367. Rory vs JD Vance, recording from Damascus, and Trump’s tariffs

25:14And he argues that this is about stopping, dealing with immigration, the crisis that he talks about, and dealing with fentanyl, the importation of drugs that are causing a real health crisis in the United States. According to Justin Trudeau, and I suspect Justin Trudeau has a greater hold on fact in statistics than Donald Trump ever does. Less than 1 % of the fentanyl that's in America is crossing the Canadian border. And when I said earlier that I don't think Trudeau is doing anything different to what he'd been doing before, because they've talked about investing in this, they've talked about investing in greater border security, et cetera.

25:47The one thing he has added in that sort of vaguely new, they're going to have a fentanyl czar. And this takes me to my second point about Trump. We must never forget that he became a presidential hopeful and possible, horribly, in my view, but this is what happened through a reality TV show. And he's taken the sort of format of the reality TV show, and he's taken it into government. So for week one, we had Shinebound as a new character in the soap. We had Trudeau, who he dragged down to Mar -a -Lago and Elon Musk calls Girl, and they became the characters that they can sort of beat up. And then they, hey, guess what?

26:27They fought back a bit. Hey, they're fighting back. I've got to find a story that says, I've beaten them because everybody is telling me, Mr. President, this is fucking crazy what you're doing. Every economist in the world is saying to me, this is going to damage America just as much as it does Canada and Mexico. So I've got to find a story to unplug it. Just to remind people what these tariffs would have meant if he'd held to them and he may bring them back again. So it's worth getting our heads around it. Yeah, 30 -day reprieve. Last another episode, another episode in 30 days. So 25 % tariffs means that if you are an American car manufacturer and you're importing steel from Canada, let's say this, I don't know, $4 ,000 worth of steel in your car.

27:07Suddenly it's $5 ,000 worth of steel. The other way, Canadians buy American goods, their supermarkets are stacked full of American food and suddenly, instead of paying, I don't know, $40 or $4, you're paying $5, whatever you're buying. So the cost of living goes up 25 % almost overnight for a lot of key products going back and forth across the border. Now, what's interesting is that Mexico and Canada responded so quickly, announcing immediate reciprocal tariffs back. But I then sort of got myself into the mindset and I'd like you'll be honest, I got my mindset thinking, well this is good. You know, you're standing up to a bully.

27:44He says 25 % tariffs, you put 25 % tariffs up. What I wasn't expecting was true to then do things, which even if cosmetic says I'm putting up a fence, I'll Zara, I'm sending soldiers to the border so that it sounds to Trump. So Trump can present it as I got these new things, which I wouldn't have got if I hadn't threatened to put tariffs up. And presumably that's because somebody said to Trudeau, listen, the damage to these 25 % tariffs will do to the Canadian economy as so much that you've got to allow Trump to save face. You've got to give him something to allow him to back down because you can't actually afford to get to a trade ball with the US.

28:21So let's just save the sake of argument. Trudeau is a lame duck because we know that he's going to go, but he's not a populist leader. He's somebody who's dealing in the real world and and dealing with real challenges. So as you say, people say, Jim, this is really dangerous. And he's got the backing of, you know, probably ever is talking tough against Trump. Mark Kahn is talking tough against Trump. Everybody who's thinking about taking over is talking tough about Trump, Canada is kind of coming together. Right. He's dealing with that in the real world. And he's trying to stop the tariffs is fine to give Trump what he wants because all Trump cares about the markets and headlines.

28:54And as long as Trump can go out and have people like Elon Musk say he won and have all this sort of the misinformation pumped out there. Can I just get pushed back for second? Yeah. If what we're doing is thinking about how Europe responds, how the UK responds to Trump doing this again, might it not have been better to wait a few more days before giving Trump what he wants it less Americans feel the pain a bit more. Let people experience because I didn't think you really want to give a bully even a cosmetic when maybe and certainly not give them a cosmetic when within 24 hours. I think Trudeau fold it too quickly.

