568. MAGA's Plan to Make Britain Look Broken and Iceland's 'Brexit' Moment

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2:07ogressa națan i fel ei ni siur eich cirywhast. Mynd erneust unui gw responsesani内 economistor, politico, consideratabledrand y rescu sut arwn wa نidoo yn hynbyeodor, a hyn дynodai adw eenan. Sally has options for different families and different situations. College is only worth it if you do it right, so don't just help your kid go. Help them go smarter. Sally.com slash go parents. Welcome to the Reservoirative's Question Time with me as Campbell.

3:10And with me Rory Stewart. Rory we are going to talk about Iceland referendum, UK Russia, why MAGA tries to tell everybody that Britain is a basket case, we are going to talk about party conferences and maybe have a little bit of fun at the end. But let's start in Iceland. Georgie did Iceland's yes campaign make the same mistakes as the remain campaign in the UK? What does the result mean for European unity and brine in Reykjavik? Wants to know whether we were pleased that Nigel Farage congratulated Iceland on his referendum as a dubious honoured I'd say, says Brian, given who is one of the principal architects of the Brexit Fiasco. And it was interesting that Farage's response was to say well done Iceland on voting to keep your independence. So that means Rory that independence means you can be in the EA, you can be in Shengen and you can have access to the single market. Fantastic. Let's have it for Britain. A lot to dig into. But I think first thing is that I think it's disappointing because this was

4:12a vote which was just about whether to negotiate or talk at all. And you and I are passionate about trying to build up middle powers and bring countries together. And this is an example of a wealthy country that's already very close to the European Union, not even being prepared to vote to consider negotiating about a close relationship. It's not the end of the world and I think we can get on to why it's not the end of the world and why actually there might be a silver lining to it. But I think we begin with a sense of disappointment. And also maybe being a little cheeky, I wonder listening back to the interview that we did with the Icelandic Prime Minister when you were in Iceland. Whether actually part of the problem isn't leadership. I mean this was relatively close. Again, it was not far off of 52-48 results. I did not feel that your friend, the Icelandic Prime Minister, was really putting heart and soul into getting this across the line. I think she would disagree with that because I think her strategy, and this came through in the

5:14interview, our interview was kind of the first big internet, it was about the only really big international thing that she did. And I think she was using the hour that we had to set out some of the arguments, but also the nature of the campaign. And part of her thinking was that the Icelanders are not ready just to be told, do as you told, come with me, I'm the leader. She had to go out there and she did tons and tons of quite small meetings in fairly rural remote places. But I think I wonder where I might sort of meet you halfway. I wonder if part of her thinking was if we lose this, I don't want people to think this is a massive personal blow. So I was a bit worried, I think I said to you at the time, I was a little bit worried that that means you don't do everything you might be maybe due to win. And of course the other side is very organised, well-funded, very passionate. And that was definitely the true and the the Brexit campaign, that if the people advocating for it

6:14are a bit sort of tetocratic, lukewarm, well, you know, it's not going to be the end of the world either way. And the people against it are absolutely take back control, red blooded, they're going to take our fish. A lot of this was about, fish wasn't it? 45% of Iceland's exports of fish, and they were worried that they'd lose control of their fishing quotas. No, I think when something's that close, presumably you do, I'm sure you do, despite your great affection for the Icelandic primacy, you are somebody who believes in political leadership and I'm sure you would say to me that the right campaign with the right leadership could make that 2% difference to character across the line. Yeah, and I think that don't definitely know doubt about that. And she was front and centre, even though the the idea for the referendum came from one of her coalition partners who are basically exist to fight for Iceland to become a member of the European Union, she was more out there as a bit of a kind of, you know, explainer explaining why the referendum is explaining what the issues are, as opposed to full blooded, this is why we should do it. And of

7:16course, you know, George's question, did they learn from the referendum campaign here in 2016? There's no doubt that no campaign did. They were, I mean, for a place that's pretty wealthy and quite very nice people and, you know, don't have a lot of the kind of social issues that we have, the campaign was very, very close to the sort of thing that we had here. So, for example, they absolutely modeled the £350 million from the NHS. They talked about £50 billion Icelandic crooner that we'd have to give to the European Union. They had a part of the campaign running was that kids from Iceland will be conscripted into a EU army, well, the EU army doesn't exist. And what's more, Iceland doesn't have a military. And yet, those sorts of arguments get through. And, you know, what, and I also wonder, Russia takes an interest in these things, whether Russia was sort of, you know, doing its usual propaganda funding campaigns. They're taking lessons from the Dominic Cummings campaign. Flip it around. Let's say you'd be in

8:21the campaign manager. What lessons should the people in favour of the European Union have taken from what didn't work in the British campaign? And what could they have done better if you're running this kind of campaign? And this is relevant because it's just going to matter in Moldova, it's going to matter in Ukraine. Let's hope it's going to matter in the Western Balkans and any other place you want to get in. Well, I think a little bit like in our campaign, I'm, maybe I'm all fashionless. I just think you have to rebut these lies. You have to rebut them really aggressively. And that doesn't mean you say that's not true. It means that you have to make sure that anybody who's hearing your kids are going to get conscripted to the army. No, don't just hear you say it once, but actually you then make it part of a bigger argument. This is the Brexit line machine in affecting our politics. Do we really want to go down the road that Vladimir Putin is created? You know, you make a bigger argument. And I could sense when we did the interview that she was maybe a little bit uncomfortable going down that route because Iceland

