167. Question Time: How to rig an election, Scotland's golden goose, and the least impressive president of all time

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0:50Welcome to the RSS Politis Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. But we should kick off with, pardon the pun, we should kick off with Louise Rubiales because we said we were going to do it in the main podcast, but we got right down into the weeds of pregozion and modion your interview techniques. Ailing, would he have kissed a male player on the lips? What do you think? And then I think this is the main point for me. What a shame that this can traverse his overshadow the team's phenomenal achievement. I'm assuming you're already despite your antipathy to football, you are aware of this story.

1:21Yeah, this story about the fact that after the Spanish women's football team won the World Cup, one of their players was kissed on the lips, Jenny Hamosa, and although the Spanish official has said that it was consensual, she has absolutely denied that it was consensual, so the question of sex assault, obviously, has been brought forward because he has some non -consensually Brad Trinkestron on the lips. I mean, he's got a long track record this guy has been involved in all sorts of stories to do with using federation funds for orgies and it's not the first time that he's been the central controversy in Spain.

1:59But I think it must be really interesting about this. I mean in Spain, I was talking to somebody in Spain the other night, it is absolutely all that anybody is talking about because it feels a bit like the kind of hall meet me too thing again. Now you have some people who will be saying, oh what's the fuss about, you know, so he kissed her on the lips so what. And I think that goes to, given that we are a political podcast, I think that's exacerbated when you think that we've had elected as president of America, somebody who said it's okay to grab a woman, you know, by her private parts. We've had Boris Johnson who doesn't even know how many children he's got, or if he does, can't say so publicly.

2:35We've had Burla Sconey with his Bunga Bunga parties and all that sort of stuff. And part of right -wing, hard -right -wing populism It is misogyny. It is this feeling. I don't know this guy. This guy apparently Ruby Arles is actually quite close to the socialists. This is something that's really interesting because it's an uncomfortable story for progressives who love football. This is the Spanish left -wing socialist party. This is football. So these are things that people want to like. And the truth is that there's a lot of weird political nepotism, corruption, very, very poor governance. It's a political appointment and it raises questions, obviously about such as party, it also raises huge questions about Spanish governance.

3:16And I guess we'll remind people like me who don't follow the stuff closely of the scandals around FIFA. A whole sense that the whole sport has a sort of weird connection with corruption, golf states, spying in appropriate behavior, etc. Well, also the fact that there are very, very, I had to be fed the FAA, although it's had its own problems down the years, the VFA in England, a lot of football associations, attracts and pretty dodgy people. And, you know, bribery corruption in world cup bids, in Olympic bids, I mean, the politics of sport can be very, very, very murky. And the player had put out a statement saying it was fine, it was just, you know, exuberance and celebration.

3:58And it turned out that she was sort of forced to do that. And I suspect she reflected on it and she said ultimately she said she was sort of forced to put that out and there was a horrible so you're when he first turned that rubialis went to the meeting the emergency meeting of the football authorities from which he's currently been suspended by FIFA but at the first meeting where he said I will not resign I will not resign I will not resign you pan to this audience of mainly men they're talking about the women's woke up this audience of mainly men many of whom are clapping and cheering him. And I just think that that whole sense of misogyny in different cultures, it's got to be called out.

4:35So I really look, I think he's ultimately, I suspect he will go. Prime Minister said he's got to go. The federation has announced him to, you know, to go. His mother, I know you love your mother, Rory, would she go on hunger strike for you? Definitely. Because Rubeyale's mother has gone on hunger strike in a church because he's being persecuted. She'd definitely do that. I'm sure your mother would have done the same. Yeah, absolutely. One final point, because I know how absolutely obsessed you are about Scottish football, because you're a scot and you love football so much. Of absolutely, yeah.

