A US alliance offers a large, integrated economy and military.
A European alliance involves complex coordination between nations with differing interests and defense spending priorities.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Well, I think the first thing is that being allied with Europe is very different from being allied with the US. Because despite all the talk about a common defense and security policy, the truth is that European nations still pursue their own interests. And you can see often very dramatic splits. Orban and Hungary famously won't go along with things. Poland will push very hard forward with initiatives which France might be resisting on particular issues. And basically what it means is that instead of getting one enormous economy, the US, which is 50% larger than the European economies, and this enormous integrated military behind You, you're dependent on this very difficult coordination between European countries. Now, there are other problems. I mean, of course, Europe isn't spending as much as the US in percentage terms or actual terms on defense. But even if it were, you have the massive problems, as you've talked about in the past, the amount that Greece spends on pensions on the armed forces, the fact that individual European Countries often tend, understandably, to invest a great deal in frontline troops, but much less in the logistics, in the air picture and the coordination, which then has to be provided By the US. So there's really good reasons now. I mean, as Trump becomes more and more unreliable as a partner, as he begins to signal his departure from European values, his increasing love affair with people like Putin, there will Be more pressure, but it will be a very big transition.
Alastair Campbell
That's why I think we have to accept that the Trump first-term message that NATO countries weren't spending enough on their own defence has been, I think, now finally heard. But I don't think anybody expected first time around that one of the reasons why Europe were getting its act together on defence finally was actually because it started to see America In a very difficult and negative light. And that, I think, is what has sparked this kind of, you know, element of panic, I think, attached to it. And it'd be very, very interesting next week when Keir Starmer does meet Donald Trump, and they talk about some of this stuff, is just to work out how Britain figures within it. (Time 0:03:45)
Customs Union Failure
Rory Stewart recalls supporting a customs union with Labour under Corbyn in 2019.
Hard remainers, hoping for a second referendum, blocked the customs union.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Well, so here's a question then. Peter Wright, presumably not the guy from the great spy scandal sent in Australia in the 1980s. Spy catcher. On the last episode, you were bigging up a customs union. Whilst I agree completely, isn't that exactly what was put forward by Labour under Corbyn in 2019 and was roundly poo-pooed by many of your centrist listeners? What changed? Well, let me add to that. I was a big, big supporter of the customs union. And in fact, in a desperate attempt to try to get a soft Brexit through, managed to corral with my friend Alex Chalk and Ken Clark, 32 of our conservative colleagues, and to go into the Voting lobbies with Corbyn to try to get a customs union through. But the reason we didn't get it through was not in the end because of opposition from Brexiteers. It was because of opposition from hard remainers who still believed that they could trigger a second referendum. And therefore, the problem for them with the customs union, I lost in the lobbies, people like Sam Gamer, whose votes I needed. I also lost some of the more extreme Labour second referendum people because they sort of believed that destroying any Brexit deal, including a soft Brexit deal, would mean that they Could stay in the European Union. (Time 0:06:00)
Aid Agency Waste
USAID and DFID have engaged in wasteful spending on international aid.
