353. Question Time: Celeb politicians, Chinese spies, and Ireland vs. Israel

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0:50Welcome to the Restus Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Anastakambal, and your voice still sounds a bit ropey, Rory, so I'll kick off for the first question. Mary Kalu, do you think Putin will welcome Assad with open arms, or will he be sideline as this perhaps no longer of any use to put in? My guess is that he will, that Russia is still an old -fashioned big power player that needs to demonstrate that it can be loyal to its allies even when they're thrown out, and that when it's dealing, I mean, remember there have been coups in Marlene Niger, Chad, Guinea, Gabon, and in every case, basically, French and American troops have been out, and Russian Wagner mercenaries have come in.

1:30And with those kind of leaders, as with Assad, part of the deal with Russia is demonstrating that they're going to be loyal to these people when they're booted out. And we're much worse at this. If we look at Ashraf Ghani, who was the president of Afghanistan, who, you know, we welcomed with open arms to Britain. I went to see him as a minister. We praised as soon as he was kicked out of Afghanistan. Basically, nobody's been prepared to give him a visa. He can't get to the UK, can't get to the US. He's currently last time I heard sitting in the UAE. So I think the Russians, unlike the rest of us, don't really care about what the reputation of these people is, and feel that it's more important to demonstrate to other despots around the world that they'll have a home if something goes wrong.

2:07I had a long exchange last night with our mutual friend Tom Fletcher, who was a former ambassador. He was a foreign policy advisor to Labour and Tory in the past, and has now taken on this big job with the United Nations on humanitarian. Which was Martin Griffiths' job, who we often talked about getting on and a job that I've often fantasised about having. I'm very jealous. Well, Tom has now got it. And he's, he yesterday met the man of the moment, Al -Ghalani, who is the guy who led the rebels, and who is now effectively with the sort of collection of people, would appear to be, to be running Syria.

2:41And so he was interested in taking on him. He doesn't speak that much English. I think there's all done in Arabic. But, you know, the obviously from Tom's point of view, they were trying to get absolute commitment to protection of civilians, humanitarian workers in particular, and got that sort of agreement. He said that Al -Ghalani gave him a masterclass in the mess we inherited, so, communications basically say they'll get have to do quite a lot of difficult things to get the country back on his feet. But said that he, you know, he found him impressive, very quiet. He said we're all equal to quiet charisma, very shrewd, as we've said before, very softly spoken.

3:19He said he was pretty exhausted, but at the same time, he had a sense that he was one of those people who's always thinking, thinking a few steps ahead. So we shall see. We shall see. We said last week that we imagined that even while this is a prescribed terrorist organization, we imagine that the Brits and the Americans and others and the French and we're all over it. And they are, as we're seeing, the British government civil servant met with, with him, is now called Al -Sharah rather than Al -Ghalani met with him yesterday. But I think John Fletcher's, I'm really pleased he's got that job.

3:48I think he'll be. He'll do it very well. It's a great appointment. He was running an Oxford College, so it's a great, just to see him back in the swing of things. And he was, of course, the British Ambassador in Lebanon, so he knows the region very well. The problem, I think, for Al -Ghalani is going to be what happens when things start kicking off inside Syria and how does he deal with it. So if you think about the Taliban, they took power quite easily like him when we left. And the first problems began when the started being civilian demonstrations against the regime. And how do you deal with that?

4:22So you've got people now with face paint and some of these sort of slogans from the Arab Spring out on the streets of Damascus, calling for democracy and him saying, I don't think we're anywhere close ready for elections. He's an Islamist, even if he is talking a very moderate game, and he will have to work out how he reconciles the views of his more extreme fighters who have been fighting tooth and nail and losing lives since 2011 partly for a vision of a gender apartheid world. I mean, remember, some of these people are genuinely absolutely committed to very, very conservative visions on women's place and society, very conservative visions of homosexuality, etc.

5:05Because ISIS Daesh is a brother offshoot from his movement. He knew Baghdaddi, he was sent out to be the amir in Syria and broke with them, but they come from a very similar place, rooted in al Qaeda. So what does he do if the hardliners in his organization say, well, wait a second, we've been dying and fighting to get rid of this irreligious secular government. And now you've got, I don't know men kissing in the street, women in many scouts, whatever it is, what do you do if there are a large disruptive demonstrations calling you a despot, how harsh do you crack down? What do you do with criminality?

5:41What do you do with gangs? So there are a lot of armed people, huge number of armed people. And they're not all his big armed Arab tribal gangs from the south. There's a Turkish backed armed groups, there are Kurdish armed groups coming in from the east. So I think the first big problem he's going to be is how does he restore order and security without generating all the predictable headlines of him being a despot clamping down on human rights? Well, part of the answers to that as well as the practicalities is that he will need political support and political cover from some of these people that are sitting down talking to him now.