29:28It would have been better for the world if he'd held his nerve and and stuck to it. The only thing I say about that, I mean, I think that's easy to say. I think that's very, very hard to say if you're in his place where he's an outgoing Prime Minister, this thing comes out and nowhere, bit like the Greenland Denmark thing. It literally comes out and nowhere even though we know that Trump has talked about tariffs being the most beautiful word in the language, everybody assumed that that was going to be to go after people you would identify as America's enemies. China, you know, more in Russia. Instead, he picks on Canada and Mexico.

30:02And I think people might say, oh, well, Mexico, yeah, reputation for drugs, all that, immigration, build a wall, all that. That's been going for years. Canada comes literally out of a clear blue sky. So I kind of have some sympathy for Trudeau in thinking, right, the most important, what's my objective here? My objective is to stop these tariffs happening. How do I do that? I give a little. And when you actually look at what he's given, it's next to nothing. But Trump, you let's Trump go away and Trump goes off and plays another game. I mean, it's tragic that we have to do this, but I'm afraid there's going to be an awful lot of it in the next few four years.

30:36You think we're all going to keep giving concessions to Trump and even if they're cosmetic and allowing him to feel that he's winning by behaving like this? Because I thought actually to push back one last time, Trudeau was in an incredibly powerful political position. The whole of Canada was united against what Trump had done. The Canadian conservative opposition was united, the liberal leadership challenges were united. I think Trudeau absolutely had the space to say, F you, you're not interfering in our internal affairs in this way. We have very professional measures on the borders. This is simply not true.

31:09This personal thing. And no, we're not going to set up new institutions. And by the way, here's 25 % tariffs straight back at you. Yeah. Okay. Could have done that. Big risk, though, is all I'm saying. I mean, I do think he was in a strong position, though. I mean, we were quoting yesterday the figures about the share of American petroleum that goes in through Canada is huge. I mean, so they've got they've got a lot of things that America wants. I just think, did Justin Trudeau want Canada to be the test bed of this ridiculous macho bullying approach? Look, there's two ways looking at it. I'd be fascinated to, you know, we've been in Syria all week.

31:45So I don't know what many Canadians are thinking, but it'd be lovely if if a few Canadians could actually let us know whether they think that Trudeau broadly speaking to the right thing or agree with Roy that he should have actually just held firm and then put both countries through the pain of massive tariffs. My final point on tariffs, Roy, is that the research I read up on before we recorded the podcast on Monday, there's very little research you can find that suggests that tariffs will ever deliver the domestic economic benefit that Trump keeps claim for them. And in fact, there was an analysis by the America's own commerce department that says that they've done at the time that said the tariffs that the Trump did against the law of opposition internally, as you said earlier, get through in his first term that the net impact on the sectors he said he was helping was actually negative.

32:38The reason, of course, it's so popular is that he is pointing out that in the US and in Europe, there used to be good, high -paid jobs in manufacturing. For people who don't necessarily have university degrees, you work in an aluminium factory or you can work in a car factory, you can make a decent living. And the globalization and free trade has meant that those jobs have largely left and gone to places like China. So his idea is that if you put up tariff barriers, it makes it easier for the American car company or steel company to compete with other countries. Now, the problem with it, of course, is that it does make economic sense.

33:16When an economist would say, listen, all you're doing there is you're just subsidizing people and you'd be better off running a competitive economy, getting the income in and almost handing it out and cash to the people who used to work in the steel factory rather than subsidizing all industry in order to deliver decent wages. But where it went wrong, and this is why Trump can get away with it, is that of course with Mrs. Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and others, the economists never did what they said, right? They said, well, you know, we'll close the coal mines, we'll close the steel factories, that will generate more money for the economy and then we'll be able to give that money to the people who lost their jobs.