Reforming these agencies, not abolishing them, is key to effective aid.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Got a good challenge from a guy called Richard Snowden. Watching Trump talk about USAID, I felt some similarities with the way Rory spoke about some aspects of the waste of money in DFID, Department for International Development, while Reading Politics on the Edge. Yet on the podcast last week, he was roundly criticizing the president's approach. Have I misinterpreted, or are there not areas of agreement between Rory and Donald Trump that government aid spending is frequently wasteful? It's a really, really good challenge. And I got it from a lot of people. A lot of people said, hey, Rory, go easy here. You know, you're very aware of just what nonsense was going on in international development. In DFID, you've been very clear about some of the madness in USAID. I got a friend of mine from Afghanistan called Benji writing to me saying, Rory, I never thought I'd hear you become this kind of fool's throated defender of USAID in that way. I've had another friend saying, Rory, the whole point about the charities that you used to run, like Give Directly or Turquoise Mountain, is they were doing stuff that these big development Agencies often didn't want to do. And it's true. So, I mean, I think this is part of the problem of polarization, which is, I don't know how you get the middle line. And the temptation is never to give an inch. But obviously, what I should have said is, look, of course, USAID did some terrible programs. DFID actually often did some terrible programs. These aid agencies were far too expensive. The management costs were crazy. There were these beltway bandits that took huge commissions on implementing. But that doesn't mean we should have abolished DFID. That doesn't mean you should have got rid of USAID. It means that you need to reform and improve the way in which they operate. And the problem is, of course, that maybe it's a little bit like our debate about a soft Brexit. It's awfully difficult to hit that middle ground and say, look, there's something terribly wrong with it, but I still think it's better than the alternatives. Making the argument for the lesser evil, saying, if I had to choose between no international development aid at all, or keeping DFID and USAID intact, I'd keep them intact. But it's the same with Afghanistan. People set up this false choice. Do you either put in 150,000 troops, $150 billion a year, or do you do absolutely nothing? Well, the answer is actually you do smarter stuff in the middle, but there's not much room for that in the policy debate. (Time 0:09:44)
UN's Future
America's dislike for international institutions hinders the UN's effectiveness.
A new global structure is unlikely due to conflicting interests among major powers.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
Right. Here's one from another member, Roy, called Sleekit Scotsman. How do you find Sleekit sort of a bit sneaky, a bit sneaky? Anyway, Sleekit Scotsman asked this question. In the next year, could you see America, China, India, and Russia breaking away from the United Nations, disbanding bricks, and forming their own alternative security architecture And economic structures to replace the UN.
Rory Stewart
I'm still fixated with we sleeket cowerin timorous beastie, or what's a panic, etc. Yeah, go on then. You have a stab at that while I think about Robbie Burns.
Alastair Campbell
I don't think it's impossible that some sort of new structure will emerge because the United Nations is struggling. And it's struggling because of the weight that's put upon it and the divisions that appear to me to be at times irreconcilable. America doesn't like the United Nations. America doesn't like any international institutions right now. Yeah.
Rory Stewart
My problem though is that the likelihood is that you end up not with a new structure, but you end up with nothing. Because the reason why the UN is crippled is that the US, China, and India, and Russia basically can't agree on things, or particularly US, China, Russia, Britain, France, the Security Council can't agree on anything. And the point of these international institutions was supposed to be accepting rules, rules around state sovereignty, borders, peace. And so I can't quite see what this new institution that the Sleekit Scotsman, and thank you Sleekit Scotsman being a member, is proposing because we're losing all the things that the UN was supposed to be about. Above all, we're losing the shared values, shared principles, shared set of international law, which the UN is supposed to implement. And I can't see what the new body would come together on. What's more likely is you'd have a series of ad hoc meetings like Putin meeting Trump in Saudi Arabia, where powers try to cook things up over the head of smaller members. But that's exactly what international institutions were supposed to prevent. Before (Time 0:12:03)
Need for US Opposition Leader
The US lacks a strong opposition voice against Donald Trump, unlike the UK system.
Democrats struggle to find a leader to challenge Trump's agenda.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
Here's a really good question from Martin, where we did this before going to a break, Rory. Should the US appoint an opposition leader, as there is in the UK and Australia? There does seem to be a real problem with the Democrats. Who do we look to for opposition to Trump on the Democrat side? It's not Kamala Harris, it's not Joe Biden, it's not the Obamas, it's not the Clintons, it's not the guys really in the House who seems to me are struggling to find their voice and find Their footing.
Rory Stewart
The Republicans have often been better at it, haven't they? Because Newt Gingrich was a very central figure of opposition to Democratic administrations. And Trump, of course, acts as the major voice of the opposition to Biden. And as we've said, you know, you can see Bernie Sanders putting out a lot of material, AOC putting out a lot of material, the Senate of Connecticut putting out a lot of material. But no, we're find not getting that sense that there's certainly not any equivalent of Newt Gingrich, let alone Trump coming out against him.
