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therestispolitics.com. That's therestispolitics.com. Welcome

0:21

to The Rest Is Politics with me, Rory Stewart.

0:24

And with me, Aleister Campbell. And this

0:26

is all very exciting today, Rory, because

0:28

this is the first of several of

0:31

our podcasts that are going

0:33

to be going out, not just on The Rest

0:35

Is Politics channels, but also on

0:37

Channel 4, one of,

0:39

well, I would say, our best TV

0:41

channel in the country. And

0:44

what's going to happen is we're recording Tuesday

0:46

morning. Our regulars will get

0:48

this on their audio feed Tuesday afternoon. And

0:50

then tomorrow night, Wednesday, 11 p.m., it'll

0:52

be on Channel 4. And

0:54

every week thereafter, up to the election, we'll

0:57

be doing the same on Tuesday night, 11

0:59

p.m., Tuesday night, Channel 4. So

1:01

that's a bit of an exciting development.

1:03

Incredibly exciting. And we're right into the

1:05

elections, which obviously I was not expecting

1:07

until the end of the year. And

1:09

here we are. And my goodness, we've got

1:11

so many dimensions to cover. We've got to

1:14

cover the personalities. We've got

1:16

to cover the polling. We've got to cover

1:18

the target seats. We've got to cover the

1:20

media stories. I mean, we're really going to

1:22

get into the absolute depths, the end trails

1:24

of this election. Where would you like

1:26

to start, though? How would you want to structure this? We've

1:29

commissioned a number of polls. And

1:32

we're going to be producing these week by week.

1:34

Now, I am on record. Let me get this

1:36

out there right at the start. I'm on record

1:38

as saying that opinion polls are the junk food

1:40

of journalism. So before

1:43

anybody throws that back at me, I will admit that

1:45

I've said that. But I think

1:47

what is different, no, no, no. So these

1:49

will form part of our discussions. These are

1:51

done by jail partners. We've been doing them

1:53

monthly. We're now going to do them weekly.

1:57

And I think where we start on the.

2:00

on the thing that gets the kind of headlines is

2:03

the the Labour lead at the moment and

2:05

that there is a tightening of that Labour

2:07

lead. It's down from

2:09

18 in April to

2:11

12 points today, Labour on 40,

2:14

Tories 28, Reform on 12. I

2:18

think what's happening Liberal Democrats 10, Green Party 5,

2:20

I think what's probably happening

2:22

and this is I think you can see

2:24

this in the conservative strategy thus

2:26

far with this thing about national service which we'll

2:29

talk about and then today pensions which we'll

2:31

also talk about is I

2:33

think that the conservative strategies focused very much

2:35

at trying to go for the older vote

2:37

because they are worried about the

2:40

rise of reform. So that's

2:42

what's going on there and then on the rest

2:44

of it massive expectations that Labour

2:46

are going to win. A very

2:49

interesting question about about whether

2:51

people think that Rishi Sunak thinks he

2:53

can win and that's in

2:55

pretty small numbers as well and as

2:58

per the last time we did this poll, Keir Starmer doing

3:01

better than Rishi Sunak on all the

3:03

positive leadership traits. So what else did

3:05

you say in there that was interesting?

3:07

Well I suppose one thing

3:09

which I suppose can be expected is that

3:12

from the last poll the Tories are

3:14

now having been behind and now neck-and-neck

3:16

with Labour on inflation

3:19

and that's because there were some more

3:21

positive inflation figures. This inflation thing is

3:23

all a bit odd because as Keir

3:25

Starmer points out there's a limited amount

3:27

that actually a Prime Minister can do

3:29

to control inflation but the public were

3:31

giving Labour credit on inflation last time and

3:33

this time the two of them seem to

3:35

be pretty much neck-and-neck. Probably the most interesting

3:38

thing is this question of why reform isn't

3:41

really performing and one route

3:44

into that which we haven't talked about

3:46

much is party finances. The

3:49

government has increased the amount that the parties

3:51

can spend in this election to well over

3:53

30 million pounds from 19 million pounds so

3:55

it's going to be an enormous election. I

3:58

think that's something that both you and and I think

4:00

is pretty disgusting and unnecessary. There's no reason

4:02

for Britain to go to these huge numbers.

4:06

The Tories have spent something like £800,000 on social

4:08

media advertising as

4:11

far as we can see since the beginning of the year. By

4:14

contrast, reform, which is this old Brexit UKIP

4:16

party, has spent something like £25,000. And their

4:18

entire funding, almost all

4:23

of it seems to come from a single man, Richard

4:25

Tice, who's the head of their party,

4:27

he's given them a £1 million loan and

4:30

given them a few hundred thousand pounds worth

4:32

of donations. So one problem simply may be

4:34

reform is just not getting its presence out

4:36

there. It's not ready. And

4:38

actually that's the only thing maybe that Kambi

4:40

said. You talked about Rishi Sunak doing

4:43

this as a surprise. The one party

4:45

he obviously wasn't going to surprise was Labour. The

4:48

Labour machine was pretty ready for him. But

4:50

it's possible that he has slightly surprised reform.

4:53

Well, interestingly, Nigel Farage, of course, is

4:56

the best known figure, although he's decided

4:58

he's not standing. I mean,

5:01

there's an element of

5:03

narcissism here which you have to aim off

5:05

for. But he said actually he thought the

5:07

reason why Sunak had done this was because

5:09

of him. This

5:11

was to catch him on the

5:13

back foot because he wouldn't have time to get

5:15

a seat. Now, I think there's something, there's a bit

5:17

of self-serving nonsense in there because actually could easily

5:19

have got a seat. There are plenty of seats up

5:22

for grabs. In fact, for the Tories, I

5:24

read yesterday that they're going to have to find

5:27

a candidate every hundred minutes

5:29

between now and when the nominations

5:31

close. Because they've got

5:33

so many pulling out, most

5:36

famously, I suppose, Michael Gobe, also

5:38

Andrea Ledesom, we should put a

5:40

full list of the candidates who are stepping down

5:42

in the newsletter because it is a very, very

5:44

long list. The message that

5:46

the Tories are trying to push out about reform is

5:49

if you vote for them, you're basically voting for Labour.

5:51

And I see why they're doing that. And

5:53

I do think that if you look at the two things,

5:55

let's just go to policy for a minute. Both

5:59

of these big announced advancements that Rishi

6:01

Sunak has made. I mean, they don't

6:03

feel very coherent to me, but let's

6:05

just park that for a minute. The

6:07

thing about national service, you can see

6:10

that appealing, not necessarily

6:12

somebody in their late teens, but

6:14

you can see it to the, you know,

6:16

the guy who's sitting all day in

6:19

his sixties and seventies watching rolling news,

6:21

watching GB news, and along they come

6:23

and say that, you know, we've got

6:25

to make young people step

6:27

up to the plate and you can see people going,

6:29

yeah, yeah, yeah, quite right. These young people, they need to

6:31

get a bit of national service in them. And

6:34

then today this, what they're calling

6:36

triple lock plus on the pensions. And you know,

6:38

when I'm going out to schools, Rory, I always

6:40

say one of the reasons why you guys have

6:42

got to vote is because political

6:45

parties know that older people voting greater

6:47

numbers. So they're playing directly to that.

6:49

And this triple lock plus, I heard

6:51

Mel Strybe being interviewed about

6:53

it. And it feels to me like

6:55

that. What they're doing is they're

6:58

trying to pretend that

7:00

a change that they are making to

7:02

their own original plans is somehow a

7:04

sort of seismic change in a massive

7:07

boon to pensioners. So there's a bit of kind of,

7:09

you know, there's a bit of sort of smoke and

7:11

mirrors attached to it. Yeah. I guess

7:14

that you've pointed to something before we

7:16

get into the details of a fundamental

7:18

problem which the government will face on

7:20

this potentially if they want

7:22

to abolish inheritance. Tax, which

7:24

is people will say, well, wait a

7:26

second, you've been in office now for 13 years.

