In short
The episode argues the US has “weaponised” frontier AI by suspending export of key Anthropic models, leaving the UK/Europe stuck on older systems and vulnerable to cyber/offensive advantages; it then critiques UK defense procurement as too slow and too focused on legacy platforms, urging investment in AI, sensors, and industrial/software capacity. It also discusses Trump’s White House UFC/martial-arts birthday event and the close Peru presidential election.
Guests/backgrounds
Daisy Oakman (AI/tech commentator; discusses model capability growth and risks). Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart host. Luca (Peru election explainer). Clarice/Ewan/others ask questions.
Key claims
US withholding AI is a competitive advantage and potential global security risk (cyber attacks, bioweapons). Britain/Europe must build sovereign AI capacity or risk dependence/blackmail. UK defense can’t afford carriers, 2040 fighter, and submarines simultaneously; procurement should shift toward drones/AI.
Notable examples
cyberattacks via AI code-scanning; “Eurofighter vs F-35” analogy; Ukraine drone warfare; Trump birthday UFC cage fights at the White House; Peru vote gap ~0.004% with recount/courts.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOExploring Today's Topics
3:23 to 4:10
Hosts outline the topics for discussion including AI and defense.
“Welcome to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell.”
Impact of AI on the UK
4:10 to 4:30
Discussion on the implications of the U.S. government's suspension of AI models for the UK.
Advancements in AI Models
4:30 to 5:10
The rapid progression of AI capabilities and its effects on society.
“And you will have found that you're getting a more and more updated model every few months.”
National Security Concerns
5:10 to 7:20
Exploration of the U.S. government's rationale behind limiting AI access.
“And software, they were saying, well, this thing could do the sort of thing that a human software programmer could do in about half an hour in a minute.”
The Threat of Cyber Attacks
7:20 to 9:50
Discussion on how advanced AI can facilitate cybercrime.
“So let's say you're trying to do things that we've all been talking about for years, take NHS data and looking at it, find out new things about the relationship between exercise and prostate cancer.”
Building Sovereign AI Capabilities
9:50 to 12:10
The need for Europe to develop independent AI technologies.
“technology story in the world because Trump can switch it off.”
Economic Implications of AI Dependency
12:10 to 14:03
Debate on whether Europe should build its own AI or rely on U.S. models.
“I would argue better to have the infrastructure, the talent, the chips, and be a little bit behind the US than have nothing at all.”
AI and Economic Value in the West
14:03 to 28:01
Discussion on the economic implications of AI for America and Europe.
“The only way they're going to make their money back is with the 450 million customers that they can access through Europe and their allies.”
Defense Strategies and Economic Sovereignty
28:01 to 28:25
Discussion on the need for defense against Russia and the importance of building capacity.
“The reason to go for defense is there's a threat from Russia, we can no longer rely on the US, and we will have no sovereignty or independence unless we build up the capacity.”
Defense Strategies and Economic Sovereignty
30:28 to 31:05
Discussion on the need for defense against Russia and the importance of building capacity.
“Every ticket to the show includes a copy of the book, and it should be a great opportunity.”
Show all 18 chapters
Defense Strategies and Economic Sovereignty
31:10 to 31:22
Discussion on the need for defense against Russia and the importance of building capacity.
“That's feign.co.uk forward slash Rory-Stewart.”
Trump's UFC Event and Its Implications
31:22 to 36:34
Exploration of the UFC event at the White House and its cultural and political implications.
“Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics Question Time with me Rory Stewart and me Alistair Campbell.”
The Peruvian Election: A Close Call
36:34 to 42:00
Analysis of the contentious Peruvian election between Fuhimori and Sanchez.
“But the reason why the G7 summit that's going on now started the day that it did, a day later than it was meant to, because Trump wanted to have his UFC fight.”
Elections and Political Dynamics in Latin America
42:00 to 43:12
Discusses the political climate in Latin America, focusing on key figures and election outcomes.
“I mean, she's one of the great survivors.”
Scotland's World Cup Hopes
43:12 to 45:44
Examines Scotland's performance in the World Cup and the emotional conflicts of a fan.
“And after Scotland's match against Haiti, is it too much to hope, says Ewan, that the cup comes home to Edinburgh?”
The Evolution of Martial Arts and UFC
45:44 to 48:07
Explores the changes in martial arts and UFC, discussing its brutality and cultural implications.
“Or maybe, no, maybe a bit more than that, but no, it's, but interestingly, one of the criticisms that we all had of the World Cup is it's too big, 48 countries.”
Upcoming Political Events in Britain
48:07 to 48:51
Preview of the Make a Feel by-election and its potential significance for the future of Britain.
“Well, actually, you made us interview boxes and you still haven't delivered Tyson Fury.”
Upcoming Political Events in Britain
49:00 to 49:32
Preview of the Make a Feel by-election and its potential significance for the future of Britain.
“As many of you will know, Father's Day is coming up on the 21st of June.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01Rory Stewart:Last week, the President of the United States did something that no technology company would ever have done. He took the most capable artificial intelligence that America's leading lab had ever built, and he stopped it at the border on national security grounds, which means the latest frontier model from Anthropik is now, in effect, a weapon. Americans get it, but the rest of us, allies included, get whatever version they're willing to let out. Now, I've spent a lot of the last few months trying to tell anyone who'll listen that this couldn't be ruled out. And then being told politely that I was catastrophizing, that the Americans would never do this.
0:41Rory Stewart:So what if the central technology of the next century, in other words, the technology on which everything will depend, our government, our defense, our economy, turns out to be something we can only rent, something which America can withdraw whenever it wants. is Britain, is Europe still a power that governs itself? Or are we just quietly discovering that we've become a vassal? And if it's the second, then what do we do about it? And the answer I've come to believe is something very radical. So that's what I want to work through today. What actually is the threat? What are we going to do about it?