Alastair Campbell
Surely at some point as well, having lost the election the way they did and lost the popular vote and with all the kind of, I even heard Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci the other day talking About, you know, one day might California turn red, turn Republican. So there's clearly a big debate has to happen within the Democrat Party. How is that going to take place? Who is going to lead it? What is the outcome going to be? I mean, we're not in America. You are in America right now. Do you have a sense of that debate taking place? I think Americans are shell-shocked.
Rory Stewart
I mean, it's in the time after Trump's first election, there was an incredible flurry of really impressive articles and books pointing out what a threat Trump posed to the Constitution. So we interviewed on leading, for example, Tim Snyder, who wrote this book on tyranny, and has did a lot of stuff on how you spot fascism rising. And I think there are two things happening. One is the sense that people cannot quite believe that despite all the work that was done, despite January 6th, we don't talk enough about January 6th. I mean, January 6th was such a big thing. A US president denying the result of an election, despite all the effort put into prosecuting him, despite the massive spend by many people, including Reid Hoffman, who we interviewed On leading behind Democrats, that it failed. And I think people are just reeling. But the thing that I'm worried about, of course, is that the next step from reeling is that as Trump dismantles institutions, there's going to be an opposition in the US that is going To begin to feel more like feeding almost a civil war. (Time 0:18:59)
Managing Coalition Comms
Manage communication grids in coalitions by giving each party adequate space.
Embrace new media but retain core communication strategies.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
And me, Alistair Campbell. And here's a question from Jacob Dovchik. Alistair, how would you handle managing the grid in a multi-party coalition, which are common in countries with proportional representation? Is the control of the narrative and coordination of message really possible only when there's a single party government? Thanks.
Alastair Campbell
I think you can manage a grid so a grid for those who don't know is the sort of it's a mechanism by which you organize communication in any big organization and i suppose my closest experience That popped into my head as you're reading the question out was actually when i worked at NATO, that was a coalition where you obviously had, you had America, you had Britain, you had France, you had Germany, you had Turkey, you had Italy, you had all these different countries with different interests. And part of what I was trying to do was to manage the communications in a way that all of those different constituent parts felt that they were being involved properly, engaged properly, Got their moments in the sun. And I think you had to do the same in a coalition government. I think that if I look at one of the reasons I think why the coalition government in Germany has struggled, it's because I don't think they were giving each other enough space to have the Moment when they were pushing their agenda. To be fair to Cameron and Clegg, I think actually they managed it pretty well from a communications perspective. It's just that the whole austerity thing was a complete disaster for the country, as we agree, Rory.
Rory Stewart
You're presumably thinking all the time about the way in which social media changes all this. So if you were to, I mean, I don't know, let's say a Labour candidate would come in, or even the Prime Minister would come and get advice around how you do communications grids, and would Have said to you, but come on, Alistair, you did this back in the late 90s in the world before Twitter and Facebook. How does Musk's X, how does TikTok, and the way in which new populist politicians dominate that change the way you do messaging how would you answer that if somebody said all that old
Alastair Campbell
Stuff is is part of an old world and social media has changed it all i would say that you have to embrace the new world but without throwing out the kind of strategic principles which underpin Any communication strategy. So, for example, if I were a modern leader of a major country, I'd actually learn a few lessons from what Trump has been doing. What could the British equivalent be of an executive order? I'll tell you one thing I would do if I was Keir Starmer, Macron, Merz when he comes in, if he comes in as Chancellor of Germany, I would do a podcast. I would have, whether it's weekly, whether it's fortnightly, you can decide. But I would use that and that would go in the grid because I would make sure that whatever I was doing or saying on my podcast that week, the rest of the media are going to take note. I would use X. So sometimes, you know, like Musk did his interview with the AFD, leader Alice Vidal, that was huge coverage in Germany. Now, you know, there's so many modern media stuff, so much modern media stuff you can do, but fit it in to the overall communication of your strategy over time, which is all that communications Is. A couple of other things on this. One of the things that's interesting (Time 0:23:23)
Tech Optimism?
