174. Scrapping HS2, ‘Ukraine fatigue’, and 'Vive le Roi!'

21:07And on his social media. Yeah, and essentially, and then he just did one for King Charles. Of all his visits to France through the years. And he says, you know, welcome your majesty. And the reason he's doing it is it's popular with his base. I mean, being close to the British Royal Family really plays from. But I don't get this at all. Have you got any speculation or ideas about why France should have quite a sort of nostalgic positive view of the British Royal Family? Well, I think one of the reasons why the British, apart from the obvious historical reasons, have a such a relationship with the monarchy at the moment.

21:37Because if you think about when the Queen was still alive, there were lots of people saying, oh, when she's gone, it's all over. Charles won't be able to step up, blah, blah, blah. Young people don't care. And there's still a little bit of that around, but not very much. But I think actually it's because of the contrast with the politicians that they've been seeing so much off. So I think they look at Charles and they think, well, you know, compare that to Liss Trust, compare that to Boris Johnson. And maybe a little bit in France, don't forget that one of the relentless criticisms of Macron is that they think he behaves like a king.

22:05So I think there's part of them say, you know, that law, I've got a real king. You're just another politician. And presumably with all the tensions with Brexit, it allows France to show affection for Britain and the British people without showing affection for particular politicians. It's a way of showing continuity, respect, some of them are drawing, you know, remembering support during the war, whether or not found it's important then. So it's a way of France showing a kind of cultural respect for Britain at the time when Brexit's problematic. Yeah, and I think, well, although Macron did have a very good meeting with Soakie Estarme, as you were probably aware, reports from both sides coming back to them.

22:41They were very, very positive. He's made an effort with Rishi Sino, because well, Rishi Sino has been an effort with him. But I think what I find when I go to France, this is sort of global, isn't it? I've never understood it, but they are slightly obsessed with our royal family. I mean, virtually every in the world has a view about Harry and Meghan. I mean, I don't know. Studies see what it has to do with their lives. I actually trebbed about Harry the other day. What? You know, I dreamt about Harry. I was in a church which is not thing you often do. I have a lovely few draws but I was in a church and Harry was in the pew in front of me with Meghan and people were going up to make speeches at the pulpit.

23:18Was it a funeral? I don't know what it was. I don't know. Must have been a funeral if they were making speeches from the pulpit. Lots of people going up to make speeches. I've just been in a church in Devons. It might have been that because I've been doing a book about the church. But anyway, people were just wandering by muttering abuse at Harry and Meghan. Oh. Yeah, and what do they represent for you? Do you think you're Harry and Meghan? No, I don't know what I think is a dream And I'll have to talk to my psychiatrist about it But anyway the next thing that happened was I was I was then told I had to make a speech And I said well I haven't prepared any so they gave me a pen and some paper and my pen started to leak Oh and this black ink Flooded out of my pen and it went all over Harry's shirt.

23:57Oh, he was very nice. He was very polite So I think that I can honestly say is the first time I've ever dreamt about Brits Harry. Thank you for sharing the list. We'll have very serious on this trip. I've guessed a huge dream about kickcharls the whole time. I had a series of very weird dreams recently. I'll try to remember them after the break. The reason I remember, I used to mention my psychiatrist. There was a period of my time where I used to write down my dreams. And there's a thing called hypnaculture. You can train yourself to remember more of your dreams as you're dreaming. I was told one of the tricks there was that if you drink a lot of water, before you go to sleep.

24:30You have to wake up to pee and that's the moment of which you can write down your dream. Okay. Anyway, just to finish before you go to the break. So King Charles gave a speech, a lot of it in French. Much of it in French. Il a paille, paire, commune, roi, oglet. That's no dear. But it was extraordinary. I mean, of course, he's got an accent, but he understood what he was saying. He did it well and the French Senate was full of applause. Standing of Asian. And I think he managed to be very strong on standing with Ukraine, very strong as he'd expect on the environment. Did the Queen would have talked about Ukraine?

25:01No, I'm not sure she would have talked about Ukraine or the environment in quite the same way. And I think that's interesting because I think what he's doing is he's speaking for his majesty's government. He knows that both the government and the opposition are strong on Ukraine, so he's not worried about that. But he feels that if the government and in this case the opposition are combined on their views on Ukraine, he can do it. On the environment, of course, he has slightly out ahead of where the government feels that it is. I didn't notice that the he did two speeches. One at Versailles and one in the Senate.