9:22is a much nicer political culture than most of ours. But I think when you're talking about in a population of 400,000, so it's very, very small population. As you say, it was 52 points, something to 47 points, something. You're talking about hundreds, just hundreds of votes, which either way could swing it. So I'm with you, I think, is disappointing. And the reason why on the bigger picture is disappointing. I think what what the Europeans were hoping for was that this will reboot the enlargement story. There may be Norway would start to reconsider its position. And of course, if you've got Iceland and Norway moving in that direction, that's a big, big game because these are wealthy countries, not like, you know, maybe some of the countries in the Balkans. Well, let me try my silver lining. Why, why this is not the end of the world, but maybe a chance just to rethink how we think about the middle power geometry to use that kind of pompous word, which is that one of the major reasons Iceland didn't get in is the one that you hinted out at the beginning, which

10:22is that Iceland already has an enormously close relationship with Europe. It already is part of the single market. It benefits from all its closeness to Europe. And maybe what we need to take from this is that the way to construct a new middle power coalition is to think about getting countries like Britain into something that's more like Iceland. And that maybe that actually is also the first step for Ukraine, the first step for Serbia. In other words, it's actually the four freedoms. It's the freedom of movement. It's the single market access that people care about more than being part of the political center of the whole thing. So if we're trying to create an out of a circle of Europe, maybe what you take from Iceland is not, well, let's let's give up because Iceland and one joint European Union, who else is going to instead say actually maybe what Iceland shows is that there is a very attractive position of being part of the single market, part of shangan, part of the four freedoms without being full member. And that that should be the

11:24first step for Serbia, Moldova, Ukraine and who knows, Britain, Canada, etc. Yeah, I mean, I think it's great by the way that Mark Carney is going to the state of the Union event in the European Parliament. And he'll be speaking after the sort of underlying. I think that's going to be a very big moment later this month. Of course, Iceland is a small country, which is now not opening negotiations with the European Union. Where my big worry at the moment is in the big countries in Europe. France where I saw Poland last week where Marine Le Pen, if she gets in the second round, every single polly option says she wins. Everybody listening or 90% of people listening will know this, but just remind younger listeners, marrying the pen is the leader of the far right party in France with Badela. And therefore what Alessas telling us is that there is a staggeringly high chance that the next president of France is going to be from a far right party. You know, her father was a, you know, who found its part as a genuine, proper, fascist anti-Semite. This is not an innocent party. This is a party that took millions from

12:29Russia and loans to get itself off the ground. She herself has been convicted of fraud. And yet it looks like she's on the verge of winning. And the other point that you've made in the past, we need to really reinforce this becoming president of France is a much more powerful position than Maloney becoming Prime Minister of Italy because the president of France controls France much more directly in many ways than the Prime Minister of Italy and is a much bigger player in the European Union back over the. Absolutely. The other thing we talked last week about the Horseshoe theory. And the Horseshoe theory is happening in France. There was a debate the other day. And Le Pen was filmed backstage with Jean-Luc Melanchion. So there's Le Pen from the hard right and Melanchion from the hard left. And they were laughing and joking and teasing each other. And you know, because they're both basically pro-Russia anti-Europe, hint me in different ways. And then the other one just to terrify you further, when I was in Germany, I picked up this book. There's published a CHBAC. They've done this amazing series of scenarios. Remember we talked

13:31about the one if China invades Taiwan. We had the one about if the AFD wins. Well, this one is Deutschland 2033. The AFD is in power in this book. And it's an Alice Vidal coalition with the CDU. The CDU quit the coalition fairly early on. At which point a bit like Donald Trump, Alice Vidal realises you have a lot of power even if you're not changing the law. And it's just an account of how she uses that power. And it's absolutely terrifying. And when I see this sort of stuff I'd be watching on this election next week in Saxony and Halt, where the AFD are so far ahead now. And people are talking, this is what Farage is trying to create with reform here. They're talking about this like it's a kind of normal party. Well, the others have had their go, give them a go. This is a party that is openly pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine. Once Germany out of Schengen, which completely destroys the European Union effectively. Now, what is the big

14:35strategic goal of our enemies right now? It's to destroy the European Union. It's totally gifting them now. It strikes me that there's something that connects what you're saying now with AI episode that we did yesterday, which is we need politicians who are prepared to have a real sense of hope. Hope about our ability to control and manage AI. Keep humans in charge of AI. And that was what was so wonderful about Maos and Aziz, the Israeli and Palestinian guests that we just had on leading who do the most extraordinary, powerful moving task of trying to argue for peace, not explaining the 10,000 reasons why peace is impossible, just like you might have, instead of focusing on the 10,000 reasons why it's impossible to regulate AI, just working backwards. We need to have humans in control of AI. We need peace in Israel, Palestine, and we need the middle powers coming together by hook or by crook. They gave us hope, Roy. They gave us hope. But on that last one,