21st-century technology has not had the transformative impact of earlier innovations like plumbing or electricity.
Real change comes from innovations that improve GDP and living standards, rather than social media apps.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
So that's why I don't buy this idea that social media has fundamentally changed strategic communication. Ultimately, it is about the message. And you can still get that message out if it's properly thought through strong and you're clear about how you're getting it out there and the truth is we should just acknowledge the fact Trump is very good at it he's very good at the old communication and he's very good at the new communication now what about this one peter judge do you agree that we have all of the knowledge Resources wealth and technology to create a wildly, wildly better world. Why is nobody making the case for that world? Let's come in on this.
Rory Stewart
Yes, many, many things have improved. We are living much longer. We have far few children dying young. But the truth of the matter with technology, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that the big technological advances that changed our lives were in the 20th century, not in the 21st century. That this thing, I'm holding up an iPhone, is of course really, really impressive and Google Maps is very helpful, but it doesn't begin to have the kind of transformatory impact that Steam had, coal had, the first aeroplanes and cars had, the fridge had that indoor plumbing has that central heating has yeah i think the really and this is actually one of the reasons People are frustrated one reason they're all great they're all greater than the phone much greater and i think the only people who disagree are the techno optimists in silicon valley Who think they've completely changed our lives famously this great figure that computers are seen everywhere except in the productivity statistics. Those things that I mentioned, those kind of old bits of the first, second, third industrial revolutions, completely transformed GDP per capita, made European and American countries In the 50s, 60s, and 70s grow at unbelievable unprecedented rates. My constituency in Cumbria, Penrith and the border, when Willie Whitelaw took over, and Willie Whitelaw was only my predecessor's predecessor, a third of the houses didn't have indoor Lavatories and a quarter didn't have electricity. So the change that you bring to someone's life with that is so much more than you bring with this funny little phone. And we're still struggling, maybe AI is this thing, but we're still struggling actually to find technological innovations that make that kind of change. Where the changes are happening are increasingly on things like health and life expectancy. But we're not seeing the optimism. And why are we not seeing the optimism? We're not seeing the optimism because people feel their jobs are stressful. They're working long hours. They feel they've got less freedom and independence their parents have. And these phones, in many ways, many, many of us would feel our lives were better if we weren't looking at them. Plane yesterday half the planes walking off staring at their phones stumbling into everything ignoring their children going in the wrong direction i mean um yeah anyway over to you Are you a techno optimist no (Time 0:30:13)
Reeves' Controversies
Rachel Reeves faced scrutiny over alleged CV exaggerations and an expenses investigation.
The issue lies not just in potential discrepancies but also in their subsequent denial.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
There's no evidence from her former employer that she breached any policy on expenses, yet they've run the story for the last three days. What does running stories based on allegations tell us about their editorial values? Well, that sounds like an attack on the BBC. I've been away, so I've not followed it. I've followed this story in the past when it's been, they've been going on about it. But what is this story, Rory, about her CV and about how long she worked at the bank and all this?
