502. How Nigel Farage Gets Away With It (Question Time)

Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts, and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to the rest ispolitics.com. That's the rest is politics.com. How is Farage getting away with so many lies? Breaches of electoral law, Russian interference, foreign funding from billionaires and crypto, deeply worrying and pretty authoritarian Orban MAGA-style anti-women's rights and abortion.

Gender, violent rhetoric, close ties to convicted criminals. He just gets away with again and again and again and again. created a media landscape that gives up on proper scrutiny. And I think we're seeing the same develop with Farage. This is a network and Farage is fundamental to that network. I just wish our bloody media would grow up a bit and start to join a few dots. Yeah.

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Welcome to the Restless Politics Question Time with me Rory Stewart. And me, Anister Campbell. And Rory, we're gonna talk about Nigel Farage and reform. We're gonna talk about elections in Thailand, as we promised last week, but also in Bangladesh. Fascinating election just taking place in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh. We're gonna talk a little bit about Munich and then I know you want to having been sort of pretty vile about Keir Starmer on his Munich speech, you want to be nice about him.

in relation to something else. So we've got lots to get through, but where do you wanna start? I'm gonna start with a question from Alison Cohen. How is Farage getting away with so many lies? Well It's not just lies. I think Farage gets away with with murder.

And I think the the rise of Reform UK, or what Chris Mason of the BBC likes to call the rise and rise of Reform UK, has actually happened despite and in part because Most of the media largely play down, not just the lies, but the controversies and the scandals and we're talking about breaches of electoral law, Russian interference, his role in Brexit, foreign funding from billionaires and crypto.

Deeply worrying and shout out to Natasha Devon on LBC at the weekend, pretty authoritarian Orban MAGA style anti women's rights and abortion gender, violent rhetoric, close ties to convicted criminals. We've seen this with Trump. Trump created a media landscape that gives up frankly, g is slightly giving up on proper scrutiny. And I think we're seeing the same develop with Farage. Now first of all, let me say not all I'm not tiring every with the same brush.

Pippa Creer of the Guardian took me to task recently for saying the media. are too soft on forage when papers like The Guardian from time to time would go for them. But there are so many stories, Roy, that if the if if these were about Labour politicians or even Tory politicians, it's not just a right left thing, they would never be out of the news.

And there's another common link which is hugely underplayed, and that's Epstein and Steve Bannon, both jailbirds, like George Cottrell, the Man Farage calls, you know, like a son, and whose book on money laundering he and other key reform figures attended. But let me just let me just go through a few. Seventeen breaches of the parliamentary rules by Farage. Seventeen. I don't know how many times you broke the rules. I suspect it was zero.

Nathan Gill I've been banging on about this for yonks and yonks and yonks It there was media interest in Nathan Gill for one day only, the day he went to jail. for taking bribes from Russia. The whole crypto world, I think, we just don't understand just how deep they are into this. Farage's use of a private company to pay corporation tax on all his outside earnings rather than income tax, which means it's twenty five percent, not forty.

And surprise, surprise, says he won't publish his tax returns if he becomes Prime Minister. And, you know, then there's all these things that just get forgotten in the midst of times. Farage claimed he never met the Russian ambassador, but he did.

He claimed that he bought a house in Clackton, but he hadn't. Aaron Banks, his right hand man, the bad boy of Brexit, said he'd had one boozy lunch with Russian officials. It tur then it was two or three, then it was four. It turns out it's almost a dozen. Richard Tice, You know, the working from we'll come on to working from home later, but Richard Tyson who works from home in Dubai with his lovely wife Isabel Oakshot.

You know, he had relations with this Russian guy and didn't declare them until the journalist got hold of it. I mean maybe he was going to register it, but the truth is that he didn't register it until Hope Not Hate, the campaign group, got hold of it and challenged him over it. And then just this week, before you kind of come back at me on some of this, just this week

the p this pattern of admission and dismissal. So you kind of say, no, no, we didn't do that. Oh yeah, well maybe we did, but does it really matter? And that's helped get rid of an apparent electoral law breach in the by election taking place in Manchester. And just this week another one. Repeatedly, Farage, this is his kind of line of the moment, going on radio, going on television, going on social media.

saying that one million people in Britain cannot speak English, okay? When he knows that is untrue, because he's actually written the true figure in an article in the Daily Telegraph earlier, it's actually one hundred and sixty one thousand. So whether you go, you know, his warm words for Putin, his apologies for Russian aggression, if you poke the Russian bear with a stick you'll respond, his endorsement of Andrew Tate, his meeting with Assange.

is fundraising to support get this a Russian backed campaign to split California. Now for our Didn't know at the time necessarily that this was kind of Russian. involvement, but it is nonetheless a bit weird. The thing about the press and the media, part of the strategy, this is Natasha Dovin made this point in LBC. Part of Farage's strategy at the moment is to keep calling press conferences. So the press trot in.

And either he gets on the news saying how bad Labour are being that day, or he throws out some new little sort of fireworks. So the other day it was Let's Stop All This Working From Home Nonsense. Brackett's one of his big backers is a big office space guy. Probably totally unrelated. I'm just asking the question, as Nigel might say. But here's the thing about working from home. He his home work wise is Clackton. He's never there.

His wife worked from home when he was a when he was an MEP. It's the hypocrisy that he just gets away with again and again and again and again. And if you think about when I was a journalist, the local government, let's state local government, we've now got these reform councils, lots of defections, lots of cronyism, lots of stuff, lots of absolute incompetent people doing incompetent things. I remember the Looney Left. You remember the Looney Left?

