578. Alastair and Michael Gove Disagree Agreeably on Brexit and Israel

We had some great questions for this episode with Michael Gove standing in for Rory and one of my favourites was this one from Oscar. Have Michael Gove and Alistair Campbell ever agreed about anything? Well we both think Tony Blair was an exceptional Prime Minister and we both know that Boris Johnson was a charlatan but we express these things in different ways. There are two big issues that we really disagree about. One is Brexit and the other is Israel-Gaza. We're going to be discussing those because we've got lots of questions on both. With Michael, unlike Rory, an actual football fan, we'll also get into Manchester City's troubles too. So plenty of scope for agreeable disagreement as we ask, will the UK get back into the EU? Will Manchester City get relegated? And will Michael Gove ever, ever criticise Israel? This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. Most energy companies are counting on you doing absolutely nothing. 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Visit fuseenergy.com for full terms and conditions. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at B&B. BJ's Wholesale Club saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's, home of the save. Welcome to the rest is politics question time with me, Alistair Campbell. And me, Michael Gove. And Michael Gove is standing in for Rory Stewart. And we are going to be talking about the many, many questions we got on these subjects. Brexit, Middle East, Israel, Gaza, and Israel, West Bank, Manchester City. And then we might lighten things up a bit towards the end. But let's just start with these questions on Brexit. A couple here. Simoen, do you think there will be another EU referendum? Time will tell. Tim from Birmingham. Hi, Alistair and Michael. Before the leadership challenge, Andy Burnham promised not to rerun the Brexit arguments. Now a few months into the job, he's saying we could go all the way and rejoin. Where does he go from here? If Labour goes into 2029 offering a choice between status quo, customs union, single market, or full membership, which would each of you back? So first. First of all, yes or no, Michael, do you think we will have another Europe referendum at some point in our lifetime? And secondly, which of those options would you back if we did? Funnily enough, I don't think there'll be a referendum. What I think Andy Burnham will try to do is to forge a new relationship with the European Union on closer terms and then seek a mandate, probably not necessarily at the next election, but probably at a future election, to take us back in on the basis of a general election result. So I don't think that there will be a referendum. I don't think there will be a referendum. If there were another referendum, I'd vote for the status quo. That is interesting, because that is my ideal position, the one that you've just outlined. And I've written about it in the New World this week. And I've said that I don't think even Andy Burnham will be that bold. But I hope you're right. I hope you're right. I think that'll be the right thing for the country. What do you make of his statement in his speech in Liverpool that Brexit has done more harm than good? It's very hard to dispute that, Michael. It is, I think, challenging, but I will. The interesting thing is that he acknowledged that it had done some good. So normally. So where did he, which bit of the speech did he acknowledge it was more harm than good does not mean that good was done? Well, I took from it, and you might say that this is an example of cockeyed optimism, that he was acknowledging that there was a balance. And one of the things I'd say about the Labour government is that it has actually, in its actions, recognised that there are good things from Brexit. So taking VAT off gas and electricity bills, impossible within the European Union. Putting VAT on independent school fees, impossible. A policy which you support, obviously. Exactly. Impossible within the European Union. No, I think you can always get right some of these taxes. You can put different taxation levels on these different things, including VAT. So I don't. Look, I think that was cockeyed, obviously. When he said more harm than good, let me translate for you, Michael. He was saying it's been a bit of a disaster. And I think he's probably thinking that because of the massive, the huge hit on GDP, which whoever. I know we don't believe in experts, but we're talking between somewhere between 6% and 8%, according to the experts. We're talking about a big fall in investment, which is partly being blamed on Brexit. We've seen our exports fall. And you did promise, Michael, you and Boris Johnson, you and Boris Johnson, you and Boris Johnson, you and Boris Johnson. I know that you were a true believer, and he was just a charlatan. I least respect for the fact that you did believe in this. The customs declarations alone, we're now talking about 39.2 million customs declarations, individual forms, which have hit British business, we reckon, by about 7.5 billion a year. So I think it's very, very hard. And then you talk about taking rights away. We've taken rights away from people, particularly young people. So anyway, I think it's noble of you to keep pretending that there have been some advantages, but you haven't spelled them out very clearly for me. Well, I think the first thing is that the degree of the hit that the UK economy has taken is disputed. There's no such thing as an expert consensus. And also, the best comparison is not necessarily with a woulda, coulda, shoulda future, but the actual factual existence endured by our neighbours. And so I think it's noble of you to keep pretending that there have been some advantages, but I think the first thing is that the degree of the hit that the UK economy has taken is disputed. Well, first thing to say is I think there is a consensus of expert opinion. It depends what you define as an expert. My definition of an expert is I do think that the big international economic institutions and the Bank of England and some of the bodies that you, I hope, would respect at least the sort of factual analyses that they do. Yes, the French and German economies have struggled. Yes, the European Union economy as a whole has