Rory Stewart
Can you shed light? Yeah, two stories. So Rachel Reeves, obviously, our Chancellor of the Exchequer, she had said on her CV that she had worked for 10 years for the Bank of England, and that she'd been an economist at the Bank Of England and at HBOS, which is the bank she worked at. And what's happened since is that journalists have discovered that in fact, she worked realistically more like five years at the Bank of England, because she took a year off to go to The LSE. And that for of those years, she wasn't an economist. And at HBOS, she was in a different department entirely doing a lot on customer support. That's one set of allegations. And I think on that, they've argued back a little bit, but she's also changed to LinkedIn entries. And I think the story at the back of that is the pressure on would-be MPs to pretend they have more experience in the outside world than they really have, because a lot of these people are Basically professional politicians who are starting running for seats quite early on in their careers. And it's interesting, she got away with it until she became chancellor. And I imagine many, many of my former colleagues will have exaggerated what's on their CVs to sound more impressive, to make rather thin gruel seem like a more impressive stuff. The problem is not so much the slight exaggerations. The problem seems to be more just how vehemently they're denied. So the other allegation is that she was investigated for not being entirely honest and reporting her expenses. Now, this very old story, 16 years ago, she was investigated around having bought a bottle of champagne on expenses. Apparently, it's a gift for someone and the person said they didn't receive the gift. And the problem here, and this is something maybe you can come into, is that number 11 and the press office denied it absolutely. So there was absolutely no truth in it. And then later had to retract. And she said, I'm sorry, I had no memory of the fact that I was investigated. And the man concerned says complete bullshit. This must have been quite a big moment in her life. It's a pretty traumatic time when you're working for a company to be investigated. Now, ultimately, I don't think she was sort of convicted of it. So it wasn't put on her record. But the problem seems to be, as usual, not so much the original claim as the kind of cover ups that come along behind it.
Alastair Campbell
That is often the case, particularly the stuff that, you know, gets thrown up at people from their past. I mean, look, in general, you know, be honest and straightforward about your past as well as your present. I guess there is in most people who end up in top flight politics, it's not something that they all sort of wake up age 16 and think that's what I'm going to do. And I think you'd be very hard pressed to find anybody who's not done stuff in their past as students or in the jobs market, whatever it might be. But the important point is the one you make, if and when the questions come, make sure your answers are right. (Time 0:33:29)
CV Exaggerations
Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart discuss how politicians often exaggerate their CVs.
Rory Stewart shares an anecdote about being falsely described as an "ex-soldier."
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Let me defend her a little bit, maybe from my own experience, which is I had a lot of stories when I first went into politics describing me as an ex-soldier. And the reality is I was a soldier very, very briefly. I was in a soldier between school and university on something called a short service limited commission.
Alastair Campbell
Very wise, as Gerry Adams said to you. Very wise, exactly.
Rory Stewart
It's very flattering for an MP to be described as a veteran or a soldier, just as it's very useful for a chancellor of the Exchequer to be described as an economist at these big leading Institutions and have the impression that you spent many years as an economist at these institutions. So you allow these things to happen in the press and you allow yourself to be introduced and it was actually a peter hitchens i think who eventually challenged me on this and said you've Said you were briefly a soldier but a better description would be very briefly a soldier wouldn't it and i immediately said yes i'll put very in punch briefly a soldier um but i so i do i Do sort of slightly feel feel for rachel reese there and and then of course the the complication am i then explaining that i was supposed to go back to the army and then the foreign office Brought me out of the army and and i moved into the foreign office and i was in iraq and afghanistan with soldiers but I wasn't a soldier becomes too complicated to explain to anybody so
Alastair Campbell
Anyway so some sympathy for on that can I just jump in on Peter Hitchens he's an old colleague of mine he and Fiona shared an office in the House of Commons for years when when we were all In the lobby together and Peter has got this absolute obsession that Tony Blair wasn't actually the prime minister, but that I was. Tony Blair was my little front man. So I wouldn't worry too much, Rory. But I think the thing about being a soldier, though, don't knock it too much, because that means in the House of Commons, when you're in the House of Commons, you could be called the right Honourable and gallant. And that's a great thing. It's a really great thing. The rules of the house of commons i don't care how short your commission was you should be referred to as the right honorable gallant member for penrith of the borders yeah absolutely Right last question martin lynch yes for you we hear you talk (Time 0:36:50)
Guilty Pleasure Reads
Alastair Campbell enjoys Charlotte Link novels as a guilty pleasure.
