245. Are we really heading for a hung parliament?

23:17Welcome back to The Rests As Politics with Mi Roris Jyut. And Mi Alice DiCaml. And we had a great, great thing where we were able to sit down together in person, not remotely with Nancy Pelosi, which was great and that that's out this week. I love doing things in person. Actually, we also did a trip together to see the premise for Greece. But the lovely thing about doing things in person is I got a much stronger sense of what makes Nancy Pelosi an attractive charismatic politician than you see when she's on television, when she can see. But wouldn't she came into the room? She did a really good job of pretending to remember who I was.

23:50Our staff to my wife. Our staff to our charity and our Afghanistan. I mean, all the staff that you'd expect her to reach out politician to be able to do well. She did beautifully. And I thought it was warm and attractive. What did she make of that? Yeah. And then she basically rang me over Iraq. Which you listened to and then raised at the interview. Thank you very much for that. I will give our event as well. Don't you worry. It'll be an overheard conversation that suddenly fights his way to the interview. No, I thought she was great. And I loved her energy. And I loved her fight. We're going on to talk about this interview that Emmanuel Macron has given to the economist.

24:24And there's a line in the interview, which I love where he says that he feels that people in France and in Europe are being dragged down by the spirit of defeat. That sort of sense of negativism and complacency. And I thought the one thing she did not have was the spirit of defeat. She absolutely extraordinary. And the story will come through when he listened to the interview. But she became a politician in her mid to late 40s. And that's very, very late. I mean, I remember being taken out to lunch in a horrible club in St James's. As you can imagine, a conservative MP central called Whites. And this veteran Tory cabinet minister.

24:59He's given me lunch. This is said, you will have to become a member of parliament before you're 35 or you'll never go anywhere. And she came in very late by anybody's standards and has proved to completely dominate the American political scene. But they've counted out again and again. It's just over the age, though. Bernie Sanders is an arseist running again. She's had 19 terms. Her dad had 21. You know, Biden Trump. I think it's quite good that our politicians are a little bit younger. A little bit younger. So somebody pointed out that Bill Clinton was elected 33 years ago as president. And he's still younger than either of the candidates in the current US election.

25:34Amazing. So he was a bit of an exception. And then I had dinner with them. A very active young African. Very involved in African politics. And he was making a joke and saying, you know, it always used to be the case in Africa that we had this sort of massive gerontocracy. And that in Europe and the United States, you had these kind of young dynamic figures. Now it's all flipped around. And bits of Africa. A lot of the Middle East that it is kind of young dynamic leaders. And it's Europe and the United States. It seems to have these aged figures. Well, let's talk about a young dynamic leader because he's in his second term as president of France and he's still in his 40s.

26:05Amazing. Emmanuel Macron. And I'm looking at a picture of him on the front cover of the economist wearing a very, very smart suit. And not a black... He normally wears black suit and black tie. And he sort of gray with a blue tie. And what looks like a very expensive watch. Which is strange because he's always getting in trouble for wearing expensive watches and denying. He wears expensive watches. And then every time he's seen he's wearing a more and more flamboyant watch. Well, I don't know anything about watches. I don't even know to watch. But the last time I saw a watch like that, it was on the wrist of Jose Mourinho.

26:36So... No, but even if it's not worth the huge amount of money, it's only looks like it isn't. He's always getting in trouble for it. So I don't know why he keeps doing it. Now, listen, let's give you a chance to make the case from Macron because there's part of you that's really entranced by him, isn't it? And you really loved this interview and loved to speech at the Sorbonne. So tell us a little bit about this. Because politicians don't make enough big speeches, okay? And boy does Macron make it. So you made this two -hour speech at the Sorbonne. It flew around the world. And it flew around all sorts of different themes and challenges and so forth.

27:10And the interview, which was, you know, and it shows you the importance of, I think, of having... I heard this terrible thing in the day. I don't... This came from somebody at CNN. So I'm assuming it's true that CNN no longer has a full -time deli correspondent. That is extraordinary. So they're now sending from America to cover the current election? But there is a real problem. Given that CNN is really important. I mean, it's a really important central thing. There've been times, I believe, where the number of viewers on CNN have been fewer than the listeners on this podcast. Yeah. Which means that those major media stations are in trouble because, of course, they have incredible fixed costs.

