277. What stands in the way of a Labour landslide?

22:45Right, what about the Greens? Well, obviously Greens, I think, actually took the opportunity that the Lib Dems should have taken to really lay out some clear radical thought for policies. You disagree with many of them, what's we know? As do you. I disagree with some of them. You don't want to ban Trident. I think though it's really good to have a party doing that saying, okay, we are going to come out and say we do not think spending all this money on these very expensive nuclear submarines is the right way to spend defense budget. Clearly public services are creaking and there needs to be a colossal amount more money and we're going to be honest about how much more money, but probably the most exciting thing for me, which I cannot understand why Labour won't do, is their idea for media reform.

23:24So they've said they're going to push ahead with the second stage of the control of media and they've also said that they're going to reduce to 20 % the ownership of media companies. So yeah, I'll add that now. Finally, your least favourite person who. Oh, sorry, we haven't, we haven't, we've got, not, you say finally, we've actually got two parties, main parties left. I'm so sorry, who are we in a galaxy? You've neglected the Labour party. I didn't neglected the Labour party. We're probably going to Whitton. So let's go for reform first, right? Reform look in terms of setting their objective for the campaign, which was to be a disruptive force and through Nigel Farage leadership get up in the polls, they've succeeded.

24:01Yes. No, they've done it in their usual way by lots of, you know, dubious statements and etc, but you know, they've succeeded. But the reason you only get seven out of ten is that actually there was a moment three and a half weeks ago, if you look at our polling where it really looked as their reform was beating into the conservative vote, lots of people in the jail partners polls we can share again were looking at moving from conservatives to reform. He seemed to blow that with his comments, which were proputin over Ukraine and suddenly many moderate conservative voters thought actually this man doesn't think of.

24:33Even Calvin McKenzie, who I hesitate to, utter the name on this podcast given what war flips, but even he said he couldn't vote for reform. Yeah, and the daily mail moves against them all that kind of thing. So actually, I think if you were a reform party person, you would have initially been very excited that Farage came in, you got a big bump and then you would have thought you absolute, hubris stick arrogant big headed idiot. You blew this whole thing. Just speaking off the cuff. I bogged into him by the way, it's guy on Sunday. Oh, did he agree to come on the show? I said, why do you keep bottling coming on the podcast?

25:05He says, I'm never in London. I said, there's big Ben right over there. Yes, but I'm on I think labor. I mean, I would have thought nine out of 10. Really? Yeah. I mean, where have they really gone wrong? And even when they've gone wrong, they've somehow managed to control the story. So there was this issue around Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn, but in the end, that kind of played to Starmas advantage. I mean, it really annoyed the left of the Labour Party and there's a good article you can read today in the Guardian of left -wing Labour voters feeling depressed, but the fundamental story that comes across to middle Britain is this is him in person, discipline and controlling.

25:44Otherwise, I can't really think. I mean, Well, that's interesting. So you are going to give them a higher mark than I. I would say seven and a half eights because I think that they've got through the six weeks. As you say, reassurance really strong. Kiers actually performed pretty well, but I still think that I found too many people on the doorstep over the weekend who when I was saying to them, what's your favourite Labour policy? And there was not enough knowledge of what Labour is going to do. That's a pretty dangerous question. If I was to ask a large crowd, what's your favourite Labour policy?

26:17That's a pretty embarrassing question. I think that helps your campaign. I wasn't necessarily campaigning, I was trying to take the mood. These were actually people who said they were voting Labour. Okay. So some of them knew about the private schools, the VAT on private school, fees, some of them knew about the GB energy thing, but mainly people knew that what they weren't going and this is a really problematic thing which came out in a poll yesterday which is that only 5 % of Labour voters think that Labour is going to be cutting spending, but Labour is committed to cutting spending. 80 % of Labour voters poll think that Labour is going to increase spending when they're in fact reducing.

26:53So there's a big gap between the expectations of voters. Oh, the growth. The growth. The growth of the economy, Rory. The reason I'm not giving 10 out of 10 is that I think Starmler's debate performances have been absolutely lamentable. I mean, you can think what you want about Rishi Suneak's style and I think it irritated people, but Starmler was not succinct, he was not crisp, he really doesn't oddly for a barrister. It seemed to be able to think quickly on his feet and debate and that kind of circumstance. Now, as we'll find out, I suspect, on Thursday, it doesn't really matter. Probably in the modern world.