7:30

Why didn't you do these things when you were in office?

7:32

If you cared so much about them, you

7:34

had an ample opportunity to introduce your

7:36

national service, ample opportunity to do this

7:38

thing about pensioners. So my

7:41

instinctive reaction is our voters not going to say,

7:43

wait a second, this is the government. So why

7:45

are they only announcing it now when they have

7:47

an ACC majority and could have done it anytime

7:49

over the last five years? Or do people, is

7:51

that not quite how it works? Well,

7:53

I think for some people, you got to

7:55

remember, and we should say this in relation

7:57

to Keir Starmer's speech yesterday. Kia

8:00

Starla speech from start to finish and I

8:02

watched his Q&A with the

8:04

media. I got the

8:06

sense that he was talking very much

8:08

to people who are not necessarily following

8:10

politics closely most of the time. He

8:13

was completely unembarrassed about saying things that you

8:15

and I have heard a hundred times and

8:18

I thought in his manner as well, the kind of

8:20

tone of it was very much, you

8:22

know, I get why some people still haven't sort

8:25

of bought into me. I get why some people have

8:27

still got big doubts about Labour. And

8:29

likewise, I think with the conservatives, I think

8:31

they're hoping that for an

8:34

awful lot of people, they're not really following

8:36

this until they now get into the campaign

8:39

and they start to hear these answers. But

8:41

where your point is absolutely right, just on

8:43

the national service thing. If

8:45

you remember, it's not that long ago that

8:48

Rishi Sunak made a big, big speech

8:50

about sort of, you know, the future

8:52

of our national security. And

8:54

this wasn't even

8:56

alluded to. So

8:59

on the one hand, there he

9:01

was saying this is a big deal. Then all of

9:03

a sudden out of a clear blue sky pops

9:06

this idea for some

9:09

sort of national service, clearly

9:11

taking his entire cabinet by surprise.

9:14

We've had this ridiculous spectacle in

9:16

the last 24 hours of

9:18

Steve Baker, who you and I both know is

9:20

a, you know, bit of a, I

9:22

think, quite a troubled soul and a bit of

9:25

an attention seeker. But nonetheless, it is quite something

9:27

for a serving minister, essentially

9:30

to say, none of us were consulted about

9:32

this. I work in Northern Ireland where security

9:34

is a big deal. And this

9:36

was just sprung on us by Sunak and

9:39

his advisors. And meanwhile, rather than

9:41

fight by seat, I was told

9:43

I could go on holiday before

9:45

he had this ridiculous July the

9:47

4th call. Therefore, I'm staying on

9:49

holiday in Greece. He's Steve, Steve

9:51

said he's campaigning from Greece. So

9:53

that's another theme that

9:55

we should get into, which is the way

9:57

in which the Conservative Party at the moment is

9:59

splitting. I mean, the Labour Party may begin splitting,

10:01

but it doesn't feel like it at the moment. We've had

10:03

this with Steve Baker. He's got a majority

10:06

of 5,000 in High Wycombe. Very, very

10:08

difficult for him to hold the seat. So

10:10

campaigning for Greece basically means he's given up.

10:12

By the way, you know, I keep trying

10:14

to teach you how to plug things. The

10:17

mere mention of Greece means that

10:19

we should remind listeners that we

10:21

put out two episodes of

10:23

Leading this week. First of

10:25

all, with the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos

10:28

Mitsotakis, who is like the Rishi Sunak

10:30

character that could be somebody

10:32

from finance who's become a very effective

10:35

political leader and also with Rachel Reeves,

10:37

which we'll maybe talk about a

10:39

bit later. And then the other thing we've had as

10:41

well as Steve Baker is another MP coming

10:45

out and basically saying she's voting reform. Yeah.

10:47

So this is Lucy Allen in

10:49

Telford. And again, to explain how

10:52

upsetting this will be for a

10:54

Conservative Party, when you choose

10:56

to step down in your constituency, your

10:59

successor has appointed. And

11:01

what you're supposed to do is put your

11:03

weight behind them and campaign for them. And even

11:06

if you're stepping down, you get

11:08

out there on the streets delivering leaflets showing that

11:10

you're still a good team player and you're not

11:12

abandoning everybody. What she's chosen

11:14

to do is to go out on Twitter,

11:16

and it is very much all

11:18

of this is about Twitter's Steve Baker's on Twitter. She's

11:20

on Twitter and just announced

11:22

that she's endorsing the reform candidate in

11:25

her constituency. Now, hers is a constituency

11:27

with a majority of over 10,000

11:29

Telford. And

11:31

10,000 is almost the magic number in this election.

11:34

If Labour can take all the seats with

11:37

majorities, conservative majorities, to 10,000, then they're pretty

11:39

much on course for a decent majority.

11:42

So it's a real bellwether seat. By

11:45

putting herself behind reform, she

11:48

almost guarantees that that seat in

11:50

Telford will be lost. And it's

11:53

a very, very odd way of

11:56

repaying colleagues that she's been with in Parliament

11:58

for years. Unless within

12:01

the local party there is such anger

12:04

that it sort of fires them up to go out

12:07

and do the work they need to do. But I agree.

12:09

I think this is a pretty

12:11

big blow in that constituency. But it's

12:13

also given this, it's cemented this sense

12:15

that Rishi Sunak took

12:18

everybody by surprise. And

12:21

you, to be fair to you, thought that was

12:23

a very bad idea from the start. I was

12:25

trying to see some element of a positive

12:29

in it. But the thing

12:31

that's happened since then is that there have

12:33

been so many things that have indicated that

12:35

the planning that you need to underpin a

12:37

decision as big as this just wasn't there.

12:40

So let's just go through some of the sort of the

12:43

disasters. First of all, there was the weather.

12:45

Now, okay, you can't help

12:47

the weather. But

12:49

you do have the capacity as prime minister

12:51

and the prime minister's team to look out

12:53

of the window and say,

12:55

do you know what? I think it's

12:57

really wet out there. And do

12:59

you know what? And I might

13:01

look a bit silly if I get

13:03

completely drenched. But also thanks to that

13:06

wonderful predecessor of mine, Boris Johnson, we

13:08

have this two million pound purpose-built media

13:10

suite. Why don't we say to the

13:12

press, hey guys, here's an umbrella. Keep

13:14

yourselves dry and in half an hour,

13:16

come into the media suite and

13:19

we'll do it in there. Okay. Everybody

13:21

would have been dry and everybody would have been calm. So

13:24

he comes out, he does his thing. And then what

13:27

would then have been prevented had they done that

13:30

is that Steve Bray, the blue-hatted

13:34

anti-Brexit, unbelievable

13:36

campaigner. I mean, the guy,

13:39

honestly, as you know, I think

13:41

the honor system should be abolished. But if we're not

13:43

abolishing it, he has got to

13:45

be first in the list for a

13:47

night-hood. To have things can only get

13:50

better. Blaring. And the

13:52

other thing, Rory, he had umbrellas for the

13:54

speakers. So Rishi Soodak didn't

13:56

have an umbrella. Steve Bray thought

13:58

ahead. to raid. My speakers

14:01

might get wet." So that was the first

14:03

thing. Then the next thing, Richard

14:05

Sunak then gets on the road. They've

14:08

got an event planned, I think, at the Excel

14:10

Center. He gets there.

