473. Europe vs. Trump: Competing Visions for a Ukraine Peace Deal (Question Time)

25:47If you look back to the optimism of Paris or even Glasgow, we've been through these very eccentric locations for COP. You remember we've been through Shamor Sheikh, we've been through Dubai, we've been through Azerbaijan. But UAE now looks like a sort of beacon of light because in UAE there was an agreement to phase out fossil fuels. And now in this COP, we had Russia, Saudi Arabia predictably, but the big thing is India coming out so strongly against any language. So we end up with a situation in which 80 countries sign up to a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels and 80 countries reject it. And Brazil got on a total muddle.

26:24Was this going to be the implementation cop, the people's cop, the truth cop? It was the indigenous cop, wasn't it? Right. Even Brazil couldn't decide whether what it was doing is selling itself as Lula climate deforestation, or was it Brazil as the major oil producer on the side of the fossil fuels? Again, we've come out of it with Europe being quite well behaved. They've committed to a 66 % reduction by 2030 compared to their levels in 1990, and a 90 % reduction by 2050. China did make some commitments. China is not totally like in Saudi India in this, but China's commitment was 10%. It was well below about a third of what people were pushing for.

27:10And the fundamental story remains that every year we continue to put about two parts per million into the atmosphere. Every year we continue to generate about 80 % of our energy from fossil fuels. So even though the renewable bit goes up, the fossil fuel bit goes up just as much as the renewable bit. And we're not remotely on track for one and a half degrees. The most you could say, my friend who'd very sweetly been through this whole COP crisis, an absolute optimist and wants to believe in it, he said, well, what we achieved is if it hadn't been for Paris, we would have been on track for four degrees, we're now on track for two and a half.

27:41Yeah. And where, of course, I'm going to be grumpy, is that despite this panel on global inequality, all the figures are the inequality is getting worse. And in fact, the British government has massacred its international development budget. It's less than half of what it was even five years ago. The US government has wiped out its international development assistance. The number of people living in extreme poverty in Africa has gone from about 180 million in 1980 to about 470 million today. And every indicator of inequality across the world seems to be going wrong. Inequality of income, inequality of wealth, stagnation of median incomes.

28:21So without any money and with everything going in the wrong direction, what on earth is this panel going to do consisting of Spain, Brazil, and South Africa? Oh, you're being so cynical about this. They're providing a useful leadership role on a vital debate for the future of the planet. And they say this, this is straight out of New Labour book, the first bit too much wealth and power is in the hands of the few goes on as monopolies reign over entire industries including much of the media and the 21st century town square of social media so there's a debate that they need to have and they need to do more about yeah i mean it's which is harder without america for sure so the thing that breaks my heart is that things that you and i violently agree on and values that we would have taken for granted when you now say them aloud seem beginning to feel more and more naive and mad.

29:07I was looking at the UN General Assembly in September. The UN General Assembly just three months ago was committed to leaving no one behind, acting together for the advancement of peace, sustainable development, and human dignity for present and future generations. Now, what can we possibly disagree with that statement? And yet, for the first time, thanks to Trump, Putin, Modi, and the rest of them, it's beginning to seem a bit ridiculous right these these phrases are beginning to seem laughable well they might but you've got to keep you've got a whole you've got to keep fighting for noble causes rory you can't just you can't give up now let's go to uk nick moss from hexam nathan gill's conviction raises serious security concerns for reform uk as a former senior ukip figure and mep he repeatedly promoted pro russia lines yet there's no sign reforms leadership ever questioned this given their close ties to gill their silence invites doubt about what they knew whether they condone his actions why isn't this receiving more scrutiny from reformed voters in the general public if reform is poised to enter government these unanswered questions could pose a national security risk i've got to be honest really i am banging my head against the wall on this one so today tuesday there is finally a bit of coverage about nigel farage on the media and it's about whether he did or did not use racist abuse against his fellow pupils at dulwich college That's a school.

30:29Serious to be examined. Fair enough. But Nathan Gill should by now be a household name on a par with the spies of the past. You know, Philby has gone into British historical legend. OK. Even since the conviction, I have been doing events and saying, who here has heard of Nathan Gill? And yes, it's gone up a little bit from the zero percent of last week. but we're still talking single figures. That is a total chronic failure. We're going to talk a bit about the BBC of our media who have chosen that because their chosen narrative right now is Farage's on route for power to overlook virtually one of the most significant political diplomatic security and crime stories of modern times.

