In short
Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Politics - Episode 404: Question Time: How Starmer Fell Into Farage's Immigration Trap
Podcast Overview Title: The Rest Is Politics Hosts: Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart Description: A podcast analyzing current affairs in the UK and internationally, championing intelligent discussions on political topics while promoting the art of "disagreeing agreeably."
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Episode Highlights
Key Topics Discussed
- Immigration Policies and Labour's Strategy
- Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart critique Labour leader Keir Starmer's recent immigration proposals, which include:
- Extending the residency period for citizenship from 5 to 10 years.
- Changing the skilled worker threshold to degree-level qualifications.
- Pausing recruitment for social care positions that are typically filled by immigrants.
- Reducing the post-study visa duration for international students from two years to 18 months.
- New asylum policies targeting illegal migrants.
- The discussion focuses on whether these policies effectively address public concerns about immigration or merely play into populist narratives.
- Political Fallout and Media Influence
- Both hosts express concern that Labour's shift in immigration policy may alienate its traditional base while trying to attract voters from the Reform Party.
- They argue that the media's focus on immigration as a primary issue overshadows more significant systemic problems, such as under-investment in communities.
- The Use of Language in Politics
- Starmer's use of rhetoric, particularly phrases like "island of strangers," is analyzed for how it resonates with the electorate and aligns with narratives pushed by right-wing factions, notably Nigel Farage.
- The Role of Public Services in Migration Debate
- There's emphasis on how the immigration debate has merged legal and illegal migration perceptions, complicating the public's understanding and policy discussions.
- The hosts highlight the importance of addressing public services and the labor market’s reliance on migrant workers.
Other Discussions
- The New Pope and his Political Influence
- The hosts discuss the new Pope's potential influence on American politics and his messaging towards Donald Trump, particularly regarding soft power and communication style.
- Water Privatisation Debate
- Rory reflects on his previous comments regarding water nationalization, acknowledging pushback from listeners and discussing the complexities of the privatized water system in the UK.
- USAID Cuts and Global Health
- Rory and Alastair explore the implications of cuts to USAID, highlighting Bill Gates’ statements about the potential deaths of children due to reduced funding in global health initiatives.
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Key Takeaways
- Migration Policy Implications: Starmer’s immigration policies may be seen as a tactical move to capture disaffected voters, but risks alienating traditional Labour supporters and neglecting core issues.
- Media’s Role: The media shapes public perception of immigration, potentially leading politicians to prioritize media-favored narratives over substantive policy discussions.
- Rhetorical Strategies in Politics: The language and framing used by political leaders significantly impact public perception and voter sentiment, as illustrated by Starmer’s terminology.
- Complexity of Public Services: The interdependence of immigration and public services necessitates a more nuanced approach to policy discussions, emphasizing long-term solutions over short-term political gains.
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Conclusion This episode of *The Rest Is Politics* provides an in-depth analysis of contemporary political strategies surrounding immigration in the UK, the influence of media, and the responsibilities of political leaders in framing these critical issues. Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart offer valuable insights into the intersection of policy, rhetoric, and public perception in the political landscape.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Thanks for listening to The Rest Is Politics. Sign up to The Rest Is Politics plus to enjoy ad -free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again early access to live show tickets. Just go to TheRestisPolitics .com. That's TheRestisPolitics .com. The Rest Is Politics is as ever powered by our friends at Fuse Energy. And if you've got an electric vehicle or you're thinking of switching, Fuse can help you with that. They're offering a new overnight charge entirely that makes things very, very simple. It's available now through their iOS app and Android's on its way.
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1:25Hello and welcome to the rest of the politics with me, Honest Kamal. And me, Rory Stewart. And I was sort of our first questioner from Suzy, who asks, when are you next doing your trip live show? Ah, if you haven't listened to the main episode yesterday you'll know that we're on the road again very soon. This November will be in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Bournemouth, or brand new, rather than the rest of the politics live. And to those who complained as many did, why are you going to Ireland yet again? The Mootchani are going to go to Belfast and Dublin sometime thereafter. Brilliant. It dates to be announced.
1:58One more thing while we're talking about this, we've done an interview on Resta's politics plus for members with Ken Rogoff. And Ken Rogoff is an economist. He was the Chief Economist, the IMF. He's a chess grandmaster. He's a teacher at Harvard, but he's really interesting. I think for a lot of dimensions, some people call him the great architect for austerity. He has interestingly, quite controversially favorable things to say about Rachel Reeves, but he's also very interesting, I thought, on US China. What do you think of the Rogoff interview? Yeah, really interesting. I was glad we did it.
2:33Since you introduced him to me, I've sort of seen him around the place everywhere. He's one of those economists who really pops up. And I've actually, I've started his book about the history of the dollar. So yeah, no, definitely worth listening to. Very, very smart guy. And doesn't like being defined as the godfather of austerity. Maybe that's because he knows that it didn't go terribly well here at the UK. Now listen, talking to the UK, we said on the main podcast that we're going to kick off with with immigration. So yesterday was a pretty big day. I watched a lot of news yesterday. This story took up the first half of the BBC, ITV and even Channel 4.
3:09So here we go. Chris Newton, South Yorkshire, Trip Plus member. While I was born, the population of the UK was 51 million, now it's approximately 70 million people is asking whether we should have a limit on population. Joe McMahon tight also a trip member from Bristol. While Labour trying to cater to reform voters so much, they have access to polls and data showing the large chunk of reform voters have never voted Labour. While they alienate your base by trying to attract unlikely voters, Jason in Ireland, recent BBC headline, Labour to unveil big immigration plans next week, but will they win back votes?