25:27and I noticed at the one in Versailles when he said, more premium in Easter, there was a little bit of a curl of the lip. Anyway, so he's done 34 visits to France, and Macron in that lovely social media clip, which we can share a link to, he says, you visited as a prince, you return as a king, your majesty, welcome, it's a great thing. Now, Macron does that stuff very, very, very well. Great, right, I mean, sister you're doing this, though, because as you know, we're getting sent dozens of books because it seems that every time we mention the book, it to very well vessels because we've been so forning about your friend the king.

26:01I am going to say that Graham Smith, the guy who got arrested at the coronation, has written a book about republicanism. And a centeteer? Well, we'll put that in the links too. Well, time for a break.

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27:27Welcome back to the RESTIS politics with me Rory Stewart. And me Alex Campbell. And just a little plug for leading. We did Chris Hipkins, who's the New Zealand Prime Minister, who's going into an election. Definitely worth listening to. He's the man who famously during COVID said people should get out and spread their legs. We've also got... Is that the big takeout of his life and times? That's not the big takeout, it's like that. But he says lots of other interesting things, but he did indeed. That's one of the great political lines we'll tell you. And we're also doing Theresa May, who's going to be out next week, which will be in a good listen, next Prime Minister on the show.

28:01But in the world at large, I guess there are a couple of things that we haven't talked about. One of them is Ukraine and in particular the way that Poland, which is really, really important to the story around Ukraine, is beginning to shift its position on Ukraine and what that suggests. And the second thing is the fight in Nagorno -Karabakh, which is a fight between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Really big news but not reported much in the British press. But should we start a little bit on Poland because there's something that you raised? What do you mean funny out about Poland? Well, Ukraine is just becoming a little porn in the election and I suspect that the Ukrainians will be quite worried about it So you've had the Polish government this law and justice very right wing but under pressure from a very very right wing force the particle Confederation and the retric against Ukraine has been cranking up so they've talked about not necessarily giving weapons They're in the middle of a grain war and then due to at the United Nations I give the quote Ukraine is behaving like a drowning person clinging to anything available.

29:00A drowning person is extremely dangerous, capable of pulling you down to the depths and simply drowning the rescuer. And what these, the far right, this confederation lot, to like a lot of far right parties in Europe are sort of basically proputin. They're essentially going around the place, saying the trouble with Ukraine is they never say thank you. It's a classic sort of, you know, we're helping them, but what do they do for us? And it's dangerous. Really important, isn't it? Because Poland was probably the fiercest, the most clearest ally of Ukraine from the very beginning. They were the people you raised Nord Stream to the gas line last week.

29:32Poland was out there very early 2004 saying that signing up to Russian gas was like the ribbon -trop packed with Hitler. They were right out of the gates when the invasion happened. Got a lot of credit for how strongly they'd stuck with Ukraine. They took 1 .7 million Ukrainian refugees. They're the major logistics hub for supplying the Ukrainians with military. they gave them most of their migs. They were one of the first to deploy aircraft. And actually, it's been interesting because since 2015, Poland, along with Hungary, have been the strongest example of right -wing populism in Europe. It's in a very difficult situation in the European Union because the poles have been cutting down on the judiciary in a brutal way.

30:13I mean, this is the theme of right -wing populism. We talked about it with Israel, but in Poland, it's very, very clear. You know, they've got involved in the nomination of the judges. They've set up new supervisory bodies. Basically, the politicians are running the courts in Poland. The European Union has a standoff. There's nearly 30 billion euros at stake in COVID relief fund in the standoff between Poland and the EU. But because Poland was so strong on supporting Ukraine against Russia, this populist government began to get some credit in the West, a lot of popularity with the US and even with the EU.

30:43And now this is beginning to falter and this far -right party you're talking about. I mean, it's really disturbing party. We've talked about far -right parties in Sweden and Finland, but this party wants to provide a list of... Los Angeles. Yeah. ...really, really weird stuff. And I think it's a reminder of something that we maybe haven't talked about enough, which is that these populist parties don't, as it were, remove the toxic right wing views from a society by absorbing them. They actually enable even more right wing views to emerge on that one. It's a kind of extreme reiteration of the way that you keep in its various manifestations pulled the conservative party further and further to the right.