struggled. And yes, I would argue that the European Union needs considerable reform as well. But I think one of the reasons why the European Union has struggled is actually because their confidence was hit by our departure. We have suffered as a result, and they have suffered as a result too. But I don't think you can dispute that GDP per capita has fallen because of our leaving the European Union. The buggeration for trade has definitely increased. And our sense of who and what we are as a country, I think, has been changed in a very, very negative direction. So I think, it's undoubtedly the case that there has been some additional cost that some parts of the economy have endured as a result of leaving. But those costs have been absorbed. The benefits of being outside the EU are growing. Those benefits exist in the realm of data and AI in areas like gene editing and selective breeding. So in the growth industries of the future, life science, tech overall, and indeed in financial services, we've already shown that we outside the EU have the potential to attract investment, which the EU doesn't. And even this government, especially this government, has acknowledged that we don't want to be within the regulatory ambit of the EU when it comes to financial services or tech, or developing the crops and livestock that will be part of a climate transition. All of those things, are easier to achieve outside the EU, and none of them are things that this government wants to give up, or indeed that people in the banking sector or people in the tech sector want to give up as well. When I said earlier, I've always been fascinated by this, because I know it's a sort of question more for the historians. But although I was sort of teasing you and saying, do you think I'm right, when I say that you were at least a true believer? I'm probably wrong. probably still are, whereas that the guy the guy alongside whom you stood at the time, Boris Johnson, actually was not a true believer and was doing this for other very different purposes, which met their goal. He became prime minister, but the damage along the way has been considerable, both to your party and to the country. I have a number of criticisms of Boris, but I actually do believe that he was a true believer. I think that, of course, he saw a political opportunity because it was likely to be the case that even if the Leave campaign lost, that a majority of Tories, Tory members, Tory voters, would emotionally be attached to the Leave campaign and that would put him in poor position to succeed David Cameron. I'm sure that was a factor in his mind. It may have been the decisive factor, but in his heart, Boris was definitely a leaver. Absolutely. And what about the point, we talked about Kemi Badenoch's essay, The Right Way. What about the point that she made that one of the big criticisms she had of the government that she was a part was actually that we had this referendum and a plan put forward by you and Johnson, etc, to leave the European Union, but there was nothing to back it up, that we left without a plan. Is that a fair criticism? I think that the more precise criticism, I think it's broadly fair, but the more precise criticism is that we left without a plan. I think that the more precise criticism is that Boris and I blew ourselves up on the launchpad in the immediate aftermath of the referendum victory and that Theresa May didn't really have a proper plan for Brexit and a series of decisions were made when Theresa was Prime Minister that put us on the wrong trajectory for those negotiations and for exit. There are a number of things that Theresa did that I admire her for. I don't want to be. I don't want to be churlish, but I think that the Brexit strategy that was pursued under Theresa was a mistake. But you talked about blowing yourselves up on the launchpad. You, Johnson, Farage delivered the victory and then since when we've had chaos and we've had seven Prime Ministers, Andy hopefully will last a bit longer than most of those predecessors. So you have to take some responsibility for the chaos that has followed. Oh, I do. Yeah, I do. So point one, vote leave did have a clear, clear plan for how we could make the most of Brexit and some of those elements of that plan were subsequently implemented. But in the week after the referendum victory, the problems during that leadership election, I think, are well advertised and I should bear the lion's share of the blame for that. Absolutely. And then I think more broadly, it was the case that within the Conservative Party, I'm associated with signing trade deals. And so the mark of Brexit success was racking up a new trade deal with where the hell is down. That was not the principal point of Brexit. The principal point of Brexit was greater regulatory freedom and autonomy. Sovereignty is the romantic element to it, which has a huge appeal to my heart and I think is politically and ideologically important. But the economic element was the capacity to regulate differently. And this was a benefit that would accrue over time. And I believe that we are seeing those benefits. The difficulty is, and here Boris was very honest, that the down payment right at the beginning, the economic hit that you take as a result of new customs barriers is real. The economic benefits, which will accumulate over time are only there if you're savvy enough to steer the right course. And that hasn't always been the case. That's true. Okay, well, that was moderately reasonable disagreement. We didn't shout at each other as we have done in the past. Let me just read you something very interesting from the Financial Times. This is a survey of voters around Europe, whether they would back the UK's re-entry into the European Union. By the way, I don't think we should talk about rejoin and re-entry. We should talk about joining something new and bigger that we helped to create. Let me ask you to guess which of the countries in Europe is the most welcoming of the idea that we get back in and which are the least welcoming? Have a stab at that. The most welcoming, I would think would be Sweden, Estonia, the Netherlands and Denmark. Well done that you got the top four right in the roll order. Well done. Yes. And least welcoming? The least welcoming would be France, Spain, Belgium, and