539. Embezzlement, the Mandelson Texts, and Hasan Piker's UK Ban

23:09Rory Stewart:Oxford and that he was still lobbying. Yeah, yeah, incredible. I mean, absolutely incredible. But I think both with this and the other big WhatsApp trove revelation was around Boris Johnson, COVID, Dominic Cummings, Matt Hancock, which we went through on the podcast. these things will be interesting for historians for anthropologists of government it gives you a very unique glimpse into the private thoughts of people that we've never had before so you know if you're an analyst it's it's a lovely thing to have but none of it is really a surprise i mean the revelation that pat mcfadden and peter mandelson think that keir starmer isn't very good at communicating doesn't have a very clear policy and that the labor party has been taken hostage by left-wing backbenchers who don't care too much about where the money's coming from.

23:56Rory Stewart:It's not a big revelation. And the same is true with the Boris Johnson stuff. I mean, surprise, surprise, it turns out that everybody sitting around the cabinet table as Boris Johnson thinks that Boris Johnson is dishonest, careless, inconsistent, irresponsible, and can't be trusted to navigate his way through COVID. Well, and we kind of know this about these people. I mean, a lot of journalists who were yesterday breathlessly reporting that, you know, it's extraordinary to think that Pat McFadden might say this in private and this in public. I suspect he said versions of those things to the journalists as well, because they sort of all bump into each other, they're chatting the whole time and what have you.

24:34But the other thing it shows, it shows that, you know, yes, Keir Starmer accepts he made a big mistake, but also it shows that he just does not get any luck. And let me tell you, Roy, you know, for the last three years, you and I have done this event in Leeds for UK Reef, the investment infrastructure and real estate conference. I did it on my own last week, because you were away, or the week before. And I did one of my show of hands with them. And I wanted you to guess what the result was. I said, do you think Keir Starmer should stay or go? What do you think the result was? You know the audience because you've been there several times.

25:07Rory Stewart:Yeah, and it's the same audience that last year was pretty uninspired by the Labour government and pretty dismal about the whole thing. I bet what's happened now is they've reverted to thinking Keir Starmer should stay. They've got to cling to nurse for fear of something worse. Well, you're right. The result was 85 % stay, 15 % go. I was talking to Harriet Harman the other day. She was down at the Hay Book Festival. So that'd be quite a sort of well-informed, broadly middle-class audience, I think. Probably quite, you know, Lib Demi, quite Tory in some respects as well, maybe. She said there were 600 people and she asked them the same question and 12 said he should go.

25:54I mentioned in the main episode that when I was in Budapest for the Champions League final, I had quite a lot of political discussions. It was a similar thing there. people saying, why are they getting rid of him? He's not great. He's not terrible. He's not evil. Is it because they think, is it sympathy now?

26:12Rory Stewart:Or what is it? Well, I think it's going back to your central point, isn't it? When we had this argument in the first place, which is that, of course, it's a risk. Now, my view is that he's like a manager of a football club who's never going to actually, in the end, win the championship. So you might as well, spin the dice, get rid of him and try someone else. The other view is perfectly reasonable, which is, well, listen, none of the other candidates seem very good. And what happens if we end up being even worse off than we are now? So it's a question of how optimistic you're feeling. My view is, listen, I don't think Keir Starmer can lead them into the next election.

26:48Rory Stewart:I don't think he's the prime minister that's really going to be able to transform the country. So however horrible the other options are, you know, my analogy is, you know, you're running into the Titanic and the icebergs. And we're arguing about whether the lifeboats are going to be any good. Well, I don't know whether the lifeboats are going to be any good, but we can't stay on the ship, right? But at the moment, I think when they see the other candidates, people are far from confident that Andy Burnham or Wes Streeting is going to be an improvement. I wonder though, I wonder, because, you know, look, I can see Tony Blair's anxieties.