So the Looney Left became a national media story. Why is reform in local government not getting any national coverage given we have the rise and rise of reform and they're basically saying this guy's nailed on as Prime Minister?

So is it a fair point, Rory, that this lot get away with murder compared with the other people who want to be Prime Minister, such as Yeah, I mean I think that it's definitely true that somehow you get a sense that different standards are applied. And it it is worrying because it's a little bit like Trump. I mean, th I think part of the reason he gets away with it is that it's sort of priced in. People assume that voters assume that Farage is a bit of a bullshitting rogue.

And therefore when all this stuff happens it's sort of rolled into the general picture. And part of the problem for Starmer, I guess, is that Starmer came in on a big message of a sort of moral campaign challenging the Conservatives, bringing seriousness to government, bringing rectitude

And therefore it's a more appealing story to a journalist to point to sort of hypocrisy and say, you know, this guy sets himself up as a saint and yeah, here's all this stuff going wrong. I think the second thing is that

To be fair for a second, uh and to try to play the other side. Um what you're talking about is a very worrying pattern. And you know, we can develop that a bit. I mean you didn't talk that much about the funding, but I I think one of the things that worries me most is our rules in Britain are so lax in terms of who can give money.

You don't actually have to be a British citizen to give money, you just have to be on the electoral register or have to have a UK company. So that theoretically, you know, Elon Musk could put people have been exploring this, how could he possibly put sixty seven million pounds into a campaign through

some UK company. Well he's now backing Rupert Lowe, apparently. Farage is not quite he's he he'll end up backing Tommy Robinson, I suspect, and Tommy Robinson, of course, is backing Matt Goodwin in the Manchester by election. So Yeah, but no but the funding you're right about the funding. Thank goodness still, we are not in a situation of Farage actually breaking the law. Right? These things are

him conflicts of interest, breaking of parliamentary regulations, sailing very close to the wind, but so far he's not been convicted of a crime. And uh the parliamentary commissioner has said that he thinks these things are inadvertent. But you're completely right, the general pattern of populism, polarisation, post truth

strange links. I mean we we haven't talked much about these extraordinary revelations of the fact that w when I was in Theresa May's government, it turns out that Steve Bannon, right, Trump's big kind of right hand ideologue had relocated to Britain

And was there cheerfully sending emails saying, I'm meeting Boris Johnson, I'm meeting Nigel Farage and we're just about to bring down Theresa May and I've just written a speech for Boris Johnson for his resignation. It's all the stuff when Boris Johnson resigns as foreign secretary and they're trying to trigger May to go. I had no idea. I wonder whether Theresa May was aware. I very much doubt it.

part of the same ecosystem, the same polarizing Brexit, tech bro ecosystem, which Steve Bannon's adjacent to, and of course he becomes Boris Johnson's Chief of Staff. So what's what's all that story? What's that moment going on?'Cause I came quite innocently into that leadership race against Boris Johnson, Winters and Mayfell without any idea. That somewhere in the background were these sort of extraordinary figures like Bannon floating around and of course in retrospect

Presumably Dominic Cummings pushing Boris Johnson's campaign from the beginning. And the thing about Bannon, of course, if you remember when Brexit happened and in a in a a rare moment of candor Nigel Farage was being filmed and turned to the camera and said, Here's to you, Steve Bannon, you did this. So that was that's been going on for a long time. And of course, Steve Bannon, like a lot of these MAGA people, there is an element to him of being a complete bullshitter.

And therefore he wants you to think that I can bring down Theresa May, I can get Boris Johnson into power, what have you. But the truth is Steve Steve Bannon is fundamental, central to this international network of

Orban. You know, we were in Munich the other day, Rubio makes his speech, all the European diplomats go, wasn't that wonderful? He didn't tell us we were terrible. What's the first thing he does? He gets on a plane, he goes to Slovakia and then and then Hungary to see Orban to say Trump wants Orban to win the Hungary election.

This is a network and Farage is fundamental to that network. And what he does, what he manages, because of the sort of cheeky chappy, having a fag, having a pint, sort of, you know, just being a calum cosplaying man of the people. is he manages to to sort of dismiss this stuff, like Trump does. They all learn from each other. You and I were in Davos. Nigel Farage was in Davos, and Nigel Farage was doing lots of interviews saying

Oh, back Donald Trump on this and Keir Starmer's terrible, what have you. None of them, so far as I know, have actually done it none of the broadcasters who happily had him on air have actually asked the questions and found the answers. Well, who paid for you to be there? I think if you looked at his past carefully.

He wasn't there under his own name. He was actually there as a sort of plus one, as a sort of assistant to a British Iranian businessman. Yeah, yeah. And then you have all this stuff about he's got these links to the the crypto world. And then again back into Epstein. Epstein Peter Thiel celebrating Brexit. This is just the beginning. Epstein and Bannon talking about Bannon boasting about having all these European parties that are going to do well in the European elections.

We can stop any of the regulation for crypto. So I just wish our bloody media would grow up a bit and start to join a few dots.