Greece. Ah, you did better on the welcome than the non-welcome. No, you got France. The bottom four, the most unwelcoming is Bulgaria, followed by France, followed by Italy, followed by Hungary. But the figures are all, I mean, Denmark is top 75%, Bulgaria is bottom at 50, 54%. I think that's quite interesting. They definitely, I think they do feel that we, they have lost as much. Well, not as much, but they've lost as well. Now we've had a question, next question, Michael, we'll definitely disagree on this one as well. Gordon Carrera, who presents the rest is classified along with David McCloskey. He has asked us this question. How do you think the perception of October 7 as an intelligence failure on the part of Netanyahu and his government will impact the upcoming elections in Israel? And I have another question from somebody called Alistair, as Alistair Campbell is his name, is have you, Michael Gove, ever, ever, ever said anything critical of Israel? So on the first, I think that there are three big issues in the Israeli election. One of them, the dominant one, is what went wrong on October the 7th, to what extent was the Netanyahu government culpable for security errors, both before and after? There are all sorts of conspiracy theories out there. I'm not endorsing those. But it is the case that there is a very live debate about that. Just people. So the main conspiracy theory being that actually he had been given. Yeah, exactly. Some very, very credible warnings that this was going to happen. And he chose not to do much about it. Exactly. So I don't give any credit to that. But I think it's perfectly legitimate as part of public debate to say, look, were we well enough prepared for any type of assault? And in the aftermath, did what was our response the right one? And that's what we're going to do. And that is the key issue. There are also subsidiary issues to do with whether or not the ultra-Orthodox should serve in the military. And there are broader economic issues as well in the elections. But on your substantive point, yes, but there are so many people lining up to criticize Israel with such vehemence and an increasing number who are trying to get away with it. I am perfectly prepared to acknowledge criticism of Israel, but I'm not really interested in initiating it. Because my view is that Israel, its cause and its population need friends at the moment. And I'm very, very proud to be one of those. But I would say that for most of my time in media and in politics, I would have said much of what you just said. But I think there has to come a point where people who support the state of Israel and support the right of Israel to exist, call out what they're doing. And when I was, I watched a thing the other day, it was just an aerial film of Gaza before and after. It's utterly horrific what they've done. And then you look at what's happening in the West Bank, and you look at the way that the settlers are being encouraged and emboldened to do things which even a few years ago would have been internationally unacceptable. And then for Netanyahu, it seems to me to try to turn that into an electoral strategy. I just think he's repellent. And I just would love, and it's not just because I want to hear them being criticized, because I actually want them to be strong and secure, just as I want the Palestinian people to be able to have a strong and secure place to look all their own. But you who are somebody who I think does, for all the joke about, don't believe in experts, I think you do like to look at fact. I find it incredible that you can't at least say they've gone completely over the top. They are killing people who should not be killed. They are treating people with a disrespect for life, a human life that I find unacceptable. Well, I don't believe that they're treating people with a disrespect for life. I do think it's the case. It's a war. And innocents die in war. And you can't be indifferent to that. It's horrific for any innocent to die. But the facts, they're chilling. But the facts also point out that the Israeli Defense Force operating in a built up area in Gaza have inflicted fewer civilian casualties than British or American forces inflicted operating in similar areas in a conflict like Iraq. The reality of war is horrific. But this was a war that was visited on Israel, not a war that was a war that it sought. In the West Bank, there are problems with some settlers, but But again, it's not the case that they're either representative of or endorsed by anything like a majority of the Israeli population or even a majority of those Jewish citizens who live in the West Bank. So, yes, there's a problem there. But we have a problem with people misbehaving on our streets. The French have a problem with people misbehaving on their streets. The presence of some extremists within your own ranks doesn't invalidate the strength of your democracy overall, just as things going wrong in a war. And the commanders on the ground need to be prosecuted if they've allowed that to happen, doesn't invalidate the right to defend yourself. I mean, I honestly don't see how you can make that comparison. You know, we talked in the main episode about France. OK, you have young people protesting. And in some cases, rioting, and you have the police putting it down. What's happening in the West Bank is that the security authorities are allowing something which they know to be illegal. And so that, to me, is a virtual breakdown of law and order. And also the comparisons with I don't have the figures for Iraq. Maybe I should have them on the top of my head, but I don't have them. But I do know that 81,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. 