163. Question Time: Privatisation vs. Nationalisation

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0:48Welcome to the Restus Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Gumball. For a good analysis, you have a very, very splendid shirt on. I have what you call my Penrith vet shirts on. But you have something which looks more like Saturday night live. It's a car driving across my chest. That's very good. I'm already into cars. Fiona has this sort of desire, I think, for me to be a man that I'm not. Oh, so she regularly will go out and buy me shirts like this. Well, it's interesting because you definitely have a desire for me to be a man that I'm not. So I think you're obviously passing.

1:23Rory, I have no desire over you. You do not have a pet shop for pet shoulders, I have me to be a football loving, fear -drinking dude. Can you remember the name of the Bulgarian and Estashlaw footballer? No, sadly not. Go on, what's his name again? Custodidoff. Listen, let's get a couple of quick, easy ones out the way to start with, okay? I'm going to reward some perseverance. Michael Reese, question attempt number 18. And I've checked, he has asked his question 18 times. So stop winging all you people as they have asked his question eight times, nine times, 10 times. Michael Reese's question is quite simple, Rory.

1:56Will we go to Cardiff to do a show in 2024? Wales is the only nation in the UK that we've not hosted a show yet. And we'll definitely go to Wales and Cardiff sounds like a good spot, right? Yeah, well, that doesn't have to be Cardiff. I think we've got to be, you know, but I, by the way, Michael, have been to Wales at least three times in the last few months. And there's another very quick snappy one we can do, Rory. She, on were our MP. Few people are going to touch to say on a recent podcast, you couldn't think of any MPs with a scientific background. So I thought I'd send you a link to the BBC's Life Scientific episode that covered mine.

2:27So there you go. We'll put them in the newsletter. I'd like to pay tribute to Chi. So Chi did a lot with me in the early days on mobile coverage and broadband. And absolutely she is a person with a serious scientific background as of course, as I've pointed out, is Teresa Coffey, who's got a doctorate in strange bits of biochemistry. And whose name keeps appearing in stories about the pending reshuffle? Ah, hey, hope. Now let's have a couple here on education, even though the first one from Kate Grant is only the eighth time that she's asked it. Kate from Bucston, over 20 % of secondary age young people have been persistently absent from school this year.

3:04And the suspension rate is 49 % higher in 2022 than in 2017. Is the education system in England fundamentally broken? If so, how can it be fixed? Cath, given the growing rates of absences in our schools, is our education system fit for purpose anymore and should educators rather than politicians not be at the forefront of a complete oval? Why aren't labor being bolder in their education policy? As currently, it seems to be more of the same. So what do you think accounts for the growing absence system school? What's going on there? I think a lot of it's COVID. I think it's children who got used to not going to school and then found out to go back.

3:40But actually, if I can plug an excellent piece, which answers partly answers both questions from somebody, I think you probably met her actually, or somebody called Fiona Miller, who's a writer and a journalist specialising in education and parenting issues. Yeah, that's right. Fiona Miller, yes sir. You've heard of Fiona Miller? Yes, I've heard of her, yes. Yeah, I know her very, very well. She's the mother of my three children. Yes, exactly. Anyway, we should put in the newsletter a piece of your own the guardian, which just tried to answer this question. And I think the final point is partly because of some of the things that Michael Gove and his wisdom undid that the labor government put in place.

4:13A lot of the support that's there for teachers has gone and a lot of the outside school support has gone. I saw your friend, Julian Keegan recently said that teachers should sort of, you know, kids aren't turning up, this school should go and find them and all them back in. But of course, the schools are pretty overwhelmed as it is. So I think there's a whole load of things that were taken away, that have not been replaced, and that the schools are operating at full pelt, and they're just not able to keep up with some of these kids who are not there. Gosh. I was also really actually the US Department of Education struggling with the same thing.

