194. Autumn statements, Putin's progress, and why advertisers are pulling out of X

24:34And it was quite interesting because insofar as any comments were going out, it was basically about how they felt that what she was offering wasn't quite enough to persuade them that this was like a really, really thought through plan. So they keep coming back to the tax on the non -doms, private school, etc. Now I think they will have to be more than that during in a manifesto and during the campaign. But they're definitely in a place now where people are looking at them with the mindset that says she is the next chancellor. That has its own momentum, I think. Absolutely. And you've got, you know, Mark Kahnney coming out and dorsing her and all these kind of things.

25:10But you're absolutely right. The things that they've signaled so far aren't giving a very, very clear sense yet on what they're actually going to do because, as you say, the taking fear of private schools isn't going to make a huge difference to the public finances. It's something that produced a little bit of money and maybe help many of the issues that you care deeply about. But it's not the big story in public finances and non -doms, definitely, to its small amount of money. Meanwhile, we've got an economy where companies are now beginning to record quite a lot of insolvencies, business investments down, housing investments down.

25:43And the problem is our consumers confident they're going to spend enough because we're a country where 60 % of our GDP is from consumer spending. Yeah. Anyway, there we are. So she's going to inherit her situation where pandemic support has been with drawn, where it's been this energy price shock, where house prices are lower. What is she going to do to get this thing going? And they're both. You've got both the main parties now. We're essentially saying it's all about growth. So it's in a sense is who comes up with the more convincing, more compelling plan that says this will grow the economy.

26:12And I think something else maybe we don't talk about enough in Britain is that the problems that we're facing in Britain, I don't know whether most people listening, given our normal gloomy talk, probably would get the impression that obviously Germany and France are doing much better than us, but they're not. You know, France, it's growth since 2019 is the same as ours. It's growth over last year is 0 .7 % compared to 0 .6 % and Germany has only grown 0 .3 % since 2019 and it's contracting at 0 .4 % this year. Germany's also had a massive hole thrown into its planning by the Constitutional Court, which is just it's a very, very complicated issue, but essentially it means that something that the government was banking on for a lot of its incoming revenue, they can no longer bank on.

26:59But you know, there's nowhere that's doing wonderfully well. So for the US, I mean, which has grown 7 .4 % since 2019, 2 .9 % this year. I mean, it's a different story. And of course, with the Chinese economy faltering and the Eurozone or a lot of the major economies in Europe, not doing very well. Eurozone's actually doing a bit better than Germany, France and Britain. So there we are on the economy and productivity and if people want to hear a lot more on that, then our sister podcast, the rest is money with Robert Preston's staff for the government. They'll be talking loads and loads about that on the back of the autumn statement.

27:32You can hear that on Thursday.

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29:04We've got the gear to keep it organized and protected at the whole depot. How doers get more done?

29:49Welcome back to the rest of the Polities with me, I'm St Campbell. And me, Rory Stewart. And before we get on to MPs and Gaza, a little plug on leading for Aranchugansales, who I think was you enjoyed, but yeah, I did. Former Spanish Foreign Minister, now the head of Ciel Spul in Paris. And I thought of a very, very charming, engaging both politician and foreign policy think of. I enjoy talking to her about her experience as a trade negotiator because that's something that, you know, unless you've done, unless you've been in the kind of engine room of some of those negotiations, I think it's very hard to understand what they're like.

30:26And now I thought she, terrific. It was quite nice because we did it a little while back now and it was a bit of a respite from the fact that we've been Middle East, Middle East, Middle East for obvious reasons. So, should we talk about the Middle East? Yep, let's, I think, let's make a change and talk about the Middle East. I mentioned the Sky Program. And I, Rachel Ruiz gave a very strong answer about some of these protests that have been happening outside MPs, constituency offices and vandalism and graffiti. And I know that there was one near us because Kierstarmel is nearby. And I got quite a lot of grief on social media because I was saying that I I felt that this green party, it was like a poster that they put out where they basically said, here's the full list of the people who voted not to end the killing in Gaza.

31:16And I just think that's the sort of populism and polarization that we can do without right now. Nobody who voted against that SNP motion did so because they wanted more bombs to fall on innocent people in Gaza. Can I come in on this? Because I feel so strongly and I really strongly in agreement with you. But it is amazing how social media weaponizes voting in this way. And this is partly the fault of a website called They Work for You, which is always used sometimes to completely misrepresent what a vote is. So I'll often get if people attack me on Twitter, they'll say people think Rory's nice, but look at his voting record.

