 10 years short tenure of Boris Johnson insanely short tenure of Liz Truss coinciding with people coming in younger I mean it is a sense that we live in a very accelerated culture where people lose attention lose interest very rapidly move on very quickly so I mean it's also striking we were talking about Israel on the show yesterday how different our politics has become from what it used to be in Britain and what it was like in Israel very recently in Israel a lot of people would serve as prime minister but then when they lost their positions prime minister would remain in the parliament and they would serve as defense ministers or foreign ministers and then come back again as prime minister nearly 20 years later like Paris we mentioned Shimon Perez in Israel he did that absolutely and it it happened Yitzhak Rabin was the prime minister 74 to 77 and then back 92 to 95 so he was prime minister in his early 50s and then he was prime minister in his early 70s we did have a question this week or even somebody I haven't got in front of me about whether we thought Tony Blair should come back as prime minister well I didn't know about Tony Blair coming back as prime minister but I certainly think that the pattern that started with really with John Major and Tony Blair leaving politics so soon after they've been prime minister in a sense is sad I mean in the 19th century people like Gladstone would be defeated return to the back bench as remain as these but in you had this huge deep bench of experience you didn't get a sense that you've been prime minister and then you just fear but the likelihood I'm afraid is that Frishisunak loses the next election it's not really very likely he's going to be around in 20 30 years time no he'll be off to California and so I'll have Rabin will come in and take the Tory party so far right we can barely see it there is one election that happened in recent days Roy that goes against the trend that you talked about yep we talked about it some weeks ago the general election in Cambodia yet another win yet another win for himself surprising win another astonishing win he's been there since 1984 and he has said the following the latest win where he took 120 of the 125 seats very good he said that he will at some point be handing over to his son very good very very progressive I remember having a conversation just in 2002 with an Iraqi just after Saddam Hussein had won 99 .9 % of the votes in one of these elections and I said guys it's pretty impressive 99 .9 % in the Iraqi said perhaps that is an underestimate of his vote or his popularity exactly my father -in -law is his Dan Needleman American and I British are avid lists as the podcast and often discuss the episodes and topics he regularly questions why the two of you appear to agree on many of the topics stroke issues discussed I've explained it's probably indicative of a much narrower gap between left and right in the UK than in the US be great to your thoughts on this and some of the bigger issues that the two of you disagree on well I think Dan's father -in -law is currently living in a political culture in the United States where it is so polarized and so toxic that a republicans can say literally nothing good about Joe Biden a democrat can say nothing good not just about Trump but by anybody on the other side and I think what we're trying to do part of what we're trying to do with the podcast is actually it's not necessary there aren't things we don't disagree on but that is possible to do so without hating each other I think when we talk about like for example when we talked on the main podcast yesterday about Israel you know we do fundamentally agree about how bad it is about how dangerous it is when we've talked in the past about Boris Johnson's character we fundamentally agree on that but I think there's lots of things that we disagree on I think we disagree a lot about education we probably disagree on health policy we probably have disagreements about devolution it's just that the agreements feel narrower maybe than they do I think that I think that the question Dan's right in America these disagreements feel existential well it's partly also isn't it that the right -wing populists have created such a bizarre movement if you're talking about Donald Trump or in fact the extreme answer what Boris Johnson was trying to do or what we were talking about in Israel yesterday that it sort of brings people who are unlikely bedfellows together because I'm obviously a conservative in the sense that I am suspicious about radical change I'm trying to preserve the old constitution and then you suddenly find that the right isn't conservative anymore the right has become incredibly radical and that forces the left in an odd way to become more conservative the swirly because they're having to do things that the left tradition didn't do like stand up for the past stand up for tradition constitutions court so these kinds of things stand up for the root of law and it's a very very odd sort of duchits who move that the populist right has done because obviously the left wants to focus on being progressive gently revolutionary pushing things forward changing the world and then you suddenly find people like Boris Johnson behaving so badly or Trump behaving so badly that the left has to become the kind of defender of the state as quiet although I think that the mistake that the left party whether in any country can make is if the right is disappearing way way way off to the right I argue that leaves the center ground there to be taken and I still to this day maintain that is where most people live their lives now Rory let's talk about music because this this is from Dr Sam Alistair stated several times that Rory doesn't