Rory Stewart recommends "Shogun" by James Clavell and "A Perfect Spy" by John le Carré.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
About serious books you're reading but harold wilson loved agatha christie jfk was an ian fleming fan does alistair have a secret set of lee child first editions he turns to while rory
Alastair Campbell
Dips into el james when his wife's not watching what are your fun reads well first of all right you don't need to know how i know this yes uh you may know it as well but el james is a big fan of The podcast i know that no fact this is 50 shades of gray that's the one that's the one she's a big big fan of the podcast i am a regular i i still read the broons and all wally very good which Are cartoons from the sunday post about life in Scotland. But I think if I have a guilty pleasure, it's Charlotte Link, who's a German writer. And this is probably terribly insulting to her, but she's in that sort of, you know, she's in with Geoffrey Archer and all that sort of, she's a real page turner. And I love her books. Lots of them, I think, have been translated into English. They definitely deserve to be. And lots of them are, in fact, set in Britain. But yeah, she's my guilty pleasure, Charlotte O'Link.
Rory Stewart
Spy story about a working class guy grows up in the East End of London during the Blitz. His granddad is a cat burglar who gets recruited into MI6 and sent off to Berlin. A book I've been enjoying enormously by Michael Booth called The Almost Nearly Perfect People, which is about Denmark. He's married to a Dane. H funny book in which he investigates the fundamental question which is why Denmark is described as being the most happy people on earth when he finds them frequently pretty miserable
Alastair Campbell
Well they were until Donald Trump came along and said he's going to take Greenland off them not as happy now are they this is quite highbrow lowbrow stuff Rory well no we're giving you
Rory Stewart
A real guilty one i absolutely love james clavel's shogun and and i want to apologize for that because there's a lot of sort of uh slightly dodgy scenes and in japanese bath houses and Weird bits of uh torture going on at the beginning so there's a bit of games and throwing going in. But my goodness, as a portrait of Japan in the late 16th, early 17th century, there's everything there. There's samurais, there's the tea ceremony, there's internecine warfare, there's politics, there's religion. And it's done on such an enormous scale. And Clavel was, I think, originally an Australian who was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the war in Singapore. And emerged from it, both with a real sense of the capacity for sort of cruelty from the Japanese officers who were maltreating them during the war, but also an incredible admiration For Japanese courage, honour, and the strangeness of Japanese society. So there we are, James Clavel, Shogun.
Alastair Campbell
Excellent. And I guess my final one, on the back of the interview we did with David McCloskey about Syria and his work for the CIA, we started listening to Damascus Station. Now, I think you have to say, even though John Sawes, former head of MI6, said it was the best book about espionage you'd ever read. If you're talking about spy thrillers, I think you have to put those down as guilty pleasures. There's no such thing as a spy thriller that isn't ultimately a guilty pleasure. And I love the thing. I love the thing that David said in the interview, that the life of an intelligence officer was much closer to slow horses than James Bond. Because slow horses is definitely a guilty pleasure.
Rory Stewart
Slow horses. And Shoshana and I watching the box set, the only one that really tends towards literature beautifully is, of course, John Le Carre. David McCloskey, when we interviewed him, was talking about how these things are both doing glamorous stuff and also bureaucracies. But Le Carre really evokes the sense of mismatched filing cabinets, weird registries, people stabbing each other in the back, politicians getting into dodgy contracts with private Security contractors. And in A Perfect Spy, I think, manages to do psychology, history. Yeah, that guy, David Cornwall, John le Carre, I think is the one person who stretches spy literature out of guilty pleasure into real Nobel Prize winning stuff. Excellent. Well, thank you for that question, Mark.
Alastair Campbell
Maybe people should let us know what their guilty pleasure readings are. Perhaps it's for some of you, it's book, Politics on the Edge. I was very chuffed that Mark Carney said that my book influenced him into deciding to go for it. I didn't know whether to believe that or not. (Time 0:39:00)
