248. Battle lines are drawn: defections, defence, and David Gauke

24:08There is a second aspect, though, which is that she's consistently been a very right wing populist MP. She is not somewhat, unlike, for example, Dan Polter or Christian Wakeford, both of whom you could see was sort of closer to labour on quite a few issues. And Agony about what was happening inside their party? Yeah, yeah. That's a different thing. I think there are some defections are more honorable than others and more understandable than others. Can you see any others of your former colleagues? Because Labour keeps saying there are others in the pipeline, which is presumably, maybe true, but may also just be a destabilising.

24:41Well, again, if in the sort of all fears in politics, if I was Labour, I would absolutely be saying this. In fact, I did an event with West Striezing last night. I did, yes, yeah. Basically, I was too left wing to come over. So we don't want, we don't want left wing populists, I see. No, personally, I'm sort of thrilled by this defection. If perhaps another Labour could take another hundred or so populous right wingers and then leave the Tory party to the sensible grown -ups, I'd be delighted to carry on. I think others should follow the, I'm just pretty leery -allyson, didn't get into the same direction.

25:18It is interesting how the reaction inside the Labour Party has been very interesting. I mean, you comfortable with it? Broadly I am. I don't like her politics. I actually, nobody would be surprised enough. I've never been that close to Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott, but I think it sits a bit odd that they're not really considered to be Labour and suddenly Natalie Alfik is. But I think the broader message that the Labour party is saying, we did not get the support of a lot of people who may be considered to be right wing, people like Natalie Alfik or voters who have voted for people like Natalie Alfik, we have to get those people back.

25:57So I think what Kierstarm as I can't imagine, Kierstarm, I felt terribly comfortable, but I think there is a bigger political gain there, which is that once people, and I'm afraid this will happen quite quickly, once they forget Natalie Alfik, what they will remember is the sense of Tory decay, and I think they'll also remember that the Kierstarm is out there basically saying, we need people who didn't vote before to vote for. So I think there'll be people who maybe feel a bit uncomfortable about Labour who could possibly feel a bit more comfortable because of this debate, but I don't think it's a huge thing.

26:29I think it'll be forgotten much more quickly than some of the other detations. Is there a line that you would draw, are there conservative MPs you would say, no, we're not having them? Or is the political prize? I agree with you by the way, that the takeaway most people have from this, when it all settles down in a few weeks' time, is another Tory has defected it. But are there things being said or done by any Tory MPs that you would say, no, no, we can't touch you? I think before she'd defated, if you'd asked me for a list of people, I would have said, no, we don't want them. I think she might have been on it.

27:00But I think you're absolutely right. Basically, the prize was to have while the Tories were trying to pretend that, or say, that Labour couldn't be trusted on the issue of immigration, to have the MP for Dover saying, I back Labour's plan over, the soon -to - next plan, I think is too big a prize to dismiss. I would feel uncomfortable about some of those, you know, Bravaman. If Bravaman were suddenly to say, if Trust were suddenly to say, I'm back in Labour, I'd be looking for the sick bucket so fast. And I would then fill it and throw it at anybody who who dared to get them over. But when we were in opposition and when we were in government, I was kind of in charge of trying to get defectors and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

27:45And it's always is, because you know, as well as anybody, morale is very, very important, particularly going to an election campaign. And I think the effect of morale of knowing that you're losing people that you thought were kind of yours forever. I think it must be pretty devastating. So I don't know, there'd be a few I wouldn't want, but I think by and large, I mean, Neil Kenneth said, you know, even the broadest of church has walls, yet true, but you know, you need to get new people. So it's politics, really. It is politics and it's pretty brutal politics. And I suspect that I think the one thing about Kierstarmour that people may be underestimates, I think is pretty ruthless.

28:17And I think the ruthlessness may or may not extend in future to Natalie Elfick, possibly not being as big a deal in the future of our housing politics, you might think right now. All bare and less self -ic. Well, that is the other possibility, I guess, because they're going to have to, sadly, if they're going to be serious about reforming the House of Laws, they're going to have to have new peers, they help them do it. So Baron Gork is also a possibility. I very much doubt it. Before we go to the break, Alistair, I just want to ask you about a piece written by Tom McTague of Unheard. I think it was republished in the Times about Morgan McSweeney, who is Kierstarmour's right hand man.