15:36I think it takes two to tango. I mean, one of the things that's so sad is that here are people like us saying we want Iceland to engage more or Canada to engage more or Ukraine or more dover or Serbia to engage more. Where's the other side of that? Where are the leaders inside the European Union showing the big imaginative generous offers to bring people in? Well, I think the only one who is sort of showing that level of imagination is Kani. I think Kani is sort of signaling that under pressure from America, he's going to reach out. Now we've got to go the other way. Yeah, it'll only work in the end if the EU leaders themselves are showing real imagination and willpower to try to create the stuff. Now the other big thing, Rachel here, are we risking war with Russia? Andrew, what are your thoughts on Russia's increasingly open threats towards the UK and NATO and the CIA chiefs visit Damasco? Now you and I spoke the other day to Anthony Scaremucci for an episode that's coming out, basically just a naked book promotion for Anthony Scaremucci and we're pretending that he's a leader. So it'll be all leading. It's a good chat.

16:42But he was very interesting on this Ratcliffe, the CIA chief visit to Moscow. He was saying that the line that the White House have put out to newspapers and broadcasts that this was to tell the Russians don't dare threaten NATO, it was absolute bullshit. What he was there to do was saying, let's do a deal. I'll get you sanctions lifted if this, this, this, this. Now none of us know the full truth, but I'm more likely to believe the mooch in the White House line machine. On the Russian threats, so this follows on from the thing that we cover last week, which is our Prime Minister visiting Ukraine and saying that they are now licensed to produce missiles, partial British missiles in Ukraine and Russia saying there will be consequences. And there's two things going on. One is the cry wolf phenomenon, which is Russia has threatened consequences repeatedly over the last four years, very successfully. In fact, one of the reasons why Biden was so slow to provide the support that Ukraine critically needed in the first year and a half is Russia kept signaling that if that support was provided, horrible things would happen.

17:45Ultimately, all that support was provided. It was just provided too late. The missiles arrived, the tanks arrived, the Petron missiles arrived, but it just arrived too soon too late and Russia didn't retaliate. However, the problem with this cry wolf phenomenon is that at some point, Russia may retaliate. We've seen these attacks in Leipzig. We've also seen, which remind people again, this was the detection of a drone and now there's been another event at Leipzig Airport, which is one of the big supply chains for Ukraine. But it's also true that the nature of the war is changing now that Ukraine is striking into Russian territory and killing Russian children in some of these strikes. The sense amongst the Russian public that a British supplied missile is now directly killing Russian civilians deep inside Russia, may begin to change people's calculus away from when it felt like it was a fight on the front line. Yeah, you see, I watched, I don't know, Ukraine. It's so depressing that it's the fifth year and it's no sign of ending. There's another German journalist that I followed, Paul

18:51Ronxheimer, who's a big cheese-built site, and he's just put out a two-part documentary on Saxony and Halt. He's been there. And he does this quite a thing, maybe we should think about this, Roy. He sits himself up in a town square in a chair and he has a table with a sign that a sign that just says, give me, tell me your opinion and another chair. He's interviewed about 40 people and he was talking about, you know, some of them were totally anti-AFD but others were pro. But then in the documentary, I'm not finished yet, but I watched part of you last night. He's with this guy who's a leading figure, leading leading figure in Saxony and Halt in the AFD and Ronxheimer's in his kitchen and he spots that the guy's got a mug and it says Russian Army in Russian. So Ronxheimer really, really sort of gently grills him. It's a bit sort of loo-y therewish in the style. Oh, that's interesting. Why have you got a Russian Army? Oh, it was a present. Who was it a present? For a word, I can't remember. But anyway, the point that comes over

19:55as they talk to more and more AFD supporters and he has this phrase, es is niched on the creek, it is not our war. And so Ronxheimer says to him, where's your mug from the the federal, the German federal army? Oh, I've never, they've never given me a present. He's pro Russian. It's not just that these people want to sit it out. The AFD and the, that's almost like this, they are pro Russia. They want Russia to win. And the reason for that, and I think maybe this is part of the clue on Trump too, is that they are pro Russian because actually they share the same worldview. What they believe is a lot of the stuff that Putin says. At nation states, anti-immigration, family fight for Western civilization, family values, against decadent Western civilization. And yeah, they've got a gay leader. I mean, this is the thing that's mind blame about. They're totally home. The Russian worldview is utterly homophobic. But it's a really interesting. It's essentially the way in which the culture wars is turning geopolitics

20:59insanely on its head. I mean, here you have a country which is objectively the most extreme enemy of the United States you could imagine. And the biggest potential threat to Europe. Yeah. And simply because Putin sounds conservative and right wing on culture wars, you suddenly, people like Trump and the AFD and the pen think, maybe it's a good idea to take it. Yeah. But also the other thing that comes through this book, I mean Trump sort of weaves an amount of this book, is just how the AFD have learned from the way that he communicates. Truth doesn't really matter. Facts don't really matter. Building up your following on social media is way more important. And it's important to insult the mainstream media because that then makes you people feel better about where they go to see you on social media. And also that you have to be making the most noise. You must be making the most noise. And up against kind of