31:19Very good. Well, given as you say that only a small percentage of people have heard of Nathan Gill. Let me try to explain who Nathan Gill is. If you're right, 92 % of our listeners haven't heard of Nathan Gill. I suspect some of our, more of our listeners will have, but it is shocking how badly our media has reported this. So Nathan Gill was a politician associated with all the different incarnations of Nigel Farage's party, which was, of course, UKIP and then the Brexit party and then reform. And he kept moving as Farage moved between them. And he was their leader in Wales. Yeah. He was the member of the European Parliament for UKIP.

31:51He was then in the Welsh National Assembly. Then he was re-elected in the Brexit party and became leader of reform in Wales. And in 2018, 2019, he began to develop these very close relationships, particularly with a man called Oleg Voloshin, who was a Ukrainian member of parliament very very close to ukrainian oligarchs to a man called medvichuk and also to a whole media industry and what they began doing is giving cash to nathan gill it now turns out they probably gave him something 30 40 000 pounds it turns out to be extremely cheap to bribe uh british members of parliament 5 000 pounds at a time it's not like a million pounds in a thing and what they got him to do was to read out speeches in the European Parliament defending this media enterprise.

32:46So it's basically a pro-Russian media operation that was running in Ukraine, attacking Zelensky and making the Russian point of view and doing all it could to undermine the Ukrainian position against Russia. And the Ukrainians were moving to shut down this media, which they thought was a Russian push of influence. And Nathan Gill gives a speech in the European Parliament, which is worth bearing in mind when you're being suspicious of politicians. I've watched the whole speech. It's not as you would expect. What he actually says is, I'm very much on Ukraine's side. I'm very much against Russia's invasion of Crimea.

33:19I very much believe in the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine, but freedom of speech. And it's very unfortunate that this country that I support is shutting down this media organization and we need to allow freedom of speech to happen in this country, for which he gets money. And the man who gives the money then has a meeting with Putin the following day. And it says how well he's doing in getting this MVP to do this. But I'll just show you the fact that Putin takes an interest in this. But what's interesting about reformed reaction since the conviction, they can't believe their luck. I even suspected that this morning reform would think, oh, great, they're going on about Nigel being a racist when he was a kid rather than this, which is much, much more serious.

33:56Honestly, if I were the Labour government right now, I would publish all the stuff that came, emerged during the Brexit referendum. I would have a major inquiry into Russian interference in our democracy. And you can throw in China as well. And you can just because we are pretending we're pretending that this isn't really a problem. And the media is totally playing into that. Absolutely. And, you know, we have to be very careful on what we're suggesting here. But it might be worth asking some questions about some other people from Nathan Gill's party. There were several who were mentioned in the court case.

34:29...who were also making speeches in the European Parliament in favor of the same pro-Russian media organization, served on the board of the same pro-Russian media organization, who absolutely denied that they took any payment from Russia to do this. But it's pretty peculiar that they're all making speeches in favor of it, serving on the board of it, turning up to meetings with it. And so that's worth looking into. But clearly what we need to ask is, is there a bigger systemic problem here? Oleg Voloshen and actually a man called Janusz who was the Polish agent in all of this. A lot of this is coming from their debriefing, Janusz's debriefing by Polish intelligence and in particular his WhatsApps.

35:10And they were connected to many, many members of parliament and members of European parliament all the way across Europe. So far only one of them has been prosecuted. Now, we're not going to get into legal problems by accusing individuals by name or even implying anything by name, but there is a much bigger investigation that needs to happen. Is it actually plausible that there was only one involved? So somebody needs to, I would imagine if you were investigating this, look at the other people who were making speeches at the same time and check whether this was genuinely their views, or is it a bit odd that they were making almost identical speeches to Nathan Gill on the same issue, serving on the same boards, going to the same meetings?

35:53we need to look at people across the system who had contact with these people. I mean, again, you know, very much Nigel Farage will say in his defense, I'm sure that the fact that he had a photograph with Nadia Barodi, who then pops up in the same photographs, and it's because she's the partner of Oleg Voloshin, or that Marcevsky, who does the voice of Europe and is closed down by the Czechs, isn't indirectly connected. Well, fine. May all be enormous coincidence. They may just have been foolish. They may have been caught with the wrong photograph in the same way that you and I often get photographs of people.