1:19Rory Stewart:All that more to come in today's episode of The Rest is Politics Question Time. This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy. Now, moving home has a way of revealing a mountain of background tasks and endless to-do lists. That's dealing with the boxes, the broadband, the change of address forms, and the discovery that you own far too many mugs. And because of that, people often just accept whatever supplier happens to be there. They're too busy unpacking. But choosing your energy supplier really shouldn't add to the pile. With Fuse Energy, switching supplier takes just three minutes. It's one of the quickest jobs on the moving checklist and crucially, one that could save you up to£200 on your energy bills.
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3:59Welcome to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. Rory, we're going to talk about defence. We're going to talk about this remarkable election in Peru, one of the closest elections ever. we're going to reflect on the ufc cage fighting that went on at the white house to celebrate donald trump's birthday so rory let's start with ai and defense daisy oakman what are your thoughts on the u.s government's suspension of two crucial ai models what does it mean for the uk and the
4:29Rory Stewart:world as a whole so people will most people listening will now have been using ai models a lot. And you will have found that you're getting a more and more updated model every few months. So your OpenAI system will take you from ChatGBT3 to ChatGBT5, and Claude will give you different types of model. What's happened is that over the last two and a half years, these models are getting better and better and better. So one way to illustrate it is that if we were having this conversation two and a half years ago, you'd be saying, well, yeah, it can do sort of GCSE maths, but it can't really do A-level maths.
5:03Rory Stewart:Now they're saying, yeah, it can do advanced graduate level mathematics, but it can't quite yet get a Nobel Prize. So there's been an incredible eruption. And software, they were saying, well, this thing could do the sort of thing that a human software programmer could do in about half an hour in a minute. Now it can do what a human software programmer can do in 48 hours in about a minute. So there's been incredible improvement in performance. And as the performance increases, the positive potential for this massively increases. So you can have much more productivity, you can do much more exciting things with your companies for productivity brackets, you can also lay off a lot of employees, right?
5:44Rory Stewart:And on the negative side, you can use it for bad in a much more powerful way. You now have much more facility to build bioweapons, mount cyber attacks, et cetera. But the fundamental thing that's been revealed is America's finally done the thing that I've spent the last few months warning that they would do and being rubbished for saying it, right? I was at a conference a week ago and I said, what if Mythos 15 were developed and the US government suddenly announced on national security grounds that it wouldn't be released and nobody could use it except for the Americans, right? By the way, do you accept that there are genuine national security grounds on this?
6:20Are their national security grounds? Might there be a logic to what they've done?
6:24Rory Stewart:I think there would be a logic to saying it can't be released at all. If the thing is so dangerous that getting in the hands of any ordinary person could bring the world to a grinding halt by mounting cyber attacks or building bioweapons, don't release it. The logic of only releasing it to American citizens is completely different. That's saying this is such a powerful competitive advantage for the US, not that this is an existential threat to global security. It's basically treating it as though America's developed its latest fighter plane, and it's not going to share that fighter plane with any other country.
6:56Rory Stewart:Except it's not just defense tools, it's not just like America having a nuclear bomb and nobody else having a nuclear bomb. It's also America having steam and electricity when nobody else has it. What are the implications? So like the British government, so I've been to somebody in the government who said they've been really trying to get the Americans not to do this. What is the impact for a country like Britain? Well, in the short term, it means that you're stuck with the last model while they've push ahead. So let's say you're trying to do things that we've all been talking about for years, take NHS data and looking at it, find out new things about the relationship between exercise and prostate cancer.
7:35Rory Stewart:You're going to still be working on the old creaky models, the A-level model instead of the advanced maths model. And with all the problems that you will have encountered when you use them, their hallucination, their fuzziness around the edges, their memory problems, the things they can't quite do, while America pushes forward. And what's the most dangerous thing that these new ones can do? When you hear people saying it could bring the entire economic system, entire banking system to a crash, it can find its way into any kind of system in the world. Is that what we're talking about? Is that the level of threat?
8:07Yeah.
8:08Rory Stewart:So the first threat that they've identified with these models is cyber attacks. So what these models are very, very good at doing is going through all the code of Microsoft or all the programming on your phone and finding thousands of weaknesses that no human had ever found. And they find it almost instantly, and then they can design attacks. So there is an incredible potential for cybercrime. Now, to defend against it, the only way to defend against it is to have the same advanced model, doing all the stuff on the defensive side, finding all those weaknesses, is coming up with all the defenses.
8:42Rory Stewart:If we end up in a world in which one country has the advanced models to mount the offense and none of us have the defensive models, we're in a very different world. But let me add to that. If these models continue to improve at the rate at which the tech bros claim they will, and my guess is, and this is the big judgment call that you have to make if you're Prime Minister, so you're Keir Starmer or you're Andy Burnham or you're Anastasia Cameron, you're going to have people like me saying, listen, yes, maybe Elon Musk and Sam Orman overpromise, but broadly speaking, they have been vindicated. These models are unbelievably powerful.
9:19Rory Stewart:They're already changing the world. And my guess is within three, four years, these things will be capable of doing almost everything that a human can do remotely. They may not be able to be a good plumber, but they're going to be able to do almost everything else we can do. And therefore, this is not just like steam or electricity is something that maybe over 40, 50 years transforms, something over four or five years will accelerate American GDP, totally transform defense and security, totally transform public services. We cannot afford to be completely dependent on the United States for the biggest technology story in the world because Trump can switch it off.