3:43Does this indicate the real problem of the age, the media's concerned about how hypothetical vote winning, not whether the policy is good for the country. And finally, Nimro, Trip Plus member on Discord, the UK government's immigration white paper states an intention to take back control over who comes to the United States and the UK. How do you worry and especially Alistair, feel about Labour using the vote leave campaigns slogan directly in their paper? How do you feel about that? Well, let me begin by just summarising what the immigration proposals from Kiss Tamarassid background obviously for people is that it's happening in the context of reform having performed very, very powerful in the local action setting one set of the vote and the two major parties now looking like they're getting under 50 % of the vote.
4:26So, Starma introduced this big shift. First thing is he's extending the residency period required from citizenship from five to ten years. This makes the UK a real outlier. This is the kind of levels of beyond sort of Japan and Switzerland which are famously difficult places to get citizenship in. He's changed the threshold for skilled workers. So, again, in the past, people could come in with A -levels, he's now demanding for most things degree level qualifications and he's paused recruitment for people for social care positions. This is a big deal. So, if you go into a care home, very, very large numbers of people are immigrants and last year I think over 50 ,000 people who came in were coming into work in the care sector and the care sector is really short of stuff.
5:12He's saying that UK workers should be able to fill those jobs with the right training so he's paused allowing them in. He said the post study visa duration for international students should be reduced from two years to 18 months. He's changed stuff on asylum policies, making it clearer in law, how you could remove asylum seekers who've broken the law and he set up a new border security command. And the hope of all these things is that they model that they might be able to reduce migration by well over 100 ,000 by doing all these different things. And I guess there are many, many different ways to think about this.
5:48Will these policies work? Will it bring migration down? Is he targeting the right things? Questions around Labour Party politics? Question about the tone of the whole thing? The way I think he used a phrase, we don't want Britain to become an island of strangers which I think for some people maybe resonates a little bit with what trees make up and to travel with to them. That's a lot of citizens of nowhere and this kind of stuff, this kind of language. Not as embarrassing as being made as with E -Nought Power. Who said we're creating a risk of creating a country where people feel strangers in their own land.
6:14Let's start with you. What was your reaction? What did you feel about it? This is an area I think where we need more show -not tell. I think that the line I would obtain on immigration and by the way I get how difficult this is politically and there's no doubt that one of the reasons we formed it well was because this immigration issue has been building the number, the fact that it quadrupled in the years after they won the Brexit referendum on take -back control. So there was a real problem to be addressed. However, I think the way to address it is by saying because this plays to the way that Kierstheim was trying to project himself as a leader.
6:55Do you want to fix this problem or do you want to exploit this problem? Forage, we know, will exploit any problem that comes along his way. Badenock and the Tories, they're trying to exploit it as well, trying to get away from the fact that they were responsible for this quadrupling, but also their fighting forage on that territory. In terms of the policy, the substance of the policy, I think there's a lot of it that I would support and agree with. But I didn't like the way that it was projected and presented. I think the fact that I heard, I saw an interview that if Etcouple was doing this morning, now they may feel this is where they want to be fighting the charity, but she was asked constantly what does an island of strangers mean, what does that feel like.
7:37And the other thing I feel is that, you know, I said last week, take forage on where he's weak, not where he's strong. This I feel is playing into forage's strengths. It's basically accepting his narrative that all our problems are caused by immigration. One of the reasons I think that's dangerous is because it lets the Tories off the hook. A lot of our problems in the areas that we're talking about, they're caused by under -investment in communities. They're caused by the Tories not having policy solutions for some of these areas where immigration is high. They actually don't have that much to do with immigration.
8:11And you know, one of the things I've always been struck by, and I'm not denying it's a problem. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this isn't a problem that has to be dealt with by policy. But I think they should have focused much, much more on the policy and less on the rhetoric around it. So when Kierstama says that immigration has done inculcubable damage to our economy, that goes right against what he said most of his career, which is that, you know, we've got a lot to thank migrants for, and indeed right now, we need them. So for example, one of the most interesting angles out of this that's come out of this has been one of the specific policies about the Kierstater.
8:51Well, you talked to anybody who's running a Kierho, try to get local brits to go in and do these jobs. They're not doing them. So I think that's right at the core of the policy problem, so the first thing is this very, very weird jump that you're talking about. So Cameron used to talk about keeping immigration down to tens of thousands. But in reality over the last 10 years, I think it was a hover around about 200 ,000. Then there was this massive jump post COVID, where it was heading up to almost a million, at 950 ,750 ,000. And even with Kierstama and Nevek Kupas current reforms, it's only coming down slightly, the graph, if people watching our YouTube is very, very weird, it's basically goes like this and then, and what he's doing is just bringing it down up at the top here.
9:41Why is this? Well, some of it was short term, right, COVID, humanitarian stuff for Ukrainians and people from Hong Kong. But clearly, there's something else going on. And I think that the other thing that's going on is that we have enormous numbers of people who retreated from the workforce and the story that we've talked about before. Maybe as many as a million people who could be working or choosing not to work, which is being backfilled, Kierst sector in real trouble, agricultural sector, deeply dependent, and tell us so. And businesses crying out for labor and saying to the government, if you want, grow to bring it in, and to which we have the university sector.
10:19So something has gone very, very odd with the university sector. Part of the problem is the government won't either allow tuition fees to go up or provide more funding for the universities. So the only way that a lot of is by being foreign students and a very, very large number of the migrants coming in. If you look at these numbers, hundreds of thousands of them, the majority of them are not coming into work. The majority are either family dependents or people coming in on student visas. And the government's refusal also to be serious about proper national ID cards. There's a little fudge here, there's something to talk about, electronic visas, there's talk about, and they're being able to sort of, whether people are staying or leaving.