31:53And it will say something like, votes had seven times to make Britain more filthy, votes had six times to, you know, harm benefit claimants. And there's nobody posting those things, has looked at the detail of the amendments, the votes. And they've certainly not looked at what's whipped and what isn't. Because part of this is about the fact that as I think I've said before, 90 % of the time you're in a party system way, all you can tell from the voting record is are you voting with your leader or not? And if you're in the government, if you're a government minister or on the government payroll, you kind of have to or you lose your job.

32:24Now, and lots of people think that's a bad system and and they're entitled to that view, but at least try to understand that's what it is. So the Labour leadership having decided whether people like it or not that they weren't going to play along with the SMP. And sorry, just to explain, SMP were pushing for ceasefire, is that right? SMP put down an amendment to the King's speech, essentially called in for ceasefire. And as we've discussed before, Kisthama for various reasons didn't want to come up for that. Yeah. And I think actually it was best summed up for me as things often are in a cartoon, I can't remember which paper I saw this cartoon, but it was a meeting of the Hamas leadership and the leader is saying, change a plan, lads, the SMP have put down an amendment.

33:05And I do think that the extent to which this debate, of course, people feel angry. They feel angry at the Hamas attacks, they feel angry and angry at what seems like this extraordinary military response with lots of, you know, whatever the the true figures are, clearly very large numbers of people being killed, including women, including children, they see babies riding in hospitals and they wanted to stop. The idea that because a labor MP did not vote in support of an SMP amendment put down frankly for, I'm not saying it's not down, it's not what they believe. Of course, they believe it, but they're also putting it down for their own internal, particular reasons as well.

33:47And the only idea that that then is in excuse for these hundreds of people to march on MPs to vandalize their offices, to threaten them and their families. I just think it's is wrong. And I think it puts lots of decent people off from even thinking about politics. I think one thing where I might disagree agreeably with you is that you've said a couple of times over the last few weeks and you've just done it again with the cartoon that something to bear in mind is nobody really cares too much what Britain does or doesn't do. No, I don't. Anyway, if I can have a stab at this, I'd say Kierstahl was still got to take a position that he believes in.

34:23I mean, it's not an excuse to say, well, it doesn't really matter what I say anyway, because Britain's not as important as everyone thinks. So it doesn't matter whether I call for ceasefire, I don't call for ceasefire, because I think European countries together calling for ceasefire if they did would have influence. For sure, but where I agree with you really, really strongly is that this thing of marching on people's offices and the incredible hates on social media. And I think it's the Joe Stevenson Cardiff, her entire office, dorked in red paint with blood on her hands. Naz Shah saying she's been the victim of a lot of his Islamophobic attacks.

35:02It's really horrifying. And this is all about the story we keep coming back to, which is the way in which social media has become this extreme horrifying polarizing force, which basically destroys all trust or faith in political systems and just turns everyone into sort of rage. I was talking to an academic just before we recorded this podcast, who said to me, Rory, I want to set up a system which measures every MP on whether they tell the truth. And if they lie on one thing, it means they can't be trusted and if they can't be trusted, the public should turn against them. And I was listening to him and I thought, okay, on the one hand, I sympathize with you, we all want much more honesty and politics.

35:48On the other hand, that sounded to me like an even more intense, highly aggressive, pure, technical view stoked by social media where you get one strike in your out. This is your voting record, you're an evil person, we're going to spray your office, your counsel, et cetera. I think the green party are perfectly good, do, do, believe the right things in a lot of issues. And but I just think that was a form of politics that I think we needed, we get particularly in this time. Lots of people to social media sort of tap me over it because I made the point, you and I are speaking later this week at an event in memory of Joe Cox, who was murdered, David Amos was murdered.

36:27And they were saying what you were saying is that the green party are inciting people to murder these MPs. I wasn't saying that at a tour. They also said, you printed a list of all the MPs who voted against a people's vote, which I did. But what I didn't do was say that or sort of suggest that there was something kind dishonorable about it. What I was doing was to make sure that people knew I was literally publishing it as a piece of public information. Now the Greens would probably argue they were doing the same. But I think when you're saying here is a full list of the MPs who voted not to end the killing in Gaza.