33:51Of course, those are what we fail to do. What actually happened is more and more in a quality, more and more money going to the rich. So there's a whole bit of trauma, politics, inequality going on, which makes this tariff stuff, even if it doesn't make any economic sense because it would make America poorer, the world poorer. It's completely inefficient. It doesn't lead to innovation, doesn't lead to competition. But there's a reason why it's appealing. And I think we should also watch for it with the far -right parties in Europe. Absolutely, 100%. China is responding. So it's going to put some sort of countermeasures against America.

34:28And the other thing, of course, which we should maybe just reflect on before we go to the break, is that UK, Kierstama, kind of caught a little bit in the middle of this, quite a difficult and challenging time. So Kierstama was in Brussels yesterday, had a meeting at NATO, had a dinner with European Union leaders. And of course, what the right wing in particular trying to do is say, you've got to go with America. And what people, I guess like me, are saying is much more important to repair our trade relations with Europe. And because Trump has become such an unreliable partner, I think it's very, very, very important.

35:03Labour don't get sucked into this idea that they're going to get some kind of special deal. Because what he's shown to the Mexicans and the Canadians, is he doesn't believe in the deals that he signs, that he signs anyway. So Kierstama seems to be trying to hold the line, saying, these are both incredibly important relationships to our economy, to our security, to our future. And I think that is the right place to be. But I want to see more in terms of this reset with Europe, unless of the sort of, you know, maybe the kind of pandering to Trump, that maybe the future ambassador feels he has to do, because that's now a part of his job.

35:37But I think for the strategy of the government as a whole, it's got to be, you know, this is a false paradoxically, this could be the moment in fact, to drive pretty much closer to Europe, because the more unpredictable, unreliable and vicious Trump gets with his trade policies and his treatment of his allies, the more sense it makes to group with your nearest neighbours. So this could be a great moment to rejoin the customs union. Now we're going for a break. When we come back, we're going to be talking about gross and Heathrow airport, and we're going to be talking about what's going on in Germany right now.

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37:23Welcome back to the Rest of Politics with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Anastakambal. And he throw Rory. I was out of his throw yesterday, terminal three. My God, it was busy. It was absolutely rammed. Couldn't even get a cup of tea at pret. It was so busy. So I think the airport is sponsored. Where do you stand on the airport is sponsored? Because on the one hand, you're a green agenda man. On the other hand, you travel a lot. And on the other hand, I think if you can have three hands, you're also somebody who I think agrees that the British economy needs a bit of a kick out of the back side to get growth going.

38:03So how do you react to the growth speech? You've put your finger on all the main arguments there. How many? I mean, so making travel out of Heathrow easier, which a third runway, if built, is supposed to be able to do. Secondly, a question about what that would mean for the environment. And then the thirdly, the question on how this relates to growth. So I don't know whether we're going to be able to get a little bit of an agreeable disagreement going here, Alistair. Okay. So I'm going to come out against the third runway that Heathrow. Right. Are you in favor of the Heathrow third runway? I'm broadly in favor of the third runway.

38:35Provided that, these arguments, which Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmore busy making, that this, what they call sustainable aviation fuel development is a real thing. Now, if you're, if you're wondering about a little bit skeptical, I'll be a little bit skeptical. But I don't honestly see how we can, unless you decide to go down the Kate Rayworth route of saying, son, all this growth stuff is not working. And if we're going to save the climate, we've got to stop traveling full stop. We just got to stop flying so much, etc. And I kind of, there's a part of me that wants to buy that argument. But I think it's quite unrealistic.

39:15I think it's unrealistic because of the way we live and I think it's unrealistic because people's basic kind of need to move and businesses. And also we're talking in a way, you know, a lot of what we told about in the first half was about nationalism and the impact of nationalism. The one place when nationalism might have a nice simple argument is in relation to the environment. If we all just stayed home more, maybe we'd do less damage. But I just don't see how Britain reestablishes itself as a, as a kind of global power without proper connectivity to the rest of the world. And the fact is that we've got, you know, we've got some pretty good airports.

