165: Question Time: Populism in Portugal, texting David Cameron, and a challenger to Trump?

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0:50Welcome to the Restus Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Anastakambal. And Rory, I want to start with an apology to our listeners. When we get things wrong, we always admitted it. And I don't know why I said this because I knew even after I said it, it was wrong. But anyway, this is from somebody called Anonimus. Anonimus. Anonimus. I see. Very, very funny. Anonimus says, you were very poorly informed about the police service Northern Ireland data breach. The release of the data was in response to freedom of information request. It was not due to a cyber attack. It reportedly went through five separate checks before being posted.

1:27It should not have been so easy as you suggest. It may not have been an accident. Anonimus also goes on to point out it's Catholic members of the PSNI who are at risk and is off of this breach, as they are considered by some on the far -right nationalist side as treacherous for having joined the force previously infamous as the RUC. Second part of that question fairly loaded. And what's really strange, Rory, after we recorded it, I realized I said that and I knew it was absolutely hollow, but I forgot to phone the production and tell them. So there we are, who went through. Just on this one. So I mean, the BBC's reported on this.

2:00So essentially, there were two breaches. The first breach happened when data was made public in error in response to an FOI request and appeared online for three hours last Tuesday. And then a second data breach involving the theft of a spreadsheet with the names of 200 officers and staff emerged the following day. And that, as she says, is not a cyber breach, that was actually the theft of a police as you laptop and radio from a private vehicle. But it's somebody, a second person just been arrested by an Ornallan police. So taking it very seriously. But it's a reminder to all of us because if you read too quickly these stories, it says a major data breach.

2:33One's immediate assumption is that it's a cyber attack, not that somebody's releasing it in response to a freedom of information. No, but I knew because I remember I remember thinking at the time, who an earth would have released that as an FOI. So anyway, slap to risk for me and I'm blaming the heat. Now the next one is you, populism in Portugal, Tromé Ribeiro -Hommez, breweries with the Portuguese exception to the populist way, but you ended up not going into it on the podcast. The populist shag up party has grown rapidly over its short existence. And indeed it has, Roy, it's neither third political force.

3:06I sort of knew that when you said it, and I thought maybe he knows more than I do here. But they're going into the European elections, and they're currently at 13 .2%, which isn't bad for a smaller party. They've got 12 seats in parliament, and even though they've got none in the European parliament, on that voting, they gain three or four seats of Portugal's share in the European parliament. And they are pretty right -wing. I mean, they've got similar white supremacists starting the own Nazi moves. Well, it's definitely true. They do have this party, but Portugal has had a different history to other European countries, and I don't want to overdo it.

3:44But I think that you can make a case that Portugal's been a really remarkable example of moderation. Yeah. You presumably are cheered up by the fact that the two main parties, the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party. Absolutely. As far as it's done pretty well, I mean, you know, so yeah, there are rare success stories on the more progressive side. It's worth looking at them, maybe you should look at them a bit more. So obviously, Guterres, who's the UN Secretary -General, was their leader, Antonio Costa and now, but people often sort of think about them as though they're just a sort of subset of Spain.

4:16But in fact, their historical experience is a bit different. Yes, like Spain, they were under a dictatorship to the early 70s, but it wasn't a dictatorship that, like Franko's, it wasn't one that tried to crush kind of national identities. It didn't have quite the extreme brutality of Franco. They had a much more dramatic transition out of dictatorship. Spain, there were lots of issues that weren't dealt with in the 70s that continue to haunt and you see this through moving Franco's body and stuff. Unlike Spain, they didn't grow into this huge housing bubble. And Spain, of course, has massive automobile industry, wind manufacturing, tourism on one of the largest scales in the world, whereas Portugal is still very much doing things like manufacturing cork, manufacturing shoes.

5:00They're also different because traditionally, a bit like Ireland, which I guess is maybe a comparable economy in terms of size and scale until it started to grow so quickly. The problem in Portugal wasn't immigration. It was immigration. Portuguese leaving to go to other countries the way that people do from places like Romania or Albania. So there wasn't the same underlying stuff. And finally, I think in the financial crisis, Spain ended up with nearly 50 % youth unemployment. And I think their general unemployment rate shot up to nearly twice that of Portugal's. So maybe there haven't been quite the same drivers in Portugal in terms of the 2008 financial crisis, immigration and other things.