11:06And final thing, even on the politics, I think, there's a glaring hole. James Johnson, who worked with us on the polling before the election, has always emphasized that a lot of the issue, and this is something that my friend Geralt Knaus would say to, isn't about legal migration, if you ask people, it's about illegal migration, it's about stopping the boats. And that's a small number, which is why if you're a technocrat looking at it, you think, well, it's a relevant, you know, it's a few tens of thousands, supposed to a few hundreds of thousands. But a lot of the polling data suggests that what people care about is the sense that they're in control, that the government can determine the numbers.
11:49And therefore, the failure of the labor government to come up with a replacement or an alternative to the Rwanda scheme to really think about how you can return people unnecessarily crossing on boats. And we just keep re -absiding this. These people coming from France, and France is safe, right? There is absolute, you know, reason why we should be taking these people from France. I think if they could fix that, it would probably have more political impact than doing these other stuff. What reform of, with the help of the media, which love stories about immigration, because it sort of plays to all the, you know, the stuff they want to do and clickbait and all that stuff.
12:24They've successfully, within the political debate, they've merged legal and illegal migration. So yesterday, the reform line was, this doesn't go far enough, and this relates to another of their absurd things about net zero. We have to have a policy of net zero migration. In other words, one in one out, which given the numbers that you often cite about how many people we now have for an aging person, for a young person who can work. That idea is absurd. Now, look, it all depends on whether the policy works, okay? But my worry is that when you elevate this area of debate, so for Arge's line yesterday was, this has now overtaken the National Health Service as the most important issue in the country.
13:09Not convinced by that at all. It is an important issue, but its saliency has risen because of media and forage and because of the numbers, the real numbers. I'm not denying that's not part of the picture. But I think once the Prime Minister has come out, I mean, I probably would have left it to a bit Cooper. Once you're doing it as a big thing in Downey Street, you're basically saying now, judge me on this, okay? Now, you've got to sort the problem. But when I say, show not tell, I think better to have the policy to, and yes to say, if we need to do more, we'll do more. But over time, and once you've made it such a big issue of your leadership, you're going to have to have very, very good numbers.
13:54And the fact is, with something like for Arge, those numbers are never going to be enough. Why have they set themselves down with this number of net zero? Answer partly to play into the climate change debate, which is another of their things. But secondly, there is no immigration that they are going to allow you to define a success. I go back to the point I've been making for ages, a combination of the main parties and the media, let Farage away with murder. The guy had a two page spread in the Daily Mail the other day. What I would do as your Prime Minister, my manifesto for Britain, it was a mixture of slogan and policy that was not remotely costed.
14:34So for example, Tyson's on the television, Richard ties one of the five MPs they've got was on the news last night saying, one of the first things we do, we would stop anybody earning less than 20 ,000 pounds from paying any tax whatsoever. Okay. Now, the first question has got to be how much does that cost? Nobody asks them. The question there from Nimro, how did I feel about Labour using the Tateback Control slogan? The entire context of Tateback Control was Brexit, which wasn't mentioned in relation to any of this. When you look at your graph, the other big deal was the referendum. When lots of Europeans who worked here said, okay, well, we're not welcome here, we'll go back home.
15:16So the polls go back and lots of the Italians go back. My local Italian restaurant has now got 100 % non -European waiting staff. Okay. Now, why? Of course, the Italians have gone back. So what's happened instead is that in all these sectors, you've had people coming from Nigeria, from India, from Pakistan, and often why wouldn't they want to bringing their family and dependence with them? So the sort of younger European who came here for a couple of years to sort of try things out and have the sort of UK experience, they've gone back and that meanwhile, we've got, I suspect the sort of immigrants that a lot of people who've angry about immigration didn't want in the first place, we've now got more of them.
16:01So the policy goes back rightly, people are angry about the promises that have been made. I think here's time was right not to put a target on it, but I worry that the rhetoric that was out there yesterday, both the rhetoric that has angered people on the left, but also the rhetoric that says, I get this and judge me on it and mark my words and all that stuff, you know, they've really got a deliverance. There's quite a good analysis in the Times trying to mark the likelihood of success and the impact of their different policies and an enormous amount of them get one or two out of five. I mean, a lot of these things they're doing are going to be marginal and have to be marginal, because in fact, if they really went full on, they would have really crippled their growth agenda, they would have all these businesses shouting at them.
16:49What they tried to do yesterday was to say that growth in migration, there's no link between growth in migration. You can have an argument about that, but what you can't have an argument about is the fact that our public services, our care sector, agriculture sectors, you say, that's the context, I think, that was slightly lost yesterday because of the politics, which has been driven by the right. Now, let's stick with a very important question, Rory, the Pope. The Pope. Duncan Gorewood, Trip Plus member in Brisbane, does Pope Leo's appointments send a message to Trump about Catholicism, political posture, can soft power influence American politics?
17:26So, Rory, we've got this American Pope, who's, if I mentioned him last week in my runners and riders, I only mentioned him because I saw his name in the New York Times that morning. I'm completely in common with the rest of the world. I only knew nothing about him. Yeah, but he seems to me to be going down very, very well. It's amazing. I think first thing to to Bromand is that I spent a lot of time talking to clergymen about this, and they know very little about him. The leading contenders, I don't know how you've made an analogy from British American politics for a character like this coming through, but he would have been sort of number 10 on the list as the kind of...
