390. Question Time: India’s moment, Qatargate, and do young brits want a dictator?

28:02So I saw a map and it was explaining just how many of these different armed groups and resistance groups are in operation. This worked out that in terms of full control of the country, the hunter has got about a fifth of it. So we say military hunter and we imagine total control, but actually they don't. And if you imagine then trying to operate in a disaster zone and imagine being one of these now weakened international agencies trying to operate in support of that, it is pretty unimaginable what is happening there right now and in terms of disease, in terms of the rebuilding that's going to have to be done.

28:45And I just worry that we don't have the international responses now that we'll get the place back on its feet. As the questioner implied, we've got these actions from China, so that's Tilly's point. But again, in a China isn't involved because of refactions in the Chinese security intelligence services, which are funding some of these armed groups. China's also trying to prop up the regime because they think that they want some stability. China was so struggling to work out what it wants to do as a superpower because it doesn't want to get trapped in another Afghanistan or Iraq and it's always criticized the US for overextending and trying to do things it can't do.

29:23Modi's India is now sending a response, but again, India is a bit confused about what exactly its policy is and returns the general question of Indian foreign policy. What does this really mean? What are they really going to force Rohingya refugees back across the border? That's Mohammed Yunus' government, the new government in Bangladesh. And missing in all of this is of course the UN. And that's where you're completely right. I was just in Geneva meeting a quite a senior UN official who was talking me through just what the USAID cuts mean to the United Nations and it's unbelievable. I mean, some of these agencies were getting 50 % of their flexible funding from the US government.

30:09And the United Nations does not begin to know what to do because it's not just that Trump is withdrawing from critical UN agencies, but the US provided 22 % of the funding for the United Nations. That will be removed 50 % for a lot of key agencies. China is just a little bit high. China is about to become by a large margin the major funder of the UN because people like Britain are also dropping their funding. So when China is the dominant funder of the UN, what does that mean for the whole culture of the UN compared to a US UK funded UN? And none of these agencies know what to do because they've all got staff, pensions, allowances.

30:49And the US was already in a riz even under the Biden administration. It was about a billion dollars in a riz which is definitely not going to be paid by new units. So the UN is collapsing financially. These agencies are struggling to keep their head above water. And there's just no leadership. The Secretary General doesn't seem to have a vision. He seems to become a lame duck. He's going to be replaced in, I guess, about 18 months time. And nobody has any sense of this exactly where the UN should have mattered me, Anne -Maritz. No, where do we see? Yeah. Well, I think the UN will be part of the relief operation.

31:21We'll be part of the humanitarian effort. We talked to Tom Fletcher about that. But I think you're right. But the UN is being weakened deliberately by some of its biggest powers. And that is a problem. And just finally, before we go to Breitrory, I was reading on the Australian version of the conversation, a really alarming piece by people who were working at the Benet Institute on the effect of the USAID cuts on the HIV issue. And they have modeled this. And they are predicting that the cuts will lead directly to more than 10 million more HIV infections by the end of this decade and 3 million extra deaths.

32:03Now, Elon Musk goes around the place saying that Doge and all this sort of cutting, USAID was just a corrupt organization, blah, blah, blah. And I honestly can't for the life of me understand my George W. Bush doesn't say anything about this. This was his great legacy. The US President's Emergency Plan for Adriatic Bepfar was his great legacy. And it's because it's being scrapped by Musk and Trump, 3 million extra deaths from HIV -8. And let's take a break and then we'll come back and talk about two of your great passions, Cumbria and Qatar.

32:48Hi there. This is Anthony Scaramucci from the RESTS Poultex US. Cadi Kay and I have just recorded an episode live from the aftermath of Trump's tariff liberation day as the markets tumble across the world. It sort of does feel like liquidation day more than liberation day. But I've been scrambling since 4 a .m. this morning on my day job trying to figure out how not to lose my and my clients' money. Here's a clip from today's show as we analyze what the hell is going on. Look, I think what we are seeing is the consequence of 30 years, 40 years of Donald Trump's ideological view that any kind of trade deficit that America runs with any other country is a ripoff for America.

