233. From peerages to Putin: the fight against corruption in politics

24:57I think it's a very old form of corruption. Yeah, well, in this one is Morocco, Qatar and Mauritania, and probably Kazakhstan, or certainly Azerbaijan, and certainly Russia. Basically, buying members of the European Parliament, different members of separate European Parliament, there's a British MP called Mike Hancock, who seemed to have been implicated in very close relationships with Azerbaijan to put it politely, and before again to liable cases, you can read the caviar diplomacy piece by ESI, which points out that he kept endorsing the Azerbaijan elections, and as I've read some election experts, I think you can confirm for us that the Azerbaijan elections are not famous for their transparency.

25:37No, I think he's, I think he's actually just one is fifth in a row. And also, rather sweetly, one of his opponents has stood in every election against him, and he's, I think he's risen from 0 .3 % of the vote to 3 % in his five terms. So, you know, the opposition's clearly doing very well. By the way, before we get into the European Union thing, when you were talking about transparency international there, I just quickly had a look at their website. The top story on transparency international website is as the UK score hits an all -time low, the time for action in corruption is now. And then, and the second story is when is modernizing Gibraltar's laws a bad idea?

26:16They're talking about that one as well. My final little anecdote is there was a man I indirectly knew who was a South Carolina congressman called John Genrette who was done by an FBI sting in the early 80s. And when the FBI agent who was a sort of fake shake went into see him offering cash in exchange for gambling contracts, John Genrette said, I've got larceny in my blood. I take the bribe and a goddamn minute. Well, this is recorded. A little bit, a little bit about Europe, because that is very interesting. We touched, I think, on a previous pod on how a Greek member of the European Parliament, Evakali, whose father, Alexandra, had also been a former politician.

26:57The father was stopped with hundreds of thousands of euros in a suitcase, an Italian former MP Antonio Panzeri, a Belgian MP, Marie Arena, and a lot of this seemed to be taking money from Rocco to get EU backing on trade agreements with EU fisheries, taking them off the human rights list. And then as a by jam, seem to be doing a lot of bribery of difference. I mean, incredible. They had someone called the Laundromat scandal, which I think you've mentioned in the past, where they literally laundered over a billion euro through paying people largely, I think, to back them on elections and human rights claims in the European Council.

27:30That's what it counts to Europe. Now, Rory, I think we should introduce somebody called Victor Medvedchuk to our discussions, because he is right at the heart of this European stuff. And he is a former Ukrainian national, former Ukrainian lawyer. He is Godfather to one of the two Putin daughters that we talked about recently who went on the London eye with my kids, and who your daughter tried to take shopping in Clark's shoes. Take shopping in Clark shoe shops? Correct. He now lives in exile in Russia. He's quite close to Putin. And he is the guy that both the Belgian Prime Minister and also the Czech authorities last week, named as being the heart of an attempt to influence the upcoming European Parliamentary elections.

28:17And it's quite interesting, if you think about it, there's the Belgian Prime Minister goes out and essentially says we are at risk of our elections being interfered with, and this is something we talked about with John Swarz and Eliza Manning -Buller on leading this week, being interfered with by these outside actors. And of course, when you've that background that you just described, straightforward naked corruption, then that basically says that, well, the Russians are probably thinking, well, we'll be able to find a few people that we can influence. Of course, a lot of this is about trying to influence the debate about Ukraine.

28:52So, John Swarz, when we talked to him, said, you know, you couldn't say that the Russians tipped the balance in Brexit or tipped the balance in the Trump Biden election of 2016, but that they are trying to have an impact upon the outcome of these elections is beyond dispute. Yeah, I didn't. When I was in Parliament, I'm at least only 2010 to 2019, here rumours, or see any signs that my colleagues were actually taking hundreds of thousands of pounds worth in cash from people. But the kind of thing that worried me more was how close people became at the end of their careers to companies and often companies that they were working with as ministers or they were meant to be scrutinising.