27:27I don't know how many people watch these debates. That's a lot. Yeah, pretty good figures. Okay, so on the campaign omit Labour win, Tories lose so that I guess may feed the narrative that they're on the way out. Just remind it to everybody before we go to a break. First general election ever where you need voter ID to vote, so don't do what Boris Johnson did and get sent away from the party station. Well, time to take a break. And when we come back from a break, we must talk about the extraordinary things happening in France and where our expert Mr Campbell is that going to be able to inform us.

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29:57Welcome back to the rest of the politics with me, Alex Campbell. And me, Rory Stewart. Now, I've just come back from France. I know. I'm there for the election. But actually, despite staggering my way through the French newspaper, and for what it's worth, as you will have seen, the fundamental message in every paper is fury, anger, and disbelief with Macron. I'm calling election, I mean, just as a sort of basic explainer for people. Macron won by far the most seats when the election was last held, the legislative election in 2022. And there's no way of putting a positive spin on calling election where absolutely certainly, he's going to massively lose having the largest amount of seats.

30:41Certainly go into third place. And so as many of his MPs were saying these articles that I was reading, they feel like lambs being driven to the slaughterhouse. You can hardly talk to anybody without them talking about La Colère, anger, frustration. One of these closest supporters saying to me, this is an act of madness. Who's this? Somebody who works for him. Okay. See it on the tell us. No, I'm not. I will tell you about somebody though. I was first introduced to Macron by a, I hope you won't be saying this by a journalist called Marielle Fan Antachem, Belgian name, French. And this was a sign when she felt Macron was going to be the savior of France and she introduced me to him and that's why I got involved in the, in the first campaign.

31:29And she's been a really solid supporter and she's written a column in Lex Spress, which is just absolutely extraordinary. Ted, tell us a bit about Lex Spress. Where does it sit on the front? What sort of British needs babes that like? Well, it's kind of, we don't really have, as far as we have spectated new states when time is kind of weekly magazine, you know, kind of, it sort of gives all sides of fair hearing, probably a bit right. Sort of prospecting. Yeah, that kind of thing, but maybe a bit more right. And she said that she is, I'll translate other goes, is, you know, it's not the least of the paradoxes that on the evening.

32:01I love the fact that when you translate French, you have to begin with, it is not the least of the paradoxes. If you were, if you were editing, if you were finished price, which you begin with, it is not the least of the paradoxes. It's pretty, it's pretty as if bad, more than the paradoxes. On the eve of the European elections, the, on the eve of the most important European elections in history, the most European of French presidents essentially took the least European of decisions to sort of shake up your way. Wait, wait, before we get on the cover, I mean, what a beautiful sort of expression of the French mind.

32:34I mean, it's not the least the paradoxes the most European. Exactly. Exactly. The only European elections took the least European decisions. What about this one then? So that's how it starts. And then at the end, the, this decision recalls the British referendum of June 2016 on Brexit, a bet without a strategy, an election without a campaign leading to self -destruction, national and European, now up to us to block the next stage. So a bet without a strategy, an election without a campaign. Now, this is true, I think, absolutely of what Cameron did with the Brexit referendum. It's also true. I think what Rishi Sunak did calling this election.

33:14Yep. That's also a bet without a strategy and a election without a campaign. Tell us though, just before we get onto the current day, tell us a little bit about the first Macron campaign, just to give, listen, there's a sense of where we've come from, what that election was like, how he did it. Well, he, how unexpected it was. There's a guy, we talked about Jacques Attalille last week who introduced Macron to Alon, Alon, put him into the government. And Alon was a left wing, left wing socialist, who's just been re -elected as an MP because he's becoming back as part of this sort of problem. And shall we listen to on leading?