37:03That was the phrase they used. They voted not to end the killing in Gaza, like it was their choice. Yeah. And this is, this is all comes back to this point about context, doesn't it? Because the one, of course, that we were sort of discussing and slightly disagreeing about a few months ago was Kierstama putting out that tweet saying, do you think that people who sexily abuse children should go to jail, Rishi Sunak doesn't under the conservative government, 1600 of these people haven't been sent to jail? And again, it's all about giving a little bit of context and a little bit of respect to the possibility that politicians are not actually homicide or maniacs or if they're voting in a particular way or passing in a law in particular, it's because they really want to murder people or let off sex libusers of children or have people murdered in Gaza that actually there might be good conscience reasons for people voting in a certain way.

37:55I saw Kierstama recently at Burnley Arsenal game and I mean, you know, it was obvious talking to him just for a few minutes that one, he I think really does feel deeply that people have to stand up for Israel and the Jewish community at the moment. But secondly, it feels that, you know, what is happening as a consequence is utterly horrific. But the point is he's not a commentator and he's not a somebody on a march or somebody signing a petition, he's somebody who might well be Prime Minister quite soon and then be in a position where hopefully he can play a really constructive role in trying to get this thing into a better place.

38:36And at the moment, I think that the inability of people to understand that these issues might be a little bit more complicated than a 280 character tweet. And by the way, talking of which, you said in the introduction about Musk and Musk is denying that he said anything remotely anti -submitting. I think the tweet, well, by the hellies spend so much time liking tweets, presumably just to sort of get noticed, I don't know. But certainly, I think should have avoided the thing that you retweeted. Yeah, just give me the background on this. So somebody tweeted out the Jewish community have been pushing the hatred of whites, which they now claim to want people to stop using against them.

39:15So the theory here is something called the Great Replacement Theory. And the idea is that Western elites have been inverted commas, right? This is the conspiracy theory manipulated by Jews and who want to replace and disempower white Americans. So the idea is that they're basically bringing in immigrants. And this tweet was saying, now Jews are finding out what it's like to bring in all these immigrants because now all these immigrants are demonstrating against Jews. And Elon Musk replying to this says, you have said the actual truth. And Elon Musk thereby endorsing, supporting a pretty well -known trope that is used by these very, very quite dangerous people and actually led to a big anti -Semitic attack that killed dozens of people in the United States, somebody spouting the theory.

40:03Yeah. And so he's now losing lots of advertisers, that nobody cares about that or not. Apple, Disney, IBM, or frozen there advertising. And then today he's come out and said that the election of Javier Miele in Argentina is a great thing that is going to deliver prosperity. So we've got Musk saying that, we've got Trump saying that Miele is going to make Argentina great again. Meanwhile, anyone who wants to see what Miele's up to do, you just shared with us, didn't you? Something actually on Twitter X, showing Miele's latest stunt. Tell us a bit about it. What is going to load of graphic, a load of sort of stickies on the wall with all the names of all the government departments and he's going around saying, don't need education, don't need innovation, don't need science.

40:42But one of his things is that he's going to get rid of 12 government departments along with banning abortion, legalizing the sale of organs. I mean, how have that worked? I don't know if it sounds pretty horrific to me. And just to remind people who didn't listen to the Think Couple weeks ago, this is the Argentinian candidate who has a dog named after Milton Friedman that's a clone that he quotes and walks around with a chainsaw saying that he's going to shred regulations and whose opponent is the Minister of Finance who's presided over one of the most catastrophic economic collapses of all time.

41:14It's quite a choice, isn't it? Well, and the choice has been made and it's going to be really interesting because you've got like Trump as a say musk. Some of the others who come out and said, this is great news. You've got Lula in Brazil who put out a congratulation that was so lukewarm, it was basically not left the fridge. He had Gustavo Petro in Colombia who said this was a disastrous day for Latin America, he's streaming right to one. And he is extremely bright. He's a climate change denier, totally anti -abortion wants to dollarize the pace. But very unpopular with the Pope. He called the Pope a filthy leftist, which I just thought would have harmed him a lot in Argentina, but it doesn't seem to be done.