27:45You know, camera crews, producers, things. So I think it would be lovely if one was in a situation where some of these wealthy philanthropists really got behind funding proper BBC style independent international journalism because it's obviously non -linking commercial sense anymore. Well, the point I was talking about is such an economist. There's Sophie Peder, who I know quite well, who's the economist bureau chief in Paris. And is she French? No, no. I mean, she's obviously fluent in French, but she's British. But what's interesting, though, is that you get this sort of interview if you're, kind of, obviously, economist as a cashier of itself.

28:18But I think it's a really interesting interview because it sort of, he goes into some of these bigger themes that he's constantly wants to talk about. So he's three main points are essentially that geopolitically Europe is in real danger because of Putin and Ukraine and the real danger that if he wins in Ukraine, then it's Poland or it's Lithuania, it's Latvia, it's Moldova, whatever. The second is on the economy, complacency, by the way, links all of these. We are falling behind the USA and China. We, as it were, Europe, falling behind on tech, falling behind on innovation, and so forth. And then the third point is that we've got this populist nationalism in most of our countries, which is a kind of easy thing to play.

29:01It's an easy game to play. It's an easy drug for people to take. And it's doing fundamental damage. And it's adding to the problems of one and two. And then he's got some ideas about how to address that. But of course, he's only the leader of one admittedly big country in Europe. And underpinning and sort of going through the Sophie's analysis of the thing is, well, this is all great and interesting and would be possible. But he's not very popular at home and he's got a terrible relationship with all of Sholtz in Germany. Yeah, again, just to look at it. So you're absolutely right. He's got this big -fishing, security, economics, democratic politics.

29:39He's got a big story about the last kind of 40 years of European history and he thinks that now is the time for Europe to rebuild its military, become more independent of the United States. He's signaling on the Scott some headlines that maybe France could produce a nuclear umbrella to protect other countries. And he's got a big story around, you know, how Europe can begin to take the lead on space, on AI, on quantum computing. And then he's got a big story about a big democratic rebirth in Europe. And I think the first, just for a second, I mean, it's completely unlike anything that any British politician would give it to an interview.

30:19But it's also completely unlike and I think that any German politician would give it to an interview. I mean, the whole style of the thing is just 30 ,000 feet. And you know, he quotes Mark Bloch and he quotes Paul Valerier and he's got these amazing moments just to tease him a little bit. There is a slight sense of kind of French ego and macro ego. So there's a lovely moment where in the interview he says, you know, Russia's been making some advances in Ukraine, despite all the efforts made by France. And then he then he pauses and he says, but also Germany and the US. You know, now to put that in context, the US is literally spending 10 times more than the nearest.

30:57And it's definitely a spectator or the France as well. Yeah. And he actually totally neglects to mention Britain in that particular context as she Britain's also done quite a lot more. Well, he does mention Britain in the context of future European events. Then he talks about himself and he says, you know, luckily I have been able to keep going because of my iron will. I don't know what an iron will is in French, but again, you can't quite imagine. From the day to fair. I can't imagine quite a British or German politician describing themselves as having an iron will. I can. That's a, do you think you've shown or tell?

31:29I think more so not. I think we might tease somebody who described themselves as having an iron will. And then the final thing, I guess, just in sort of stylistic terms is it's this tendency to put everything into a speech. So if you look at that Sorbonne speech, you know, he's not just talking about nuclear deterrent. He's also talking about libraries. Every idea he has in the world has been stuffed into a two hour speech where everything's connected. And so here's my kind of. This is not what you do in party conference speeches, for example. You could definitely. I hope you're listening to this.