Instead of just thinking that Farage is a useful guy to get on day after day after day and say the government is terrible. He did it with the Tories and now he does it with Labour and that's how they use him. very, very quickly to get clear campaign finance reform. Which the government are talking about, aren't they? They're talking about, but it's not coming through. I mean if we genuinely are facing a risk of Nigel Fraud.

taking over. We need to build the institutions now to protect democracy properly. And that means we need to stop non British nationals being able to pour lots of money in. I I personally think actually we should stop private individuals and trade unions being able to pour millions of dollars in. We should be following the South Australia model. We should put very clear rules about crypto. Crypto's a very strange thing. Very difficult to trace. What are the origins of things?

we should have much clearer views on declarations. I mean, what we're seeing again and again, part of this stuff we're seeing with Farage, you know, who's paying for this trips, are they being declared? We saw this in spades with Mandelson, you know, people not declaring getting on private planes and then completely changing the way in which ministers are trained on security. So I I was very surprised when I became a minister and when I ended up eventually on the National Security Council.

that I didn't get anything like the briefing that I'd got when I was a diplomat. So when I, you know, as a twenty one year old joined the government. There were very, very clear training around the official Secrets Act, the sensitivity of information how to protect sources, how to make sure there weren't conflicts of interest.

Certainly in my day, ministers simply didn't get the same seriousness and depth of people reinforcing that they're dealing with the most sensitive information in the world that could put agents' lives at risk. that could allow wealthy bankers to make billions of pounds. So absolutely with Farage, but I'd also like someone to come up with a solution. I mean, as well as us identifying the problem, how do we put the

principles and policies in place now to make sure that our politics is cleaner in the future than it is now. The fact that it needs to be cleaner, there's no doubt about that. And You know, Gordon Brown on the back of the Epstein stuff and Peter Mandelson came out and had some all sorts of proposals. And as I said at the time, I I worried that that was sort of tarring them all with the same brush like, you know, Pippa Crera I think st thinks I do sometimes with the

with the media. But let me just give you another example of the sort of the double standard here. Let's imagine the I, or Peter Mandelson, or somebody who was associated with New Labour, wrote a book called How to Launder Money. And let's imagine and let's imagine that Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Keir Starmer, and

uh David Lowy, Yvette Cooper, all turn up at the launch of our book, How to Launder Money. So George Cotrell, who is this guy that Nigel Farage says is like a son to him, who's been to jail For laundering criminal proceeds who spent several months on In prison. He writes a book, How to Lawn the Money. And who turns up at the launch? Nigel Farage, Richard Tys, Nick Candy, the billionaire property guy with

the biggest house in Bloody Regents Park, Layla Cunningham, the mayor for the the candidate for London, James Orr, the intellectual guru of reform, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So this is this is part of the Trumpian thing. Instead of sort of getting on the defensive about being a money launderer, you write a book about it. And you call it how to launder money.

And then when people like you and me say this is really terrible, people like Farage go, Oh, it's just a bit of fun, you lot you're too serious, you lefty bedwetters, you know, blah de blah de blah de blah de blah. Now what What Posh George, as he's known as, will say, is that this is a book designed to help policymakers and politicians and the public understand the Money laundering. But you can't deny it's quite a provocative title for somebody who's been banged up

in the past for such things, how to launder money. So post George, good luck with your book. I suspect it won't get

right to the top of the best seller list, but you certainly had a good turnout for your launch. Right, before I stop my rant, Rory, and we'll go to the next question. A book on money laundering, which I've been reading Oliver Bullo, we've talked about him before, this guy writes these amazing books about financial crime, and he's got a book out at the moment, I think it's out this week, and it's about money laundering, and people should take it seriously.

and it's a proper piece of journalism. So there are good journalists out there. So Alison, thank you for your question. You can see it had quite a triggering effect. But I'm very, very grateful and I hope that um some of our Frank fearless free journos are listening. And by the way, I suspect this rant may be the end of our courting of Nigel Farage.

I sent him a message this week and I said, Look, am I wasting my time trying to get you come to the onto a p onto the podcast? Are you only going to do nice soft tame interviews? We'd be nice, we'd be respectful, we'd be polite, but we do need to ask you some difficult questions. Anyway, reply came then none.

Rantover. Rant over. Well, do we have any other questions? Last week we promised to return to the issue of the Thailand election, so let me try and wrap a couple of questions together. Lucy is a Trip plus member from Yorkshire. Have voters in Thailand given up on the idea that Democrats can deliver change from the status quo? And then Tim in Brussels, does the election result in Bangladesh?

Sheikh Hasina currently in exile in India and the rise of dynastic and Islamist forces risk replacing one form of dominance with another. Both cases what you've got is a situation in which from twenty twelve twenty fourteen both Thailand and Bangladesh.

yn ymwneud â'i ymwneud â'i ymwneud â'i ymwneud â'i So Bangladesh, for example, having been a sort of actually a bit of a poster child for democracy or had felt like it in the nineties, early two thousands, because there have been elections and the parties have been swapping back and forward. Effectively, Sheikh Hassina, who was the ruler of the took control in twenty twelve and took over the courts, took over the police, intimidated her opponents, and set up an authoritarian regime.

And in Thailand in twenty fourteen there was a military coup, and basically the military and people around the royal family, the king's very strong in Thailand, ran a pretty authoritarian state. And then suddenly, rather oddly, given the the the general story that we see in our worlds, there was a a a bit of hope So in twenty twenty three in Thailand, this charismatic young leader of a progressive party.

did fantastically well in the polls, and in twenty twenty four, in August, in Bangladesh, there was an uprising and Sheikh Hassina was finally toppled. And Mohammed Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winning guy, the guy that set out Microcredit, takes over. So in both stories, the stories seem to be actually rather oddly, given we're in the age of Trump, it was moving in a more progressive democratic direction.