9:59Rory Stewart:He can either blackmail us, He can either say, well, you can continue to have it if you pay me oodles of money and give me Greenland. Or he can just say, well, you can't have it at all, and we're going to accelerate forward. And you guys are going to be like, I don't know, this is a horrible analogy I've used in the past, but you're going to be like the Zulu Empire meeting the British Industrial Revolution. I get that. And yet, I keep being told, and I'm sure you keep being told, that America and China are way ahead of everybody else. but then not, you know, when you're looking at the sort of the second division, the UK's kind of at the top of it.
10:32Is the answer, or is this just my Brexit derangement syndrome, can Europe not become the third power within this? And how close to that are we, or how far behind are we?
10:44Rory Stewart:So we're massively far behind, but I think the honest answer is if I were advising you as Prime minister, we need to do it. But we would need to do it UK, Canada, Australia, Europe, Japan, South Korea together. And do it in competition? And we would have to develop our own sovereign capacity. Now, this is a really weird thing. It would be like us saying, America's got F-35 fighter jets, and we're going to build a Euro fighter, or we're going to fill the typhoon. And the obvious normal answer to that is, but the American F-35 is better, and it's cheaper, and you're going to spend all this money building your Eurofighter, and it's still going to be not quite as good as the American fighter, and you're still going to have to buy the American fighters, right?
11:25Rory Stewart:And it's a hell of a bet, right? This is your problem as prime minister. If you believe me, and you believe this is completely vital to your security, and just working backwards, if this stuff's that advanced, and if America can't be relied upon to give it to us, we need to build our own. You're talking about hundreds of billions of pounds of investments, hundreds of billions. The frontier labs are likely to spend over the next two to three years, 740 billion US dollars. You would have to have enormous data centers. You would probably have to have your own chips, because America might stop giving you the Nvidia chips, which power these things.
12:03Rory Stewart:It's a moonshot. The likelihood, people being skeptical as well, forget it, you're going to spend hundreds of billions, and you're still going to be behind the US. I would argue better to have the infrastructure, the talent, the chips, and be a little bit behind the US than have nothing at all. Because if the US switches you off, at least you can go to the Eurofighter model, not the F-35. Are you talking about governments building this or about governments encouraging European versions of Musk and Altman and the rest of them to try to get in the race? What works? Well, I guess this will go back to your experience in government, whether you think the best way to get this kind of infrastructure built is putting together a big Canadian, British, European fund that invests in Mistral or the UK sovereign startup or gets these amazing Canadians who keep offering to do this for us to come over from their universities in Canada and build it for us.
13:00Rory Stewart:Is it like CERN where we build it together as a government or is it a question of investing in two or three European companies? Because I'm assuming that if we had really clever people in the UK, the sorts of money that these American companies are offering of starting salaries for some of the brightest of the best are of a scale that is unimaginable for a government to be funding. It's not something government do. Probably, you're right. You just have to let private companies do this. Then you would have a huge fight. Imagine the fight that you'd have. Firstly, you'd have the fight from your friends saying, this is environmentally catastrophic.
13:37Rory Stewart:These data centers use too much energy. They use too much water. They're ugly. Then you'd have a fight saying, why is the government subsidizing people getting 200 million pound salaries when we can't pay for the NHS? But the third argument that you'll get is the argument that really you're hearing in number 10. So the counter argument to me, and this is why it's so difficult. The counter argument is America isn't going to keep cutting us off. they need our markets. They need our data. The only way they're going to make their money back is with the 450 million customers that they can access through Europe and their allies.
14:13Rory Stewart:That our data is very valuable, that we can use Chinese open source models. We don't have to build our own frontier models. And what we can focus on where the economic value is, is in building the application there. So let them spend hundreds of billions on the frontier, and we can build the really cool apps which apply it to life sciences or apply it to law. And then we can build wonderful companies off the back of the American models, and we'll get the economic value off the back of this. And everything comes down to two questions. Number one, is America likely to switch this stuff off? And number two, can we possibly afford to build these things and get them done?
15:01Rory Stewart:And generally - Well, you seem to think yes and no is the answer to that. Yes, the Americans could and indeed currently have. And secondly, no, Europe couldn't. And my conclusion is we've got to make that no into a yes. But Europe and the UK and our neighbors have to do it. We have to work backwards. But there will be so much resistance. And because it's so expensive and so difficult to do, everybody's going to be saying, this is ridiculous. This is a moonshot. Why are we wasting all our money on this? And there will even be people saying, quite quickly, maybe this American investment won't work out.
15:33Rory Stewart:Maybe they're wasting their money. Maybe this 740 billion they're spending isn't going to work out. Maybe these AI models are always going to be a bit crappy. Maybe all these predictions about how they're going to transform the world are wrong, and we can just sit back. My fear about that is it's a little bit - You just get further behind. Yeah. Well, my fear about that is basically like, I think, in return to my Zulu empire idea, that I'm Shaka Zulu and I say, well, listen, they keep boasting about steel and coal and all this marvelous stuff they're doing in the Industrial Revolution. Maybe it's not going to work out.
16:00Rory Stewart:Maybe they're just wasting all their money on that stuff. I've got a very wise man living in my community who keeps assuring me that he's got a different approach to this whole thing and maybe it will all work out. It's always worked out in the past. How much of this is about, we'll come to UK defense in a minute, but how much of this is about the ongoing battle between the Trump administration and this specific company, Anthropic? Because they had a difficulty with the Pentagon when they basically said they would not allow the Pentagon to do certain things with their gear that they wanted to do.
16:32And that led to them attacking them. they've called the CEO an ideological lunatic and they've said that Anthropic is all about trying to create woke AI, whatever that means. So is this Anthropic model ahead of everything else and how much of the motivation to do what the White House announced last week is actually about this company and how much is about the sort of making of a new weapon that you talked about?
