420. Question Time: The History of Iran vs. the West

24:14Anyway, over to you. No, look, you and I both big supporters of sort of getting to zero and renewable energy is absolutely the heart of that. And it was interesting right at the height of the current Iran -Israel crisis, Donald Trump, another of the sort of post that he did, he did a big drill baby drill, you know, all price volatility means we've got to get, you know, more of our own and blah blah blah, drill baby drill. So a very very different perspective on it, but you know, just go back to what happened in Ukraine, that that had a direct impact upon energy prices for British and other consumers around the world.

24:54We were talking when the Israelis started the recent attacks on Iran about the one of the possible options for Iran in terms of retaliation was mining or closing the streets of Hormuz. There are something like 20 billion barrels of oil a day are going through there. If that suddenly becomes difficult then it has an immediate impact upon prices. This is a very, very, very volatile market. And if that's why when we talk about the need for stability in the world, it's not least because you have these spikes. And some people make lots of money out of that. But ultimately consumers, once it goes up, tend to have to pay a high price on their bills.

25:34And energy debt in Britain is already nearly four billion. So you get bills rising. It makes it that even worse. This is, I guess, where these energy companies come in. I mean, our sponsor fuse, for example, is locking in fixed tariffs for 18 months, keeping it on average below the cap. But these caps, the price cap, limits unit rates and standing charges. It doesn't limit your total bill. So there's a lot of issues around cost living. And the other thing I guess fuse would say is they would say, in the end, you've got to double down on solar that new clear and carbon capture is absorbing a lot of money, but the real potential is solar, which is they argue cheaper, faster, more stable.

26:19I mean, everybody listening will know the incredible story of the drop in the price of solar energy that it's like one -twentieth of what it was a few years ago, partly because it's incredible Chinese transformation. Well, if you're giving new customers a free trip plus membership for the whole of 2025, that means you get at free listening. Early access to episodes, discounts on live shows and things like the mini series that we've just done on JD Vance. Just download the Fuse app, sign up with the code Politics, for all the details and full terms, head to getfuse .com slash politics. Anyway, Rich C.

26:54Trip Plus member leads many conflicts, both historically and current seem to be attributed to one person, usually a country's leader, as Putin is in Ukraine. In reality, See how important is the influence of one person? Aren't they actually just the face of the regime in charge? Surely wide effect is a replay. Well this is a really interesting thing, isn't it? Because generally when you go back in time and a historian is writing, they will tend to diminish the importance of the kind of great man theory of history and they will tend to explain how decisions emerge from a deeper economic crisis, social background, cultural moment.

27:32But when we look at things today, we have a real tendency not to say, you know, Kierstammer is the sort of passive victim of a slowing British economy poor demographics, a declining power in the world that's not much he can do. We tend to put the responsibility right on him as leader and of course they encourage that themselves, don't they? Because they want to present themselves as being a charge. And what do you think about great men's theory of history? Well, I think just to pick up on what you just said there, so what they what they then do is this is what you'll hear people say critics of Guest I was there all is no thataries no Blair in other words they say that this is about him.

28:13It's only about the leader. Let's just take Rich's question which talks about Putin. It is about him. However, it's about him at the end of a very long period of time where he has aligned with the forces around him forces that he can control and forces that he can't. to get himself into this position of extraordinary power within his own country and therefore within the world. We talked on the main podcast about Ali Hameney, very similar. You know, we said, I said, reminded people that at the start he was in there as a sort of stopgap because he wasn't even remotely qualified by their own constitution.

28:49But over time he's immense that power. Donald Trump at the moment is immensely powerful within his own country and its own, in its politics it's untherefore powerful within the world. There was an interesting related question from Margaret William and other Trip Plus members that I've not yet listened to your mini series, The Real JD Vance. However, does this new venture indicate that you and I are leaning towards the great man theory of history? And it doesn't, but what it does is that often, I think part of what we see our role as is trying to explain politics and political trends to people who are at the moment to finding politics and political trends unbelievably confusing and often that is done through the personalities that people connect with.

29:33JD Vance in a very short period of time has become one of the best known vice presidents that of our lifetime. You know he is a household name around the world. That is very very rare for an American vice president. So he's become a significant figure already. He might be the next president. So therefore he probably merits I think more analysis than most vice presidents would get. I don't think he's a great man by the way, I think he's a pretty bad man. It's funny isn't it? It's a great man. Very rare that we talk about great woman theory. And I think that's because women tend not to start wars in this way.