31:21But the grain situation, most of our listeners will know about the importance of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world. So for their exports, they've had to go through Poland. And a lot of Polish farmers who are pretty powerful in the Polish debate have objected to this because it's also going into the Polish market. And so they're bringing in pretty old -fashioned protectionism to protect the Polish farmers, to get their support through the election. And okay, so that's a little trade war going on, but then to bring into that then on the platform of the United Nations, the president basically saying this is like a drowning man dragging his down.

31:56So I think that explains why Zelensky, partly why Zelensky has been so busy on the international front in recent weeks. And of course a smaller country, we've talked before about this guy Fisco in Slovakia, same story being told. So let's keep us off seeing the states when I was there last week and he was at the UN General Assembly, which Biden very much wanted to make about Ukraine, but he didn't succeed. What actually happened at the UN General Assembly last week is the focus was very much more on development and on climate, not enough on climate, but more on development and climate. He then went down to Washington and he's facing a real challenge with dealing with the Republicans because the dominant Republican runners are very doubtful about the continuing support for Ukraine.

32:41As a Republican field, they basically divide into three camps. There's Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, who are very much behind the sort of Biden strategy and think that you've got to defeat Russia. And that's the only way to protect Taiwan against China, and it's important for American primacy. You've got a second group like Vivek, who think that Russia is a distraction from China, and that we should be putting the US should be putting more energy into China and less into Russia Ukraine. And then the third group, which is of course Trump represents and Trump's, the frontrunner by such a country mile.

33:11Trump in May was out there saying he would resolve the entire Russia Ukraine more than 24 hours of taking office. And although he never quite says it, the implication is that he'd do it by giving bits of territory to Putin. So there's now another big over $30 billion package trying to go through Congress at a time when the US government is frozen again, they're not paying civil servants, air traffic controllers are working for free, etc. which is supposed to be for the Ukraine. And all of this I think reflects a bigger issue which is there was so much hope for this counteroffensive. And Zelensky was communicating at the beginning of the year.

33:44This was the year they were going to roll through. And of course, the first Abrams tanks, these big American tanks, have now turned up on the ground yesterday. They've got their ass support. They've got a lot of the missiles that they requested, but actually what they're doing is they're fighting over this place back moot that we talked about, which the Wagner group took. That was Progosian's great victory. Ukrainians are trying to take it back. A lot of the US military is very doubtful about this. General Austin defense secretary saying, why waste your time back? It really doesn't matter. Head south to try to cut off the Russian lines of Crimea.

34:13And these are all complicated ways of saying, it's just not moving. And the public sense that it isn't moving. Now, I know you were talking to people who slightly disagree with us and are a bit more optimistic about Ukraine Russia, is that right? Yeah, I was, but were they optimistic because they want to be optimistic? I don't know with a sort of bit of optimism bias going on. But I think that where we are now is that you've mentioned America there, but the politics of the democracies are now, I think, really playing into Putin's hands. And of course, the reason Poles become so important is because before, when Erdogan helped get that new sort of trade deal going, a lot of it was going to seaports, and of course, Putin's been battering them, and that's why they've had to resort to land, and then that goes through Poland, and that hence they're in the difficulty that they're in.

34:56And this election is very, very soon. It's on October the 15th. We're talking, you know, matter of weeks now, who knows? None of us know where it's going to end, but the fact that the governing party is playing this game at this moment suggests me that they've decided that is the way to help them win it. So I think, I mean, if you're in Zananskia, I think it is, it is tricky. You know, he sacked his defense minister. He's under huge pressure to demonstrate progress, to demonstrate that all these munitions that are coming in are really going to make the difference. He's saying that Russia's exhausted.

35:25He's going to try to fight through the winter. He thinks Russia can't keep going. But other people are saying that these mind fields the Russians have played are very deep. They're very entrenched in. The ground's going to get very soft and soggy, which is going to make it very difficult to do an offensive. People I was talking to did say that Russia had a real problem with armaments, manufactured at the moment, and that's why he had to go and see Kim Jong Un and try and get a bit of help from there. I don't know. Okay, so if that's not complicated enough, Poland, Ukraine, let's talk about Nagorno -Karabakh.

