193. What makes the Tory right so powerful?

0:00Thanks for listening to the Restus Politics, sign up to the Restus Politics Plus to enjoy ad -free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestuspolitics .com. That's therestuspolitics .com. At Blinds .com, it's not just about window treatments. It's about you. Your style, your space, your way. Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right. From free expert design help to our 100 % satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows.

0:32Because at Blinds .com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you. Visit Blinds .com now for up to 40 % off site -wide plus a professional measure at no cost. Rules and restrictions apply.

0:52Welcome to the Restus Politics. Question time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Mr Campbell. And a lot going on and we've done our emergency pod. People haven't heard it, which I thought was very exciting. And then we've done our main podcast. And now we've got a lot of questions coming in on huge number of different issues. But one of the I thought we'd start with is Dr. W. Elliott Boomer. If Scotland were an independent country, and I'm asking this knowing you're both Arden Unionists, although I think I'm more of an Arden Unionist. I think you are Arden to the North. So it calls for stretch imagination.

1:27What should be the priorities of the Scottish government? A closer relationship with England or a closer relationship with Europe? If Scotland were independent, interesting. If Scotland were independent, which I don't think is going to happen in my lifetime, if Scotland were independent, they'd have to focus on both. But I think actually one of the lessons of Brexit is that they'd have to address an awful lot of complexities about the unraveling of the relationship with the rest of the UK. So I suspect England would be... Yeah, do you agree with that? That's the paradox and it's the problem with both Brexit and Scottish independence that the movement is driven by a rejection.

2:04But then what you have to do is then spend the next few years really focusing on a very, very close relationship to get the best relationship you can, which is psychologically difficult because the people that have pushed for independence have amped up the anti -English thing. And then you realise that you're going to have to come to a lot of compromise, it's a lot of make a lot of concession. So I mean, in something like three quarters of Scotland's trade business links are into England, not out to Europe. And it would be very, very, very tough for the Scottish economy. It'd be an amplified version of what Britain went through leaving the European Union.

2:38Now you and I were in Dublin together briefly last week. And after you left, I was at a dinner with some of the people who'd been at the event that we were at. And I did a round table show of hands, you know how I love my show of hands. And I was asking them their view as to whether they thought there'd be an island in my lifetime. I think that was the timeframe. And not a single hand was raised. Gosh, and I think there's a major shift. And I think the answer, the reason for that is part of the, I've actually written my new European column about this because I was quite taken back by it is I think the reasons are them looking north and seeing a bit of a basket case with this political stalemate going on, but also looking east at us in Great Britain and thinking, do we really want to kind of get that much closer?

3:30Anyway, I found it very interesting. And I said to the people there, do you think there would have been the same answer 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago? No, absolutely not. Right. Very interesting, very interesting. Here's a question from Tommy Heatley. Alistair, would you put Sinn Fein in the column of the three piece? So to remind people, three pieces, popularism, polarization and post -truths. Question is, is Sinn Fein a populist party? And to remind people, in case they forgot, Sinn Fein was the political wing of the IRA. And we were in the middle of a huge controversy about people chanting, palisines should be free from the river to the sea.

4:08But of course, the IRA was absolutely committed to destroying the British state in Northern Ireland. I mean, it's an interesting question about recognizing somebody's right to exist. But certainly, tradition Sinn Fein in the IRA did not recognize the right of the British state in Northern Ireland to exist and was associated with terrorism. So Tommy Heatley says he feels that Sinn Fein are a populist party, FFFG and not perfect. In the FFG? I think Irish political party is not perfect, but I think they're working well together. Sinn Fein seems to have simple answers for very complicated problems, love the pipes and the late -late show.

4:43And I wanted to pin you on that. What the pipes on the late -late show? No pipes and late -late show. I think we can just take this granted. I played the fields of Athens, right? We're doing you did well on that. I think you often are a bit soft on Sinn Fein, and therefore you'll be a bit reluctant to acknowledge what most of my Irish friends think, which is they're pretty horrified by it and think people are forgetting their history too quickly and that they are a populist party. I think they are a populist party. In that, I think they are offering very simple solutions to incredibly complicated problems, housing and health, other things that they're really campaigning against the big two on.