14:12

He's got people behind him, including

14:14

James Cleverley and Grant Shapps, who

14:16

both looked absolutely livid. They were

14:18

probably standing there thinking, what the

14:21

hell are you doing calling this

14:23

election? Why did you spring it

14:25

on us? This is nuts. I

14:29

watched it on Sky News, where

14:31

the entire coverage was dominated by

14:34

this live footage of the Sky

14:36

News reporter being bundled out of

14:38

the room by security. As

14:41

he's tried to say what Richard Sunak's going to

14:43

say, then they go to Wales, where

14:45

Richard Sunak says to the people, you must

14:48

be looking forward to the Euros, the

14:51

football, and they say, well, we didn't

14:53

qualify. Oh, yeah, forgot. Then

14:55

he has this event

14:57

with people in

15:00

orange, their high-vis jackets.

15:02

They're meant to be warehouse workers. It

15:04

turns out they're basically Conservative Party councillors.

15:07

He then goes to Northern Ireland, and

15:09

they decide to do the interviews in

15:11

the Titanic Center. So it goes on.

15:14

There's no planning. So many things

15:16

to tackle. On the national

15:18

service, I think let's just spend a little

15:20

bit of time on looking at it as

15:22

a policy. I think the first thing that

15:25

makes me sad, I was ... You had

15:27

this idea. Didn't you propose this? Yeah, yeah.

15:29

In fact, actually, people from number 10 reached

15:32

out and said, we stolen your idea from

15:34

your leadership campaign. So I feel quite personally

15:37

connected to this thing. Also, also irritated,

15:39

because of course, inevitably, something that I

15:41

think is actually quite a good idea,

15:43

and that incidentally, David Lamy, who's

15:46

going to be our foreign secretary in his book,

15:48

came out with an equivalent to this idea. I

15:50

think it's a good idea. It's just that I

15:52

don't believe that they are doing it to

15:55

make it happen. They're doing it for the politics of

15:57

the campaign. And the problem and the risk is

15:59

that we end up ... enough with

16:01

Labour, because it's been launched in

16:03

a campaign, rubbishing it and absolutely shutting it down. So

16:05

the chance of it actually happening, given that I'm certain

16:08

that Labour is going to be the next government, is

16:10

actually diminished by doing it this way. So

16:12

one of the things I'm hoping

16:15

against hope is that maybe

16:17

Keir Sann and his team, while

16:19

mocking the idea, don't so completely

16:22

shut it down that it

16:24

becomes impossible. Because it's modeled

16:26

on what is done

16:28

in Norway and Sweden. And

16:30

I think that that's the first really

16:32

important thing. It works in

16:34

those countries. And there's no particular reason why, if

16:36

it works in Norway and Sweden, it couldn't work

16:39

here. The idea is

16:41

that a very small

16:43

number of people

16:45

who volunteer and want and are put

16:47

through a selective process, aged

16:49

18, 30,000 of them out

16:51

of a few hundred thousand, would

16:54

be allowed to spend a year

16:57

where they will receive a stipend and they'll

16:59

work in specialist professions alongside the military, such

17:01

as, for example, cyber. And

17:04

what they've found in Norway is that it's great

17:06

for building up skills. People learn a lot of

17:08

cyber stuff, get a lot of training. It

17:11

also provides a reserve force so they can continue to

17:13

be in the reserve for 10 years. So over

17:15

10 years, you'd end up with 300,000 in reserve. These

17:19

are not front line operational roles, but it frees

17:21

up the soldiers to do the front line operation

17:23

roles and brings in a lot of very smart

17:25

young civilians, particularly on things like cyber. And

17:28

then for people who aren't doing that, it's

17:31

25 days of voluntary service.

17:35

And that, again, is stuff like

17:37

working with St. John's Ambulance, which has seen

17:39

a big drop in volunteers since COVID, supporting

17:42

community policing. And

17:45

these are things which can be done on the basis of some

17:47

training in 25 days a year and will

17:49

take some of the burden off those function

17:51

emergency services. So I'm

17:55

really keen, and I think it's got a lot of

17:57

different dimensions. It's got a national security dimension. a

18:01

skills dimension. But I think as David Lamy

18:03

said in his book, probably

18:05

most important of all, it's a

18:07

way of building a sense of cohesive

18:10

national identity, citizenship, bringing people from different

18:12

backgrounds together, common sense

18:14

of commitment. I listen, I've got nothing against

18:16

the idea. In fact, I'm a bit like

18:18

you, I can see a lot of positives

18:20

in it. But

18:23

the fact that he came out of a

18:25

clear blue sky, the fact that it was

18:27

perfectly obvious, nobody, Steve Baker is just one

18:29

of them, but none of the ministers who

18:31

would be responsible for putting something like this

18:34

into action were consulted. It

18:36

was clearly something just sort of dreamt up

18:39

to try quotes to get on the front foot

18:41

in the campaign. Now, I

18:43

think the other thing to say, by the way,

18:45

we talked a few weeks ago, and this is

18:47

a very live debate at the moment in Germany,

18:50

the defence minister Boris Pistorius is

18:52

really pushing ahead, not with this

18:54

kind of national service, but literally

18:57

national service, because

18:59

of the change in European security

19:02

that's been caused by the whole,

19:04

you know, Putin's aggression, the war

19:06

in Ukraine and the possibility of that

19:08

war extending if Putin is allowed

19:11

to win. The other thing that I

19:13

think makes it difficult for Rishi

19:15

Sunak, David Cameron also announced this,

19:18

I think about 13 years ago now, and

19:20

of course it never really went anywhere. And

19:22

I thought something very interesting

19:25

in Kia Starmer's event yesterday

19:27

down in Sussex, is

19:29

that he openly was using

19:32

levelling up. As

19:34

he basically said this national service thing, they say

19:36

that they're going to fund it by

19:38

taking money away from the levelling up fund. And

19:42

the Tories are also racking up sort of

19:44

promises based on we're finally going to crack

19:46

down on tax avoidance. Well,

19:49

yeah, okay. Which is, and

19:51

that one I'll just sort of quickly for

19:54

listeners and viewers is the great cliche of

19:56

all time. I mean, every single party. We're

19:58

going to close loopholes. you know,

20:00

we're going to cut some down tax points,

20:02

we can get a billion. And as you

20:04

say, this particular Conservative government for 13 years

20:06

has been saying this. Labour will also be saying

20:08

this. But surprise, surprise, it

20:10

never really turns out that you are making an

20:12

extra billion pounds out of cramping down. Listen, I think

20:15

I think with a concerted effort, there is all sorts

20:17

of stuff you could do to clamp

20:20

down on tax avoidance and so forth. But

20:22

the idea that you can suddenly an election

20:25

campaign having had a party that frankly has

20:27

been exposed for failing to tackle tax avoidance,

20:29

suddenly saying that's how we're going to fund

20:31

this stuff. But it's the only thing

20:34

I actually think one of the one thing I will

20:36

give the Conservatives over the last 14 years is they've

20:38

been very good at slogans. I

20:40

actually think this this National Service thing, it

20:43

fits with what David Cameron used to call

20:45

the big society, the big society

20:47

never happened. Leveling up one of

20:49

Boris Johnson's two sort of election winning

20:51

slogans in 2019 the

20:54

other being, you know, get Brexit done. Leveling

20:57

up again is exactly what the country needs

20:59

and wants. But the Conservatives didn't have a

21:01

plan for it. So I thought it was

21:04

there was something quite refreshing about here.

21:06

Stalmer saying, you know, yet we're going to we're

21:08

going to take the money for leveling up and

21:10

spending on leveling up. They're basically saying they're

21:12

doing this National Service. But I

21:15

agree with you. I hope that actually Labour,

21:17

yes, they're going to dismiss it for now because

21:20

of the way that it's happened, the way

21:22

that it's been done. And also I

21:24

think that this goes back to the lack of planning

21:26

in the announcement. The

21:28

Conservatives didn't have any senior military figures lined

21:30

up to say this is a good thing.