29:36And that, I think, is very worrying because one of the risks is that MPs don't radically call out and hold accountable things that are going wrong with companies. Let's say, I don't know that I was the... I was in fact, I was the water minister. And if you're looking for a job in the water industry afterwards, are you going to really call out and say these guys are a disgrace? You create too much trouble. You know, when I was chair of the Defence Select Committee, was I'm really going to call out the Defence contractors if I was going to be looking for a job. Other thing, honestly, finally, that if we're talking about cleaning up politics in all these countries is this very strange business of these friends of groups.

30:14So, you know, friends of Israel, friends of Palestine, friends of India, or in Britain, all party parliamentary groups on Pakistan or whatever it happens to be, or Cyprus, which end up often providing paid trips for MPs to visit other people's countries, sponsored by those countries' governments, gives them a very, very partial vision of those countries that reinforce the narrative of those governments, and then produces a series of members of parliament. I'm afraid it doesn't matter which side they're on. I could be on either side on Kashmir, either side on Palestine, either side on Cyprus, who end up taking incredibly strong partial positions where I used to get a bit anxious about this.

30:55I mean, when I was invited on these trips, I would say, look, I'm a British member of parliament, I'm not a member of parliament for some other country, and I'm not going on a paid trip. The difficulty with that is that if you're, you know, we both bemoan the fact that too few parliamentarians take a real genuine interest in a lot of the big foreign policy issues. How are they supposed to travel when the public get angry every time that expenses are published, and why should they be taking airplanes here than everywhere? And I guess what happens there. I think the Americans have it better. The American state, I think, the federal government does sponsor politicians who travel around the world, or they have organizations like they won't be spoke to recently, the Marshall Scholars, where they will fund people to go abroad.

31:43But I agree with you, that is one thing, that is a thing that countries do, don't they? They get parliamentarians there, and they try to get them to become effectively spokesman for their own government. I remember when I was a journalist, there was a Tory MP called John Carlisle, who I remember for two things, one that he was a very prominent supporter of the tobacco lobby, and the other was that he would never say a bad word about the South African apartheid government, and he would go on trips there and stuff, and be close to their government. Absolutely, and in so doing, would be able to claim that he was something of an expert, because I've actually visited this place, and I've seen what it's like, and this stuff in Europe, Decro, Alexander Decro, the Prime Minister of Belgium, he said in quotes, Russia has approached EU parliamentarians and paid them to promote Russian propaganda here.

32:30And on the same day, or the day before, the Czechs sanctioned this guy, Medvedchuk, and another associate, and also sanctioned this website called The Voice of Europe, which is based in Prague. So these are sort of very sophisticated influence operations that are targeted at our elections, or in this case the European elections. And I thought it was very, very interesting that essentially two European governments came out within 24 hours. That means that the intelligence services are telling them something quite serious is going on. And it's, boy, these operations are difficult. I mean, I guess we need to go to break, but it's fascinating when you watch.

33:06I mean, there's an article from about a year ago where Derspiegel tries to run through the investigations that were done against on some of these Morocco, Mauritania, Qatar allegations. But boy, it's difficult, because a lot of these members of parliament claim immunity, often it's their son or their father has the cash, or their husband has the cash. And pinning this all down seems to be really difficult. So well done, I guess, the police for tracking the stuff down. And it all adds grist to the mill to the argument that Labour needs to put restoring trust in politics and standards in public life at the heart of the manifesto and the campaign for government.

33:46Excellent. Take a break.

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35:45Welcome back to the rest of politics with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alastair Campbell. And we got quite a coup thanks to you, which was John Sores and Eliza Manningham Bullis. So the X heads of MI6 and MI5 are foreign and domestic intelligence services did a double header on our separate feed leading, which people in lot listening to strongly encouraged to listen to. And I think some lovely ones recently are sort of some of them more, you know, straight down the line, like Angela Rainer, the deputy leader labor party, or such a javid, the veteran Tory cabinet minister, but also sculpt transny, gormly, baboon expert Robert Sapolsky.

