254. Question Time: Is Biden alienating young voters?

0:00Thanks for listening to the Restus Politics, sign up to the Restus Politics Plus to enjoy ad -free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestuspolitics .com. That's therestuspolitics .com. At Blinds .com, it's not just about window treatments. It's about you. Your style, your space, your way. Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right. From free expert design help to our 100 % satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows.

0:32Because at Blinds .com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you. Visit Blinds .com now for up to 40 % off site -wide, plus a professional measure at no cost. Rules and restrictions apply. Hi there, it's Alistair here. Now we recorded this episode of Question Time on Tuesday morning, would normally have gone out on Thursday, but then along came Richie Soonak, announced his decision to call him the election. Wednesday afternoon at the pouring rain, without an umbrella, with things can only get better blaring in the background. This episode includes some, I hope, interesting, enjoyable discussion on both national and international politics, as well as a full breakdown of what already got up to on his 11 -day silent meditation retreat.

1:14I'll also like to say it's worth bearing in mind that we recorded the discussion on the Mexican presidential election before the news broke about the awful death of at least nine people, possibly more by the time this goes out, but to rally on Thursday in Nuevo Leon. Anyway, we'll see you next week as we count down to the election. July the 4th, there'll be lots more podcasts between now and then planned, and thus far unplanned. Enjoy this one, all the best.

1:47Welcome to the rest of this politics question time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alice Campbell, and Rory, I want to start with Adrian R .P. Can we hear about Rory's retreat, please? Where was it? What happened? How was it? I should tell you before you answer, I was speaking at the Invinist Chamber of Commerce, and I did one of my ask Alice to anything things, whether they all have postcards and they all submit questions, have hundreds of questions, got loads about your retreat. And the one I asked of the audience, somebody asked me if I would ever consider doing an 11 -day retreat sitting cross -legged 14 hours a day, and I said, I just couldn't even think about it.

2:21And I asked the audience if they would do it, and there were 352 people there, and it was 351 to 1 being, yes, I would do it. In fact, they had done it. So it's quite a rare thing that you do, just tell us why and what. Well, I think the first thing is, every time it's different, that's the third time I done it, just to explain quickly for, for listens what happens. In this case, it's in herifiture, 45 men in a separate facility, they're women in another facility, so it's just men. My God, you can't even mix a bit. You can't mix a bit. You're sharing room, you're also sharing toilet facilities, showers, communal toilet facilities, showers, and so it's a bit like being back at some kind of institution.

3:15You are work and buy gong at four in the morning, and four. So you start, you have to be down and meditating at half past four. So you do two hours without a break, then you take a little break, then you do three hours meditating, then you take a break, then you do four hours meditating without a break, then you take a break, and then you do three and a half hours, and then you go back to your room. So you don't, do you talk to anybody? You're not allowed to talk, you're not allowed to make eye contacts, and you're not allowed to eat after about half past eleven hours. So did not one single person make eye contact and say, I love the podcast?

3:54No, I was vaguely aware, of course, and that was one of the things that made it a bit weirder for me, that some of the people clearly kind of recognized me, because when you arrive before you sort of settled in, it isn't full silence. And sure enough, at the end of it, there was a young man who said, oh, I'm in foreign office and a couple of people who said that they'd done the retreat because they'd heard on the podcast about the retreat. But it is the most incredible experience. I mean, I think one of the things that I noticed is the way that your mind produces a narrative. So in my case, I went from, in this particular case, from day two, oh, my goodness, this is so beautiful.

4:38It's spring and the blackbirds. Day three, my life is completely meaningless. I'm going to die. I'm achieving nothing. I'm at a total dead end. I've got no idea what I'm doing for the next twenty -thirty years of my life. Day four, this is so boring. This is boring beyond belief. Day six. Oh, my goodness. Look at that snail on the tree. I'm appreciating the beauty of nature. Day eight. I've got this great scheme for how I'm going to change the world. And then somewhere in the middle of it, days of incredible pain, because if you're sitting as I was for, I guess it's about twelve and a half, fourteen hours a day, across the rugged, and you're not used to it, your knees and your back begin screaming.