21:59fact-based rational calm people like melts and cling-bile. And even though Alice Vidal is not the most charismatic, but she's got a certain tone and a certain style. And then around her, these, I mean, some of these characters who are running for Minister President, when they are, I'm afraid to say they are very charismatic. They know how to communicate effectively. There's a piece in the Financial Times magazine, a huge piece in the weekend about the Saxony Unhalt and the journalist followed this guy, Orli Seekmont, who looks like he could be the First Minister President. That's a big step because they're then in charge because of the federal structure. They're then in charge of policing. They have access to intelligence. Well, that'll be nice and useful to Vladimir, wouldn't it? So yeah, this book is yeah, another one, publishers get it in English. And yet another reason why we need hope. I mean, all these people are giving us the pessimistic vision. We've got to have that hope. We've got to have hope. We've got to have hope. Well, listen, Roy, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and

23:00find out from Izzy, who writes our newsletter and we wrote a brilliant piece this weekend about just why the MAGA lot are spending so much time that saying that Britain is a total and complete basket case. And we talk about that. And we'll talk about the party conferences and which is upon us. Very good. Looking forward to it very much. See you soon. Welcome back to the rest of this politics question time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Anastak Campbell, and a special guest, which is Izzy, Isabel Stanley. Isabel writes our brilliant newsletter, which I have to say, Izzy gets better and better and better. And the reason you're making your global international media debut in this way is because I thought and Rory thought that one of the weekend was particularly good. So tell us what it was about by answering this question. Martin, Isabel Stanley's recent article in the newsletter on American attitudes to Britain made for interesting reading and gave more fuel, I would say, to the streak of self

24:04abacement we seem to be indulging at the moment. But it left me wondering what would a reciprocal survey reveal about our attitudes towards American Americans? As someone with an American, why, if I rather fear the answer would be even more negative, what do you both think? Before we answer that, Izzy, just tell us who you talked to, where you went, how you talked to them, and the big impressions you were left with. Yeah, of course. Over the past few months, people sort of seen this string of attacks on the UK, the sort of negative commentary coming out of the US, things like Trump, he in June was saying that the UK is dying. Elon Musk and Steve Van and both at different times said that the UK was heading for a civil war. And so we saw all of that and we were sort of thinking, well, that's all well and good. But what impact is that actually having on the way that the American public? So that's the traditionally our closest ally. But what impact is that having on how they see us? So the first thing we did is we asked, it's us in the UK to carry out some polling. They were super helpful and they found some pretty

25:08striking stuff. So they surveyed 1100 Americans all across the country and they found that one in four Americans, 25 ish percent, believe that British society is broken. And that jumps to 37% among Republicans. And obviously that's not everyone. You know, that's not saying that the entirety of America thinks Britain's gone to the dogs. But the other very striking thing is that there's a very high sort of level of unengagement. So my favorite statistic that came out of it is that more than half of Americans admitted they had no idea who the British Prime Minister was. And you know, fair enough, it's quite confusing. We've had a lot of them recently. But 3% thought that it was still Tony Blair, which sort of shows when they were maybe last engaged. So we were we were sort of thinking about that. I went to the US as well and did a very while I was there did a very sort of unofficial straw poll of what people were talking about and thinking about in terms of the UK. And most of the things that they mentioned were sort of related to crime

26:09in particular phone snatching, immigration, sort of negative trends that were coming across. The main positive thing was Harry Styles, which again is great, but maybe not the engagement you hope for with your closest ally. Come and come on this. One of the things that was also I think striking what you did is that things seem to have changed quite quickly over time. I mean, I was very struck by data that suggests that relatively recently 40% of Americans said they wanted to visit the UK. And it's now dropped down to 20%. I mean, that's a really catastrophic fall. Exactly. Yeah. So that's the so that's data from the British Council and they do the survey every year where they ask like how likely you're going to be to visit a country. How much do you appreciate its values? How much do you trust their politics? And they found in the past 10 years, so since 2016, Britain's attractiveness to America or Americans has fallen from 78% to 59%. So it's exactly that. It's now only 20% of people in America, young Americans want to visit the UK. They're less likely

27:11to want to study here. They're less likely to sort of appreciate our culture and values. And yeah, that fool is the really striking thing because it's like that that demonstrates that it's not just a negative mindset now. It's that this is sort of been steadily dropping exactly. This also, though, speaks to one of the people you interviewed was Kim Darak, who I know very, very well used to be our ambassador, got kicked out by, effectively by Johnson Caving Into Trump. But he made the point that some of this is self-inflicted in the Brexit. We were at one point, America's closest ally and in a way America's bridged into the European Union. Brexit is weakened as on both. But also, I think that this is, we have, I've been saying this for months, we've got to wake up to the fact, this is a deliberate American strategy. And Roy and I taught last week to the mooch for an episode of leading that's coming out shortly. And he was saying that the only institution in the world of which America has any real fear apart from China is the European Union. So this is part of doing down and doing in Europe. And so I just think we've got to wake up to that.