5:36I mean, they still obviously inherit the problems with social media. They did go through a brutal situation, the financial crisis, their debt. But maybe that's part of the reason why they've tended to be more moderate and more centrist in their politics since the 70s. Costas is now in his third term, which is pretty rare for any leader these days. But there have been quite a lot of scandals and resignations in recent months in this third term. I think he's lost double figures now. He's lost ministers and secretaries of state, which is almost Boris Johnson level. And partly to do with some issues of corruption and also past conducts.

6:12But you know, I think that you're broadly right that we're talking about a pretty successful progressive government. We should thank Eagle Eard, Portuguese listener for pointing out that we didn't go back to something that we said we were going to. So thanks for that. Very good. Okay. Next question coming in from Cidata Carey. What are your predictions for the Republican primaries? Any thoughts on the Reagan -oriented Vivek Ramaswami? Is this the guy that everybody's talking about or the big money coming behind? Yeah. So Vivek Ramaswami is very, very young. I think he's in his late 30s. He is famously kind of fast eloquent talker.

6:49He is an extreme isolationist. He seems to want to have America to have almost nothing to do with the world at all. I think he said that if America manages to get independent with semiconductors, then there's no point in defending Taiwan at all. And as Rondescent is loses some of his momentum and energy, people are beginning to focus more on Vivek Ramaswami. Well, I don't know much about him at all. So I'm bound to your superior knowledge on that. Look, I feel that unless these legal cases against Trump really do it, I think he's going to be the candidate. It's not that long ago. People were talking about Rondescent.

7:24This has been the great white hope. As you said yesterday, he's virtually vanished. I see Trump's not turning up for the first debate. Chris Christie had a wonderful wonderful put down on him about that, basically saying that he was both useless and the coward. So there are some sort of voices coming out telling the truth about Trump. Very good. James Thompson, in light of GCSE and A -level results, in your well -traveled and worldly opinions, which education systems, from which country is the most fit for purpose and effective, how should we measure success in schools? We had quite a lot of questions about education this week.

7:59Jack Harris, seeing as the education as Secretary has admitted, the A -levels about extension exams are pointless in the long term. I was wondering if you could define the point of education. I don't think she was quite saying that. She did say something rather odd for an education secretary on the day that the exams were coming out. She said in 10 years time, nobody will care. I think that is a very odd message for an education secretary to put out there. Well, I'd defended for a second because I think one of our questioners actually defended her, didn't they? It is true that by the time you're 10 years into the workplace, people don't pay any attention to what your A -levels were.

8:29Yeah, but is that the sensible thing to say on the day that kids are sweating over their exams? I just thought it was a very, very odd thing to say. Even though it's true. Well, it's true in some regards, but you still have to go in, particularly in the modern world, people having to reply for jobs for most of their lives. So I think it does matter. So it's partially true, but I thought it was a very glib and silly thing to say on the day that everybody's getting the exams. On the main point, let me just say, the countries which overwhelmingly top virtually every big global education survey you see are Canada, Finland, South Korea.

9:06And I'll tell you the one that's coming up big time on the rails is Estonia. And they're all different, but if I can think of three things that I think they really drive through their system, one is no segregation, whether that's by class, whether that's by private public, whether that's by grammar, they all tend to want to go to the same schools. The second thing, which I think is the most important, is that they really value teachers. And that is not just reflected in pay. And the other thing is that those teachers are not on a totally constant treadmill of exams and inspection. And the third thing is the some strong system of local oversight.

9:44And I think they're things that we weakened. Tell us about the local oversight. So it's not all done from the center. It's more devolved down to the local authority. Yeah, the local authorities have real power. They're properly funded from the center, but then there's real local oversight of schools. And I think that we have got our system much more centralised than used to be. But I think this point about teachers is fundamental. We do seem to have had over the last few years in particular a sense of government and the educational sort of authorities being at war with teachers. And I just think it's not the way to go.