21:32

So the senior military figures blindsided like everybody

21:35

else just came out and said this is

21:37

nuts. They finally got one and they

21:39

finally got General Richards to endorse it. You're absolutely

21:41

right. Admiral Lord West came out again. Okay. But

21:43

the other thing, Rory, was that the other thing

21:45

that happened was that this is why,

21:47

you know, having stuff so easily

21:49

accessible online. The other thing that

21:52

happened is somebody Labour just sort

21:54

of went in and googled, you

21:56

know, government statements on National Service.

21:58

And the first thing that came up was a statement from the

22:00

defence minister just a few days ago,

22:02

basically say, no, we're not looking at this. It's a

22:04

very bad idea. It would be very bad for morale.

22:06

We wouldn't be able to fund it, etc., etc., etc.

22:09

I mean, we just go back to the sort

22:11

of fundamentals here, as you've pointed

22:13

out. And we did an emergency pod on this

22:16

at the moment that it was announced. And

22:18

I was getting all those texts from conservative MPs

22:20

and some cabinet ministers, completely

22:22

bewildered. And since then, I've had some

22:24

earnest conversations with people in number 10 and people very close

22:27

to me, and I'm not sure if he's ever been able

22:29

to explain to me what he thinks he's doing.

22:32

But it just doesn't work. I mean, you

22:34

know, their line is he saw some positive

22:37

economic trends, to

22:40

which the obvious answer is, well, why not give it

22:42

a few months for them to sort of bed in

22:45

and see a bit of benefits so people are really

22:47

feeling that the economy is working for them. And of

22:49

course, the terrible suspicion is, as

22:51

Harriet Harmon's pointed out, that you

22:54

could only conclude that he thinks actually the economy is going

22:56

to get worse. And therefore, he wants to go now before

22:59

it gets going. On Harriet Harmon, let's

23:01

just talk a little bit about what we now know

23:03

about how very different

23:06

the new parliament is going to be from the old

23:08

parliament. I mean, it's a real changing

23:10

the universe. So Labour, Margaret

23:13

Beckett, who was first elected in 1974, and a

23:17

nearly 50 years, that is 50 years, that's amazing, 50 years.

23:19

I mean,

23:21

so she's really reaching

23:24

back to the world of Wilson

23:26

Ted Heath is going, John Cruddus

23:28

is going, Harriet Harmon is going,

23:31

Margaret Hodge is going. Yep. So let's

23:34

just stick with those those for

23:36

a moment. Those are some pretty

23:39

significant considerable figures in the Labour

23:41

movement, aren't they, who represented real

23:44

seniority, ethics, in the

23:46

case of Harriet Harmon, amazing stuff

23:48

around feminism parliament. So

23:50

tell us about what it means to loosen. Well,

23:52

Labour often get criticized

23:55

for never having had a

23:57

female leader, but of course, both Harriet and

23:59

Margaret have a different. points being

24:01

leader of the Labour Party,

24:03

albeit for, you know, whilst

24:06

a succession election was taking place.

24:08

I look at, I think

24:11

both of them are extraordinary figures

24:13

for all sorts

24:15

of reasons. And in fact,

24:17

in my last book, but what can I do?

24:19

I devoted a section

24:22

to Harriet because I felt when

24:24

she was first appointed a minister. And

24:28

do you remember we talked about Frankfield recently,

24:30

and they were both in the Social Security

24:32

Department, and they weren't really getting on and

24:34

the policy development was all very difficult. And

24:37

I had quite a few sort of bad

24:39

fallouts with Harriet. And

24:42

what I've been just so impressed

24:44

by her one is

24:46

that even though as a result

24:48

of those difficulties, at one point she she

24:50

lost her job, she left the cabinet, I

24:54

never ever felt sort of that

24:57

she had any kind of personal

24:59

resentment to Tony, to me, to

25:02

anybody in the Downey Street operation, she just sort

25:04

of kept going. And

25:06

I think that what they all show those polishes,

25:09

those ones you've mentioned, what they

25:11

all show is this sort of extraordinary

25:15

resilience and just sort of determination

25:17

to keep going. And the three

25:19

women you mentioned, the other thing

25:21

to add in, they've all lost

25:24

their husbands during this, the

25:27

later years of their political career. And yet

25:30

even with that have kind of kept going.

25:33

And I think Harriet will

25:37

genuinely go down as one of the

25:39

absolute trailblazers in terms of

25:42

changing politics for women, she really will. On

25:45

the conservative side, again, we're

25:47

going to see an incredible sea change.

25:51

So the real loss, big

25:54

core loss is everybody

25:56

came in with Cameron 2010. So

25:58

my whole generation. stepping

26:01

down basically. It's a lot of the

26:03

leading figures my generation are going. But

26:05

we're also going to have a parliament that

26:08

will lose a lot of bits of the

26:10

Conservative Party from older periods. So

26:14

the last of the kind of

26:16

Thatcherite drives are going, you know,

26:18

John Redwood, Bill Cash, these kind

26:20

of 1980s early

26:22

Brexiteers going. We're going to

26:24

lose a lot of the

26:26

sort of 2005 right-wing Tories.

26:28

So Chris Grayling, Michael Gove,

26:30

dramatic claim. Michael Gove, pretty

26:33

considerable figure. Not just

26:36

because he was a

26:38

very energetic minister in education, justice and

26:40

the environment, but also

26:42

because he was a master user of the

26:44

Times newspaper. That's a very, very polite way

26:47

of saying it. You basically mean that he

26:49

used to work for the Times and for

26:51

most of his career, he still did. It

26:54

was extraordinary. I mean, absolutely extraordinary. And

26:56

in the tribute paid to him by

26:58

Tim Shipman. Tim Shipman

27:01

as well as saying, you know, he's the

27:03

basically the giants of British politics over the

27:05

next 20 years, the last 20 years, spends

27:07

a lot of the articles saying, and he never leaked to

27:09

me. He never leaked to me. And then paragraph four, he

27:11

never leaked to me. People think he leaked. So

27:14

that's go-k. We're also losing some of

27:16

the big figures actually on the more

27:19

center right to the party. So Greg

27:22

Clark, who I had a lot of time

27:24

for who did really good jobs, really, I

27:26

was a serious guy, I think actually was

27:29

in the SCP briefly, but really

27:31

led a lot of the government's

27:33

work on, which

27:35

I still think is one of the few achievements

27:37

over the last 13 years, which is really

27:40

leaning into more of these elected mayors, more

27:42

of the devolution police and crime commissioners getting

27:44

more votes down the

27:46

look there. And then Ben Wallace

27:49

going for the ongoing. And then if

27:51

you just look at my intake, then

27:53

you're forgetting your hero Theresa May and

27:56

Theresa May Theresa May, very much very

27:58

good point through the May. alim

28:01

Zahawi, Kwazi Kwarteng, Alok Sharma, and many, many, many,

28:03

many others. Of

28:15

the people who ran for the leadership

28:19

against Theresa May, so

28:21

that was Andrea Ledson, Boris Johnson, Theresa

28:24

May, all out. Of

28:26

the people who ran for the leadership against Boris

28:28

Johnson, which was in the

28:30

last seven was Matt Hancock,

28:32

Dominic Raab, Sajid

28:35

Javid, me,

28:37

Michael Gove, all gone,

28:40

with the exception of Jeremy Hunt, who's

28:42

going on. It

28:44

really means for the Conservative Party, and they're

28:46

also losing, I think, nine at least from

28:48

the 2019 intake, similar number from the

28:50

2015-2017 intake. It

28:55

will be a very, very, very different party.