33:45Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you, I did from a crackly line in Kenya. You did. So Macron comes alon, and although it became sort of paraded this on Memtor on the one hand on the other, essentially what he did was to take support from the right hand from the left. And so he'd originally been in a left wing government. Yeah. But he was quite sort of right wing for seclusion. He was a centralist politician. Yeah. Absolutely. And made his name in the bill. I soon act in the kind of world of money. Yeah. He'd been a banker. Yeah. And then came into politics as a fairly technocratic, enormous charisma, very, very clever.

34:19I honestly do remember the first time meeting him just thinking this guy is so smart, very rare you meet people, I think this guy is so smart. And yet politically he literally has his rise and fall in the matter of a decade. And initially he was a sort of political genius. I mean, as you say, this on Memtor thing, I remember when I was trying to run as an independent for Merrill Landon, quite a lot of Macron supporters came over to try to advise me. And what they explained is that being in the center ground is not being in a gray, bland position. No, radical. It's taking radical right positions and radical left.

34:52So he would say the French need to apologize for what they did in Algeria and really anger the right and please the left, but get a lot of headlines. And then he'd say an immigrationist is disgrace and kind of angering the left and please the right. And he's generating headlines on both sides. Sometimes they're headlines against him, but that doesn't matter. There's no momentum. But what essentially he's done, I think the reason this is anger is that you've all with people have known about the rise of the hard right. And that's been something that's been a feature of several elections in the recent past.

35:22But in a sense, what you've now got is this cleavage within the country where the center is being crushed by the two extremes. And I think one of the most interesting that the things that's happening in this current debate. So tonight is when candidates have to decide whether they're going forward or not. By last night, by sort of midnight, wonderful word, desis, desis, them all withdrawals. There would be an 185 withdrawals of candidates who in third place. Okay. Because sorry, just put the context. So the way the French system works is that you need to get more than 12 and a half percent of the vote to make it into the second round.

35:56Yeah. Yeah. 50 percent to win. And generally, that is expected to generate two candidates, but unusually in more than half the seats, this is generated three candidates. And the three counted up problem is certainly for people who are anti -Lapan is the dangerous splitting the vote. Correct. So all these questions of people was drawing a never about or very, very rarely about anything other than either Macronspassy was drawing in favour of the left or the left. Or the left drawing in favour of Macronspot. Correct. Now, so as of last night, there'll be more today because six o 'clock by the time this goes out, you know, there'll be more.

36:33185, 121 were those candidates on the left and 60 were from Macrons campaign. And then today, now within that, however, within Macrons team, you've got the finance minister, Bruno Le Mère. You've also got Edward Félite, the former prime minister here. Bruno Le Mère has withdrawn. No, but they're saying they cannot vote for the left. They cannot vote for Melanchion, who is a big part of this popular front. And let's try to understand this a little bit more because this is quite important in understanding what's driving people towards Le Pen. So I got two very different views talking to people in France during the vote on Sunday.

37:11One was people who are very, very worried about the pen, but who are saying you don't understand how broad this coalition. Yeah. What, so I was talking to a French civil servant who she's a prosecutor in a post -industrial town north of Paris. And she says everybody she knows is voting Le Pen. And why are they voting Le Pen? They're voting Le Pen, not so much about immigration. It's a very white town. They're voting Le Pen because they just feel nothing has happened in their lives for 40 years that the economy's not performing for them. Nothing's going the right direction. The second group of people are people who are trying to justify now voting for Le Pen.

37:51And these are often, let's say, upper middle class professional people who would have been embarrassed to vote for the far right before. And their excuse is the left. So this is why we need to know more from you about who Melanchon is. Why it is that the left is considered so scary that Macron's finance minister is not prepared to say, listen, anything is better than Le Pen. I'll endorse Melanchon. So tell us a bit about the left in France. Well, so Melanchon is the leader of this thing called La France Ansemese, which sort of won't succumb. And he's part of this popular front that was created when Macron called the election.

38:30Anybody who is looking on the back of the result for him to come out and say, I'm going to be moderate, I'm going to be reasonable with this thing. He came out basically and effectively said, I am the leader of this. He did so standing alongside somebody called Rima Hassan, who is not even a candidate, but who is Palestinian activist, kitted out in the and who I think is in this sort of camp that says not really sure that Hamas is a really a terrorist organization. And so Melanchon is not doing the keyest thermostructure. He's not trying to go to the Senate. Oh, contrary. He's like full on Jeremy Corbyn.