36:20And now these two intelligence chiefs. They said a lot of interesting things. I mean, it was, it was difficult listening for me at times. I think it's fair to say that, well, Eliza Manningham Bullis, very critical of the Iraq war, full stop. And John Sores, not at all happy about the way that we handled the intelligence in the build up to that war. Both of them quite critical. I thought they in a sort of subdued way of Richard Deerlove, who was the head of MI6 at the time. I thought, Eliza, in particular, brutally frank and straightforward about what she saw as the dangerous to democracy and to NATO of a return of Trump.

36:56And fascinating, I thought on on the way they work. And both of them, I found this genuine interesting that both of them absolutely fixated on this idea that their services have improved because they are now subject to pretty clear legal conditions and constraints. And both of them emphasizing that in a way that quite surprised me. Yeah, I wonder if it was fascinating, wasn't it? Because, of course, there are a lot of people in their organizations, particularly the kind of old and the bold, who would disagree and felt that they now feel that they're completely what they want, hemmed in by lawyers and procedures.

37:32And they can't actually take the risks they could in the past and that Britain is less safe to result. I remember he's the one guy who was every time I met him, he was wearing a different sort of identity. And he was always like, he'd go one day from being a kind of boho, you know, scruffy hoodie jeans type. And then the next time you'd see him, he'd be wearing a pink earring and a three -piece tweed suit. Because he'd suddenly, he'd more from being a kind of, you know, infiltration of one organization to suddenly being a kind of banker or something. And I think he's probably one of those who felt that he should be allowed a lot more freedom.

38:08So just very quick, I remember the other thing that people used to go in for a lot. I don't know where they still do because I think it's getting more difficult with facial recognition and fingerprints. But disguises were a real thing. Dodgy glasses and obviously coats that turn around. But it's the wigs bits that's the funniest. You often see in the movies the coats turning around, but the wigs bit is hilarious. And there was particularly 30 years ago, we had a guy in one of our MCs incredibly famous for his wig collection. And was always walking out of the back door of an embassy with a different hairstyle on believing this would fool the surveillance teams into thinking it wasn't him.

38:40We're getting going to Israel, but both John Sores and the lies of Manning and Buller were pretty frank about that too and essentially saying to quote a lies of Manning and Buller, she said, look, any government who was attacked in the way that Israel was on October 7th would have to take action. But it's now reached the point where it is contrary to Israel's interests to be continuing in the way that they are. And likewise John Sores made the point that I think he had that extraordinary stat that he reckoned that 60 % of Hamas fighters were orphans. As he said, there's going to be a lot more orphans out of what's happening recently.

39:15So let's just go to Israel because there's a lot happening there. So overnight we've had this attack by Israel on the consulate of Iran in Damascus and they've taken out the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and his deputy and others. And Iran are talking about what they call a harsh response. We've got these continuing massive protests against Netanyahu where families of hostages have come together with political voices that simply want elections and they want to get rid of Netanyahu. We've had Netanyahu overnight under general anesthetic with a herni operation. We've had the hospital in Raffa effectively reduced to the ground.

39:58And then we've also now had this tragic story including the death of a Brit in Australia, in the poll of the American Canadian amongst aid workers who have been killed in the Israeli strike which has gone wrong. And then this big debate going on inside the Israeli cabinet over the exemption of Orthodox Jews from military service. And this has the potential and Netanyahu is on the record of saying this could break the coalition. Really interesting as you because ultra orthodox Jews or in particular normally the Herady group of people who I think listeners will recognize as often being dressed in quite conservative clothes and who were quite a small part of the Israeli population when the State of Israel was found that only about 5 % in the 1940s have had much larger families and now represent nearly 13 % of the Israeli population.

40:56And on our own track it seems within the next 25 years or next 35 years potentially have more children than any other part of the Israeli population. So the growing part of the population. And the deal when Israel was set up was to allow the Herady communities to be able to continue their studies to the Torah and be exempt from military service and the Israeli government funded this education provision. And this exemption seems to be renewed regularly but the renewal did not go through this time on the 1st of April and the Supreme Court has now said that education funding should no longer be provided for people who don't attend military service and and back over to you on the political crisis this has formed.