5:15And I actually think that roundtable, I think part of the reason they may have shifted is because they're actually now as business community confronting the possibility, if not probability, that the L 'Avishin Fein government. How does that affect their views on whether or not it's going to be a united island? Well, I don't know whether that wasn't, I wasn't asking them about that, but I wonder whether I, because I think that they think that the United Ireland is like, in a way, independence is a driving mission for the SMP in Scotland, that the United Ireland is a driving mission for Sinn Fein, which is what's that?

5:44That was that. Yeah, and they'll make a big thing of it in the election and whereas that community that I was with pretty high -heeled, they were all chairs of companies and boards and stuff, that they would be possibly not very favorably disposed towards Sinn Fein from the business perspective. So therefore that might have colored their judgment in the question of the United Ireland. And then just to explain again to listeners that's because Sinn Fein's traditionally seen as a pretty left wing. Yeah, force. Yeah. So populist, yes, polarising, I'd say no, in that I think they're trying to project themselves in a much more co -operative kind of way.

6:18So I don't think they're going out and saying, if you're not with as your terrible person, which is kind of what polarisation is about. And on post -truth, I mean you got to remember on post -truth, you talk about the old days when the IRA would be doing all sorts of stuff. And Sinn Fein line was that they had nothing to do with the IRA. So that was pre -post -truth in a way. But I think what Marylune McDonald's leader and Michelle O 'Neill in the north are both trying to do is to project themselves as modern democratic leaders. So they would, I would say they're populist. Some of the Eurosh friends might say they're polarising and post -truth.

6:53But I'd say possibly less than they used to be. But I think one of the uncomfortable questions if we talk about Georgia Maloney, the populist leader in Italy or marrying the pen in France is that many, I would say the Swedish Democrats, many of these parties try to rebrand themselves as being moderate, distance themselves from their slightly extreme parts. Yeah, and dissemmages are not. Part of the question is how much you prepared to forget about who they were pretty recently and the movements in which these people grew up. How much you prepared a take at face value, leaders who grew up in those movements suddenly saying, oh no, we're nothing to do with that anymore.

7:30We're now friendly. But that's something that Fina Foyle and Fina Gail are having to wrestle with because when I was on the late late show, I was on with this guy who's a very, very smart guy. He's got a very successful podcast. He's a comedian, he's a writer, called Blind Boy, who wears a plastic bag over his head everywhere he goes because he doesn't want to be recognised when he's out and about. But I was talking about how I think actually there's some good politicians in Ireland and I was mentioning, I thought it was amazing the way that you've got the two main parties, so that they swap the role of Tisha from Meehaw Martin now, Leveratka.

8:08And he said, and he got a laugh for it and a round of applause, as far as I'm concerned, they're just two cheeks of the same ass, which is a kind of nice easy jive to make. But I think that what Sinn Foyle and Fina are banking on actually is for young people in particular, confronted with really bad housing crisis. But then literally to forget, not to know about, so then the Fina for and the Fina girl, I've got to decide, well, do they attack Sinn Foyle for those past religious problems? But this is a question for Joe Biden, it's the question for Kistama, it's the question for Macron, it's the question for shorts in Germany, isn't it?

8:45That there could be politicians out there who people admire, I mean, I think we look at Ireland's politicians, we tend to think they're pretty good, pretty serious. Ireland has been a genuine genuine miracle. I mean, it's now got some of the highest life expectancy educational schools out of Europe, one of the highest GDP per capita's from a very, very poor, but it's a genuine miracle, it's quite, I mean, you're right, there are problems in Ireland like housing, but by and large, my goodness, it's performed well. Yeah, and also the sort of the progress on the kind of questions of what normally social conservatism has been huge as well.

