228. Question Time: The legacy of Theresa May, abolishing National Insurance, and Sweden joins NATO

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0:50Welcome to the Restus Politics. It's a question time with me, Anne, as the Campbell. At the Rory's Chute. Before we get going, Rory, we're about to go and talk to 1200 A -level students. We're in Methodist Hall. Very good. There might be a bit of a background noise. There won't be much, but if there's a little bit, please bear with us. Yeah, whether we're getting here, there are big signs outside calling for the abolition of the monarchy to my side. It's an anxiety. How did you feel about that walking through those? Initially, I couldn't. All I could see is bullish, bullish, the way the flags were saying, I couldn't work out what it was.

1:22Of course, everybody's hypersensitist, the demonstrations at the moment. So you like it's this Palestine demonstration, isn't it? Then suddenly I've bullish, bullish, bullish, and then I discovered it's a massive republished expression. I could work out why the fact of you and I coming to talk to 1200 school children should attract a abolished the monarchy, but apparently it's to do with a Supreme core around the corner. Very good. Now, Rory, Lily Poboreska asks, when will you to start disagreeing a gribly again? You seem to be agreeing on everything which defeats the purpose of the podcast and makes it less dynamic.

1:56I don't know, that's true, is it? I don't think that's true. No. Should we get a disagreement going? Shall we start with Theresa May's legacy? I mean, this was the issue on which we had more questions than anything else. I'll just give a few to give you the flavour. Main man, which I promise is not me, with Theresa May stepping down, how would Rory and Alistair rank every prime minister's World War II? We could be here to everyone that one. Matthew and Theresa May, who proudly denaturalise Windrush migrants leaving them a socially destitute, who separated them from their families through deportation, who describe people like me as citizens of nowhere just to score a point.

2:31Can I start for a second, because I think this is a really good example of where we might get some fruitful disagreement, but also some agreement. Okay. So remember, Lily wants us to disagree. Yeah, well, let's start with his claim that she proudly denaturalised Windrush migrants. I mean, we, in Futurismate, are real length, and we talked about Windrush a great deal. I simply don't think that's a fair characterisation of what she did. It's a rhetorical device to say he was angry about the way she handled Windrush. Well, yes, except. And I saw a lot of this on Twitter. Obviously, I tweeted out something saying I'm sorry, she's stepping down, and that she conducted herself a great dignity in principle.

3:08Lots of questions on your Twitter. Principles on the back benches, and then proceeded to get over a thousand replies on Twitter, which is quite a lot of replies. And when you get that, there was literally, I don't think, probably 98 % negative. Really? 90 % yeah. Do you think she was stepping down? Yeah, 98 % with me tweeting out something praising her, she stepped down, 90 % was of that sort, and it was usually the same three things to repeat it again and again. So I think the first thing I'd say is if people are genuinely interested in Theresa and Alexi and looking at it in a sort of way, I would encourage them to listen to the rest of politics leading, where we get a bit away from the sort of 140 characters and actually get into her reflections on Woodrush.

3:50I think her citizens of nowhere phrase was very damaging and very alienating and did an enormous amount to inch of the thing I cared deeply about, which was trying to prevent a hard Brexit because it made her seem like a hard Brexit yet. And she was doing it at the time because she was overcompensating for the fact that she'd sort of vaguely been a remainder and didn't campaign much with David Cameron, but she did vote remain, people knew she voted remain. And so she was trying to lean in way too far to the sort of hard Brexit, Leanderson, for large types. But just to give you some of the, you got lots on Twitter, these ones that came to the podcast, Andrew Jones, should I abandon listening to the rest of his politics now that Rory Stewart is out complimenting Mrs.