30:06So very quickly, before we get on to the great man theory, just wanted to say the second episode of our members only JD Vance series, which we've both recorded as out tomorrow, Friday the 27th of June. And we talk about the emergence of the new right, the influence of figures like the Tecbro Peter Teal and how a shady network of billionaires want J .D. Vance to become an American monarch. If you want to hear this series, which we've really enjoyed, recording, sign up to hear the first two episodes at therestaspolitics .com to get a seven -day free trial. So the great man's theory of history is a quote from Thomas Carlisle's book, Hero and Heroism, and this is an early 19th century account.

30:45And it's a real reminder of the We could have gap between the way in which we tend to think in normal culture, which has gone a long way away from heroes. And then this weird phenomenon of Trump and populism, which has brought sort of pseudo -fake heroes back into power. So the basic story would be that, for nearly, I guess, 2 ,000, 2 ,500 years, we had this idea of kind of great men, great heroes, kind of warriors, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and you know, even Victorian heroes. And that collapsed. As you've pointed out, right, for it collapsed because feminism said, or what about the other half of the population, pacifism said enough of the war.

31:28Psychoanalysis said these people are a bunch of egotistical narcissists. Class analysis said they tend to be elite, anti -colonialism said they tend to be imperial, etc. So we get to the stage by the end of the Second World War where we're going for ordinary heroes, clapping NHS workers, the unknown fire, and trying to get away from the idea of these superheroes. But there's a totally different trend, almost as though, maybe this is the work that you're doing on men and young men, where there's resistance against getting rid of heroes. And that deploys with superheroes in movies, celebrities, sports stars, and eventually, musk and trump, where there's sort of all that repressed desire that we're going to have these great men comes back in a much more sinister, contorted, immoral form, leaving us really, I think, only with Zelensky as the only person I can think of today who I'm still prepared to really say this guy does kind of match up as a hero.

32:22Interesting. I think you should take that those sort of points you just made. I think there's a sort of, maybe not a book, but there's a very interesting, long article in that, all those, you're going through all those threads of where, of why the great man theory is rejected. Alongside, why it appears to be coming back in fashion? Trump, as you say. Do you think, um, Farage, who, I mean, here we are, this week was the ninth anniversary of the referendum. He was a big factor of that. Most people in Britain now accept that it was probably a really silly thing to do. And yet he, Johnson, it's sort of ultimately, he's been seen off.

32:58for Arge's back as a force and a lot of his support is coming from certainly men more than women and disproportionately young men as well. Do you think that's related to the things that you've just been saying? Yes, and I think one of the reasons why you and I tend to, I'm afraid, probably underestimate figures like For Arge over time, is it's difficult to square the fact that on the one hand, he's clearly a pretty absurd figure who gets an incredible amount wrong, contradicts himself all the time, lost many, many elections, and yet is really making the weather. I mean, it's a very odd gap. I mean, we had a glimpse of it with Boris Johnson.

33:43There's a huge image of it with Trump. For us, as part of this phenomenon, which is not to return to so few pedesting, we'd want to believes that the people who are making an impact are these sort of earnest, very clever intellectuals like macro making, highly intelligent speeches, but actually we're in a world in which the people who really seem to be making the weather are people who on the surface seem quite kind of buffoonish and unsurface seem to be having more influence than the people doing the strategic analysis. I was in France the other day and I did an interview for a, there's a channel for documentary which I think is going out today, I think Thursday.

34:22If you're listening on Thursday, I think it's today. And it's Fraser Nelson, X of the Spectator, and the premises will Nigel Farage be the next Prime Minister. Now a few years ago, in fact, even a couple years ago, that would have been a complete joke. I still think it's highly unlikely, but it's not impossible because we're in such volatile times. As you know, Roy, I tend to prepare if I'm doing interviews or at least think it a bit. And I jot it down a few notes, but I think my best line came just spontaneously. Tom will you think of this. I said economically for ours is Trust Mark II, politically and presentationally he's Johnson Mark II, or we really going to put a combination of the worst two prime ministers in our history into Downey Street.