28:56And Tom's piece is arguing that Morgan McSweeney, very much an anti -corbanist. But also, what he's not about is the restoration of Blaireism. And there's a distinction drawn between, if you like, a Tony Blair vision for the Labour Party, which is, Labour Party should be for the people who are kind of open to a modern world fighting against the sort of populace who want to be closed off from those realities. And it should appeal to liberal graduate voters and so on. Whereas the sort of Morgan McSweeney vision, as portrayed by Tom McTague, is much more of, actually, the Labour Party is essentially a party for the working classes.

29:37It's got to appeal to those sort of leave -voting working class voters, maybe the sort of Natalie Elfick thing plays into this to a large extent. And that's the direction that the Labour Party is going in. And it sort of sees Tony Blair as being out of touch and so on. And now, look, you're obviously a very good friend of Tony Blair. Where do you sort of stand on on this? Is that a fair categorisation of where Morgan McSweeney is coming from? Well, I thought it was an interesting piece. If I'm Morgan, who I think is a very smart guy and has done an amazing job for Kierstarmour, you rightly, I think it says he's right hand man, because he was the guy who essentially was alongside Kierstarmour when Kier was going for the leadership.

30:21He's now a key strategist, probably the key strategist within the central team. And he's got a very interesting backstory, like he's not a Brit, he's Irish, he's from Cork. So if you're going to the Labour headquarters, you've got him sitting there with Pat McFadden, who's his British, but he's pretty Irish, the massive Celtic fan. And sort of came over here and really cut his teeth in politics in in barking where he was going to take him on the hard right. And now I think did take on Corbinism with as much vigor as you did in that. So he said, he's tough, he's a C -Tick, he's hardworking, and he's utterly fixated on winning.

30:59I'd be a little bit worried if I were him that we're talking about as the headline was, the McSweeney project. I think you've got to be very, very careful. I mean, I fell victim for this, so did others, where as part of trying to undermine the leader, people forget, because Tony Blair won three elections and he's seen as such a big figure now, the Tories for a lot of the time were trying to say, well, there's nothing too Tony Blair, it's all these kind of shady figures behind him. And I think Morgan's got to be careful that he doesn't get sucked into playing that role. This was the problem for Johnson with Cummings, but he felt that Cummings was the, was the My Strohnot Johnson.

31:32Or Cummings thought that? Well, Cummings thought that and still does. And when we interviewed Ceddy Cohen on leading, he said, if you'd have been in the room with Cummings and Johnson together, you'd have thought Cummings was the Prime Minister. Well, that is never a good look. But that being said, I think I've talked to Morgan, excuse me, about Tony's legacy and reputation and so forth. And I think he's got enormous respect for him. One for having one, three elections, Morgan is obsessed about winning. And I think that is a very good thing to be if you're in opposition, particularly. And I think he's not necessarily saying that that Blairism, New Labour, was wrong for then.

32:03But I think he is saying that some of the solutions that people like me, people like Tony, that we put forward are sometimes rooted in what we did then as opposed to a very different politics now. So I think both can be right because the truth is to get the sort of majority that I think Labour need, you are going to have to revive that sense of Labour being the party for the working classes and Labour being people are going to look after the poor, et cetera. But at the same time, be the party of aspiration. And where I worry about Labour's project is that I think they've done a brilliant job as opposition fighters getting themselves to this position where they've gone from Labour can't win to Labour can't lose.

32:41That's not unimpressive. What I worry about at the moment is whether the genuine makings of the government project are there. Now Morgan is not the guy for the building of the government project. He is the guy for winning. I think that's absolutely right. So for example, when we were running in 97, I refused to think about government. I was absolutely fixated on the day -to -day battle to get into power. And Jonathan Powell was off working with the civil service and preparing for government. I'm assuming Sue Gray is doing a lot of that. So Morgan's utterly fixated on winning. And you have to hand it to them.