16:58Rory Stewart:As usual, these two questions, everybody disagrees on. So number one, is it ahead of everyone else? Yes, for my money, I think it's ahead of everyone else, but there are some people who will say that actually putting other models together, you can achieve pretty similar performance. Secondly, is it about the genuine threat or is it bitterness towards Anthropik? With the Trump administration, it's completely impossible to distinguish. There's a lot of evidence that quite a lot of it is bitterness towards Anthropik, because Pete Hegseth has been cheerfully saying, we told you this was a bad company and this is why we've just stopped the export of the product.
17:32Rory Stewart:And anthropic are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Can you please tell us what the grounds are for you stopping our product so that we can assess what's different between our product and our competitors? Or are you just trying to kill our business model? Am I right in saying that it's not just that they can't export it to Brits, Australians, Germans, French, Koreans, et cetera, but non-Americans inside the United States can't have access to it? Absolutely. Which removes - Which is completely unpoliceable, I thought. It also removes a lot of the very smartest AI researchers in the world. Because if you look through the great heads of all these tech companies, they're absolutely full of people who are South Asian or of Iranian heritage, Chinese heritage.
18:18Rory Stewart:There are over 100 first languages in anthropology. Yeah. When I turn up to these conferences in the States, the guy presenting on quantum has a strong German accent. The guy telling me about his new legal program is obviously a recent South Asian immigrant. So America has built Silicon Valley off immigrants. It's an immigrant culture. You start saying only American citizens can access, it becomes really, really weird. But the problem is, let's say Anthropic wanted to say, okay, enough. We're moving out of the US, we're going to move to Europe. They don't really have the optionality because we haven't got the data centers, because we haven't got the chips.
18:54Rory Stewart:We can't host their weights. We can't host their models. We don't have that security. And I've got to say, Roy, this issue, AI, and also defense in the context of John Healy and Al Karnes resigning from the government with issues we've got the most questions about this week. Let me just give you this. Let's start with this one from Charlie. On British defense, what do we do now? We're getting run into the ground here. Robert, has Al Karnes got a legitimate chance of being labor leader? What does he stand for? Well, you won't know the answer to the first until you know the answer to the second, I would suggest.
19:27But he's certainly on maneuvers. Yeah, he's certainly on maneuvers and we look forward
19:31Rory Stewart:to having him on the show. Okay, so UK defense. Well, fundamentally, we're trying to do it all. And the only people who can do it all are people like US and China. US and China are spending so much on defense. The US is spending a trillion dollars a year that it doesn't need to make decisions and prioritizing quite the way we do. So they bet on everything. They have an advanced fighter, they have submarines, they have aircraft carriers, they recapitalize their army, they can munition stockpile. We can't do all those five things. And that's the fundamental problem. We cannot afford to both fund our own sixth generation fighter in 2040 and have a full aircraft carrier group and have the next generation of advanced submarines and recapitalize our army and have our munitions.
20:21Rory Stewart:We just can't do it. But the government is incapable of making any decisions. My guess is that even John Healy, he tries to get around it by just asking for more money. If he had wanted to counsel one of those programs, so let me try one of you. Okay. The most obvious one, aircraft carriers, total waste of time. Total waste of time. These aircraft carriers can only operate if you have a whole fleet of other ships around that we can't afford to have. We can barely afford to pay for the planes on them. They were all based on projecting us into the Indo-Pacific, which we're not interested in anymore, and fighting carriers.
20:57Rory Stewart:Forget it. Is any politician going to say, we're canceling our aircraft carriers and tell the Navy we're getting rid of all that? Not without a massive opposition from within the armed forces. Absolutely. Second one, this fighter, let me explain about the GCAP fighter, right? So this is a fighter plane we're developing with the Italians and Japanese. Question number one, do we actually need pilots and planes anymore or are they going to be replaced by drones? What is this plane there to do? Is it hovering around in the air coordinating drones or is it doing its own strikes? Okay. And get this, this thing will be delivered in 2040.
21:35Rory Stewart:Does anyone seriously think that we know what the world of AI technology and drones will be like in 2040. Is there any point spending billions of pounds designing a plane with a pilot in it to fight a war from 10 years ago in a world that's increasingly about drones? Because the real risk is you build this thing, it costs, I don't know, 200 million pounds of pop. All it is is an exquisite target for everybody's cheap mass drones to hit. I guess this is one of the points that Al Kahn's, the Armed Forces Minister, made in his resignation letter that we're preparing for wars of the past rather than wars of the future.
Read the full transcript
22:11That is all, and particularly when you've got very complicated, slow procurement systems that we have, that is a problem. Now listen, we talked about John Healy's resignation on the day that it happened, but just to revisit that for a bit, what seems to have happened and what seems to have emerged since then, you mentioned the Canadians coming over to try and help us on AI. It seems that what John Healy was particularly upset about was the Treasury blocking any move towards this thing called the Defence Security and Resilience Bank, which is a Canadian proposal. And as I understand it, it's a way of sort of getting more money into defence and defence investment without necessarily having to offend the fiscal rules.
22:51And I don't know much more than that. But so I think John Healy was looking, he had a sort a really cryptic line in his letter about there are other ways of raising money without causing too much trouble in the markets. But you're describing a gap between need and reality that feels a lot wider than it did even when you were chairing the Defence Select Committee.
23:14Rory Stewart:Yeah, because when I was chairing the Defence Select Committee in 2014, that was the moment which Putin invaded Crimea. And up to that point, the assumption had been that really, our military was an expeditionary force connected to the US and NATO that fought wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. So what kind of military are you talking about? You're talking about Royal Marines or paras with armored vehicles traveling around villages in Afghanistan, and you need protection against improvised explosive devices, and you're fighting a guerrilla warfare with people with the Klasikovs. Fast forward, there are two completely new types of war that we're dealing with, and they are Ukraine and Iran.
