Modern democracies face a crucial choice between disruption and the status quo.
This is exemplified by the contrasting approaches of Keir Starmer and Donald Trump.
Transcript:
Alistair Campbell
The Restless Politics with me, Rory Stewart. And with me, Alistair Campbell. And Rory, we are going to talk about Donald Trump, but we're going to do it in the second half. I think it's about time we had a bit of a deep dive on the UK, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and how it's doing. So how do you feel about that? A bit of Britain and then a bit of America?
Rory Stewart
Yeah, well, I think it's a really good way of framing probably the most central question in our politics, because in a way, these two ancient English speaking allies are on very, very, Very different paths. If you wanted to describe the crisis in modern democracies, you'd basically put, I think, Starmer against Trump. And they represent very, very different approaches. And one of them, I think, if you were going to criticise Keir Starmer, and we'll get into this a bit, is whether it's not a little bit too much status quo business as usual. And I think you're going to tell us a little bit how he tried to address that challenge in a cabinet meeting. And on the other hand, we're going to get on to Donald Trump in the second half, which is the radical opposite, incredibly authoritarian. Boy, is it not status quo trying to upend the United States and the world order. (Time 0:02:00)
Qualifying Growth
Labour's focus on growth raises concerns about fairness, sustainability, and inclusivity.
Traditional progressive parties often qualify growth with adjectives like "green," "sustainable," "inclusive," or "fair."
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Alistair, if you put at the centre of this, the fact that Labour's number one mission has always been growth. Labour was elected saying that growth was going to be the answer. And of course, this is something that Conservatives absolutely agree on, and Labour agrees on, very unifying. Conservatives, because they believe in the private sector, Labour, because they believe in the private sector, but also because they have picked up on the fact that if you have more Growth in the economy, the government can increase its spending on public services without having to increase taxes. However, the crisis that Labour is currently encountering is that the growth forecast in the UK has just been halved by the Bank of England down from 1.5 to 0.75%, which I think is one Of the things that triggered this six-hour cabinet meeting. And you've put your finger on something that runs through this whole question of the growth strategy, which is, how can you get growth in Britain unless you do something pretty radical? Because of course, the Conservative government that I was part of, which didn't do six-hour cabinet meetings, as you say, was also believed it was generating growth. And of course, anyone who's worked in government can provide a very, very sophisticated, thoughtful answer on why we're not getting growth. And a lot of that is about institutional constraints. It's about planning, it's about judicial reviews, it's about regulations, it's about rights, it's about taxation. In other words, it's not really about technocratic economics. It's about politics.
Alistair Campbell
The sense I've had of talking to a few people who were at and involved in this meeting is that they recognise that there is a kind of issues to the public mood. And you and I have seen this very, very clearly last week. You and I did an event with about 300 business people last when we came back from Syria. And I was giving them one of my beloved show of hands situations. And I gave them three choices. The Labour government is performing as I expected. The Labour government is performing better than I expected. The Labour government is performing worse than I expected. And interestingly, I don't think anybody said better. There was a fairly sizable majority for worse than expected. And for those who said as expected, they said it was because they had low expectations. And there was just a kind of very down mood. And you get that around the country. I think that's what Labour probably were talking quite a lot about in the political cabinet, because, you know, they've got Welsh elections coming up, Scottish elections down the Track, local elections. And I think it goes back to this point that you and I've been making for some point, is what is the story that they're trying to tell the country about itself? So one of the big outtakes from the cabinet meeting was that reform has to be faster, has to go further. That's fine. But what kind of reform are we talking about? What are the key planks of it? And you had an example in the last few days of if you don't have an overall coherent story, sometimes you can sense a clash of the different strategies. So yesterday, we're recording this on Tuesday. Yesterday, the big news was the bill that they're putting through to strengthen border security, get rid of the Rwanda plan, which everybody apart from Chris Philp and Kemi Badenok Seemed to say it was a total waste of time and a total waste of money. But they were singing very loudly. They were shouting very loudly about the increased figures of returns. They released these pictures of people, illegal immigrants or people who were being convicted of crimes, being put on a plane, sent home. So that's sort of saying, we are tough on immigration, which, as you keep saying, there is a demand for that right across Europe. And so you can say, well, yes, I get that. But then you sort of say, well, how does that relate to, if growth is the number one mission, the number one message, how does that relate to that? Where is the bigger argument about immigration and how it fits within the economy? And I think that the problem, in a sense, with growth is that you don't feel the values within it. And I think that's where Labour maybe need to do the better work. What are the values driving everything they're doing? (Time 0:05:03)
Public Perception of Labour
Alistair Campbell polled a business audience about Labour's performance.