33:13They're not setting people's hearts on fire necessarily, but they are in this position where, as you say, people like you, most people in politics now think Labour are kind of a going to win. So they've done something right. But I just wish we could move on from the whole Blair thing. I wish that something new could be properly defined and articulated. I don't think they're quite there yet. But do you think the Labour Party is once again a class -based party? Is that right? And I mentioned that because I asked where's Streeting? I did an event with him yesterday who was promoting his book, his memoir, which is a pretty good reason.

33:47Which is a really good reason. And he comes from a very working class background. Where's his answer was yes. The Labour Party is fundamentally a class -based party. And I was slightly surprised, given that he's seen as the most blare -right figure. I mean partly that is consequence of his upbringing. I'm not sure about this because if that were the case, today, for example, Gordon Brown yet again is beating the drum for the need to do more on child poverty. He's got a huge piece in the Guardian. I feel that the Labour Party, the current Labour Party, doesn't go on enough about child poverty. I was yesterday in a P .I .U., a People Referral Unit, you know, where the toughest kids who've been constantly, consistently excluded from mainstream schools.

34:33And you know, it was really moving to see the kind of work that the teachers were doing with these kids and to listen to the stories of some of the kids and the real challenges that they've faced. And I sort of feel that they're not part that sort of child is not part of the current political debate. So yes, they might say that they want to project themselves more towards leave voting working class, but I think that becomes a bit of a caricature. I'm surprised why he said that because I don't feel that's what the Labour Party are doing. I would argue that there should be more of a focus on traditional working class than maybe they have been putting over.

35:08I still think he wants to project himself rightly from the political perspective as that kind of left of centre, but that is left and centre. And that's where I think he is and that's where he's trying to project himself. I think at this point I should say very good. He should be sure to say, let's take a break. No, Ruri only says very good when I'm saying something that he fundamentally does it reasonably. Or when I'm given him a hard time. And he goes, very good. Well, I'll do that in the second half.

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36:49Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics with me David Gork and me, Anastak Campbell. So where should we start? Should we both be fascinated by this stuff in Georgia? So and it's Georgia, small country, fewer than four million people, so small in the Scotland. And yet the other day, there was one of the estimates said that the demonstrations outside the parliament there were over a quarter of a million people. So that's that's more as a percentage. That's like what 15 million Brits turning out. It's huge. It's massive. Basically the thing is over this bill that the Georgian government is trying to bring forward essentially to say that if you are funded as an NGO or a media organisation with more than 20 % of somebody else's money, you're effectively a foreign agent.

37:32And of course the reason that is setting off so many alarm bells is because it's sort of cut and paste from a law in Russia and the bigotibay. And I, you know, as a sort of, you know, remainder who's not over it, the sight of these people waving European flags while the water cannons were being turned on them was I found very very very moving. So what do you make of it? Yeah, now completely. And this debate about the foreign agents law. Essentially what's happening is you've got huge crowds outside the parliament in Tbilisi trying to stop the assembly essentially passing this legislation. The president says that she's going to veto it, but that can be overridden.

38:14Essentially it's a proxy battle about the direction that Georgia is going to go in. On the one hand, you've got what seems to be the overwhelming majority of the public, you know, something like 80, 90 % of the Georgian population want to join the European Union. He's even higher than the rejoined percentage in the UK. Even higher than that. There's a lot of enthusiasm about, you know, going in the direction of Europe versus Russia, but what you have got is you've got this extraordinary figure, Bidzina, even his Fili, an oligarch, made his money in Russia, was briefly Prime Minister. He now has the role of chairman of Georgia Dream, which is the political party, which is effectively founded.

38:58He backed exactly. He backed exactly. A bit like Tyson's bankrolling reform, hopefully less successfully. Yes. He bankrolled Georgian Dream quite. And they have been essentially being the dominant party for the last 12 years. There are elections coming up in October. And out the previous set of elections, I was talking to a friend of mine who does a lot of work in Georgian, so there's a huge amount of harassment of opposition. MPs and politicians more widely, there's a great deal of concern about what's going to happen in October. And particularly if this law gets passed, does that then provide an opportunity to kind of clamp down on opposition?