5:26And of course, you do something called adetana, which means that you commit to not moving for now. You can't shift position for now. So you sit there and if you get it wrong, your right knee can end up trampling and feeling almost physically sick with the kind of pain of not moving your right knee. And you pay to this to do this. No, it's actually free. It's free. It's completely free. I mean, that's the voluntary contribution at the end, but anyone can do it. And the mixture of people was really striking. You know, there was somebody who'd been a bit in trouble, the law, there were software engineers, there were like novelists, there were climbers, outdoor instructors, business people.

6:11And it was very difficult to generalize, very working class men. I mean, it was, and of course, you're, because 10 and a half days, you can't speak, you're just looking at these people and you think, I wonder who he is. And it's kind of, yes, this kind of big, musly young man, a lot of tattoos, I wonder who he is. You know, here's this sort of, I don't know, clearly, South Asian guy who gets up with me at four in the morning and is brushing his teeth next to me in the sink. So you can't talk. I don't think I could not talk. I think I'd find that impossible. That's what my seven year old said. What did he think about you going off leaving them to?

6:52Well, so they've, they've watched Kung Fu Panda and Kung Fu Panda meditates, not very successfully. So they've got a sort of link to that. Well, it's very good to have you back. Thank you. Thank you. You're still not going to try it. No, no, you're really not for me. Do you feel better? No, unfortunately, in this case, something went a bit wrong. I came out the other end and started a sort of two day meetering. I get very bad meetering. The problem was that I slapped about three hours a night. Right. Good. Great. Well, here's a question for you. So question from Ava, what do we think about the potential of a new president in Mexico?

7:32Well, we are. We're going to have the first woman president, almost certainly, it was the two leading candidates of both women. And given that she's currently almost 30 points ahead in the polls, almost Kierstarmist style lead, it's probably going to be the first Jewish leader of Mexican state as well. Claudia Shinebaum, who's going to take over from one of those rare leaders who is known the world over by in politics by his initials Amlo. And there's Manuel Lopez Obrador. One Mexican constitution, you're only that one term as president. But this election, you got all the seats in the Senate, all 500 seats in the lower house, local congresses in 31 states, nine state governorships, and the morality of Mexico City, all on the ballot on the same day.

8:27And it kind of depends who you talk to. There are some people who love Amlo and think he's a sort of man of the people who's delivered for them and helped the poor. And there are others who basically on the populace left. He's a proto populace left wing leader. And there are many who I was speaking to somebody in Mexico the other day who basically says this guy has essentially corruptly co -opted the state to him, itself and his party. And there is nowhere in the world that Shinebaum's not going to win. And you know, a lot of taxes. Because she's from his sort of proto pop, since that went from his party.

9:01She's very, very close to him and has supported all these positions. So I think we're definitely talking about as one of those elections where we pretty much bit like Modi, bit like Putin, we know the outcome. But the stakes very, very high. And because of that huge US border, because of the incredible stories around Mexican criminality, the importance of the Mexican economy, I mean, as the US decouples do risks from China, more and more US manufacturing moving into Mexico as the compensation for moving out of China, which is a huge opportunity for a new Mexican president. His critics say that they also criticize both sides of the American debate for essentially not calling out some of the stuff that they would call out with other countries.

9:49Because they basically just looked at him to kind of deliver on his side of the bargain vis -a -vis the border. Which is dissuade space with Modi. It's the sense that the US can be pretty hypocritical without a nice thinking. Absolutely. So it's a big one. And that's on June 2nd, his party, National Regeneration Movement, Marina. And of course, it's a pretty young democracy. They had the same party in power for decades. If you talk to his critics, they basically say he's done all the stuff that the populists do, put his supporters in the key positions, judicial reform. He wants judges in future to be elected.

10:24Judicial reform is the plightware thing stacking the judiciary right? Correct. And he wants to do a few sort of the old, our offer and the constitutional changes is rearing its head again. So basically, it wants to change the way the judges are chosen, AK elected by a party that's winning lots of lots of votes and also wants to change the way the election, the electoral commission has run. So it's pretty much the usual stuff. And because we've told on the podcast before about how he has co -opted the military to do quite a lot of infrastructure work, quite a lot of the sort of domestic policy stuff.