27:20Rory Stewart:His anxieties are that Wes Streeting is talking about stuff that certainly for me is a pro-business centre-right guy, but worried about it. I don't like him suddenly saying he's going to put capital gains tax up to the same level of income tax. Blair's right to say people have looked at that in the past and rejected it for good reasons. And I think some of the wealth tax is a bit dubious and all that kind of thing. On the other hand, it's difficult for me not to believe that Burnham's got a certain vim charisma and he's really grown in this role of mayor of Greater Manchester, and he will bring something to the job that Starmer hasn't got.

27:53I was thinking yesterday, so buried in, I can't even remember where I saw it, but it wasn't sort of big on the news anywhere. But two stories yesterday, which in a normal day, I think, would at least have got some coverage that suggested the Labour government's doing stuff. That was several train companies that are now in public ownership, as promised. And also the UK government winning this case against Rwanda, saving 100 million quid out of the madness of Johnson's crazy scheme that Rwanda said it was owed. So this is what I meant when I said in the main episode that Keir Starmer's essay or his substack in response to Tony Blair, he actually listed a lot of things.

28:31And even I, who follows it quite closely, when you put it together, they've done more than they get credit for. But they don't get credit because there's no, one, there's no real communication around it. And secondly, they just seem to sort of, you know, limp from scandal to scandal, problem to problem. This case being a case in point. Peter Mandelson, big news yesterday. And Peter Mandelson is going to be big news again on Wednesday when they have the Commons debate. And just while we've been talking about scandal, Rory, reform, funding of reform. We've got some great feedback on the first part of the series that we're doing.

29:06This is a series that we're doing in conjunction with The Observer on where the money comes from that flows into Nigel Farage and Reform's coffers. And I think it's time that the country took it a bit more seriously than it currently does.

29:21Rory Stewart:And it's a great series and I'm loving some of the stuff that people are finding out about Reform's finances. Episode two on Friday, so just go to therestospolitics.com in order to sign up and follow up on our reporting on Reform's finances. Listen, there's one thing I'm going to be very cheeky and do a plug here, and I'm not going to try to connect it too closely. But we're not doing so many live shows this year. There is a live show which people have kindly signed up to and you've just done UK Reef. But I forgot to mention and I want to mention that if people would like to have a chance to engage live with me at least, 13th September, Dominion Theatre London, 15th September, Richmond Theatre London, I'm doing two live shows on politics, which could be fun.

30:05Rory Stewart:So apologies for the plug. But if you're interested, 13th, 15th September, I'm doing it with Fain. Sorry, and presumably you're doing that because you want to promote a book as opposed to promote the podcast. Is that what you're telling me? Because I want to promote my book on politics in Cumbria and talk about politics. Okay, excellent. I would, of course, obviously love to have you on stage, but I think it's a bit cheeky to ask you on stage to promote my book. Yeah, well, I'm sure you'll be able to sell the tickets without any problem whatsoever, Roy. But if you do need any help at any time, then no worries.

30:35Rory Stewart:Thank you, I really appreciate it. Quick break, and then we'll come back from the break. And we've got some great stuff to get into. We've got your trips to Hungary, some Middle Eastern trips, and the best person we've ever shaken hands with. So see you after the break. See you soon.

30:55Rory Stewart:It's nearly that time, everyone. The Rest is Football will be on Netflix every day for the world's biggest tournament. Join myself, Alan and Micah for daily debates, unfiltered takes and the most special of guests, all from the heart of New York City. Yeah, that's right. We're excited too. See you soon. Snoring? Gasping during sleep? Feeling fatigued? Ask your doctor about ZepBound Terzepatite, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, in adults with obesity. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA.

31:40ZetBound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection.

31:48Rory Stewart:ZetBound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if ZetBound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop ZipBound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems.

32:20Rory Stewart:Tell your doctor if you experienced vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking ZipBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit setbound.lily.com.

32:51Rory Stewart:Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. And a question here from Sanjith. Why have American left-wing YouTubers Hassan Piker and Schenk Ugar been banned from the UK? and do you agree? My answer is, I don't know. And no, I don't agree. It is a bit of a problem that we don't really know. I mean, it's really interesting for freedom of speech and all this kind of stuff. I mean, I think what we're beginning to see is legislation which in the past was really targeted at terrorists. I mean, so, you know, post 9-11, the government did intervene to prevent hate preachers coming to the UK who they thought would actually genuinely increase the risks of terrorism.