23:56Rory Stewart:Ukraine is a war with endless hovering cheap drones, now nearly 60 miles deep, freezing a front line where its drone counter drone strikes. Iran is the dream of the high-tech US-Israeli planners. The most exquisite, expensive equipment in the world, incredible radar, incredible targeting, incredible precision bombing, wiping out all Iranian air defenses in 24 hours. And then we have the threat of Russia to Europe. So what are we doing with Russia to Europe? Are we trying to be Ukraine, defense in depth, cheap drones, or are we trying to be the US and Israel? Let's have exquisite planes and take out Russia's air defenses on day one and then be able to use our fancy planes to take out all that stuff.
24:42Rory Stewart:And when's Russia going to attack? Because if they're attacking in 2030, having a plane delivered in 2040 is not much easier. If they're attacking in 2040, then this is my final point. Actually, we need to be investing in AI. I mean, I'd actually scrap most of this stuff and put it into building data sensors, frontier models, because actually, what are we learning? Modern warfare is about new software every six weeks, new hardware every six months. So there's no point pretending that we know what's going to happen in 2040. What we have to do is build the engineers, the systems, the industrial manufacturing capacity that is able to do new software every six weeks, new hardware every six months.
25:22Rory Stewart:And that's basically leaning into software engineers, industrial production capacity, ability to build munitions rather than betting on exquisite platforms. And yet last week you were saying that the Strategic Defense Review having been brought forward, the government should follow that plan. But even what you're describing there is very different to that plan because this thing is moving so fast. Yes, which is why I think pretentious things like the ecosystem or the environment of British innovation, technology, talent, infrastructure is probably much more important than trying to guess what the weapon or what the war will be in 15 years' time.
25:58Rory Stewart:Just a quick plug for a brilliant final six-page economist article by my friend Shashank Joshi, who tries to lay out what he calls transparency. He thinks war is all about transparency, that these devices can see things they were never able to see before. I think the future war, I'd add to that, is sovereignty. It's all about sovereignty. And our real problem is we're having to build all this stuff without being able to rely on US defense equipment anymore. Yeah. By the way, before we get to break, Andrew Kinnebra. Does that name ring a bell? He's the DG of Make UK. And you and I both spoken at Make UK conferences.
26:38He says, I have a major bone to pick with Rory. And his statement, glib, he calls it, that defense spending doesn't lead to economic growth. Ask anyone in Barrow, the Clyde, Plymouth, Bristol, Yobel, Preston, even the Outer Hebrides. And he then goes on to say this is our biggest frustration is with the treasury echoing both john healy and ben wallace who we interviewed on leading they refuse to consider the defense and security resilience bank which john healy and number 10 have told us they liked and we love and this is something that i think mark carney has been pushing this is the thing that it seems to be about and i think when john healy said in his resignation letter to kia starmer that you the treasury were unwilling and you were unable, then I think that is what this is about.
27:26Rory Stewart:Well, so answer to Andrew, there has been a lot of research on this. And what academics have been trying to look at is pound for pound, what kind of return do you get investing in a nuclear submarine in Barrow for your economy compared to investing in education, infrastructure skills? Generally, the conclusion is if what you're trying to do is generate economic growth, pound for pound, you'd be better going for education, infrastructure skills. Defence is not very productive investment. We don't really do that either. No. So I think the reason to go to defense is not that it's the cheapest way of getting economic growth.
28:01Rory Stewart:The reason to go for defense is there's a threat from Russia, we can no longer rely on the US, and we will have no sovereignty or independence unless we build up the capacity. Yeah. I mean, if anyone wants to get into any of this more, I've done a mini series on AI with Matt Clifford that we're quite proud of. And we get deep into all these debates. How much does technology matter? And what should the UK do about it? And what should Europe do about it in particular? So just go to therestlesspolitics.com. Okay, quick break, and we'll come back and talk about UFC and Peru. Lovely.
28:37This episode is brought to you by Vauxhall. Electric cars have become part of life on the road and Vauxhall is supporting the UK's transition to electrification.
28:47Rory Stewart:Well, how are they doing that? Well, to start, their Electric Streets of Britain initiative aims to support local authorities in accelerating the UK's on-street charging infrastructure. And it's exactly what you want to see from Vauxhall, which is of course a British brand, a proud partner of Team GB. Vauxhall's also supporting the next generation of athletes on their journey to the 2028 Olympics. And there's more. Their new Vauxhall Grandland Griffin, a large family SUV, features a premium specification at an affordable price, whether you choose an electric or mild hybrid version. Even better, going electric can get you an additional£1 ,500 discount thanks to the Electric Car Grant.
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30:15Rory Stewart:Hi, it's Rory here. To celebrate the release of my book, Middleland in paperback, I'm doing two live shows on stage in London in September. I'd love you to join me for the conversation. Middleland is my portrait of rural Britain and politics. It draws on a decade of living in Cumbria, being the Member of Parliament, writing about its resilience, its beauty, and what this corner of England can teach us about community, purpose, and if you'll allow me to sound a bit grand, democratic renewal. Every ticket to the show includes a copy of the book, and it should be a great opportunity. I'll be in discussion with people, we'll have questions, I'm happy to engage with almost anything.
30:54Rory Stewart:We can talk about global politics as well. I'm playing the Dominion Theatre in London's West End on Sunday the 13th of September and the Richmond Theatre in Richmond on Tuesday the 15th of September. If you'd like to buy tickets you can head to feign.co.uk forward slash Rory-Stewart. That's feign.co.uk forward slash Rory-Stewart.