4:36May, she's the person who robed as of our EU freedom of movement right, the right to live, study and work or retire in other EU countries, gone all gone to satisfy the hatred of immigrants. Andrew H. Yeah. Rory, how can you possibly put May and morals in the same sentence? Have you no memory of Windrush on the hostile environment? Have you glossed over the despite the fact many have not been compensated, the death and destitution unable to get NHS jobs at house, lives ruined? I mean, it was, I've got to be honest, perhaps I was overly impressed by Haram TV with the, but I was surprised at the vehement of some of the questions that we got.

5:13Yeah. So I mean, I think it's good to get this, discreetly out there. I think part of what we're trying to do on the show is to put people in context and get out of a world which particularly exists on Twitter where everybody is either a hero or evil. Actually, there's not that many heroes left on Twitter. A lot of evil people. And it's strange if you look at the rhetoric, not just the ones you've read, but you can go with people of interest, another 500 replies to me on Twitter, just how intense the demonisation is. I mean, it's, there isn't a, on Mem Torn going on. People are not saying, you know, she conducts it herself with a lot of dignity on the backbench, is she challenged Boris Johnson?

5:57Well, she decided to serve for another five years when she didn't need to, that she had pushed for a soft Brexit. She reached out to Labour. She embraced the customs union. And that in the end, the defeat of that is what led to Boris and Haram Brexit. It's absolutely, she is still in a lot of this in the same sort of sites of a rifle that she was in right at the heart of the Brexit debate. I feel though that during the Brexit debate, I thought she did get a lot of respect for, not for the conclusion, which was a disaster, but for the work rate, the commitment, dignity. Michel Barnier, who I saw when we were, Fiona and I were coming back through France and we stopped off and saw Michel Barnier.

6:43And he was, full of praise for Theresa May about the way she conducted herself, particularly in comparison with some of the other British apologicians he'd had to, had to deal with. And I also wonder whether the, the vehemence, which comes out, and I think I would agree with some of the criticisms, but not necessarily the way they were put. I do think that the way the government handled Windrush was terrible. I do think her hostile environment, and she admitted she really regretted those vans going around saying, you know, go home, they go home, she regretted doing that, she said that, but she did do it as home secretary.

7:15So I think on the one hand, you have that sense of she did get praised during the time she was doing the job from some unusual quarters at times. I think the other thing that happens in our, the sort of disjunct between social media, whereas you say it's all black and white, hate or love, good or evil. And then over here on the kind of mainstream side of things, politician announces he or she is stepping down and everybody comes out and says they're wonderful. Oh, so there was a lot of praise. Well, I think if you looked at the papers, most of the papers, I think if you looked at the TV coverage that day, I think it was very almost haggiographic.

7:52Oh, I see. And I think that's often the, and it's usually the case when politicians die and I think people understand that to some extent. And actually, it was also a reminder of 2017 -18 because along with people who were passionate remains, it's very, very angry for her for triggering article 50, there were in their hard -brexateers whose names are recognized because they regularly attack me, you know, defenders of the Anderson, et cetera, who see Theresa May as a kind of terrible kind of quizzling soft -brexateer, Brexit in name only. They produce this kind of brine -o phrase. And so then you've got the far right, enjoying my discomfort, saying, you know, that won't well worry.

8:34But to come back to Theresa May just for a second, she is a very interesting character. I mean, obviously we can't get into the strengths and weaknesses of us as well as we did in that, in that interview. There's two interviews. But I think her weaknesses are partly in something that's very central to politicians, which will come on to with the state the Bydons are now, which is really the kind of communications in the charisma that I think her final position was the right one, which is she embraced basically at Customs Union, reached across to Jeremy Corbyn and Kirstama, who was there in the Labour Shadow Breaks, in Cectury to try to get a compromised deal and stop a hard -brexate.

9:15But her political skills weren't quite that. Now, I don't know whether anyone would have been able to do it, but maybe what people are getting at with the citizens and nowhere thing is that she hadn't managed to become the kind of figure who could actually convincingly reach across and when they were supporting some Brexit. I mean, it was in a virtually impossible situation. She had Cameron Gond, Johnson hovering, and I think she made a terrible mistake making foreign secretary, but that was her judgment. He's hovering. She had these divisions inside the Conservative Party not going away. She had people like me on the People's Vote campaign who were genuinely hopeful that we could use that as a way to stop the whole damn thing.

