203. Question Time: How dangerous is Giorgia Meloni?

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.

0:49Welcome to the Restus Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. Very good. And I'm still sitting in Utah, amazing place. And where are you? You're looking very smart. I'm in London about as soon as we finished to head to Edinburgh for Alistair Darling's funeral. Right. Very smart. Very smart. And they did a funeral again last week. Yep. Three, I've done three funnels in a week. So I don't know what I'm sorry. I'm not signing my age or I don't know what, but anyway, there we are. So look, Joe Adams, Rory. What are your thoughts on Rishi Sunak and Eddie Rama, my friend from Albania, hanging out with George and Maloney?

1:27Why is Rishi attending the festival of a politician who's oppressing the rights of same -sex couples? Well, she's doing all sorts of other things as well. What were your thoughts of the optics, Rory? I think it's very interesting and too, too big waste. One of them is it raises the question of what George and Maloney's doing. So George and Maloney's remind people was a far -right politician who's become the prime minister of Italy and has been remarkably successful in keeping her popularity ratings up, keeping her coalition together, which is difficult to do in Italy. She's a strong anti -immigration voice that's a lot of what she's about as well as doing some of the other cultural or stuff that we've discussed at the far -right, all over Europe, does on family values.

2:10She was out there in Lamperdusa, for example, talking about the islands being overwhelmed by people crossing in boats. Many Italians that I talk to have a tendency to say, oh, she's less bad than you think, she's moderated a lot in office and the big example they give of that is that she's become much more pro -you. And of course, people are then using that as a way of wondering whether Marine Le Pen might not be more moderate when she comes in and whether we don't need to be as worried about the Swedish Democrats, who is this party in Sweden, which not only is in government, but literally every couple of weeks, one of them is being fired for having Nazi roots.

2:51So I love to hear you on Maloney. I mean, clearly, in some cases, Victor Orban, who we talked about in the last episode, absolutely is a proper right -wing nationalist of a very, very dangerous sort. I think the same is true of Vucic in Serbia, even though he sometimes couches it more charming language in the English media. What do you think about Georgie Maloney? Do you think she is sort of moderating? Do you think she's a threat to Europe? What do you make of her? It's very hard to know, but it's interesting how Joe Adams and the question mentioned Eddie Rama. So there's Rishi Sunak, who is UK Prime Minister, came in, I think, wanting to project himself as a pretty centrist, but actually I think is a very, I think, Dindy's heart is a pretty right -wing politician, and he was very much having a bit of a kind of love in with Maloney.

3:43Now, Eddie Rama, Prime Minister Albania, he was there as well. So yes, it was a right -wing festival as the question of Putin, and Eddie Rama is a left -wing leader. He's, I would say, certainly, centre left, and if he was British, he would definitely be in the Labour Party. And he's somebody who I know and like and trust, and he is, I've talked him about Maloney, and his argument, I think, would be she's not in the own at sea. She's actually very smart, and she's already worked out the research and things that you maybe do differently in government than you do when you're on the campaign trail.

4:19Now, I don't know. I hope you welcome this news, Rory. I did say to him, well, look, can you try and talk her into coming on the podcast at some point, and I'm now in discussions, as they say. No, that's not great to interview George Maloney on leading. I think she's clearly interesting. She clearly is smart. When you look at her backstory and some of the things that she certainly says she stands for, she is very, very, very right -wing, and I think would be quite a dangerous politician, but she's without doubt trying to project herself in a slightly different way. Just briefly, Rory, the other thing I want to talk about in relation to this was we talked on the main podcast about this sort of standards in public life.

5:00This will probably, to most conservative party listeners, sound ridiculous, but this addiction that Sunak has to very expensive travel, and I think in his trip to Maloney, seen Maloney in Rome, I think he broke the ministerial code, because he was at a political party visit in the northeast of England. He got an RAF plane to fly, to pick him up in Stockton, and fly to Rome. Now, unless I'm wrong, or unless the ministerial code has changed, the conservative party should pay a very large slab of that. It's interesting he's doing it, isn't it? So he's obviously Rishchenerka's the wealthier prime minister that Britain's had for a very long time.

5:44And he's clearly decided that he wants to make a real point of the fact that he thinks the British prime minister, like the American president, should be able to take private travel to get where every once as quickly as possible, because he thinks every minute that he's wasting, traveling around as waste of time. I sympathize with past of that. I mean, it is pretty strange being a British minister. I remember the number of times that I was completely unable to get to places, which I felt I needed to get to inaugurations of presidents and things, because the civil service rules wouldn't let me travel or they couldn't get an economy class flights or I think, sorry, that's not fair.