33:35Donald Trump needs to prove that he is right when everyone says he's wrong. What's in a life and world from the sunny position of a financial trader? I've got some things. I'm just happy to keep my hair at this point and it's open. It'll stay on top of my head. Here are three things I'd like people to consider. Number one, the legendary investor Warren Buffett in his mid -90s now. Liquidated his portfolio about six months ago. He raised over $350 billion of cash. And he said that if we are to go into and impose these tariffs, that this would be a declaration of war. The last time the United States did something this stupid, we raised tariffs like this, we crippled the entire world's trading system.

34:22And we had a deep recession turn into a global depression and it led to the systemic rise of fascism. So we're going to talk a little bit about the Orban nature of this in a second. If you want to hear the full episode, just search the rest is politics, US, wherever you get your podcasts.

34:43This isn't ad from BetterHelp. At the moment, we're getting advice from everywhere. You just have to go and tick tock. Could be Alice's Co plunge's. Could be my attempts to meditate or the digital detox that I'm doing in Colombia. But of course, one of the things that we know is that it can be incredibly valuable to talk to another human being, somebody who's actually been trained as a therapist to work through these ideas calmly, objectively and professionally. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a very diverse variety of expertise.

35:19They've got over 5 ,000 therapists in the UK. They've helped more than 5 million people globally and you can join a session literally at the click of a button, change therapists anytime. So it's obviously not about fixing you, but it's about hearing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time. So talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % of their first month at BetterHelp .com slash rest politics. That's better H -E -L -P .com slash rest politics.

35:51Now, Rory, we're talking to about Cumbria. The reason for that is that Pete has sent us a question about a debate that's been going on in Cumbria, a climate assembly to which you contributed a video. And Pete's question was this, you said that democracy doesn't work and the idea that an MP goes to Parliament to represent their constituencies out of date. So what is the alternative? To how do MPs ensure that young people's opinions are heard? Please give an example of where this has worked is the plan that these might be responded to on the podcast, etc, etc, etc. So I guess what Pete's wanting is your alternative forms of representation, Rory.

36:29Tell us about the climate assembly first. Well, yeah. So I think that's the first thing. This is Cumbria trying to take the initiative and Cumbria has been the lead in this. I mean, obviously it's the most as far as the populated place in England. It's right at the sharp edge of questions about land, where a winter binds located, how do small farm survive? It's got a lot of national parks. People are really trying to think about everything from carbon emissions to land used to biodiversity. And it's placed that attracts a lot of people are interested. So this assembly's met to try to talk this through.

37:05And I guess my answer is that I increasingly think that we need to reconsider democracy. So I'm going to be outrageous to you here for a second. I'll start with the threat back to you. I think that our system of democracy, which is this kind of representative system where you send off people like you or me or Rachel Reeves or Kemi -Badenock off to Parliament to speak on behalf of their constituents feels increasingly strange. And you can feel this all the time when you talk to people. They're like, well, you know, I've heard this person, they don't really represent me. What do they mean by that?

37:42What they mean is this person is often not saying anything they believe in. They find it very difficult to relate to this person. And we understand society. I mean, how am I supposed to represent people with completely different identity to me people say, you know, or you've never lived on benefits. How can you represent me or you're not from an IRFG background? You're not a woman? And all these are completely right. You know, how am I supposed to represent all this? So I'm increasingly excited by an alternative model, which is the model of Citizens' Assembly. And I'm not sure it fixes everything, but the Citizens' Assembly as we've discussed before.

38:17Like a jury, it's the totally separate system. It works on sortition. So you randomly select people and then you bring them together for a period of time to discuss policy issues. And it's usually quite well organized. So there'll be experts that can be brought in to talk about things. And they discuss together. The great thing about it is it's not party political and it's ordinary people. And it's not the question of one person representing others. It's 300 people who are very, very democratically diverse. Discussing things. And in my experience, it doesn't matter whether you're talking about climate discussions in Cumbria or whether you're talking about bicycle lanes in London or whether you're talking about abortion in Ireland.