39:03He makes Jeremy Corbyn look pretty moderate. So he's on issues like tax spending, Gaza, Melanchon is further left than Corbyn. I would say so. I mean, they probably see themselves as allies. And Melanchon is an unbelievably way more divisive in French politics than even than Corbyn was here. So sorry, I'm just just saying to be really pinning it down, if you are a sort of center right, I don't know, doctor or lawyer or something, you see Melanchon as basically a kind of dangerous communist. Well, he is a kind of trotskyist. You've got this situation where the and this is now becoming, I mean, there was a one of the green party leaders was on television to your watch in tears because she felt that La Mare in saying I can't vote for one of those candidates essentially was saying, okay, well, you're letting the hard right in.

39:55But if you think about it from the point of view of Le Pen and Melanchon, they now see the center disappearing. They both say that there is no center. He actually in Melanchon said in his speech, there is them over there. There is us here. There is nothing in the middle. And what they want, both of them actually, they actually quite like the chaos that might come from a parliament that's ungovernable because you can't get anybody with a majority because that then takes them forward to the presidential election where Melanchon will intend to be the candidate of the hard left. Le Pen, the candidate of the hard right and some do replacing Maclaught in the center.

40:29And in the second round there, the runoff becomes Melanchon Le Pen. That's why people are worried about Melanchon. And if Melanchon's going to hold to an extreme position on the left, that provides an enormous incentive to marrying Le Pen to try to rebrand herself as a more moderate centrist candidate. Absolutely. So that's what they have this thing called la stratégie de la cravat, the strategy of the Thai. They all go round. And I can remember the last we were not the last time, but I was in Paris a few months ago. And I was talking to somebody who was worked at the, from the assembly. And we're in this quite swanky restaurant.

41:02And in wart, Marine Le Pen, with her entourage of very young, good -looking people, light by deli, incredibly well -dressed. And they've had this sort of normalization strategy. They haven't, they don't actually say that much outside campaigns. But what they've managed to do is become quite disciplined. They're very disciplined. And that's important too, because usually what goes wrong with the far right. They become a rabble. Yeah, look at Frasch. I mean, again and again, his candidates are courts say completely outrageous, disgusting things. He has the distance from the same with the AFD in Germany.

41:36I mean, the basic problem for the far right is you have a bunch of lunatics charging around. She seems to have been able to impose discipline, which is critical if she's going to try to present herself as the sort of moderate center ground. Yeah, but so now let's just say that I think the likelihood of anybody being able to get a majority, there's some talk about whether the, if the Assum Romain, that you know, I'll do well enough to be able to get in some sort of alliance with the Republicans, but I don't think that's going to happen. So what you end up with is a pretty ungovernable and so much to explain for people the terminology that's Le Penz party, potentially getting in bed with the old consultants.

42:10The right of the old Tory party, a bit like a sort of Bravaman rump, as it were. So now what you have is the prospect of a constitution which says there can't be another election for 12 months. The possibility of chaos within the parliament, absolute stagnation. By the way, this is terrible for Ukraine, terrible for Ukraine, because this becomes very, very difficult now. A lame duck president I'm afraid, who's become effectively persona non grata within his own camp. Atal, the prime minister was the one who fronted up the results. So it's a macro is in a terrible place and will no better by the end of the day, but there will be a lot of people who feel why should I be told what I can and can't vote?

42:49People feeling the whole thing is being engineered and others who'll say, okay, let them have the government and let them make a mess of it and then we can vote against them, but that is such a big risk. And the making a mess of it could either mean going with the far left, which presumably, if they want to make a majority of them, there's no way they can get, I don't think they can get a majority of it. Well, you've got to rely on the votes from the far right, but I mean, exactly. So macro is in a position, I think one basic fact to get through to people in the last legislative election in 2022, 4 .2 million people voted for Le Pen's far right party.