28:57

Are we going to have any that

28:59

were there in 1997? Yeah, of

29:01

course. Yes, some of the 97 lot

29:04

will still be clinging on, but very, very few. I

29:07

mean, David Davis, I think, hasn't announced he's

29:09

stepping down. Oh, God, he'll be

29:11

out, he'll be taking that in the box, wouldn't he? He's

29:14

there for the long haul. I always thought that about

29:16

Bill Cash. I always thought that Bill Cash would,

29:19

and I say this as somebody who is not

29:21

unfriendly towards Bill Cash, because he, as I've told

29:24

you before, he used to help me out on

29:26

my radio show back in the day. I'd

29:28

fight him at midnight and say, get to the

29:30

studio, I've lost a guest. But

29:33

I always thought Bill Cash would die

29:35

in the House of Commons making a

29:37

speech about the Maastricht Treaty. I

29:40

thought that would be his way to

29:42

go. Now, Roy, one thing we're going

29:44

to do in these coming weeks is,

29:47

although as you know, I've never ever put

29:49

a bet on in my life, I

29:52

do have a friend called

29:54

William who works at Star

29:56

Sports Betting, and he's keeping

29:58

me up to speed with all the odds. So

30:00

do you want to know the current odds

30:03

for who will be the next permanent Conservative

30:05

Party leader? Kemper, your action

30:07

doesn't count, right? Current favourite

30:09

is Kemi Badnock, which I think is good news for Labour.

30:11

She's 11 to 4. No, sorry, help

30:13

me understand. What does 11 to 4

30:15

mean? 11 to 4 means that if

30:17

you put £4 on, you will win 11. Oh,

30:21

I see. Okay. I

30:24

think if you put down £6, you'd win

30:26

2. No, no, no. In

30:28

fact, that would be called 3 to 1 on. Right.

30:33

Okay. Yeah, we're going to have to

30:35

educate you about football and sales. But

30:38

you're saying to me that obviously with Boris, if

30:40

you put 6 and made 2, it meant that

30:42

they thought he was kind of 80% guaranteed to

30:44

get it. Well, if I tell you, for example,

30:46

that Kier Stama to be the next Prime Minister

30:48

is something like, I'll check it in a minute,

30:50

but I think he's 12 to 1 on, which

30:53

means if you put on £12, you'll win 1. I

30:56

see. Okay. So

30:58

the knock is not like that. She's still... No,

31:01

she's not like that. But that's pretty... That's, you

31:03

know, she's a favourite. Next up is penny

31:05

more than 13 to 2. So that means you

31:07

put £2 on, you win 13. Robert

31:10

Gendric. I mean, who would ever have thought that Robert Gendric

31:12

would be coming in at 7 to 1? Pity

31:15

Patel, 8 to 1. Your man James Cleverley, 9 to

31:17

1. Braverman, 11. Tom

31:19

Tugin at 16. Here's an interesting one. David

31:22

Cameron, 20 to 1. Boris

31:24

Johnson, 25 to 1. That's ridiculous, William.

31:27

He should be 5 million to 1. And

31:29

Nigel Farage at 28 to 1. These

31:31

are all quite... These sometimes reflect

31:33

what people think and sometimes they reflect

31:35

money that may have already been put

31:38

on. Yeah. So what

31:40

do you think about that bad knock? Well, I don't know. I

31:43

mean, when I was up... I mean, it's difficult to

31:45

notice that. I was number 2 to Boris for a

31:47

couple of weeks in the betting odds. And

31:49

I think I was... You

31:51

put on a pound, you make £6. Yeah.

31:56

I found that everybody having told me that the

31:58

betting odds were more reliable. than anything else. They

32:01

obviously overestimated my chances of getting

32:05

through number two. But that's probably because

32:07

you without you even knowing it, you

32:09

probably had a few rich mates who

32:11

were my mother. Most seats,

32:13

here's one for you Roy. This is, now this

32:15

one I think will alarm Labour because

32:18

it will feed into this narrative that this

32:21

election's all over by the shouting, which I

32:23

think is a very, very dangerous mindset and

32:25

nobody should get into that. Most

32:27

seats, my friend William is

32:29

saying Labour 50 to

32:31

one on. In other

32:34

words, you put on £50, you get one

32:36

back. Conservatives 12 to one, reform 100 to

32:38

one, Greens 500 to one,

32:40

Lib Dems 500 to one. Overall

32:43

majority Labour 12 to

32:45

one on. No

32:47

overall majority eight to one, Tory majority

32:50

28. So these

32:52

are all, and when you

32:54

get it, they also do betting on the

32:56

number of seats that they think Labour will

32:58

win. And they're predicting quite

33:00

big numbers judging by the odds against

33:03

them. So that's kind of where the

33:05

betting is at the moment. And

33:08

there's even a market, I'm not going to go

33:10

into this one because it will just feed the

33:12

egos of too many broadcasters. They've got a market

33:14

on who will be the main BBC presenter. We

33:17

should say that we will be presenting for

33:19

Channel 4 News. So much more

33:21

to be done. And as we do more

33:23

of this, we're going to

33:25

really lean into policy because obviously, in

33:28

the end, what matters is not so much the gossip

33:30

of up and down, but what an incoming government is

33:32

or isn't going to do and what choices they really

33:35

face. So we'll try to do that in future episodes.

33:37

We'll have a bit

33:39

more detailed look at the geography of the election, how

33:42

things break across Britain. But

33:44

I think probably, as we move

33:47

into our concluding thing, we were going to do a

33:49

bit about India. More of that after the break. along

34:00

the way. Me, William Dalrymple, and we

34:02

are here to tell you about our

34:04

new series on the founding fathers, the

34:06

men who made America. We wanted to

34:09

look at the men who actually founded the country,

34:11

who dreamt the dream, who wrote the words upon

34:13

which a country would be born. What were they

34:16

like? What made them do what they did? What

34:18

did they actually believe in? And how did they

34:20

come to play the role that they did in

34:22

the American Revolution and the creation of America?

34:24

What really interested me about this was

34:27

the contradictions. I mean, we expect these

34:29

men to be great figures. We've seen

34:31

the portraits and the calories. We know

34:34

the faces from the magnets, but they're

34:36

deeply complex figures. But in that, and

34:38

in that blend of contradiction and intellectual

34:41

power and writing genius and curiosity and

34:43

raw ability lies the nuance and complexity

34:45

that allows us to understand them. And

34:48

the United States is in many ways

34:50

a reflection of their beliefs, their experiences.

34:52

These are the men who wrote the

34:54

Constitution. These are the men who created

34:57

the federal system in every way. They

34:59

are totally fundamental to what American politics

35:01

looks like today. It all goes back

35:03

to this extraordinary group of men. Yeah. And

35:05

they have rip drawing yarns as well, let

35:07

me tell you. So if you want to know

35:09

why America is the way it is and who

35:12

the men were who made it, you can listen

35:14

by searching Empire wherever you get your podcast. And

35:24

back to the final part of the rest

35:26

is politics. Yeah, let's just go, let's just

35:28

do a little bit more on some of

35:30

these poll findings. Because I think there's a

35:32

couple of interesting things that we haven't covered.

35:34

The first thing is that a

35:37

lot of the time in election, you're

35:39

fighting for quotes, the narrative,

35:41

you're fighting to be on the issues that

35:43

you that are doing better for you. Now,

35:47

Keir Starmer remains 12 points ahead of Sue

35:49

Nuck on who would make the best prime

35:51

minister. And that's been a pretty steady lead.

35:54

So Labour will not fear

35:56

this becoming sort of Sue Nuck v. Starmer, which

35:58

is how it sort of Pitching

36:00

up the second is that despite as

36:02

you say getting closer on inflation labor

36:05

continue to lead on the

36:07

economy And on the health service

36:09

and those are by a mile the

36:11

two issues that are most Dominant

36:14

and in people's minds and the other thing

36:16

very briefly royal you're in Crete and I'm

36:18

in Loch Lomond So we're both in Scotland.