36:28But there's clearly a much, much bigger system going on here. And I'm a bit suspicious about the fact that only Nathan Gill and the whole of Europe has so far been prosecuted. Several MEPs, their names came out in evidence in court. I've barely seen them anywhere. I've certainly not seen them pursued by the media to be asked the sort of questions you're putting. All of these other names who have not been in the papers, but have been raised in court, they all deny any wrongdoing. So take them at face value. But your question about whether there is something bigger and systemic going on, my hunch is if Vladimir Putin is sitting at a desk waiting for his man to come back and report how they're getting on with Nathan Gill, I don't think Vladimir Putin would just sit there interested in one MEP.

37:10And likewise, Richard Tice, big figure now, never off the television in Reform UK. He said he'd never met the guy. So you talk about pictures, then pictures emerged, and the pictures emerged of him sort of being introduced, introducing him at speeches. So they're trying to do exactly what News International did when the phone hacking thing started. One bad apple. One bad apple. Very good headline in the Daily Mirror today. Any more Vlad Apples, Nigel? I think we need to know, as Nigel Farage might say. I'm only asking questions here, Nigel. I think we need to know the answers. But there's the bigger issue of corruption in general.

37:46I mean, we've talked about this before. We've talked about the way that Azerbaijan basically corrupted a whole series of British and European members of parliament through its caviar diplomacy. We've talked about the way that European parliamentarians were found with bags of cash, almost certainly from a Middle Eastern state, trying to bribe them to do stuff. And I think we haven't begun to think about the ways in which the American private sector can begin to corrupt our members of parliament. And what do I mean by corrupt? What I mean is it'd be much more difficult to catch them. In a sense, actually, the Russians and the Gulf states who are handing over cash are being naive.

38:27They're doing it in a too obvious way. It's extremely easy to change the behavior of our members of parliament if you are a big American tech company by saying, come and give a speech for which we will pay you X thousand. Or here's an opportunity after you leave parliament to help us with a consultancy. Or here's some stuff that we can do in your constituency, non-party political, but helping you with the digital infrastructure in your constituency and understanding how to use these platforms. And that general sense that these are powerful, wealthy organizations that could give you money, that could do you harm, that could be useful to you, can do an extraordinary amount to stop parliamentarians regulating those social media companies, confronting them, calling them out.

39:10And so I think we need to worry about our democracy, not just in the really obvious, here's some dirty bundles of cash, but all the other ways in which different countries use paid trips, parties, gifts to get people on their side. You know, we'll talk about the BBC in a minute. I mean, how many days did Angela Rayner's stamp duty issue lead the news, lead the newspapers? I mean, and to be honest, even now, it's not that long ago, I can't remember the full detail. but at the time you turn on the television you turn on the radio you open the newspaper it was wall to wall we're talking now about a guy who is presenting himself as the next prime minister who was thus far so far as i can work out addressed this issue zero other than saying he was a bad apple and you know what made me that reminded me of it was exactly the defense used by News International over the phone hacking.

40:10One bad apple. Well, let's be assured of that by properly investigating Russia's attempted influence on UK democracy. And that will involve talking to people like Farage, other party leaders, etc. But we are kidding ourselves if we think that Russia puts this at your point about this going to Putin. This is a strategic interest for them. Putin taking an interest in the corruption of a Welsh member of the European Parliament, right? Well, who else and what else is he interested in? Well, there's a wonderful book by a man called Shikovstov, who's based in Vienna. It's called Russia and the Western Far Red, looking at this whole relationship.

40:57And it's not just what's going on here with Brexit reform UKIP. It's what's going on with the Front National in France, where you end up with them taking huge loans from Russian banks. It's to do with the way that they're inviting people from the German AFD, their far-right party, over to meetings in Moscow and getting... And they're getting plenty in return in terms of the policies of that. Pro-Russian statements. And he continues to develop this, the golden dawn in Greece, etc. etc. This has been a Russian policy really at the heart of Russian intelligence since the 1920s, 1930s. One of the great chiefs of what KGB became the SVR said, the difference between us and the British is that we're not fundamentally an intelligence gathering organization.

41:39We're fundamentally about destabilizing and shaping other people's politics by the way in which we create connections with social media, opposition groups, party members, party leaders. So this Russian move is part of a much broader Russian move across many, many different trains. There will be hundreds of Russian intelligence officers working in different ways through different intermediaries to shape the space. And basically what they want to do is shape the space against liberal democracy, against NATO, against the European Union. And they see all these groups as being proto-Brexit groups, so destroying the European Union, pro-Russia groups destroying NATO, pro-Trump groups undermining liberal democracy and the rule of law, and all of that is to Putin's advantage.