28:16And the only way, Roy was asking how to fight Baal could with, how could the Icelandic yes campaign have fought back harder. You have to rebut this stuff and you have to take a risk. I honestly feel when Musk comes out with his crap, I think by the way, the crime stuff, a lot of this is about Trump's attack on Siddiq Khan. Trump has had a strategic attack on Siddiq Khan as Mayor of London. So they just talk the whole time about London. You can't walk down the street. I was at a conference recently here in the UK. There was an American there who's been a really thought long and hard American man to London. But I got some protection. You need more protection in America than you do in Europe. Yeah, exactly. I think Laura Rapp, who's the she's director of the North America program at Chatham House, I spoke to as well. And she had a great term for it, which was that Trump uses Britain like a, she called it a helpful cudgel. So sort of to reinforce his own domestic narratives and to essentially say, look how terribly they have it. We can't go down that path. And then the other thing that Kim Derek was talking about, which is very sort of interesting is

29:19that there's been a massive shift in the US on a broader level. So in 1980, I think something like 30% of Americans trace their ancestry back to the UK. So that's census data. And now the, or in 2010, the comparable figure was 12%. So he sort of put it like that. He said, you know, that's now a massive proportion of the country who who look to other parts of the world. You see Britain as just another country. And so those sort of historic ties are declining too. So two other things that maybe we didn't bring out enough. One of them is that British attitudes towards the US have turned significantly negative. I guess that was picked up in Martin's question with him having a an American wife. And then the second thing was there's also data that suggests that US views of the whole world are collapsing. Positive attitudes towards Canada is dropped by 20 points. Their attitude towards France is dropped by 19 points. I mean, are these young people basically saying I don't want to pass for, or are they saying that somewhere else they really want to go?

30:21Somewhere else that they really imagined being terrific. Yeah. So this is what Christine Wilson from the British Council was saying. And it's fascinating. So essentially, there used to be from this survey they do. They sort of have studied this. There used to be two things that would define if someone was going to be a young person was going to view a country as attractive. And that is if they were wealthy and liberal. And so the US UK, you know, and now that's really no longer true. Instead, they're much more drawn to sort of traditionally authoritarian countries because they like crucially their stability. So while the UK has dropped, we asked you're very high up, you know, it's not all crisis stations. But while the US UK has dropped two points since 2016, Saudi is up 17 points. China's up 13. Yeah. So there's been a real shift. She essentially says that the way that people view what's valuable is just changing around the world. It's also very weird. I'm sort of final thing that asks me. But one of the complaints from the US is we're not

31:23relevant anymore because our economy is not booming. We're a kind of museum. But you would have thought that a museum was at least somewhere you want to go on holiday. I mean, I'm not exactly sure that that I mean, Saudi Arabia, you know, got many strengths, but it's not exactly Venice or Florence. I mean, there's a limit to how many cultural sites you can fit in. I go say, I don't know, you know, I just have this European tour. I think I told you that everywhere we went, we're meeting Americans saying, God, we love Europe. You've got so much stuff that we just don't have. And so I think there is a, I think, I'm not alone. I know other breets who've taken the decision. I am not going to America while Trump is president. I just think, you know, however pathetically, you have to make a stand every now and then. But I just thought it was really interesting that we because of Trump, and back to my point about Justice Bender's book and Trump saying, you have to be the loudest voice in the room, because Trump is the loudest American voice in our heads,

32:24certainly in my head and certainly in your head, Rory, then we sometimes forget there are millions of really good decent Americans. And Fiona and I met lots of them, one around Europe, basically, to say, listen, we're really sorry. We're really sorry. We're really sorry. We're really sorry. We're this couple in France not long ago, who basically we were, I was sitting really at use paper and raging at the latest thing that Trump had said or done. And this woman just lent her crosses, can I just say we're really sorry. So, you know, they're a good, they're a good Americans out there. Is he, what was the most surprising thing you found in your research? Well, I was going to say, I'll leave you on a slightly, slightly happier note. That same survey from Ipsos in the UK that found one in four Americans think British, societies broken, 67% of them think American societies broken. So, you know, it's not, it's not only us and potentially we don't have it that bad. So that's the sort of takeaway for you Martin as well. Yeah. What surprised you about, I mean, you went to the US too. What,

33:24when were you last there have things changed? Did you get a different sense of different tone? Were you meeting different people, seeing different things? So I lived out there for two years. And I mean, I was in New York, which is kind of, I guess, a bubble anyway protective from some of it. But I think the striking thing really, when I was seen to young people particularly, it's even that the soft power, so the things that we've always kind of taken for granted, so like our music, our culture, things like that, they were saying like, you know, I remember when I was younger and I would see on the TV all the time, I don't know, a band or a movie or British products. And now they're even seeing less of that. And so I think it's a much broader thing. And that's what Christine from the British Council was saying as well. It's like, that is our biggest asset in some ways. And that's what the UK should really lean into in going forward is making sure that, you know, you don't take those things for granted and you know that they have to be worked at. Well, what was it we said to Lisa Nandley when we interviewed a Britain as a cultural superpower that has to be the global strategy? Well, Lizzie, thank you for

34:25the newsletter. What you're watching about this week, have you decided yet? This week, I have interviewed David Blonkitt, which is going to be very good, who all about Andy Burnham. He's his one of his greatest mentors as Andy described him. And sort of, you know, what he thinks, what he thinks should be next on Andy Burnham's agenda. All right, Lizzie, thanks so much. Thanks very much, guys. Take care. Thank you, Lucy. Hi. I do think this newsletter is been a real it's been a real boom and also shout out to Emily, who's been bringing it together and keeping all the energy going with it. It's lovely. I mean, I know it involves you suddenly having to do yet more journalism and yet more writing, but I think we're getting some really interesting stuff in. No, but also I think I think it was great about like so, Lizzie's piece on America. It feels like a proper old-fashioned piece of newspaper journalism. It's like it's the sort of stuff that newspapers just are doing less and less off because they're all clickbaiting and what do they have to do? I was sort of thinking about that. I mean, I wonder actually how many,