36:20

Somebody sent me something from the David Hume

36:22

Institute sent me a fascinating Survey

36:26

about Scottish opinion in this election

36:28

and they asked they gave people a

36:30

list of about 30 issues 2030

36:33

issues and said pick

36:35

three that are the most

36:37

important to you in this campaign And

36:40

I think what would be quite worrying for

36:42

the SNP is just how low the Constitutional

36:46

questions of devolution sofas were and independence

36:48

It was like it was it

36:51

was something like I think it was about seven percent and

36:53

the fourth one by the way, which Really

36:56

interesting was trust in politics was massive

36:58

up there I obviously being in Scotland

37:00

been reading the Scottish newspapers rather than

37:02

the English newspapers and What's

37:05

been striking to me looking at the papers

37:07

for example yesterday is that

37:09

there's comparatively little about the elections I

37:11

mean the Sun Scottish Sun had

37:14

nothing on the elections until

37:17

page eight and and even then it

37:19

was Some

37:21

stories on Anna Sauer and the wage

37:23

that he paid but the first seven

37:25

pages were all entirely devoted to different

37:27

forms of celebrities And their love life

37:30

the Daily Mail again had very Scottish

37:33

Daily Mail very very few articles They

37:36

have maybe three articles related the election

37:38

couple and TSP one

37:40

on national citizen service, but otherwise it

37:42

was mostly about golf Grand Prix and

37:44

chocolate Surely is really surely

37:46

the Celtic Rangers Cup. I went

37:48

to the Celtic Rangers Cup final

37:50

and very poor game But fantastic

37:52

atmosphere and then even the FT

37:55

barely managed three stories. I mean

37:57

National Service employment, but really

37:59

basically was behaving

38:01

as though the election wasn't central to the

38:03

newspapers. Well first thing to

38:05

say, I think they know six weeks is

38:07

a long time to keep people's interests. It

38:10

doesn't sound long, but it is a long

38:12

time. So they maybe think

38:14

let's just you know, keep it a bit low

38:16

key for now. And the second thing is there is some,

38:19

you know, really remarkable things happening

38:21

in the world. What's happened in

38:24

the last couple days in Rafa, utterly

38:26

horrific and commanding a lot of space

38:28

rightly. Russia, Ukraine, you had Stoltenberg yesterday

38:31

essentially saying that, you know, we may

38:33

have to think about actually getting weapons

38:35

there and using them from inside Ukraine,

38:38

which was like a pretty big development.

38:40

So there's lots of stuff going on. But the one

38:43

thing that we did see from the poll that I

38:45

think it was, was it 90% are aware

38:47

that the election is going on. Now

38:50

you might think how could anybody be unaware? But again,

38:53

that relates to your point. And

38:55

the perception is lowest amongst the

38:57

young. Good move, by the way,

38:59

I thought I was very pleased if you think

39:01

worry about the things that we've been banging on

39:03

about. I've been banging on for a long time

39:05

about I really hope Labour lower the voting age.

39:07

I'm very, very pleased that they've announced they're going

39:09

to do that if they win. And

39:12

may I on that subject Rory, can

39:14

I be utterly shameless here and

39:17

announce that we have

39:19

brought forward the publication of my two

39:21

books on politics for young people. The

39:24

election, thank you, Mr. Sunak, the election

39:27

seemed too good at opportunity. So the

39:29

one for teenagers, Alastair Campbell, talks politics

39:31

that's coming out on June the 20th

39:34

ahead of the election and the one for

39:36

primary schools, why politics matters. I think there

39:39

could be no better day for publication than

39:41

election day itself, July the 4th. Very good.

39:43

And little little plug then for me too.

39:45

So here we go. Yeah, here we go. So paperback

39:49

of politics on the edge

39:51

also now coming out for

39:54

the election. So anybody interested in

39:58

getting into some of the depth and the details. in

40:00

the horror of Parliament and the way in which this

40:02

whole political system works. Do

40:05

go and buy the paperback edition of the books and

40:07

slightly different actually from the hardback for the real nerds

40:09

you want to... Have you done a new introduction or

40:11

something? There's been a little bit

40:13

of change. I've tightened a few

40:15

things up. Oh, I see. Did

40:18

you make it slightly less anti-politics

40:20

following my discussions or did you

40:22

make it more anti-politics? It remained

40:24

pretty anti-politics. I suppose the only

40:26

other sort of hopeful thing for

40:30

Rishi Sunak in our poll with JL Partners

40:34

is there's a slight increase for

40:36

Sunak on who would you

40:38

most trust to make a Sunday roast. Well

40:41

done. His culinary skills are pretty... Considering

40:44

he's a vegetarian, I thought it was a very, very

40:46

interesting whole move. Just on book

40:48

plugs, Damien Collins, who's an

40:50

MP, has produced a book called Rivals

40:52

in the Storm, which is about Lloyd

40:55

George. If

40:57

you want optimism and hope in politics, it

41:00

is incredible. Basically, it is a

41:02

story about how Lloyd George almost

41:04

single-handedly transformed Britain's position in

41:07

the First World War, completely

41:09

sorted out the munitions situation. Just

41:11

again and again and again, using

41:13

public speeches, bashing his

41:15

way through a cabinet, really bringing change.

41:20

When we think about how little we feel the

41:22

conservatives have achieved in 13 years, how much

41:25

that liberal government achieves in a

41:27

much shorter period leading into the First World War,

41:29

and in particular, this figure, this

41:31

guy, Lloyd George, who wasn't even Prime Minister, the

41:33

way in which... I think along with reading your

41:35

books, I would encourage people to have a look at Rivals in

41:38

the Storm. If you want an example of how

41:40

politicians were able, can make

41:42

the most incredible difference through

41:44

charisma, courage,

41:46

sheer intelligence, Damien Collins' book Rivals

41:48

in the Storm. That's great. I

41:51

wish I'd actually... I hadn't thought of Lloyd

41:54

George, because I've got a chapter in the Teenagers

41:56

book about people who have made... Individuals

41:58

who have made a difference in extraordinary... circumstances.

42:01

No, that sounds a very good one. So is Damien Collins

42:03

standing? He is standing again, yes. So he is standing again,

42:05

whether he can hold a seat, I don't know, but he's

42:08

definitely standing again, yeah. Right. If I were his constituents, I'd

42:10

be like, how the bloody hell did you have time to

42:12

write a book about Lord George with your teeth? Well, it's

42:14

because the foolish government never made him a cabinet minister. So

42:16

he's always, he's always had that. That's

42:18

true. That's true. He is good. Yeah. I have

42:20

just read, and I'm going to recommend a

42:23

proof of Kate Weinberg's book, There's Nothing Wrong

42:25

With Her, which is a novel. And

42:28

it's, you know, you know, my sort of interest in mental health

42:30

and mental illness, but it is an it will

42:32

really a lot of people who went through COVID

42:34

and found it horrific will will

42:36

relate to it. So that's what I've just Kate

42:39

herself had a pretty tough experience with COVID, didn't

42:41

she? So this is partly how you can me

42:43

and she she done a lot

42:46

of good work on also helping other people who've

42:49

come through long COVID. She's

42:51

beginning to work out protocols and therapies.