4:44They've got about 16 % absenteeism, and they're people with non -native English much more likely to be absent, people with disabilities much more likely to be absent. I mean, it is such a problem. Shishana taught in very difficult schools, both in Harlem and in Boston, and there they did literally go to people's homes to try to find children, bring them in. And as you say, it's incredibly time -consuming. I mean, it's sort of half -break that teachers try to stay on top of that. And I do think the point of labor, and we talked in the main podcast about the government being behind on the NHS, I do think education, I really like Phillips, and nothing, it should be a secretary of state.

5:22But I think within the public debate, partly I think because the current education secretary, Jillian Keegan, is I think pretty low profile and doesn't say much about education. It's just vanished from the debate. It's not at the center of our debate about what sort of future we want as a country. And of course, we're going in the next couple of weeks, we're going to get A levels, we're going to get GCSE results, and we're going to get them at a point where you've had kids who have the whole COVID experience bad enough, and then now you also have had the teacher strives, some of the marking issues have not been resolved.

5:51You're going to have all sorts of kids not getting downgraded because of some of the changes that have been made in the marking systems. And I just think these are things that because they're not, if I may revisit one of my central things, because so many of our leading journalists and editors use private schools, I don't think they focus on education nearly as much as they should. And I think that is another reason why the politicians don't focus on as much as they should either. So here's a couple of questions I think. Sam Calvert Smith, a while ago, you pledged to do a good news only episode.

6:25I realized it's almost impossible at the moment, but wondered if between you, you could find any good news that we are, so come on some good news for us. Well, look, one person is the definition of news that was one of the greatest definition of news ever. News is something that somebody somewhere doesn't want to see printed, right? So I would argue that is good news that Donald Trump has been indicted again, right? But it's bad news for Donald Trump. But you know, we talked the other day about there's a serious point to this because we talked recently about the Canadian legislation where they're changing the arrangements with Metter and Google.

7:01And what have you? When we were looking into that, I came across this piece on the conversation, which had some figures. I think it for the UK was 46 % of people who now deliberately avoid the news. That's massive. It's an example, even when it's fatal for politics because politics at the central of the news and obviously democracy depends on informed citizens and holding people accountable. And once almost half your population is actively refusing to visit these, how on earth are you supposed to hold politicians accountable? Yeah. So here's a good bit of news for you. Scientists have found a naturally occurring strain of bacteria, which can stop transmission malaria.

7:37That is good news. That's quite exciting. So they went and looked at the 2014 experiment, went back and looked at it again. And they think that this may be a real breakthrough. And of course, malaria still kills 600 ,000 people every year. So there we are. There's something a little bit of good news for you. Generally, if you go on the BBC, BBC's got uplifting news. But most of it tends to be about teddy bears stuck on the top of mountains or rescuing dolphins and dogs. Listen, I try to defend the BBC. The BBC's online top 10 stories is becoming absurd and ridiculous at times. The BBC is a serious news organisation.

8:12Can they please focus on serious news? Thank you very much. Over and out. Right. Dan Taylor, I'm enjoying reading Rory's book about the Scottish borders walks with his dad. I love the reference to his dad saying, Archimedes, every time T is why is this Rory? And he follows up for Alistair. If you've been brought up by Rory's father, can you imagine how your worldview might differ? Do you think he would gravitate into being a Tory? Okay, let me try Archimedes and then we'll throw this thing. So my father was completely, I think he would have enjoyed meeting him. He was born in 1922. He fought in the war.

8:45He became an intelligence officer. He was trained to land in small submarines off the coast of Orneo during Confrontation with Sucano. He was a passionate scot. He was very close to his brother. They were just two little boys. Their father was in India. My grandfather was in India. And these two little boys grew up in Kirimura and Angus and then went off to water together and his brother, who was just a year old and was killed fighting with the Black Watch insistly. And my father never really, I think, developed close male friends again after that. Is that why you joined the Black Watch by the way?