18:01He got 1 % of the betting market. Right, there we are. That's a really good way, because the people they were talking about was Pietro Parlin, who had been the Vatican section of state. I was talking about Robert Sarra, who was the the Ginean conservative. You were talking about Cardinal Zupi? Yeah, just like his name. Cardinal Taglée from the Philippines. So, he's a bit of a mystery, and it takes some time to know what kind of Pope someone's going to be, because the consistent story is going back over the last 100 years, is, Pope's who people think are going to be radicals turn out to do almost nothing, and hopes who people think are going to do nothing.
18:40It's like budgets the day after. The budgets the day after the turn out to be the biggest fail is usually hailed as the biggest success. Yeah, I've got high hopes for this Pope going, good, good, good, good, good, good, let's, let's hope. God, I've had a really interesting experience on this, Lucy. I had to give the main university sermon, the commemoration sermon in Oxford on Sunday. And that, that was a pretty extraordinary, have you ever had to give a sermon? No. I don't do God, no, no. I'm spoken in churches, but usually in funerals. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think even for me, so what did you do?
19:12I was like, I'm a very much a baby Christian, but you're a standing up preacher. Standing up, I don't know, I don't know, I can't wait to lay preacher. I just, but it was very interesting. I mean, did you plug the podcast? I didn't see it as suitable as loving the podcast. I talked about hope, because I think one of the things that we often are asked is, you know, give us a bit of optimism. The world's all a bit dark. And I was trying to talk about realistic and unrealistic hope and the ways in which unrealistic hope can be a form of pessimism. This Pope gives me hope. Good. You sure it's not unrealistic.
19:43It might be, it might be, but I think sometimes you have to look for that. I was also at Oxford. I was doing a talk to some students. And I noticed two or three of them thought, these rude bastards, they're on the phone and they're not, they're not taking notes on their phone. They're looking at something. And then suddenly, one of them says, we have a Pope. And this is the way he spoke. And then was really interesting. I did a little book signing. They went outside and then somebody came up with their phone. And he was fascinating watching students on their phones, watching this thing. And so I was with these students when, and I got enough of my kind of school, schoolboy Latin.
20:23I heard his name in Latin. I thought, my god, it's the American. Immediate reaction from some of the students, oh god, not an American Pope. But I think what's emerged since actually, this is answered in answer to the question about whether he will sort of maybe be a bit of a problem for Trump. Is there actually, he does seem to be in terms of his, because everything is ever said or tweeted has now come out. And by the way, he was, he was right on your side, Roy, in the battle with JD Vance on the Aldo Amoris. He said at the time, he said these words, JD Vance is wrong. And then of course, he's also, he's been very, very strong on, on Ukraine.
21:04I think she is. And he's also, he's already had a phone call with Zelensky. That was his first call with the world leader was with Zelensky. The other thing that I find absolutely fascinating. So I was, I was watching it with these students, as I say. And I said to them, as he came out, I said, he's an incredible, they're that guy now. He's gone from being unknown by all of us. He's going to be overnight, one of the best known people in the world. I can't think of anything else like that. And at the age of 69. Yeah. And then suddenly, everything is ever said, everything is ever written, everything is ever tweeted.
21:34His brother's suddenly, one of whom apparently is a bit of a Trump fan. The other whom seems to be very much not, but his brother suddenly appear on every television station in the world. Brothers were a bit of a problem in public life, aren't they? They can be. I mean, John Major had a brother who kept popping up. Did Tony Blair have a brother? Tony Blair has a brother, Bill, who is the perfect political brother. Oh, good. Unbelievably supportive. Good. Very smart. And never gets his name in the papers. I have a sort of memory of John Major's brother, who I think you're absolutely right. It was called Terry Major Ball.
22:04British columnist of banker and media personality. Yeah, you don't want your brother to be a media personality. I actually think the brother, there was one bit. I'd look, the trouble now is social media. You never know if it's fake or not. But there was a clip of the more Trump leaning brother who gave an interview on television and said, you know, he said, so I saw, I saw him talking in Italian and then he switched to Spanish. And I thought, stop showing off you jerk. And then there was another brother, the other brother who talked about he speaks to the Pope. He speaks to every day. Yeah. Right.
22:38And he's on his iPad. And the Pope phones him. And the Pope says, why have you not been answering your phone? And the brother says, we're being filmed by the way, pause now. Yes. So I don't think he's going to get a grip of these brothers. But I've got to say, I think he's got a lovely manner. I think he's got a lovely manner. He did a speech to the media yesterday. Yeah. Six thousand journalists giving you a standing of age. Which other world leaders ever going to get that? Trump would want to. It's not going to get it. But his speech, you should look at his speech because I think it was directly a message to Trump.
23:16Very good. I was talking about the importance of soft communication. How we had to get anger out of our public life. I'm finding hope in the Pope. I could be wrong. Very good. Okay. I always have a quick break. No, we'll come back. We're going to talk about China trade deal with the US UK trade deal with Australia. And this wonderful battle between Bill Gates and Elon Musk. Very good. I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst, turned to spy novelist. And I'm Gordon Carrera, National Security Journalist. Together we're the hosts of another Goal Hangar show, The Rest is Classified. And we bring you brilliant stories from the world of spies.
23:53That's right. And this week we're talking about one of the most significant stories of the 21st century. Edward Snowden and how he orchestrated the biggest leak of classified secret -syn modern American history. It was 2011 when Snowden shocked the world by revealing that the American government was bought collecting data on its own citizens and even spying on our allies. And it's a story which really also gets to wider questions about what privacy means in the modern world, how technology has changed our lives, and what the government and companies can do with data we might have thought was private.