32:02I actually loved the bit about the libraries. You know, he was basically saying that, you know, we're losing literature. We're losing the love of books. And we're losing libraries as a center of the community. I'm not saying that's the same pillar of the speeches. New clear annihilation, which he talks about. I just wish we had more politicians who did the big vision thing. I think the other thing is that we can become a bit mesmerized by the fact that Macron is very clever. And he does what other people don't do, which has given these kinds of speeches. I think there are two challenges I'd make to his vision.

32:38One of them is the style, which we talked about a little bit. And the other is the substance. So on the style part, again, what he's not doing, which I think a German politician would probably want to do, which has developed one idea in detail with proper background papers and policies. So I'm making a speech on industrial policy, here are 15 policy background papers and developments. I'm making a speech on nuclear deterrence. Here's my whole development thing. But the second thing is the substance. The most radical bit of it was around industrial policy. And basically he's saying that we're being beaten by China and the US.

33:12And the reason we're being beaten by China and the US is that they're subsidizing their industries. He keeps coming back to this. He keeps talking. He also makes the point that he says the Americans have given up trying to get China to conform to the rules of international trade. Implied in that is that, and so now, the Americans. So we have to catch up. Yes. That is a root of protectionism. Absolutely. So protectionism and then huge amounts of industrial investment he wants. He's talking about a European DARPA. DARPA is this defense research setup, which the Americans had and which was beloved of Dominic Cummings, who wrote endless emails.

33:47You were a hero. Exactly. Absolutely right. And my rival to appear on this podcast, or let's see your co -presenter. So that was a very bad idea by somebody other than myself. So anyway, Dominic Cummings, he said, was absolutely obsessed with the idea that what we need to do is have a big government funded research project. And this is what Macron wants. In France. And so what he's imagining is that you would end up with Europe borrowing a lot of money. So he talks a lot about the fact that what we need is a central European budget so that you can do the kind of deficit financing that happens in the US and China.

34:19And then that money... Germany is not going to do that. And then that money needs to be pumped into picking winners. So you choose three or four countries that are going to lead Europe on quantum computing, three or four countries that are going to lead on AI, three or four, a lead on space. And Sophie Pader gets into an argument with him and says, but how's that going to work? Because in Europe, there's a principle of fair return, which basically says that if all the European countries are chipping in, they should all get a bit of a benefit. And he says, well, it's completely inefficient. We can't have in a situation in which some random country down in the Balkans gets all the investment.

34:50What we really need is to get behind success, pick winners and put huge amounts of European money in behind. In other words, to be a bit cheeky, basically what he is imagining is turning the whole of Europe into a giant vision of France. Oh, he's not about a vision for a French president. On the populism stuff, you mentioned that we interviewed Kiriakos Mitz -Takas, the Prime Minister of Greece, which is going to be on leading in a few weeks. I loved the fact that he is putting anti -populism at the heart of his messaging. And Macron was kind of doing that. He didn't mention Le Pen, but that's obviously sort of what he's trying to do is to find a counter vision.

35:26Keep mentioning their party, didn't he? And kept suggesting they were sort of Brexit party. Yeah. So yesterday, we were recording this on Tuesday. And yesterday he was had this big bilateral thing with President Xi Jinping. Which is anticipated in this. He was very careful, said, I don't want to ally with the US against China. That's up to the US, but we have our end for a policy. Yeah. Interesting that Xi Jinping has come to Europe for the first time in five years. He's going to Paris, where he has seen Macron and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President. He's then going to Serbia, and he's then going to be able to hungry.

35:58He's meeting Vuchich in Orban. He's meeting Vuchich and he's meeting Orban. And that is clearly, there are two countries that China think they can push much closer into their own orbit. And just remind people, these are on the very nationalist, for instance, so Orban, obviously a big populace, but Vuchich, as we've talked about in Serbia, is making very nationalistic noises towards Northern Cosfa and Republic of Serbia. And they are the two countries that I guess European leaders are most worried about. And not visiting Britain. Not visiting Britain. And is that, I mean, it could be any number of things, but I presume it's also partly about the fact that they sense that Britain has become very, very aligned with the US and the anti -China policy.