33:38Rory Stewart:But American citizens, who yes, admittedly are very critical of Israel and its actions in Gaza, but being banned from coming in? And what would that mean for you and me? I mean, what happens if we go to the US and the Trump administration decides that we're left-wing YouTubers and we should be banned from the US? I mean, what kind of countries are we creating and who gets to determine this? And what are the grounds for it? And is it explained transparently? Is the suggestion that these individuals are anti-Semitic? And who's making that case? Is it a legal case? Some ministers making it? Or is it just happening behind closed doors?

34:19Well, there's this general phrase, you know, not conducive to the public good. And I am guessing, but I don't know, I am guessing that the judgment is that they are anti-Semites and that they might therefore be here to spread anti-Semitism. Now, they deny that. What they are definitely is very anti the Israeli government. But I'm very anti the Israeli government. You're very anti-Israeli government because they do terrible things. And they continue to do terrible things, not least in the last 24 hours in Lebanon. The circumstances in Gaza continue to be absolutely terrible. We talked last week about Ben Gavir and the awfulness of the way that he was treating people who were trying to get that flotilla that was trying to get aid to Gaza.

35:07Now, I don't know. I don't know much about these guys at all.

35:10Rory Stewart:There's no doubt. Sorry, just to be fair, so that we can understand the problem that the government's facing. I mean, I think it was wrong to ban them. But to explain why the government's ban them, it's these guys, some are on record saying Hamas is a thousand times better than Israel. And other ones had to apologize for saying the United States deserve 9-11, etc. So the question is, though, are we treating people in these debates around the world in the same way, right? So how are we treating Israeli politicians who say that Palestinians don't deserve to get food? Exactly. And what is the principle here?

35:47Rory Stewart:I mean, I think, you know, one can think these people are unpleasant, regrettable, saying horrible things. What's the line between that, freedom of speech, and banning someone from entering? Because certainly J.D. Vance is, you know, I'm not quite saying that kind of stuff, but he said a lot of stuff that I find pretty disturbing. Donald Trump has definitely said stuff that I find deeply disturbing. So, what is the categories? And I think this is quite important for democracy to decide where we draw the lines on these. Because traditionally, I think we tended to say, we can put up particularly with YouTubers, influenced comedians saying pretty outrageous and disgusting things.

36:30Rory Stewart:We can condemn them. We can be horrified by them, but we don't actually ban them from entering the United Kingdom. Well, Elon Musk appeared, admittedly by video, appeared at last year's Tommy Robinson rally. Okay. Saying there was going to be civil war. Correct. And that we needed to fight, fight, fight. Nobody's going to ban him coming to the UK, are they? Well, they should think about it because his influence on our politics and our debate is far greater than these guys. And added to which, the reason why I think it was, look, unless there's something we don't know, in which case they should explain it, these guys have now got a far bigger platform, including into the British political debate.

37:12I mean, you know, I was going through social media last night. they were popping up every two minutes uh one of them was at the airport explaining he can't believe this this is how oppression starts then jeremy corbyn weighed in zach polanski weighed in this is actually for this south by southwest conference which i was i was invited to speak on a panel on mental health but i can't go because i'm not going to be here but it's like they've they've ventilated the platform and i just i think unless you explain this in your point about you know where you draw the line i think that one of the worst things about this is it does allow people to say that israel gets treated differently and so the guy that he was the the uncle this is an uncle and a nephew and the uncle was standing at the airport saying what i find most extraordinary about this is that it's another government persuading your government the british government to stop somebody from another country coming in now we don't know that that's the case.

38:13But you can see why he might say that, because it is the Israel-Gaza comments that they've made in the past that prevented them coming in.

38:20Rory Stewart:I think the best and strongest articulation of the problem is actually made by a guy called Aaron Ter, who is the director of a big US non-profit on public advocacy. He says, it's one thing to exclude someone who poses a genuine security threat or intends to engage in unlawful activity. So did these guys pose a genuine terrorist threat? Were they going to engage in unlawful captivity? But if the government's decision was based purely on these individuals' views, then that should concern anyone who values freedom of expression. This guy, one of them said that America deserved 9-11. As you say, they made some very offensive comments about October the 7th, about equating Israel with Hamas, et cetera.