38:57Actually, you end up with a much more thoughtful, nonpartisan discussion. An MPs hate it. They say parliament is Citizens' Assembly. They're pretty anti -democratic. They're pretty terrified about the idea of ordinary people having a view. They somehow think they're much more qualified. And of course, I've actually been spending a bit of time in Switzerland recently, which takes all this stuff to whole different levels of endless referendums, extraordinary Canton -based decision -making. I've got an instinct, which I can't quite prove yet. But that if Britain went down more of a sort of Swiss Citizens' Assembly devolved model, it would end up in a much, much happier place than trying to cling on to the old style of elite representation.

39:45There we are. Yeah. I've been disappointed that there hasn't been more, given that this is a government that's talked about change changing our politics. Now, they're going out to the Reddigy peers. I'm all in favor of that. More devolution, all in favor of that. But I sort of feel that, and this goes back to the discussion we had about people's attitudes to politics more generally, I sort of feel the system is creaking and that the respect for it is not there in the same way that it was. And the only way you're going to maybe rebuild that is to recreate a new sort of system in which people feel much more directly involved in its creation.

40:24Now, you will always have to have somebody leading the country, a prime minister type figure. You will always have to have legislative decision making bodies who have final say, final votes or situations. But I completely agree with you. And also, if you look at the, we've talked about the assisted dying debate. And I saw a survey the other day of public opinion, that's the one piece of legislation. That and the Winter Fuel Payment, the one are the two things of this parliament so far that have really got through to people. This is happening in this parliament. And yet you look at what's happening at the moment.

40:56I've not followed every sort of twist in every turn, but there's the bill, private members bill, it gets past the government sort of says it's going to give it a fair wind, then goes into committee. And now there's always talk about whether actually it's going to be what people thought it was and the scale of the change attached to it. And I just wonder if we did on some of these big social and moral issues in particular, if we took them out of Westminster, built that citizen's assembly and then at some stage brought them back. You know, you keep talking about the abortion issue in Ireland. I mean, it's incredible what happened with that.

41:28That was driven by people. Here's an idea that an Australian academic, I'm always deferring to Australian now because they're the source of all wisdom called Nicholas Groen's come up with. So he says that what we could do in Britain is you could have a third chamber, which was the Citizens Assembly. So it has come to the Citizens Assembly. And the Citizens Assembly would have the right to refer legislation back. It's not that they would make the final decision. The final decision would still be made by the House Department, but they would have the right if the Citizens Assembly decided that something very bizarre had happened.

42:04They could bounce it back again for a second look. And that could be a very good way of giving them prominence, getting the media into cover them, getting the debates aired properly and triggering it back into Parliament for the final decision. Finally on Switzerland, Switzerland is amazing. And we should, I think at some point, do something on Switzerland. We've talked about it in the past. The trust in government in Switzerland is something like more than twice the OECD average. This very, very radically decentralized, very citizens involved model does seem to have a kind of robustness and a vigor that we're lacking.

42:43And Switzerland, which used to be a kind of outlier because it is so strange, you know, French population, German population, Italian population, Roman population, none of whom often speak each other's language. It's already sort of struck by the fact that I go from French speaking Switzerland to German speaking Switzerland and try to speak in France, and I don't get it's French, I don't get it anywhere. That it sort of bucks the trend of nation states, and yet somehow feels like one of the most stable, peaceful, successful, prosperous, trust -based systems. Are you saying that the wealth and prosperity may in part be a consequence of the politics or the politics is a consequence of the wealth and the prosperity?

43:23Well, you wouldn't have bass on it, would you? I mean, if you look at it, it doesn't have many natural resources. A lot of mountains and not a lot of fertile farmland there. So if you'd been betting 700 years ago in which country was going to end up rich and which was going to end up poor, you'd bet that Switzerland would be pretty poor in places like France and Britain would be really rich. They also have a very, very good relationship and a very good economic partnership with the European Union, which could be applied as a model for other countries that might need to boost economic growth through greater trade flow with their closest and biggest market.