39:56We've got some pretty good transport links, but he throw is a mess. And, you know, you don't have to, I'm quite often, I worry when I am flying, I quite often will check out not just sort of, you know, loot and stanza, all that, but you're burning them in East Midlands and, you know, get a train to go, I actually, when this was done in the discussion when we were in government. And it started, you know, I think the first discussion we had was in the first, so it's been under discussion for 28 years, right? Oh, yeah. And I think it was under discussion before. And then certainly on the Heathrow saying we're going to need to expand and develop.

40:30And then I think Gordon Brown gave the go ahead in, I think it was 2009. And then the coalition unplugged it because David Cameron was going through his green phase at the time. And then of course, he had Boris Johnson saying he was going to sort of, you know, step in front of the Ryan, the runway in front of the first plane, the took off, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then Theresa May, I think Theresa May sort of approved it again. And then the argument, I mean, I think what I'm hearing you say, the argument for it is firstly capacity. Heathrow is running at about 98 % capacity, which is why there are these endless delays and anyone listening just practically, you'd be better going to almost any other airport because they've got themselves in such a muddle.

41:07I mean, I was talking to a pilot about why the planes are delayed and Heathrow. And he said, it's such chaos. Nobody even really knows what the problem is. You know, I was coming to try to join you on an overseas trip recently. We landed and we just sat there and the pilot kept trying to reassure us that something was going to happen. And it was something to do initially with the fact that, you know, particularly gate wasn't available and then something to do with air traffic control, I think before that. And then they couldn't get the stairs and then once the stairs arrived, they couldn't find a bus.

41:35And these are all different parts of the Heathrow system. None of whom seemed to be coordinated. And I did think at the time, look, you could make a hell of a lot of improvement with decent machine learning and AI to actually model which gates you're going to and make sure the bus and the stairs is there on time. I mean, it can't be beyond the widermand to sort this out, but boy are they failing. So there's that point that I think the second thing is your growth point, which is the UK wants to, you know, be a big logistics hub and move pharmaceuticals and electronics around the world. And 74 % of that goes out Heathrow.

42:07I think another argument for you before I come down against you is that there's a lot of infrastructure already there. There's the M25 there, the Elizabeth lines there, Heathrow Express is there. You know, as I understand it, Rui, the plan that seems to be the favorite, the runway itself is going to require massive rebuilding of the M25. So the thing I felt about about racial respeach and to be fair, we have been banging on for some time, set out a growth plan, set it out in big detail, what have you. So this is an issue that had to be kind of grasped. One way or the other, she's decided to go learn that way.

42:45But again, I felt it was very aspirational. We want to do this. The timeframe strikes me as, you know, when when when would this thing actually get planning, get built, have people take off? Exactly. You're beginning to preamp my counter arguments exactly. So you're completely right. So this thing looks like it would take 15 or 20 years to build and would involve new tunnels under the M25 and relocating villages. It's based on a particular idea that air travel in 1520 years time is going to be like it is today, which is this hub and spoke model where we're meant to be competing with Skiphol and Amsterdam and Paris.

43:27And the idea of hub and spoke is that you fly from Edinburgh to London and then you fly from London on or you fly from Geneva to London and then you fly from London to Bayridge or whatever it happens to be, right? Whereas in fact, it may be that the world's going to change over next 15, 20 years. You talked about aviation fuel could be that we act up with electric and hydrogen planes, which might make it much cheaper to fly directly from Geneva to Bayridge as opposed to going Geneva London, London Bayridge might change all regional airlines. So I would have thought given the expense, given the risk, given that it's not going to deliver any growth for poor or Rachel Reeves anytime the next 15 years, I would say invest actually in our existing network, maybe put a second runway in in Gatwick, put more investment into train links and to Manchester and distribute yourself, not betting the house on an airport which already has 15 billion pounds worth of debt in trying to force something through planning a huge expense, which may well, and this is my fear and life, turn out to be yet another HS2.