24:28We will take you through the whole story from Snowden's early career in the CIA and the NSA to his life in exile in Russia. If this sounds good, we've left a clip at the end of the episode for you.
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26:00Also the week where the US has signed a trade deal with China and a trade deal with the UK. They haven't signed a trade deal. They've done a deal on the tariff row. And what news though? I mean just - No paperwork. Just to remind people where we were, right? Trump announced not very long ago now just a month and 11 days ago he announced his Liberation Day tariffs and you remember we all woke up and penguins were getting tariffed and Vietnam was getting tariffed and boy oh boy was China getting tariffed. This lasted for a few days and then almost immediately he dropped tariffs on absolutely everybody down to 10 % or almost everybody except for China particularly was the most dramatic example.
26:45And China just went up and up and up because the Chinese were not budging and they were not interested in dealing with the US. So the eventually ended up 145 % tariffs on China. I just basically don't bother sending the US down. It's a total trading bargain between the US and China and China added into this that it was going to control the supply of rare earths and critical minerals to the US. Now understand China has deliberately set out over the last 15 years to dominate 85 to 90 % of the global market in not just Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, even Copper but a loss of these rare earths which are completely vital in technology and the energy revolutions.
27:27So China started to struggle that all of it. Not surprisingly businesses started coming in to see Trump and we posed the question on who was going to blink first. The macroeconomic impact on China is pretty considerable because China still relies a lot on exports to US. The microeconomic impact on American businesses, unbelievable. US car manufacturers, you know, musks, screaming, warm art, screaming. We saw this immediate exemption for iPhones and the markets began to sense that fundamentally Trump and Ludnic are jokers. They were going to blink and this whole thing was madness. It's been very weird because I was talking, like me, you talked to this kind of banking finance type.
28:09So if you'd be talking to them in January, they were still surprisingly optimistic. In November to December, you could sit next these people, like, don't worry, Trump's going to be fine. We're all going to get rich. He talks a big game, but he's never going to do anything to fix the stock market. Then when liberation day tariffs were announced, they were completely thrown off. Oh my god, what's going on? And then they produced another story, right? Their new optimistic story was, don't worry, this is going to be great. You know, musk is going to raise a trillion by doge, cutting spending and how Adelautnic is going to raise a trillion through the tariffs and then they're going to go to the Congress and they're going to announce massive tax cuts.
28:47And then they wake up, of course, a few days later, to see that he's dropping all these tariffs, the income streams disappearing and it's becoming clear that he's almost certainly going to lose a staring contest with China. Trump begins to desperately say, Xi Jinping's been ringing, we've been calling on the Chinese light, no, no, no, no, no, we're not being called. Sitting still, thank you very much. And Trump folded, he blinked, folded 100 % completely tumultuous. And then Scott Besson to go and do this, whatever this agreement is, that essentially is a climb down, basically just returned back to where they were before the whole thing back, not quite back.
29:24Basically nothing's changed. So the entire liberation day tariffs, the entire last six weeks was turned out to be complete nonsense. But being Trump, of course, and the markets have responded positively, instead of allowing anyone to actually relax and imagine we're back to normal, he's as normal said, this is just a 90 days. And he's proven the past he did it with Canada. You remember, you know, Trudeau made this move, changed staff on drugs, tariffs came down and then, part of that again, 90 days later. So what on earth, any of these? That's why I think we've got to stop talking about them as trade deals.
29:54What Kierstarma and Donald Trump agreed with my friend Peter Mandelson standing alongside Donald Trump? Grining away. And also having his hand held at one point, I don't know whether he thought it was Theresa May suddenly back in his life, he suddenly grabbed Peter by the hand. But what they've done, and I completely understand why Britain was so keen to do it, although it's interesting how many economists are saying this has been a sort of divide and rule and, you know, pick everybody off one by one, which is kind of what Trump wants to do further break down the kind of international institutional side of this.
30:25But it's a tariff deal. It's a, and what, you know, what Trump does, he creates chaos. And then the chaos calms a bit. And he says, aren't I great? I've calmed the chaos. Well, this is thing about this. And after I've we recorded the last podcast because you've put your finger on it. I'm still been starting to understand the logic of this because I had dinner with one of Trump's friends who was like, yeah, they're amazing. They just chuck the cards on the floor. But of course, your Nobel Peace Prize bet reveals a bit of it, boy. What he does is he creates a world of conflict so that he can be a peacemaker.
30:57Yeah. Creates a world of economic chaos so that he can be seen to bring stability. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And also within this context of every day's a show, every day's a different story. Essentially, when you mentioned the penguins there, I'd completely forgot about that. On the day he did a liberation day when he did. That was where that was the island's island. Yeah. So so much happens that we just forget because he's on to the next thing. And part of the problem, of course, is we do a detail podcast analyzing the impact of the terrorists on the suit. And they stay in place for 48 hours and then they're gone.
31:30But just get a podcast on the suit. Just not just some adults. I'd emergency. No, you do quite a lot on the suit. And people actually congratulate us. There's a lovely that you you're really taking. I'm sorry. The suit is seriously. Manlison, a conservative cabinet minister writing to me, I can't bear seeing Mandelson be so supine to Trump. When will we get some backbone and stand up for our values? We won't even publicly stand up for Denmark exclamation mark. Oh, that's a bit. I think I spoke of it. You can't, you speak. Peter to go over there as the ambassador and spend his time kicking in Trump.