9:17Yes, my father, my uncle, my grandfather, my great -grandfather. My father was so proud of being scoshished and kind of petulently and childishly anti -English at almost every opportunity he was given. Would he want Australia to beat England in the women's world cup semi -final tomorrow? Well, I think he'd be quite amused by that sort of thing. But his sort of Scottishness was much more about he loved trying to improve his gallic. He loved playing his chanta. He was very interested in Scottish music, Scottish place names. He was very interested in. I mean, he'd wear tartan trues and Vietnam to give a sort of sense of kind of how what a sort of campaigning scot he was.

9:58Anyway, the Archimedes point is that he was terrified about the fact that when he wore a teapot, he worried that the lids going to fall off the teapot. And Archimedes was some sort of way of him talking about the leverage problems. He actually basically felt the entire family were really messy and that all we were ever going to do was party or over the place. And as a result, his mother -in -law was so terrified by him that every time he came to visit her, she'd just party everywhere. Right, the bid for me, if I had been brought up by your father, can I imagine that my worldview might differ? Yes, do I think I would therefore have gravitated to be a Tory?

10:34Definitely not. Absolutely not. It would have made me even more labour. I must tell you, I wasn't going to tell you this until I saw you face to face, but I am carrying with me because you have a significant birthday coming up. Oh, yes. A book written by the man in the Foreign Service who followed your dad in Hanhaui. Oh, but unlike your dad, he traveled with a really, really high quality camera and do some amazing photographs and has published a rather beautiful book about his time in Hanhaui. They're just after you're there left. So there you go. So I've got a copy of that book for you, which I shall be presenting to you from my friend, John Ramzdan, on your significant birthday.

11:15There you are. Freddie, do it. What is your view on Dominic Cummings' startup party, brackets, C -substack brackets? Where is he right wrong on the problems with the status quo party and whitehall setups? Focus on media rather than voters. Systems thinking approach to politics and government lack of a imagine and the key problems in policy areas for the UK. No, I haven't read Dominic Cummings' piece on substack, but if he's saying that there should be a new startup top party or that if there is one, it should focus on the problems with the status quo party, whitehall setups, focus on media not voters, systems thinking approach, etc.

11:53Then I know these are things that he's banged on about for some time. And I think, although I come at it from a very, very different political perspective to here, I do think there is something fundamentally wrong with our politics. And I think it's partly what gave us Brexit. I think it's partly what's given us this succession of I think pretty useless prime ministers. And it's partly what's making people frustrated that the Labour party is not sort of coming in with that sense of real change and radical change that the country is coming out for. Yeah, so Cummings, I'm coming to really interesting character.

12:24I think he's a he has actually done a lot of harm. I think him endorsing and getting behind Boris Johnson was terrible. Because I think Boris Johnson was a terrible, terrible prime minister in Dominic Cummings enabled him and should bear responsibility for that. And it's no good him. Them saying now that he's left are the guys like a shopping trolley careering around. He shouldn't know that in advance and he shouldn't have enabled that. But of course, what he is good at is that the negative critique bit. I don't think he's actually very good at positively running the country. But his critique, which he put in his sub stack, I think you'd agree with a lot of.

12:56He says that Rishi Tuneck is diligent, but is mostly dealing with second order issues. And this then is his criticism. He says there's no grip of power. He says the cabinet office is a dumpster fire. There's no governing plan for the NHS crime, the war productivity growth R &D or anything else. No message, no serious polling communications or political machine. No political strategy worth spent a humiliating awful level of argument on every major issue, reduced to defending idiot MPs and political disintegration. So as with a lot of these people, I think he's got a clear idea analysis of what's wrong.

13:33But I don't think that means that I want Dominic Cummings in running the country again. Here we are. Question on Ecuador from Louise Barrett. Interested to hear more on your thoughts of what's gone on in Ecuador. I hadn't realised how fractured it was there. Any insight is welcome. So very quickly on that one, Felicitas, Ecuador has had a horrible, horrifying explosion of drug violence. In fact, one of the things that's been happening across Central Latin America has been an explosion from old centres in Colombia and Mexico partly to do with the disintegration of Venezuela of criminal drug gangs right the way across the continent.