35:28you know, would the mirror still send someone like, is he to the states to do long-form interviews with young people and bring it back and write an article? Unlikely, we when I was on the mirror, we had that we had a, in fact, sadly, just died not long ago, but we had a New York bureau chief, we had somebody in Washington, we had our own photography, just in Hollywood. The newspapers have become smaller and smaller in terms of their global footprint, and I think that's another reason why we've become more insular. No, so anyway, if you don't get newsletters already, I do strongly recommend it. Right. Should we go to party conferences, Tash, with the Reform Party conference starting this week, what is the point of party conferences? How have they changed? What will each party expect from there's this year? Well, let me begin with the conference that I knew best, which was the Conservative Party conference. So I obviously was a MP and a minister when the party was in government, and it had moved from doing events in places like Blackpool, Brighton,

36:32to doing them in Birmingham, Manchester, and so you didn't use enormous conference centers, and it was very flashy. I mean, there were huge numbers of stalls hired by different companies, you had all the ambassadors coming in, and really a Tory party conference was somewhere between a massive networking event, a chance for Boris Johnson to turn up unadvited and give a French meeting and completely destabilise the sitting government. It's also a place where young party activists go and get really drunk and misbehaved. I think controlling them is quite a but it wasn't, unfortunately, by the time I got to it, really something really for party members, which was what it was originally designed for, because the tickets got more and more expensive, and you'd gone from a world where my mother was young when we had one and a half million members of the Conservative Party to about a hundred thousand, and increasingly it was corporate lobbyists and very, very highly organised choreographed speeches, and I wondered

37:38why journalists were still turning up. I could see why the lobby turned up, the kind of inner core turned up to get their gossip, but it was very, very rare to really find that anything happened other than Portrie's May getting in trouble because she would trip over or she would seem to be on the edge of tears. It was an opportunity to look for symbolic moments and premierships every year. Party conferences, there's no doubt about this, they have changed a lot. I sometimes get the blame for the change at the Labour Party conference, but I think it came at a time when they were all changing, and I think it was the television age that changed them because when I was a journalist, party conferences, particularly the Labour Party conference, the big political story came from massive genuine political disagreement and debate. What that did was just communicate to the public in sense of a sort of disorganised rabble, which of course didn't necessarily reflect terribly well on the party, so we had a very deliberate strategy to make them more organised. But I think now, I'm going to go to the Labour Party conference, I was more

38:43really tempted to go to the Reform Party conference, but just Dari means I can't. The other thing is I think the Reform Party conference will be interesting this time. They've got a lot of money, they're going to look like an American Party Congress. Boy, if they've got a lot of money. They've got a lot of money. Do you tell my wife to put it where that money came from? Well, can I just say to journalists, we do not yet have nine-year-olds on camera properly being grilled about the financing of reform. Any journalist who's going to reforms conference, if you don't get him doing that, then you're not a proper journalist, I'll just say that, if all you do is go and say, welcome to, you know, you say to age 10, we're now going to talk to Zia Yusuf about some latest bullshit line that Robert Jenwick has made up. Party conference, journalism, you should be there to scrutinise and challenge not just to say what they're saying the whole time. Shout out to Tom Burgess, he's written another really good article in the Guardian, called Arms and the 5 million pound man, Farage Megadona, Christopher Harborn's military empire.

39:45Yeah, well, Tom Burgess, of course, is one of the great experts on dirty money and London. So I wonder why he's been drawn to talking about the reform financing story very interesting. Just talking to money, if you do go to the reform conference, Rory, for nice £3,600, you can have breakfast in the Nigel Farage. Beautiful. You get the food for that as well. You get eggs, you get toast, you get coffee, you get orange juice, 3,600. I mean, do you actually get to talk to him, really, unlike a table of 100 people where you get a little selfie? I suspect that for this platinum tier, you're probably there basically saying, however many we get, we're going to take them. So if he gets 10 people paying £3,600 for breakfast, he'll have 10, pretty much, he'll get 100,000, then he's got what's 3,600 times £3,000? So that's almost as much, almost as much as you've got from Christopher Harborn for his gift. The problem is you're joking about this, but of course, actually people will pay. I mean, if you're a company, you might well be tempted to think, I really need to get

40:49fresh because for Arches, economic policy is not clear. So let's say you're an energy company, you want to know, has he changed his view on winter months? If you're a bank, you want to know as he's still talking about windfall taxes. If you are in the land property business, is he interested in land taxes? Where is this, if you're an international investor, what's he doing about capital gains tax? So there will be a lot of trying to find out what on earth is this party, which still, in some of the polls, James Johnson's poll, again, looks like they will have more seats than anyone else in the next part. Yeah, and that's why, if I can repeat my point about journalism, I can imagine the journalist going and saying that, oh, and business has got itself really interested. And there's the guy from this firm, and there's the guy from that firm, the story is the money. We don't have the answers to where the money has come from and why and what they're doing with it. So can you just stop falling for the reform PR bullshit the whole time? Now, the other party conferences, Lib Dems have really got to find a way of