44:35Well, that speaks to the question, what is it about Britain that these big, big, big infrastructure projects appear to be so difficult? I mean, the last, I guess the last really big thing that we pulled off and I think pulled off well was probably the Olympics, London 2012. Crossrail 2 was very impressive. Crossrail is good, crossrail is good yet, but why it takes so long is I guess is down in part to Nimbus and to what Keir Starrow has been talking a lot about this whole thing about planning? In other words, they want to be able to make strategic decisions about the British economy and the infrastructure the British economy needs without all the kind of protest.

45:20Now, that's a difficult place for a progressive government to be. Exactly, because the problem isn't really Nimbus. I mean, the number of people who live in Oxbridge right next to Heathrow is pretty limited. The reason that in the end, it has been blocked consistently is that building it is completely at odds with the government's carbon targets. So a lot of the regulations and the rules come out of the fact that the government sets a strategic vision. Now, we're going to go carbon neutral by 2040 or 2050 or whatever it happens to be and everything else then follows from that and then we'll have air quality targets, right, which will be blown out of the water if Heathrow's built that.

45:56Unless this sustainable aviation fuel thing is real. So I would have liked to have seen a PowerPoint presentation by Ed Miliband alongside Rachel Reeves saying, this is why we're confident that this can be done in a sustainable way. I also, sorry, on a communications point, I think one of the problems with this in HS2 is the governments are always want to do one big dramatic thing called a third runway or HS2. And actually, what's much better than HS2 would have been investing in a leads mattress to line improving the bus service and Birmingham and Liverpool, dueling the A66 sorting out regional road networks, but just doesn't sound as dramatic as one big $100 billion contract.

46:37Ditto, isn't there a communications point? Let's say I'm right that actually a smarter, less risky thing to do for British economy would be to put a little bit of investment to Gatwick, some into Manchester, put a bit into Luton, improve some train lines. Am I right in saying part of the problem is that somebody in comms would say, but that's not sexy enough, that's not exciting enough? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I wouldn't. I actually think there's at the moment, you can generate quite a lot of, I mean, maybe excitement's the wrong word, but I think there is a yearning in the country for a sense of a kind of long -term, visual -long -term plan, where I do think you might have a point in relation to this, is it did slightly feel that it came out of nowhere?

47:21And if you go back, you remember when we talked endlessly on the podcast before the relation about the 28 billion pound that the green program was going to cost, and that slowly, slowly, slowly slowly got parked. And if you wind that back, the claim at the time was that Rachel Reeves wanted something really big to put into her conference speech at the time, and hey, pressed though, 28 billion, and then they took a long time to have to unravel that. And whether in this, we've been pushing, lots of you've been pushing for some big signals of growth ahead, and Heathrow is one of those, as you say, is not going to deliver growth for some time to come, but it's about a message about growth.

48:01But listen, there were other bits, the Donkastor Sheffield Airport thing was in there, this thing about linking up Oxford and Cambridge better was in there. So there was other stuff in there, the railroad projects, although as you keep saying, road projects, they keep being re -allowed, this is one of the most irritating things of non -infrastructure Britain. But I'm broadly in favour, because I'm broadly in favour of government doing big things are getting on with them. But I know that my eco -credentials are threatened by that. That is why I keep saying I want to see the evidence that this sustainable aviation fuel is a real thing, and that we can continue to fly around the world without damaging the planet that much, and I'm not 100 % convinced of that bit.

48:44So this is our final philosophical discrepancy. I'm in favour of governments doing lots of small, cautious, meaningful things. Right. Okay. Now listen, on to Germany, which you mentioned, and which is a huge story, let me try to play to you, because you understand Germany 99 times better than me, my sense of what happened in a mini -explainer, and tell me if I've missed the trick, and then maybe just tell us about the details and how it works. So my understanding is basically three things happened. Firstly, the CDU, the kind of right wing, the German of Britain's conservative party, had an idea in the back of its head that it wanted to close German borders, turn away as silent seat, because partly because there'd been a massive rise in the number of asylum seekers in Germany.