The majority felt Labour was performing worse than expected, reflecting a generally down mood.
Transcript:
Alistair Campbell
Sense I've had of talking to a few people who were at and involved in this meeting is that they recognise that there is a kind of issues to the public mood. And you and I have seen this very, very clearly last week. You and I did an event with about 300 business people last when we came back from Syria. And I was giving them one of my beloved show of hands situations. And I gave them three choices. The Labour government is performing as I expected. The Labour government is performing better than I expected. The Labour government is performing worse than I expected. And interestingly, I don't think anybody said better. There was a fairly sizable majority for worse than expected. And for those who said as expected, they said it was because they had low expectations. (Time 0:06:26)
Bureaucracy Hinders Growth
Bureaucracy and slow processes hinder growth in Britain, exemplified by Heathrow's third runway and Oxford-Cambridge housing plans.
These projects face lengthy planning, judicial review, and construction timelines.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
I think many, many people in Britain feel not only that the Tories failed, but that Labour is likely to fail because we have such a bureaucratic, sclerotic system. So let's just take one example. One of the reasons why this stuff around a third runway at Heathrow is meaningless for growth is that even in the best case scenario, there will be at least 18 months of a planning system, And then at least three years of judicial review, and then at least five to seven years building this thing in the best case scenario. And we've talked about how much we both agree, we disagree on the runway, but we both agree on the Oxford Cambridge stuff. But I think the projection is that the target is to build 150,000 houses around Cambridge by 2050. That's 25 years time, by which time I will be well beyond retirement.
Alistair Campbell
I'll be almost 100. An age which I should say my amazing mother-in Audrey, has reached last week, which is pretty much... I don't think I'm going to reach 100, but I will almost be 100 when all those houses are built, Rory.
Rory Stewart
And there was a very moving thing for listeners, which is that Alistair, who is not a great monarchist, was really moved by the card which signed by the king and queen that comes when you're 100.
Alistair Campbell
I was moved by the response of others. (Time 0:14:34)
Spain's Growth
Spain's left-of-center government has achieved growth above 3%, primarily driven by tourism.
This demonstrates that economic growth is possible under left-leaning leadership.
Transcript:
Alistair Campbell
One European country that seems to be growing quite well at the moment is Spain, which is above 3%. And they seem to be putting it mainly down to tourism. There may be other stuff going on, but there's a left of centre government. They've got a left of centre government like Labour. And for some reason, they have come out of COVID and the economy is growing better. But Roy, let me just throw something at you. I'd really like your response to this. I'm going to quote you George Osborne. I want to ask you, I'm not sure where he said this. It was John Rental who posted this on social media. There's such an easy trap here for the Labour government to set for the Conservatives. It has the immediate economic benefit of doing something that's going to help your GDP in the next few years. Some kind of trade deal with the EU of the kind that's talked about, for example, making it easier to do agricultural checks. So we're not spending billions of pounds at the border doing that. You're basically digging a pit, you're putting the spikes in, and you're inviting Kemi Badenoch to walk into the pit. Because once the deal is done, every new business will start to adjust to the new trading relationship, the new customs arrangements, which will be an improvement on the ones that exist Today. Then you get to the general election and the Conservatives will say, this is outrageous. They betrayed Brexit. You know, they've conceded some power to the European Court of Justice. They'll try and rerun the Brexit campaign from 2016, which will be ancient history. And every business will go, we're not going back to that. We're absolutely not going back into the Brexit chaos. And the Labour Party will win over the business community in that single manoeuvre. And the Tories will be stranded on a kind of ideological argument that really only has resonance with a small portion of the population. (Time 0:18:27)
Managing Media Relations
Government officials should be cautious about sharing information with journalists.
Journalists' interests don't always align with a government's, and narratives can be easily manipulated.
Transcript:
Alistair Campbell
Or are you going to fall into the trap that Farage et cetera want you to, of saying you have to choose between America and Europe? It's nonsense. Just on this book, Rory, I've not read it yet, but I've read a lot of the reviews, and it strikes me as a bit of a problem, this, that it's almost like Keir Starmer is a bit player in the story Of Keir Starmer. And that is not good for Keir Starmer I was talking to a member of the cabinet yesterday who said this is the sort of book you expect to appear 10 years into a political project not at the Start and I think too many people are talking to too many journalists about the stuff that really helps journalists but that doesn't help the government. (Time 0:24:45)
Opportunity for Britain
Trump's actions with USAID present an opportunity for Britain to increase its soft power.
