480. Trump, China, and the Scramble for Latin America (Question Time)

27:58When you go back and read the Labour Party Manifesto, there was a lot of reform that was going to come to the House of Lords. Thus far, we're not very, very, very far down that track. Now, one of the reasons for that is because those who are already in the Lords can actually block stuff. They can make life difficult with the government, and they're doing that. but so i would like if you talk about citizens assembly i would like a citizens assembly that was brought together to devise to help to devise an entire new political system yes of which a second chamber in whatever form would be a part but nobody can pretend that this second chamber is an effective way of of being part of the government of this country i just don't i can't see it um i'm completely with you with your citizens assembly i'm completely with you that we new transformation.

28:47But given we are where we are, a huge tribute, I think, to those life peers who are continuing, pretty poorly paid, working pretty long hours to do the work that the House of Commons is never going to do, which is actually scrutinising the legislation getting it done. Okay. But one of the reasons I think they're working very, very long hours is because I think actually there is, and this is something that peers that I know have said, As you say, they're all being dragged in there to vote the whole time. But in part, I think this is because the Conservatives have taken the decision to make life as difficult as possible for the government by getting the House of Lords to be much, much more proactive.

29:29now as a result partly as a result keir starmer has now filled the place with another couple a dozen of of people as you say special advisors former events managers all sorts of different people from a labor background council people and so forth now they they're very they're perfectly good people okay and as you say it is a form of public service but all it does is keep perpetuating what is ultimately a nonsense in the 21st century and let me just come back to this thing about the assisted dime bill. So this is, we talked to Kim Bledby, he's bringing this one. You and I disagree on the bill. Okay, that's fine.

30:05And there are disagreements within Parliament as well. But it's gone through 29 committee sittings. It's had 90 hours of scrutiny. Okay. It's been the most scrutinized private members bill in the history of Parliament. It's had a final vote in the Commons with a majority. It's had a second reading passed in the House of Lords, and we've now had 942 amendments tabled. And of course, every single person who tables that amendment thinks their amendment is important and they should be entitled to debate it. And if you actually went through every single one of them, the sort of debating that people say they want when they're scrutinising legislation, it's going to take us about 20 years to complete.

30:49And meantime, we're going to run out of time. And what I think could have been Parliament showing that it's addressing a really serious issue in a really serious way, I think just gets drowned in politics. And I think that turns people off politics. I guess we need to, I mean, obviously, we're both influenced by the fact we have different positions on assisted dying. I thought that bill needed much more scrutiny. I'm very worried by the data that's coming from the Netherlands. And I think this is exactly the kind a bill that needs close House of Lords scrutiny. But at the same time, I agree with you completely that a lot of what's going on is party politics, which is why I would rather there were not party politicians in the House of Lords.

31:33I mean, I think the whole point about my trying to move away from a directly elected second chamber is about getting the party politics out. That's why I'm interested in citizens' assemblies, House of Lords appointment commissions, crossbenchers, etc. so that at least if they're scrutinizing and amending they're doing it out of conscience rather than they're doing it because they think it's some clever party political game yeah but on the way to that you have to get turkeys to vote for christmas and say yeah we're going to vote to get rid of ourselves well no you you don't quite do you if the if if i mean to be to be a bit brutal to labor if the house of commons is brave it can do whatever it wants i mean you know in fact the reason why the house lord's power was curtailed is because Lloyd George basically threatened to wipe them out in over 100 years ago now.

32:17So the government, if it woke up tomorrow and wanted to get rid of the House of Lords, it could wake up tomorrow and get rid of the House of Lords. I mean, there's a slight tendency here. And remember, one of the reasons they keep it, I think, is that it's a management tool for them. They get to incentivize Labour members of Parliament by offering them seats in the House of Lords if they're good and they vote in the right way. So in the end, the responsibility of this sits with Keir Starmer. Okay. Okay. But it has to be in a manifesto, doesn't it? Otherwise, they can bugger around with it forever.