49:27350 ,000 asylum seekers last year, 250 ,000. Part two, which is where it began to get very weird, is that mounts, who is their leader, suddenly announced, a five -point plan, and this is quite Trumpian, right. The sudden announcement almost out of nowhere with almost no consultation of a plan, and the problem with a plan, is that it said that it was going to have a permanent border, Germany'd have a permanent border, which basically means leaving Schengen, and it was going to turn everybody away at the border, which basically means breaking European union law. So suddenly they went from a reasonable aspiration of being tougher on immigration to doing something which was so radical and potentially illegal, it blows the whole thing up.

50:13And then the third stage was he decided to put it to a symbolic vote, because he's not the government, right. So in charge, it's like a back bench motion, I guess, in the House of Commons. Put it to symbolic vote, and he then suddenly said, for the first time, that he didn't care who voted for it. Now this is big problems, because traditionally he and the right wing and Germany have said they won't work with the AFD, which is this far right fascist party. And suddenly the AFD said, well, hooray hooray, we will vote for it. At which point Matt thought he could deal with that, saying, well, we want all of this, but the AFD are terrible people and we don't like them.

50:50And the AFD said, well, we don't care about you insulting us, we will vote for this. So they voted for it. And it passed on Wednesday with the CDU and the AFD. And the AFD now gets to say, if you want to get anything done, you've got to work with us, because the Greens and the SD who are going to form a coalition with the CDU are never going to vote for this kind of stuff. And your only hope is us, the AFD. In other words, in a week of entire madness, Mets has blown up his party, lost his intellectual credibility and given a massive gift to the German far right just for the election. Well, I think that was a reasonable explanation of what's gone on.

51:31Whether it helps those of our listeners who don't follow German policies at all, fully to understand it, I don't know, they can let us know. But the facts you've definitely got in there. So essentially, where I think this has been incredibly badly handled by him Mets is the fact that he basically wanted this election to be about the economy. And he had a plan for the economy. The economy is stagnating, shouts and the ample coalition, you know, with the Greens and the free Democrats has been hopeless. And he was sailing almost Keir Stammer style to a big well well -air in the polls. And it feels like he's gone from carrying the big virus to suddenly say sod this for a game of soldiers.

52:21I want it to be more exciting. And the thing is, I think the thing that may be triggered the change. I don't know because I haven't spoken to him, but I think the thing that triggered the change was the fact that there was this awful murder, including of a two -year -old child, by what became described in most of the media as a deranged asylum seeker, which I think they mean was an asylum seeker who had a complete meltdown and went on a killing spree, including this two -year -old child. Two -year -old child of Moroccan ethnicity wasn't it? Yeah. It's the tragic and it was an Afghan who killed him.

52:53Yeah. Horrible. Horrible story. And obviously, it wasn't sort of politicized immediately in the way that say the sound support killings were, but it was obviously a very big deal in Germany. And I think that may be the moment that Mets thought we've got to get on top of this. The trouble with that, I said in introduction about this word, brand -mourne, firewall, is that the AFD have wanted this to be an immigration election. And they've been struggling really to get it right up to the top of the agenda in the way that they wanted. Mets has absolutely put it there. The first vote that you mentioned on Wednesday was a non -binding motion.

53:31It didn't even change anything. But what it led to was him winning the vote, but only because the AFD supported him. And then you had, you know, we talked Dr Angela Merkel on the podcast a few weeks ago. And she said she was staying right out of politics. Now we know that she and Mets didn't get on terribly well when they were, you know, when she was in power. But they're from the same party, very senior figures from the same party. So she's like, I don't know, Boris Johnson in relation to Kenmie Badenock and British terms. Yeah, I really don't think Angela Merkel would like being compared to Boris Johnson on any level, but she was lead with the CDU.