And now the elections have happened and they are sadly a crushing disappointment because in Thailand what's happened is the progressives have been beaten and there's been an incredible turnaround in the fortunes of this more Conservative pro military party that's gone from number three in the parliament, so they had about seventy seats to firing themselves up to top place at about one hundred and ninety. Meanwhile in Bangladesh, uh yes, Sheikh Asina's gone.

But politics have just lurched back to the other great big machine party of Bangladeshi politics, the BMP. And of course the person who's now won with the BNP is Tariq Rahman, who is the son of the former president. and military ruler, General Ziyar Ahman, who was assassinated in nineteen eighty one. As opposed to Sheikh Hasino, who was the daughter of the leader killed in an assassination in the nineteen seventies.

president, he's also the son on the m maternal side of a former Prime Minister, uh Zia Kaleda, who I met went with Tony Blair back in early two thousands, I think it was. No, you're right, and of course, on the one hand, Sheikh Asina gone. They now have a warrant they want they're they're they're in these discussions with India about whether they can get her back because they want to put her to death, frankly. And of course her party was not allowed to stand.

So the BNP and of course because of the the UK context the BNP it sounds a bit weird, say the BNP, this is the Bangladesh National Party. not the British National Party, so they're a nationalist party. And they've just they've got two thirds of the entire Parliament, so this huge, huge win. Whereas in Thailand, although it was a big win and a very unexpected win against the Poles, set against the Poles in advance.

They are still going to have to do a pretty much a coalition with the party that came third. The progressives came second, having been way ahead in the polls. And one thing that was really interesting there was the rural urban divide. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer o llawer

f get out a little bit and they see that the and and of course it's a mixed system, it's a hybrid system, part first to past the post, part proportional. But it was a very, very big shock. And what it means is that the traditional powers of monarchy, military

and the appeal to national unity, particularly at a time when they'd been having this conflict with Cambodia, um, it seems to have won the day. However, a lot of allegations of v vote rigging, vote buying and you know, cameras turning off during the voting and

So, you know, it it's left a bit of a nasty taste, but you know, it's a big win. It's um also part of a really interesting bigger story about what's happening in South Asia, Southeast Asia with democracies and economies. The normal story that we would have wanted to tell ourselves after the fall of the Berlin Wall is that

The whole world was becoming more and more democratic and more and more liberal in terms of its economics. And we I guess because we're Europeans, we often have the model in our head of what happened in Eastern Europe.

you know, Lithuania, Romania and these countries on this amazing journey. The story in uh Southeast Asia and South Asia has been more complicated. There's been incredible economic performance for many of these countries, particularly in the nineties, early two thousands, where Bangladesh, you know, famously the basket case for international development, shot on its path to become a middle income country.

Thailand actually diversified away from tourism, did amazing stuff in light manufacturing, beginning to grow very fast. But both those economies have basically run into trouble. They've run into trouble partly with tariffs with the United States, Partly simply endemic corruption, kleptocracy, poor institutions are really choking growth. Meanwhile, autocratic states like Vietnam, which is basically

in many ways went through a uh a smaller version of China. In other words, Communist Party remains in place. Big modernization drive from nineteen eighty six shot ahead. And its economy continuing to grow, probably five, six percent this year, while Thailand's probably only grown and grow one and a half percent. And also Indonesia becoming a giant.

in its own way. Indonesia become a giant one point four trillion dollar economy now in Indonesia. I guess if we step back from South Asia, South East Asia And this is probably an area of the world we don't talk about enough because this you know, when we talk about middle powers, how do we balance the United States, China, Russia? A lot of the answer is going to be in these enormous economies.

South Asia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, but also these enormous economies of Southeast Asia and East Asia. can ally with them, build economies around them, share values with them, is made very, very complicated by the fact that these countries are not on easy paths towards liberal democracy. And of course, as you've just pointed out with Nigel Farage,

And with Hungary and Europe, there's some pretty serious problems now happening back at home too. The other interesting thing about Bangladesh, they also had a referendum on the same day with a reasonably high turnout, and this was to make major constitutional reform, the sort of stuff that you would I'd be saying. Let's have some of this for the UK. So they they they brought in I think it's eighty changes to the constitution and the most important, I guess, two term limit for Prime Ministers.

uh more powerful judges, directly elected upper house. So this is you know, there is at least kind of democratic change and renewal being being attempted there. But I think the thing with India is really interesting and and a c and Pakistan as well and how these relations develop because of course One of the reasons why Sheikh Kasina was able to go to India is because relations with India under her had been pretty strong.

since her departure, they've been they've been very substantially weakened and become very, very hostile. The relations are so bad that in the T twenty World Cup currently going on Bangladesh refused to play unless their games were moved out of India. So that is why Scotland had out of the World Cup because Bangladesh Bangladesh pulled out. So they've got this real tensions between them.

And of course now you have Modi he gave a a message of congratulation to Tariq Rama, the new guy, who actually I've I've met in London I think in the past,'cause he's he's lived in London for the last in exile for the last seventeen t years or so. So these tensions are still there and Modi uh is gonna have to be pretty careful about how he handles that and likewise relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh, you know.