41:52cutting through because at the moment they're not. Just sorry, just for my people, they have a staggering number of members of parliament. I mean, it's one of the most successful elections they've ever had in terms of your members party. Yeah. Yeah. And yet, oddly, despite having, more than 10 times the number of members of parliament is reformed, they get 1% of the coverage. Yeah. Well, that's partly because of the media, but it's also because they're not cutting through in the way that maybe they've got to find a big argument. How do they cut through? I think they need a national message. And it's true. Every time I say this, they send me boring speeches saying, oh, we've already made that point. It's not fair. Well, the fact is they're not successfully communicating. I don't, it's all very well sending these speeches and saying, well, he made that point. I know there's a risk in this, but I think it should be Europe. I know there's a risk, but there should be Europe. And then you've got Labour, which obviously is going to be interesting because Andy Burns vs Conference and Labour's the party of government. Labour grassroots still do have a bit of an ability to influence the debate. I mean, it's very controlled, much more controlled than it used to be, but I think Gaza could become an issue, you know, I think Gaza could become an issue. I wonder if they are, I might become an issue. So we'll see what happens there.

42:55And then the Tories, a bit of turn going on in the Tories, where I pretty, but tell out Tom Tugan hat in James Cleveley off to try to become London mayor. Now, here's one for you. I'm sure you don't know the answer to this because you won't have taught it. Come here, about it. It was pretty, but tell being given the boot or is pretty, but tell telling the truth when she says she's going off to rebuild, develop links with other conservative parties around the world. I think that's an unlikely story. I don't think on the basis. I mean, this is pretty, listening to this, maybe throwing things at the radio set, the pretty Patel I know would not have stepped down from being shadow foreign secretary to build links with other parties across the run around the world. Just pretty listen to podcasts via wireless. There we go. So this is not very fun. Is it? And what about James Cleveley? Can you see him becoming the, well, interestingly, I got some polling on that. I mean, obviously this is something I've got a set interest in because I ran to be a lot of mayor, but somebody's just sent me something saying, I don't think Cleveley can win. He can't get the reform second preference as a Tory would need to win.

43:59And it's too conservative for the left. Who, where would reform the second preference just go to restore? That's a really interesting question or there might be none at all. But this guy is obviously writing to me saying, this is the perfect chance for the Rory independent candidate to come in through the centre that I get into second place behind CityCon and then I can scoop up the conservative second preferences. Yeah. There was, by the way, I went to Norwich Burnley on Saturday and there was a restore Britain gathering protest outside the railway station. I don't think it was for me because one of them on the return journey asked me if I would stop for a, to take a selfie. So he was much nicer to me than Rupert Lowe, although Norwich fans enjoyed singing. Yeah, this was a pretty nasty story. You prefer to share that on the podcast? It was quite funny. Well, it does show that you're quite famous, but it sound quite unpleasant. Go on, tell us more. Well, why was I was going because I love Deleus Smith and Michael our husband. I was going to go to the directors box with them because they're big Norwich

45:00figures. But they, for various reasons, they couldn't go to the games. I went to the, in the way in with my, with my sons, Rory and Calum. But I was very, very close to the front. And it was bad enough that we, we lost four, what? And we had a man said to us. It wasn't the great game, gave out. But I started to hear this, these voices go, Campbell, Campbell, you're a word that cannot be repeated beginning with C. Okay, so I thought that was a bit of pleasant. But then they started seeing a much more innovative song about, I don't know how to put this without sort of being too crude, Felicio, and myself and a former Prime Minister, who's well known to all of us. Maybe for the younger listeners, we could recharitize that as a sex relationship between you and a former Labour Prime Minister that you're very close to. And I did deny the centrality of the allegation, but it was, it was moderately funny. I was very pleased that there was a couple of groups. But was this the like a few people or did that did quite a lot of the crowd get into this

46:02chart? I wasn't a whole lot. It was about, it was about, I'd say, we were talking maybe about 100 or so, I don't know. Does that often happen to you at football matches that they start? Actually, it's not the first time. It's the first time I've had that particular song. I've had the first one quite a lot. I did have as you once, we were playing at QPR once when this was jury. I think it was probably after the Iraq War, but I was still around on the scene. And they invaded the pitch. These protesters, the new where I was sitting, and the way they had these posters, Campbell is a there's Campbell is a that war criminal, whatever. Anyway, I spoke to our manager, I inquired after the game and he said, he was all about, he said, oh, do you know, he's just sort of anti-war thing. He said, one of the assistant coaches turdship, he said, why are they protesting against soup? So at least at least the Doris fans were sort of moderately well informed. That's good. Let me do probably the most awkward tilt of all,

47:02which is to say that we talk a lot about politics in terms of communications, mood music, money, but in the end, it's policy. And we've bring in a very serious policy analyst, Dan Needle, to talk in particular about the options that governments could face around taxes really relevant because we've got a budget coming and we've got stories now on the front of the papers that John Helius considering stealth taxes, wealth taxes. And this is down both arguing against things that a lot of our listeners like listeners who favor Gary Stevenson, for example, and believe that we should be doing more taxes, Dan's trying to argue why that's the wrong approach. He's a progressive labor voting tax expert who's making, I think, some very, very sensible, old-fashioned, centrist arguments for how you should think about taxing people in the country, it's really worth listening to. And I'm desperately hoping the government's less