41:41When it started by the way back in 1948 with David Bengurian I think there only about 400 that this actually covered and as you say the State paid for them in benefits and education and all the other things that they needed to do their religious studies is grown and grown and grown and grown as you say now somewhere between 12 and 13%. And this has always been a subject of considerable division inside the Israeli community because I think that the secular community who kind of accept some of them willingly some of them less so that they should do all do military service. There's been a real backlash from the ultra -orthodox community and of course the reason this is so difficult for Netanyahu is because his cabinet is reliant on some of these extreme religious groups and so he's the one who's asked to see the Supreme Court for an extension he's asked to be allowed to take a bit longer to deal with this he is on record as saying this could break apart the coalition and of course the protesters they'd be nothing happier than for them because they want to see general elections and they want to get rid of him but it's exposed the real divide within the war cabinet because gallant and gants the two members of the war cabinet they are worried about what they see as a manpower shortage certainly coming down the track and therefore they want to be able to call upon more of Israeli citizens to take part in the war.

43:04And this takes us back to the story we were covering last year which was the protests and tell if this is before the Gaza attacks which were about moves against the judiciary and part of the reason why Netanyahu was making moves against the judiciary is partly because the judges were seen as being on the side of compelling military service and therefore alienated the ultra -orthodox but also they were stopping some of the settlements and therefore alienating some of the settlement. The other thing that makes this quite difficult to understand I think for outsiders is that a lot of the ultra -orthodox community the Haredis are either non -sionists or anti -sionists so some of them actually think that it's a sin to have a state of Israel before the Messiahs come.

43:49Their parties are those that vote some of them don't vote but those that vote are an important part of his coalition so the Shaz under Arya Derry which has 11 seats and this united Tora Judea which has seven seats this is important because he's only got his majority is just from 64 seats but they are different I mean these ultra -orthodox communities so people who you know you'll recognize me the non -lithuanian communities for example wear these fur hats and these big silk caftans on the Sabbath very different from the parties of Ben Gavir and Smotrich so Smotrich religious sign this Ben Gavir which is this party Jewish power that's come out of cuss who are orthodox Jews but very very strongly connected with the settler movement and with the idea of expelling Palestinians so he's holding a coalition where the Zionists and the religious Zionists and the ultra -orthodox are sitting together but many of the ultra -orthodox paradoxically have tended to be more moderate on the Palestinian issue yeah it underlines how fragile his coalition is or could be and it will take something like this it could take something like this to break it apart and meanwhile of course there's been the shadow war going on between Israel and Iran for some time but I think once you start hitting consulates and taking out commanders of the revolutionary guard Iran probably does feel it will have to step up attacking a consulate is a very extreme thing to do because of this idea of diplomatic immunity I mean generally the idea is that in anybody's country however badly you behave an embassy is almost sovereign territories it's exempt to have this kind of stuff and interestingly there have been big criticisms this strike from Saudi and UAE which are traditionally very very opposed to Iran and in fact a lot of their relationships with Israel were because they thought Israel would back them against Iran but they've come out along with the usual suspects like Russia criticizing the tech and the fear is that there is a quite a large chunk of Israeli public opinion that now wants to take the war into Lebanon wants to take on Hisbalah I've had relatives and friends in Israel over the last two three weeks and the first thing they notice of course is that there are very few tourists to be seen the airport very very empty but many of the people they were meeting are beginning to say we made a mistake going after Hamas after the guards attacks we should have gone straight after Hisbalah which is the Iranian back shield groups in Lebanon who are much larger much better armed and pose a much greater threat to the Israeli state so and maybe we've you know part of the conversation where some of these Israeli businessmen in particular saying you know we've wasted a lot of international support going after Hamas well what we really needed was to support Gafteh as well as so there's a suggestion that when they attack the Iranians some parts of the Israeli government will be thinking we don't really mind if Iran responds because if Iran responds it's then our our excuse to go after Hisbalah Lebanon.