42:25And you and I, for saying things like that, get portrayed by people on the right and on the hard left, apologies, sort of cranks, almost like paranoid cranks. But the point is, They do this stuff for a reason. And Nathan Gill should be a massive, massive warning cry to the rest of our politics and our democracy. And the extent to which both politics and media, it seems to me, are now just saying, oh, well, Nathan Gill's gone to jail. That's the end of that. It's pathetic. And more MPs need to speak out. And I'm worried that one of the reasons more MPs aren't speaking out is that they all have a bit of a guilty conscience.

43:03There are far too many all-party parliamentary groups sponsored by foreign governments paying for MPs to go on guided trips, sharing the propaganda of those countries to them. All this stuff should be stopped. We should have much, much stricter rules against trips, benefits, lobbying. Not against this trip. Not against this trip. The rest is politics. No sanctions on trip. OK, Roy, let's take a break and then come back and talk about the BBC, West Bank, and also Addiction to Awareness Week.

43:38This episode is brought to you by NordVPN. December should be the season of peace and joy, but there are some people, some bad actors, who don't take a Christmas break. So we have to hope that the cybercriminals are visited by the three ghosts on Christmas Eve. But in case they miss out on redemption this year, we can safely protect ourselves from their online crimes thanks to NordVPN. NordVPN's powerful software encrypts your data as Threat Protection Pro blocks malicious links and scans downloads for viruses. And it's not just online safety. NordVPN knows that some online retailers like to change their prices depending on your location.

44:19Sneaky stuff. Fortunately, NordVPN ensures that your Christmas list is not ruled by algorithmic prices. NordVPN protects up to 10 devices so they can be installed directly to your router to cover your whole house. To get the best discount on your NordVPN plan, head to nordvpn.com slash restispolitics. You'll also get four extra months free on the two-year plan, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the episode description.

44:51This episode is brought to you by Revolut Business, the all-in-one account to manage your finances. Now, politics has its share of bad deals, trade summits, late-night negotiations, often somebody walks away with the short straw. And we've seen enough botched negotiations in Westminster to know what happens when numbers don't add up. Business is no different. Nothing empties your pockets faster than hidden exchange rates. Revolut business changes that. Over 25 currencies exchange at the same interbank rates that banks use during market hours within plan allowance. With automatic orders and price alerts, the guesswork disappears.

45:27Breaking into new markets feels possible, not perilous. Whether you're paying salaries in Dublin or suppliers in Sydney, your money reaches over 150 global destinations fast without the fine print hangover. Business across borders kept simple. For all the entrepreneurs and business owners out there, if you're ready to simplify your business finances and exchange like an expert, now's the time to open a Revolut business account. Plus, you'll unlock a£200 welcome bonus or the equivalent in your local currency if you sign up and add money to your account by the end of 2025. Just use the link in the description.

46:02Fees and terms and conditions apply.

46:29with these savings, why shop anywhere else?

46:39Welcome back to The Restless Politics with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Anastair Campbell. And this next question is brought to you by People's Postcode Lottery. And on that, People's Postcode Lottery's biggest ever prize pot, 38.2 million, will be shared among winning postcodes across Great Britain in their December draws with 30 % of every ticket supporting charities and good causes in local communities. And to mark that milestone, they've asked a fitting question. Of all the moments that define us as a species, from fire to flight, democracy to discovery, I like the alliteration, what's the biggest ever human achievement?

47:16I think the biggest ever political human achievement, I actually do think it relates to global public health. I think the efforts that have been made successfully to eradicate some diseases and massively to cut down on others, malaria, TB, AIDS, etc. I think I put that right up now. I'd maybe develop that and say underneath that, the biggest ever human achievement, I think, is our ability to actually think about other humans and other species. We are very, very selfish in many ways of species. We have a real tendency to be like, Let's look after our own families, ourselves first. But the amazing thing, along with all the damage we've done in the world, is we did have an idea of international development.

48:02We did have an idea of tackling global poverty, of trying to work together on climate change, of setting up democracies where people have equal rights, of having a redistributive tax system where wealthier people contribute to people who are less well-off, of having systems where, in the end, we actually do begin to care about nature conservation the environment so i think our biggest achievement as a species is we're not quite as selfish as we sometimes think and i think i want to keep going yeah we'll sort of lean into it i mean we should lean into our generosity i here's here's a question for you how many southern white rhinos do you think there were in about 1905?