6:14So I guess these first impressions that he makes upon people are pretty important. The issue in relation to Israel that we've got the most questions about this week worry. And I'll show you a couple of these now. It was, I mean, Israel, which is continuing to bomb sites in Syria where they think that weapons programs might fall into the wrong hands, but actually was their decision to close the Israeli embassy in Dublin. Clegg gunning, I greatly appreciate your views on Israel's decision. Shashi Rami, please can you discuss Israel's decision to close its embassy? And the Israeli foreign minister calling the Irish Prime Minister an anti -seemite.

6:47What was your take on that? Well, I mean, fascinating. I mean, really fascinating. So this seems to be from a distance, but maybe I'm getting this wrong. On a par with Israel's general policy of declaring the Secretary General of the United Nations percent and on grata, rejecting the authority of the international criminal courts. And now closing its embassy in Dublin because of what it says is anti -semitism. And in particular, I think they're enraged with Ireland's enthusiastic support for the international criminal court. And also the recognition of Palestine. But a very, very big step to actually close an embassy with a mature European democracy.

7:25I can't really think of a precedent, but you've reminded us that there is history there, isn't there? I mean, Ireland has tended to have quite a pro -Palestinian history. President of Ireland appeared with a kefir around his neck. You're right. There's no doubt at all. You can see this in the public statements of successive Irish T -shakes that they are, you know, broadly pro -Palestinian. I think it is harsh to take that and say as a result of that, to have one foreign minister called the elected prime minister of another, an anti -semit. And I think what this is part of is basically saying that if you criticize what we did, what we do as a government that because you're criticizing the Israeli government, it's a time that it's been under attack, post the October 7th attacks on them, that somehow that's anti -semitic.

8:11And I've yet see any evidence that Simon Harris is anti -semitic. And I've yet to see them present any evidence that he's said or done anything that you could define as anti -semitic as opposed to being an elected leader of a country which has a policy position, has a stance, takes a stand, and is basically saying, you know, Bill Clinton made the point on leading that, you know, and so did Angela Merkel. Angela Merkel said in terms, BB Netanyahu and the current government is not Israel, you know, you can be supportive of a country that doesn't mean that you can't from time to time criticize that government's handling of really difficult events.

8:47And that seems to me as that all the Ireland has done. We've got a very tough outspoken Israeli ambassador here in London. It's a woman ambassador also in Dublin, Dana Ehrlich, she's now presumably, you know, going back to Israel or to a different job somewhere else. But I think it felt like a pretty impetuous and not very sensible thing to do because that really is a, you know, shutting down your embassy is a pretty big thing to do in any foreign relations. I mean, you know, we've got an embassy in Moscow. We've got an embassy. We've got an embassy in lots of different countries where we are not necessarily on the same wavelength.

9:23I think to do this is basically to say that, you know, Ireland is an enemy state of Israel. I think that's a very, very bad thing to say or do. Yeah. I mean, it's, it is very interesting, isn't it? Because the Arab League, traditionally, and other Muslim states like Marley, Niger, Mauritania, I think don't have diplomatic relations with Israel. I mean, Saudi is still a, doesn't recognize Israel. It's not just a run that doesn't recognize Israel, but it's interesting decision. I mean, I would have thought of a foolish decision because to isolate yourself from a European Union, democratic member state seems to be a much bigger step than people are understanding.

9:59And I can't see what Israel gains from doing it. Now, Rory, I think we have to raise a member of the royal family this week. Oh, yes. I know you don't like talking about the royal too much. Emily, she says, Prince Andrew, what has led to him finding himself in the Ma 'ar again? How should the king now deal with him? I read, I don't know anything about these things, but I read that the king has said that Prince Andrew should not join the family at San Rangham at Christmas. What's led to him finding himself in the Ma 'ar again, Emily? Is this relationship with H6? A court order decided that we shouldn't know the name of H6, though, that we now do, but somebody widely thought, although he denies it, who are working for Chinese intelligence services who got very, very, very, close to Prince Andrew.

10:42So, yeah, he is in the Ma 'ar again, isn't he? Yeah, he is. And I mean, there was the times to be fair, quoted an American analyst who said, listen, you guys as usual are obsessed with the royal family. What you're missing is the big picture, which is there's not just an H6, there's an H6, there's an H6, there's an H6, 100. And the real question is not who's got close to Prince Andrew. The question is who's got close to the people that really matter in British political decision making. And that's what we're underestimating. And the story, basically, is that the Chinese state uses a massive range of people, including private Chinese business people to create these links.