35:00Are we really going to do that? That was quite good. Very good with a little sprinkling of Trump on top. Okay. Yeah. Not bad. Well, there's interesting. He's distancing himself from Trump. He's not really getting engaged in Trump at the moment. An amazing that he's managed to do that, isn't it, given that there are all those photographs them grinning together and so many records statements of him praising him. You know, it's extraordinary. Okay, George Lambrue, Trip Plus member, I'm a new father, five -month -old little boy. Congratulations, George. Fantastic. And I'm incredibly concerned about his future.

35:29Knowing what we know about politics around the world and the likelihood of conflict involving Britain, would you recommend having children? My answer is absolutely yes. That's the thing I've done. And when we're not really here to drive you into such gloom that you have children. But listen, Roy, a lot of a lot of young people are thinking in these terms because they're basically saying, kind of for the house, climate change, social media seems to be sort of destroying our brains. Britain is not as powerful as it was. The world is now led by a complete sort of, you know, monsters. And Gabriel, that house not going to save us.

36:02So you can't leave it alone, can you? You can't leave it alone. Ah, je voudrais me excuser devant tous les français, Come on, golego, or he's cured, would he test you say, bubba, what be he saying? I love the French. I love it. I love French food. You love wider French food. No, no, no, I really like the French. I just was massively disappointed by this great Messiah. And of a George, the other thing to say to George Lambrou is that, you know, if we think about the sort of, I think there is also a patriotic case for getting the birth rate back up. We are demographically going to mess. Are you going to patriotic case for getting birth rate up?

36:38You're going to have Kierstammer making little speech encouraging everyone to, that's quite old fashioned. That's quite, that's a type of political communication. We haven't seen for a long time. Just look at the birth rate. Would you know what all band did, which was very interesting? I don't know whether it's fully been realized, but he announced that if you had, I think it's more than four children, you would be exempt from income tax from your entire life and attempt to get hungier in birth rate up. And that's a pretty amazing policy. The one French person that you like, De Gaulle, He was always trying to get people who were having babies.

37:10And Nicholas Sergent, didn't she have, she had a big push on supporting families in Calisthenne? I mean, if someone had said to you, if you had four children, you'd be exempt from income tax for life, you might be quite tempted. I'd be quite tempted. Yeah, I think having had three, you'd say, yeah, let's go again. Let's go again. Now, the other end of things, from Poppy McGee, how would you both have voted in the debate on the assisted dying bill if you'd been in the comments? I would have voted very much in favor. I probably would have voted against reluctantly and we got into that actually we had quite a good Series of a global disagreements of people are interested.

37:45We did actually quite a good leading interfered in way with the More What you mean if you had to say in sort of you know one sentence what your Main objective is a fear that an old frail person is going to feel not not that they're bullied, but just sort of subconsciously pick up, they're becoming a bit of a burden and they're costing their family money and maybe it'd be kinder and better if they just took themselves out of the way. And I wouldn't want to feel that anybody felt that. I also have been a bit troubled by some of the data coming out of the Netherlands. I mean, it's an extraordinary number of applications now for assisted dying in the Netherlands.

38:24I'd be a bit troubled if we were moving towards a situation where it was becoming very, very common for lives to end in that way. But anyway, there's a much, much bigger conversation. But you were more, I think, concerned by the role, the constitutional role of the House of Lords on this, because this is something that got through the House of Commons. Remind people of got through on a private members bill, which is a very interesting thing where just occasionally members of parliament are get to bring stuff forward. I remember Rebecca Harrison in my intake in parliament tried to take one through to change a British summertime.

38:55She wanted to change our clocks and make sure the clocks weren't changing in a way that over -benefitted Scottish farmers. So we're going to, I think we're going to leave Greenwich mean time entirely if that bill had got through. That would be very bad for soft power. Well, I mean, obviously massive conservatives like me would just so attach to the symbolic value of Greenwich mean time that I failed to support my Fanger Becker when I should have done. I agree with you. I'd worry if the laws mess around with it. So I've already heard some of the members of the House Law saying that, you know, well, it's not a government bill there, and it wasn't promised to the manifesto and therefore blah blah blah blah blah.