9:20And also surprising, not quite as much regional inequality as you get in many European countries, and yet, as you say, the populist can still come in and take on even pretty good, pretty formidable competent politicians and destroy them. I think the next generation will be really, really interesting, very interesting. And where is where blind boys got a point about, you know, two cheeks of the same arse, I mean, I wouldn't phrase it like that, but I think unless you do know the history of Ireland, actually sort of working out the difference between Finneff Island and Finnegaal is not always straightforward.

9:53I mean, it's not, you know, generally people would say, oh, or Verac is more of a Tory, but it's kind of not as simple as that. Just for my final one on Ireland, and what did you make of the Irish president and his position on Palestine and just remind people what happened there? So the Irish president, Michael Higgins, who's a very, very popular guy, and pretty left wing, he made a very, very outspoken statement on what's happening in the Middle East. And again, I asked the business leaders what they thought. And he was wearing a Palestinian scarf. He was wearing a Palestinian scarf. He was very, very strongly.

10:28You'd put him on the pro -Palestinian side, which historically Ireland has always been. And I saw an interview in the Israeli diplomats saying that they see Ireland as almost the most difficult country for them to deal with the whole of the island. I think they see Ireland, Ireland and Spain as the most sort of, you know, they define as anti -Israel. I've got a very good friend in Ireland who actually does some work with Israel who says that it is a difficult place to have this debate. But interestingly, the business leaders again, I didn't know the show of Ansel and that one, they were, they were not happy about that.

10:59They felt that that was an overstepping of the president's mark. Very good. Okay. Now, how will the US election impact UK Labour anti -bias, which would be more beneficial for the Labour Party, a general election prior to the US election or after it, or will the impact one might affect the other? So let's just think this truth. So I suppose there are four possibilities. There's an election before which Biden wins an election before which Trump wins an election after which Biden wins an election after which Trump wins, which marginally might be more of a problem for the Labour Party, more of an advantage.

11:30I think the ideal for Labour would be an election before which Biden wins, which takes away this is a sort of major question. It will be a big question. If the American presidential election doesn't happen before a general election here, then Labour will legitimately and constantly be asked. And I mean, you could imagine a situation where Labour end up saying, well, we don't comment or interfere in the elections of other countries. I don't think that will happen because I think it'll be so clear that a Labour government would prefer to work with Biden and with Trump. So I would say that would be the trickiest would be an American election before which Trump wins.

12:08I know if actually it might even be an American election after which Trump wins, because you'd be sort of working with Biden up to the point of and then that could get very, very difficult. Yeah, yeah. Okay. What about books? This is Gavin Dingwall. Dingwall, the home of Ross County Football Club. Very good. You knew that, didn't you? I did not until this moment, but that's a very good, very good, very good, very good insight. Thank you. All right. So Gavin says, other than your own, what are your favourites of the many political books that have been published this year? I'm going to start with a book that wasn't published this year, but which is very relevant this year.

12:47And that is a book by my old friend Donald McIntyre, who I'm sure you know, journalist, spent a lot of time in the Middle East. And his book is quite as simply called Gaza. And if you really want to know the history of Gaza, then that is a book worth getting, I'm also going to give a shout out to Chris Bryant for his book Code of Conduct. Similar theme in Dunt, how Westminster works and why it doesn't. And I think a book I've mentioned on the podcast before, Russell Jones wrote a book called The Tyranny of nostalgia, which is a really, really good analysis of why our economy is not as strong as it should be.

13:25Well, so my recommendations on politics more broadly. I did an event yesterday with Mary Beard, a book called Emperor of Rome. And we had a really... Ah, Rory, before you go on. Before you go on. We had a question a couple of weeks ago, which we didn't get around to, but also I was also asked this by somebody called Alice in the Swimming Pool the other day. Very clean list of the podcast that she'd love to ask you in particular, how often do you think about the Roman Empire? It's a weird question, isn't it? But it's being asked a lot to bear in the world. I mean, I obviously think about a lot.