81,000 and mostly civilians. Including 21,000 children. You cannot possibly say that that has been justified by, and even according to their stated goals. I mean, I know the stated goals of Ben-Gurion and Smotrich are basically to say, let's wipe the lot of them out, because that's what they think, and they are part of the government. But I'm just surprised, Michael, that you've, you know, even now, you've even suggested the IDF should get the Nobel Peace Prize. I'd rather Donald Trump got it than them. And I think he's utterly uncool. I think he's utterly unqualified for it as well. Well, the first thing is that Ben-Gurion and Smotrich are not representative of mainstream Israeli opinion. They are loudmouths. But they're powerful. They're powerful. I think the power has been overstated. They're loudmouths. They are in the government, obviously. They are ministers. But they're not steering policy. That's one of the reasons why they mouth off in the way that they do. Secondly, on the West Bank, I think there's a distinction about, you know, when people are talking about illegality. So there's obviously. There's a continuing debate about the legality of the settlements. We won't get into that now. But is it the case that there are some, particularly younger folk associated with the settler movement, that have taken the law into their own hands? Absolutely. Is that wrong? Completely. Should they be dealt with? Of course. Is it the case that there are some voices in Ben-Gurion and Smotrich's parties that have a sneaking regard for them? Absolutely. But Israel overall deals with people who break. It's laws and behave outrageously in a far more effective and proportionate way than any of its neighbors. We should hold Israel to high standards. But, of course, we're speaking in the run-up to an Israeli election in which you've got fierce contestation in which the prime minister could lose and which, if he loses, he might actually find himself for separate reasons in court. There is no other country in the. At least in which you could have an open election in which the prime minister could lose and then could find himself in court afterwards on corruption charges. So whatever the criticisms that people might level against the state of Israel and how it's conducted itself in this conflict, it remains a robust democracy, one in which the balance of power in this election after votes have been cast may be held by Arab parties. There's no Jewish party that holds the balance. There's no Jewish party that holds the balance of power in other countries. And then on the toughest point of all about those civilian casualties, the key thing here is that Hamas, and we both know that Hamas does not represent the majority of Palestinian people, but still, Hamas deliberately puts civilian lives at risk, while the IDF imperfectly, but consistently, tries to minimize civilian casualties. And that's the key difference between them. And that as long as that prevails. Then you will find me absolutely on Israel's side. Okay. Their own figures, the Israelis' own figures, their military data indicates a civilian death rate in Gaza of 83%. They previously claimed it was 50%. They now acknowledge it's 83%. Civilian, rate of civilian casualties in American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 68% and 26% respectively. Now, too high, both of them too high, but I think we are dealing with something different. And also, by the way. Michael, I'm not criticizing the state of Israel. I'm criticizing the conduct of this government in relation to the way that it has responded to October 7th. And I would always say, when we talk about this, that what Hamas did was unspeakable, unforgivable, and there are some very, very bad people with a very, very bad ideology. But I think the response has been disproportionate. And I think it's one of the reasons why Israel now has so many critics around the world and has lost so many friends. So, the first thing. The first thing is, I've never doubted that you and Rory are good faith actors in this debate. And everything that you've said that's critical of Netanyahu has also been articulated by people within Israel, Israeli journalists, politicians, and activists. So, your position sits squarely within Israeli domestic political debate. So, I don't doubt both the sincerity and the force of your case. And there are other people whom I like and admire who share it. I just disagree. The second thing is that the figures on casualties and the basis of the calculation was gone into by a House of Lords report that was produced for the APPG there. Maybe, up to you, we could include a link to that and to your data for listeners in the newsletter that you send out. They can compare and contrast and draw their own conclusions because it's such an important issue. But the final thing. The final thing that I would say is that if I were living in Israel now, I would find it difficult to know who to vote for. Because while I am supportive of the state of Israel in its actions to defend itself, I do think that there are all sorts of criticisms that can be directed at Netanyahu and the choices that he's made. And that there are other leaders and other parties that might give Israel a better future. But. As I say, my general disposition at a time when, and it's so important that I draw a distinction between the points that you and others make critical of Israel and what I'm about to say. But when you've got folk like the Green Party leadership taking the position that they do, in the broad scales, I'm very happy to be on Israel's side. That doesn't mean that I want to undermine or delegitimize criticism of it. But it does mean that in that broad. In that broader debate, I know where my heart and my head are. Okay. Well, let's take a break. And then when we come back, we'll talk about Manchester City and the continuing controversy surrounding the way that they've been funding themselves. See you soon. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods. Even they can't screw up. Home of the save. Join for just $20 at BJ's dot com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the save. Welcome back to the Rest Is Politics question time with me, Michael. Gove and me, Alastair Campbell. And Justine from Manchester is one of many people who has asked us about Manchester City. Justine's question goes as follows. Andy Burnham's Man City comments were treated as a gaffe. But weren't they just an honest account of how modern Manchester was built? Courting Abu Dhabi money and big foreign investment is a core part of Manchesterism. If that model depends on not asking awkward questions about where the money comes from, what does that mean for Burnham's vision? I guess that gets to the heart of whether there is now a political and a diplomatic angle to this as well as just the sporting angle. I think there is. So I don't blame Andy Burnham. The role of the UAE in