39:05This, I think, is where we have a problem because I can think, I hate doing whataboutery and I'm not going to do it, but I can think of quite a lot. Well, I guess I did it with Musk. I can think of quite a lot of whataboutery points that I could make from a different political perspective. So there has to be a proper explanation of the principles. And I don't think we had that in the communication yesterday. Added to which the government, in a sense allowed them to control the means of communication. They were the ones who were explaining what was going on. So I think all in all, I think this is a bit of an end goal.

39:43Rory Stewart:Okay, next question. Nat from Swindon. This is for you, Alistair. What's going on in Hungary? You've just been in Hungary. Just seen the Maya is going after the oligarchs, including with the Welsh text. Did you find out how to pronounce the leader's name, instantly on your Hungarian trip? Well, I asked several people. And you've been with me when we're traveling around. I do tend to talk to anybody I meet about what's going on in politics and what you think, because it was a very interesting time to do that. In answer to your question, the closest I could get, I think, is Magyar. Magyar. Very good.

40:15Rory Stewart:Very good. And what did I find out? Well, I'll tell you the first thing that was, I'd forgotten just how beautiful Budapest is. It really is a beautiful city. It was very nice to seeing the European flags. They really have put out a lot of European flags. And the other thing that I saw were a lot of defaced posters. And I see that on this wealth tax proposal that Magyar is coming out with, he's targeting people who have made a lot of money under Orban, in his view, in very dubious circumstances. But one of the people who is complaining is the guy who owns a lot of the billboards, because he was getting loads of money from the government and from the Fidesz to plaster the place with billboards.

41:00And it is interesting just how many of them have been defaced. And they'd covered up loads of them just announcing that Arsenal and PSG were in town as if we didn't know that. I'll tell you, the general message I got from talking to people was sceptical hope. I think almost everybody said, it's got to be better. It's got to be better. we're really glad he's gone really hope he goes after them um but we've just been scarred by too much and so and magic's got a lot on his plate he really has and he's and he's making he's getting progress on the european front he's made progress on the ukrainian front but i i didn't meet any sort of massive enthusiasts i met a lot of people saying a lot of people saying i voted for him I bumped into a young couple, a cafe and was chatting to them.

41:50And they said, you know, they hadn't voted before, but they felt they had to get rid of Orban. And it was like, let's see, let's see what he does. And they quite liked the thing about him saying he's going to fly economy and he's going to take a lower salary and all that. They quite liked that. But they know that ultimately it's about a totally different change of direction. But the place felt really good. And I have to say, they organized the final really, really well. And the other thing, Rory, I know you're not a football fan, but I find it really strange that the Parisians rioted on the back of winning in Paris, sufficient to have 700 arrests.

42:29And we, not far from where I am now, had this incredible parade that really did show kind of North London at its best. It was so kind of multiracial, multicultural. The vibe was amazing. hundreds of thousands. Somebody even said over a million, I don't know. But even I, much as a football fan, even I don't fully understand why you riot when you win. They've now done it two years in a row. I don't quite get it.

42:56Rory Stewart:Just quickly before we get out, I'd love to tell you about where I've been. I've just been, I just drove, in fact, from Amman in Jordan to Medina in Saudi Arabia and just got back yesterday. But tell us a little bit about Hong Kong, because when were you last there and what was your sense Well, I've only been twice, I think, since the handover. My sense of it was real change. And real change. And I mean, if you remember back in 1997, when we were there for the handover, and it was one country, two systems, I think you can safely say it's one country, one system. You'd have very little sense of being in a place that was once run by the Brits.

43:38Rory Stewart:So it doesn't feel for a visitor very different to going to Shanghai or Beijing now. It doesn't feel like a very different system. It feels a bit different. It feels a little bit different. I mean, for example, you know, in the hotel, you could pick up Western newspapers. I think that I did speak to some journalists who said that the freedom of the press has been almost fundamentally eroded. There was a journalist who was jailed while we were there. He'd been stopped by the police who asked him for his identity. He said, the last time you stopped me by my identity, you live streamed it and I was humiliated and I'm not doing it.