32:46They have quite a lot in their manifesto that they can get on with. That is true. That is true. Good. Okay. Well, let's take a quick break and a lot of interesting things to come back to after the break. See you in a bit.

33:04This 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, a 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.

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34:17This is a paid advertisement by BetterHelp. December, I guess, is a real month of contradictions. It's all about publicly celebrating peace, but it often doesn't really feel very peaceful. It brings people together, but that can just bring unresolved contradictions out. And there's something in the discipline of a chosen ritual, something small, steadying, deliberate, not inherited, not performative. Just a moment maybe to take stock before the year resets. That could be going for a long walk, but it could actually be the habit of talking through therapy. One quiet hour each week with someone to help you untangle what the year has left behind.

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35:27Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. And this question is brought to you by Fuse Energy. Britain's clean energy story is changing so quickly. But did you know, I'm sure you do, solar has become faster to build, cheaper to run, and easier to fit into the countryside than a lot of people might imagine. So the question today is from Lisa Pollock. Why can't Britain unlock the land it needs to power a clean, affordable energy future? So Britain is building a lot of solar. I think something like 0.1 % of our landmass currently, but it's driving up fast.

35:59Some people think we could get up to 1 % of the landmass, the UK covered in solar. And of course, the big revolution, as China got going with incredible competition between thousands of Chinese companies developing micro techniques for manufacture, they brought the price down 99 fold. So it is a very cheap, affordable way to generate electricity and will be a huge contribution to the grid. But there are normal problems that we often talk about. One of them is where do you locate these things in a way that can actually be close to demand and close to where the grid is? One of the problems with wind turbines is they're often generating up in Scotland and then you have to pay an incredible amount of money on the transmission distribution lines, getting it down to the public.

36:39A lot of it is about the way our network's developed. A lot of it is also about the fact that we've got farmland, which is trying to grow food. And many, many people find these are big industrial intrusions not landscape there's going to be a huge scandal around what the Duke of Marlborough is doing around Blenheim where thousands of acres of prime farmland in Oxfordshire is about to be covered over in solar panels but anyway over to you am I weird in being somebody who actually when I'm saying an airplane I'm looking down on a vast landscape I like looking at huge solar farms I I like Trump's windmills.

37:17When I'm on a train and I'm going through a sort of middle-sized British town, I love it when I look up and some of the houses have got their little solar panels on there. Am I just a bit weird? Well, I don't think people mind the roofs, but I don't know where you live in rural France, but if there are particular fields and things around you, some lavender field that you like to walk around with your dog, and you suddenly have the entire three quarters of a mile surrounding your village covered in panels um you might not like it quite as much i mean i i think i think the the view from the plane may be a little different from the view within the community yeah but i'm talking about the views from planes in in areas that are not built up now britain is a pretty crowded place we know that but i'm talking about i remember having a flight i didn't even know where it was but i'm looking out the window and i think it might be north africa and it was just like wow It was every bit as interesting as loads of desert.

38:12I mean, am I going to get desert fans shouting at me now? No, no, no. Listen, listen. I think if one could work out the transmission problem, how does one get the electricity from the Sahara to the rest of the world? The Sahara Desert could be an extraordinary place to generate solar power. And we could, I mean, in fact, there's wonderful sci-fi novels written about this, that if one could sort out the transmission and sort out the politics, it's the ideal place in terms of sunlight, in terms of land use. and you don't have the fights that you would have in Britain about the farmland, food production, landscape, industrial intrusions on landscape, etc.

38:48Well, anyway, Fuse Energy is on the case, people. Britain's clean energy future will appear field by field, where solar fits naturally, strengthens local communities, brings long-term value to the land. And here's the thing, if you think you know land, whether you're looking out of an airplane, that you think can help build that future, contact Fuse Energy at land at fuseenergy.com. start a referral and you have the chance to win£2 ,000. Now, Victoria, spelt in the Bulgarian way. Long time listener here. I wonder if you've been following what's unfolding in Bulgaria. Yes. Led by young Bulgarians, the country just saw its largest protest in decades against a corrupt government.