43:20On Sunday, 11 million people voted for it. I mean, that's the kind of fundamental fact and that's the fundamental problem with macro -secret election. Well, there are some people who say the bet will pay off because the national front will be seen to cause nothing but chaos, but at the moment, Macron is the one who's getting the blame for it. And whatever the bet was, the bet cannot have been. I'm going to take my party from having the most seats in Parliament to putting them into third place, and they can't have been the bet. And also, this line that you can't vote for the left and you can't vote for the right, I mean, that's just failed in the first round.

43:54So why is that going to succeed in the second round? No, it's a bit of a disaster on the road. Now, Alessandro, we did an emergency pod after the Biden Trump debate. And it's been one of the most popular things we've done recently. Got a lot of attention, a lot of focus. But Joe Biden didn't listen. Joe Biden did not listen. And not in Joe Biden didn't listen. I have received an incredible amount from big democratic figures, democratic campaigning organizations, democratic donors, very, very angry pushing back hard. So, and why are they angry? Because you and I are saying Biden needs to step down.

44:28And it's been fascinating watching the democratic party close ranks. And say, we're not going to do this. You've seen Obama come up and endorse Biden. You talked about Joe Biden greeting him. You've not seen any of the senior democratic leadership in the Senate or Congress coming out against him. And the arguments that they're making are really striking. Some of them, I think, are really bad arguments. So the number one argument from one of the biggest democratic donors was this is the decision for Joe and Jill, not for anyone else. Now, I mean, that I completely disagree. It's this entire world is at stake.

44:58Yes, it's not. I mean, he gets to make decision on what color tie he puts on in the morning, but he doesn't get to decide future free wealth. Anyway, what response have you got to this? Well, in terms of people in America, a mix actually, I got some of that, but I also got a lot of people saying you've got a point and we're very, very worried. The panic that was ensuing as a result of his performance doesn't go away because they decide to make it go away. And if you look at the numbers for, I mean, for example, I know, as you know, neither was BET, but the betting markets now on Trump something like seven to four on, which means, you know, almost slam dunk territory.

45:37So you've got now three quarters of Americans saying he does not have the mental capacity to perform and he should step down. Now, many of those people will of course still vote for Biden, yeah, including a lot of my own family that are very worried about his mental capacity. Well, well, if you hate Trump, there's a lot of people do. You can't possibly vote for Trump. By the way, I said, I regretted the minute I said it, but it was alive. I said of Robert F. Kennedy, the wacko, he was wacko. I think that was a bit over the top. Yeah. So I withdraw wacko. I still think though that he is his role in this campaign is malign because he takes votes away from Biden more than Trump.

46:10There's an argument that's been one person who's been passionately taking the position that we've taken on this is somebody I know called Ezra Klein, he's a big podcaster in the US. And he's got a argument that I think is central here, which is that a lot of the Democrats who are supporting Biden are saying he's got great values and he's got a great team. Yeah, great policies. So I mean, I need to worry. But Ezra's point is that the US President is not just about policy. It's also about communication persuasion. And that's particularly true in an unstable global context world stage. I mean, that one of the President's roles is to get out there publicly and take that position on Ezra Aghazza, take that position on Ukraine and lead and bring people with them.

46:57And that's what one's really got to worry about if he stays in over the next four years. And I'm going to get into this with you because this is a question about how much the leader matters. If I'd said to you, let's say Tony Blair for some tragic reason had ended up in some kind of L -sit position where he was not really able to function. And I'd said to you, is it all okay? Because he's got a great team around him. It doesn't really matter that the Prime Minister can't really cut it. What's your sense on that? Does the person at the top matter? Absolutely, I think it's fundamental. Well, for a start, the person at the top chooses the people around him.

47:28Secondly, the big decisions have to be made by the person at the top for all the advice that they get. And thirdly, as you say, one of the reasons that people get to the top is because they have these capacities that others don't have. And in the modern age, a lot of that is about communication and leadership and strategy and so forth, which I think Biden has been good at throughout his career. But that one performance, I mean, if it, look, if it shook something like me as much as it did, heaven knows what it does to somebody who's wobbling a bit between the two parties. And this is our marine, the pen point that we had in the last slot, which is that it provides cover for somebody who's embarrassed to vote for Trump.