10:59And that is something that on the one hand is proven quite popular because the military are pretty good at delivering stuff. But also he now wants to extend their mandate, well, past 2028. So it's a big, big, big changing country and its election result where I think we're pretty clear about what the outcome is going to be. And we talked in the discussion about mental health and our MPs, maybe just a more sobering point, ahead of the 2021 midterms and weeks ago, 30 candidates were assassinated. And in the local, these elections so far, locally and in the mayoralities, 24 candidates have been killed.

11:40So you're talking about, and that's partly about political rivalries, but it's also about the impact of the role of organized crime. Okay, now let's come on to a question that I'm really interested in and you know more about than almost anyone, which is Toby Bradley Watson. Could there be a civil war in New Caledonia and how has Macron played this so badly? So just before we let us to get going on New Caledonia, New Caledonia, Melanie, Chen Island population, I think just over 200 ,000 people and it is part of France. It's had I think three referendums on independence, keeps voting to remain part of France.

12:17And these territories are part of France. We discussed this in the past in a quite different way from the way that British overseas territories are part of Britain. I mean, they, they just a proper, they partner. I mean, it's it would be like Britain having a poll in each island, which was as much part of Britain as Cumbery. Right. They send representatives to the assembly. They send their senators, run as part of France, which is why the collapse in New Caledonia, any other violence in New Caledonia, is felt pretty viscerally in France itself. And it's not the first time because we also had some problems about other French territories of the coast of Africa, where we've had recent problems around migration and movement and voting rights.

12:58Anyway, every you only come. Well, I'm touched that you described me as an expert. There was you earlier talking about how, you know, people appointed a charge of China who've never been there. I've never been to New Caledonia. I cannot claim to be an expert. And what do they, do they actually call it New Caledonia? Do they call it something else? You know, no, they could, it's called a L 'Anuvel Caledonia. And do you know why? Because a Scottish explorer by the name of Cook was one of the first people to discover it. And given he was from Scotland, they decided to call it New Caledonia. Very good.

13:31As in Caledonia. So he went there many, many years ago. This week, 600 heavily armed, John Dahm have been sent from France, purely to secure one road. And that's the main archery going through the place. And the other big news that the reason why this became sort of a huge deal. So what's the fight about to have an election? Well, the fight is kind of just built in its built in its built, partly economic, partly tribal. And also, there are, despite these references you talk about, there are occasionally these flare -ups of we don't want to be part of France anymore. So they've had to call off the Olympic torch.

14:13So it's so part of France, is it that just as we had the Olympic torch in 2012 go through the whole of the country, the Olympic torch was meant to be there at the weekend. And they decided it was just too risky, that it would just be provocative and cause a... Somebody would have to think, yeah, never be released. So they've cancelled that. So far, relatively low numbers of deaths, I think we're in the single figures, but hundreds have been injured in what are pretty vicious riots. And it's, you know, Macron, the question sort of saying that Macron is getting a lot of flag. There is now a state of emergency.

14:48There's been a ban on TikTok, because that was being used to... How do you put it? What does that mean? How do you ban TikTok? They shut it down? You shut it down. You can't... Can we shut down TikTok? If we had to, yeah. Absolutely. But Rory, if you don't mean talk to these special groups anymore, I'm not even going to tell you anything. I've been told me I can shut off TikTok. And in the interest of my children, I'd be quite keen to shut off TikTok. Well, did I tell you, by the way, talking about that, I wanted to talk about this last week, but we just didn't get around to it. My friend in South of the Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinowski, is bringing forward legislation to ban all 14 -year -olds from having social media accounts under 14.