10:15Teachers have got to be valued in a way that the moment they're not. So I think that's the answer to James's question. Those countries which value their teachers make everybody feel ownership of the schools that they go to. I think Canada and Finland in particular, I don't know about South Korea, but Canada and Finland there is virtually no private education market at all. Because they know that they can go to good schools. Every nose they can go to good state schools. So there's no point paying a lot of money if you can get a good education anyway. Yeah, I agree with you. So what did politics teach you about yourself?

10:45Amy Gandon, what did you most learn about your own character during your time in politics? What positive and what negative traits did it bring out in you? Oh Lord. And any more of one than the other. It definitely brought out my obsessiveness. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think the return is good and the return is bad. I think it definitely played into my sense of tribalism. Although you would argue I still have a lot of that. I can tell you I have a lot less that I used to. I think it made me quite intolerant at times. I think it made me, I often, I still have this. I often will analyze something and see a problem so clearly that I just cannot understand why other people don't see it the same way.

11:26And that is always a mistake in politics. What about you? So I found politics very, very damaging, very damaging for my kind of body, mind and soul. I think it's a world that doesn't really encourage stepping back and having the space for critical thinking. But I also learned the flip side of that, which is I learnt my weakness, which is too much of a tendency to get into the details of things. I became a better minister when I was able to really boil down my thinking to a simple position, a clear, simple position. And initially I sort of slightly despised that. But I realised that actually it was moments when I was able to say, for example, in prison, I will resign unless I bring violence down in a year.

12:09Simple statement like that really gave me the kind of entry point into doing the kind of things that I wanted. So it's a very, very strange profession though. I think it's not just social media. I think the whole emphasis on campaigning, the whole style of political argument pushes against what we need, which is careful, thoughtful policy analysis. So I found it very, very difficult. Being away, you're saying that that was because that is your character and your character didn't change. And that's why you found it difficult. That's maybe not bad thing. No, I think parts of my character probably did change.

12:42I probably became a bit more fragile, a bit more insecure, a bit more needy. I mean, after five years on the back benches, I began to notice to my eternal shame that I was sending kind of creepy texts to David Cameron, congratulating him on his latest speech in the hope that he might promote me.

13:00All right, okay, I see. Okay. So that is not you. Yeah, I did not think was me. Now, I went in thinking I was a pretty kind of independence secure figure. And I sort of stood up to Cameron and I disagreed and I rebelled in a big vote about Hasselord's and I tried to chart my own course. And then as the years rolled on and I found myself stuck in the horror of the back benches, I began to discover there's a more creepy ambition emerging, which made me pretty ashamed of myself. My book is being about trying to get people involved in politics. I hope you don't sort of go around the country. This is Willy Wilell, who's to say stirring up apathy.

13:37Sturring up apathy. He used to say that was, he used to say that was his job was to go around the country stirring up apathy. Well, my great theory is that the way to change is to make people stare really hard at the problem, be brutally honest in their analysis, the problem. And that's actually the way to make things improve. Yeah, well, I'm hoping you're right. Here we are. This is also really about politics and how's Edward Goethe, I've just reread obviously, Tory reread books. Marie LeColnes, great book about gossip at Westminster. To what extent do you think gossip is a good or bad part of Westminster?

14:12How much did it factor into your daily roles there? I mean, the place was just full of gossip. It was really, really disturbing. One of the things that made me sad is highly intelligent colleagues and whatever you sort of them. People like quasi -caughting had a big brain, but it was impossible to get them to be serious. It was impossible to get them to sit down and talk in detail about policy. The whole culture of the thing was about off -hand jokes, gossip, sitting in the tea rooms, looking at newspapers, seeing which scandal had hit another colleague, gossiping about who was being promoted and who was going down that and the culture of the journalist to the lobby was basically not really about taking ideas, Syracil, the integrity of individual Syracil, it was all about who's up and who's down.

14:53What was your experience? I absolutely hate gossip. I don't really see that as gossip. What I hate, and there's a lot of it in politics, is when stories develop about people and nobody knows whether they're true or not, and nobody really cares because it's just gossip. Now, I felt victim to some of those. I remember this story went, I think I've had to talk to this story about a story went around that I was having this affair with the Tory MPs secretary. It was like everywhere. It was like, you know, and I sort of started to see people looking at me differently and, you know, when I went and all that sort of stuff.