54:08He's lead with the CDU. Where they're different is that he's to the right of her. And also he's somebody who she won a lot of support from social democrats. The reason that that shalt's won last time is essentially he hoovered back a lot of people who'd voted CDU having essentially been social democrats. Now Mets is not one any of those back in what he's done in recent days. Now I don't think anybody comes out of this terribly well though because of course shalt's and delinquent the left wing party in the greens. The overall message that they're putting out in being so vehement against what Mets has done is not that concerned about immigration.

54:49Now that may be fair or unfair, but that's the kind of that's what they've got to be careful with. And of course what the AFD is saying is look we're at 20 % in the polls. We've shown that we can get things done in in parliament. Are you seriously saying if we become a substantial player within parliament that none of you should ever talk to us? That's what the brand of Mao exists for. And right since the the the new German constitution was devised the right the far right have never been the deciding factor in a vote. Now Mets got very stung by the attack from Merkel. Merkel said this was wrong.

55:28He shouldn't have done it. So she stepped out of her kind of self -imposed political retirement to speak out. And he basically hit back by saying well you know if you hadn't have sort of lost the plot in relation to refugee and asylum politics we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. I paraphrase and I exaggerate for effect. Coming just coming quickly on this. The analogy I guess in British politics is how do the conservatives deal with Farage and Brexit and Elon Musk talking up Tommy Robinson. Now it looked two weeks ago so the CDU was quite a good model of how you do this which is a right -wing party comes up with a clear policy on controlling immigration which is well thought through not illegal, not in conferension of international laws doesn't drive them outside the EU.

56:18Runs powerfully competence, control of borders and wins. What's happened now is I think that it feels like Mets has been thrown off balance by Trump by Elon Musk saying the AFD is the future of Germany by the way that people are suddenly talking about immigration. And he suddenly feels in the way that I guess Robert Generick the British Shatter Justice Secretary fell a few weeks ago that he needs to get out there and sound more radical than he was before. Hence five point plan pulled out of his back pocket no consultation. We're going to basically drop out of shangun, we're going to break EU law thinking that by doing so he can outmaneuver the far right.

56:56Whereas in facts of course the lesson is the obvious one. This is the last thing he wants to do because as you just explained it massively benefits the far right. I do think I hate to say it but I think it's true that I think that this does help the far right. He's basically he's been dancing to their tune. He's given very good arguments as to as the why he felt he had to do it in terms you know these killings and I think it's 10 % of those who should be returned have been returned. I mean that's a pretty difficult figure to deal with. However I distinct to do this this was not his election strategy.

57:32I don't believe that for one minute. So he has allowed other events and other political forces to dictate a change in strategy which I think has blown up in his face. It's very hard to see how this helps him unless it's simply about showing that he's tougher than the social democrats and the Greens on immigration but I think people probably thought that anyway. So now I look I suspect he's still going to win but you know the numbers he said he's on about 30 % the FD on about 20 % shorts is sort of limping along behind. Shorts is still fighting like you think he can win it. He made the point by the way.

58:08Shorts you said about you know coming out of Schengen and breaking European law. Shorts made the point that the only other European leader who has done that is Victor Orban who has actually sort of come out and have validly sort of stood out against European law and European institutions. So it's been an absolute meh the whole week in reading German measures being extraordinary and even the title of the bill ruling the influx limitation law is this is the law that he brought forward. So it was basically saying it's about the numbers and it was honestly for a German Bundestag debate the moderator had to stand up at one point and say will people please stop whistling because you're not meant to whistle in the German parliament.