39:30I think this is a case where the House comments should show premise. The House of Court Laws is absolutely welcome to put forward proposals to improve it, but I worry that those who have failed to defeat the arguments and the commons will now try to use the House laws to stop this. And listen, and I also wasn't that happy with West Streeting, who okay, he's entitled to come out and vote against it, but then I think to come out afterwards and basically say the Health Service can't afford this bill. I I wasn't sure about that either. Interesting, isn't it? Because he, as I guess his objection as partly as a Christian to the bill, but it's interesting to them, as you say, use his position as health secretary to undermine it on a cost basis.

40:10Yeah, because the Prime Minister voted for it. He could easily, he could most say, well, you know, okay, we can, we have to make this work. Roy, I'm going to put forward a very controversial idea here. Oh, yes, go. And tell me whether you or Christian view thinks this is bad. I would like to be able to say in age now 68, compass mentors, that if I get to a place where I don't have control of my own physicality, my own mental faculties, that I would like to be able to say that in those are the circumstances in which I would no longer like to continue living. What do you think of that? Look, I think you're expressing something that's really powerful in humans.

40:54I don't think we like feeling that we're not who we were and that things are falling away. And that's, I think, I guess one of the reasons why we used to love the idea of sort of people to come back to heroes dying young because they died a moment where they're at their absolute peak. The only thing I'd say gently against it is maybe we also need to be kind to ourselves and we need to embrace aging. And not, I was a bit, you know, I'd sort of sight, he had a conversation when we were doing the leading interview with Kem about this when she talked about somebody saying she didn't like seeing her mother looking undignified in hospital.

41:28I sort of think that we should be more comfortable with being undignified that aging isn't awfully dignified and we should embrace that as part of our mortality. But you know, who knows, listen, I'm not going to push that on you. You've lived a tough life. You've done a lot of things and you've got a particular way of viewing yourself. But I wouldn't want everybody to feel that just because they're getting older and frailer that they're somehow demeaning themselves and becoming an useless and they might as well pop on. Final question, Landy Roberts. This is about Zelensky talking to the King and of course the Queen, if you put together a number of world leaders at the Queen Met and have private conversations with the question from Landy is what do politicians talk about when they meet the King?

42:13How interested do you think the King is a geopolitist? Well, I think he's very into geopolitics. How interesting is it what a lot of the political leaders say? Is it probably another question? But I think he's doing an amazing job. I mean, I can't, obviously, keep praising him because I'm a huge fan. But Zelensky was over again just two days ago in Britain did a visit on Monday. And it's really interesting the way that the king has made a real effort to host world leaders. He's hosting many, many more of them than people realize because these aren't just state visits. He's often, you know, he'll bring the king of Bahrain over to a meeting at Windsor Hill.

42:48And he's really, I think, being creative in the way in which he hosts people. He often thinks hard about what they might be interested in seeing, takes them to different places, but really makes the effort to sit with them, spend time with them. And as you say, he's got very, very clear views about the world, is fascinated by the world and is really, feels that he's got a role. I mean, I think he has got a role that one we talked about, I suppose, two weeks ago, is that he's obviously the head of state at Canada and a time when Trump is talking about making Canada the 51st state and Trump lights the British monarchy.

43:21So he's got to signal, oh, hold on a second. Canada is, you know, something associated with with the Royal family. So please back off. But he's also, I think, able to, in the Gulf, he's got these relationships which nobody else has got because he's known all these people since they were children since he was a young person. So he will have met them over 50 years. Nobody else can quite do that. And that means that he can pick up the phone, he can steer things. Presumably the challenge is he's also got to balance the fact that he's a constitutional monarch. the Prime Minister is the elected head of government and he's therefore got to balance all the time his strong personal views about what's going wrong in the world and who he thinks is causing trouble with his responsibility to represent the state.

44:13And the thing though about what they talk about because they have this sort of inbuilt advantage because of sort of kind of general all deference that is shown towards them, including by foreigners, I mean it's really quite extraordinary the sort of power they have that you'll meet an absolute arch French republican, I don't mean republican party, I mean somebody who just absolutely doesn't understand or like the concept of monarchy, but you see them when they meet the Queen when she was alive or King Charles now, and they will just sort of bow down, it's like it's really kind of weird phenomenon, And they do have so much of their time is with these endless small talk when they're doing garden parties and visits to villages and hospitals and the rest of it.