This can be done by stepping up development efforts in areas where the US has withdrawn.
Transcript:
Alistair Campbell
Mind you, I also want to link it to Britain, because I think that what they're doing to USAID is utterly horrific. But it's an opportunity, this, I think, for Britain to step up, because we've lost a lot of soft power and a lot of clout in the world because the wretched Johnson got rid of DFID. So let's come back on that. (Time 0:28:37)
USAID Staff Cuts
Trump's administration drastically cut USAID staff in Africa, from thousands to just 12.
This impacts billions of dollars in aid and numerous development projects, severely harming vulnerable populations.
Transcript:
Alistair Campbell
Think America last year spent $8 billion in sub-Saharan Africa.
Rory Stewart
It will have spent much more though. So what they've done there, and I can get into the weeds of this, but it's to do with whether you're just counting bilateral or you're counting multilateral. Multilateral, okay, yeah. And so they will have also billions through the World Bank, through the IMF, through UN agencies.
Alistair Campbell
Right. So it's way more than that. Yeah. So the 8 billion was the bilateral stuff.
Rory Stewart
Yeah. So the money will probably be in Africa, given its importance, will probably be approaching 15, 20 billion. And they would have had thousands of USAID staff working directly. So these are people directly employed by the US government in Washington or in embassies around the world. And then there will be tens of thousands of additional people employed who are working for contractors, so big development contractors or NGOs. So we've interviewed David Miliband on the show. IRC gets hundreds of millions of dollars a year directly from USAID. So all the programs he was talking about when he was talking to us about programs in Somalia, Sudan, many, many of those will have stopped. And to put it in context, the announcement was that all USAID money stops on a dime with a few exceptions, which we can get into, stopped. Doesn't matter, you have a contract. So, Turquoise Mountain, which my wife Shoshana runs, has a contract, had another million dollars to go, money just stops. And then they've announced that all the staff are being fired. So, lots of my friends who work for USAID or working for contracting organisations are now emailing me because they've lost their jobs. And if you look at the Africa bit, they have gone from literally thousands of staff working into Africa to guess how many staff now will remain to work in Africa? 12. 12, exactly. 12 staff to oversee what was literally over $10 billion worth of annual funding into Africa, 12 people.
Alistair Campbell
It's hard not to see this as an act of absolute barbarism, cruelty, economic vandalism, social, political vandalism, call it what you want. So in Kenya alone, they reckon 40,000 people currently involved in aid and development will now lose their jobs. (Time 0:34:02)
Risk of Violence in the US
The US faces a risk of increasing division and violence as Trump dismantles institutional safeguards.
Opposition may resort to non-institutional, non-constitutional means, potentially leading to dangerous outcomes.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Final point as we go to an end is I think there's another risk that we haven't lent into enough and that we should discuss in a future podcast. As America gets more authoritarian, it's very tempting to look at Germany and Italy in the 1930s and imagine that what happens is that as Trump ignores judges, tells the executive not To implement what they say, takes over the FBI and the security services, you end up with a very centralized authoritarian government. But the US is not Germany or Italy in the 1920s and 30s. It's a society with huge divisions and an immense amount of distributed power and opposition. So states, California, money, Wall Street, media, and almost half the American population very, very angry. And as Trump begins to take institutions to pieces, those Americans won't put up with it. They'll push back. They'll try to push back institutionally. So you can see they try to push back with judges. But as Trump begins to get rid of those institutional safeguards, uses his majority in Congress, says these are Obama's judges, Musk's is saying, I'm going to impeach the judges, not Going to implement the judges' decisions, then the only route for the opposition is going to increasingly become non-institutional, non-constitutional, because Trump is dismantling The institution. In other words, without going all the way on Trump derangement syndrome, I would say that the biggest threat facing the United States over the next four years is not actually authoritarian Control, but a society getting increasingly divided and violent as state governors begin to push back and reject federal rules. And Trump tries to use force to inflict them on people that don't want them. And this question of how minorities resist, I don't want to use the word civil war, but that is a risk that we're not talking about enough yet, because we're imagining that Trump is always Going to win. Things get more dangerous, in fact, when people oppose. (Time 0:55:29)