32:04Peter did look very, very happy to be on this, this latest stage of his fascinating and colorful career. Even got, I saw again, I don't know if it was a real picture or not, but there was a picture of him in the back of the car, holding up a handwritten note from Trump saying, great work, Peter, followed by that amazing ridiculous signature. So I'm sure your former cabinet minister will like that even. Okay, a question for you. Rudy, does the new Australian cabinet signal a redirection? That Albanese. What do you think about the Australian cabinet? How so as our Australia expert? Well, I tell us really interesting about this.
32:38Anthony Albanese has this amazing victory. I'm seeing Mr. Pridisessa Kevin Rudd tomorrow, who's over. And he has this great victory and then he points to the cabinet. And the thing about Australian, even though Albanese is now pretty powerful figure having had such an incredible majority, the factions still kind of decide who gets the top jobs. And how do the factions decide this? I mean, in the same sense that when you were in the Labour party, Democrats, the parties tempted more than that. It's almost like formalised and they have negotiations between factions. More like the way the Labour shadow cabinet traditionally worked, which is no, that was a vote.
33:18It's more like you've just seen with the Christian Democrats and the social Democrats in Germany. Almost like a coalition against an English negotiation. Almost like a coalition against an English negotiation. Yeah, who gets the top jobs and more have you. And this guy, Richard Miles, who's the leader of the right wing faction, he basically has forced the appointment of some of his allies. And the two people who've copped it and got the boot just happened to be the only Jew that was in the cabinet and the only Muslim that had been in the cabinet. And Paul Keating, one of my heroes, who is very much from that right wing faction.
33:54Nonetheless, has come out and this is absolutely appalling. The Muslim guy who I think is background Bosnian, Ed Hussich, he has basically come out and call this guy an assassin, a factional assassin. He says that it's because he had strong views on Gaza that he's not been able to, that he's not held back, that this has gone on. So it sort of has slightly soured the right, the right, the Albanese victory. Now, of course, the caravan will move on. But it underlines that there are always these tensions within parties. So yeah, good question. Thank you for that. Rudy, now here's another one. We had quite a lot of rebuttal, I have to say, on your views on water privatisation.
34:35Brian Keating, your recent discussion on water nationalisation, missed the mark. The water industry, debt -free, pre privatisation is now settled with 60 to 80 billion pounds debt, hitting struggling customers hard. Your comments, is you, Rory? Your comments inadvertently reinforced the perception of a disconnected political class. Where do you really stand on water privatisation, morally, economically, politically? Could nationalisation really be worse than the current mess? You promise fresh thinking with Kate Rayworth, here's your chance. Perhaps, the vehicle shark, you should send you a couple of fish to snap you out of it.
35:11I think he's taking on both of us there. And we also had a very nervous, nice reaction from Clive Lewis, MP, MP, who asked the question in the first place, whose response was that he ought to come on the podcast to tell us why we're wrong? So thanks for your chat. There are quite a few things Rory got wrong. There are alternatives, many of them are achievable and practical. They just need the political will to happen. Well, so Fessie, this is very raw for me. I was the water minister. And what I saw when I came in as the water minister was a very odd industry because water, which was a sort of natural monopoly, big water lines, and totally vital had been privatised.
35:54And this carries with it two problems. It carries with it a problem of competition because it's a monopoly. And a second problem of moral hazard, which is that if the water doesn't get delivered in the end, the government has to step in because in the end, people are not going to put up when not being able to have any water to drink and not going to put up with sewage all over their beaches. And I saw a bit of this actually when I saw the prison minister where we'd also privatised probation and what happens there. Well, what happens is if you suddenly end up in a situation in which prisoners end up not being looked after by the probation authorities or prisons aren't maintained, in the end, the government steps in and the private companies get bailed out.
36:29So the whole structure is very problematic from the beginning. It gets even worse because with things like temps of water, they were given much too big catchment areas. And because they weren't publicly listed, they ratchet it up this debt. And up to 10 years ago, they were taking huge dividends. So we end up with a situation where, understandably, in the side think is what the complaints are about. These companies enormous amounts of debt, they were making a lot of money off this, not recently, they haven't made much money in the last 10 years, but they were making a lot of money off this. And this poo in our rivers and on our beaches and our waters running out, terrible situation.
37:02Couple of quick thoughts. One of them is a problem with government. So I was thinking about this because I sat down talking to people who were very, very deeply involved in this last week. And they were saying to me, you know, why don't you do something about it in 2016 saying, I'm just a water minister. And thinking back on it, I realized that we're not honest enough about the odd positions that a junior minister finds themselves in. So theoretically, I'm responsible for water. But remember, it list crosses your boss with list trust. Yeah. So remember first problem, you're not a specialist, obviously, I'm not a water expert.
37:35Number two, I was also responsible for three and a half million pounds of farm payments, I was responsible for flooding, I was responsible for international biodiversity, chemicals, spills, national parks, the environment agency, natural, and etc. What in practice does supervise in the water industry look like for a minister? And there'd be true today. You have dinner with the chief executives, the water industry occasionally, your brief by officials, and you go meet the water regulator off what. And I'd go into these meetings and I tried to ask what I thought were intelligent or awkward questions.
38:07So I'd say, listen, are you sure we're putting enough investment into the infrastructure? And the answer was, water privatisation, it's been great success. The bills and real terms have been kept down to a pound. So I would then say, well, couldn't there be an argument for charging people more in their bills in order to get more investment into the water infrastructure? And they would either say, well, we're doing a TEMS tie -way tunnel of 40 billion. Or they would say, well, number 10 says the real priority in a cost of letting crisis is to keep costs down for customers. If I then have the further conversation, really pushing the regulator and say, yeah, but it's TEMS water not taken us for a ride, they're taking too much money, they're borrowing too much.