31:22Rory Stewart:Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics Question Time with me Rory Stewart and me Alistair Campbell. Now, first question for you from Akash. How did you celebrate Trump's birthday last weekend, Alistair? Well, the only connection I had with Trump's birthday was to watch the news coverage of the utterly hideous UFC cage fighting on the lawn of the White House. Did you watch a bit of it? I watched a bit of it. I mean, I won't show it to my kids. I mean, I used to do a lot of martial arts. I did karate, I did Aikido, I did Judo. So I'm quite interested in it. But when you actually see some of the matches, I mean, there was the Netflix big match that I saw four weeks ago.
32:07Rory Stewart:It's horrifying. I mean, it's not what you want a kid to see. Well, it's fighting. Well, there's a lot of blood. And sometimes you're seeing, I mean, there was an extraordinary match between the most enormous, incredibly impressive French-African fighter going up against a guy who they tried to trail as having rested for two years, but he was back. And the poor man was destroyed. I mean, destroyed within a few seconds. It's brutal. It's absolutely brutal. And of course, that's partly why he loves it. Pete Hexer keeps talking about lethality is his favorite word. Now, I think the thing is I find most troubling because there is something about the White House that is very special and it's a beautiful building replete with history beautifully kept and suddenly that law where you normally have meetings with heads of state or big events or well it was a big event but it's got this sort of makeshift stadium put together you've got a whole load of evil Knievel type motorbike riders kind of flying through the air the honor guard which is normally there, you know, to greet Xi Jinping or Keir Starmer or the king, whatever it might be.
33:20They were there standing there as an honor guard for the fighters as they came out. The worst moment, and I think even the crowd, even though the crowd was pumped up USA, USA and loving Trump, was one of the fighters who did an in the ring interview afterwards and said, first of all, Donald Trump's the only man in the world who could deliver shit like this it's probably true all is certainly true then went on to say how the only person in the world he loved more than that was jesus christ because jesus could he also deliver evil knievel and he could do all that stuff and he could probably ride a mean motorbike himself and then one went on to say and michelle obama is a man america we all know this so neatly bringing together neatly bringing together misogyny racism white supremacy allied to christianity i mean utterly horrific and even that it's quite roman empire isn't it
34:22Rory Stewart:because actually what i feel looks seeing the blood is it's like gladiatorial games oh yeah and and that's why he loves it and he and the guy who runs ufc and this by the way was film you had to pay to watch this on one of Ellison's new channels. He was, of course, in the crowd. So all part of the Trump corruption. One of the sponsors, it comes up, the sponsor of this fight is Truth Social. So he's making money out of it. He's a shareholder in UFC, it turns out. So I thought it was pretty horrific. What does it suggest about masculinity? Because remember, there was a story amongst the various things that haven't been delivered by Elon Musk.
35:04Rory Stewart:He's just become the world's first trillionaire. And he's just done an amazing... I mean, if people haven't followed, you read the prospectus of the SpaceX IPO. Basically, you're going to make money if he manages to put a million people on Mars and put all this stuff up into space. Oh, and by the way, you're going to have no control as a shareholder. The whole thing's written for Musk to control the whole thing. But amongst the various promises, he's not just putting a million people on Mars. He promised that he was going to fight Mark Zuckerberg in a ring two years ago. We haven't yet seen that.
35:33No, we haven't.
35:34Rory Stewart:I'd watch that. Who would you want to win? I think Musk would probably win, but who would you want to win? What's going on, though, between these? Actually, it turned out, I think, that he dropped out because he suddenly discovered that Mark Zuckerberg had literally been training two hours a day with some martial arts. He's like you, Rory. He's got a killer streak in there, the karate and all that stuff. What do you think is going on in the world? I mean, would this have been true 20, 30 years ago? Are we becoming much, much more violent? I suppose we were always - It was very interesting though, the polling.
36:04Yeah. I saw some polling on this. The support, it was something like 13 % of Americans thought that this was a good use of the White House. And the Republicans, it was only one in three. So that is very, so it's basically, I think what we're seeing is Donald Trump as the emperor. It's my birthday. This is what I want to do in my birthday. And by the way, you know the reason why the G7 summit You don't even like birthdays, do you? No, I don't. He clearly loves his birthday. He doesn't like anybody else's birthday. I bet he doesn't know where Bellardi's birthday is. But the reason why the G7 summit that's going on now started the day that it did, a day later than it was meant to, because Trump wanted to have his UFC fight.
36:44He wanted to have his evil Knievel and his UFC. Exactly. So there you are. You're thinking, maybe this is a day really to focus on Iran. I mean, OK, it's my birthday, but I think I should focus on Iran. But no, he has this. So I found the whole thing pretty revolting. Sheryl Crow, who, as I've told you before, once complimented me on my hair, one of the highlights of my life. Remind us who's Sheryl Crow is. Sheryl Crow is an amazing singer. And at the time, she was living with Lance Armstrong, the cyclist, and I turned up with a new haircut. She said, I love your haircut. Highlight. But she did a fabulous post about just how sickening and disgusting and awful this was.
37:17But I think this goes back to, I was talking to a Democrat friend yesterday, and I was raging about it. He said, listen, stop the rage on the stuff that doesn't really matter. This is why they do it. No, no, no. I'm with you.
37:31Rory Stewart:I'm with you because I disagree with the Democratic friend because I was talking yesterday to one of the great cornerstones of the US foreign policy establishment. He was in Washington, I was in London. And he was saying, listen, we're beginning to think, you know, Democrats as well as Republicans, that maybe, you know, what Trump's done is not too bad. And it's encouraged Europe to stand on its own to feed and take more responsibility security. And in the end, the noise will die down and actually our alliance will be stronger because you will have spent more on defense and it's true that you weren't spending enough on defense.