39:26Do you think genuine democratic change is possible in countries where corruption is entrenched? What does it say about the state of the EU's newer member states? Well, this isn't just a newer member state. It's one that's joining the euro very, very shortly. You follow it, I thought it was fascinating because they were huge and they brought down the government. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that surprised me about it is 26th November, the protests seemed, unless I got the wrong end of the stick, I was expecting when I heard protests against the budget in Bulgaria that it would be a bit sort of gilet jaune, that it would be like the French protesting against the pension age going up.

40:00In other words, generally, people, particularly students, you would think would be protesting in favor of more government spending and against cuts. But I think, weirdly, these protests were against tax increases and against higher Social Security contributions. So it was trying to keep taxes low. Have I got that the wrong way around? Yeah, but also in part because one of the reasons they were raising money was to give a pay rise to people who work for the state. Ah, very bad, very bad. Yeah, I'm always in favor of that. I like paying people who work for the state more. But I think people who work for the state in what we might call the security, securocrat side of life.

40:43And so they started out reasonably small, these protests, and grew and grew and grew and grew. and eventually there was a no confidence motion coming before the parliament and the prime minister stepped down literally just minutes before that was happening presumably assumed they were going to lose it so it does sort of show you that protests can work whether it will lead to any real change i mean the point about corruption i don't know uh one of the figures right at the heart of this a guy called delan piefsky great name this huge sort of giant of a man he's been investigated for all sorts of corruption and influence peddling and bribery and all sorts of stuff and bulgaria i think i'm right in saying is the listing of corruption in the eu from transparency international bulgaria is at the at the bottom of that list or of the top depending is the most corrupt country yeah yeah pretty corrupt anyway yeah but but i i mean just just a sort of um i i think it's it's really interesting i also think though that we've got to look at the counterfactual, which is, yes, there are problems in Bulgaria, there are problems in Romania, problems in a lot of countries in Europe.

41:53But the counterfactual is, where would they have been without the European Union? And I think Bulgaria is a really good example of a country that is immeasurably better off than it was in 1989. It was a relatively poor, marginalized, fragile part of the Eastern Bloc coalition. And it's now well on its way to being a pretty prosperous, integrated liberal democracy that has benefited enormously from market reforms, from European Union joining. And so I hope we don't get into a sort of total death spiral of overplaying this, because I think actually a lot of these places would be a lot worse off, including Hungary.

42:28I think Hungary would probably be a much more terrifying place if it wasn't part of the European Union. And also, the other thing I have to say is about joining the euro this new year. So in the middle of a corruption scandal and a change of government, one of the biggest things in Bulgaria's history is about to happen. It does sort of make you wonder, though, about all of the convergence criteria. I mean, there are some very, very, very strict convergence criteria that allow you to join the euro. And if this is the picture of Bulgaria, that the Bulgarian people seem to say that it is, then I don't know, how do I put this plight over?

43:11Have they all been properly met? You're sounding quite German here. That's a very German view of the whole situation. That's what they used to say about the Greeks, isn't it? It is what they used to say about the Greeks. That is what a lot of Gordon Brown's five tests that kept us out of the euro were about as well. So there we are. Now, listen, here's a really interesting question, Rick. Jill in Hampshire. and we we pride ourselves occasionally on talking about things that the rest of the media tend not to but this this is one that i think we should probably have a look at bobby sands hunger strike is one of my news memories of my childhood and for those who are younger than jill bobby sands was a ira member hunger striker whose hunger strike and subsequent death was was a huge huge huge global event.