44:00I've got to say, Roy, when we were going on there about our love for citizens and assemblies, Peter Kyle popped into my head. He'd be sitting there singing his favourite wet, wet songs. As you know, I'm never going to get over calling me wet. But just to say that for members and non -members, we did a very interesting session for members with Peter Kyle, specifically taking your questions on artificial intelligence for the big part of his brief. So if you want to become a member and take part in those sorts of episodes on the back of our interviews, then it'd be great to have you. Now, Roy, I said we're going to do your other great love, guitar.

44:36Yeah, well, okay, here's a question from Susie. Please discuss Therese, a Vionitan, Ulrich and Eli Feldstein Netanyahu's top advisors. This is really, really interesting. And I mean, Netanyahu, we talk a lot about Netanyahu. He's had a very, very busy few days with some of his personal and political and legal problems coming back to cause him more difficulty. So these two guys, senior advisors to Netanyahu, and they have been arrested as suspects in an investigation about their relationship with Qatar, and including the leaking and selling of state secrets, I guess is how you would put it. Netanyahu, meanwhile, had been attending a separate co -hearing related to his corruption trial and that we've talked about before.

45:37And he's now being questioned. They say not as a suspect, but as somebody who may have knowledge of this situation. But it's been made clear that he could, at some point, become a suspect. And of course, the reason why this is so sort of difficult is because there's been this whole thing going on about how his difficult relations with people in the intelligence services with the Attorney General, and him, basically, we talked about this in relation to Le Pen on the main podcast and Trump in his sort of convicted felonness about the stent, to which they are making a claim that this is as it were political.

46:17But the investigation essentially is that these two guys are accused of damaging national security by leaking documents, and also by feeding pro -Katar stories to the Israeli media via an international PR firm. Now, I don't know anything more than what I've read, but it does feel this, like it's, you know, you're talking about people that are very, very senior in Netanyahu's team. And the police are also now somewhat a journalist for testimony, and he is now currently being questioned under caution. It is interesting, isn't it? Because we keep coming back to judges conducting investigations. So that's been very central in Israeli politics.

47:00We infute a very interesting infu on leading Ehud Ohmat, whose career, and indeed his attempt to get a Palestinian peace process came tumbling down because he was accused of corruption and investigating and actually convicted. And we talked about it with Mary Le Pen. It's a sort of interesting thing that doesn't happen so much in British politics. I mean, we've had these investigations and convictions of back bench MPs and junior ministers. But we haven't had this attempt to take on the leaders of major parties. And I think it's probably quite a good thing for the stability of the British system.

47:35Nicholas Sturgeon recently was a husband, no, no facing charges, but it is a very good example of the difference. So the Nicholas Sturgeon situation. So you have those extraordinary pictures of the police tents going up around her house and her garden and images of things being dug up and what have you. But mostly politics and media allowed that to take its course. So when she came out and said she's been told the police were taking no further action, she was able to say that and broadly, not by everybody, because you've got the whole stuff going in social media, but broadly that was accepted, even though her husband is now facing these judges.

48:16Whereas Netanyahu has come out very, very clearly through this whole process and said the whole thing is a political witch hunt. So what you're seeing, and we're seeing it now in France, as you say, we've definitely seen it in America, we're seeing it in different countries around Europe, where the legal institutions are themselves being constantly undermined so that there were no longer holes that the authority and the power of the ones did. And that's why in a way, I know you were very keen often on the idea of prosecuting Boris Johnson for various penalties. Despite the fact, I really despised that guy and thought he was a real russer.

48:54I think it's better that he's elected out, humiliated as not being a credible politician, a political leader, and that the risk is that if you actually go after these people in the courts, you turn them unnecessarily into martyrs. Let's say that is the COVID inquiry meanders on. Let's say if that COVID inquiry does produce evidence of what you and I would identify as straightforward corruption and it involves the politician. I think we've got to be careful not to say that all politicians have immunity. No, no, I know they definitely shouldn't have immunity. And I think if it's real big significant corruption, of course, they should be put in jail, but you need to make absolutely clear that the judges have really done their work and it can really stand up on the court of public opinion and you can really see the dodgy brown envelope going into the poor of the politician.