6:21Sometimes we could travel business class, but there was a lot of real hair shurtry and often you must have felt this when you see your US colleagues. In Iraq, for example, I had to get myself accredited. I think there's a one -star general with US military, so I could fly around and get to meetings. Oh my Lord, are you a general? Do you want me to call you general? I can call you general. I can call you general. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. You get a dodgy equivalent civil service rank, and this was important because if you were traveling with the UK system, you'd sit in an airport waiting for an RAF plane for 24 hours, and the Americans would put you on a helicopter immediately.

6:54So I guess, Rishi Srinaka saying, this is the most serious job in Britain. We need to be able to get around. I mean, I'd like to see a sensible conversation about this that isn't too party political. I do think that Prime Minister's ought to be able to travel, but I think they need to be open about it. I was sometimes a bit annoyed with David Cameron because he was often playing the other type of politics, which is introducing extra weeks, completely unnecessary extra weeks of parliamentary sitting, just so that he could say to the media, we're working harder and trying to... I'm waffling around the subject, but I do think there's a question about what else to sort this week with Graham Stewart, who was the minister at COP, who was made to fly back from COP.

7:34So we had no British minister at COP, so he could vote in the House of Commons because our KX system doesn't allow parity. Yeah. The other thing with this travel thing, though, that emerged over the weekend, is that Ben Wallace, when he was defense secretary, decided that he was going to stop this contract. There was worth 30, 40 million with a private helicopter company that was being used to fly VIPs, including ministers around the place. And this has only come out because in an RAF north -holt in the House magazine article, somebody called Tom Woods has written in mid -September 23, the new secretary of state defense, Grant Schapps reversed this decision at the request of the prime minister.

8:14Yeah, I think, well, I clearly, Richard Sinok clearly cares about getting ministers at traffic, doesn't he? Here's a question from Will P. Spousal visas. Any comments on the increase in the Spousal visa limit to 38 ,700, meaning only the relatively wealthy can fall in love with foreigners. And this relates, obviously, deeply to immigration, which is also at the heart of what's going on with Maloney and Rishi Sinok. Anyway, any thoughts on that? Well, let me ask you, first of all, because you were married to a non -bred. I am indeed. And I had to go through all of that, and I had to deal with the spousal visa limit.

8:50Luckily, as a member of parliament, I was above that figure. Yeah. But I think one of the issues there is that, well, at the heart of it, obviously, is trying governments desperately trying to find levers to reduce net migration. One of the elements in migration is people, often from, maybe this is unfair, but certainly when I was in government, and I think about issues in my own constituency, people who were not born in the United Kingdom from other parts of the world would come to the United Kingdom, and then they would often marry somebody from the community from which they came, meaning that they were then bringing over more people than was expected.

9:28And there was a question then on whether there was enough money to support them, and the burden that put on the welfare state, et cetera. So I guess it's coming out of that, am I right? Yeah. What really annoys me about this whole debate, though? And in relation to the earlier question about the visit to Maloney's conference, Rishi Sinok, the speech that he made was, I think it's a speech that I can't imagine a Conservative Prime Minister 10, 15, 20 years ago making that speech. He was talking pretty powerless language about essentially saying, unless we manage to stop the boats, we're going to be overwhelmed.

10:01They're going to take over the country. They're going to change our culture beyond recognition. Blah, blah, blah. Who's there in this case coming from Rishi Sinok? What is his vision of they? His vision of they is the people on the boats, which an illegal migration is, he calls it, completely overlooking deliberately the fact that it is a minuscule proportion of the net migration figures, which is we discussed recently, are close to three quarters of a million. So he's deliberately making this focus all about a small number of people. Can I come in on a second? So I think we agree with that. We're both very uncomfortable with this kind of language and uncomfortable with the direction that the party is going.

10:39However, immigration remains the biggest issue in most of Europe and actually increasingly almost the biggest issue in US politics. And one of the biggest drivers of boats for the far right is people sense that the centrist parties have failed on immigration. And there's a real risk that if the centrist party is just ignore that issue, that just provides more fuel for Trump, for the AFD and Germany and others. Like, so you've gone. Well, I don't agree that it's the biggest issue for most people in most of Europe. I think the cost of living is the biggest issue for most people in most of Europe.

11:18And certainly in the UK, immigration is a big issue for some people. But the truth is that Sinok has made it deliberately, badly advised in my view. He's made it and particularly this question of the boats. He's made it a much bigger issue than he needed to do. None of that negates the fact you're right. There have to be systems of immigration that are fair, that are well run. And that is what I agree with you. Centrist parties and left wing parties have to look at as well. But I they have deliberately inflated this issue. And I think they're paying a price for it. And how does one get how does one get the balance right?