36:36And they see more productive relationships with France and Germany. It could be. And today, on our news here in the UK, this big story about the MOD being cyber -attacked, government at this stage not saying which hostile state was responsible, but the word is it's China. Now is that deliberate? Is the timing deliberate? Either from our perspective or from the Chinese. But I watched my sonny with the Chinese, it would be deliberate. I would have thought so. Yeah, I mean, actually it's a very interesting bit of sort of soft undercover intelligence diplomacy. You coincide, look at Macron, look at Hungary, look at Serbia, we get Chinese visits, the premier turns out, and then look at Britain, you get a cyber attack.

37:17And it was a very interesting press conference, because Xi Jinping said all sorts of made all sorts of diplomatic noises, but there was this kind of undercurrent the whole way through. It was fascinating to watch Macron watching him listening to him. It was almost like he was trying to read between the lines as well. I do think going to Serbia and then Hungary, and of course, Hungary is, I think, the only European country that's fully fledged part of the Silicon Road, the Belt and Road Initiative. Now, my final point in this story, do you remember the German word I taught you last week? Oh my lord, no, I've forgotten it.

37:48And once more, very good. Very good. Compulsory, military. Yes. Conscription. Which I thought the Germans would absolutely hate. So a peaked up a new German newspaper yesterday was a poll. And we will talk about this when we do our poll, because we ask this same question of the British public. There is a majority in Germany in favour, quite narrow, 48 -45, of bringing back conscription. Amazing. And it could, I mean, Britain isn't there yet, but... Yeah, I mean, it's there. So you're exclusively reveal ahead of us talking about the poll. Britain isn't there. Listen, just finally on industrial strategy.

38:22And this is, this is me going to be a cheeky, more right wing conservatives than you. I would say that actually his vision, which would basically involve bureaucrats in Brussels, picking winners and making big industrial bets around Europe, is the wrong way to go. I mean, this is a bureaucracy in Brussels, which has struggled to spend structural funds. And in fact, the real successes in Europe are much more decentralized. The people who are doing best actually on research, investment, patents, productivity are bits of Sweden, bits of Denmark, and bits of Germany. And even in Germany, it's not driven by Berlin.

38:57It's delegated down to the federal level. This is something we talked about with Manchester and Birmingham, that actually the future of industrial policy is much more decentralization, not this kind of macro and idea of some grand French monarch controlling the European bureaucracy and saying, we're going to throw hundreds of billions behind quantum computing. Good. Well, let's turn to South Africa. Election at the end of this month. And 30 years ago, this week that Mandela was inaugurated as president. And I think it's fair to say the first decade of post -apartied South Africa was an incredible success story, economically, socially, politically.

39:37And since then, a very, very, very mixed picture, they've got, so the ANC, the government has been as one every election, but the votes 70 % in 2004, 66 % in 2009, 62, 2014, 58 last time. And that's the Fesse, I mean, let's talk to a South African friend yesterday who said to me, well, of course, you know, the ANC may not get more than 50 % of the vote. And I was like, what country could that possibly be like an astonishing thing? But it is South Africa, it isn't a strategy. But it is. And so it's very, very hard to get accurate polls. But I think they are in a little bit of trouble. I still think they're going to win.

40:15They will form the next government. The question is whether they will have to do it in coalition. And if so, with whom? And one of the big problems, the polls seem to be varying between kind of 38 %, 45 % of the ANC. One of their biggest problems is that they've broken with Jacob Zuma. Jacob Zuma, very corrupt, former leader of the ANC. Former president. Former president of South Africa, who's broken off and formed his own party called MK. And he's built an incredible base in Quasulonatal, particularly among Zulivotas. Just to tell those who don't know the history, MK, which is the name of the military wing of the ANC.

40:51So essentially it's like sort of, so it's starting a party called the IRA to take on Sinn Fein. That's good details. So if the ANC doesn't get a majority, which they're likely not to get, they're going to face basically three choices on coalitions. There's the choice of going left, which is going with EFF, an MK. So MK, we just talked about Jacob Zuma. EFF, that's economic freedom fighters. Yeah, that's Julius Malema, who was leader of the youth wing. They were berries, and that is very, I just kind of venous way, less style stuff. We're talking Marxist letters. Yeah, proper Marxist letters. So that's one coalition that people would be really worried about.