41:57And his vice president, woman called Victoria Villaruel, she's somebody who thinks that we all, including people in Argentina, we rather overdo the murders of the military regime back in the 70s and 80s that they were just doing their job kind of thing. So Argentina definitely want to watch. And I mean, I don't want to talk about Diego Maradona because I don't like talking about Diego as you know, Roy, but I just wonder what he would make of it all. Your friend would not be happier to all with it, no? I don't think so. My friend who by the way has had a tattoo of Castro on his calf. And if you ask me how I know that, it's because I want to share the show with him.

42:34That's what I'm saying. And apparently he was going to get a tattoo of you on the other calf, wasn't he? But never quite got around. No, you'd have to be silly. You'd have to be very, very silly. Now, listen, I'm just finally on on social media before we move on to Russia, Ukraine. There is no data tool that Twitter X and indeed all the other platforms have made this Israel Gaza conflict completely different. Yeah. To the way these conflicts would have been 20 years ago, there have been 46 ,000 posts with the hashtag Hitler was right. The hashtag Death to Muslims has been shared more than 10 ,000 times.

43:07Anti -Semitic abuse has up 919 % Islamic phobic abuse at 422%. Well, but some have been loud and is become a huge star on TikTok. So much say the Guardian had to take down from their website, been loud in statement about 911 because it was being shared so much. And Russia, China and Iran are using bots, state media, official accounts. A third of the accounts on both sides tweeting about the attack on the hospital were fake to just give you a sense of how much of the stuff is being spread in a very cynical way. Right, well, finally, before we wrap, Russia, Ukraine, which is something obviously we talk about a lot.

43:43And I remember when we were talking about this probably three months ago, and I was being a bit gloomy about it, you said that you actually you'd met some people in a think tank and some generals who thought that I was being too gloomy and that actually the Ukrainians had a better chance. But it's not looking great. No, I mean, this counteroffensive, which was kind of in its full run at the time that I met those guys. This was supposed to change the cause of the war. They had lots of new deliveries of Western weapons and the idea was they were going to punch through the Russian lines and straightforwardly move on towards Crimea and and victory.

44:17And we're talking that made about 10 miles of progress. The figures now is very as with in Israel, Gaza, very hard to trust all the figures. But the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense reckons that the Russians have lost 320 ,000 killed and wounded. American officials reckoned the Ukrainians have suffered 70 ,000 deaths, between 100 and 120 ,000 injured. And yet they've only advanced roughly 10 miles. And the mind you're talking in some parts of the battlefield, a level of land mine that has barely been known in the modern age. So I think there's a real sense of it, frankly being stuck. And of course, because he's a dictator, up against essentially a collection of democracies that are trying to support Ukraine, Putin does feel he has more time.

45:11And he's got these sort of, you know, the Middle East now plays to his advantage because world attention is off it. Congress in America polarized dysfunctional is waiting for Trump who clearly is much closer to Putin's side of the argument. On the economy, sanctions and import controls have had some effect where they far from crippled the economy. Their defense industry, their manufacturing industry and defense seems to be keeping a pace in a way that the West is not. And impossible to know what real public opinion is saying, but it seems to be holding elite support is strong. And the other thing that's happened, of course, is the other countries that, you know, if so, 50 % of Russian imports are now from China.

45:52Russia is exporting masses of oil, both the China and to India. Some of that oil has been refined in India and sent on to Europe. So he's used the diplomatic relations, he's used economic relations. And also with more sinister countries, I mean, I think he's getting a million shells and from North Korea, isn't he? That's proving why they kept that North Korean relationship alive or justifying the way they've kept it alive for the last few years. Yeah. So it's pretty hard. And because the one thing that one of the many things that Zleinsky did very, very well, particularly in the early stages of this was this constant ability to keep the same messaging going around the world, country to country, huge popular support.

46:31And, you know, we live in a very kind of transient world. And there are other, when we talk to come for euro and leading, we talked about some of the other sort of crises and wars that have fallen off the agenda. And the Ukrainians will be worrying that that's what's going to happen to them. Yeah. It is very, very worrying. There's a good article that she had thought by Dominic Lawson, which we can share, making the case why we must not forget about Ukraine, why it really matters. But we're going to have to see a lot more of those articles in the weeks and months ahead. One of the big fights at the moment on the front line is around a place called Avdifka, which is sort of becoming a bit like Bakhmut, which was the place we were talking about in the spring as sort of horrifying, sort of muddy, shelled mess where tens of thousands of soldiers are being killed and injured on both sides as they struggle for a few inches of territory trying to grab it.