43:58Okay. That's setting the context. Consequently, says Jill, I'm baffled as to why the Filton 24 hunger strike doesn't seem to be considered newsworthy. As I understand it, some of the hunger strikers are in a bad way and have been taken to hospital. I'd love to hear you talk about it and also hear your thoughts as to why the BBC and other mainstream media are not covering it. Lisa in Wells, why is nobody mentioning the hunger strikers? I remember regular updates on the Northern Ireland hunger strikers on the main news channels in their day. What's changed? Where can we find the missing news on a regular basis?

44:34I mean, it is very interesting, isn't it? What's your initial reaction to that? Firstly, to decode for people who aren't on top of the Filton 24, Filton is the office of an Israeli company called Elbit Systems. It's Israel's largest arms manufacturer, supplying 85 % of Israeli military drones and 85 % of land-based equipment. So they occupied the Filton facility for 24 hours. This is Palestine Action. And they're a direct action group. We've talked about a Palestine Action in the past. They're not part of the groups that have been working for a long time on two-state solutions that have been constructively engaging in trying to work out how to get a peace settlement in the Middle East.

45:19They are instead a group, I suppose, maybe people will disagree with me about this, but maybe they're a little bit more like what used to happen on Greenham Common, right? For elderly listeners or younger listeners, these are people protesting against American nuclear weapons on British soil used to break into the bases. And the government has prescribed them and considers them a terrorist organization. And this is something that most of my friends, the intelligence and security services, privately disagreed with profoundly and thought was insane because it effectively forces the police to arrest people who are not doing what we would conventionally consider to be terrorist acts, right?

45:57They're not blowing up buildings, killing civilians. What they're doing is disrupting things. And now they've gone on hunger strikes. So just before I come back to you, just the facts on this, there are three people who've been hunger strike for more than 40 days, and they're in critical condition and there are three other people in serious condition a guy called john sink has described as almost skeletal they are at imminent risk of death on their hunger strike and it's not being not being reported yeah well bobby sands he was in long the maze prison long kesh in northern ireland and his hunger strike began on the 1st of march and ended on the 5th of may 1981 so that's 66 days.

46:38So from going on strike to dying was 66 days. And you've got three people, as you say, Kesa Zura, Amu Gib, and Heba Muraizi, who'd been on hunger strike for 40 plus days. Now, I can remember, I mean, Jill says that this was one of her sort of news memories of her childhood. Bobby Sands was huge news around the world. And bear in mind, Brory, at that time, there wasn't that much space for news. There was, you know, back in 1981, you had the BBC sort of three times a day on the telly. You had a couple of radio programs that you might be considering news, and you had 24-page newspapers. We now have so much news, space, and yet here we are, a big, big issue, Gaza-Ukraine, massive issue, Palestine action, how governments deal with terrorism, big issue.

47:32Prisons and what goes on prisons usually media find that to be of interest. So I'm struggling to find an answer to this. I'm struggling to find an answer. I was visiting a prison recently. I saw some protesters outside. They were walking away from the prison and they had this placards and it was about hunger strikes. I presume it related to this. And I asked a couple of the people there, what's that about? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. it's like so they were just a couple of people standing outside the prison it's it's it's extraordinary and i i think 2 600 people have now been arrested for demonstrating solidarity with palestine action um and they thought that once they crossed a thousand it would become a big media story so yeah really interesting the politics of this the way the algorithms work the way editors work what people want to cover what they don't i mean this goes almost to the the podcast we did yesterday on the strangeness of the rise of the far right and Russian influence.

48:29We live in a very weird attention landscape where stories that you would have thought, I mean, if you were Palestine Action, you put all those things together, people's passionate concerns about Gaza, the sense from many, many people in Britain that this is not a terrorist organization and it should not have been treated as a terrorist organization. all these people who've been arrested in solidarity and now people on hunger strike about to die you would have thought this would be one of the biggest news stories of all time and and it isn't and they've also not been charged with terrorism offenses so what they're demanding is they want immediate bail they want this israeli company sites in the uk to be shut down they want the lifting of the palestine action terrorist designation they claim that their communications is being censored.