44:13He was jailed, I think, for five days or something. um the and the other thing that was interesting talking i did talk to quite a few hong kong chinese people some of whom were at the conference that i was speaking at and the thing they said was that they're as interested in politics as ever but they don't talk about it very much um and i think that was that was uh interesting the other thing that big news that was there when i big news in hong kong hong kong has now overtaken switzerland as the world's biggest wealth hub.

44:45Rory Stewart:My goodness. Because the story, of course, after COVID was Hong Kong was really struggling. And of course, Hong Kong's going to be very bound up with Chinese. I mean, your point about not talking about politics and arrests is also connected to the thing we did yesterday on AI and the Pope, which is the nature of the surveillance authoritarian security states is now being shifted a lot by technology. So if you walk down the streets in Shanghai, there are cameras absolutely everywhere. Everybody is conscious that their phones are picking up everything they say, that their digital identities, there is no privacy at all about their data or identity, and it's all filtered through.

45:30Rory Stewart:I was talking to a Chinese friend recently who was explaining that they couldn't get a job in the Chinese government and what that felt like. I mean, you can't get a job in the Chinese government if you've done an undergraduate degree outside China, to give you a sense. I mean, you'd be totally Chinese, but if you go and do an undergraduate degree in Europe or the US, you can't work for the Chinese government. So we're getting into a world where this very, very powerful country, and which in many ways, of course, is demonstrating more predictability, more certainty, more long-term planning capacity.

46:04Rory Stewart:But it still is very much an authoritarian security state. And as we're getting into a world of AI, autonomous drones, robots, I don't know whether you saw it in Hong Kong, but if you go to Shanghai, Beijing at the moment, you are beginning to see robots in the streets. oh well uh the i i saw right i saw quite a few robots and of course part of the conference i was at there was a whole thing on on robotics some of which were absolutely extraordinary you know not just playing chess but also you know which you see everywhere but but there was a presentation on how robots were being used in the workplace and and what they could do all that was going on and the thing about the surveillance is like you know i mean coming through the the the airport was as efficient as I can recall.

46:50But you realise that, you know, they've got the facial recognition thing pretty much as soon as you're there and the gates are just opening when they put your thing in and through you go. One fabulous story, Roy, I went out for a run one day to find my tree of the day. And it's not a great place for trees because it's so, so built up. But I found this wonderful banyan tree and I got, and i posted it and i got an email from a guy called william atkinson who told me this story complete with a message from his dad who's a retired squadron leader called richard atkinson and he told me the story that this these two trees used to stood on stand on the jetty at hms tamar

47:34Rory Stewart:and hms tamar just sorry to explain to listeners who aren't this was the uh british military headquarters. It's actually where my father worked. So we lived, when I was born in Hong Kong, we lived in a little building just behind it. And that's where he went to work every day. So it's called a ship, but it wasn't a ship. It was the defence headquarters, the British government. Yeah, exactly. It was the headquarters. And so this guy, the squadron leader, Richard Atkinson, who's now in his 80s and not very well, but he said that he could see the trees from his office window in the UK headquarters.

48:03And he learned that the Chinese had no plans to preserve the tree. So he fought a campaign as a result of which that one of the trees, the one that I pictured without knowing this story was dug up. It was put on a 200 ton barge. It was towed across the harbour and it was replanted along with all the props that were needed. New water supply brought in. And anyway, I spotted it and we'll put a picture in the newsletter. It's absolutely beautiful.

48:33Rory Stewart:Well, how wonderful because the joke when I was growing up in Hong Kong is if it moves, eat it. If it doesn't, redevelop it. But I'm glad here that this energy was going into the trees. Yeah, that's lovely. Well, this tree survived. So tell us, listen, you were allowed into something of a sacred Muslim site, weren't you? Yeah, yeah. I mean, firstly, an amazing trip. So we drove thousands of miles down through the desert from Amman through Aqaba down to Medina. And people watching Lawrence of Arabia will have a sense of that landscape. We went through Wadi Ram and, you know, people remember that 1962 movie, this is where Auda Abu Ta 'i comes down the hills.