39:34And there were reports already of, you know, people being beaten up and so on. That's a report yesterday, but an academic who was showing the bruises and the cuts and he'd been attacked outside his house by three guys who basically said stop criticizing the law. It's very authoritarian. This is Russian stuff, basically. It's Russian style, even if it's not Russian. Yes, yes, quite. And you say you've got this guy, even, it's really who is, you know, he doesn't have an official role, but he appears to appoint everybody. And there's a huge amount of cronism. So one of his bodyguards became the interior minister, apparently the maths tutor to his children became the education minister for a period, which sounds like, you know, quite Rory Stewart, isn't it?

40:16But there we go. Sorry, let's drill down on that one. It's Rory Stewart -ish. Well, if the king appointed Rory Stewart as education minister, I'm just thinking, you know, the king hasn't done that. The king has done it. I don't know, but you know, cheaters. Constitutes. The king is not allowed to appoint ministers. You know, it's a very good point. That's a very good point. But anyway, a way to advancement is to be a tutor to a powerful person's children. But even it's really is sort of pulling all the strings here. And he is much more orientated towards Russia, people saying his business interests are, obviously, based in Russia.

40:52And you've got this battle. But there's a fascinating, generational divide that is going on in Georgia, where younger people see themselves as, you know, very pro -European. My friend was telling me that, you know, they don't even learn Russian anymore. You know, it's their own children, and English and French, but, you know, Russian speaking is diminishing. It's a much more Western -orientated nation. And of course, there are parallels with Ukraine in the sense that you've got two parts of Georgia that are already occupied by the Russians in Abkazia and South Ossetia. That's been since 2008. You have got younger people, particularly who, you know, want to look towards the West.

41:39You've got this huge process. And of course, that's reminding the Russians of what was going on in 2014 and, you know, how essentially, Ukrainian government fell. It must also be reminding the protesters of, because there's a real risk to what they're doing. Because if they get this thing through, and if this harassment of the opponents does step up and continue, then they will be a crackdown on protests. So what they're doing is incredibly brave. Yes, there's no, look, there's, you know, let's go back to what happened in Maydown Square in Ukraine, you know, a hundred protesters ended up being killed by the pro -Russian Ukrainian regime that resulted in Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president at the time, fleeing the country, change of government.

42:22You know, it's very, very unstable, but, you know, I know you've discussed many times the sort of big elections of this year, but yes, it's a small country, but Georgia and October is going to be... Oh, absolutely. It's going to be... To talk about relations, we've just had one in Lithuania, another, as it were, potential hotspot in this kind of spreading Russian story. And so that's been won pretty convincingly. It's got to go to a second round, but the current president, no say does won. He was sure to the 50 % that he was pretty close, though. He got 44 % of the votes, and the second person was only on 20%.

42:56So they've got to go into runoff. He's going to win that. But what was interesting about the debate is just how many all of the candidates essentially were very, very strong and defense, very strong in base, at least saying this is an election about Russia and in his speech, he said, Selensky has already said it all. They don't need our decterations. A good world there, no use in a fight. They need air defenses. Until they have air defenses, Ukraine will stay vulnerable. And the polls in Lithuania, Lithuanians essentially believe that they are now vulnerable to an attack from Russia. So there's Georgia fascinating and ongoing.

43:32Lithuania election still be to be concluded, but looks like it's going to be won by somebody who's very anti -Russian. And meanwhile, in Russia itself, we've had a pretty significant change of personnel. The Defence Minister Shogu, who's been there, I think, for 12 years, and he's been replaced by, you know, I think you've got to be right inside the Kremlin logical weeds to kind of read this one properly. But it's a guy called Andrei Balusov, who is not from a military background. He's more an academic and economic background. And he's got no background in the military or in the security services.

44:06So I know what I says to you, what it says to me is that, you know, this is Putin telling everybody within the infrastructure that none of them are fully safe all of the time, although I see Lavrov is still there, the foreign minister, I suspect he'll be there until he dies. So what do you make of that? And what's been going on in terms of we've got blinking there today in Ukraine, essentially signaling American support? We talked about John Helian, David Lamy earlier. They've just been to to Kiev as well, signaling that if there is a change in government, Britain will still be with with Ukraine.

