211. Question Time: Taiwan’s new president, Macron's successor, and the difference between Tories and Conservatives

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0:50Welcome to the REST as Politics. Question time with me, Rory Stewart. And with me, Alistair Campbell and Rory, we said on the main podcast, we were going to kick off with Taiwan, which we planned to do on the main podcast, but we got sidetracked in relation to the Middle East. Sean Winter, will the election result in Taiwan give greatest stability or taunt China into action? Well, first let's a little bit on what actually happened in Taiwan Alistair. So, we talked about this a few weeks ago, and we said this was going to be one of the first really big ones in this election year. And the DPP, they won.

1:29That is the governing party. The outgoing president couldn't stand because she'd already done two terms. So Li came in and he has won with just over 40%. Now the other two parties, which at one point looked like they might come together, the KMT and the TPP, the Taiwan People's Party, they split the opposition vote. And what's happened is that they've ended up with, it's a very good win, it's a third win in a row for the DPP, but it does give a sense that they're moving from a two -party country to a three -party country. And within the assembly, within the legislative assembly, they won't have a majority, They got 52 seats, KMT, the second party got 51, and the third party got, I think it was eight or nine.

2:22So it means that they don't quite have a majority, but it's a pretty good win, and it's a win that was secured despite a pretty aggressive campaign by China to try to persuade people through various means to vote for the KMT. And just to remind people, so the Quam Tee, the Guamin Tang was the nationalist party and it was sort of founding party of Taiwan. It was the party of Generalissimo Changpai -shek who moved the National Government of China to Taiwan after the communist revolution. And they are supported by the Chinese state because they're seen as much more friendly towards China. They tend to emphasize deepening economic and diplomatic ties with China, whereas the DPP, so the lot that just one, have tended to talk a bit more about de -risking and diversifying and balancing their investments in China with investments elsewhere.

3:17Now, you know, we talked on the main podcast about the Red Sea being such an important shipping route. Almost a half of the world's container ships pass through the Taiwan Strait every year. And as you've been saying, ever since we started this podcast, focusing on the role of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan. So the reason why this election was getting so much attention around the world was because of China. It wasn't because of Taiwan, it was because of China and China's intentions. And some very interesting reactions from China's, using fingers, said nothing so far. What they've done is they've focused in their reaction in commenting on the comments by other countries around the world.

3:59So for example, David Cameron said that he welcomed this as a testament to Taiwan's vibrant democracy. And immediately Chinese Embassy in the UK said, we firmly oppose the wrong practices of the British. And we urge them to stop any words or deeds that interfere in China's internal affairs. Almost word for word, they said that to the Japanese foreign minister, Yoko Kamikawa and Joe Biden, who although he came out and said, the re -attracted the US doesn't support Taiwanese independence. The US official line is once again Taiwan has demonstrated the strength of their robust democratic system and electoral process.

4:43And again, straight out comes from the Chinese foreign ministry. We have launched salon representations with the US over these covenants. So that is they are making clear they don't like the result and they're making clear to powers around the world don't get too excited by this because we still see this as ultimately a place that is going to be reunified with China. Yeah and I guess to get just finished on Sean's question, the likelihood is I guess that Xi Jinping is not going to take military action until he sees what happens in the US election because he may be gambling that Trump coming in may make it easier to push ahead with re -invocation.

5:25Big change in the calculus obviously the Taiwanese is the way that Hong Kong has been treated. So, had China really found a way of integrating Hong Kong in a way that really respected one country to systems. They might have had a better hope of a peaceful unification Taiwan. And then this is a calculation about how the economy plays in. So, some commentators say because the Chinese economy is weaker, Xi Jinping is less likely to want to do a military action. I have a part of me that thinks that sometimes when your economy gets weaker, you look for distractions and kind of national adventures to try to get the public back on side.

5:59So I think actually a weaker Chinese economy may increase the chance of him acting. Yeah. Now, I said on the main podcast that the subject which was raised by more questioner than any other. Was Michael Gove's appearance at a select committee where he was grilled by Liam Burn in particular about the free port in T -side? So, Shida Kennedy, what exactly is going on in this T -Sport scandal? And should we get Toby Jones to make a TV show about it and should he play Michael Gove? Julie Harrison, this week we saw Gove at the free scrutiny committee, why do the mayors not have to report the House of Commons, the Tees Valley Mayor Hardly attends his own scrutiny committee?

6:48Graham Gardner, I saw a clip of Michael Gover to select committee hearing squirming on the subject of Tees Works part of the Freeports Project. It's this another Tory managed scandal in the making where millions find their way into the pockets of donors and shady characters. And so it goes on, Mr. Asperde, please can you just Michael Gover at the T -side free port. He avoided all questions and he's linked to Michel Mone PPE contract, seems to show a concerning pattern. If you follow this free port story. Yeah, just a little bit of background. So this is the first and the biggest of these free ports, which have been announced.