5:06Yeah. I don't think enough players be made in the British media of the fact there's a Scottish angle to Mr Rubialis. Do you know what it is? No. He was a professional footballer and he ended his career at Hamilton Academicall. No goodness. And we were aware of him before this. We were aware of his playing career. No, not at all. Okay, no, not a big star. Right. Now, Zimbabwe, so we talked a great deal about the Zimbabwe election in the lead -up to the election, and as you predicted, Emma -Sanmanagagua has won the election. And whereas last time he did the election, he was in a commanding position and didn't need to cheat to win.

5:44This time he desperately needed to cheat to win. A boy did he do a lot of cheating. But it's an interesting So we got a question from Numeria. Zimbabwe is Amazon Mungagua, has been re -elected as present in a high -discordial election. How should Britain and the Commonwealth's relationship with Zimbabwe proceed henceforth? Given the fact that Zanu P .F., which is his party, has quite openly yet again rigged its way back in a path, just a little bit on how they did this. I have, for instance, Zimbabwe who've been in contact with me throughout the election, and it's very striking the way in which people, it's true probably in Putin's Russia too, how they continued to try to keep some of the surface pretence of an election going.

6:22So the way in which they did it was they refused to release the updated electoral role to the opposition party. They included dead people on the electoral role, they shifted voter groups from different polling stations, they had very, very intimidating presence of polling stations of desks from Z�epf, demanding people registered. They issued false leaflets claiming to be from the opposition party telling people not to vote. They bribed the judiciary, not to uphold claims. There were riots in which CCE activists were killed. Journalists were deported. Various candidates were disbarred from running.

6:59But it was not a question of wholesale. This is a coup. It was a question of 20 or 30 different types of often quite small methods to just push them up to the 55 % they wanted to win. I mean, what's interesting though this time is that the international observers who were there appear to be much, much more outspoken, including from the United States. Now of course, this is why it's so wretched the whole sort of Trump saga, because if you've got the United States having an election where the defeated candidate claims that the whole thing is rigged, I think it doesn't make people feel empowered to go deeper into some of these tactics that we all know can be done and have been done.

7:41And so we now have this situation where Chimesa almost certainly did win. Man and Gagwa declares himself the winner. Lots and lots and lots of confusion about the credibility of the result. And I suspect what will happen will be a lot of human cry. There'll be a lot of people putting pressure on it. Eventually he'll take the office. So the question though, Rory, the question was, what does the Commonwealth do? And of course, Zimbabwe has been kicked out of the Commonwealth. Yeah, so limited to what it can do, but how does it build or help to build political pressure? Then either I don't know gets a rerun get some sort of proper inquiry.

8:18I don't know I suppose the the carrot has always been the hope that they could rejoin Of course every African member of the Commonwealth has been lobbying for Zimbabwe to rejoin But I think this this is the nail in the coffin to that and the sad trees courses has just put his Zimbabwe Closer and closer into the hands of Russia and China and Zambia which of course was very closely connected to Zimbabwe during colonial rule in Rhodesia, has now had the election of HH who is a much more pro -Western opposition leader. And I think that's worrying Russian China, so I think I've got to watch this space on Zimbabwe.

8:51Okay, Rory, this question comes from David Manning, and I don't think that will be David Manning, who was the foreign policy adviser in the build -up to the Iraq War. The question is as follows, and it's for you, Rory. Oh, yes. Gordon Brown did a great conference speech listing Labour's achievements in government. Rory, what is the Tory version after the last 13 years? Well, I think that the... It won't be as long. No, I think the fundamental analysis must be that we did not learn the lessons of the 2000s that we operated much too much in an old world that had really died by about 2010. So David Cameron and I think Leichead, Melaband and Ed Balls who were his rivals in 2015 were all parts of this generation that grew up in the 90s and so they were pushing ahead with economic policy which should have been discredited with the 2008 financial crash.