13:55So, how many times a day would you think about the Roman Empire? Oh, um, five or six? Really? Yeah, I think about the Roman Empire a lot. Yeah. Mary Beard and I had a very detailed discussion about Roman emperors yesterday, for an hour and a half, on a stage at the Kedagan Hall. So yesterday you thought about it a lot? It's not about a great deal. And people interested in it. So Mary Beard, who people will know, has written a beautiful book, not about specific emperors, but about the nature of power in Rome, and the way in which power is play acting, the role of women in Roman politics, because of course, women were not emperors, never became emperors.

14:30And I think it's, it's, I think she was actually really good on the stage at thinking about some of the echoes between Roman politics and British politics. Including today. Including today. I suppose, I suppose bringing Cameron back is sort of, we described as being Victorian, but you could probably go back even further. Go back to Roman's, get in. A couple of AI books, if people haven't, haven't particularly been picking up on that, from people we've interviewed on leading, and if you haven't heard, do less than for the must for Suleiman's coming wave, and reading. His book is getting a lot of love in the book shops.

15:01Read Hoffman's in Promptu, which he wrote with chat GBT. Yasha Monk, who I think we've talked about getting on the podcast. I think we should at some point, it's written a really powerful book called The Great Experiment. And Yasha Monk is very interested in two different types of things at the moment. He's very interested in the way that immigration works and multicultural societies are formed. And he challenges the populist far right on that. He's also very interesting, though increasingly, on challenging the far left on identity politics. In some ways, we should get him on, but he's trying to stand up for a vision of liberalism, which is neither national identity politics nor other forms of identity politics.

15:42The book I'm most looking forward to next year is that I'm not giving up on my attempts to get Angela Merkel onto the podcast. That would be a real clue. And I know that one of her key advisors is a regular listener. Very good. So Merkel is not doing interviews at the moment because she's writing a book, a memoirs, which I think will be a great read. Yeah, let me put in a final plug for a book that I've just finished, which hasn't yet been published, but it's about to come out, and people can pre -order by Gary Stevenson called Trading Game. Gary Stevenson, working class guy from London, who became a currency trader in a bank just before 2008.

16:23And it is the most chilling terrifying account of the madness of those banks in their culture. And I sometimes, you know, there I am thinking politics is the most noxious, disgusting, bullying, horrifying game of the world. But when he describes these city traders in full raw, you see something absolutely appalling. I mean, both the way that he was treated by city bank, the way in which they blew up the economy, the way in which they made money, the way in which their bonuses are just the culture, the day -to -day culture that is trading for us. So Gary Stevenson Trading Game. Now, we should just say that lots of people I know will have got your book and my last book through Cole's Books, which is a fantastic book shop down in Bister.

17:11And any of the books that we mentioned on the podcast, at any time, you can get 10 % off Cole's Books by becoming a Trip Plus member and see all the books we mention every week by signing up to the newsletter. Let's take a break.

17:30This is an ad from BetterHelp. At the moment, we're getting advice from everywhere. You just have to go on TikTok. Could be Alice's Cole plunges. Could be my attempts to meditate or the digital detox that I'm doing in Colombia. But of course, one of the things that we know is that it can be incredibly valuable to talk to another human being, somebody who's actually been trained as a therapist, to work through these ideas, calmly objectively and professionally. And as a larger online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a very diverse variety of expertise.

18:06They've got over 5 ,000 therapists in the UK. They've helped more than 5 million people globally. And you can join a session literally at the click of a button. Change therapists anytime. It's obviously not about fixing you, but it's about hearing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time. So talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp .com slash Rest Politics. That's better, h -e -l -p .com slash Rest Politics.

18:38Welcome back to the Restistus Politics question time with me, Elis De Camel. And with me, Rory Stewart, and a plug for our leading interview with Comfort Ero, who is a British Nigerian who is the head of International Crisis Group. And gave us, I thought, a stunning interview looking at crises around the world, an amazing introduction to the complexity of the world today. What do you think? No, I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. Her work is meant to be about the crisis group, because just to try to prevent crises, there were a lot of crises that had a lot be prevented. I don't know if we could put the blame entirely on that at all.