7:28And the free ports of which I think there were eight of them initially announced. The idea is that it allows, it's a bit of land in Britain, but it's a place where you allow goods to be imported without tariffs, excise duties and other taxes being paid for materials to ship to on again. It's loosely based on the way that China developed through shenzhen, where they set up essentially a special economic zone on the edge of Hong Kong. The particular idea from the government is you would go to areas that the country is part of the levelling up agenda, which had been more left behind. and their hope was that by getting rid of the regulations, getting rid of the taxes, they could create some amazing kind of private sector heaven which would create 18 ,000 jobs.

8:11And since then, it's found itself mired in lots of different types of controversy back to you. So, as I understand it's very, very complicated. So, private I have actually been, a bit like the post office, private I've been banging on about this endlessly, but most of the mainstream media have not been picking it up. And I think it does have a feel of one of those slow -burn scandals. And essentially it is hard. And like all of these things, it's complicated. But essentially a firm was set up by people who were friends, associates of Ben Houch and who's the Tory mayor up there. And they were given options to buy this land at one pound an acre, including the rights to all the scrap metal on the lands.

8:54So they've exercised those rights. Then they lease back the land for development as it happens a wind farm maker. They sell the metal. In the first year of their accounts, they are up by about 134 million, profits of over 50 million, next to zero procurement process. So what Liam Burns seemed to be saying in his grilling of go was that the very least this is an absolutely dire approach to securing the best value for taxpayers. At the worst case, there is corruption at the heart of it. Gov commissioned a report last year to look into some of these allegations that were made. It was supposed to report last summer and there's still no sign of the report, no sign of a timetable, and the feeling is that they're looking to sort of bury this until after a general election.

9:41So in the worst case, we're looking at corruption, and even in the best case, we're looking at another classic example of how badly the government does procurement and deals with the private sector that it appears to be giving enormous financial windfalls to the private sector by sending the mass sets at well under market value. Yeah, and these are, I mean, I don't think Ben Hatchen is denying that these developers, guy called Musgrave and another one called Martin Cornie, that they are kind of quite close to him and they've been given this remarkable deal, which has made them an awful lot of money.

10:14I've always felt these free ports are part of this anarcho -capitalism drive of the radical right. And so you said the government projects this as part of the leveling up, but this looks like leveling up for a few people, not the many as it were. Yeah. Good. Well, let's get the next question coming in and I think it's worth worth watching that because it does sound like it's pretty terrifying and as you say, a lot of people coming in. Anyway, loads more questions. Let's take a break.

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11:54So what one that I quite like from Percy, you've spoken a lot about the challenges of an Afghanistan and Myanmar more recently in Middle East. What is it about these places still gives you hope, and there's nothing this this can do to help. I mean, this is a good opportunity to talk about the amazing work that Shoshana, my wife, does with Terkwas Monson. Well, listen, Rory, rather than you do it, because that would be sort of almost like a form of kind of weird nepotism. You and I were at an event last night run by the Marshall Scholars with some American congressmen and women of both Republican and Democrat.

12:29And part of the event was Shashana doing a presentation about Turquoise Mountain, the charity that you set up and she works on. And it was, I've got to say, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. And you say, what makes you hopeful? The thing that made me hopeful was her saying, look, the Taliban kind of know that we are employing women and we are doing, they just sort of let us get on with it. And she talked about, you know, the private sector being maybe treated a little bit less brutally as it But I have to say the products that they were making, be they carpets, be they jewelry, be they wood crafts and so forth were absolutely beautiful.

13:05So yeah, I can see why you were very, very proud of that. Well, thank you. And I think just to finish on that, I mean, I think one of the things that Shana feels strongly and Tukquas Mountain works with Palestinians to West Bank, with her in refugees, works in Myanmar, she's just got back from Burma and in Afghanistan, is that working on cultural heritage supporting traditional crafts people, supporting traditional architecture, has one big benefit, which is that it gives people a sense of positive pride. It's not a sort of patronizing act where you're telling people what they're lacking. In her words, it's a type of development that works on an asset, not a deficiency.

13:43It allows people to really feel, if you're an Afghan female craftswoman, that you're producing something genuinely beautiful that people around the world want to buy and that you can make an income off. So anyway, thank you for saying that. Now, Rachel Lee Horsefield in his book, that's your book, Rory. And by the way, you've got five stars in a Dutch paper I saw the other day. So well, I'll download that one. That's very good. That's very good. That was because of your amazing Dutch. Let me see on that. I was interviewed on a Dutch podcast and they repeat it your phrase and Dutch. Oh, actually, it's very good.