35:54And of course, Putin's at the heart of this as well, Because you have break up the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan. There have been effectively at war ever since, in part over Nagorno -Karabakh. And in the first war, not long after the break up the Soviet Union, to everybody's surprise, the Armenians won. Since when Azerbaijan has been hell -bent on revenge. Russia has been in there as a peacekeeping force, basically on the side of the Armenians, historically. And now, as sort of stepped aside, as has the Armenian government effectively, as Azerbaijan has just rolled it. So if I can do an explainer for people.

36:29So Armenia and Azerbaijan, Armenia predominantly Christian speak in Armenia language, Azerbaijan predominantly Muslim speaking at Turkic language, Armenia is the worst Azerbaijan to the east, Azerbaijan along the Iranian border and along the Caspian sea, big difference Azerbaijan, huge revenues from oil and gas, big historical tensions. And part of this goes back to the Armenian genocide. The Armenians were a very large, very ancient Christian population. I mean, they sometimes claim to be the first Christian country in the world. They converted very, very early to Christianity. There are a state that have been there since the time of the Roman Empire.

37:07And they had populations that spilled into what is now Turkey and Iran. And I remember on my walks through the Turkish Iranian border coming across these abandoned Armenian churches. And essentially, around the First War, in the end of the First War War, the Armenian population were driven out and killed by tux out of these areas. So they are hypersensitive to this question of ethnic cleansing genocide. And in Nagorno -Karabakh, which is an area, it's tiny area, just over half the size of Cumbria, about 150 ,000 people. Well, they reckon at the moment they were about 80 ,000. Even before they were taken out, there were lots of people moving out.

37:44Tiny, tiny thing. And it's surrounded on all sides by, as I've said, So it's a little sort of enclave in the middle of Azerbaijan, captured after the fall of 1794 by the Armenians, so a little Christian enclave. And that displaced about 800 ,000 Azerbaijanis who were living around the area. Couple years ago, the Azerbaijanis by now much wealthier with oil and gas used Turkish and Israeli drones in an attack, 2020, to take a loss of that area. Russian beef skippers came in, traditionally again on the Armenian side, And that's partly about the history of the Russians standing up for Christian populations going away about the Crimea war.

38:23Turks much more on the Azerbaijanis side and again some more of them must something. And now as you say, we now have a big advance where it looks as though Azerbaijan has retaken Nagorno -Karabakh. And now it's incorporated back within Azerbaijan and people are very, very worried again about the ethnic clansy Armenians. Yeah, because the president, Al -Ayf has made all sorts of positive noises about you will be welcome citizens, etc. but the history is brutal. There was all sorts of stuff circulating on social media about saying things like, you know, now we can go and rape in the women night they used to do to us and all this sort of stuff.

38:56And there's something else that was very interesting. I spoke to somebody in the Armenian government who was making the point that since this happened, Macron has spoken to both sides. Blinken has condemned what's happened and called for a ceasefire which seems to be sort of working ish, shaltz is spoke out about it at the UN in his means. German chance. Yeah. The UK, it's been left to a minister by the name of Doherty, who I must admit I'd never heard of. And then I think somebody called Lord Ahmad. I'm not aware that the prime minister or the foreign secretary, I could be wrong, but I'm not where they've said a word.

39:29And is that related to the fact that I'm again grateful to my good friends at Deish Beagle, Ach Milliard and podcast, where I heard that they were saying that on even as this military the military attack was happening, executives from BP were at some sort of celebration event, not about the invasion about the attack, but about something else with the government. And you mentioned oil, and of course that is what has given the Azerbaijanis the upper hand. It's fascinating. And my old friend's ESI, this think tank, European think tank, did some extraordinary reporting on the influence that the Azerbaijanis government has had over lawmakers in Europe and in Britain.

40:06They were very, very astute at inviting people on paid holidays and getting their positions on the council in Europe There's a lot of reporting in their reports around a an ex -lib Dem MP called Mike Hancock and his links His links into Azerbaijan But it's also a sense of the way in Ukraine Russia is changing things because Azerbaijan now really matters for Britain and for Europe because it's the place Which we're getting our oil and gas when we're not getting it from Putin's Russia so Azerbaijan could not be in a stronger position. And again, it's been a humiliation for the US. It's also been a humiliation for Russia actually because Russia had peacekeepers.