19:15But there was a lot to talk about. And it was a reminder of, even though we pride ourselves on talking about stuff that much of the British mainstream media doesn't focus on, there's an awful lot of other stuff that you just can't, we don't have time for. You know, she got us into Haiti and Philippines and Venezuela. Yemen and all these different places. And also, I'm particularly, I'm really looking forward to another leading interview that we've got coming up, which is Tony Kluge. This is a guy who's represented both sides in the Middle East peace process debate. So I'm looking forward to that.

19:48Great. Looking forward to that, too. Thomas Van der Ville. Can you give your insights on the upcoming Dutch election and why Amzik and his new party, NSC, are doing so well in the polls? Have you been following this at all? No, I'm test fat test. Well, this guy, Peter Amzik, is a sort of center right kind of politician who's set up a new party, the new social contract. A few months ago and he's currently leading the polls. And this is an election that was caused by Martin Brutter. His coalition collapsed. I think he's like, I think he's onto his fourth coalition, Bill Imerkle, but he's now not standing.

20:25So you've got all the leaders who are standing for the main parties are new. You've got this new party. You've got Franz Timmerman, European commissioner who's leading a kind of left labor -green coalition. But Amzik is doing really, really well in the polls. And what are they stand for? They're quite interesting that he's from the sort of center right background, but he's more left wing on some issues. So he's kind of, he's a century. He's seen as a sort of macro figure. I don't know. He's seen as a macro figure. And also interestingly, he said that he doesn't intend to be prime minister. So he's leading the party, vote for the party, and then they're going to decide he'll be prime minister.

21:03He's not come out of nowhere in terms of being quite well -known in the Netherlands, but his party is literally just been formed almost for this election. So it's got elements of my problem. What's the platform? Why is he so huge? He's popular. What's the thing? What are they fed up with? What are they doing? What's the waiters want him? Because he's basically saying he's sensible on the economy, but look after people kind of thing. And you know, fairly obvious stuff, but in a, you wouldn't thought you can blow up a political system with that kind of message. But he isn't really bringing it up because one of the problems that has led to this election is the small parties can emerge and do very, very well.

21:39And if you look at the full list, I haven't got it in front of me, but take a look at the full list of all the parties that are standing. I mean, there are so many of them, but they will get some votes. And you know, because it's a portion of representation, some of them will end up in in Parliament. But it's a very, very interesting one. And you know, maybe because Mark Rutte was there and was seen as quite a strong figure and he held things together, him going, I think, as possibly just opened up the space for people to look at other people differently. Franz Timberman, as well, is doing pretty well.

22:09Who we may get onto the podcast? Oh, lefty on the podcast. And we definitely will. If he becomes Prime Minister, we'd like to have Mr Peter Omsik. And I can, I can, I can try my one sentence of Dutch out on it. That's very good. Remind us your one sentence. He kept the fail of Mandolderzach spilled. No, that is impressive. Do you know what it means? No. I've played my backpipes too much. Very good. Very good. That's true as well as. We should keep tabs on that. I may be talking about it again after the event, but Peter Omsik, to definitely worth watching, is Githin has written to us saying, our hage and milliband, the most influential politicians in the UK, are their disasters, changes to leadership elections within their parties, largely to blame for Brexit, Johnson, Corbin, trust and so on.

22:51So, clever. Initially, I thought this was a question about whether will he be brought David milliband? Triple rule back. Yeah, yeah. That's about it. Milliband millimag. And let me start on that. I absolutely agree with these questions. I think the changes to the leadership elections that allowed Boris Johnson to come through, allowed Jeremy Corbyn to come through, allowed this trust to come through, were catastrophic. And at least the way the Conservative Party used to organize things before these hage reforms, which allowed the MPs who actually work day in, day out with these people, knew that Boris Johnson was somebody who could not be trusted and would not have voted for him.