15:28And it was like, and I saw it, so do I say anything or don't I? And, you know, it was completely untrue. Now, I didn't, I had loads of stuff thrown at me all the time, so it didn't really bother me that much, but it bothered the woman a lot. And she, I think, found it very, very difficult to deal with it. And then there's other sorts of gossip. I often think about Leon Britain, the stories that went around about him, though were just truly horrible. And used to hear people say, well, you know, no smoke without fire, no smoke without fire. But he was gossip. No, no, it's completely horrible. So I had the same.

15:58So I had a story that was put in the newspapers and was reported in the newspapers from a spreadsheet put out on the sexual misdemeanors of Conservative MPs. And my name was listed with the name of my parliamentary assistant. So it said, Rory Stewart, and then the name of the parliamentary assistant, I'll repeat her name on this, but Rory Stewart asked his assistant to do all the things. Literally, I have no idea what this was. I mean, maybe she had complained to someone on the canteen that I'd asked her to go out and get sushi or something, but the implication was clearly some kind of weird sexy activity.

16:29And of course, I was, you know, I was a married man, I had kids, and for her, unbelievably shaming and embarrassing to have her name out. And I was being attacked the same time at she's Dominic Rob, and I said to the Conservatives at time, I'm going to say this is complete nonsense. I put out a Twitter statement. And I was under huge pressure from the media operation number 10 to do nothing. I can see that. Why? Well, because because what happens is that if you do it, then everybody else would be expected to do it. And of course, they can only do it if it's not true. That would be the thing. That would be the thing.

17:06So the ones that said, you know, so and so and so, so, you know, you can't walk by and without impinging your ass. And I remember the document, by the way, yeah, you remember the document, yeah, you'll be pleased to know that I don't remember you big it because they were far worse offenders. And I guess even I, something like that would would look at that and think I'd, I'd immediately see political advantage. And that's again, something that's wrong with politics as opposed to, oh, shit, this could happen to us. So the first thing thing is how disingenuous the press team were, they didn't say to me, well, I'm sure it's true that that was the reason they were doing it.

17:37They said, Oh, no, no, you'll cause yourself more trouble if you put out a statement. It'll just, it'll just make more of a story. I put out a statement, I completely ignore them, put out a statement on my website, put out a statement on Twitter, killed the story instantly. Nobody mentioned me again. Everybody else continued to be in a morass of problems and allegations because some of these allegations, you say, we're true, but it was a real kind of reminder of the weirdness of completely unfair, humiliating gossip. And then your own party preventing you from getting out and going up. And I completely agree with you, everybody reading that would have been like, well, no, no, no, no, without a fire.

18:12I mean, really, would you say that about Rory if he hadn't done something weird? And we can't actually be that he's asking the guy and get sushi, right? And it's named her name. So she had to put out a statement as well saying, you know, Rory, I promised did not do anything weird to me, but did I pressure her to put out that statement? I mean, you know, once you start it, where does it end? The thing about gossip that got is so corrosive. And of course, it's so tempting in politics. If you can get a rumor going that, you know, somebody's up to no good or you get a rumor going that you know, he's going to affect them psychologically or affect their private life, affect their home life or whatever is so tempting to do.

18:48Now, I think I'm, you know, I was pretty good because I do hate it. I really do hate it. But I've got to be honest, the word, the probably were times when if there was a rumor flying around, you sort of let it fly, I guess, but it's pretty horrible. It is horrible. It is, it's horrible stuff. Right. Rory, let's have a quick break.

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21:20Now here we are, Rory. Question for Rory. This is from Holly and the EV. Can you envisage yourself being part of a one nation Tory revival following a conservative loss in next year's general election? Question for both of us is a one nation Tory revival even possible in today's Conservative Party. This is something I think about every day. If I felt that a one nation revival was possible in the Conservative Party, I would be standing for election at the next election. But honestly, I don't. I don't recognise my own party at the moment. I fear that when they come out of the next election, they will be taken over by Swella Bravaman or someone on the right.