38:44The regulator will get a bit shirty, they think, well, it's like, I'm the regulator. We're the experts on this. Who the hell are you? What do you know about this? Push it too far. You then end your own situation where number 10 starts getting calls from the heads of these water companies saying we've made a many multi -billion pound investment in the UK. You've got a junior water minister. I'm not sure who really knows what he's talking about, creating a lot of trouble about these water contracts. There's a very fragile market. With that whole situation, it's very, very difficult unless the junior minister is very clear, I mean, did very brave.
39:16And above all, has the right people to brief them to really achieve change? And the junior has a secretary of state who's on the same agenda and has the ability to influence the prime minister and absolutely. And the prime minister who really sees it as a prime minister, because remember the other thing is that you're asking politicians to do things for the longer term. It wasn't a problem in 2016. It wasn't such a problem. What you were saying is if we don't make the investment now, in five or ten years, I guess the other thing, so the question morally, economically, politically, I'm imagining that today, if your successor went to the Treasury and said, you know, nationalization, wholesale nationalization is the only way forward, the Treasury is going to produce costings that will make your eyes drop out.
39:59Absolutely. I'll tell you what we do. Clive, how about this is a compromise? We won't have you on, because we've actually got a really big backlog of guests coming or leading coming. Why don't you write as your assessment of what we should be doing and we will put it in the newsletter. And if it's really interesting, we'll talk about it after you've done so there you are. Clive, that's a commission from the rest of the parties, 800 to 1200 words, get it all down, send in and don't just recirculate speech or original thought here. Okay, Fred Kelsby for you, how much truth is that behind Bill Gates has claims that US aid cuts are and will continue to kill children around the world.
40:35Can you give us some indication on the dependence of saving small brackets? Really recommend the Atel Gawande interview we did a lot of which was about this, over to you. Well, this is an interview that Bill Gates did. We should also remind people we interviewed him a few months ago. And it's a really strong message. He basically said in front of a camera, there's Elon Musk going around with his chainsaw and what they have done to USAID will is leading to children being killed now. And I would argue, I mentioned in the main podcast yesterday that these pictures in Gaza have children. Now, the fact is there is a blockade and the Israelis are making sure that they does not get in the quantities that is needed.
41:24I would argue that if we talk a lot about the American influence on the Israelis, that if in slashing USAID as they did, the American government signaled to those countries like Israel that the world doesn't care as much as it did. That political signal on its own, let alone then you go to the programs that are being cut. I think Bill Gates was talking particularly about some of the programs in Africa, Malaria and HIV and so forth. So I think I'm really glad that he did it. Because I think that there are too many businesses who are bending the knee. And Bill Gates is somebody who's rich enough and powerful and I'm not to care what Trump thinks of my own.
42:05I had done it last week with the Chevy Tech to the Welcome Trust and the head of the biggest Danish foundation that works on this. And they were Gates of the three biggest non -governmental funders this stuff. And what they pointed out is that the cuts to USAID and to differ, are impossible really for them to backfill in vaccines and health. So this is also key to Starmer's cuts that they were the biggest funders of global health. And one of the problems that will rapidly become obvious is that dealing with contagious diseases early on, TB is a really good example, is vital for preventing its exponential spread.
42:46And the problem with cutting the money for the TB treatment now is that we will find ourselves dealing with a much, much bigger problem very, very soon. I mean, it's a very simple lesson in epidemiology and disease, which we seem to be forgetting. And we will end up with these diseases sprouting in the United Kingdom, in the United States, because of our failure to invest in places like Africa. Yeah, we should maybe put Bill Gates into view the latest one, as well as the one we did with him, but put it in the newsletico. So I think this is how can you, on the one hand, right? So before they made the decision to slash USAID, American leaders and American polishes, they would have said, you know, and we're saving millions of lives around the world through our commitment to this, this and this.
43:31How, when you then say, we're not doing it anymore, it's not logical that that is going to lead to loss of life, including of children or over the world. I think what I've gone to was really strong and pointing out in the interview is that this stuff on vaccination global health is almost the most straightforward, least controversial form of international development in the world. I mean, the evidence, for example, on malaria bednets, you know, that $2 saves this number of lives is one of the most tested evidence -based, least controversial things. We're not getting into weird stories of governmental corruption, you know, trying to do complicated programs on market reform.
44:13This is real, short of the stuff that I believe in, which is unconditional cash transfer. This stuff around vaccines and bednets is the best evidence, most efficient, most effective way of saving lives that's ever been developed, which is one of the reasons why Bill Gates, who's a real number person, got behind it. All right, John Lumley, Trip Plus member from Portee said, did Mark Carney pay Rory and Alistair royalties on using disagree agreeably in his first news conference after the election? I mean, yeah, yeah, obviously. And what's the nature of this royalties? Well, he's giving us a Canadian Air Force plane to be the official podcast plane for our tour.
44:49That's he should. Yeah, that's fine. I don't think we can keep it for our library, though. We have to give it back after the tour. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of nice. I'm glad we're having an influence on the world. So after the final question coming in from Dan, which books have you read recently? Which you like? Okay, I've read a very good book by a guy called Stan Grant, which was given to me by somebody just randomly said, listen to the podcast, I think you'd like this book. I'm not going to say where because every time I mention where these things happen, I look out for you. I get criticized for promoting the Lido.
45:29My fellow swimmers. So this is somebody who came to the Lido to give me a book. Was it getting overcrowded? Because you know, we keep the hearing about the Lido on the show. Well, it's also got his blood being hot. Right. But it's the story of a guy who became quite well known journalist, but he's he's an Aboriginal heritage. And it's a really compelling, very emotional account of what it's like to grow up in Australia as an Aboriginal. And it's called talking to my country. And I think what it does is because, you know, as you know, I love Australia on the basis of your one visit there, you love it as well.