42:54

One of her points, I think is that people's

42:56

experience has been very, very, very different. There

42:59

are some common themes, but my

43:01

goodness, the horror it's in. I mean, I've

43:03

got a very close friend in Canberra who

43:06

has had moments says last two and a half

43:08

years where he basically thinks it's hardly worth being

43:10

alive because he feels he's just he's

43:13

just because of the physical. Yeah, he's just low

43:16

all the time. He he's lost

43:18

his physical strength. He just feels depressed all the

43:20

time. He says, you know, in a week, he'll

43:22

have five or 10 minutes,

43:24

which are okay. But I mean, and he

43:26

very much traces this back to COVID. Hmm,

43:28

sad, sad. Anyway, so that's what I'm

43:31

reading. And so should we just talk? Should we

43:33

just talk about about India? What's happening there? In

43:35

fact, there's some very, very big elections on the

43:37

moment, but South Africa, India, we've got Mexico still

43:39

going on. But let's just focus for a minute

43:41

on on India. What have you

43:44

been making? What's happening? Well, I think one

43:46

really big bit of news is Arvind

43:48

Kertshawal, who is the chief

43:50

minister of Delhi. And we

43:53

did talk about I know we've got

43:55

some very, very prestigious listeners who tell me

43:57

off repeating my stories on this trust that they may

43:59

remember remember that nearly two years ago

44:01

we did something on

44:04

Arvin. Rory, they

44:06

only do that. Rory, let me jump

44:08

in here. They only do that because you said

44:10

in our interview with Rachel

44:12

Reeves that she told a story that you'd

44:14

heard four times before and you thought she

44:16

should have had a new story to tell

44:18

us and somebody pointed out that you've told

44:21

the story about this. Anyway, so that same

44:23

attentive list that we'll doubtless remember about two

44:25

years ago, we covered Arvin Kircherwell and his

44:28

Armadmí party. So he is a man

44:30

who, rather kind

44:32

of remarkable, quite a sort of geeky

44:34

man from the revenue service who led

44:36

a case back in 2005 on

44:40

anti-corruption, managed

44:42

to get elected into Delhi,

44:45

has on and off been there for almost

44:47

10 years, was arrested five

44:49

days after the election was called because

44:51

he is the absolute linchpin of the

44:54

opposition to Narendra Modi. There's a coalition

44:56

called the India Coalition that brings together

44:58

the Armadmí party in Congress and

45:01

was just released seven

45:03

weeks after his arrest and he was

45:06

arrested being accused of siphoning money from

45:08

a liquor license, which is

45:10

part of a general pattern

45:13

of what Modi's been doing. We can talk

45:15

a lot about many of the ways

45:17

in which Narendra Modi's India is becoming more authoritarian

45:19

than a lot of democratic backsliding. But

45:21

one of these things is the use of

45:24

something called the Enforcement Directorate, which is

45:26

part of the BJP finance ministry and

45:29

which has really ramped up. They've gone from 84

45:31

searches to 7,264 searches during a year, during the

45:33

BKP period. Ninety

45:39

five percent of the senior politicians they

45:41

investigate are from the opposition. And

45:44

when 25 of those politicians

45:46

from the opposition who were being investigated

45:48

for corruption, defected to the

45:50

BJP, the cases were dropped.

45:54

So it is a very, very,

45:56

very politically motivated thing. He

45:58

will have to go back to jail again. next

46:00

Sunday. But he went straight

46:03

to Haryana, Punjab and Delhi. This is a staggered

46:05

election. It's been going on since April. And

46:08

you can see that Modi seems

46:10

to be getting a bit wound

46:12

up and a bit more

46:14

bad tempered. Now polling

46:17

is banned in India during the elections,

46:19

exit polling, pinion polls, focus

46:22

groups, all banned. So we're

46:25

guessing slightly. But one of the

46:27

signs of this is Modi made

46:29

a very, very aggressive anti

46:31

Muslim speech referring to the Muslims

46:34

who are 200 million people in India

46:37

as being infiltrators, referring

46:40

to them as having too many children.

46:42

But over to you,

46:44

what have you observed about India? Well, the first thing,

46:47

because this is such a big country,

46:49

the election takes place in these seven

46:51

phases, you say. So it

46:53

started several weeks ago, and it's been going region

46:55

by region. So what you don't get is

46:57

the result necessarily. But you

47:00

can see the turnout. And

47:02

very interesting that the turnout

47:04

is quite considerably in

47:06

some places down with

47:08

Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and

47:11

Rajasthan are all down

47:13

it seems so and those are I think,

47:15

Modi strongholds, or at least some Gujarat is

47:18

what was originally his state. Yeah, well, absolutely.

47:20

Gujarat was his state. Yeah. So the turnout,

47:23

for example, in Uttar Pradesh is 57.95 down

47:25

from 60.64. Gujarat had a turnout in 2019

47:27

of 64% plus. And it's now just over

47:37

60. Rajasthan's turnout

47:40

similarly, a lot

47:42

lower. So that listen, that could

47:44

mean that doesn't necessarily mean that

47:46

it's less of a shoe in for

47:49

Modi. I was an event recently where

47:51

somebody from the Indian High Commission was

47:54

there and I was saying, Oh, well, you know, at least we

47:56

know that we don't have to worry too much about what's

47:58

going to happen in your election. It's all sort of done deal

48:00

is, oh, I think it would be closer than you think.

48:02

Maybe you're just saying that. I don't know. But

48:04

this thing about the anti-Muslim

48:08

rhetoric, and as you say, we're not talking here

48:10

about when we talk about a minority in the

48:12

UK, you might be talking

48:14

about relatively small numbers of people. He's

48:16

used to talking about 200 million.

48:18

So he said that basically the line that they're

48:21

running against the Congress Party, well, one of the

48:23

lines they run is that they're the elitists and

48:25

we're for the people. But the other is that

48:27

they basically say that they want to put all

48:29

the wealth among the Muslims. And

48:31

this is where he said, quote, those who

48:33

have more children, the infiltrators. Now he went

48:35

on to when he was challenged about it,

48:38

he said, you know, it's an insult to,

48:40

you know, why should you assume that he

48:42

was talking about Muslims? But it's a classic

48:45

sort of, you know, classic

48:47

populist sort of tactic. You say something, you

48:49

get challenged and you pretend you're saying something

48:51

slightly different. And the other thing is the

48:53

line that they're pushing is that the Muslims

48:55

get all the, if Congress come in,

48:57

Muslims are going to get all the advantage. And

49:00

the if you look at the data, Muslims

49:02

make up 14% of the

49:04

national population, 4.6% of students

49:08

enrolled in higher education, which is a, you

49:10

know, an indicator of, of how

49:12

much they share in the country's prosperity. So

49:14

they're, they're, they're a third, and

49:17

two thirds less likely to go into

49:19

higher education and the general population. I

49:21

mean, so increasingly marginalized. And, you know,

49:23

I was talking to some

49:26

very, very bright Indian Muslims recently

49:28

who are not

49:30

trying to join the Indian administrative service, which

49:32

is a great kind of elite civil service,

49:34

because they feel such discrimination now

49:36

that they're not likely to get

49:38

jobs. And the big signs

49:41

of the anti Muslim moves,

49:43

of course, have included a citizenship

49:45

law, which basically makes it very

49:47

easy to get citizenship in India, if you're not

49:50

a Muslim, the changes

49:52

to the status, the autonomous status of

49:54

Kashmir. And of course, the

49:56

what we covered, which was the in

49:58

Iodia, his support for the building

50:00

of this Raman temple on the site of the old

50:03

Muslim mosque that was torn down by

50:05

a mob in the early 90s. And

50:07

then I think also just not calling

50:09

out and speaking against some incredibly unpleasant

50:11

radical statements made by some of the

50:13

religious right. A couple years ago,

50:16

we had monks calling for two million Muslims

50:18

to be killed. There are

50:20

groups that celebrate the assassination of

50:22

Gandhi because he's considered to be

50:24

too Muslim to pluralist, not standing

50:26

up for Hindus enough.