9:49They had assumptions. I'm not hearing a good conference speech here, Rory. gone. Let me flip it around then. So on the record, I think the lamentable failure, of course, has been to sort out productivity in the British economy. And British growth has been very, very poor. The deficits grown, taxes grown. We're not managing to fund public services. I incidentally for the record, I can't see much sense that Labour has an economic policy to turn any of that around either. But if you really want me to try, I'll give my best stab at what what you'd have to say if you were trying to win the selection.

10:21No, I do. Best stab would be inherited a catastrophic situation in 2008, needed to turn it around and try to get the economy under control, managed to do very well on employment figures when the rest of Europe were really struggling with employment, made Britain a leader in renewable energy, made huge progress on pushing towards carbon neutral ahead of most other European countries, has become an increasingly important part of the coalition on Ukraine got through, okay, I'm going to stop here. It's pretty normal to all that. I agree with you. What I'm going to do is I know the Tory is that I think it's pretty difficult to defend the moment.

11:02That was not back considering, but I think maybe we should put in the news that I don't think it was a conference speech. I think it was in Manchester in the later stages of the Gordon's election campaign against Cameron. But anyway, it was a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant speech and maybe he did do it in the conference as well. But anyway, I think you put up a fairly brave fight there. Yeah, not great. Not looking great. I mean, obviously I'm still sort of reeling from your allegation that you claim to wear the guilt better than me. But for that reason, I'm going to throw a Scottish question at you.

11:32Heather Himes, what on earth is going on in Loch Ness? Ah, what is going on in Loch Ness or around and in and around Loch Ness is that one of the biggest research parties ever was assembled over the weekend, directed by a man in a splendid yellow jacket that I saw being interviewed on many, many television channels. And they were bringing in all the drones and underwater sonar systems with people there, all over the world. I saw an interview with an American woman who was convinced that this was going with the moment where we found beyond Peradventure that there was or had been a monster that lived in Loch Ness.

12:15And I've got to tell you, Loch Ness, Scotland Scottish tourism is really, really, really well out of this myth. It's incredible, isn't it? So Loch Ness, very beautiful Locke, but boy, boy, you would not get the visitor numbers. So it was a hoax photograph of the 1930s of what looks faintly like a sort of dinosaur floating through the water. And I remember as a child having a book on mysteries of the world where the Loch Ness Monster was there along with aliens building the pyramids and various other stuff that I as a seven or eight year old took very seriously and definitely wanted to go and see a lot less and it's very sad that it has been proven to be a hoax because I and many other people like me were convinced that maybe it was the last surviving dinosaur, a pleasaurus, will that make sense?

12:59Pleasaurus at Ring of Belly? Why are you sporting the funny? Myelwell just announced the Santa Claus is dead. Then my said it's been proven, it's not been proven. How did you prove a negative? Or you can say that they didn't find it this we cared for. It doesn't mean that it's not there. I must say that this whole thing about the power of mythology though, I did this triathlon thing for the first group a few years ago. And to get publicity for it, we put out a story that all of the swimmers taking part in this had to take out special insurance against being attacked by the first Mr. And honestly, for the cost of the insurance, which was a few quid, the coverage generated around the world, I mean, Loch Ness is up there with Scotch Whiskey, I'd say, in terms of sort of, you know, people around the world knowing there is this monster.

13:45So, yeah, I thought it was a very, very good stunt and whoever dreamt it up in the first place should be getting Scotland's highest honor, whatever that may be. Now, Rory, I had a question about your book, which I know you're always happy for me to plug. Patrick Taylor, What is the location on the front cover of the book where you were doing that rather funny pose? So politics on the edge coming out a couple of weeks and on the front cover is a photograph of me stepping between two rocks and it's at Penrith Castle. It's a beautiful photograph. Take it by a really great Cumberin photographer and it taken about 10 years ago and I love it because it's the sense to sort of bewildering instability of politics as I teeter over this crevasse between two rocks.