38:02Rory Stewart:And I said, you simply do not understand how the whole world has changed. If you really think the conclusion of all of this is we're going to come to the end of the Trump administration and Europe and Canada and the UK will be like, our relationship with the US is stronger than ever before. We're standing on our own two feet. We're going to be wonderful allies around the world. forget it. But that's partly, that's what worries me, that when people say, stop getting wound up, stop the Trump derangement syndrome, the risk is they end up thinking we're in a normal world. Well, it's like when we're talking about Germany in the main podcast, I was talking to somebody who said that the actual Springer group, which look, it's not like Murdoch and it's not like the mail, but it's kind of, it's developed and built site on, that they're becoming, he used the phrase, he was German, he used the phrase, the banalization of the AFD.
38:52And I think we're way through that with Trump is why he is able to get away with more. And funnily enough, when I mentioned on the main podcast, the encounter I had with Jacob Rees-Mogg, offstage when he was being his usual polite and charming self, we were talking about Farage. And he said, yeah, the thing about Farage though, he was saying I would welcome an alliance with Farage and we should have a deal and we should stand down our candidates where they can win and they should do the same with us. And I think it'd be fine in government, blah, blah, blah blah blah blah and i said what about this five minutes oh it's terrible it's terrible but you know he's got the trump effect he seems to be able to survive scandal you only survive scandal if politics and the media allow you to survive scandal um i was very glad to see meddy hassan coming back to the uk with his new uh you know taking british politics in the same way he's done american politics because i think our media is just too soft and the american media is even softer.
39:47The thing that really gets me is when Trump is abusing people and the rest of the crowd don't stand up for them. He's dividing a ruling all the time, even in that context. He'd be doing it at the G7 now. Anyway, you're getting me going, I'll shut up now. Next question then. Luca, can you please talk about the Peruvian election? What's going on? I'm obsessed with this, Rory, as you know from my hearing. The first thing to say is it's a classic left, right. You've got Roberto Sanchez was on the left and you've got Fujimori, relative of a previous Keijo Fujimori. She's the - Or as we say, Fuhimori.
40:26I'm sure you do, but okay. Okay. Fuhimori. Thank you for correcting my language. You tell me often I don't with the encyclical. I do. It's true. It's true. I noticed you corrected me on remigration as well. I don't like saying remigration because it's what they want you to say. So they went through. It's a French system. Lots of people can stand and then the top two go through until somebody gets 50%. So get this. The initial count was Fuhimori, 9 ,036 ,046. Sanchez, 9 ,034 ,743. So what's the gap again? Sorry, I can't do the math in my head. 50.004 % against 49.996%. Oh, my Lord. And then, and of course, the votes were coming in and being counted, a bit like during the leave, the main referendum.
41:13And then there was a couple of sort of big oop suddenly when a lot of the foreign votes, overseas votes came in and they helped Fuhimori. So Sanchez is now demanding a total recount. Lots of the tallies have now gone into the court. So it's going to be ages till we find actually who the president is. I think Fuhimori is narrowly ahead. But yeah, Luca, thank you for that, because I've been following this election far more
41:38Rory Stewart:It's been the most fascinating election, hasn't it? Because I believe the mayor of Lima was considered to be a real player on the right and was narrowly pushed out by Fuhumori. But there was a whole narrative that Fuhumori wasn't going to make it through to the last two. And the mayor of Lima, who was a sort of aged genius on social media, who knew how to tell a good story, was going to get rid of somebody who was compromised by her father and who'd been trying to be elected front, she does. I mean, she's one of the great survivors. Keiko Fuhimori, I think, has run again and again and again. Her parties dominated parliament at frequent occasions.
42:12Yeah. But also it's like Marine Le Pen having to have the shadow of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was out and out neo-Nazi and she's tried to moderate. So the father, you'd have thought, given his record, it would have damaged her more than it did. She didn't do very well in the first round though. This is the thing about their system. It wasn't like 20 % or something, even less than that. I can't remember. But so she gets through and it became this incredible left-right battle because that is what's going on across Latin America. And I think the left were just desperately hoping that maybe we'll have one of the left-wing people win this.
42:49So I can't remember an election in a national presidential election. I can't remember anything quite as close as that.
42:55Rory Stewart:Except the hanging chads in Florida. We had the hanging chads, but that was in, this is like literally right at that time, Al Gore had quite a considerable lead on the popular vote. This on the popular vote is, anyway, it's now in the courts and we shall report back. But I was intrigued by that one. Okay, final one. Scotland at the World Cup. Clarice, World Cup expectations. How far can Scotland go? And after Scotland's match against Haiti, is it too much to hope, says Ewan, that the cup comes home to Edinburgh? Well, comes home suggests that Jules Rimet was a Scot. I mean, I've got to say, I don't know how to put this, Roy, but my principles are being very, very badly challenged right now.
43:40We would forgive you.
43:42Rory Stewart:We would forgive you partly because we like flaws. It's more interesting to see someone admit that their principles are warring with their interests. We know that you're a great football fan. We know Scott's doing very well. We know you hate Trump. So it'd be quite interesting to see you navigate through this. I wouldn't tie yourself into the fact that you publicly announced you weren't going, but you'd just have to explain yourself to us. But we'd forgive you. As a Christian, I'm all about forgiveness. You are, I know. I know you are. You would, but would I forgive myself? Well, would you also forgive yourself if Scotland gets through to the quarterfinals and you're not there watching?
44:18No, that's why I put myself between a rock and a hard place.