11:19They do it through university funding. There's been a very, very good actually reports from Parliamentary committees on this. They do it through university funding. In this case, the guy was funding a branch of Gordonston, the Scottish boarding school internationally. They run friendship associations. They meet in this case. You're being photographed with David Cameron and Theresa May. And they're doing all they can, I think, to try to ensure that China has good relations with Europe. And the reason why that matters, if we step away from Prince Andrews, they've got a bigger picture, is the number one demand of Trump is going to be that Europe lines up with him in a new cold war with China.

11:57And the problem that we will face in the hood of Europe faces is that our economies in trouble, 50 % of the profits of European automobile manufacturers and luxury goods manufacturers made in China. Keir Starmer is betting a great deal on China. He's going to do a visit to China next year. The first British premier of the premise that a visit China at a very long time. And it's going to be very, very difficult for European countries to emerge from their current doldrums. Partly actually going to be difficult to meet our targets on electric vehicles. If we're not prepared to import Chinese electric vehicles, which are very, very cheap and very good.

12:31I mean, it's probably impossible to know the accurate number. But if you sort of look around all the various sort of think tanks and defense, fetched us in intelligence, websites, and the rest of it, you're talking about upwards of 600 ,000 people who work for Chinese intelligence. Now, you'd be very surprised if some of them weren't in Britain. And if you're a kind of intelligent minded person, you know, in Britain, I think getting sort of close to the Royal family would be quite a sort of fun. Well, it's also interesting that the Chinese government is very, very odd because they also have very weird ideas about who matters.

13:04So, Prince Andrew, you will see in the newspapers this photograph, having a full formal meeting with Xi Jinping. It's very, very difficult to get a full formal meeting. I think it's in the great hall of the people with the president of China. The other person who could always get meetings with him before he died was Jacob Rosschild because the Chinese government had read these crazy conspiracy theories, which are convinced that this Jewish banking family, the Rosschilds, ran the world. So, whenever Jacob Rosschild turned up, he could have a meeting with Xi Jinping. But these days, he'll have a musk.

13:33But no British Prime Minister, I think, managed to meet Xi Jinping from Treesmeon. I didn't think that Boris Johnson, Rishu Sunak, Liz Truss, in that brief period. So, I think there's also another really interesting thing, which is, part of them is really brilliant and really understand our societies. And another part of them is like, yes, it's all about the royal family and the Rosschilds, as they're stuck in the beginning of the 19th century. As you raise the name of Xi Jinping, I think I should repeat my request. Via any of the 600 ,000 Chinese intelligence officers who are listening, we would love to have Xi Jinping on the podcast on leading.

14:07Nobody can say he's not a leader. I don't worry. I should also tell you that via Tom Fletcher, I have put it in a bid with Al Jolani. How's about that? Well, that's very good. And here we are. Here's a deal for you. I promise to travel immediately to Syria, to interview him in person. If you manage to secure that for us. Excellent. Excellent. We'll see. And he should definitely be talking to the UK's largest podcast. I mean, I thought you'd manage to get us Angela Merkel and Bill Clinton. We could then see, Rui, how good your Arabic is? Yes, well, you will see. See, it is my knowledge. If you can get me an interview with Pzezhkian, I can do a little bit of fast.

14:40Okay. We'll have to talk to the team about whether we want that. Right. You're too of a question. Okay. So here's a question I thought was rather good. Klafsmaris meets his. Can you talk about the success stories from the Eastern blog? You've mentioned the Baltics in Romania before. What did they manage to do that Ukraine and Georgia perhaps then? So the story here is of course that Romania and Eastern Europe in 1989, their communist governments collapsed. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, parts of the Soviet Union like Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia came free. And they joined the European Union in this incredible moment in 2004.

15:17And it's a sort of miracle story. These countries, let's take Lithuanian Romania. Their GDP's per capita. In other words, how rich the average person was compared to the UK and I need nine. They were about a third as rich. In other words, the average person in Britain was three times wealthier. These were very poor countries, about $7 ,000 a year. And they were autocracies. The European Union came in and the European Union provided pre -excession funding, but most importantly of all huge enlargement investment in reform, sorting out their markets, sorting out their constitution, sorting out their governance to prepare them for European membership.

15:51Fast forward to the end of the story. The average person of Lithuania 30 years later is now richer than the average person in Britain. So they've gone from three times poorer to being richer than us. And this is why I think we're massively underestimating the power of Europe. They can do stuff that America can't do. America and Iraq and Afghanistan couldn't offer equal membership of a union, couldn't offer single market, couldn't offer all the stuff that carrot that Europe can offer, which is completely transformed all these countries around the world. I think that was another reason why you take me back as you in the 23rd, 2016 in January.

16:27I don't think we did enough to explain to British people that the success that was created, as you say, by European Union support for the countries that came in actually was a benefit to all of us. I don't think we ever managed to make that link. Can it be a mistake? And that Britain wasn't the central driver for EU enlargement. You know, you and Tony Blair were really proud of it, and it was an amazing achievement. It was one of the greatest achievements. And Britain didn't take credit for it then and should have done. Why is it you didn't take credit for it? Why are you not shouting it from the rooftops?