46:42A couple of quick final points we're going to your friend Sam Bankman Freed now I use the word friend very loosely there. Netanyahu we talked about corruption earlier he is still facing some very very serious corruption charges related to fraud and bribery and the other big development this this week which I haven't seen get much discussion here is the the other new law that they're bringing forward is one to block Al Jazeera inside Israel now that says to me and Netanyahu says very very very strong words I think he talked about them being actively involved in the events of October the 7th so on the one hand you've got Israel leaning on the Qataris to try to keep some sort of process going on on the other hand they're saying you run a kind of evil propaganda outfit and we're going to shut it down inside Israel because you basically become spokeswoman for Hamas and I wonder if that's about just creating another enemy.

47:38It's also very worrying because of course Israel's very very proud of being a strong democracy traditionally with an independent judiciary of free press and Al Jazeera has played a completely vital role in reporting on what's going on in Gaza they've been able to get far more reporting out on the ground they've had some very very courageous journalists yeah hardly anybody else is still there very very worrying to start doing things like shutting down independent media and and I think the final thing of course is that the big story still are all these trucks blocked at the border and there are you know hundreds of trucks loaded with supplies ready to go through again you know I I've been talking to friends in Jordan this week who are just horrified by it because they say that you know on a given day you're expecting to get a thousand through about 120 will be signed off and of those maybe only 30 or 40 actually crossed the border and they're being stopped again and again sometimes on security grounds but sometimes it's tiny grounds and it's very very difficult to understand why more of these humanitarian supplies are not being allowed through the Israeli government of course denying this but it's very difficult not to feel there it's a strong pattern of obstruction on these humanitarian supplies and it's not going to be fixed by the Americans opening a port if America was serious about it what they would be doing is doing what we do in in in other humanitarian emergencies around the world which is escorting those trucks in with UN peacekeepers or US soldiers and saying we're coming into deliver humanitarian supplies and overseeing that situation rather than trying to open this port which will never be able to take the number of supplies that people need and this comes back to the question of how much pressure America's prepared to put and you and I were looking at her an article earlier this week which was going in detail into what Bush senior did in 1991 where he came back a 10 billion dollar loan guarantee in order to free settlements it's very interesting how many things remain the same I mean this is 33 years ago but there you had an Israeli cabinet minister calling George Bush senior an anti -Semite and a liar Erhud Al -Mert calling him contemptible because of US attempts to put pressure on the settlement this year you're getting sort of mixed singles from the United States the moment in a way that you had the situation where they didn't veto the United Nations resolution on a ceasefire that was seen as quite a big move by the Israelis they came out straight away last night and criticized Israel over this move in Al Jazeera and they do keep banging the drum hard in relation to access for aid this charity world central kitchen that who've lost these these people overnight I mean I suppose the other thing you would know more about this than I but is there a worry that when you see things like this happening that some of the aid organizations think well this is just becoming so difficult it's harder to get people in there it's harder to get people to go and stay there when this kind of incident happens or do you think it just galvanizes people say right this underlines the importance of the work that we do no you're completely right I mean that this is terrifying I mean I've got a lot of friends working with organizations working in Gaza some trying to get into Gaza to work but this is really really scary stuff because normally as an international aid worker you are pretty exempt there are a few exceptions the Taliban killed Metsun Frontier workers in end of 2001 beginning 2002 in Afghanistan but that led to Metsun Frontier was drawing all its operations from Afghanistan that was a very shocking incident more than 20 years ago but you certainly do not expect one of the most technologically advanced sophisticated armies in the world to be mounting strikes against foreign aid workers I mean that's a totally different level and actually means that it feels now will feel for many aid workers one of the most very dangerous countries in the world to operate and it will begin to feel to people as it does operating in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo maybe to end on a slightly lighter note if I told you this story about I was thinking about Netanyahu with his general anesthetic for his hernia operation I don't see what to do whether he had any thoughts he went under as to the politics of the people who he care and charge him because I had a I had a general anesthetic a few years ago for an operation on my nose when I had this problem with my breathing and when I came now the doctor was sadly by the bed and he said you were very very lucky so what you mean he said well the operation won't fight but I have to tell you the at least that this is a massive core but Easter she spent the whole time she spent the whole time saying I could be a hero I could be a hero I could take him out right now there we are there we are risk of anesthetics risk of anesthetics well finally sound back when free so the founder of the FTX crypto exchange this child prodigy who in his 20s became a multi billionaire who set up lavish operations in the Bahamas who invited Tony Blair and Bill Clinton to appear on stages with him and some of the greatest rock musicians in the world and was a particularly close friend of our new friend Scarimucci or your older friend Mr.