44:56The Queen always used to say, you know, how far have you come? I don't know what Charles has as a tick to sort of get people going. He's very good at it. You may have seen Chussy Garden Show or the Windsor Garden Show, a flower show. I mean, you can see one of the things that he's always doing is he's often looks back over his shoulder and Points at someone with a smile a sort of cheeky smile to say. Oh, yeah, I've just Remember that he's got a great wave. I mean actually more more than his mother He's I think he actually really enjoys it. He's more like your friend Bill Clinton He seems to get genuine energy From not be drained.

45:29I mean he's actually in that sense a bit of an extra that he really seems to be talking about I can't remember somebody recently told me that when Trump was with the Queen that she told somebody afterwards, all he wanted to talk about was my sister. He was obsessed with my sister. Why is he so interested in my sister? His prince is Margaret. But because the other thing they've got, let's say Prince Charles is meeting Zelensky, okay? Now he's obviously because of the government position on Ukraine Russia, he's perfectly able to sort of be very, very, very supportive. But of course, you know, there was a time when Putin was not persona non -grata and when he will have had meetings, observations and what have you, I guess the question that is how frank can he be in a situation like that or is there always a part of him that's thinking I have to slightly hold back?

46:22Yeah, and of course he'll get, I mean I think the other thing that you'll know and I know that readers don't know is that of course he gets, like the primacy, he gets a red box with all the briefing, he gets very detailed speaking notes. There will be points to make. I mean, you know, I also maybe could sort of explain to lessons the sort of weird thing that prime minister's ministers get. These sort of sheets of paper that sit in front of them when they meet someone else, where the civil servants have said these are the points you must make. These are points that would be nice to make. And these are the points to avoid?

46:54Well, one of the lovely examples of this is John the Carey, who, you know, the famous spy writer, but who was Nyscia British Intelligence Officer. Goes off to see Harold McMillan when he's Prime Minister in the 60s with a guy called Fritz Erla, who's a German politician who the British think is going to be in a potential future chance. It's quite interesting actually that the, I don't know what would happen today with the Prime Minister spare time for kind of upper middle ranking German politician who they think might become the chance from the future. Anyway, in those days they did, he takes Fritz Erla into seem like McMillan has these speaking points in front of him.

47:27And McMillan is pretty bit tired, bit out of it sort of stumbles through the speaking points that Fritz Ella and Lucari can all see sitting on the table. And Ella leaves with absolute sort of amazing Olympian disdain for McMillan and just how pathetic it is to see him sort of struggle through these speaking points where meeting him instead of feeling grateful for the chance to meet the British Prime Minister. Now, I just want a little glimpse from you though. Go on, give us a story if you can about what it's like dealing with these kinds of things, because I think you've got one up your sleeve.

47:56Tony Blair, but you know with whom I've discussed most things, he was incredibly discreet about his meetings with the Queen. You know he got off to see the Queen and he'd come back and say, what were you talking about? Oh you know there's no that can't be told about it. He wouldn't sort of say, oh I'm the prime minister, I can't talk about it, constitutional propriety, etc. Although remember when we talked to Jacinda Ardern, she did something which Tony was told not to do in his memoirs, which is quoted her directly. And one night he came back from a meeting at her match. I was like, what is, oh god, he said she was wearing this green dress, a green suit and she said that she was going to Scotland at the weekend to present the Scottish Cup, the football Celtic Rangers.

48:40And he said, I hope you're not worried about dress. Green being Celtic and the Queen having to stay neutral in all these. He couldn't quite work out whether she understood that that might be a problem. So he was really worried that actually she just went away thinking, why is it's, it was my new prime minister insulting what I wear? Yeah, yeah, I can see, I can see that. That's it. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a good getting a turn around that. You don't, it's probably not great telling any woman, you know, that you don't like her dress and telling the name, maybe whatever, whatever the, whatever the search.

49:14Anyway, he got very good at saying mom, the world, the right is mom, isn't it, mom? I always used to say mom, but it's probably his mom. You don't have a very long A. At school we said, mum in relation to our matrons. Right. So, Sir's just so much easier, isn't it, Roy? Sir's much easier. That's what I tend to call you, Alastair, when we're not on screen. Have a lovely day. Have a safe flight from Cyprus. Thank you. And just remind listeners and viewers, tomorrow, Rest His Policies Plus, Episode 2 of Who Is The Real? JD Vance. All right, good. Looking forward to it. Bye -bye. See you soon. Bye.