Manchester's economic success and in Man City's footballing success predates him becoming the mayor of Greater Manchester. But it is the case that you can't tell the story of Manchester's success without. The Emirati element within it. And it does raise some difficult questions, not so much for Andy Burnham, but more broadly about how Manchester grew over the course of the last decade, decade and a half. I do think it's wrong to welcome a Gulf investment. In particular, I think of all of the Gulf states, the UAE is one of the most admirable in relative terms. However. For football fans overall, it's clearly the case that the Premier League have found that the relationship between. state financing and the rules of the game have led to Man City securing an unfair advantage overall. And because of that, it will raise profound questions about the role of the Emiratis in funding Manchester's success. But I don't think anyone's found, even though the rules of the premiership may have been broken, I don't think anyone's found anything else to suggest that Emirati investment has somehow been, you know, so far as we know, dodgy in Manchester itself. I mean, partly because Rory has a bit of a blind spot about football. We're all allowed our blind spots. I have blind spots too. This is the first time we've actually talked about the Manchester City situation on the podcast. So maybe just briefly, if I go through what this report said and what the main accusations were. Essentially, the first issue is one of sham contracts and dissent. They're disguising the funding that's going to the club. So they use this disguised funding scheme essentially to inflate, artificially inflate their commercial revenues by well over 800 million pound fake sponsorship contracts with companies that were based in Abu Dhabi, where the money was actually being paid by the Abu Dhabi United Group. And this violates the rules against direct owner equity injection. Okay. The next thing was concealing the true financial state, misstated accounts, misleading auditor. artificially inflating revenues and lowering true operating expenses by almost a billion hidden compensation and salary schemes and then 35 of the 115 charges were about non-cooperation and failure to be open and honest so serious serious stuff and of course massive consequences because i mean my team as you know is burnley and we were involved in a dispute with everton we got relegated and everton had broken rules way way less serious than this yes and we ended up i think it was getting we got 35 million pound in compensation because we get relegated and the argument was we might not have got relegated if everton who came just outside the relegation zone etc so every club in the premier league could argue that they have lost money as a result of this the questions now do manchester city get relegated do they get kicked out of the league do they get told they can't buy any new players for 10 years i don't know if you know this um michael manchester city are currently five to one to win the premier league and 13 to eight to get relegated from the premier league which is a pretty extraordinary thing and so i i it's a it's a huge this is a huge story that's going to run and run particularly as they've appealed and they could the appeal could last the entirety of the season so they might end up winning the premier league virtually every other club thinking well you didn't deserve to win the ones that you've won let alone this one you're absolutely right there's a sort of double jeopardy here in that it's not just manchester city's sporting achievements that have been tarnished there's hard cash as well because the position in which you finish in the premier league and indeed whether or not you stay in the premier league um determines how much cash you get in the next season and we're talking gazillions here because of the success of the premier league and and and again this is part of it that money invested in uh teams like manchester city have uh attracted international talent they've led to the regeneration of parts of manchester and it's also the case that there are other clubs like uh newcastle that have benefited from saudi investment so it's undeniable the case that the success of the premier league has been a honeypot but because of that those who are perceived or in manchester city's case accused of having garnered an unfair advantage are not just getting extra silverware they're getting extra dollars to a remarkable extent so it becomes a very intense competition with lawyers inevitably being engaged by the other teams and also there's a parable here as well um in the scottish premiership as you know scottish football for a long time is essentially a geopoly between rangers and celtic but rangers were guilty of some very dodgy financial dealings and they were chucked down a couple of leagues they were chucked down a couple of leagues and they were chucked down a couple of leagues exactly they were thrown out of the scottish premier league put into uh the bottom league essentially in scottish football they fought their way back up uh but it was a lesson to them and indeed to scottish football overall but be ever so mighty if you break the fundamental rules of the game then there will be retribution yeah and i suspect that almost everyone who is not a manchester city fan would say that whether or not they should be stripped of past titles they should certainly be relegated uh at the end of this season oh well in which and and because they're such a top club nobody's ever thought they'd get relegated it means that players like erling harland i don't think erling harland has a relegation escape clause in his contract there's a very funny um ai thing i shouldn't laugh at ai because i think it's a menace to the world but of erling harland channeling david brent as he lists all these extraordinary places that he might have been having trouble with um and i think that's a to go to play football in bracken or maidenhead etc i'm gonna say i'm i i find that one different part of this i find very difficult is that howard bernstein who died not long ago and richard lease who are both we've talked about them many times on the podcast they're absolute giants in local government and i i do sort of pause for thought when i hear richard