11:55Because I think this is probably the biggest issue in European politics at the moment. On the one hand, if you seem to ignore the issue entirely, right, don't talk about immigration. You can't do that. You're giving huge space to the far right to use that issue. And that's why all of that is dominated. Correct. If on the other hand, like Sinok, you speak too much about it, right, you risk elevating the issue and making it into more of a scoundrel that actually is, how do you get the balance right on this so that you sound to voters who care about controlling immigration that you've got a plan to do it without providing more encouragement to the far right?

12:28Your answer is in the question. It has to be about having a genuine plan to deal with it. The problem that Sunlaks had is that under pressure from people like Swallow Bravaman, he hasn't had a plan. He's come up with all these nonsense of these gimmicks. Rwanda is a gimmick. They think, do you remember that we had the time about, you know, making the waves in the sea bigger? As they have all these nonsense to what they don't have is a plan, systems to deal with it. And as you and I think agree, you can only operate. This is now going to be in climate change is going to make it worse. Economic inequality around the world is going to make it worse.

13:01This can only be addressed at a regional and global level. That requires honest debate and discussion between partners and allies. We've lost all that because it breaks it. Can I come in one more time? So, questions from Sally, why does it seem to be impossible to control immigration numbers in Britain? And I was reminded of this because I was talking to Craig Oliver three days ago who was Cameron's Com's director for five years. So doing a sort of version of the job that you did for Tony Blair. And I was pointing out to him that Cameron had come out and said that he was going to get net migration down into the tens of thousands and he completely failed to do it.

13:39And Craig Oliver basically said, well, yeah, you're right, Rory. It seemed obvious to Cameron that that's something that people wanted and that he should be able to do. But it then turned out it was impossible to do it. And then I looked back at your record in office, you published an immigration asylum act in 1999, a nationality immigration asylum act in 2002, which increased restrictions further, you then had a five year department plan called controlling our borders in 2005, you then had an immigration asylum and nationality act in 2006, which was all about further restricting appeals, sanctioning employees.

14:14But none of this seemed to make much difference since when we've had 13 years of conservative governments passing legislation after legislation after legislation on top of all the legislation you guys were doing. The fact of the matter is that the numbers remain incredibly high. I mean, they remain well into the hundreds of thousands through New Labour, through David Cameron and now even higher still. Sure. But I think those, I've forgotten a lot of those specific things that you read out there from our time in government. But I think they did make a difference. I think they made a difference both in terms of processing.

14:45It was always very difficult because the home office is not the sort of greatest department in the world. I don't know if it's improved much. But it was always difficult to get the processes in place and get the working. But actually, I think the other thing that we did was there was a targeting of some of migration into those sectors where we were being told it was most needed. I think a lot of our improvement in the public services was in a large part because we went out and found the teachers, the doctors, the nurses that we needed. I think what's happened since then, I go back to my point about gimmicks.

15:16I'm not saying that we weren't occasionally able to come up with the odd gimmick here and there, but I think what you were describing there, you were definitely very good at coming up with gimmicks here and there. No, no, we weren't very good. The only one you've ever been able to throw at me successfully was my cash point justice as the only one. So I think we were pretty good at not doing that many gimmicks, but I'd say they were serious policy proposals addressing a real problem. What I do think we've had particularly in recent years is a succession of statements and positions, which aren't really detailed serious plans.

15:51Absolutely. I agree. Obviously, there's no doubt now that you're completely vindicated that putting stop to boats as one of his five pledges was catastrophic. Just as it was catastrophic for Cameron to say that he was going to reduce net migration to tens of thousands. Don't make a pledge if you can't do it. There's also the problem with Boris Johnson saying early last year that he was going to send people to Rwanda without doing his homework to work out how incredibly difficult it is to do. But can I just bring you back to the bigger one? Bigger issue. Why is it? What's the fundamental reason that you discover in government?

16:25Why it proves absolutely impossible to ever reduce immigration below the hundreds of thousands in Britain. However many laws have passed, whatever the government's tried to do. Well, I think a lot of it is down to the fact that politicians don't like admitting that we need immigration to keep our economy, public services going, and we're going to need the more as we get older. Now, the only party, I think, in mainstream politics that is even willing to say that is the SMP and sometimes the Greens. But that is the truth about the nature of our demographic changes, the answer, demographic change.