48:05Suddenly has an excuse. Absolutely. So let's say you are, I don't know, center right. You think Trump's going to cut your taxes. So it'll be good few economically. You've been very ashamed really to vote for Trump. But now you can say, I'm really sorry that this guy doesn't have the capacity to sell another four years. And the worst thing about it, of course, is that had Biden performed at the top of Biden's capacity, I think there's a very good chance that the news that was made out of that debate. It was the fact that Donald Trump lied in every single statement that he made. And the fact that that's just gone and further normalizing lying further accepting that.

48:39I guess the other big news this week at the United States is this Supreme Court judgment, essentially saying that, you know, when it comes to job to act taken in his capacity as president, that Trump does have immunity from criminal offenses. You may have committed this. The technical decision by Supreme Court as Lissus will know has got increasing numbers of right wing justices and it ruled six to three. And this is one of the tragedies of the court. Again and again, almost every decision seems to be falling along party lines. Six to three in favor of the idea that there needs to be a very high bar with a president to prove that they've actually done something that is illegal or rather that they don't get immunity from prosecution on.

49:23Imagine if it was, you know, Uganda or Botswana, where you said that, you know, the president has packed the court full of judges who now say that they can do whatever they want. I mean, this is really it. It's putting democracy on this point. To be fair, it's not quite can do whatever they want. Well, they've done is they've pushed down to the other court, but they've set quite a high bar for that court to prove that what Trump did was beyond his capacity as president. But it was definitely seen by Trump's people as a big win. Absolutely. And by the Democrats, it's a huge blow. The thing that we need to get onto once we're through the UK and French elections is the process of how Biden could be replaced and who that replacement could be.

50:03And that's where a lot of the trouble happens. In fact, probably the most compelling argument that people are making, you know, you and I think now believe that you have to get rid of Biden because he can't win. And so therefore you just work backwards from that. You've got to have a solution to this that running him doesn't work. It's too much for risk. Trump is very likely to win. But he has because of the way that the Democratic Party works. We didn't report it because it was a done deal, but there was this primary process, not just that produced Trump, right, which was which was the process where Nikki Haley was defeated and Trump emerged.

50:36There was a Democratic process. Got all these delegates. So he's the presumptive nominee. And under the rules, those delegates are almost obliged to vote for him. And there's nothing that can be done unless Biden voluntarily steps down to him. There's down to him. And even if he voluntarily steps down, the high likelihood is that he will endorse Kamala Harris, who has even worse popularity ratings than he has and is very unlikely to be able to beat Donald Trump. So the problem that the Democratic Party faces is that even if they agree with us that Biden's unlikely to defeat Trump, they're very worried that all these internal bigwigs and Democratic Party and are going to produce someone even worse.

51:13And that's a structural foreign American democracy because in the UK system, we're able to get rid of people really easily. I mean, you know, that's why Listerust lasted less than a lettuce. The conservative party decided they had a Joe Biden figure 49 days. But in this case, everybody's frozen. Nobody knows what to do. And the only way you'd get that, I think, is probably President Obama privately changing his position with the Clintons going into sea by the big donors saying you've got to step down. Well, it all makes our relation look kind of grown up and mature and serious and sensible. And I've been shocked by how little coverage has been of our relation around the world.

51:56I guess is because people think it's forego conclusion. And also because Kier Samus seems quite a reassuring figure. I mean, in fact, it is a crazy world. The American coverage, I think headlines, the New York Times ever will be centrist victory in Britain. The narrative around the world will be Britain has passed its peak populism, France and America, lurching into populism is Britain the future. Well, there we go. Soft power, soft power all around. Right, that's it for this week. This is our last Channel 4 podcast before the election itself. And we'll be there all night, as we said, with Christian Guru Murthy, Emily Maitlers, Gary Gibbon, loads of good guests and gobble box as well.

52:37See you there. Looking forward very much to seeing you on the night. Through the night, stay out of this as long as you can. And if you're having a lecture night party, Channel 4 is the place to see Alistair and his fancy jacket and eating his healthy food through the night.