listen to enough music to balance this I would point out I want spotted Rory at a Billy Bragg concert in Penrith leisure center I wondered at the time what was Rory the Tauri doing there at a red wedge leaders event I did feel increasingly uncomfortable for Rory as the concert progressed with Billy attacking the conservative government to the delight of the crowd does Rory remember enjoying the concert what motivated him to attend as an aside do you think particular music has had much of a role in changing things did you tell people a little bit about Billy Bragg because I guess he was somebody who's to the left of new labor right I mean he did he did protest albums against the Iraq war and stuff is all right you know back in the day Billy Bragg was one of the first musicians and celebrities of any sort really who came out with a very very clear distinct political profile and I'd say before our time was part of this movement called red wedge which was basically you know musicians who were out there very very strongly supportive of the then labor party I think it probably started in Neil Kinnex time I could be wrong he was involved in the rock against racism carnival which was back in late 1970s so this kind of goes back and yeah I think you're right would have would have probably been quite critical of new labor at times and he was pro -corpion sort of supported occupier wall street stuff like that but I don't get involved in supporting political parties I don't think they should sort of feel that their spokesmen and spokeswoman for the party but I think just having them out there adding to the general noise about politics I think is is a good thing yeah I mean I loved going to the Billy Bragg concert I thought he was an extraordinary performer but you're right he spent a lot of the concept attacking the conservative party and gently mocking me because he knew I was in the audience good for him well done Billy good for him how many concerts have you been to since Billy Bragg I've been to very very very few concerts in my life I don't know I mean you're an amazing man because you are you are the sort of amazing man of energy when I hear the number of test matches football matches rugby league matches rock concerts you go to and the amount that you managed to seem to get down I don't go too many I don't go too many rock concerts I'm not a fan of rock concert crowds but famously you you did go to one didn't you with with Boris Johnson where you got introduced to a great teenage pop star Miley Cyrus that's true by Boris Johnson who describes you as his deputy mayor he did he did the concert I've seen most this year is Abba Voyage have you seen it more than once I think I'm on to four okay now here we are dominance of Oxbridge Amor Alice to always highlights the dominance of item in recent Tory cabinets and indeed how the private the educated are in the upper echelons of politics and the civil service but how come he and Rory never mentioned the dominance of the Oxford and Cambridge educated class of which they are both apart within both Tory labour governments and advisors 13 of the last 17 primalists was were educated at the same university Oxford not exactly levelling up what do you think about that I agree with that I it's true that I probably you know dig into it and more I think I think the question is right though I think the real grip of Oxbridge is and it's not just on politics I think it's on on the the sort of you know the the class system against which is you know I I rail and rage all the time and actually class is something which we do disagree on when people talk about why we're different and where we disagree I think it isn't necessarily that we have profoundly difficult different views on NHS reform it is partly that you come from a tradition that sees class and not just economic class social class as being one of the central injustices of British life well I think it is I think it is I think you still get depending on the background you come from that is still the biggest driver of whether or not you're going to succeed in life and that's just a wrong very good question Grena BC what on earth is the Ming Vars strategy I never heard this expression in Australia is it uniquely British was that an Australian accent yeah it was brilliant no that was the question I saw a question is about what was the Ming Vars strategy and what was the pocketbook strategy these are terms that we were never here in Australia pocketbook is I think there's Harold Wilson who talked about the pocketbook is basically where you fight an election according to people's pocket how much money are they going to get or lose out of voting for party A or party B and the Ming Vars strategy is a strategy where you're clinging desperately to a lead that you don't want to lose and we've been back and forth in that I mean obviously we tend to not really like Ming Vars strategies but of course there will be people in labor who feel that the result of the by -election where they won in Selby when it was a simple would you like to get rid of the Tories and didn't win an Oxbridge where it became an issue around taxation may argue that a Ming Vars strategy is safer for Keir Starmer because he can just make the election do you want to get rid of the Tories without having to get into the question of policies what happens if you drop the Vars on the day before the election yeah that's that that sounds pretty problematic okay electronic voting the House of Commons my last question for you Nathaniel Brennan is it time to introduce electronic voting in the Commons I understand tradition but the sheer amount of time lost by shuffling through lobbies seems utterly ridiculous I would have said no if I felt that it meant