40:42And in fact, some of those Russian peacekeepers have been killed in this Azerbaijan attack. So, Russia likes to believe that it is the dominant force in the former Soviet Union. It presented itself as keeping the peace here. It had peacekeepers supporting the Armenian population, this corridor running through. Which the Azerbaijan is effectively shut down? have actually got so it's been a humiliation Putin it's been a humiliation for the US that was trying to call on restraint and a victory really for Azerbaijan and Turkey and it does feel like we're back in the 19th century because the Turks are fighting as it were a sort of almost proxy war against Russia and Azerbaijan.

41:17They were fighting a real proxy war against Russia in Syria where the Turks were against Bashar and Assad the Russians were on the side and in Libya which we talked about last week where the Russians were on the side of Hifta and the Turks were on the side of the government triply. But at the same time, of course, the Turks are buying Russian military equipment. So, the final thing I noticed is the role of celebrities in this. So, we've got a situation in which the Armenians are being endorsed by Kim Kardashian. So, it's the on the basis of celebrities, which side do you think you should support?

41:46So the Armenians are being supported by Kim Kardashian, Michael Jordan and Mel Gibson. And the Azerbaijanis are being supported by Ronaldinho and Chuck Norris. Who would you on which celebrities are telling their many Instagram followers. I'll tell you the thing about America as well. Shortly before, I'm not, again, this is something I've not seen anywhere in Armenia, that the military exercises involving America and the Armenian, very weak, they have a very weak military, but the military exercises just before this. I don't know whether that was American sending a signal, but if it was, it seems to backfired.

42:21And I think the reason perhaps the Russians didn't get as involved as they might have done in keeping the peace. Is perhaps Putin was saying, listen, if you're going to play around the Americans, then don't expect to do something together. It feels as though this is dangerous from Nicole Pachinian, who's the Armenian leader, because he took a risk of growing pro -Western and distancing himself from Putin. And it boy has it not paid off. The US and the European Union have not written to his rescue in the way that he would have hoped, and that's the problem, because that was a big diplomatic play by the US and Europe, to try to leverage away former Soviet states from Russia.

42:58And this is bad, I think. What do you think it is about the British government that's been so quiet about? I know cleverly was busy on the king of the Philippines. I imagine it probably is that they're very conscious that we're very dependent on Azerbaijan for oil and gas if we're not taking oil and gas from Putin. And therefore they're reluctant to come in. Thank you, though, that boy. We covered a lot of ground there. We've done a lot of detail on Poland, a lot of detail on China. We have to do your dreams another day. Do my dreams another day. Maybe you should start doing what I do. What I recommend is, this is what I did when I was doing this.

43:27I don't do it anymore, but I do remember my dreams much more than I used to. Before you go to sleep, you basically say to yourself, I am going to remember my dreams. And you have a notebook and a pen next to your bed. Okay. And then while you're dreaming, it comes over time. This is the hypnagogic process. Over time, you develop this capacity, is that while you're dreaming, there is a part of your conscious mind saying, I'm going to remember this bit. Okay, here's my final dream, just to disturb all listeners at the end of their thing. I dreamt that I was standing in the airport security line.

43:57Standing in front of me, I believe, was Timothy Gartnash, who's this professor. I do a bit of a fris harry. You dream of Timothy Gartnash. I won't tell you about my dreams, but I'll tell you about how they've done it. Timothy Gartnash left the security line. I couldn't quite work out why he left the security line. I was joking to the guy who was standing with Professor Leven Security Line. Then I realized that at the end of the security line was not an extra machine, but a guillotine. and I was going to have my head chopped off. And I realized I had about a minute until I was going to have my head chopped off.

44:26And my strongest thought was, this is all very well making jokes instead of putting a brave face in it, but I've got a minute to contemplate my life before I get my head chopped off. Why am I wasting time making jokes rather than preparing myself with dignity for my death? Or getting out of the situation, surely. Or getting out of the line, but that never occurred to me. No, I'm a proper conservative. I just do what I'm told. I just, you stay forward towards the guillotine. Well, on the note of Maurice Stewart having to, his head chopped off, we'll see you soon. Thank you very much.