48:45I have got no idea, Roy. Okay, answer is about 25. How many do you think there are today? More than that. Yeah, 25 ,000. There we go. So that's an interesting example when we're generally very gloomy about humans. Because a lot of species are being lost. Yeah, and we're doing huge damage to biodiversity, but just occasionally humans are able to pull their socks up, concentrate, target a species and improve it. Well, one of my favourite current show of hands in my show of hands obsession at speaking events is we talk about everything's going well, and the government's this and the government's that.

49:16And then when it gets really moany, I'll just say, okay, let's just hold on. Hands up if you quite enjoy your life. And everyone puts their hands up. And I think it is worth holding onto that. We're quite an optimistic sort of breed, really. Yeah. Maybe the biggest ever human achievement isn't one invention or moment. It is, as you suggested, Alas, the way we keep moving forward together. And that same idea sits at the heart of the People's Postcode Lottery's biggest ever prized pot in their December draws, 38.2 million. You could get a decent striker for that in the championship, waiting to be won across Great Britain with 30 % of every ticket, supporting charities and good causes in local communities.

49:57Because just like progress itself, I guess this is built on connection. Millions of people taking part or contributing to something bigger. Here's your door in the draw. Sign up for midnight 30th November at peoplespostcodelottery.co.uk. Here's a question for you. Jackie Muggleton, TripPlus member. Wiltshire, thank you, Jackie, for being a TripPlus member. Is it now time for Starmer to stand up to Trump to defend our BBC? Well, if you haven't seen my speech on behalf of Keir Starber about the BBC, which we did when we were on tour, I'm strongly recommended. And how's your campaign for becoming Director General?

50:29How's that going? I think it's a non-starter. I've got to tell you, Rory, yesterday I watched some of the evidence of the DCMS committee of the BBC executives, But I found it very, very frustrating on many levels. So I gave up. And while I was then, went off and do something else. And I started to get these messages saying, they're talking about you at the DCMS committee. I thought, oh, great. Somebody's decided they should throw my head, my name into the ring. But in fact, what it was, was Robbie Gibb, Theresa May's former communications director, was being asked how he thought the Conservative Party would react if Keir Starmer appointed Alastair Campbell to the board of the BBC.

51:09and Robbie Gibbs' reply was that a bit of a sort of faux humility at the start he said well I don't think I was as good as my job as Alistair was it is and in any event I'd worked for the BBC for a very very long time but it's a good question I've actually had since saying half in jest on tour that I'd like to be the director general I've had more than one person from within the BBC say go for it here's a question for me how important do you think of voices in public life the physical voice i think incredibly important i think this is a fundamental problem for keir starmer unfortunately i think his voice sounds strange nerdy and strangled because i thought samir shah's voice was a real problem yesterday he just sounded really weak so when the thing being put towards him is the giving weak leadership of the bbc at a time of crisis it didn't really help the committee didn't do a good job though i'm sorry but it was it was it was just a sort of friendly chat with them all.

52:03It wasn't forensic. Well, I chaired the Defence Select Committee briefly, and I was on the Foreign Affairs Committee for four years before that. And I was struck by the fact that we were not remotely as prepared. I testified to the Senate, and that's something. I testified to the Senate, I think, in 2008. They are really sharp. About Afghanistan. Yeah. And they have their staffers preparing every question, and it's completely legalistic, and they're drilling into it. I felt that we let people off too much. Often the chair are thinking, well, you have one question. As soon as you've got them on the rope, it moves on to the next MP.

52:34Some law firms offered training, but actually very few MPs turned up for that training. I mean, there's a general story around professionalism training of MPs and ministers. Apparently, Caroline Dynage is the chair of the committee. She was on the Westminster Hour or 10 o 'clock news on the radio apparently and said that she didn't think the board was in safe hands. So maybe that was the judgment they discussed afterwards. But I think that the witnesses will have left thinking because they did prepare. And the message they wanted to get out was that we're united and we care about the BBC. But there was no, that's why I gave up.

53:11It just wasn't forensic. It wasn't a proper interrogation. It's such a fascinating thing, isn't it? So the chair of the BBC, I suppose, came up at the tail end of the last Conservative government. And you can see how different the world is. Because I was having a few very informal conversations about whether that was something I might be interested in, right? Chair of the BBC. Fast forward 14 months, it's kind of unimaginable that a figure like me could be chair of the BBC. The thing has become so politicized and complicated. Whereas Chris Patton, of course, was chair of the BBC, right? He's not a figure a massively different kind of a centrist Tory.