44:40But it feels like things feel militarily like they're moving Putin's way. They do, I'm afraid. And obviously we've seen the advances near Harkiv, and now the city itself is within range of artillery from, it's called tube artillery, from the Russian forces. It's also makes it harder for Ukraine to attack logistical points for Russia. So that's moving definitely the wrong direction. I'm afraid the West did take its eye off the ball here, particularly in the US long delay before Ukraine got the 60 billion dollar package of support. And to some extent, Ukraine needs to play for time. But most of the analysis I've seen in terms of the new defense minister, this economist, Blusev, is that he's pretty able.

45:33Yes, he doesn't come from a military background, but this is a sign that Russia is in for the long haul. This is about combining the Russian economy with the Russian military even more than it is. I mean, it's on a wartime economy as it is, but this is going to be very attritional. Russia think they can outlast the West, and obviously they are looking at what's going to happen in the US in November. In the hope that if Trump is there, then the opportunities are great. Although it is interesting that Trump in the end didn't block the 60 billion dollar package, whether he was somehow torqued around, maybe David Cameron did the business.

46:13Certainly sources close to David Cameron. Well, it could well be true, but there's definitely been, there was a issue there, but nonetheless, if you're Ukrainian, you're going to be very worried about the outcome of the US election. Well, I think if you're British, you're pretty worried. Well, yes. There's a very interesting piece that we should put in the newsletter from the Wilson Center, which is an analysis of just how quickly the Russia's war budget has grown. And of course, what's interesting in a dictatorship? You don't have to reveal all the spending that's already been in the system. So they've actually been, they've been growing and growing and growing, but now essentially 10 % of their GDP is going on this war.

46:55We're talking 30 % plus. And it includes things. They've got this fascinating thing where it includes, for example, do you include the tripling of patriotic education costs? This is like right across the government machine now. This is an economy and a budget that is utterly focused on this war. Now, we can have our little debates between Skier's, Starmer and Rishi Soonak about who's going to be first to 2 .5%, but this is a level of commitment and spending that is off the scale. And I don't think the West is yet fully caught up with that. Now, I think that's that's right. We should also remember, though, that Russia is a relatively small economy.

47:29It's a lot smaller than the UK alone. And if the West really wants to do this, and I think it is absolutely in the West's interest to support Ukraine, and ensure that Ukraine ultimately prevails, it needs to do so. And to some extent, just can't wait around. This isn't about expenditure in the 2030s. And it doesn't have to be necessarily our own armed forces. Ukraine that is on the front line, is Ukraine that is trying to contain and ultimately overcome Russia. And I think there is a very good argument for saying expenditure now in support of Ukraine will mean we will need to spend less on defence in 10 years time.

48:15Do you think we should be looking at this as an investment? I come at this as a former treasury person, very cautious about public spending. But I worry that if ultimately Russia prevails, we will be in a world where we will have to spend 3, 4, 5 % of GDP on defence each and every whole time. Exactly. It can be done. Whether that can be done and we can spend about 6 % on the time. Yeah, if you look at what's happened at public spending over the last 60 years, it's basically defence spending has come down and the health spending has gone up. We're not going to be bringing the health spending down.

48:52So it's going to be much harder to repeat that level of spending in future. If however, Ukraine can prevail and essentially the Putin regime ultimately defeated and dismantled, then it's probably possible we might be able to keep spending on defence more. That was an argument that I felt missing from the Prime Minister's speech on the security of the world. Well, sadly, I wasn't asked to contribute. Otherwise, you'd have said that. Now, let's briefly before we close, I was just hard to know where to start with Israel, guys, because I should warn you, David, whatever you say, you get criticized on this subject.

49:29Yeah, I was cautious about that. Whatever you sort of explain both sides, it's very, very difficult because it's become so polarized. But it was interesting yesterday. So yesterday was Memorial Day in Israel, and that's when the war dead of the past are recognised, but also obviously October 7th was foremost in people's minds. And it was interesting, you know, Netanyahu got heckled. The defence minister got heckled. The people out with posters. And there was this big event at which, and also Ben Givir and Smotrich, one of their events was kind of, disrupted by protesters saying they weren't doing enough to bring this to an end and to bring the hostages back home.

50:09But there was an event, the event with Netanyahu, he's, I just can't, I felt it very, very hard to read him right now, because there is clearly a briefing operation going on from the military, from the generals. They essentially are saying, this is all very well, but we don't really know what the strategy is. So you have this absolute focus at the moment on Raffa and meanwhile, they're also saying that Hamas are reappearing in the North. So the lack of clarity of a strategy other than the objective, I get the objective, you say, they're going to wipe out Hamas and they're never going to return.