50:28

And again, the BJP, Modi

50:31

has been quite cute about, as

50:33

you say, avoiding sometimes himself explicitly

50:37

saying stuff, but he certainly empowers and

50:39

allows many people around him to say

50:41

outrageous stuff. Yeah. In

50:43

the context of our election, the UK election, if

50:46

there are people who listen to

50:49

the podcast and who are receiving

50:52

online advertising, WhatsApp messaging

50:54

and so forth that they think is of

50:56

interest and might be of interest to us,

50:59

would really like it if you could send

51:01

it to us at restyspondities.gmail.com. Particularly

51:04

at the moment, if I'm going through my social

51:06

media, I'm endlessly seeing

51:09

Labour campaigners saying out on the

51:11

doorstep, getting a great reception. I'm

51:13

seeing a little bit of the

51:15

government and the Tories, but it's

51:17

obvious that whatever changes are going

51:20

on, there's no doubt at all

51:22

that stuff that's coming to us on

51:24

social media is being filtered ever more heavily. So

51:27

I'd like to see what sort of stuff is

51:29

going on under the radar. Exactly. Just quickly before

51:31

India, so we know that the Conservatives have spent

51:33

£800,000, which is a

51:35

lot of money, nearly a million pounds on social media since the

51:37

beginning of the year. It's obviously not being

51:39

directed to you, Asda, because I think they may

51:41

have concluded you're not likely to vote Conservative. But

51:44

if there are less, or listen to

51:46

the receiving end of Labour or Lib

51:48

Dem campaigning, it would be really interesting

51:50

to see this stuff. Yeah, all of

51:52

it. Absolutely. Well, just to

51:54

give you an example, somebody sent me one yesterday

51:56

which was a picture of Rishi Sunak

51:59

looking right at me. rather smart and handsome

52:01

in a cross white shirt and it

52:03

says it was something like, you know, Rishi

52:06

has cut immigration by and it was

52:08

a huge figure completely on I think

52:10

it's a 35% or something. And the

52:12

long side was a picture of Kia

52:14

Starma wearing a really badly fitting shirt

52:16

and looking a bit overweight and a

52:18

bit podgy. And it just said, you

52:20

know, Starma doesn't have a plan. And

52:22

it was like, now, you fair

52:25

enough is pretty political rhetoric to say he doesn't

52:27

have a plan. But I think that there will

52:29

be so much factual disinformation going on. So

52:31

as you say, all parties, if people

52:33

are listening who are receiving this stuff,

52:35

we would love to see it. And

52:37

just in terms of India and South

52:39

Africa is the same, by the way,

52:41

because the least in Europe and

52:43

America, you and I complain a lot that we

52:45

don't really know how these social media companies work,

52:47

but at least the governments and

52:50

the authorities have got some sort of

52:52

handle on it in India, in South

52:54

Africa, it's kind of free for all

52:56

social media companies are not really having

52:58

to feed in too much about the data

53:00

that they're that they're getting and how it's being

53:02

used. And there was a very interesting piece on

53:04

the BBC website read the other day about the

53:06

role of WhatsApp in the Indian

53:08

election. And it was it was

53:10

an interview one guy who said he was

53:13

on 450 WhatsApp groups, around

53:15

about 200 to 300 members each.

53:17

And he's then got 5000 contacts of

53:20

his own. So he's he was reaching

53:23

between 10 and 15,000 people

53:25

every day. Now, when you think

53:27

about how many volunteers a party like the

53:29

BJP has got, then that

53:31

I suspect is where an awful lot

53:33

of the, shall we say

53:36

the less pleasant kind of

53:38

advertising may be going on. Yeah. And I

53:40

mean, you direct us towards a really good

53:42

article. Also, is it is it

53:44

in the conversation or conversation about South Africa?

53:47

Yeah, but the that will be seeing are

53:49

very interesting. And one of the things that

53:51

BBC has written about is the fact that

53:54

a huge number of Indians have

53:56

smartphones, credible, very, very high

53:58

proportion of the population. maybe as many

54:00

as six, seven hundred million smartphones out there.

54:04

And it's very easy to access information

54:06

from the apps. So you can access

54:08

the data that comes from people booking

54:10

their taxis, booking their food. You

54:13

can find out pretty quickly their

54:15

ethnicity, their age. You can look

54:17

at their location enabler. The

54:20

Indian government that also collects a lot

54:22

of data through digital India also sells

54:24

the data on citizens to commercial companies.

54:26

So very, very easy

54:28

to know an incredible amount for

54:31

micro-targeting. And this is something that

54:33

obviously I did as a

54:35

conservative MP and I did when I was running

54:37

to be mayor London. The ideal is

54:40

that you get right around the granular

54:42

detail of, you know, Alistair really loves

54:44

this policy around private schools. So we're

54:47

going to hammer him with

54:49

reminding him the VAT on private schools. You

54:51

know, Rory loves National Citizen Service.

54:54

So we'll hit him with National

54:56

Citizen Service. And then and then

54:58

somebody else, let's say that, I

55:00

don't know, we pick up that they're 35

55:04

years old and have two

55:06

kids aged nine and 11 and live

55:09

in Doncaster. Obvious target

55:11

for something around education. Ditto

55:13

somebody with an elderly mother, you hit them on health. So this

55:16

is what everybody's trying to do. Obama started

55:18

it with Jim Messina in his

55:20

campaign in 2012. But

55:23

a bit of it in 2008. But when

55:25

you get to India, South Africa, you're

55:28

getting into a world where it's almost

55:30

impossible to monitor the European, EU Digital

55:32

Services Act allows free

55:35

access to the

55:37

algorithms and the APIs of these companies,

55:40

which is not the case. So that

55:42

you can't I mean, one of the problems for researchers is

55:45

that they can get anecdotal glimpses, but

55:47

they never get the total picture because

55:49

Facebook, Twitter, TikTok won't

55:51

share with them the information to

55:53

actually know where the fake accounts

55:56

are, who's triggering

55:58

and feeding stuff, who's retweeting. where

56:01

the dodgy messages are coming from, etc. Now,

56:05

on just my final point of the

56:07

Indian election, Modi

56:09

went a bit full Trump at the

56:11

weekend. He said this,

56:13

I'm convinced that Parmatma,

56:16

God, sent me for

56:18

a purpose. Once the purpose

56:20

is achieved, my work will be done.

56:23

That is why I have completely dedicated

56:25

myself to God. And

56:27

earlier this month, he said this in his constituency, when

56:30

my mother was alive, I used to believe

56:32

that I was born biologically. After

56:34

she passed away, upon reflecting on all my

56:36

experiences, I was convinced that

56:39

God had sent me. Now,

56:41

I think even Trump might stop at that

56:43

one, don't you think? That's going some, going

56:45

beyond the idea. I mean, it's actually going

56:47

beyond even Christians who at least give the

56:50

Virgin Mary a role in the birth. Going

56:52

beyond the biology of the mother is

56:54

going, you know, one step beyond. So

56:58

there we are. One

57:01

final piece of rebuttal, Roy,

57:03

which I have to do, I said on

57:05

the podcast last week, we were

57:07

talking about which of the Tories might be

57:10

the sort of Portillo moment. And I think

57:12

we're talking about Rees-Mogg. Portillo

57:14

of course, was the famous loss in 1997

57:16

that people led to this thing, you

57:18

know, were you up for the Tillo? And

57:21

I said that I thought the Lib

57:23

Dems might beat Rees-Mogg. And it turns

57:25

out actually Labour and Dan Norris are

57:28

better placed there. So slap

57:30

on my wrist. Did you by any chance

57:32

get an emergency call from Labour central office

57:34

saying, what are you doing? Encouraging tactical voting

57:36

against Labour. I'd like to have

57:38

a little call that showed

57:41

me some numbers. I continue to

57:43

encourage tactical voting. I continue to

57:45

encourage tactical voting. And the reason

57:47

why I have not rejoined the

57:49

Labour Party is because I can

57:51

keep saying that without risk of

57:53

expulsion. But it turns out that

57:55

the tactical vote I was urging

57:58

there might have been the wrong will

58:00

be other places where it is sensible

58:02

to vote Liberal Democrat. Excellent. Okay, thank

58:04

you, Alison. Look forward to talking soon.

58:07

Bye-bye. Bye, Rory. Take care, bye.