41:31If ANC weren't with them, that would be a big left woods church. That would probably be expropriation of land, nationalization of huge mass property. Probably a huge flight capital. Second option, maybe the most likely, is to try to put together a minority party coalition. Maybe with IFP, which is a smaller right wing party, with Zuda voters slight collapse, such in that party vote, because what's happened with Jacob Zuma. And the third possibility that, of course, many people in the international community would be very excited about would be a coalition with the DA, which is the more center right.

42:03Democratic alliance. Democratic alliance. And that's a very interesting party, because more than 50 % of its voters are white, more than 65 % over 35, and it's got a white leader. It's very much the sort of portrays itself as an anti -corruption, sensibly economic policy party. But I think very unlikely, unless the DA does astonishingly well in the election, and ANC does badly, we'll end up with that coalition. I mean, it is tragic the extent to which corruption has taken hold, particularly under Zuma. This phrase developed, the article, state capture. And we were talking about tens of billions that were essentially looted from the state.

42:43And of course, Brown Poser, who himself is one of South Africa's richest men, he became, he was in politics, a huge figure in the anti -apartite movement. We knew him very, very well, because he was one of the independent commissioners on decommissioning in the Northern Ireland peace process. He left politics, became a very, very wealthy businessman, came back to politics as president, and of course, one in part, by saying we've got to deal with this corruption. And although to some extent they have, there was a huge report on Zuma's state capture, but it hasn't really led to the sort of change that you would hope for.

43:17So it's going to be very, very interesting. I still think the ANC will do better than the Poser saying. There's a lot of thought that they will effectively buy off the small, some of the smaller parties, buy them off with promises of what may happen under a future government. And of course, what Zuma has done is not just that he's had an impact on the ANC, share of the vote, he's also had an impact on EFF, because of course, they are seen as, okay, they're very left -wing, and they're essentially in the ANC bigger family, but he's sort of fishing from that pool as well. So it's going to be a very, very interesting election, 70 political parties, 11 independent, so a very, very splinter, disorganized opposition.

43:58And again, to remind us as to the South African story. So South Africa, unusual, I suppose, because it had traditionally a very, very, proportionally much larger white population than many other colonial imperial setups. So as recent as 1960, nearly 20 % of the population in the country was white, and that 67 % was black. So I think nearly a million white citizens and about three million black citizens in 1960, that's changed now. It's now much, much more dominated, and the white population dropped down to about 300 ,000. But it was of course, along with the horrible, horrible racism and inequality and exclusion was a very powerful economy in Africa.

44:40And if we take the story back to 1990, even with sanctions, South Africa was level -pegging in GDP per capita with Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, Turkey. It was one of those kind of economies for that size. Fast forward to 30 years, it's gone from being 107 % of average GDP per capita in the world to about 70%. And one way of illustrating that is that if you're Thailand or Malaysia since then, your economy has more than tripled in size. The South African economy is barely grown by 100%. It's a long way now behind those countries. It was the last year the World Bank identified South Africa as the most unequal country in the world.

45:20And I think the reason why the ANC has struck me is because the generation has grown up that doesn't necessarily feel the passion of the anti -aparitite story. Just thinks that, well, that's our history, that's not part of what we are. 15 to 34 -year -old age group, unemployment currently 44%. It's probably an underestimate, you know, people who just aren't looking for work. Yeah. So, you know, and I think there's an awful lot of the young black population who just don't feel there's been progress made in their lives. And so, in a way, it might be the first quasi -normal election with the history not quite such a powerful factor.

45:52And the figures of history like Zuma and to a lesser extent, Ramaphosa sort of seen as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. It's also the fact that although the ANC of apartheid brought political freedom and allowed black politicians to dominate politics, the economy is still tilted very, very strongly towards whites. And although there are now a lot of very wealthy black people, there are unbelievably poor populations, almost all of them are entirely black and South Africa. But it's still a country where with all the economic problems and the corruption and the lack of growth is totally vital to the future of Africa.