52:41Scarimucci who gave this interview on leading who again was one of his co -investors who was there on the Bahamas as the whole thing blew up yeah and and blew up in a way that lost 8 billion dollars worth of his depositors money and it now becomes clear because he's just been sentenced to 25 years in jail partly thanks the fact the people who ran the company with him who were other young people in their 20s and early 30s including his girlfriend testified against him and explain that he basically thought he was above all these laws and he borrowed money from customers accounts to try to deal with a run on the money has actually stole their money to try to bail himself out and then made the extraordinary mistake that many massive egotism make have tried to defend himself in court instead of having a lawyer so he stood there you know nitpicking with the judges lying seeming very very peculiar and and he did this amazing interview with an Asian American journalist who was actually quite an obscure and in her own description quite an obscure blogger who suddenly got called up to see him and he opened up in the most incredible and self incriminating way he managed to say oh yeah all the stuff about my trying to regulate crypto was just bullshit and I was pulling the wool over the eyes of the government so in some ways he's he's been convicted on his own on his own words yeah and it was pretty clear from the the judge the judge the judge did not like him did it he really didn't like his his demeanor and the way he dealt with the court I mean we at Fiona and I last time we were driving through France we listened to the Michael Lewis book on Sambatman Fried and even now having followed the court case a bit and also having listened to that book I can't quite work out whether he is a con man or whether he is just somebody who is I mean he's somebody who openly is on has autism spectrum disorder in fact he made that case in court that that was the reason why the judge should go easy on him because he would find prison a very very difficult place to be but he's somebody who just felt that he was always able because of the the power of his brain and and his ability to handle maths and deal with data which he realized was the kind of you know the most powerful thing in the world right now he felt that anything he did was allowable because he was he was sort of special in that field but was it a con even now I'm not convinced that he was conning people I think it's just that he thought whatever he got coming towards him he'd be able to deal with it you mentioned Tony Blair and and Bill Clinton I remember when they were the three of them were photographed together and their Sambatman Fried with these kind of wild hair I think he was wearing a t -shirt and shorts and sort of really scruffy kind of trainers and he just looked and I thought what Tony and Bill doing with this guy and and yet you know the book if I'm right I think it starts with Anna Winter who is you know a real kind of fashion guru and she runs this thing the Metropolitan Ball and she's desperate to get Sambatman Fried to sponsor it and to be there and he says yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and he then just doesn't turn up because he sort of thinks well right now in this moment I can't be bothered so I won't do it doesn't care what people think doesn't care about upsetting people and yet where I think which is what I think might provoke your interest in him was was big on this whole thing of effective altruism sort of earning to give money away and and it's very difficult to know how much that was sincere and how much wasn't but yes he he very much believed in a fetched altruism which is connected to the work I was doing with gift directly and one of the reasons gift directly got going is because it was able to demonstrate that giving unconditional cash had more impact than other types of charitable activity when you measured it in terms of randomized controlled trials I mean also sort of scientifically like a medical trial effect vouchers was really about proving how far your dollar goes and he was a real pioneer in this work and therefore got some people like Peter Singer who's his very distinguished Australian philosopher to appear on stages with him and I think Peter Singer now regrets it deeply I I dealt with his foundation sound back with Fritz foundation it was very odd though dealing with them because on the one hand they were very generous and offering to give away billions on the other hand the call I had was extraordinary I called ahead of his foundation to see if I could interest them in a project helping the extreme poor in Africa and after about 15 minutes of