50:41But in this very studio a few weeks ago, we were talking to John Soars, XMI6 and Eliza Manning and Buller, XMI5. And John made the point that 60 % of Hamas fighters were orphans. And he went on to say an awful lot of future Hamas fighters are being bred right now. And I mean, that has to be part of the argument. There's the what the consequences of the alienation that people in Gaza are feeling right now. And that body of support that's developing for them around the world. And I just wondered, isn't it, Nia, who's so fixed upon, I don't know, his own survival, the politics of the situation, that none of that is really being addressed.

51:17Well, these options are narrowing pretty quickly, as far as I can see, and none of them are good. So from his perspective, if he wants to keep, if you like, the extremists on board, Ben Gavir and Smotrich and keep his government in place, then he needs to keep hammering away. But as you say, Israel's position, I'm not, look, I'm instinctively sympathetic to Israel. I think there should be a Jewish state in the Middle East. And I think what happened on the 7th of October was appalling in any country has to defend himself in those circumstances. But what has happened has undoubtedly isolated Israel, damaged its international reputation, and left it running out of allies.

52:03And it is dependent upon its allies. And you mentioned the army. I think the army in Israel absolutely recognizes that. You are also seeing a shift in public opinion in Israel. Protesters don't necessarily reflect public opinion, but the polling does suggest there is much more support now than there was for a hostages back ceasefire type deal in Israel that is growing in support. Whereas previously, there was an overwhelming support now that we've got to remove Hamas. But Netanyahu, can't move in that direction without losing his extremists and then falling. But if he doesn't move in that direction, then Israel ends up being more isolated.

52:43And in the long term, strategically, particularly for those of us who aren't sympathetic to Israel, it's seeing the damage that is done to Israel's international reputation is really worrying. In the long term, it's going to be sustained over decades. It can't be the villain of the peace as it is seen. Sometimes I think unfairly, it's a really difficult situation. And Hamas absolutely does it, it exploits civilians, does base itself in civilian areas. It is prepared to put up with a level of suffering of its own people that most other regimes would not do. And it is being explicit that given the opportunity, it will repeat October 7th.

53:23So I think Hamas deserves a lot of the blame, but the practical reality is Israel is losing support, it's lost, Biden has moved quite a long way, now talking about not providing arms that could be used in raffer and so on. That's the State Department report on the legality of the use of arms that have been given by the Americans, although if you read between the lines, there was a warning for Israel in there as well. But what you get the feeling with, I've defended Biden's strategy the whole way through, as a sense of him being he is very, very supportive of the State of Israel, he is all his life being supported the State of Israel.

54:00And he's been expressing that support whilst at the same time he and Blinken trying to work behind the scenes to get the Israelis to at least to be cognizant of international opinion or where it will go at rest and to let that sort of affect the strategy in some way. And you do get the thing with Netanyahu that frankly the views of Biden and Blinken are less important to him than the views of Ben Givir and Smotrich. Now at some point there is going to have to be an election. And where's that in his thinking? And look, I don't underestimate how unbelievably difficult this is, politically for him, for Biden, for Blinken, for the government here, for Kierstammer, for all world leaders, this is becoming really, really difficult.

54:39The politics are very, very difficult. But the reality is that Netanyahu is the one with the most power in this situation. He is not really responding to a lot of the pressure that he's been put under. And that as you say, long term is I think going to create greater problems for whoever follows him. Yeah, there's a divergence between the short term interests of for Netanyahu and the long term interests of Israel. And that tension I think is becoming more and more important as time goes on. And quite how this plays out, I wouldn't want to speculate. But at some point or other, as you say, there is going to be an election.

55:16And public opinion is moving against the hard line. Well, David, it's been a pleasure to have you. Not quite. We'll report back to Rory that you've done very, very well. Thank you very, very much for standing in for the Rory. And we're also going to be doing question time as well. We are. Because he's still going to be stuck in his cross -legged retreat. Looking to escape at some point. I hope I don't know how he gets back. Thank you and see you soon. Thank you.