15:26Well, what do you think about that? So I'm in favour. Listen, I get in a lot of trouble for this. I basically think these things are really dangerous. One of the people who is holding a phone... One of these people on my retreat, who's a software engineer, was like, I do not carry a phone anymore. Sorry. I thought you were allowed to talk. Then at the end, the very end. Okay. We were leaving. He said, I, a software engineer, don't carry a phone anymore. I've deleted all my apps, because I know more than anyone that we design these apps to be addictive. They're just designed as succulent. And then I was talking to a mother yesterday with a young daughter and she was like, her daughter is seeing a lot of male private parts that she does not.

16:05I was in a school last week, such a London Academy in South Oak, and I told them about this Australian Peter Malinascar's and this idea. So we had a little vote, we had a little sort of, you know, pros and cons. We had a little vote. And banning one. And one of the girls who voted for the ban said, I see things on my phone every day that I know I shouldn't see. There's a movement in the US, really well -organized movement to stop people wait till eight, which I think is about stopping till eighth grade. But I think it should push. I was supposed to eight AM or eight PM. Push, push, push, push much, much longer.

16:40Anyway, but every time I keep, I then I have kind of point of people saying that the evidence isn't that compelling, there's no real evidence that's much fair. I think you just stand out out of horrible, horrible tunnel and I'm, my dream would be to kind of social interaction, nature outside, something other than kind of doom scrolling on your phone. Okay, we're really quick break then, back with more questions.

17:07This isn't ad from BetterHelp. At the moment, we're getting advice from everywhere. You just have to go on TikTok. Could be Alice's cold plunges, could be my attempts to meditate or the digital detox that I'm doing in Colombia. But of course, one of the things that we know is that it can be incredibly valuable to talk to another human being, somebody who's actually been trained as a therapist to work through these ideas calmly, objectively and professionally. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a very diverse variety of expertise.

17:43They've got over 5 ,000 therapists in the UK. They've helped more than 5 million people globally and you can join a session literally at the click of a button, change therapists anytime. So obviously not about fixing you, but it's about hearing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time. So talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp .com slash rest politics. That's better, h -e -l -p .com slash rest politics.

18:17This Emily Cornel, how do you think Joe Biden's reaction to the UCLA protests will impact the US election? Do you think Biden will have turned off a lot of young liberal voters? Who else would they vote for? Well, just to remind people, we've talked a little bit about these, these university protests in the US are absolutely huge and have become central to the debate. So I talked to you a little bit about how I was teaching at Yale and I had students who were on the pro -Palestinian side, students who were on the pro -Israeli side, how Yale had to clear the students out or decided to clear the students out of the police survive when my students were arrested.

18:52But this is being played out. I mean, Yale actually has handled it quite well, but it's being played out at much, much bigger scale in UCLA. It got prevalent where people going, it was baseball bats, people with masks, and Biden basically has expressed support for the authorities against the students. My friends who are on the very concerned about Israel are horrified when they look at these demonstrations because they think that the young students are ignorant, are endorsing hammers, are they hate the fact that there are flags up in favor of interfered or were saying from the river to the sea, I have Jewish friends in London saying to me, how could these people possibly be so ignorant?

19:40On the other side, I have Palestinian pro -Palestinian students pointing out that trucks were driven through Yale and Harvard with their names and addresses and telephone numbers and faces saying because they supported the pro -Palestinian protest, they should be tracked down and they should never be given a job. And Bill Ackerman, who's a big hedge fund guy, saying he's not going to employ these people, lists being run, which apparently includes some of the biggest American hedge funds and banks. So, one of the reasons why people are masked is not that they're proto -terrorists, they actually want to be able to get a job when they leave university.

20:18And then you have this whole question of how both sides are provoking each other. So we had a case where somebody claimed to be in stabs in the eye by a flag, the New York Times then reported it, then it turned out it wasn't true, other people are pushing through with social media trying to catch one side saying anti -Semitic stuff, other side saying genocide or stuff, but they're often standing there for 12 hours looking for that one moment where they can... I think the answer to Emily's question, do you think Biden will turn off a lot of young liberal voters? I think there's no doubt about that.