46:04But I think we both have quite a romantic view of it. And I think when you are confronted, it also makes you think about Britain a because the truth is that, you know, we ship the people off there as convicts. And then they, you know, they kind of arrive there and it basically becomes a white country. And, you know, so he tells the story of he's actually part of his heritage is Irish convict. And the Irish guy becomes an amazingly successful businessman after he leaves prison and gets out and will have you. But the Aboriginal side of his family, you know, the educational stuff, the poverty. So it's a really, really powerful reach.
46:43I'm very grateful to the young man who came and I've also actually been reading. I'm going to I'm going to plug it even though he doesn't need it. I'm reading the Mootry's book as well from Wall Street to the White House and back. It's a time just very, very funny. It's sort of book that's written, anybody who listens to anti -excarriage, it's basically just sort of is written as he speaks. His insult of British food is really bad. He says that he's going to pub in England and you might as well be eating out of mop water. Yeah. That is bad at date, isn't he? Oh, I think so. I think our food is better than America.
47:18Exactly. Yes, that is. Exactly coming from him. Exactly. For a town. You could take it, couldn't we? Exactly. Yeah. No, no. Right, right. What are you reading? Which 27 books have you got a new book in the right? The ones I want to recommend are the unaccountability machine. Why big systems make terrible decisions and how the world lost its mind? That's by Dan Davis. Okay. Really fascinating because we're talking about this actually partly. That is what water privatization is about, unaccountability, how we lose accountability here. And it's also about all the structures of fake accountability that we create.
47:48So all the ways that in government, we set up metrics and targets that seem to deliver accountability, but basically involve everyone being able to shrug off and say, not me, some other agency, some other regulators responsible. Then a really, really old book, but if people are looking, and I'll finish on this for a sort of deeper meaningful thing, to work with, drawn my attention by a listener in Ireland called Neil, you wrote to me, and it's by Leo Tolstoy, and it's called a calendar of wisdom. And these are daily readings every day with Stray or Four of his favorite quotes from great thinkers that Tolstoy brought together towards the end of his life.
48:24It's a fun thing to do and you may even find it deep and meaningful. Yeah, good. Okay. See you this week.
48:35I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst, turned to spy novelist. And I'm golden career, a national security journalist. Together, we're the hosts of another GoalHanger show, the rest is classified, and we bring you brilliant stories from the world of spies. Here is that clip we mentioned earlier on. June 5, 2013, this first article drops and it's a massive one. It is a massive one. The world doesn't yet know that the source for this article is Edward Snowden. All they get is this remarkable story. And I mean, I remember it dropping and thinking, where is this come from? It just felt so kind of unusual as a story.
49:10We should explain what it was and why it's so significant. So court order to the company Verizon that demands it hands over the details of every phone call in America. And what it was after was what's called the metadata, not the content of the call. So it's basically saying these two phones connected at this time for so long, not necessarily what was said in that phone call. But it allows the idea for the NSA and then the FBI to kind of carry out searches on it to look for terrorists or other suspects. The point being though that this looks like domestic surveillance by the NSA. And that was stunning partly because the US Director of National Intelligence, James Klapper, just a few months before had been asked in Congress by a senator, almost a question which suggests that the senator knew about this program because the senator said does the NSA collect any type of data at all or millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.
50:05And Klapper's reply was no. There is a tremendous gap between the understanding of this program, I think inside sort of the upper reaches of Congress and the intelligence community in the White House and what the American people think is happening. And that's where this article is such a bombshell because Americans prior to this, ordinary people did not have an understanding that any of this was authorized. Exactly. I think what's interesting, if it had just been that one story, it would have been big, but actually it's really an American story. It's about the kind of American constitution and legal protections.
50:36But and I think you can imagine US officials going, okay, well, you know, that's bad. But then the Guardian tells US officials who they're in contact with that they've got another story coming down the line. And I think that's important because it makes clear that it's not just a single document that's been leaked, but there's more and it's coming from what looks like the inside the NSA. So the next day, there's a little race, but the Guardian publishes a story on something called Prism. Now this is another biggie in terms of Riverville. And I think for a lot of people, this is perhaps particularly around the world, this is the more famous one.
51:09This is about the content of emails and communications, which are coming from big US tech firms. So this is about basically the idea that the NSA had access directly to companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, to things like Gmail, Outlook, Photos, all the data that people are sending around the world. This is in some ways a more stunning revelation because everyone around the world uses American tech companies. Those were basically the only companies you used for email and for everything else. And suddenly this program is being revealed saying the NSA appears to have access to it and is able to target and get particular accounts and details of it.
51:57But if you go back to that time, I mean, if you then talk to people now about what it was like in GCHQ, Britain's intelligence agency, I mean, there is blind panic in lobby was then the director later said, when I heard the news, I lay awake saying to myself, I hope this isn't a Brit because they've realized they've got a leak. Some of it looks like it relates to Britain. He's reported to have gone around colleagues asking, is anyone in your teams at GCHQ taking a long holiday? And I think meanwhile in NSA as well, this kind of desperate panic as they realize their secrets are being unfilled. But what's interesting is that they are kind of narrowing it down and they're certainly kind of heading towards Snowden if they don't know it already at this point.
52:38Typically, someone who done this would keep themselves secret. But luckily, he's a massive narcissist with a massive ego. And if you want to hear the full episode, listen to the rest is classified wherever you get your podcasts.
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