53:45I'm maybe not as senior as Chris Patton, but we're now in a world in which it's almost unimaginable that a formal politician could be chair of the BBC. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing to say that politicians should be ruled out. But yeah, it was very, very, very disappointing. I always got the feeling that when I turned up at select committees as a witness, that they had prepared quite well. But you presumably didn't feel as worried as you did when you went in front of Hutton or or judge-led or lawyer-led inquiries. Because what I discovered watching select committees, and the master class was always William Hague, is that if you turned up and massively flattered the committee, they all curled over, didn't matter which party they came with, and took it.

54:26That's a very good question. I think a lot about that. They've learned that, right? The only people who get in trouble are the people who try to be antsy and argue back against the committee, and then the MPs can sort of slightly wake up and start going a bit harder. But if you spend your whole time being incredibly subservient and polite to them. The MPs are so flattered to have a foreign secretary or a chairman of the BBC be polite to them, which is not their normal experience in their constituencies, that they stop asking hard questions immediately. Now, Thomas in Bristol, what explains the lack of international attention to the West Bank's collapsing economy made dramatically worse by intensified Israeli restrictions as the Gaza war?

55:04And what are the implications of this silence for regional stability? Now, I know you've been looking at this, but just before that, I think this is so relevant as well to the discussion about Ukraine, because it's not that long ago that Trump was parading in front of huge, great signs saying peace 2025 and saying that he had delivered peace and stability. There have been over 300 Palestinians killed since then. There have been Israelis killed as well. And it's as if it's not happening. So what's Thomas's worry about the economy in the West Bank? Yeah. So this, of course, is about the West Bank, not Gaza.

55:40In other words, those bits of Palestinian territory are in the West, towards Jordan. So Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, etc. Fundamentally, the Palestinian economy is an import economy that's completely cut off from the world, and it's controlled by the Israeli state, divided up into areas A, B, and C. And before October the 7th, it was often in trouble because of security rationales. So checkpoints go up, difficult to move back and forth. But since October the 7th, the finance minister, Brazil Smotrich, who is on the very, very far right of Israeli politics, has used his position as finance minister to completely cripple the economy of the West Bank.

56:25There's been very good work done by a man called Yost Hiltman, who's connected with the International Crisis Group. We interviewed Comfort Eero from the ICG a bit earlier. But there are three ways in which it's been crippled. One of them is quite technical, which we're not going to get into on this show, which is about an excess shekel problem and about how you convert Israeli cash back into bank accounts. The second problem, though, is a really big problem, which is about customs clearance. So because it's an import economy, the money that traditionally came to the Palestinian Authority was from import taxes.

57:02And the Israeli government collects those as import taxes, pass them on. And there are two problems. One is they haven't been passing them on. And the second is they've been putting more and more charges on them before they passed them on under various excuses. So even if they did pass them on, they'd only pass on about 35 % of the income. So currently, the Palestinians are facing a 2.5 billion black hole, which doesn't allow them really to pay for anything. They can't pay for their civil servants. They can't pay for their public services. They basically can't keep going because Israel has this financial grip on their windpipe through Smotrich.

57:33And then the final thing, which could actually collapse the entire system if Smotrich were allowed to get away with it, and everybody's gambling Netanyahu won't less him, is that the entire Palestinian economy depends on Israeli banks. It's the only way of getting money in and out. And he might stop the letters which give indemnity to Israeli banks, which would basically destroy the entire banking system of Palestine. and that would be the end of the entire Palestinian economy. Now, the US Treasury, Trump, putting pressure on Netanyahu and the hope is that Netanyahu isn't going to go that far.

58:04But the World Bank has published a report warning that this could lead to the absolute collapse of the Palestinian Authority economy. Absolutely. So it's a form of economic warfare alongside the psychological warfare that Ben Gavir and Smotrich essentially saying that Mahmoud Abbas should be taken out, that other members of the Palestinian government should be executed, That's a sort of psychological warfare going on, the military and the economic. And then there's the people bit because 240 ,000 Palestinians worked in Israel and were sent back after October 7th. None of them returned to work.