44:20Rory Stewart:I should have just kept my mouth shut. Can you explain about World Cup tickets? I mean, if Scotland gets through to the quarterfinals, would you be able to get a ticket? Well, I think I've got ways. Oh, you've got ways. I've got ways. Would a normal person be able to know? No, it'd be bloody hard. I mean, look, there were tens of thousands of Scots in Boston who didn't have tickets. Right. The reason I'm feeling massive FOMO is because, do you know that when Scotland sang the fan slag at the fire of Scotland, it's been recorded as the loudest moment in World Cup history. Wow. And then even better than that, Roy, this would have been brilliant.
44:50I don't really like baseball. They say it's like cricket. Cricket's way superior to baseball. Most European things are way superior to American things. We know this. The Scotland fans decided to go to a Red Sox game at the Fenway Stadium. They were led by a pipe band. There were thousands and thousands of them, and they spent the whole baseball game singing Flower of Scotland, Loch Lomond, Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie. And it's just the American media has gone nuts for the Scots fans. So Scotland's soft power has been doing a lot of good. The other thing, because I knew I wasn't going to go, I've now got commitments that are very difficult to break without another principle being broken for both the Morocco and the Brazil games.
45:34Right. Right. And then, so it's, I guess the real test is going to come when they get through to the next round. Presumably, the chance of them actually winning the World Cup is quite slim. I think if you were to go to Polymarket, one of the sponsors of the UFC fight, I think you'd get it down at about 0.2%. Right. Or maybe, no, maybe a bit more than that, but no, it's, but interestingly, one of the criticisms that we all had of the World Cup is it's too big, 48 countries. It's ridiculous why countries like Capo Verde there. Yeah. They drew with Spain. Amazing. Absolutely fantastic. But then Germany won 7-1.
46:07Germany won 7-1, yeah.
46:09Rory Stewart:I mean, that's extraordinary. Against Curacao. You've been following it, Rory. Well, just enough to that a little bit. Okay, how did Iran get on against New Zealand? Yeah, I don't know. How did they get on? 2-2. Oh, I thought Iran would win easily. Did you? Yeah. Well, you don't like New Zealand. You don't think New Zealand is good. No, no, against New Zealand. New Zealand are captained by a former Burnley player, let me tell you. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I've got a big bone to pick with the commentators. They normally, you know when John Watson wrote his book, he had a wonderful line and it said that when Greece won the Euros which was one of the biggest stories in football history and he said in his book that he got back he turned his phone back on and the first message that came in was from me saying why didn't you mention that Papadopoulos once played for Burnley it was the same with Haiti their centre back Hannes Del Croix he made 12 games per appearances for Burnley we can do that well maybe we should do the rest is Burnley.
47:02Rory Stewart:We should just go through the whole World Cup looking at any team that has a Burnley player in it. Yeah, well... How many teams do have a Burnley player out of the 48, would you say? Four or five, I think. Former Burnley players quite a lot. Chris Wood, captain of New Zealand. But if you went... Sorry. But if you went for one of the kind of giant teams like Manchester City or something, would you find that many more of the teams have players? Virtually the whole team. Right, yeah. Not all playing. Some of them were sort of benched. Anyway, I'm glad that you're developing this interest in... I was just trying to keep up with you desperately.
47:32I know, I know.
47:34Rory Stewart:Whereas my sporting interest in UFC is massively limited by the fact that although I'm happy to sit my kids down to watch World Cup much, I'm not letting a nine-year-old see someone clinically destroyed in a ring with blood everywhere. What about boxing? Would you tell them to do boxing match? Just about. I mean, some of this UFC stuff that I've seen is beyond imagination. That's the point. I mean, it's really weird. That's the point. And it's also really weird how it's changed over time. They basically don't do kicks anymore. It's very brutal, very, very efficient, few holds on the ground, and then hummeling us.
48:06Rory Stewart:The rest of martial arts with Rory Stewart and Conor McGregor. Yeah, very good. This has got to be the big one. Good. Well, actually, you made us interview boxes and you still haven't delivered Tyson Fury. Tyson Fury, yeah. I'm still on the case, Rory. We've got a long list coming up. Very good. Now, Rory, the one thing we haven't talked about this week is the Make a Feel by-election happening on Thursday. One of the most covered by-elections has ever been, probably. We will be talking about it sometime on Friday. Very good. Looking forward to it. So there'll be a special episode for those of you that really want to know.
48:38Rory Stewart:And of course, it is about the future of Britain. Almost certainly the new Prime Minister might emerge out of this. What, Robert Kenyon is going to be Prime Minister? Yeah, Robert Kenyon. The new Prime Minister. Yeah, Robert Kenyon. The Remainer. I don't know. The Remainer. Remainer Robert Kenyon. Okay. See you soon. See you soon. Bye-bye.
48:59Hello, dear listeners. As many of you will know, Father's Day is coming up on the 21st of June.
49:08Rory Stewart:And we know that a good number of you will be wondering what to get your centrist dad this year. And we have the perfect idea. Get him a membership to the Rest His Politics Plus and make the most of our 25 % discount on a gifted annual membership. And that gives you access to all these members-only mini-series that we're making. It gives you early access to question time. Just head to therestdispologies.com and click on Gifts. The gift will land straight in your dad's inbox on the day. It's the only present for a centrist dad.
From the publisher
Has Britain become a “vassal” state, dangerously dependent on the US for our most vital national security capabilities? What does Trump’s martial arts birthday event on the White House lawn tell us about the “banalisation” of his presidency in politics and the media? Will Alastair u-turn on his boycott of the World Cup and travel to the Americas if Scotland go far in the controversial competition?
Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more in this week's edition of Question Time.
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