14:08And this has resulted in Ecuador in these moments of political violence. And the leading anti -corruption campaigner in the presidential election being killed. And now another major local politician being assassinated in the lead up to the election. And now even as we're speaking a third, somebody called Pedro Brioñez who was an organizer for citizen revolution, that's literally just been announced. So I mean, it does sort of bring home as well that there are parts of the world. We've had particular assassinations, Joe Cox, David Amos. But I think for people to be out on the campaign stump as they are now.

14:46And clearly the sense is that the first guy who was murdered Fernando Villavicic Vichensio, he has been very, very vocal speaking out against corruption against the drug gangs and so forth. And the suspicion is that they're the ones who wiped him out. So it's a classic kind of mafia style silencing operation. And a reminder how quickly things can change them on well because Ecuador, you would have said a decade ago, was a pretty stable, peaceful place. And it's just in the last five years that it's basically become like Colombia in the 90s. And there are a whole bits of the country now controlled by these criminal drug gangs.

15:24So it's a real reminder of how fragile countries and politics can be that the kind of assumptions that you would have had five, six years ago can be turned on their heads so rapidly the way these international criminal gangs can just destroy a state. And I don't, I can't claim to be an Ecuador doesn't have his own drug trade as such, but it's sandwiched between Colombia and Peru. And therefore it's essential to their kind of roots, the trafficking roots. Next question, Tony Blair Institute, a force for good. Ralfi is the Blair Institute for Global Change of Force for Good. Hugo Arman having read the news about Tony Blair and his Saudi connections, wouldn't it be wise for Kirsta to keep as much distance as possible from this heavily tainted predecessor.

16:06So that's a slightly unfair question to you because obviously Tony Blair is someone you admire immensely. Somebody somebody you admire immensely as well, Rory. I'd also like Tony Blair very much. But there's been some very interesting reporting which I think could be fair for us to report on which has been getting into the funding and the way in which it's funded by Larry Ellison and some of the different ways in which the money is generated. There was a really interesting detailed article written by Tom McTague. Tom McTague is a really interesting long -formed journalist who did some really good reporting on Northern Ireland, did a very interesting profile of Boris Johnson was the correspondent with the Atlantic and has spent the last few weeks getting into real detail on the on the funding of the Tony Blair Institute.

16:48So I think it's worth reading. I mean it's a very interesting account. I don't think I came out of it feeling that Tony Blair was guilty of great wrongdoing. But it is an interesting example of some of the perils of how you fund yourself and what happens when you have to try to raise 10s of an $1 ,000 ,000, yeah, often in his case for good causes. I mean he's using this money to do a lot of support for governance work and delivery work in developing countries around the world, but an interesting long -form piece. Well, I've not read it. I was vaguely aware of the stories because I was getting phone calls from journalists asking if I wanted to say anything about them and I didn't.

17:24But as you have raised on the podcast, I will. No, I think that Tony left office in 2007 and I think struggled for a while to establish exactly how he was going to kind of operate. I think he has now found his feet and he runs this organization which I think is a force for good. I think it's a force for good in the way that it contributes to public policy debate. I think it's a force for good as you say in some of the work that it does in some of the poorest parts of the world. Tony's instituted operating in dozens of countries now and doing it in a way that I think is, some of the work he's done in Africa is one a lot of praise from some of the organizations who said that even some of the big charities were pulling out some of the poorest places in the world.

18:07And I think what happened in the early years is that he stopped being a politician in a way. He stopped explaining who he was and what he did, which is part of what a modern politician has to do. And I think he's doing that more now and I think it is giving people a better sense of what he does. Now I don't know what donations he has with the Mammud bin Salman. I don't know what donations he has with with Saudis in terms of any financing. I just don't know. But I do know that he raises a lot of money in part to fund these projects and also in part to hire the people that he worked at work from.