58:38They're all out of work. And more and more gates have now emerged around and between each different settlement. Movement is becoming increasingly impossible. So this is mass unemployment, massive collapse in government revenue, threats to the banking system, real problems with inflation in the cash economy, and this macroeconomic damage, increasingly deliberate. I mean, before October 7th, some of this stuff happened under a security pretense. Now it is quite clearly driven by Smotrich as a punishment measure. But it does go back to the, in a sense, I don't know whether it's strategic or tactical, but the sort of the stupidity in a way of the attack in the first place.

59:22You had lots of people going backwards and forwards every day. And okay, it might be a bit of buggeration from time to time, but essentially Palestinians could go to Israel, they're working in Israel, getting paid, remittances being taken back to Palestine, that's all gone. So all of the economic pressure has kind of been one way. Yeah, absolutely. And again, why was this not tied into the so-called peace plan? When Donald Trump and your friend Tony Blair were putting this all together, this is exactly the kind of stuff that should have been specified and tied into it. Because if there's no economy in the West Bank, those millions of Palestinians and the only part that Palestinians not in Gaza can't function at all.

1:00:00But for some reason, that wasn't in the deal. Well, in the deal or the plan was the statement that there would be prosperity for Palestinians who have suffered so much. Yes. But as you will remember from the Good Friday Agreement, what you need is not just a statement about prosperity. You need to talk about excess shekels. You need to talk about bank indemnity. You need to talk about customs revenue and percentages. The devil's in the details. And it's through the details that Smotrich is crushing the economy of the West Bank. Yeah. Well, question for you as we come towards the end, maybe the last serious question.

1:00:33Joe Woof, who's a TripPlus member from London, with the sheer scale of addiction we see worldwide, a billion obese people, a billion smokers, 400 million alcoholics, according to international organizations, social media, et cetera. Why do we not see addiction as an infringement on individual freedom when getting customers addicted is the intended outcome of these industries? I know who Joe Wolf is. He wrote a very, very, very good piece for The New World about this a few weeks ago, which essentially saying this is the business model of tobacco, of alcohol, of gambling, et cetera, et cetera. And social media.

1:01:12And social media, 100%. Yes, to get you addicted. Yeah. So I think I was really into this week. I've done a bit of stuff with Addiction Awareness Week with the Forward Trust who are behind it. Very, very, very pleased, Rory, to see that the daughter-in-law of your friend, the king, was spearheading this this week. The Princess Wells. Yeah. As you know, I'm not a monarchist, but the extent to which if those guys embrace an issue, it can move the dial. I remember one of the saddest things, I think, about the whole William Harry bust-up is that when those two were campaigning together on mental health, they were pretty formidable in terms of the arguments they pursued, the way they pursued them.

1:01:50But it's also, I mean, just on the royalty point very quickly before we get back to addiction, I think it's really good what the Princess Wells has been doing. So she's been doing stuff on addiction in general. She's also specifically been talking about trying to encourage people not to use phones at mealtimes and stuff. But it also requires a public that is receptive to that, because if it went wrong, of course, you would get people saying, how dare the royal family tell me whether or not i should use the phone at a mealtime what do they understand about my life so it shows that she has at the moment enough goodwill and legitimacy to be able to lead these campaigns well and also you have to do them over time so like you know your friend the king he has been going on about the environment and the built environment for decades but i just thought what the way she did it this week was really really powerful and very very effective because she was talking about it and that was getting the headlines and what have you but on the back of it and because i still think we've got problems with stigma around addiction and around mental illness more general so around the on the back of it we were being encouraged lots of people being encouraged not just well-known people but everybody to share their stories on social media on the theme of the conversation that changed everything and you did a very powerful one which i watched well i did it i did it about we'll put in the newsletter as a link i mean tell us a little bit about it well i did it about it was when the guy mike trace who's the former drug czar in our government.

1:03:06He phoned me up and he's involved in this addiction awareness stuff. And he said, would I do one? And literally, as he asked me the question, the conversation that I then relayed literally popped back into my head. Remind us the conversation. It was a guy called, it was 1986. I was in hospital having been arrested and then released on condition. I went for medical treatment. And this guy from Paisley, Ernest Benny um now sadly dead but he he basically just this very nice calm guy I'd been medicated for a few days I was calmer than I had been and he just said to me of all the reasons why you're here do you think excessive alcohol might be one of them I said no I've had a breakdown I've had I was hearing voices I'm like yeah okay okay he said do you ever record what you drink and i said no why would i do that uh oh he said some people do he said i noticed when your belongings were brought back by the police you keep a diary and i said i do he said if we went through your diary recent days do you think you'd be able to remember how much you had to drink and i'm now getting irritated what is boy where's this guy going why can't you just believe me that you know these terrible forces are trying to destroy my brain and you know i'm being tested by God and all the other mad stuff that I believed at the time.