lease say you know he's with manchester city on this now and i must give give a shout out to david collins on the sunday times who's been reporting on this and he's been reporting on this and he's been reporting on this issue for for years and a lot of what limited knowledge i have comes from from reading his stuff and what i hadn't fully understood was the extent to which large parts of manchester are now actually owned by abu dhabi yeah and that this this joint venture that they had called manchester life and they did get decent deals on the land 990 year leases um and richard would argue that the the land was derelict brownfield site nobody else had the money to develop and this was a way to get growth going and indeed growth was got going um but the but of course now that andy is the the prime minister i think you're being very fair in saying that this happened as it were not directly on his watch but it was interesting that he got criticized for coming out and saying i hope that abu dhabi doesn't get pushed out of manchester because people at the time were just seeing this as a football issue and if manchester city cheated as you say they should be punished but obviously what andy burnham knows is the deeper economic link between manchester and um and abu dhabi the success of manchester has been built to a significant extent on its capacity to attract uh investment from abroad and you're quite right richard leeson howard bernstein who led manchester did a very very good job in that regard that achievement now looks like being tarnished but it's made a real beneficial difference to uh the citizens of manchester yeah now a question here from gary in swindon first of all before i ask you a question i'm going to ask you a question i'm going to ask you a question i'm going to ask it michael have you seen any clips or the whole thing in the interview between tucker carlson and your friend jacob reese mogg i have seen clips i haven't seen the whole thing okay and the question is this 20 years ago somebody expressing views like carlson's would have been laughed out of mainstream political discourse as a heretic how does someone go from being a mainstream broadcaster to promoting conspiracy theories historical revisionism and obvious misinformation while retaining an enormous audience that apparently trusts him now i have to say i watched a fair chunk of it i find tucker carlson pretty repulsive um i did have a bit of a run in myself with jacob reese mogg recently when we did a 10th anniversary event with michelle hussein at bloomberg about brexit and he really went on the attack which said to me michael he wasn't very feeling very confident about his um arguments but there we are but my sense is that jacob reese mogg got the better of tucker carlson by some considerable distance i think that's completely true i think that's completely true i think that's completely true i think that's completely correct um one of the interesting things about tucker carlson is that he started out as a sort of relatively mainstream republican figure you know he was a supporter of george w bush and his whole demeanor is very preppy american establishment and when you see him you assume that he would be you know uh one of those sort of you know east coast george bush republican figures but what he's peddling what he's increasingly peddling is the sort of republicanism that uh america had in the 1930s and which we thought that the second world war had extinguished so it's not just isolationist it's isolationist with a tinge of admiration for fascism and when you had that with charles lindbergh before the second world war and also there was a very famous radio broadcaster in the 1930s in america called father cochlan who was a part of that trad cath anti-semitic tradition the feeling was that that was extinguished by the experience of the second world war and the experience of the cold war but um anti-semitism is a light sleeper tucker carlson has started trafficking in that but more than that he's linked it to a variety of other conspiracy theories and one of the trends of our time which is worrying which you've lighted on alistair is the way in which a toxic mix of low economic growth increasing identity politics uh rampant social media has created this system of anti-semitism and anti-semitism has created this system of anti-semitism scope for people to monetize conspiracy theories and prejudices now i'd argue that there are people on the left as well like uh hassan paik are in america who are operating in the opposite pool so i don't think it's just a problem on the right but it's undeniably the case that tucker carlson and also this guy called nick fuentes who's if you could imagine such a thing even worse are uh reviving demons um they are raising uh dark forces from america's buried soul um and the same thing is happening in the uk as well well not not not least not least with i would argue with gb news well of which jacob reese mogg is a prominent player so but i did think i must say i thought he i mean i thought he really came back at tucker carlson well i mean carlson was saying the most ridiculous things yes including some factually stupid things like the russian economy is bigger than the uk economy but when he got on to you know what was the point of britain getting involved in the war in the second world war it was kind of you could see that even jacob was thinking oh god i wonder if i should agree to this conversation yeah so there's a legitimate scholarly debate with some people who revisionist historians who question whether or not uh every aspect of britain's policy in the 1930s and 1940s that's fair enough but you when you get into uh the carlson territory it's beyond that it's a sneaking regard for uh uh hitler uh it's david irving type territory but the one thing i have to do and i have to say this um i think both out of defense of jacob and more broadly is that gb news and i know that you don't like most of the content i can understand why um uh does draw a line um and there are people who have crossed that line who've been thrown off gb news uh the the difference with uh tucker carlson is he hasn't just crossed that line he's trampled over that line with glee and i think that this is something which is it's as much an issue for me and people like