46:30I mean, it's three times wealthier per capita than Nigeria, which is the other great superpower of the continent. It produces nearly half of Africa's electricity. It has three millions of Baalian refugees, two million Bose and Beacon refugees, that it's hosting. It's got the most productive, innovative workers in the whole of Africa. It's got probably the best infrastructure in Africa, the best education systems in Africa. Still, I mean, it's so it really matters. And so this election really matters not just for South Africa, but for the whole region. Good. I guess, the final point on the DA, the Democratic Alliance, they're trying to put together this 11 -party pre -election coalition.

47:07They call it the multi -party charter. But I just think that underlines how fragmented the whole political landscape is. And I still think that ultimately that benefits the A &C. Good. Well, thank you very much. I look forward to us hearing from Macron directly. For a bitter rebuttal. While we're talking rebuttal, can I just rebut one point that we said in this podcast last week? I went to see Bernie against Newcastle, as you probably know, Roy, we've got Hammond. And I was very pleased to hear that our manager, Vincent Company, his regular listens to the podcast. And also pleased to hear that Steve Harper, who I'm sure you'll know, he's not, he turns out the premise of Canada.

47:49That's Steve Van. So Steve Harper is the former Newcastle United Goldkeeper. And he now heads the Newcastle United Academy. Right. And he is also, he says he listens to every episode. And he said, I normally love it. But I did not enjoy. He said, you're IE My analysis of the Academy system in football last week. He basically said, I was saying that the Academy is just sort of take these players in, sell them the dream, and then they spit them out. They're only there for to look after the really good players. He said, speaking for Newcastle, he said, we are very, very honest with them. From the word go, that very few are going to make it to the top.

48:24But he said, we sell them the experience of the Academy. And we give them a proper education. So I said, I would promise to rebut on this behalf on the podcast. Yeah. Good. Okay. Well, I think it's worth leaning into it. And I think I'd like to get asked and hang on the shelf. That's right. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Well, I've been bidding to him for Yonks. He keeps saying, yes, he's like the Michael Gover. He keeps saying, he will. And then we don't quite get the date. Then speaking about football, next week, I'm going to be stepping out for a week and be replaced by an amazing Ipswich town fan. It's not Ed Sheeran's coming on the podcast.

48:57It's not Ed Sheeran. Okay. Now that is because I am going off on a silent retreat. So I'm going to spend 11 days, 10 days, which I will not speak. I'll be almost entirely in a dark room sitting cross -legged for about 14 hours a day meditating. And this is something that relates to our thing. This is what Anthony Gormley. As you Gormley did. And you've all know her. I did. And I absolutely love it. It's the third time that I've done it. Thank you very much for letting me have time. It was a new day. What does your family say about this? Well, there are people I really need to thank. Because essentially I have no phone.

49:32I have no emails. You're not allowed a phone ring. No, you've listened to David Gorgian Brilliant. Not allowed a book. Not allowed a pen and paper. And all you do all day and you stop eating before midday, every day, is concentrate on your breath coming in. Oh, God, please. So this is my idea of hell. So we'll see what this means for my reappearance on the podcast until each time bloody hell. I may come back, you know, turned into some sort of, you know, Balon, in Athens the other day, you almost to Saint -Dee as Vincent Company. In Athens the other day, you would say that, you know, you've been traveling too much.

50:04You're still not seeing your family enough. And now you go over 11 days to sit in silence. I know. That's the case that can definitely be made against me. Anyway, listeners, rest assured that David Gorg will be very interesting, very entertaining. And then maybe we should do a little vote of Pol at the end of it, you know. Just ditch me and get him on. Yeah, let's see, I could return having become fully enlightened. And you know, when you brought the news to me, I won't mind because I'll be so stressed and aware. Gorgian, yeah, exactly. Now, tomorrow, join us for a polling special question time.

50:39Very good. Thank you. Bye. Bye.