49:15Rory Stewart:And it is absolutely extraordinary historically, because this is if Scotland is the very northern edge of the Roman Empire, this is the very southern edge of the Roman Empire. And this is basically where Rome ran out. We went from Petra, which people remember the rose red city, half as old as time, these amazing rock cut cliffs, to the Saudi equivalent of that, which is hundreds of miles south in a place called Al-Ulla, which was closed until pretty almost impossible for foreigners to access because it's a pagan site dedicated to pagan idols. and the Saudi government. For many years, Saudis and Wahhabi Muslims saw this as a pretty horrendous infidel site.

49:57Rory Stewart:It's now been turned into a tourist location, which you can visit. Not many tourists around either in Jordan or in Saudi at the moment. In fact, there haven't been many since the first strikes on Iran last July. Heat, unbelievable. But then, as you say, we got down to Medina. and medina is along with mecca one of the two great sacred sites of islam one of the this is where the prophet muhammad is buried it's where this great mosque was it's where many of the early caliphs were buried and firstly medina has become a completely modern town so one of the things the saudis did the wahhabis did is demolish all the historical buildings all the historical tombs because they thought it was idol worship to maintain these great, beautiful, early medieval tombs around the Caliphs and built this new concrete city in this oasis.

50:51Rory Stewart:But actually, the center of it is actually very beautiful. The modern architecture is quite sympathetic. There are lovely colonnades. The area around the mosque is there to accommodate a million, 2 million pilgrims. And for the first time in, I think, 1 ,400 years, it's possible for me as a non-Muslim to get right up to the edge of that mosque, right into the center of the Haram area. Shatana and I didn't see anybody else who were non-Muslims there. But everybody was very friendly towards us. In the past, we would have been approached by the police and pushed out. There would have been big signs saying no non-Muslims can enter.

51:31Rory Stewart:People would have shouted at us aggressively. So it's a real sign of how quickly Saudi Arabia is changing something. It hasn't really changed in 1400 years. It's still, of course, quite conservative. I mean, other parts, you go to Riyadh, you can see women now beginning to uncover their heads and drive cars and drive Ubers. In Medina, women are still very much in blacker buyers. But it was right at the end of the Hajj. So this is the moment where, you know, it's one of the great obligations of the two billion Muslims in the world to travel. So they traveled to Mecca and then to Medina, and that was all happening as we were there.

52:03Rory Stewart:But don't forget, just connect back to China. It is also a surveillance security state. I mean, never underestimate that this, in democratic terms or in surveillance terms, in terms of cameras and your phones, Saudi, UAE are closer to China than people understand that. You land at Dubai airport, do not be very surprised if your telephone is beginning to report on every single one of your movements. Do not be very surprised. You know, for example, there was a little, seems to have been, a whip around in one of the Shia mosques in Dubai to raise money for people affected by the US strikes on Iran.

52:45Rory Stewart:And almost immediately after, something like 8 ,000 Shia Pakistani Uber drivers were expelled from UAE. It's a country where the expatriates, and I was with some people who live in UAE, we went onto a beach, leaving our phones hundreds of yards behind with the wind blowing and the waves crashing. And they still were very, very reluctant to say anything critical of the UAE government. People in Jordan reluctant to say anything critical of the Saudi government. And we also, final thing, we drove through the middle of Neon. And Neon was this amazing lineal city that he was going to build that was going to cost$80 billion, which was going to run across the desert for 125 kilometers, that was going to be taller than the Empire States building.

53:38Rory Stewart:The whole thing has been abandoned. I mean, it's completely abandoned. They spent a colossal amount of money on architects, planning, et cetera. Probably good that it's been abandoned. But again it's something that nobody's talking too openly about unlike hs2 um on this on the surveillance fiona and i've been watching peter capaldi's new series criminal record um which is it's a police drama and it's fair to say the the police in this one don't lack for surveillance and and phone tracking technologies so uh i think we've we've got a fair bit of it here Rory, final question. This is from Ali. After your discussion last week on your most evil handshakes, slightly more positive one, who is the most angelic person you've ever shaken hands with?