49:42And then I don't think anybody minds. I think where the problem is, is this sort of very, very ambiguous sense and the delight that opposition politicians take. And so you've really got to say the judges are getting on with it, the police are getting on with it, not having to do this. Here's a German question for you. Jason, what is going on in the coalition negotiations and how much role does immigration play in this? And let me give you my very basic sense of it and then I'd love your feedback on it. So my basic sense is that there's a real need to get a coalition agreement together and to get the German government off the ground.

50:18And in order to do that, the centre -right, the centre -left need to come together. And one of the things that is holding them apart from each other is this question of immigration and it seems to be a distance as though they're both taking completely unrealistic positions on both sides. No doubt, immigration really matters. But the right and even the asylum agency seems to be taking the mad position that they're just going to refuse asylum, refuse people at the border. And this is completely contrary to the constitution, completely contrary to international law, completely contrary to the way that German, well, the entire German and European legal system works.

50:56So that's a non -starter. And on the other hand, you've got the SDP basically saying, well, immigration is not really an issue. Let's just focus on welfare and we're not going to do anything at all. And none of them are coming up with what they need, which is a sensible program which controls immigration but does so in a way that's consistent with German law and the EU, which for my money, or at least for my Sunday, for my great hero and friend Geryl Knals's money, means a safe third country movement, working out deals with other countries to make sure that you can deal with the flood of increasing numbers of young men crossing Mediterranean and coming in and legal roots.

51:35The Germans seem reasonably happy. I'm talking about the politicians here about the pace of these coalition negotiations. You know, we said, and this maybe is just a difference in our culture. I felt right at the start, particularly, and to be fair to Merz, he was going to do this thing about the debt break and changing the fiscal rules. And even without being Chancellor, he might be able to secure that by building the support for the argument and he got it through. But I worry that these coalition negotiations, they're trying to dot the I's and cross the T's at a time when actually getting the big agreement on the big themes, I think, is far, far more important.

52:14Very interesting. The guy who's leading the social democrat side of the thing, this guy, Mars Kingbihle, he was, he didn't hinder you this week. I don't know how I'm going to sort of explain this, but you know the thing about in French too and in German, do and see. It's always amazing. I'm always amazed with these discussions about when you get to the point and when you know that you can, you can use them more in formal, familiar, friendly version of you when you go from voodoo to or z to do. And he did this big interview, which was meant to be about, you know, where they were falling apart and where they weren't and where they were getting together.

52:52But the biggest, this was I thought quite clever. The big story that came out of it was that he and Merz were now calling each other do. And this was sort of taken as this was taken as it is all coming together. I think they are getting there. Merz has sort of set himself a kind of unofficial deadline of Easter. But I look, I guess what you were saying is that when you fought campaigns on such divergent lines, it's then hard to bring them together in an agreement that you think is going to sustain political support for the duration of a parliamentary term. And we need it for Ukraine, we need it for Europe, and we need it to provide an answer to the FD, who as I say is rising in the polls.

53:31So if they keep fafing around too long, the risk is a risk that the FD present themselves as the only people with a credible answer to immigration. I said you're in the main focus that I've been with some French ministers last week. And I've got to say they were really impressed by the way Merz is handling himself. I think because of that big, big move that he made on the debt break, but also some of the positions that he's been sticking out in relation to foreign policy. I think there's a sense that the Franco -German relationship can come together pretty well. I think it's fair to say Macron in the shaltz was not not the finest partnership of the European motor.

54:07Final question going to come to you. And just before I get into the final question, a bit of plug and praise for Tantman, you, who if people want to read about Myanmar and Burma that we discussed in the earlier part of his river of loss foot steps, this is a really, really great history. He's the grandson of Utant, and has also been thinking very hard about where the UN could go. But final question brings us to something which is I think more universal. Martin Macdonough, why don't politicians ever explain why they're not going to do something? For example, Alistair, taxing the rich. I think that's a very, very interesting question.

54:45Let me just say is the premise correct? So for example, at the moment, have we really heard Kierstharmer and Rachel Reeves explain why they're not going to look at rejoining the single market or the customs union? Have we heard them explain why they're not? They do keep ruling things out. They don't think it keeps them. We're not going to raise taxes. If I do, they explain it. Do they give a reason? I think it's a very, very interesting question that I think that I guess what it's saying is that when politicians are speaking, they're trying, other than when they're talking about their opponents, they're trying to set out a positive agenda for change and the positive agenda means we are changing something to do this.