16:58Now, you also have then, you do have, and Sunak's not wrong when he says that he's criminal gangs that are exploiting it, but the numbers involved are tiny compared to the numbers in those net migration figures who are coming here in large part because we want to lead them to. And I think it'd be far better if politicians admitted that. Right. Okay. Now, we've got, we've got a couple of questions coming in. Many questions coming in. Ben Parrish would Biden stand a better chance of re -election if he chose a different vice president? I think that's a really good question from Ben Parrish. I actually believe it would have been preferable if Biden had been celebrated as a great one -term president and we had a different candidate going in.

17:40I remain very worried, even though it's not something that is comfortable to say about his action health, but I definitely think in the absence of being able to do that, a different vice president would make a difference because sadly, Kamala Harris has not been impressing and it's allowing the Republicans to say that Biden may well have some health issue and she could step up. What do you think? I don't think you would change the dial that much. I think the big question in the presidential election is who the two presidential candidates going to be. The running may always get its massive coverage, massive profile, can make a difference of the margins, can do campaigning in different places in a different way, but I honestly don't think it makes that much difference.

18:19The big question remains, is he going to stand? Is he going to stay as the second term candidate? If he does, what are the implications of that? I think it's widely viewed that Kamala Harris has not been terrible, but not been great, but would it change if he brought in somebody a bit different? I don't think so. What the only big change that's left open to him is does he stand or doesn't he stand? Right then, we'll be back in a second, so let's just take a quick break.

18:56This isn't ad from BetterHelp. At the moment, we're getting advice from everywhere.

19:05You just have the digital detox that I'm doing in Colombia. 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. As a largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a very diverse variety of expertise. They'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.

19:40Change 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 HELP .com slash rest politics. Let's play Burlington's Guess That Price. Back to school means back to saving. We're bringing you kids genes starting at a hold on a minute, just 1199. Burlington's aching this test. What about character backpacks? We've got them starting at 1299. Burlington's done it again. How about sneakers for the kids?

20:19Eight plus brands and right on trend starting at 1199. Saving is now in session. Burlington deals brands. Wow. Styles on selections vary by location.

20:35So Angela, proven women in Afghanistan, please could you explain to us just what the Taliban want from reducing their women and children to destitution and possible death? So draconian restrictions and widespread famine? Is it their attention to wipe the mouths and tighten their grip on the sonar? You mentioned to continue with your charity. It's a very difficult issue. So I mean, clearly on the record, the Taliban have very, very restrictive show vanistic views of women. They do not want their supreme leader who sits in Khanahat, issues edicts saying he doesn't want women in education beyond the age of about 11, that he doesn't want women working for NGOs and the UN.

21:17So what do we make of what's happening? Well, I think it's to be understood. And this is not me defending the Taliban. It's just me trying to answer the question. They're not doing it, feeling that what they're trying to do is starve women to death. They're doing it because they have an extraordinary conservative view of women's places and society, which comes from their own tribal traditions. It's not even mainstream Islam. It's a long way beyond that. It's to do with push to tribal traditions often. On Afghanistan in general, the strange thing is that in many ways security, not many ways, in almost every way, security is much, much better than it was before withdrawal.

21:53It's not possible to travel through most of the country much more safely than has been true really since the late 1990s. The economy has contracted very dramatically by about 25%. But the Taliban have also stopped a lot of the opium growth. There's been a very, they've been burning opium crop in big reduction in the drug trade. They've had a big clamp down on corruption. So if you were, and it's not my position to do this, but if you were making the case for the Taliban, what you would say is it's become terrible situation, very restrictive for women, but drugs are much more under control, corruption is much more under control, security is much more under control.

22:31Afghanistan remains a very poor country, but it doesn't feel like there's any significant opposition within the country, which is likely to topple the Taliban government. Any time soon, over to you for a question. A question about Gaza from Rosie Westby, watching Gaza on the news. Despite caring deeply about the human suffering, I just cannot watch the news from Gaza at the moment. Are the viewing numbers down? Do you know? I don't think I have compassion for tea. It's about self -care, but does that mean it fades from the collective consciousness? I think that was a great question because I've found myself slightly turning away.

23:07My response to that has been to force myself every day. I've been doing this now for the last two or three weeks. I watch Al Jazeera for about half an hour when I know that they're covering it, you know, one of their main sort of programs, and they don't hold back. They don't sanitize. And I do think it's important to keep watching, and I do think it's important trying to understand. The other thing I do is I just every day put in certain names into a search engine, and so Netanyahu would be one. Hamas would be another, some of the key players, you know, Biden on the Middle East, whatever it might be, and just sort of choose when I'm going to read about it and watch it, rather than allow it to bombard me, because I think that's what happens Rosie.