9:56And she had these incredibly difficult complicated negotiations to conduct with the European Commission and therefore more than two dozen countries. And I think you're right. I think she acknowledged that as a personality, she may be lack some of that bandwidth that you need when you're bringing different people. You're trying to bring them inside your tent. I thought the citizens and nowhere was a child mistake. I also thought that I think the way that she allowed the Daily Mail in particular to kind of project her, you know, crush the saboteurs, that was a relationship. I mean, she had a relationship going on there with Daker and I think that was a mistake.

10:38So I think the legacy is very, very mixed. I think she's probably in the end going to be remembered as a short term Prime Minister who couldn't get Brexit done. That's sad in a way. But then she would point to modern slavery and some of the other things that she did. So it makes me think that the one hope for a soft Brexit, if she wanted to do it, would have been astonishingly confident communication really working out how you frame the argument, morally, emotionally, intellectually, how you build a coalition from people who voted remain, people who voted Brexit, make the argument for compromise and moving forward.

11:20And that's where I guess you really need your sort of obamary or Clinton to be able to, if you have to formulate something that tricky. Now listen, do we want to go down the route of listing our post -war Prime Ministers in order because we could be here all day on that. We can do the bottom two though. I think the bottom two. What is it? What order do you want to do them in? Well, it's quite difficult. I mean, it's quite a challenge. They're quite bad in different ways. I mean, they are of course, Liv's Trust and Boris Johnson. And I continue to be staggered by revelations about this trust. I mean, I just...

11:5515 ,000 pounds booze bill for a plane to Australia. Well, no, I just was reminded recently something I'd forgotten that one of her great visions about 10 years ago was that she was in favour of elected judges, which again, many things are wrong in our country, but actually our judges, one of the things that sort of functions recently well. I mean, her capacity to take the wrong side on almost every single issue is just magnificent. Those who listen to our interview with Sajja Javid, if you've only listened to it, I do suggest that you also watch it on YouTube because he's face when we asked him about why Bactylist Trust was a real picture.

12:33And he went on to describe it as the biggest mistake of his life. I think Johnson just about nicks it. She did smash the economy, but also he smash the economy, you know, the Brexit that was barely mentioned in the budget. And I think he did fundamental damage to standards in public life. So I think he will be talked about longer than Lys Trust. So I'm going to give it to him. I can't bring myself to watch this channel for documentary series about him. Apparently it is absolutely excoriating, but despite that, I'm going to resist the temptation to watch. Very good. Who have we got worse? I'm Johnson and you trust?

13:10Yeah, I'll go Johnson. And trust is the runner up. Who are you having as your best post -war Prime Minister? First post -war Prime Minister, gosh. I'm going at Lee. You are going at Lee, aren't you? And Tony's not far behind. I've got to tell you, with Northern Ireland alone. OK, I'm going to make a big play for Harold McMillan. War I look at McMillan, the more excited I get. You're not even going to make a play for Churchill, are you? 300th. No, I think he was amazing, but not in the post -war period. Not in the post -war period. It was an incredible, incredible figure. But I think he was not on top game in the post -war period.

13:39No, actually the achievements of McMillan's government are really, really striking. It was, and actually that Wilson victory was quite a tight one, but they did an incredible mountain housing. I think they've got about 300 ,000 houses a year. It was a moment, this is the 60s, where British life changed so much. Your friend Peter Kelmer, who obviously is more of the left, but makes a lovely case for McMillan, he says from 51 to 64, which was at 13 years of conservative government, an average growth rate of more than 3 % low inflation after the first year, unemployment averaging just half a million, more than 4 million new homes built.