that people were just going to sit in their office and press a button but when you see how few MPs attend so many of our even quite important debates I think it probably has time but I think I think the time has come to not just have electronic voting but to completely change the way that we do so much of our politics it's very odd because the it is incredibly time consuming because there are often a sequence of votes and they can happen very unpredictably so I would be chairing the House of Commons defense committee and be infuing a witness suddenly the bell goes you have to apologize to the witness race over and vote and the vote doesn't take place for eight minutes because they got to lock the doors then it takes about eight minutes to go through and then you're on your way heading back to your committee room and the bell goes again for a second vote turns out there are you know three or four votes in a row so your witness could be sitting there for an hour waiting for you to return by which time the whole sketch of the days gone wrong so there is that bit and of course as a minister it was off from very strange you couldn't be in your department actually focusing on what you were supposed to be doing you know flooding or prisons policy or whatever I was supposed to running because you were worried about votes about how to happen in the House of Commons and you just I couldn't get from my office in defra I made it once from my office in defra by knocking over Paul Liss Trust in the lobby you knocked over Liss Trust yeah so Liss Trust was my boss so Liss Trust and I were both in defra when the bell went and we attempted to run from this office which was right down Millbank to get into the House of Commons lobby in eight minutes and in the end she dropped out by the time she got to central lobby and I think I sort of knocked her sideways and she she just thought this is ridiculous can't quite make it I kept sprinting and I made it and I saw the dormant closing the door of the lobby for the vote I had my backpack on I dived full length through the door with my backpack on landing right at the feet of the whips with the dormant screaming at me saying I could injure him by knocking the door out the way like that and made it for the vote but that was the last time I tried to do that did the letters make it for the vote or was the letters led behind as well no that that sort of came crashing in on my back behind me it was it was it I mean the whips were impressed by my dedication the doorkeepers were enraged by my rudeness and crashing through a closing door but even as you even as you describe it it is I mean I think there was a time when people would have said oh that's quite quaint okay and when I did an event recently with Charles Walker at the House of Lords it's not as the commons this happens and the Lord so we were doing this we were doing this event on mental health and I think twice during our event fairly sizable section of the audience you know bell the bell rings and up they go and off they total I actually remember thinking at the time that a lot of the people who weren't MPs or weren't peers who 20 years ago would have thought oh that's democracy in action that's quite quaint that's quite interesting so they just found it quite irritating well this is one of the things that politics on the edge is trying to focus on is trying to explain how these daily weirdnesses are so central to an MP's life we often think about MPs and politics in terms of manifestos we don't think enough about the very very strange ways that the hours and weeks and lives of MPs are spent and one of the advantages of voting lobbies of course is it's your only chance to talk to colleagues because you're locked in the lobby for minutes at a time queuing to go through that was the point of which when Theresa May was prime minister I could grab her and get her permission to fly to Zimbabwe be the first British minister in Zimbabwe for 20 years which was being blocked by the system but I got the prime minister next to me and the lobby and got it through so any other prime minister's names you'd like to drop in this conversation generally I was trying to avoid David Cameron while going through the lobbies but yeah it's it's the chance to grab the colleague it's the chance to grab the defense minister and say oh I didn't get an answer to that email that I sent you chance to beg someone to back you on a vote for a select committee etc and all that because the House comms doesn't sit late at night MPs used to get to know each other in the evening I mean notoriously in the bar but now that's gone people go home there's many fewer chances to actually get to know other MPs in the lobby it's one of the few moments where you're locked in and able to do that Lewis Minion how can parties encouraging young people as an 18 -year -old member of the Labour Party says Lewis I'm very pleased that the 25 -year -old here may the one the Selby and Ansty violation what do the both of you think that the main party should do to encourage more young people to become engaged in politics I think actually the best thing to do is to have your own children and send them into the House of Lords I think I'll take a seat in the House of Lords and I'll send my three children in there that seems to be the best thing to do as infants yeah yeah I think so I think we should all be I think we should all be able to send our children to them the second best thing you can do which I would recommend all parties is to buy a copy of but what can I do that's very good and I do think within that you'll find lots of ideas for the parties to get me young people motivated and involved we definitely need it all right bye bye thank you all the best bye