54:27And I've got to say, Rory, we've got some fantastic, we asked people to send in their most evil. There was lots of sort of interesting things. We also ran a poll of our listeners on Spotify asking them if they would share your use of the word evil to describe Boris Johnson. Ooh. 38 percent 38 percent said they would 44 percent of listeners said they wouldn't and 16 were unsure so there we are i was hoping it'd be 52 48 but never mind um so who's the most magical hand you've

55:00Rory Stewart:shaken um okay a small footnote my mother will kill me if i don't point out that my father shook chairman mal's hand she wanted to get that on the record oh that's cool that's cool yeah yeah i did fidel castro's fidel castro's chairman mal though great leap forward great famines i mean that's quite quite mad would it would he have been your dad's most evil hand yes i think so yeah yeah i think so i think he'd probably most disturbed by shaking chairman mal's hand um so i think this is very cheesy but i and i he won't like me saying this but i have such um admiration for rowan williams our previous archbishop of canterbury i think he is the most extraordinary man i think personally his ability to listen his humility his prose style his writing but also his sense of what matters his sense of silence of work of human suffering of human i mean i if i'm looking for a guy um who you know somebody on speed dial that i would want to ask advice from on almost every aspect of my life it would be rowan williams oh yeah over to you wow wow let's get him on let's get him on i'm sure he'd be happy to come on yeah we've had we've had justin will be who's a very fine man i'm shaking both shaking his hand um i really enjoyed thinking about this question i was tempted to say maradona but i just don't think people

56:31Rory Stewart:that great moral that great moral exemplar well it is the hand of god it's the hand of god and it would definitely if i'd shaken the hand of the pope last week i would have said the pope i have shaken mother theresa's hand but i i was never i never fully bought into the mother theresa legend i thought there was too much stuff going on in the margins that i probably wouldn't have liked um i have been thinking because obviously we want david attenborough to live forever um but if and when he goes then there has to be a replacement national treasure and my short list of two i have shaken both their hands that's paul mccartney and michael palin ah i think that i think paul mccartney is just uh and he's got a new album out age whatever he is now absolutely amazing and michael palin just one of the most successful nicest people on the planet it but I'm afraid the winner has to be a politician because this is the rest is politics and it is Nelson Mandela he is he is without doubt the most saintly hand I've chosen even though he had non-saintly aspects to him but yeah I'm going for him which is also select selected by the Pope and just final thing for me and then back to you um we talked a lot about the Pope's username but the thing that we didn't register, which is maybe his most radical thing, is he says that the problem with the way that tech bros think about the world is they think that human beings can be endlessly perfected, that death is like a sort of bug in the system they can get rid of, that suffering and pain can be got rid of.

58:06Rory Stewart:And he says that he's all for alleviating suffering and pain, but that in the end, suffering pain is not just part of the human condition. It's actually what leads us to relationships, humility, and love. That without suffering and pain and death, we wouldn't really have desires, we wouldn't really have love, we wouldn't really have empathy. And this magnificence of humanity is about our capacity for good, our capacity for evil, but also our capacity for suffering yeah well i i am i sort of wanged on so long about the pope's brilliant encyclical that i didn't actually read out what was my favorite section oh yeah come on what was it you've never i'll read you it's this is this um so-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences they do not possess a body they do not feel joy or pain do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean, nor do they have a moral conscience since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations or bear responsibility.

59:13They may imitate language, behaviour and analytical skills or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce for they lack the effective relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. and he said, even when machines excel in efficiency, a human face that asks to be gazed upon remains the center of our history. Oh, that's pretty good. Wish I'd written that.

59:42Rory Stewart:It's pretty good. Well, I'm not going to ruin it. Let's end on that. A human face to be gazed upon remains the center of our history. Excellent. See you next week. See you soon. Bye-bye. Bye.

1:00:00Thank you.