14:28Yeah, it's a good picture. Go on, question for you then. Brendan Cruz, dream book characters. You both do an awful lot of reading. So what character in a book that you've read would you like to be? Ah, that's a good question, isn't it? Oh, who would you like to be in a book? Should I give a go while you think about it? Yeah, go on. So I always was besotted with Prince Andre in War and Peace. I'm nothing like it, which is probably why Project Sinoptim. It's very sort of dignified, understated aristocratic Russian officer, who is sort unfairly overlooked in promotion because he's too honorable to bend to the political requirements the time and ends up being killed heroically or wounded and then died in battle.

15:09So I always loved the figure of Prince Andre, almost certainly because I'm much more like Pierre Bezoukhov, who's the sort of slightly comical floundering figure who goes around the battlefield behind him. Anyway, can I say Faust? Faust, my Lord. Wow. Faust in... Gosh, so Gersa's Faust. I think that would be really interesting, yeah. You see yourself as some amazing out -temacle officer. You see my Lord. And Yseman, who sold his soul in order to attain all he wanted. I don't see myself as that, but I think if you're thinking about human experience as having to test all choices that you have to make, then I think that would be not a bad one to be.

15:48That's quite edgy selling your soul to the devil's quite an edgy thing to consider. Yeah, but that's probably because I've never done it, Rory. That's right. So I'm interested in doing it. Who else? I don't know. I'd like to be... There's a wonderful... When our kids were growing up, you can write off to have yourself written in as the hero of a book. Oh, God. Children's book. So my son, the real Rory in my life, before he defected to Manchester United, it was a big Burnley fan. So we got this children's book main where he scored the winning goal in the Cup Final for Burnley. I'd quite like that one as well.

16:24But I felt that to write the right office is 60 odd year old, to say I'd like to write by myself it as the score of the winning goal in the Cup Final, probably a bit to throw. I think that's a bit much, isn't it? Now we've got a question I thought might be quite interesting for you. So Tom Watson, presumably not V. Tom Watson, Lord Watson, the slightly controversial Labour peer, but someone else. Did your guys follow the career of more united to the non -party group. Position on certain issues, brackets, Brexit environment, and far more important than party membership, which becomes frankly meaningless.

16:53So the idea to me it seemed a good one, unless it seems to have died, thoughts, quit reminder, or more united. Set up in July 2016, received support from people like Patti Ashtam, and decided it was going to get behind different members who accepted opportunity tolerance, democracy, the environment, openness. They did slightly, but there have been other versions of it. Gina Miller set up something called the Tru and Fair Party, which I had some conversations with them because I was an independent candidate and often these parties reach out to see whether they'd be interested in running. What do you think about these sort of parties?

17:29I think that the more united group was impart inspired by the group that emerged from Joe Cox, murder and the Joe Cox Foundation and the work that they do and of course that has continued in all sorts of different ways So Joe Cox quote we're far more united a far more in common than that which divides us which became Which I think is now on a plaque in the House of Commons. Yes, I think it emerged and then has morphed into Different things but of course you're right that these groups do There are lots of groups like this that come and go I'm under pressure at the moment from a guy who's bombarding me with messages.

18:04I'm not complaining, by the way. Because he wants you to support something that he's setting up. He wants to set up as a new party. But I've just been very frank in saying that at the moment, I think anything that emerges as a new party between now and a general election, all it does is help the conservatives because it will take votes from labour and the Lib Dems and the other parties that might be able to get rid of the Tories. So I think the thinking behind it was great. I don't know what's happened to it, whether it's still part of the Jocots Foundation work, I don't know. But it just shows there are lots of different ways that people want to get involved, trying to get involved and can get involved.

18:40The problem of course is the first -past -past system. So I've been, as you can imagine, a number of people have come forward trying to convince me to run again as an independent to be Maryland. And the, their argument is, you've got a huge opportunity, Cedrican maybe isn't as poppitors. They used to be, the conservative candidates, and very strong. this is your chance, Rory, you can run to be Marylanded. But actually what's gone wrong there is that the old electoral system, which was like the French presidential system, which had a two round system, so I could have come second maybe to sit down in the first round and beat them in the second round, has been taken out to a first pass, the post system.