1:04:28And I said, okay, yeah. So he, he definitely deliberately chose one of the pages that was most manic with my tiny, ridiculous scribbling and what have you. So he said, take me through that day. And my first words were on the day, on the day were woke up, threw up, waited for Fiona to go out, threw up again, went through. And then as I got through to about 11 20 went to the lord high admiral pub didn't record how much i drink chatted to so and so working on such and such okay and i went through it and then i got to lunch with david meller the former cabinet minister and so the bernice penny was saying and would you would you have had anything to drink at lunchtime so yeah a bit of wine any idea how much a couple of bottles suddenly this very very large penny dropped why is it so powerful for him to do it through these very gentle questions what what would what would your emotional reaction have been if he'd been more explicit from the beginning and saying this has been done by alcohol well it would have been the emotional reaction would have been the emotional reaction that subsequently i realized had been the reaction i was i was using to anybody who suggested to me that i was drinking too much like fiona or my friends or colleagues and and you do you do this thing of saying when somebody says to you do you think you've got a problem you say why are you saying that you're the one with the problem for asking that you turn it right back on them so i think he just had a way maybe it was experience maybe he'd been through that process lots and lots of times before maybe just that he had found me at my rock bottom and he kind of opened it up he's such a nice guy and of course I saw him quite a bit.

1:06:13And then a few years later, I made a documentary about my breakdown for the BBC. And this brilliant researcher, Judith Dawson, used to work for Sky, she tracked him down in retirement. And we had this meeting at his house where he was living. And he said, you know what? I've often wondered if it was you. I've seen you. I've seen you. I've often wondered, is that Alistair Campbell who I had back in 1986? He hadn't put the two together. well there's no reason why he should have done you know alistair campbell's quite a common name in scola right he probably i probably wasn't the only answer he'd ever he'd ever treated and so he said i'm so happy to have made the made the reconnection and i said to him well i'm no word of a lie and i dedicated my first novel to this guy before i'd remet him and and i said no word of a lie i honestly think that conversation saved my life and he said it's very nice to hear that but you know you'd be amazed how often it's something unexpected that will just open the door and that's why i think this theme of the conversation that changed everything is and also how wonderful that he responded so modestly i think that's a wonderful story alice and i think we're going to use that to wrap up the question time and thank you very much and by the way anybody who's listening who's got any sort of conversation just go on social media post a film of yourself up to two minutes, just a conversation that changed everything on the theme of addiction.

1:07:38And make sure you hashtag Let's Talk Addiction and mention the Forward Trust. For that, on the Forward Trust and addiction, and for many of the other issues that we've discussed today, including the Ukraine peace plan and articles and books, please sign up on the rest is politics.com to our newsletter, which hopefully will keep the conversation going in more detail. And one final thing before we go. So when I was an MP, it used to be a tradition, certainly in my constituency, to have an annual Christmas card competition. And let me guess, lots of primary school children were encouraged to draw nice sheep from Cumbria and Jesus and rangers.

1:08:16Absolutely. My Christmas card in the first year was Ellie, who was, I think, six and did a lovely picture of angels and who probably now, I guess, must be well into her 20s. but anyway yes absolutely so a trip we'd like to open it up to all children who listen to the podcast here and abroad and the top three designs that we get will get an annual trip plus membership oh lord then well so so hold on all around the world yeah people can design christmas goes how do they send them they take a photograph and then they email it in and you can see the details on our website okay so we have to have a deadline let's set the deadline of december 10 yeah you You send your Christmas card design to the rest is politics at goal hanger.com.

1:09:01You have the title Christmas card. And are we the judges? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. We're good at our judges. Do my Grinch views about Christmas Day? If you don't get that job at the BBC, you know, you might be able to get a job as a Christmas card judge. So I could have been the director of the BBC, but I'm now a Christmas card judge. That's it. Looking forward to the cards. Thank you. And I will see you again, Rory, very, very soon, because 12.30 Wednesday, Rachel Reeves presents her budget. and not long thereafter, we shall opine. Looking forward to it. See you then, Anastasia. Bye-bye.

1:09:29See you soon, bye.