18:39And he's now hiring several hundred people including people. I keep saying saying to people in around years, Salman, I have a relationship with them. Hire some of these people because he's got some of the smartest people currently working in policy work going. Clamacord would love to hear your thoughts on the PSNI, police service, Northern Ireland, data breach, particularly as I feel the seriousness of this may not be quite understood in the rest of the UK in an age of conservation leaks people data. So take it back then to end of February.

19:12John searching some kids he's leaning into the back of his car to put his footballs away and he is then shot from behind by two government and ends up in hospital. And it's a reminder of the risk and off the back of this, there's now been a data leak where the names and the stations of I think almost every police officer in the police service in Northern Ireland. And the role is crucially so for example you've got people who's you know role liaison with the security service for example you know there's some pretty serious stuff there and the PSNI chief constable Simon Bern who's a very fine man he has been open about the fact he says they're now confident that dissident Republicans do have possession of this stuff.

19:55So I mean it's really really alarming and really quite scary for all the people this. And a reminder for all of the semi it's incredibly unfortunately easy for this to happen and we are so dependent obviously on data and IT and it's complicated I mean I'm running a big charity at the moment where we're dealing with data in 14 different countries and every time you upgrade or move to a new system there are going to be other forms of cyber challenges and back doors and staying on top of this stuff is vital particularly though for governments and particularly for something sensitive as the police service in Northern Ireland.

20:31So I can't really understand how this happened but I think it's a reminder for anyone listening that this stuff can happen so easily and does. And also I don't think most people when we're you know and I'm as bad I'm as guilty versus anybody but when we're sort of you know just working on our computer and you're sitting there and it says accept this decline that agree to this not agree to that I don't think we really think through what we're doing with that stuff but this is clearly some sort of cyber attack but the document it had the names of around 10 ,000 offers and staff they had their surname first initial rank or grade where they were based in the unit they work in and the responsibilities that they had so that's a lot of information and as you said earlier John called well you know they obviously had the intelligence they knew that that's what it any spare time he coach kids football now that's the sort of thing that you can probably find out anyway but if you if you are wanting to target police officers then having the information that they now have is pretty alarming and terrifying obviously if you are a police officer and online I mean if you every time you go coaching football and are leaning into the backyard card to put the footballs away you think two people are going to come up and shoot you from behind your life becomes impossible so here's a question for you Jonah Woodwood what are your thoughts on the recent UFO congressional hearing in the US I didn't know there was one did you know there was one I did actually I've been following I mean it's the sort of thing it gets people very excited on social media this is probably going to make every conspiracy theories in the world think that I just don't like conspiracy theories and I go over the top but every time I see anything to do with the UFOs and congressional inquiries are am I wrong just to sort of turn off you're absolutely right there's been some wonderful graphs of almost all the UFOs spotted in the world have been spotted from the United States or Britain because clearly aliens are English -speaking people but then there's a town called which I think maybe I've talked about before was the town called Bonnie Bridge which is in Central Belts, Scott and anyway it's right next to full Kirk so it's called the full Kirk triangle my friends Luke and Will went down there because they were really excited because it had 300 UFOs spotted in a year and they were really really excited to go down there and see a UFO and then a bit disappointed to discover that I think out of the 300 sightings 298 have been made by the same man.

22:48So you have close friends who believe all this stuff? No I don't I don't know whether Willem Luke really believed it I think it maybe there I deriver their sense of humor going down. But I have to say full Kirk played a very very important part in my life. Oh yeah because it was there in 1986 at the full Kirk Labour Club that I was drunk for the last time in my life. Oh very good very good. That's a very good one. That's a very good one. That's a very good one. That's a good one. That's a problem. One of the many many reasons to love the Labour Party Roy. Why was that the last time in your life you behaved so badly that that was a turning point for you?

23:18That was when I about three hours later I was arrested and then I was locked up and then I was taken to hospital and then I was advised that you know this drinkier this level wasn't really very good for you. So good old full Kirk I said. Well done full Kirk. So I said let's take a break.

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