49:17They want that stop. And needless to say, they're calling for a fair trial and the restoration of what they call basic rights in prison, library education, religious items, et cetera. But I guess it's back to Bobby Sands. Lots of books have been written about Bobby Sands. Lots of films have been made about Bobby Sands. And one of the films I saw was reenacting how the prison authorities at the time were trying to deal with this hunger strike and some of the attempts to force feed him and so forth, which is pretty horrific. But the other thing I remember, Margaret Thatcher was being briefed like daily about the state of Bobby Sands' condition.

49:57I doubt whether this at the moment is, given it's not on the media radar, is this on the government radar? This is a terrible thing to say. Maybe these campaigners are thinking, well, people are only going to listen to us when one of us dies. Well, no, no, no. Okay. Well, let's finish with a more cheerful question from Gillian in Aberystwyth. You and your podcasting colleagues at Goldhanger are selling out venues across the world. Most of us no longer find 24-7 rolling news satisfies our appetites for informed debate on complex issues. Do you think the shift towards long-form podcasts with space for informed discussion represents a source of hope?

50:36Does this signal to politicians and parliaments that people crave calm strength and substance over tired, petty soundbites. Well, listen, I think I want to push you on this one. You are somebody who understands journalism unbelievably well from every direction, local, national, government communications, et cetera. And you're doing this podcast. And one of the things we've been experimenting with the last couple of weeks is doing real long form where we say, okay, we're going to, you did it. Remember, we went through every step of the Ukraine plan, step by step. We went through the Gaza peace plan like that.

51:09We did it in real depth on the Trump national security strategy. We just done it on Russian interference in British politics. Yeah, I think we've got to be careful not to think that some weeks people actually might want us to bounce around from a few things. But I think at the moment, the world is so difficult, so challenging, so complicated. I think people are looking for a kind of deeper understanding, or they're looking away. And I think that that is dangerous. I think the fact that people are, the number of people I've been to say, I just don't listen to the news. Not because they think the BBC is terrible or Sky is terrible.

51:45They just say, I can't cope with the news. So let me give you an example. I woke up the other day, you turn on the radio and the first two words are President Trump. And you just go, oh God, no, not again. It's kind of exhausting. thing. But I do think there's something about the way journalism has developed, exacerbated by this kind of algorithmization of life. So for example, I will defend the BBC. I think what Trump is trying to do in trying to sue it, utterly ridiculous, and they should just tell him to piss off and deal with it very, very strongly. I defend the BBC. But I do think that their coverage and 24-7 news generally, is sort of very largely driven by this new culture that's being created by you've got to keep people angry, you've got to keep people excited, you've got to keep people thinking that everything's hyper and dramatic.

52:37Well, actually, we are in a hyper dramatic world, but what I think people also want is a bit of context and a bit of a deeper understanding. That's why we read books. But so I think it's, yeah, but I think the shift, I think there's something inexorable about it. I mentioned Ed Conway on the podcast yesterday who did that thing on Sky News. He does really interesting stuff that by televisual standards is long form, but it's like four minutes. That thing he did on Venezuela was a few minutes. I do think the thing that I'm probably most proud of that we've done is that step-by-step go through the Ukraine plan and the step-by-step through the Gaza plan, because I think there genuinely people were getting in touch saying nobody else is doing this.

53:21I also think the miniseries, I mean, I'm plugging at the moment the fact we've done a long members miniseries on AI. Again, there isn't space really in mainstream media to even explain what large language models are, how they work, what they can do, what they can't do, why we should be worried about them, why they could make our economies more productive, but also lead to 30, 40 % of people losing their jobs, which is going to be the episode next week, why they could transform our military defense, but also make us much more vulnerable to attack, why they could generate wonderful new medicines, but also horrible new viruses, and perhaps biggest of all, the question of control and what happens if literally these things get out of control and in a small percentage chance, but still a real significant chance could end up killing us all.