14:16They kept the fill up and the author's not quite sure. In his book, Marie states that even if not conservative, he is Tory. What does that mean? I'm trying to persuade his Rachel, my staunchly labor partner to warm to Rory by saying he's not a real Tory, but this statement in the book isn't helping. I've been accused of being a Tory apologist. And what's the difference between being a Conservative and being a Tory? Well, I think it may be semantics, but for me, I think conservatives can be associated with a sort of Liz Trust View, which is cut the welfare state, radical cutting of taxes, radical free market stuff, quite revolutionary.

14:55For me, a Tory, I guess, is somebody who respects tradition, respects history tends to think if it isn't broken, don't fix it, and is my love of landscape and the monarchy and the British Army and history and tradition. Now, Shishan and listening to all this, of course, says this is complete nonsense because on any actual policy issue, she says I'm usually pretty radical and you want big change. And I want big change. And I'm always trying to introduce, like you, compulsory voting, proportional representation and generally in every department. Yeah, every department I'm in, I'm trying to shake it up.

15:32So maybe I misunderstood myself. I have this kind of mystical idea that maybe I'm sort of completely in love with the British institutions, but in practice, whenever I actually get close to them, I want to rip them out. Okay. Well, let's just follow on from that with Jason Copp -Cedus. If you had to join one of the mainstream UK parties today and campaign for them in the election, which one would it be? Fairly obvious for Alistair, so is Jason, not as obvious for Rory. It's not obvious for me at all. I'm very, very... I mean, the natural one, of course, I was a conservative MP and I'd love to say the conservative party because I feel loyalty to my colleagues and party members, but the truth is that I find it very, very difficult at the moment.

16:13I mean, we've got this horrible sense that the right of the party is still got a kind of death grip. I mean, we're talking at a moment in which the vice chairman of the party, Leanderson, who's this extraordinary right -wing figure who actually came richly from the Labour background, is now saying as a senior party, that she's going to vote against the government through Wanderbill, because he thinks it's not tarful right -wing enough. and this kind of stuff I find very troubling. I think we should, if I listen to this kind of stomachache, we should put in the newsletter, a video that was put out last week by the Tory party of Rishi Sunak doing a joint Q &A with Leanderson that was honestly one of the most cringe worthy things I've ever seen in my life.

16:57But what it was showing was obviously Rishi Sunak trying to sort of show that he's down with Lea as it were. And they were telling each other how well Brexit was going, they were telling each other why we should all be so proud to be British. It was utterly cringe -making. And this is what happens on the Freed Rishi when you give power and status and influence to people who ultimately are not going to buy you. And I think you need to lead. One really interesting thing from John Curtis, this famous pollster, this famous professor of polling, was he seemed to be saying the polls vindicated your strong instinct, which was that Rishi Sienaak's biggest mistake was not coming out very, very hard in favour of the Parliament of actually Stanisquenia.

17:40Tell us a bit about that because you watched that polling presentation. Yeah, I've written about this in my new European column because what he was essentially saying is that, and this is absolutely right, remember we said last week Peter Kellner always says, follow the signal, not the noise when it comes to polling. If you look at the polling in recent years, only two episodes have fundamentally shifted the dial. Okay? One was party gate and the other was the mini budget. Partigate led to a massive decline in Johnston's ratings, in the Tory party's ratings, and they have not really recovered from it.

18:18Trusts and the Quarteng and the mini budget led to a massive decline and they haven't really recovered from it. Now, Sunak in not endorsing and supporting the Privileges Committee report, but instead running away from it, trying to avoid it completely, he missed the opportunity to signal that he was a genuine change from those two events. By not endorsing the report, he essentially said, oh, party gates not as big a deal as you seem to think. And of course, the poll show is that the public thought it really, really mattered. And they thought the trust mattered. I think the post office actually has the capacity, and this is, I think, is why they are trying to focus it so much on Ed David Kierst, armour, is because it does have the capacity to be damaging, but not in the same in polling terms, not in the same league as party gate and try.

19:08So, yeah, I think John Curtis is right that Rishi Soonak missed a major opportunity there. But it's something that you said at the time, but it would have been historically difficult because there would have been a massive problem of party management, wouldn't there? because he's trying to deal with it. You just got to follow party management anyway. So he needed to just be brave and lean into it, but obviously the reason he didn't do it, the counter -occupied to you, if you're playing devil's advocate, is the members had voted for this trust. Lots of the members of parliament felt that he'd betrayed Boris Johnson.

19:37He was trying to reheal the party. And if he'd really lent in to going anti -Boris, anti -Litt's trust, he would have alienated a loss of party members, alienated quite a lot of MPs. but maybe you say restored his position in the pinnipoles, maybe brought the public on site. Let's say you start from the premise. I'm the fifth leader since David Cameron. He's had Cameron, May, Johnson, Trust, and now me. That's what he says. And the public are beginning to wonder whether we're actually a serious party of government. My responsibility now is to show that we are. That means showing I am very, very different.