Tensions there as well. So we should come back to this once the new guy has settled in. As you say, to some extent it's a story of two great dynastic powers that have sort of, you know, moved in and out and in and out of jail and in and out of power and and what have you, but we'll see whether this constitutional change ever comes. Alistair when we Come back from the break. We've got a good question actually to follow up on the Munich Security Conference for you. Excellent. See you soon.

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Welcome back to the Dresses Polities Question Time with me Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. So first question after the break from Alexandra in Hertfordshire. Who was the most impressive leader at the Munich Security Conference? And what else happened on the sidelines? And Ian, this is a question I'm fascinated by, but maybe we'll have to do this in more detail another time. Do you think J D Vance is being sidelined by Trump?

in favour of Rubio. But anyway, give us a sense,'cause I left the Munich Security Conference before you. What did you continue to see? Am I right that you managed to have as bit of time as Zelensky and things? Tell us a little bit about what you saw. Well, I saw lots of things and th th the thing that I was most impressed by, impressed as in struck, moved.

was actually a panel on Arctic security, which was attended by the Prime Minister of Denmark, Meta Frederickson, who we've into before, Prime Minister of Greenland, Jens Frederick Nielsen, a Republican Senator from Alaska, Liza Mikovsky, Foreign Minister of Canada, Anita Anand, had a really nice chat with her about how much she loves Mark Carney.

and also the German Foreign Minister Boris Pistorius. And what was fascinating about it was it was do you remember there was the big room where the big stuff was going on, Rubia, etcetera? And then you had these smaller rooms. And this one was in one of the smaller rooms, probably held about two, three hundred people and there were p hundreds of people trying to get in.

And I spoke to this Norwegian guy who said, You know what, in order with the Arctic security panel, we can't fill the first row and somebody else said we should give Trump the Charlamagne prize for uniting Europe in the way that he's done. But what was really fascinating was to see Frederickson and Nielsen, the Greenland Prime Minister.

They do not think this is over remotely. They are still very, very concerned about what's going on. It was also I should give a plug to our mini series on the Arctic because several of the people there, including Alexander Stubb, when we interviewed him, the president of Finland had listened to the first part of our the mini series we did with Ken Rosen.

on the Arctic. So this has become like one of the biggest issues in the world and it's because Trump has put it there. I thought the Greenland Prime Minister, I mean let's imagine he's a young guy, he's in his thirties. population of fifty seven thousand and he's suddenly thrust into this geopolitical nightmare. He looked very stressed. I had a chat with him afterwards and he actually was pretty calm and very impressive.

But oh my God, you could feel just you could feel the weight on top of it. You and I, I think were very much of the view that um the people standing up to applaud Marco Rubio's speech weren't listening very hard. They were being influenced by the flattery and the tone. Yeah. And they weren't picking up actually on the content of it.

And Rubio then went on after Munich Security Council to do other stuff. What what was your reflection?'C basically there was a disagreement. We took the view that actually you should be worried by Rubio's speech. A lot of other people were going round being relieved and applauding. Over to you. Well, most notably Wolfgang Ischinger, who's the German diplomat who's the chair of the whole event, and he he did a QA with Rubio after Rubio's speech.

And he said, I hope you could feel the sigh of relief in the hall at your message of unity and reassurance. I mean I had another German diplomat, perhaps less a little m uh more battle hardened and less kind of lovey lovey with the Americans than Ishinger. She said that a friend of hers, a very close friend of hers had over years been been the victim of domestic violence, and she felt that Rubio's speech was like coercive control.

You know, I really love you. I really, really love you. But all these bad things that I'm doing to you that you don't like, they really are for your own good. And that was the sort of th the tone of his message was, you know, We're children of Europe, we'll never forget Europe. We love Shakespeare, we love the Beatles, we love Mozart, all that stuff.

But the message to my mind was not a bit different to J D Vance a year ago. And I was appalled, frankly, that the Europeans so many of them fell for it so much. And I think the penny drop later, b w the next twenty four hours, most people I spoke to thought, Mm, yeah, it wasn't that great, was it? And then of course to see him go off to Slovakia to see Orban's mate, then to go and see Orban himself and intervene directly In the Hungarian election, the

basically by saying, Trump loves you, if anything ever happens to Hungary with you in charge, America will always be there to help. It was a total direct interference in a European election.

So I think you and I both got the right sense of what that speech was about. The other thing I saw after you left, Rory, I went to see Elridge Colby. who's the guy who is the kind of under secretary of defense, very kind of MAGA, he was asked direct question if Russia sought to annex the Russian speaking part of Estonia, would that be seen as an act which required an Article five NATO response? And he gave a long lecture.

about NATO one point zero, NATO two point zero, NATO three point zero. You guys you've got this theological framing around Article five. He went on and on and on and on. And then at the end the the questioner said I just can I just remind you it really was a very simple yes no answer. It's terrifying. I mean j just to uh just to sort of reinforce to people what this means. So um NATO, Article five, is the core of all of NATO, an attack on one is

as an attack on all. And the answer to the question, what happens if Russia invades Estonia a NATO member? is very simple. There is a complete response by the United States and everybody immediately. And the fact that the US Deputy Secretary of War, Elbridge Colby, is incapable Of saying clearly to we of course would respond completely and dramatically to any invasion of Estonia. Your point about that German diplomat saying that

the Trump administration is doing a form of gaslighting where they keep saying, you know, this is all for your own good. That Colby thing reveals so much about what's going on. That the story that Colby's been selling the world is yes, uh you know, it's very reasonable. Europe hasn't spent enough on defence, uh we need to concentrate more on China, Europe needs to step up and do a bit more and stand a bit more on his two feet.