19:12And I think it's almost unimaginable now, even with all the energy of our podcast for an independent candidate to really come through and beat the big parties. Yeah, although, let me just get to show you a couple of questions that flow from both of those things. So Jeff Spink, surely midbed for Chibalix, is a goal and opportunity for a single progressive alliance candidate. That's the first one. Christopher Gibbs, the podcast is excellent. Thank you very much indeed. But is enlightening and informing achieving enough? Should there not be more of a call to action from you? Well, I think that is a good idea.

19:46And I think we could begin getting into that a bit more talking a little bit more about policy. We have one of our slightly more tense interactions about migration policy, but I think we could be talking much more about economics, international development policy. I think that there's a real sense, even if we're not running for election, I do think that we're in a very lucky position sometimes to be able to set some agendas, raise some issues, and maybe we should be doing a bit more of that. What about mid -Beds? Gold and opportunities are a single progressive alliance candidate. I mean, we'll go ahead, Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader coming up in the podcast on leading, I think next week, Peter Kyle has been campaigning in mid -Bethedshire ever since the Dean Dorees said that she was standing down.

20:32I can't see Labour and Lib Dems pulling out of this one because I think they both think they're in with a chance. But the truth is, as Jeff's question implies, the chances are that if the Tories hold on, it will be costs of a split vote between the opposition parties. And then of course, the reminder of why we might want to rethink our electoral system. Well, Alisa, I think on that fine note, perhaps we should take a break.

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22:06Tim, many of the raw materials needed to build EV batteries come exclusively from politically volatile places, electric vehicle batteries. If the International 2035 zero emissions from cars objective is achieved, who will become more powerful, who less, and how will that affect our politics, economics and defense? So many countries signed up to the idea that by 2035 only electric vehicles will be sold. That won't mean that there won't be some legacy combustion engines out there. But as we've discussed, the two big dimensions here are Africa, which produces many of the raw materials. So, Cobalt and Lithium coming strongly from places like Congo.

22:44It's also important for places like Zimbabwe and China because China absolutely dominates 85 -90 % of the rare earths and critical minerals and is dominating the production of electric vehicles we talked about the fact that China's hot from producing half a million electric vehicles a year to two and a half million in just three years. And the energy transition, which is all about these minerals and all about renewable energy, China is in a very, very strong pole position on solar, on wind turbines and on electric vehicles. So it will have geopolitical impacts and it's one reason the German economy is now in trouble, it's because it's so dependent on the combustion engine.

23:19And it's one of the reasons why the United States have put all sorts of limits on what the Chinese Canon can't do or they can and can't get and it's also one of the reasons why in the main podcast We talked about Wagner their kind of entire economic model is partly political But it's also partly economic going around to those places where they get some of the minerals that we need the industries of the of the future So it is going to change the power structures of the world. I guess the other thing that we should Maybe just mention is that some of the poorer countries in the world where these resources exist That's a great blessing in some ways, but also they've just got to watch out for the extent to which the bigger powers in the world and also corporations always on the lookout to exploit them.

23:58Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lex Miller wants to know what's our favorite town or city outside the UK? I love Segovia in Spain. I was just there. It's just outside of Madrid if people are looking for a brief trip from Madrid instead of going to Toledo. go to Sugovia such a charming small place. I mean, don't go there for big drama, but it's got just a perfect combination of a beautiful Roman aqueduct. It's a great old Gothic fortress, town square where people are sitting out in chairs and tables till two, three in the morning. And if you want a bigger excitement, my friend John Hats recommended to me and I couldn't agree more naples, where, and in naples, the key is not so much the architecture, but all the pizza, but it's just getting out on the streets during the festivals and the religious processions and just soaking up the atmosphere is something that's so different over you.