20:52I guess the calculation he's making is that he's still in that position of trying to do his level best to influence Netanyahu and has decided rightly or wrongly that the way to do that is to be pretty supportive, even though Israel thinks he's not being supportive enough. And I think on the protests, you're right that they're far bigger in America. They do seem to have provoked far deeper political polarization, but we are seeing them more and more in the UK as well. I don't even follow the Marsh family, Rory, who's... they sing very funny songs on Twitter, but they've done a very, very funny one about Swannabrava Man.

21:33She took a GB News reporter to one of these tentative protests and they obviously knew she was coming. They just decided not to say a word to her. So she's sort of walking up her door, the light, talking to the cheaper, they're going over, hi, I'm so out, I'm so out, and anyway, we will put in the show now. We'll put in the newsletter, the Marsh family. There's a family that just sing sort of political satire. I think there is a real problem for progressive parties who are not a bit harder over in terms of what's been going on in the Middle East. And I wonder whether we talked earlier about whether that's why David Lamy was much harder on the ICC than...

22:17Well, and Labour's okay here because there are 20 points ahead on the polls, but in the case of Biden, of course, just to remind people... Well, in Michigan, there's a big Arab vote there. Yeah, brutal truth, which is that they're an absolutely neck and neck at best. Trump may even slightly be in the lead. And as you say, these key swing states like Michigan, it all comes down to turnout, all comes down to turnout. And the problem is if people are alienated and think, not in my name, I can't bear to vote for them and just stay at home. Trump wins. And that, of course, is what's going to happen to the Conservatives.

22:53Most of the moderate Conservatives I know in Britain, not going to vote Labour, they're just going to stay at home. Do you think some will vote Labour? Do people not feel they have to vote? I think a lot of people just don't vote because if you feel... Even if they care about politics. Well, since interesting one, I mean... But you could not vote. If you were really... I'm tempted to not vote. If you were really pissed off with Labour Party, you know, when Jeremy Corbyn was in, you ever have tempted to be like, I can't bear to vote for another party, but I'm not going to vote for... Well, I voted Labour in the Europeans, and I did vote Labour.

23:24But you never ever had a temptation that I can't bear to vote. I'm just not going to vote at all. No, I think... No, I haven't. I think I... And if I hadn't voted, I think I probably would have felt I had to go and vote green or vote for Independence. I mean, I just feel you have to vote. I think it's a really bad thing not to vote. There is this thing that you're writing in. I got my name written in in US elections. Somebody wrote me a congressional district in New York. Could you win? No, I didn't get enough writing. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Now listen, Max, we've talked about a lot about the age of Biden and Trump.

23:55But what about this one from Rich Herford? There's been much criticism of the age of the two US presidential candidates. Yet in the UK, Queen Elizabeth continued to exercise government functions until her death at the age of 96. Do you think there should be a maximum age for a monarch to continue exercising functions? Well, we do have a system actually in Britain, which goes all the way back to Georgia 3rd, which is that if you conclude to be a mad one... Yeah, exactly. You conclude a monarch can't issue their functions properly. You have a regency. Where a regency says so. And decides that in the modern age who would decide that.

24:26It's effectively the prime minister. Yeah. It counts the round the prime minister would decide it. So could have been a list trust. Exactly. Could have been a list trust. And then normally what happens is that the air would then step up and be the prince regent. Right. While the king was done alive. I pray the role, yeah, yeah. The knob, yeah. Did you see the new portrait by Jonathan Yeo? Or was that while you were away? No, I've not seen it yet. I don't know. I'll get up a picture for Rory. I mean, I, right, I am now going... Because Rory's been in his retreat, he's yet to see the first official portrait of the king.

24:58Now, I have to say I really like it. I think it's got the face really, really well. And I like the whole red stuff. Oh, it's wonderful. You like it. Oh, it's wonderful. Oh, I think that's lovely. So you didn't even aware... You weren't even... You, the close friend of his majesty, we're not even aware that Jonathan Yeo had done this portrait. No, I think that's splendid. Yeah, I think it's splendid. I mean, the only problem is that my father had his portrait painted when he was in his ashes. And he didn't like it at all. He kept saying, I look like an old man. So what's that you're 88? But Charles doesn't look...