He said it so effectively that you often have heard, until Greenland, European politicians just parroting that. You know, beating themselves up. Ah, it's true, we haven't spent enough on defense, etcetera, etc, etc. But the truth of the matter is that the biggest incentive to Russia intervening in Europe is not how much Europe does or doesn't spend on defence.

It's whether or not they believe that the United States would respond immediately to any incursion. And for the US to keep the security of Europe. isn't actually in the end about how many troops America keeps on the ground. It is about the crystal clear reiteration that an attack on one is an attack on the all. with the threat of the US nuclear arsenal behind. If America remained consistent on its statements,

Europe will be in a much safer place. The other um intervention I saw that was worth looking at the French Europe Europe Minister, Benjamin Haddad. He did a very interesting thing. He said, Look, this is all a bit pathetic that we listen to these American politicians and we're kind of looking for little words of love that tell us, Yeah, yeah, we still love you. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.

And I wonder whether that's why he did all that kind of, you know, lovey dovey stuff. But the policy has not changed. And the point about Estonia, Rory, that is the thesis of that book that I mentioned, my book of the year last year, If Russia Wins. It starts by Russia taking over a bit of Estonia

And America deciding it's not important enough. Without blowing my trump in anyway, because I I wasn't alone in this, but when I was chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee in twenty fourteen, so twelve years ago. Yeah. We used that Estonia case study as a way of trying to explain why we thought Europe was in real trouble. And in twenty fourteen we were saying what happens if Russia just parks a few little green men a few hundred yards into Estonia and just sits there.

Yeah. And will that trigger Article five and how will people respond? And so for more than twelve years people have been trying to bring this to light. And for Elbridge Corby, who presents himself as this great defence intellectual To be unable to answer the simplest question in geopolitics is is catastrophic. Yeah, I totally agree. At the event he was doing I was sitting behind

a few a few Canadians and they were oh my god, they were they were not bagged one bit at all. I'll tell you I was impressed by Anita Annan, the Canadian Foreign Minister, I thought she was really impressive. She I hadn't realised till I spoke to her afterwards, she has she was planning to retire from politics. And Mark Carney persuaded her to come back. But also the senator from Alaska, really interesting. I mean she's a Republican.

Uh but my God, she could not have been more critical and condemnatory of w the way that Trump has handled Greenland. And also making the point that Ken Rosen made in our miniseries. Americans who aren't in Alaska, they really don't understand what life is like in the Arctic. She was telling me, for example, that her phone if if you're when it's cold where she lives, when it's really cold. You have to go out with your with your put your m mobile phone under your armpit.

and keep it warm in something else. Otherwise the battery just dies in like an hour in the cold. And and so I I was fascinated by I mean i i it's it's so interesting how a book can kinda change things. Ken Rosen's book, Polar War, has completely changed the way that I

think about the Arctic and think that we should think about the Arctic and its importance to all of this stuff that we talk about. Rory, before we go to the next question, I should tell you, you'll be thrilled to hear this. Fiona listened to our discussion. about Keir Starmer's speech and she said, I agree with Rory. That's the first thing. And I should tell you as well that I spoke to quite a lot of Carney's team, Macron's team, Merz's team. I think the balance was with you.

I'd say. In retrospect, why do you think you were seeing it as a slightly more positive speech? I still do, because of what I sense is Keir Starmer preparing the ground for a significant shift on Britain and Europe. um and also preparing the country for the fact that we may actually have to get to a place a bit like the Finns are when we talked to Alexander Stubb in terms of a sort of more

We're actually at war. Remember uh the F Polish Foreign Minister said to us, as far as we're concerned, we're already at war. Well we have that that requires a change in mindset. And it's interesting the day after you and I both said that This is he's preparing the way to increase defence spending even further and even faster. Kirstarmer announced that that's exactly what they're planning to do. So that's the bit and where uh where I I agreed with you, I thought I didn't see the point of

the direct rebuttal of Mark Carney, is it a rupture, is it a transition? Um but anyway, the Canadians in particular, shall I say, were particularly on your side of the argument, Rory. Right.

Tom from London, with all the criticism facing Keir Starmer at the moment, can you say something positive about him? Well I've just done that, so why can't you do the same, Rory? Well h here we are. So I was at a reception for carers at Windsor Castle. This was last week, right in the middle of Starmer basically f fighting at Felt in the newspapers for his complete political survival.

And what struck me is that he came out to Windsor and he was there with um Stephen Kinnock He was there with Pat McFadden, so senior members of his government, and I watched him spend an hour and a half working his way round, speaking to unpaid carers. The the people there were people who every one of them had a story of who they were caring for. There was no sort of showmanship about it. I watched him very carefully. He was thoughtful, he listened really hard.

And these were extraordinary stories. I saw him talking to somebody who has been looking after her mother since I think she was nine years old, her mother's quadriplegic. He was talking to husbands l uh looking after wives uh with severe dementia. He was talking to people working in hospices for children as well as for adults. It's quiet, it's unshowy.

come in, just taken a photograph, been there for a few minutes and left again. I I guess Windsor is not a very convenient place for him to get to back and forth. And presumably there would have been people in number ten saying, Come on you know, the whole world's turning against you. And he was there doing the job and doing it really well. And, you know, I should put it on record, there are five point something million carers in the UK

who are doing so much it's the toughest job imaginable, can be very lonely, often stuck at home looking after somebody who with very severe needs. And of course By doing it, they're saving uh the NHS and the whole system a huge amount of money and they're they get very little carer's allowances, very, very low for doing that. But I I just thought it was a lovely indication of another side of care that people don't necessarily see and another side of these politicians in general.