my pitch the sky who was sitting in California in his hoodie said well you know I haven't had my lunch yet so I think I'm going to go and have my lunch and I said very honest say oh well yes of course you must have your lunch I don't want to keep you off your lunch but you know can we reschedule a call for a few weeks time because I think this is a really important issue and he said to me honest I'm not that interested in poverty and then he hung up and went off for his lunch and I thought my goodness this is pretty brutal stuff I mean somebody who can say that to me I mean I understand he does at least he could pretend right and that was ahead of his foundation you never met or spoke with bang for yourself no I was put in touch ahead of his foundation because someone put me in touch with Sam who pushed me on to the head of his foundation so what did they get what did they get money to a lot of the money didn't come through in the end but they were increasingly interested in sort of futureology they were interested in the risks posed by asteroid strikes and robot overlords they said we were underpricing so while I was saying you know we've got to concentrate on 700 million people in extreme poverty today they were saying no no no you're being too short term we need to put money into preventing the threats from 40, 50, 100 years in the future wow it is an amazing story though and he got so he got 25 years they were asking for 100 at one point one they yeah I think Bernie Maddoff or made off great name for a con man made off he got 150 years I don't know even whether he's still alive I don't know he's dead not I don't know I think he didn't last long so he's 25 years so I guess look he will get out at some point I suspect he will find prison quite a tough environment I don't know but the book it the book was very very interesting and it was one of those books where Michael Lewis and I wonder was an ego thing Michael Lewis is quite a big deal he got a lot of access and you've got the feeling of somebody who a bit like musk I think doesn't really give a toss about what anybody thinks or says about him yeah but he's probably utterly bewildered as to how he's ended up in jail having believed according to his girlfriend that he had a chance of becoming president of the United States just just a couple years ago anyone wants to follow up there are some great documentaries that have been produced on FTX including some starring are Francisco Amitchie BBC's down ones CNBC's down one Bloomberg's down one and for people interested in the ultra orthodox community in in Israel there's a lovely Netflix series that I'd really recommend called Shatisl I'm if I've obviously mispronounced it but but it's about a herady family living in Jerusalem and it's warm affectionate profoundly eccentric following the lives of a young man trying to adjust and a young woman trying to adjust or living in this community and Rory if anybody interested in the constitutional arrangements surrounding the Rock of Gibraltar which at one point I think you said the Lord of Spain I suggest they go read the Treaty of Utrecht oh very good I think it was 1713 I can't remember when Gordon Brown your friend Gordon Brown got me in to talk to him about Iraq in 2008 I spent I think an hour with him and during the hour he spoke I think for 56 minutes of that hour he told me a lot about the Treaty of Utrecht there you go why was he talking why was he talking about that oh well I think he was interested in the west phalian system and state sovereignty I thought given he got me in to talk about Iraq I was going to get a bit more in about Iraq but you know I was educated good you were polite you were polite um um sure we should we just for those you didn't see it should we remind people what our April fools were yeah gone then well I said what yours was way too far fetched well he didn't like it you didn't like it at all it really has a very sensitive note I sent out a mild announcement saying I'd been made head of product management and challenge a Burnley football club and Alistair was so outraged by my touching on this thing which is almost family for him I got him he destroyed my apples fool with an immediate reply saying ha ha bullshit for all the other ones so anyone going to my timeline yeah I probably was a bit I mean I should have just left let it sit there and then I should have separately I also did my April fool as a response to yours I thought mine was quite good those basically that eaten college it asked me to head up a committee to work out how to put their sporting and cultural facilities into public ownership that that that worked well right all right Rory see you soon see you soon bye bye