58:52It was pretty for their standards and we were used to sort of you know people cheering lumps off each other but it was a very bad tempered debate and then the other thing there was a guy called Albrecht Weinberg who was it'd been quite a big figure in the in the Auschwitz commemorations and he's a 99 year old Holocaust survivor who has the order of merit and he returned it he gave it back to the German state said that he couldn't possibly keep this if this is the Germany that we become etc. And then you had some pretty heavy figures within the CDU resigned. So this is mouse is busy the there isn't two people arguing oh well you know this shows that we're tough on immigration this is the message we want but I don't I don't really believe that I don't really believe that they're welcome this.

59:40I think that the message for right wing parties in Europe or indeed any party of the centre running in Europe is absolutely you need to be very very serious about immigration it's yeah top of the agenda for so many voters that's clearly an incredible amount that's wrong safe third party agreements which is what the European Union's been talking about for a long time obviously part of that story it's also probably true the Netherlands is right that you need to set targets and work out what kind of population size you want but the answer is a measured thought full serious set of small meaningful changes that reduce the number of people coming to the country.

1:00:21Are you back to small changes? Yeah what you don't want to do is be tempted into Trump land and Trump land is all about I'm going to suddenly announce something that is completely illegal totally impossible to implement and then just try to force my way through because if you do that you just power the far right. But just on the polling on this so 66 % of Germans in favour of permanent controls on the borders that's a complete reversal of what they've been used to what we thought they wanted what they thought they liked and that includes 56 % of supporters of the social democrats so that's a that's a really big shift and I think you probably do have to relate it back to to Merkel's you know of your Schaffen -Dass we will we'll get it done when they took in so many from Syria and what the AFD have done just as Farage is very effectively criticised things like Southport in in our country is weaponise it and and turn that political issue into something that that benefits them.

1:01:15I just want to finish on this from me and then back to you but it seems to me the benefit to them is they can go into the election saying we've just learnt through all this stuff that none of the other mainstream parties are going to support Mets's very extreme position on immigration the only people who will harass the AFD and therefore if you really want this extreme position on immigration it's not enough to vote for Mets you've got to vote for the AFD because we're the only people that are going to make this possible for you. Yeah yeah it was interesting that Shalts I saw was at checkers with Kierstama and I suspect there was quite a lot of interesting politics went into that because of course you know they are essentially in the campaign now they did one of those very nice films of Shalts wandering around the gardens at checkers Shalts putting out nice statements and and what have you he's still he's still in their fighting I think Mets will win I'm reading this book about Mets at the moment it's it's got a very good title it's called their Unfermite Barra which it sort of means the unavoidable which is not the he's still so you know the man for the moment or not quite inevitable more that you you simply just you'd like to avoid him but you can't there's nothing else is he's finally he's gone through decade after decade he went I had a politics out of politics back in and it looks like he's going to get there it's you can't do anything about it he's the kind of grandchaps of German politics isn't he imagine grandchaps coming back in just hanging in there for 30 years and finally getting there is that right oh no he's not no no no no I think he's I think he's more serious than that there's a very interesting but the most interesting thing in the book though and this this this relates to something that I read this morning is there's a I hadn't really realized but there's a real sense of him having a real problem with women women in relation to colleagues we've talked about Merkel women in relation to voters in his relationship with them back in the day he voted against the idea that rape and marriage could ever be a criminal offense he says he's changed his mind on that but the reason I say that is one because he's a really interesting part of the book he's written by somebody called Sarah Seavort but there's an interesting thing in one of the newspapers they were Mets his wife has given an interview so then they're now at that stage Rory have got to get the wife out to say he's not what you think he is he's really soft and gentle and tuddly and honestly if you make him chance and you'll absolutely love him so there we are February 23rd is the German election I'm going to Germany shortly before that so it's going to be very very interesting but this this last week felt a bit quite unjerman in the way that it was suddenly flared up and became this really difficult a massive protest by the way against Mets people really taking to the streets to say you cannot you cannot get rid of this this firewall with the hard right but then the AFD Alice Vidal saying well what you're going to do you got lots of people to vote for us you're saying that non people very very big stuff thank you all see you soon see you soon bye bye