That there was just kind of no swank there, there was no sort of showing off. It was just patiently working their way around that big room. Well it's interesting you say'cause I I actually got the next

morning I got a message from Pat McFadden saying that he's seen you and he would say nice things about you as well always it was obviously a very nice event all round. Well yes can I c just quickly also pay tribute obviously to the king and queen who who brought it together. And again, you know they

Also, I mean, sorry, I I'd seen the king Earlier in the morning he came to open this exhibition at the Garrison Chapel, and there he too, like Kirstama, was spending I guess an hour and a half, working his way slowly round the room, listening to everybody, talking to everybody, when

You know, he's not had the best health recently. He's had I can't r imagine how many appointments that day. He may have, you know, also like Kia, wanted to get back to bed, have some rest and you know, both of them together. Cheered me up. Well of course what's interesting that about that to go back to the first part of our discussion about the way the media covers stuff. yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw.

probably to do with Prince Andrew, I don't know rather than the thing. But so that he he does that all the time. Whereas let's imagine if the morning that Keirstarmer was doing that visit, Downing Street had briefed saying, Well, if you want to get to the Prime Minister today, this is his only public engagement, da da da so we want you to cover carers and here's a briefing about our carers strategy and da da da. They wouldn't even have taken a note.

He would probably only have got on the news if he assuming there was a was there a pool camera there, were there media there? I didn't see any. There may have been, but I I there was some photographs, but I I didn't see much media at all. Yeah. But let's imagine how he might have got in the news is if one of the carers had said to him

you know, why did you appoint Peter Manthelsen as Ambassador to Washington? And then it would have been Keir Starmer's attempt to put the spotlight on carers was overshadowed or upturned by a da da da da da. So he is in that mode at the moment. I'll do another one in the special educational needs, which is a massive, massive, massive problem, okay? George Gould, who is the minister in charge of this

And she's you know, she's got a young family, she's got she's got a white paper coming out. She has been to literally hundreds of meetings with parents. And and so she was on the radio the other day being challenged, why haven't you already produced a strategy da da da da da

Answer, in part, I am absolutely determined to get this right and I'm gonna talk to people and talk to people and talk to people. So anyway, I think we should cut up your little pier of praise to Kier and I'll I'll I'll send it to him or Well, I I want to finish with a a lovely question that we've received from uh Hannah Fry, but here's a question from Meta Hinton from Cambridge for you. What would a strong number ten team look like? Um

Well, a strong number ten team will be a strong number ten team if there is a clear, compelling narrative coming out of number ten all the time. That's the first thing. That comes from the top. That comes from the the Prime Minister being really, really clear. And then I think you would have I guess you you you uh s you know, number ten covers so much. It covers everything that's happening in government. So the structure, the first thing the the focus has to be on the word team.

Are the people who are in there doing the key jobs the N they don't have to be best friends, they don't have to go to each other's weddings and funerals and holidays and all that. But what they have to have is a sense of what Jonathan Powell used to call complementarity. They've got skills that that match each other. You definitely need, whether you call it chief of staff or director of operations, call it what you want, you need somebody who is kind of making the trains run on time.

controlling the traffic that's going into the Prime Minister. Should they see that? Should they see that? I remember Barack Obama once said that, you know, most of the decisions that are sent to him don't even reach him.

'Cause he had people that he trusted to say, This is what he would say about that, this is what he would do about that. So that control goes in there. You then need somebody who's in charge of communications and strategy. And you need and and I think that the other thing that maybe is

a bit confusing in this op number ten operation. And maybe with all the change that's gone on since Morgan McSweeney left and the cabinet secretary, this can be addressed. But you're never quite sure where the policy direction's coming from. It's all felt a bit bits and pieces. And then the other thing a strong number ten team looks like and has is really good relations with other departments. That's important as well.

So you did put me spot on there. I guess what all I've done is kind of describe our operation and that's not a really sensible thing to do'cause of course we're in a completely different age.

But I think I think you do need that. I think the principles are the same. Yeah, yeah. Principles are the same. Right. Final question, Rory, has actually come from Hannah Fry, who is a presenter of the rest is science, and because we're so modern and technological, here it is.

Video and sound. Hello Alistair and Mori, Hannah Fry here from obviously your favourite of the rest is sister shows, the rest is science. I have a question for you, which is, I guess, about the overlap between science and uh politics. Science, I mean, we're continually warning about things that will happen on a 10-year time scale, a 20-year, 50-year, and so on. But politicians seem structurally incentivized. to only really care about these five year election cycles.

So I am wondering and looking at the evidence of of things that have have gone in the last few years. Is democratic politics just fundamentally incompatible with helping us to navigate through these long-term scientific crises? I I'm not just thinking about climate change here, but but pandemics, you know, the ills of the internet, algorithmic harm, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and so on and so on.