17:02I think it goes into that space of, you know, Europe is something that we've kind of wanted to do. But back to the point of the debate we're having on the main podcast about Labour's current approach and immigration is that certain things you want to do them without necessarily shouting about them, because you want people to focus on the things that you're constantly being told they care about, economy, jobs, health, housing, education, etc. But it's part of the same thing that when you're going around different parts of the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, wherever, and you're constantly seeing the European flag on signposts and buildings, explaining that the European Union, the European Commission was part of the building of this road, the building of that school, the building of this and the other.

17:42You see a little bit of that in the UK. You saw a little bit of that. But we were almost always embarrassed to say this was done with help of the European Union, the European Commission, which I agree I think is a mistake. It's weird, isn't it? It's really weird because in fact, it is the big international success story of the 21st century. It weirdly more than the interventions we boasted of in the Balkans. This was the thing that really did bring democracy and did bring economic growth. 2004, Czechia, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland is unbelievable success.

18:20It's on its way to being the defense and security superpower of Europe. That would have been unimaginable, I guess, when you were growing up, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, we're really quick, help. 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.

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19:46So, Rory, as you know, we are sponsored by Fuse on the topic of energy. I saw you tweeted recently about how energy costs in the UK are two times what they are elsewhere in Europe, and businesses suffering because of that. So, is that right? Two times? Yeah, there are different fix on this, but the Guardian ran an article showing that they were particularly focused on small businesses. Gave a lot of examples of people where the costs were twice as high as they'd been. It's partly because with households, governments are quite careful to put an energy cap in place, which doesn't apply to small businesses.

20:19So typically the bills have gone up 5 ,000 pounds. So he was a little guy who was running dreadnought tiles in the West Midlands. I don't want to minimize it. It's a very good example of the problems. So obviously, in order to make roof tiles and bricks, you need high temperatures, which requires energy. And he reckons that his energy bills more than doubled had cut production raise prices. Don't think we'll see energy cost return. So the reason this is important is that one of the many reasons driving de -industrialization, so not de -carbonization, but literally businesses, industrial businesses closing in the UK, is the cost of energy that they're facing.

20:56Do you mind if I if I raise what you call a reader's concern about some of your previous comments on energy roll? Yes, yes. So somebody I know, you may also know, called Emma Pinchbeck, who runs the climate change committee. She's the chief executive climate change committee, which is the statutory advisory body that helps government work out how to meet the legal climate change targets. She's quite a big deal. And she's much more what she's talking about than me. All me. She listens to the podcast. She says, please take this in good faith, but I sometimes get concerned that the podcast and Rory in particular, she says, can be a bit careless on energy, trust transition or let it zero.

21:38And I think her point is that you tend to put rising energy costs all onto the cost of transition. And that may not be the case. There's been a very interesting guy called Ed Conway who's done some really great stuff. I'm written a good book called Material World that I'm plugging. But he's got an amazing graph that he's just put out with what's happened to the chemical industry in Britain. So if you look at what's happened since 2021, the total economy and services is up. Manufacturing is about 10 % down, but chemicals 37 % smaller in just three years. And chemicals take a lot of energy. So you're saying that those sectors are down by that number or that there?

22:14Yeah, yeah, exactly. The phrase is the chemical sector has contracted by more than a third over the past three years. One of main states, the British economy in his phrase deindustrialization is happening, accelerating even. So there are a number of reasons for that. And that's why I think it's good to be called that. Some of that is to do with wholesale prices. Some of that is to do with the way that we price things and the way that we tax energy. And actually it would be great maybe to get her on. Yeah, because as you say, she's a huge expert and maybe we can get into that in more detail. But there is a big problem.

22:47And that's why Jonathan Reynolds, the Labor Business Secretary, has said we're talking about decarbonization, not the industrialization. People interested in one part of this argument can listen to the, and if you did with detail, where detail basically explains how Britain and Europe have largely offshored their industrial production to China, padded ourselves in the back because we're emitting less carbon. But then we're still consuming even more. We're just manufacturing in China and importing it back much as we drive sheep off the Cumber in fell sites, padded ourselves in the back for not doing any damage to our grass and our fell sites.

23:22And then we just import it from New Zealand and allow the sheep damage New Zealand instead. So with the knowledge that UK energy costs twice that of other countries, why not close the gap, switch to fuse who offer cheaper tariffs than all other major providers. So download the app today, use the referral code politics after signing up for your chance to win a trip, merch bundle. Visit getfuse .com slash politics for terms of conditions and to learn more. Here's a great question, right? David Giffin, how sad that we live in times when time magazine considers Donald Trump to be person of the year.