55:27But I think I listen Martin, it's great because I tell you what, if you were the West -Treeting as the Health Secretary, actually making a big speech explaining why you will never undo the fundamental principle of the National Health Service could be quite powerful. I actually would like to hear, here's a challenge to the Labour government. I would like to hear a well thought through explanation as to why it isn't sensible in their view even to think about rejoining the customs union. So yeah, interesting, very good question. What's your view? And when you push them on it, we said we have sort of tried Peter Carmels on it.

56:04They basically try to, it's all a distraction. We just got to get on with practical things. Nobody wants to hear this, but the real reason, of course, they're not doing it. I think is that Morgan McSweeney and others are still obsessed with the Red Wall and worried about upsetting people who've hated for Brexit and are worried about reform. Let me give another one. And this may be overtaken by events because we're sort of all sitting around waiting for Trump to do is the latest episode of his Realichi TV show, which is Global Tareft Day. But another one you could do, my may for an interesting speech, is explaining why you don't think it's a good idea to go after Donald Trump in the way that Mark Carney has.

56:44I think is it Martin the question? I think he's onto something here. Risky though, isn't it? I mean, if you were the Comster Act and Kirstama said to you, I'm going to make a speech about why I'm not going after Donald Trump rather than just not going after him. Wouldn't you be worried that it would draw a little bit too much attention from people to the fact that Britain is facing these steel -analy -million tariffs from the US and is refusing to respond and is just accepting them and not hitting back? Let me give you the outlines. So you start off, bless it. You're doing in, you're doing down in street, maybe at the top of the staircase, maybe you walked down the staircase and do it on the film.

57:19And I know, you know, you've all seen the Hugh Grant, the Hugh Grant film where he decides to take on the American president. And you stand there and you say, I know there's a part of all of us that I love to see me really lay one on Donald Trump. And yeah, that'd get a lot of publicity. But let's just think this through from first principles. Let me set out what the first principles of my foreign policy are. I think you get more interest than if he just did a sort of speech to chat about UK foreign policy, maybe. Very good. That's a very good question. I'm very, really enjoyed that. That's my question of the week because he's going to get me thinking all week.

57:53Very good. Well, thank you. Thank you all who've come. Thank you for those who've signed up. We've had a big increase in members since we started doing more and more members content, like Peter Kyle's special question time, the interview with the Danish Prime Minister. We're thinking about bringing special series together to thank you for that. And thank you also to our regular listeners and really enjoying the fact that we're now getting a massive uptick in international lists. There's more and more engagement from the US, Australia, Middle East. I think our interview with the Syrian president heading up towards two million viewers in the Middle East.

58:26So thank you, Alistair, for making me part of this as they say. Great. See you soon. Bye -bye. Bye.

58:40Hello, I'm William Durimple. And I'm Anita Arnand. And we are the hosts of Empire, also from Goldhanger. And we're here to tell you about our recent mini series that we've just done on the troubles. In it, we try to get to the very heart of the violent conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the 1960s all the way up to 1998. It's something that we both live through and remember from our childhoods, but younger listeners may not know anything about it. And it's the time when there was division along religious and political lines, neighbours turned against each other. Residential city streets became battlegrounds.

59:17Thousands were killed. And the IRA bombed London. It seemed as if an end was out of reach. But in 1998, a peace process finally brought those 30 years of violence to an end. But the memory of the troubles is still present, not only within Northern Irish communities who experienced it, but in international relations and political approaches to peace. And new audiences are starting to understand this national trauma through films like Belfast and kneecap and TV shows like Derry Girls. In fact, our guest on the mini series is Patrick Radden -Keefe. Now, he's the author of the nonfiction book that inspired the hit TV drama, Say Nothing.

1:00:00It's one of my favourite books. It's I think the kind of inco -blood for our generation extraordinary work of nonfiction. To hear the full series, just search Empire wherever you get your podcasts.