What do you think? I I just want to quickly say how much I'm enjoying the rest of the science. If if you're a little bit nerdy like me, it's the most wonderful thing. And I'll say let me try this one on you. So you play cards, right? Um one of the things they did recently on the rest of science is that they looked at how many combinations you can get from fifty two cards. So imagine

Ace of Spades, King of Spades, Queen of Spades, and then you just move up the three of Hearts to the top. That changes the combination of things. The number of combinations you can get from a pack of cards is fifty-two factorial. And they're trying to you know, we keep talking about how you explain big numbers. Get this. Their explanation. Imagine that you set a timer for fifty-two factorial Seconds going forward, right? Mm-hmm.

Take one step every billion years. Continue to walk till you've walked all the way around the world. When you've got back to where you started, take one drop out of the Pacific Ocean. and then set off walking round the world again with one step every billion years. When you've emptied the Pacific Ocean, lay down a sheet of paper, then pile sheets of paper all the way up to the sun and each piece of paper represents an emptying of the Pacific Ocean and you've got fifty two factorial.

How about that? Wow. It's beyond unbelievable. And I still actually am struggling to believe them. But I did try to run the numbers yesterday and I think they may be right. But what a lovely vision of how big numbers can get. GCSE or O-level mock, and I didn't understand that at all. Oh no, I didn't explain it very well then. Anyway, the point is obviously.

If you're walking all the way around the world at a pace of one step every billion years and then emptying the Pacific Ocean one drop at a time. That's a lot of time. That is a lot of time. That's a lot of time. And and you're not beginning to get to and then going all the way up to the sun with sheets of paper, you're not beginning to get to fifty two factorial. So

So anyway anyone who enjoys nerding out, that's a lovely example of the rest of science trying to deal with a pack of cards. On the more serious issue, yeah. No, I was gonna say where where Hannah's absolutely right though. I mean science is about discovery and about testing and about challenging assessments that you d and conventional wisdoms and and that's how you make change. There is something weird about politics where you set out a policy

you then devise the policy, you then implement the policy, then you realise it's not going as you planned, therefore you try to change it. That's actually quite a rational process. But in politics it's seen as weakness and it sh it shouldn't be in a way, but No, it's a very, very, very good point. And of course she's making that point at a time when science is under threat. from politics, not least in relation to to climate. I mean, some of the stuff you heard from these MAGA people in

in Munich about the climate stuff. I mean and thank God for Gavin do you see Gavin Newsom? He by the way I was really impressed by when we interviewed him. But I see he came from Munich went to London and yesterday had did a big signing ceremony with Ed Miliband, a a kind of green climate thing between California and the UK. So

But no, Hannah Hannah's absolutely right. I I've I always struggle with science at school, I have to be honest. But you didn't like it as much as your maths. You didn't you didn't enjoy it? No, I got on with math I got on really well with maths, but biology, chemistry, physics uh they were my three weakest subjects by some way. Interesting.

And my dad was a bit upset by that'cause he was a vet and he was hoping that one of his four kids might become a vet, but none of us did. Would you have been a large animal vet or a small animal vet? Well, the only small animal I love is my own sky. I would definitely have been a large animal of that. My dad was horses and Horses and cows were his thing.

Uh absolutely, hundred percent. And also cured equine flu. I would have happily done that. Very good. Well on that, Alistair, I think we'll we'll we'll finish that lovely vision of you uh delivering a calf. I have delivered a calf. I have done that. That's a it's a hell of a thing, isn't it? No, because I worked a lot of my uh my youth on my uncle Jim's farm and

Of course the sort of you know, and and s and sometimes it gets really complicated. You have to sort of tie ropes around their ankle. That's right to pull'em out, don't you? If you if it's a rear rear breech exit instead of coming up like a header. So um yeah. And I've done all that. Oh, well you're a great loss to veterinary science, but thank you for joining us on the podcasting world. See ya soon. Bye bye.

Troy and all of these great H. depict a monumental collapse that destroyed the interest. Empires of three. And to understand the Bronze Age apocalypse that Homer wrote about 400 years after it happened, subscribe to Empire World History, a fellow goalhanger podcast where we are deep diving into the biggest imperial collapse.

in ancient history. To get a flavor of the series, here is a clip from our episode with none other than Stephen Fry. It is one of my favorite subjects, uh uh the story of the Greeks uh and the siege of Troy and Odysseus's return home, of course. I say Greeks, Homer called them the Achaeans, the Danaeans, the Argives. Um the word Greeks is a much later one, but it refers really to the Mycenaeans, a warrior aristocracy, essentially, uh obsessed with

and reputation that would give them an eternal glory, a kleos, as they call it. It's the Kleos, it's in the name of so many Greeks, you know, Cleopatra and uh all the Socrates you know, all the Heracles, um who's Hercules, you know, Hero's glory.

She he was actually named Heracles because she hated him, because he was a love child of Zeus, and she never liked Zeus's love child, her husband, her errant husband. And so as a a an attempt to placate her, Tiresias, the because he was born in Thebes, suggested that he change his name

He's as a baby, this was, to Heracles, the glory of Hero. But it didn't help much. It didn't help at all. And then at the Sena even put even put her on Hera's breast when Hera was asleep, because it would bond them if he suckled her milk. But she woke and saw it and tossed him away and her breast milk spread across the sky to form the Milky Way. I didn't know that story. Because galaxy, of course, is from the Greek for for milk. Galactic, as in lactic.

Right. Um the chocolate makers are right. Anyway, this is completely separate. Lovely though. Clearly. Well, we really hope you enjoyed that clip to hear more on the Bronze Age Apocalypse and how it shaped the ancient Greek epics. Just subscribe to Empire wherever you get your