14:18In 1951, few families had a car, television, telephone, fridge or washing machine by 1964, all were commonplace. The incredible change during the McMillan period. It was life. You never had it, it's a good. Well, in some ways, of course, he was right, and he's very interesting, because it's also 13 years. It's a good comparison with the end of Rishi Sunak, or the end of the Labour government. It's a good route into it. And I think one of the things I took away from it is that one of the reasons why politics is in trouble today is that the kind of complete transformation in lives, which was possible in the 50s and 60s, where people were coming from such a low base.

14:57Third of houses, my constituency, had no indoor toilet in the 1950s. Quarterm had no electricity. So by the end of the 60s, suddenly people had, for the first time, access to things, you know, health, dental care, housing, which they hadn't had before. Today, all the things that they've lost in the last 13 years. Today, with the best one in the world, you know, the great, your great Labour government, as it comes in, is not going to be able to change people's lives as fundamentally as was possible in the past. No, because I think the big thing that is really effective in this generation is the insight that they're not going to be better off than the generation before, which every other generation prior to that has been able to say that.

15:36So I'm going out lead and Blair, you're going to be willing to... I think it was brave on decolonisation. The more I read about how badly things went for France in Vietnam, you know, I'm not hearing a lot of La Fraleque d 'Ogdus Hue there. Yeah, I'll go. I'll make the argument for La Fraleque d 'Ogdus Hue as well. No, great, La Fraleque d 'Ogdus Hue, my favourite La Fraleque d 'Ogdus Hue thing. Right? He's walking down just after he's been Prime Minister. He's walking down the embankment, and a man comes up to him and says, Alec, how are you? I haven't seen you since school. You know, I have always said to my wife, you ought to have been Prime Minister.

16:08This is after he'd been Prime Minister. And he told it against himself. Alec knows he's all telling his own, he's all telling his own, it's nice. It's nice. Right, I think we disagreed enough there. Hannah, what does Sweden joining NATO mean for the rest of Europe? Could it be possible for Ukraine to join? So quick, quick explainer on this. Sweden's neutrality is very old. It's nearly 200 years old. Goes back to the fact that their king and the Napoleonic Wars had a pretty disastrous confrontation and lost Finland. And pretty much from then onwards was few exceptions. Sweden has remained neutral.

16:38And in fact, it was a reason for Sweden initially holding off from joining the European Union. But that has begun to change. Sweden did join the EU. And it's clear that from the 60s and 70s onwards, in practice, Sweden has been pretty much in the pro -Western camp. Although it presented itself as neutral. And finally, this week, as Sweden has done this extraordinary step, a joining NATO, which for those who want to see things in a more optimistic life this year, you could pitch as being actually the West coming together and Putin overreaching himself and Putin achieving exactly the reverse of what he wanted.

17:14He wanted to break NATO, wanted to. And what he's actually done is got Finland and Sweden, who up till now have very carefully stayed out of NATO to say actually in the end, we're going to be clear about this Putin poses a threat to security you're joining NATO. And I guess the point about other countries that there's definitely been a change in perspective in relation to defence in the whole region, for obvious reasons, particularly countries that border Russia like the Finns. But with Sweden, they had to overcome some pretty big and difficult obstacles. All -Ban tried to stop it at various points.

17:46Erdogan in Turkey was very, very unkeen, because he's got all sorts of Turkish exiled issues that he's constantly getting very, very angry about. So they've just sort of persevered with it and got to the point. And we talked about Joe Biden's speech in the main episode. And the Swedish Prime Minister was there in the gallery being fated. So they clearly saw that as quite a big historic moment. And I think it will make other European countries that are proud of their neutrality, want to stay out of it, think, well, maybe if we were forced to choose between Eastern West, we'd lean into Western NATO.