me as it is for anyone else which is if you are on the right how do you ensure that in your commitment to free speech that you welcome challenge but you also police a boundary so that when people are trafficking in uh conspiracism or when they are recycling prejudice that you say okay we know what you are you are no longer welcome um on our platform or in our broad team you know i'm i'm very anti-censorship but i also think that there's a responsibility to say that if your title or your uh studio carries with it any sort of prestige or status or reach that you should say no you're out um if people cross certain lines okay well listen that leads me on to a couple of questions we had a lot of questions that were about you michael and the spectator oh yeah james asks whether michael feels any responsibility along with the rest of the right-wing media for jason arday's death and ed asks why is the spectator trying to rehabilitate enoch powell very good questions tough questions for you again um we still don't know all the circumstances surrounding jason arday's death but i think it's absolutely legitimate to have a debate about whether or not this was a story that was blown out of all proportion because um that has ramifications for how people in universities and more broadly see themselves uh i don't think that the media should feel responsibility for jason arday's death i think and here i am making a tentative judgment that for jason arday it wasn't so much the media coverage from the right-wing press it was more the sense that within those people who'd hitherto been supportive of him that there was a withdrawal of support that may have may have contributed to a sense that friends and allies and those upon whom he had relied were less constant that may have contributed to some of his feelings what about the the maybe the lesser accusation which i think i would make that the story took on a tone and a volume that was utterly disproportionate and that only happened that way because people on the right want to say that if a black person gets on it's because they're black and it's the whole dei debate that we've seen become so toxic in the united states and that the left i would agree with you parts of the left-wing media got way way way caught up in that whereas actually i think they should have been challenging the response more than just sort of diving into it themselves i think it's fair to um ask tough questions and and compel people to examine uh what the impact of their coverage might be on wider society within that i would say two things there are other people of color in education uh katherine burble singh who've also been attacked on the other side because of their views so someone like katherine has been very vigorous they attacked by people on the political left sometimes in terms that i would consider to be beyond unchivalrous so there are risks i think you are right in being out there in a debate at the moment where identity politics overall uh has become a a stronger force in our conversation but i also think that quite a lot of the rd criticism wasn't directed at rd himself it was directed at cambridge and in particular there was questioning of the quality of his work and the reason why cambridge were vaunting and giving luster to his work when it was and it seems so graceless of me to to mention this when the poor guy is dead but when his work wasn't necessarily of the standard you'd expect of someone who was a professor in the department of education but when we uh discussed this rory and i discussed at the time we had a long list of people of whom the same and worse could be said of whom there was no media furore whatsoever um and and and the other thing you mentioned catherine birbalsingh who actually gets a she gets a shout out in kemi vaidnok's essay that we talked about because she is one of those people who has a lot of media and political protectors on the right this guy had no media and political protectors anywhere and then the other thing i would say is is the i compare and contrast the coverage of him with the coverage say of james or another cambridge university associate professor who was exposed in that film about farage and funding as a absolute charlatan sort of plain in plain sight to my mind political corruption and yet does anybody who's listening or watching this really know who i'm even talking about because it got next to no coverage they all know about jason arday and they knew about it before his death well the thing about jason arday is that you're right that towards the end some of those who had been his supporters and champions were silent but he did have right until the moment of his death being reported some some very articulate and prominent political and media champions and he had been a significant media presence he'd guest edited the today program on radio four he'd been awarded a uh a book contract by a reputable publisher indeed his memoirs are still available out there and you know his aspects of his story are undeniably affecting so i don't think it was the case that jason arday was a a lone figure who for much of his career was unsupported by a media or political um uh sort of scaffolding that was all there it it crumbled uh towards the end uh more broadly i think it's the case that james or's future has been placed in the spotlight both by cambridge university and by others um including his own party reform as a result of the the allegations that have been made against him and i think that we'll have to wait to see how that plays out uh but i think that to go back to the original question the the spectators coverage and the coverage of other newspapers of the affair was driven to an extent by concern about what was happening in our higher education institutions and one of the pieces that that i wrote under my name which is linked to the arday affair was less about jason arday and more about the person hillary cremin who's the professor who's in charge of the education department and my criticisms of how we're not personal they were about what's going on in her name within her department when it comes to the training of the next generation of teachers and i'm very happy to stand by that critique and indeed if hillary cremin wants to write for the spectator or appear on our baby podcast quite right