54:13And yet we barely have any space to talk about this. Talking of the current episode of Leading, as you're in plug mode, is John Swinney, Scotland's First Minister. And I mentioned, I mentioned, Rory, that I'm a subscriber to Hollywood Magazine. My God, there is an interview this week with Ian Murray, and I'm amazed it has to be headlines. Ian Murray was the Secretary of State of Scotland, therefore very well known to John Swinney. And I think John Swinney, like a lot of people, was shocked when Ian Murray was sacked as Secretary of State of Scotland in the reshovel. Well, Ian Murray has done an interview with Mandy Rose, the editor of Hollywood, and my God, he's frank about what happened and about the process of being sacked and then re-instated.

54:59I think any journalist who want a story, Just a nice Sunday for Monday story. Check out Holyrood magazine. By the way, Roy, the other thing, my final point about the podcast form is it does lend itself to, you know this, you develop relationships with all sorts of people based on the fact that they listen to the podcast. And I just want to read something out. I hope that Tariq won't mind me reading out this message he sent me. Tariq Panja is a journalist in the New York Times. Hi, Alice, just a short note of thanks. My dad, Abdul Ghaffar Panja, passed away December the 6th. During his final years, he really got into podcasts in a big way.

55:36And yours and Rory's was always his number one to the extent he would only refer to you both by your first names. We always knew who he was on about. So thank you for giving him the pleasure of your company. Best wishes, Terry. So that is a relationship that you and I had with somebody that we never met, but whose child feels compelled to tell us that that meant something. So that having meant something to them, that means something to us and that makes the world go round. Well, wonderful, Tarek. Thank you for being in touch. Sorry to hear about the loss of your father. And thank you to everybody who listens to the podcast.

56:12See you soon, Alistair. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

56:18This episode was brought to you by Penguin Audiobooks, our partners for the Audiobook Club, the titles that challenged us and echoed our thoughts long after their closing line. One book that has stayed with me was Killer in the Kremlin by John Sweeney. Have you read that one, Roy? No, tell us about it. Well, Killer in the Kremlin, John Sweeney. And I think I've said to you before, I've always felt a little bit bad about John Sweeney because I once made sure he didn't get to ask Vladimir Putin a question at a press conference that Putin was doing with Tony Yeah, I did. It was bad of me. And I have apologized to him.

56:51But I knew he was going to ask him about Chechnya at a difficult time when we were trying to get on with Putin. So I've held my hands up to that. And I think John Sweeney is a very, very, very good journalist. But what the book does is it sort of threads a lot of the things that we've talked about over the years. Chechnya, as I mentioned, Crimea, the downing of MH17. It brings it all into one story, which is the pattern behind Putin's power, not a sequence of disconnected crisis. And he's got a very lovely delivery. So visit penguin.co.uk to browse our audiobook club or find the link to Killer in the Kremlin in our bio.

57:30So find Penguin Audiobooks now on Spotify.

58:08As the year draws to a close, it's time for our annual reminder that even in an age of political noise and division, one national consensus still stands firm. Roast potatoes. Oh God, all this British stuff. If you're wondering, however, what to buy the politically obsessed person in your life this Christmas, might I gently suggest a year's membership to The Rest is Politics Plus? It's the thoughtful kind of present. Ad-free listening, bonus episodes, early access to Q &As, book discounts and perhaps I think most interesting, it's our mini series available only to members focusing on the world's most complex characters and topics.

58:51We've already explored Rupert Murdoch and JD Vance and we're doing many more subjects to come. So think of this as a civilised gift to allow families to disagree agreeably over Christmas. What could be nicer? And if you've left it until Christmas Eve, as I fear I often do, the great thing is it's digital. No queues, rapping or panic. The membership lands neatly in their inbox on Christmas Day. So spread a little political peace and goodwill. Head to therestispolitics.com and click Gifts.