48:04listening to it before the budget. I also want to recommend it because it reveals yet again, if there's one issue that can really provoke and visceral emotional response in the normally calm, collected, ruralist, stewardess, wealth taxes. It really, really, really gets to, by the way, just talking to John Helius, if it's true that he's going slow on the commitment to 3% of GDP on defense, can you imagine how Keir Starler feels right now? I know, I know. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, just a reminder, since you haven't fully got that connection. John Helius, the sort of solid member of Keir Starler's government, basically brought down his government resigning because it wasn't going to hit the 3% commitment on defense. He's now challenged with the Xchevchron, charged the money, and it sounds like he said he's not going to hit the 3% target on defense. Last question, Roy, Felix from London, is a question to me, but I'm going to flip it to you. Alastair, I enjoyed your piece in the newsletter,

49:05another plug for the newsletter, about your trip to Slovenia. What are your favorite places in the world? Well, Slovenia's definitely gone into my list, for sure. What's your number one? If you were only allowed to go to one place before you die, what would it be? I love places up in the edge of the Himalayas. So I would probably, if I had one last chance, I'd go up to Afghanistan, go up to the Bamyan Valley, get up into the hills there. People who haven't done it, and it's difficult to do, and people who have strong views are not maybe wanting to go on the Taliban or charge, but Afghanistan is unlike anywhere on earth. I've just done an interview with Anon Gopal, who was talking about Syria, talking about Iraq, and he agreed with me that of all the places he's reporting the world, Afghanistan is the most unique, the most different, the most extraordinary people. And partly it is the dry, deep, prussian blue sky over the mountains that makes it so unique. I think I was only allowed to go to one country ever for the rest of my life,

50:07I think it would have to be Scotland. I love Ethiopia, and I have really very, very fond memories of Ethiopia, and back to mountains, some of the mountains above just not that far from Manusambha, and I've got a very, very, very soft spot for different parts of Australia. Well, Scotland on that, I mean, I've just come back from five weeks since then, and I was meeting as I came down to London, all these people who'd gone off to France on holiday, who were boyled to death, and it's been incredible, particularly that whole region, which I love so much, which is less exotic than your western house, which is the junction between the lowlands, the highlands, that whole Perth, Shuranga stretch that takes you from locker and head right the way up to Black Aries, I think it's one of the most lovely places I'm asked. Yeah, yeah. Well, Slovenia, I think one of the reasons I love Slovenia is actually in lots of ways, they remind me of Scotland, water, mountains, forests, really warm people, really warm people, Slovenia, they were really, really nice. So I would definitely recommend Slovenia

51:10Felix if you've not been there. So Rory, there we go, we've talked about what we talked about, what a long shift today, haven't we? Well, we went from Iceland, we then did UK, Russia, we did UK, US with Izzy, the author and our amazing newsletter, and then we got into party conferences and we finished with what our favourite place to visit is, but along the way, we had the fans chanting at you at the Norwich game. I'm not going to sing the song, although I'm going to say this, I'm going to say this, Matt Ford, very funny comedian, very, very big Tony Blair fan. Yeah, he did send me a message saying, is this true? I'm jealous. Now, what is wife is going to think of that? I just do not know. But there we go. She's Scottish, so she probably can be a bit of a tie. Well, what I want coverage on, actually, I'm at some point if it ever becomes possible. And I know this is difficult because you keep popping up now. But I'm very interested in relationship between Bernie and Epsewch, just as I'm interested in relationship

52:12between Aleister Campbell and David Gork, who's my... Oh, why aren't you, well, well, Bernie, Epsewch, you're in the Premier League and we're not. That's the... What about, do you not keep swapping? Are you not both on the margins back at school? It's called yo-yo, it's called being a yo-yo. Yeah. And if we don't yo-yo again, I mean, we've got the parachute payments this time, but you know, some clubs once they've been yo-yoing and then they stop yo-yoing up, they can go into sort of financial difficulties. I hope you don't do that. Just talking about Epsewch, don't worry, talking about hope. Well, is this hope? But it's certainly positivity. Most of the front pages today were recording on Monday, rarely. I've got the picture of the two sons of the police officer, one of the police officers who was killed in the awful incident, Middlesbrunny, who was a big Manchester United fan and so are they. And they were the mascots yesterday at the Manianite game. So fair play Manianite if you're doing that. But also fair play to those boys. I mean, to do that, they're aged eight and six and they're marching out and there's there's a moments sort of remembrance for their dad and I've also noticed Nigel Farage yet to say

53:16anything about the death as I understand those police officers. I wonder what he'd have said if the five people in the car had been called Muhammad or Aziz or Ali. There we are. Right. Well, Alasdair, society grim note to end on. But thank you. Look forward to speaking very soon. I'm off to California off the west coast to see more of your dreaded AI people tomorrow morning. Excellent. And I'll report when I back. Yeah. See you soon. Bye. Bye.