then brilliant it maybe maybe we could view her on leading together if rory's on holiday again in the future oh you can't keep taking holidays like this michael we have to get a grip of this conservative work ethic um and what about what about the rehabilitation of enoch powell is that a good thing so i don't think that we're actively seeking to rehabilitate enoch powell but i think it is the case that people are interested in the influence of political thinkers from the 60s 70s and 80s and the two things one um my friend and rival tom mctague who's the editor of the new statesman uh wrote a very very good book about britain's relationship with europe called between the waves and in it he takes powell very seriously and he's unsparing in his criticism of what he sees as powell's opportunism and nativism but he's also very interested in powell's ideas um what we did at the spectator was um run a biograph of a woman whose original biography of powell like the roman was published more than a decade ago it's been reprinted and simon reflected on powell's legacy it wasn't an uncritical reflection though on the whole simon thinks that powell was more sinned against than sinning uh and i think that trying to airbrush figures from history is a mistake and as time passes we can have a a genuinely rounded view of their legacy that doesn't necessarily mean and it mustn't mean being negligent about their errors and to be fair overall simon does make the point that there was even though powell presented himself as a fearless truth teller there were disingenuous elements to his character and the speech that got him fired from the shadow cabinet was one which he knew was going to be incendiary even though at the time he pretended uh to some of those around him that he was surprised by the the vehemence of the reaction so yes um powell was disingenuous um and uh he did pretend to being um above base calculations in politics and a fearless truth teller when in fact he was you know thinking about how he could position himself for a future leadership challenge but we've seen all that before um and and i think it's one of the things that both of us recognize that um all politicians are a mix so there is no politician who is without ego or vanity and in the same way almost all politicians may be exceptions to this so i think it's important for us to at least at least have some element of a desire to improve the public realm somewhere in their character okay well listen we've we've covered a lot of ground michael in both in the main episode and now in the q a thank you for standing in for for rory we do like to give our readers of the newsletter a few book recommendations and you've just given one by simon ephors but what what else what are you reading at the moment what do you what do you take to birmingham with you well one thing that i do recommend is johnny mercer's um memoirs oh i read it it's terrific i just read them over the weekend and johnny was a colleague uh he's very honest about the challenges he faced and as you read it you recognize uh uh he's got a formidable sense of humor he's a man of principle he can be an infuriating colleague um but he's also someone who politics was stronger for so um i've enjoyed that and i think it's a great book and then also um i'm i'm just started a new history by a guy called douglas smith uh who's written about rasputin and the russians in the past he's uh written a book about vienna um called a city without jews which is about what happens with the nazi takeover of austria and it's based around the experience of one particular family um and it's the best sort of history because it combines both a big and timely theme and it's a great book and it's a great book and it's a great with close personal detail about the experience of individuals with whom you can identify excellent good well i'm i've just finished because we've got him i don't think it's out yet in the uk but we've got michael lewis coming on the podcast quite soon and he's written this extraordinary book about doge and in particular focusing on the people who tried and in the most cases failed to stand up to doge and i'm now halfway through this absolutely beautiful book by somebody called sophia smith gala who's actually a goldhanger mentee and it's called how to kill a language and it's absolutely beautiful um it's really about the the the loss of languages that we're facing around the world and the she's got this word linguicide oh yes uh so it's a wonderful are you a gaelic speaker at all i'm not a gaelic speaker but i did in the house of lords the other day join forces with katherine mcleod the uh labor baroness i'm in order to put pressure on her and i'm in order to put pressure on her and i'm in order to put pressure on her on the government to properly fund gaelic and um when i was in government uh we set up something called um uh uh the islands forum which was explicitly there to support the island communities in scotland and also in wales um and part of that was making sure that we could have funding for the the gaelic college in lewis um which teaches in the gaelic uh language gaelic medium um and i'm a indigenous languages because i think that they are they're just as much part of our culture as soaring cathedrals or parcel and we've got to do everything we can to keep them alive and um some of the finest poetry of the 20th century was written in gaelic absolutely well that's very good michael that you were using your time in the house of laws for good for once unlike when you were playing such a central role in in putting an end to the assisted dying bill but it's my podcast i will have the final word you're not coming back on that one thank you very very much uh for both episodes i've thoroughly enjoyed both of them thanks very much alistair see you soon see you soon tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't and with bj's gas she gets there for less they call me the road warrior this is your home road warrior mom home of the save join for just 20 at bj's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save i wrote a little song to remind you choice hotels get you more of the experiences you value the cambria hotels got it all a rooftop bar have a ball bring a date your squad or even your mom book Direct at choicehotels.com.