20:12So when he said integrity professionalism and accountability, It was the right thing to say, but then in not endorsing the privileges committee report, he didn't deliver on those words. And so he's ended up with the worst of both worlds. He's ended up people not respecting him because he hasn't shown the necessary leadership. And the party management problems which prevented him from doing that, he's still got them with spades. To the point that, as you say, a guy he appointed to be Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party is without any seeming sanction, going around the place, telling MPs to vote against the government piece of legislation.

20:49Mad! Maybe what you're saying is, look, it couldn't be worse than it currently is, and there might have been some risk. He might have blown up the party, he might have had a really difficult mantra to do, but in the long run, it was worth taking that risk because it was the only way of getting the public back on site. Absolutely, absolutely. Because what I think the public is seeing is, and I honestly, I really think he's got to stop doing all this non -stop. sort of embarrassing communication stuff. These endless videos showing how marvellous he is. It's back to the point we discussed with Gillian Keegan.

21:20People don't feel the countries in great shape at the moment. So stop telling us that it is. And stop telling us when we know that you're flying around in helicopters and jets and you're massively wealthy and people are starting to think that you're going to move on to California pretty soon anyway. Do the job. Do the job. doing the job is not sitting down with Leanderson having these jockey videos about you know questions put in by public or party members. I'll say the other thing I thought over the weekend is that on the the Houthis and what's happening in the Red Sea. If you were watching in who would you think was the prime minister right now?

22:01David Cameron. David Cameron's the one who's leading on so much of this Disney. Yeah. So do the job and show some leadership. Yeah and and the The Jokey stuff doesn't really suit him anyway, I think. I mean, when I see him doing the Jokey stuff, it doesn't really seem to be his style. Portugal elections, LP, 2024 seems to be the year of all elections. Would he be looking to Portugal from alleged corruption scandals and socialist parties to the main opposition party refusing deals with the rising populist right, rebuilding historic coalition from 979? Quite a lot to get your teeth in. I'd love to hear your take.

22:31So we've done a little bit about this. To remind people, we covered this when Prime Minister Antonio Costa, very, very interesting figure. He comes from mixed parentage. His father was a goon from India with these very radical parents, his mother very much on the radical left as and his father a radical writer. A much loved and quite successful premarist of Portugal suddenly found himself drawn down by incredible corruption scandals involving public infrastructure projects, cash going missing, weird payoffs from state companies. Any thoughts on Portugal? Well, we definitely will talk about it.

23:10I think the election is in March and it's a election of the whole assembly. I think it will be interesting within the European context because of course we've got the European elections coming up to get a sense of Portuguese public opinion because Costa is socialist party leader who was, as you say, pretty popular. We got over 40 % of the votes last time, he got 120 seats in the assembly, main opposition, the PSD, social democrats, they were 77 seats, and the far right cheger, which is Portuguese for enough, they got 7%. So it will be interesting to see, and to see whether, just how damaging it is for a party of government, where the guy is serious, there's an experience and feeling that he was a bit different to most politicians, when he gets caught up in a corruption scandal, And I think his argument is that yes, there was corruption, but as it were, he's not the big corrupt guy, but he presided over it.

24:06That's why he's sort of he's stepping down. So yeah, it answers the question. We will be talking about it. And they will be one of the more interesting European elections this year. This question of, and we talked about the last podcast about apologizing, taking responsibility. And I guess the question of resigning, one of the things that's happening increasingly in British politics. And I guess this was true even under New Labour and Mandelson, which is that people take responsibility, resign, and then they pop back again six, seven months later. And I guess that probably wouldn't have been true in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.

24:37You know, when Prifuma resigned, he didn't come popping back again, when Carrington resigned, he didn't come popping back again. It's as though we've developed quite kind of short attention spans, how we we people kind of resign, and then everyone thinks that well, that's fine, he's resigned, and then a few months later, they come back again. I mean, Grant Shaps, I think, was booted out twice. Famous see, I'm Swela Bravenman was back within a few weeks, wasn't she? Absolutely, well that was another point of Rishi Sunak weakness, I think. You know, for her to have been sacked for breaking the Ministerial Code and then brought back in within a matter of weeks, I think it was a terrible signal.

25:10But again, it was him trying to put in party management, the head of the opportunity had to show real leadership. Now, Bettina Strough, an interesting name, but she sent in a whole welter of questions. I'm just throwing two of them, both interesting. She says, I've just been blocked by Green Jenny Jones, Jenny Jones being a big figure in the Green Party, for saying that I'll vote tactically at the next election rather than green. Now, Bettina is a green, she says, because on the first pass, the both, in my constituency, Green would be a wasted vote. Would either of you guys vote tactically at the next if it came to it.