18:22It's also interesting that, as you've reminded us, that in the end, Erdogan didn't fully veto. There was a lot of talk about how, as you say, because there had been anti -Turkish statements, there had been Quran warnings, there were various things that are very sensitive in Turkey that he'd block it indefinitely. And that's a bit reminiscent of the point she made last week of the fact that Orban didn't in the end block the EU budgetary assistance. So somehow these players are not vetoing and disrupting quite in the way that they might. In the end, they're coming in behind the consensus. Yeah. Okay, we're going to quick break and then more questions.

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20:14I, Alice, to hear just to let you know, tickets going very, very well for our pre -election tour. We've also got very good news for people in Brighton. We know as last week it was sold out. We managed to extend the place, so we've got a few more tickets there. And I'm sure we've got lots of listeners from Brighton this week, because we had the wonderful Caroline Lucas on Restistus Policies Leading. For all the other venues, just go to therestistpologies .com to find out where you can buy tickets.

20:43OK, Jack's later, brilliant infu with Caroline Lucas this week, but I was struck by her comments on the whipping system. How very often MPs had no idea what they were voting for. And in fact, most were just following what their whip had told them. Can you explain what the whips do and why they are there? I understand the importance of following party lines, but I don't understand the whipping system. So obviously, those two things are connected. The justification for this system is that if you vote for your party, if you vote for Labour in the next election, and you're voting for them, believing they're going to spend 23 billion on, I don't know, a new green deal, you expect the Labour MP you voted for in your constituency to deliver that for you.

21:22And we would be pretty angry, in fact, if they said, well, you know, on every vote, I'm going to use my independent conscience. And I've decided for whatever reason I'd agree with that policy. Right? So we do really vote for parties, and our system is set up to allow MPs to only disagree with the party in very small marginal situations, usually on issues of conscience. And when they do, pretty catastrophic, in my case, ultimately, I vote against the government, I get thrown out of the party. So what are the whips do? Well, the whips are the machine that pushes the loyalty and the voting, but they also are the wiring of the House of Commons.

21:57So they conduct these very complicated discussions with the speaker on which amendments are coming, when bills are being presented, when the votes are going to be held. And they coordinate very closely actually with the other opposition parties. So the government whips, the opposition whips. Usually channels, though. Usually channels, yeah. Working all this stuff through. And it's a weird job because you can't speak in the House of Commons when you're a whip normally. And you basically don't give interviews in media. Your constituents don't really see much of you. And you live this sort of slightly secretive life, generally in an office.

22:28And there are, I found there were three ways of being a whip, certainly in the conservative party, maybe different in Labour. Either you were like a big kind of enforcer, and physically large guy. David Lightbound comes to mind. David Lightbound, that's good. He used to. He used to. Big, big laugh. He used to pat around very slowly, looking menacing. That's good. That's good. OK. The second lot that we had was we had sort of people like Philip Dunn, who are these very kind of gentlemen, these smooth sort of gentleman assassin types, put their arm around you and say, now they're not all chat. Not sure you really want to block your career.

23:01And then the third lot, which was very striking, was kind of particularly in the camera and the makeup, and very kind of down to earth, often women who take you out in the house of comments terrorists for a fag, and they'd say, come on, just be sensible. Don't create trouble for your colleagues, be loyal, be a team player, and try to get you in that way. So it went all the way from threats to sort of trying to normalise. Anyway, how about in Labour? Well, it was interesting, the discussion that we had in the Caroline Lucas, where you and she gave this terrible portrayal of MPs, these sort of bold headed people, just did as they were told.

23:36I'd like to think that another role of the whip was to engage in proper argument with some of the MPs about why the policy was such as it was. Does that go on inside the Conservative Party? They try a little bit, but the problem with it is the government's then liable to change its mind three weeks later, in which case it's a bit of a problem for the way they've just made the argument, they convinced you, and then it's all changed. I do think, I mean, maybe it's back to the fact that I wasn't an MP, and so I would be dealing a lot of the time with the Chief whip, memory Donald Jua, who was brilliant at sort of giving you a kind of overview of what the view of the PLP was, as opposed to maybe drilling down individual by individual, even region by region.