47:23A lot of interesting stuff also about the way in which the Ukraine war continues to change the way people think about technology. There's been a huge revolution on the front line in the use of electronic warfare. So electronic warfare being used to fool drones, pull them out of the sky, set up fake satellite installations to divert attack. So obviously because it's a high -tech war, if you can use electronic warfare in the right way, you can really screw with the systems, the machines, the sensors. And yet it's landmines that making this very, very, very hard for them to make the progress that they thought that they would.

48:00The other thing, of course, that Putin's got, he's got these limitless numbers of young men that are just being sent to the front line and essentially, you know, under pain of death if they refuse to, frankly, do as they're told. I wonder as well whether a bit like when Erdogan had his aborted coup, he attempt against him and it seemed to strengthen them thereafter. I wonder if when people look back, they're actually the pregozion incident and the seeming rebellion, whether that was a further point of strengthening for Putin. Well, very hard, isn't it? Because of course at the time, you and I like everybody in the world, thought, my goodness, this is really damaging.

48:38I mean, the fact that you're butler can march thousands of people up the main road and all your troops fall away and they're almost at the gates of Moscow. Well, they turn around really seemed like, you know, the beginning of the end of the regime. And then as you say, somehow, he's feeling more chipper and, you know, the zekonomic growth, and it's not not, you know, it's not a perfect sorry, because inflation's getting out of control. And opinion polls in Russia are not completely reliable, but even so, it seems as though public opinion is now increasingly in favor of peace and against the conflict there.

49:11One more thing, of course, which we've talked about before, but it's also simply military support. I mean, the United States has shipped a lot of these 155 millimeter artillery rounds, which are really desperately needed in Ukraine to Israel. Absolutely. And this is why every time that the, when I mentioned the dysfunctional Congress, every time the America sends military support to Israel, then that's the Ukrainians think, well, maybe that stuff that would have come here. And also the economics of this, I don't know if you ever see the, I'm a was amazed, there's some very good reports that get put up by the UK Minister of Defence, which I see more of in foreign media than actually doing the, in the British media.

49:52So this one I actually picked up reading a French newspaper. But it said that one of these briefing papers at the MOD had done. It said that Moscow produces one to two million shells a year. By next year, they'll produce another one to two million shells. Washington says it will produce 336 ,000. Estonia can manufacture an artillery shell for between four and five thousand. And the Russians, it costs them for exactly the same kind of shell. The cost is 500 pounds. Well, they pay them a lot less, but their machinery is working better. Well, I mean, a lot to get our heads around. I mean, we've talked about this.

50:32And this is a bit of a shout out to people in Ukraine. I mean, we've talked about doing a visit to Ukraine. And maybe bringing a bit more attention back on what's in danger of becoming a more forgotten conflict. And I think the horrible truth is that Putin is sitting there studying these poles in America and thinking, oh, this looks quite good for me. And I'm sadly, I'm beginning to move a little bit closer to your camp and thinking that Biden's age, which I didn't necessarily think was going to be such a big problem because Trump's pretty much in the same bracket that it's sort of become, you know, everybody you talk to in America does sort of seem to be saying, oh, this is a bit of a problem, you know, it is.

51:13And it's so difficult, isn't it? Because it's it's both true and also something that nobody certainly on the Democratic side wants to talk about because the Republicans talk about it so much. So it's difficult to have an honest conversation about it. But his record, I mean, Afghanistan apart, I know that's a big apart, but his record and the economy and his record and some of these foreign policy leadership issues has been pretty good. And he'd be a very impressive one term president, but I think we just have to keep our fingers crossed, but the problem is that things are double problem because his vice president, Kamala Harris is also very unpopular.

51:44And of course, the Republicans will run a campaign saying, you'll vote for Biden and get Kamala Harris. So if he had been prepared either to step aside and let somebody else come through or at least come in with a different vice president, I think he'd be in a stronger position going into the election than he will be. Jolly good. Thank you. Well, on that gloomy note, thank you very much and goodbye. See you soon.