574. Germany’s Political Disaster and Can the Lib Dems Fight Back?

When Angela Merkel was busy serving over 16 years as the Chancellor of Germany, her party was the CDU and her constituency base was Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. At the regional election there at the weekend, the far-right Alternative for Deutschland topped the poll and Merkel's party secured precisely zero seats. The current Chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz calls it a disaster. It is also a political earthquake. There was another one in Berlin, where the hard-left Die Linke party topped the poll, driving the CDU out of government there. Germany is the third largest economy in the world, it sits right at the heart of the whole future of the EU and is increasingly central to how Europe funds its own defence. The AfD and Die Linke are existential threats to Germany's membership of the EU and of NATO. So is this just a German domestic story or is it actually the story that determines what happens? To Europe's security and our future. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. 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Visit fuseenergy.com for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought to you by NordVPN. And I must thank NordVPN because on my grand European tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go. I actually had a NordVPN. And thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creef. And of course, the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. It was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks. Well, I think you're not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this. Or should I say Fiona managed to do this? I'm incredibly proud of you. It's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com slash rest is politics. That's nordvpn.com slash rest is politics. And the link is in the episode description. A better help ad. Imagine carrying a backpack every day, every conversation, every mistake, every expectation. You probably wouldn't notice how heavy it was until someone asked if you wanted to put it down. Sometimes feeling better starts exactly like that. Better isn't one size fits all. Better is personal. It's therapy tailored to you to help lighten what you've been carrying. Match with a therapist who truly gets you. Visit betterhelp.com slash rest politics. Welcome to the rest of this politics question time with me, Roy Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. Range of really interesting. Questions that have come in. But the ones that are really driving it that we're going to be discussing today are the results in the German elections where you absolutely understand Germany are going to take us into the hearts of what's happening, not just with the far right, but now with the far left in the most important economy and political force in Europe. Then we're going to talk about rural Britain, much neglected. What's happening with rural affairs? How do we think about rural communities in summer like Britain? We're going to get into the perennial subject of the Lib Dems and what their future could be. What's the future for central, socialist parties in Britain? We're going to talk about some more fun subjects, whether we could do longer interviews. We're going to talk about languages versus instruments. You're going to touch on the Royal National Lifeboat incident and particularly far right protests against their escorting migrants. And maybe we'll get on to the question ultimately of hope. And we're starting, Alistair, with a question from our listener, Valentin. Should Merz be replaced as Keir Starmer was? Should Friedrich Merz, the Chancellor of Germany, be replaced? And this, of course, is in the wake of this catastrophic election result in the province of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. And how do you say that in German? Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Well, it's very hard to replace him if he doesn't want to go because the only way to do it would be to have a vote of confidence, which he loses. And then you would almost certainly be forced into an election, which you would also, on these results, clearly lose. And the results, just quickly, as an explainer, before you do the commentary, AFD. The alternative for Deutschland, the far right party, 38.2%. SPD, the traditional kind of Labour party equivalent, 35.5%. And the CDU, which is a traditional Tory equivalent, which is Friedrich Merz's own party, and this is running in Angela Merkel's own state, and she was, of course, the CDU leader, got below 5%, 4.9%, lost all its seats. So, I mean, it's sort of unimaginable. It would be like. The Tories being, I don't know, wiped out in a key seat where one of their leaders had been. Yeah, absolutely. No, it is unimaginable. I mean, if you think that when Fiona and I were in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern a few months ago, the hotel that we stayed in had a massive portrait of Angela Merkel on the wall. It's like her territory. And she won. She was an MP there for 30 years. She was four terms as chancellor. And in little or no time, they've gone to a place. This is the first time ever. The CDU will have no representation in a regional parliament. And then before we come back to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, there was this other election in Berlin, which is its own regional parliament, which was won by Die Linke, which is this very left-wing party. And this is, again, was previously Christian Democrat. It was previously CDU. Also there, the Social Democrat party did really badly. And what's interesting about what's happened in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, people might think, well, this is good for the SPD. But the truth is that Manuela Svezi, who was the minister president there and the candidate, she fought a campaign that was very much about vote for me. This isn't a party, vote for me. And added to it, she probably had a lot of tactical voting in her favor. Precious vote. I'm the only person who can really take on the AFD. So she will have got a lot of Well, her slogan was Die Frau gegen Blau, the woman against blue. Okay. And. So she will have picked up. Except Die Linke votes, CDU votes. Yeah. And she will have. Look, one of the reasons why the CDU will have dropped below the 5% threshold that you have to get before you can get any seats in parliament, one of the reasons will be the CDU voters, I suspect, some of them will have voted for her as a protest against the AFD. That being said, it is catastrophic. Friedrich Merz came out straight away, did a press conference and said it's a disaster. And it is. And it's also, it's an earthquake, I would say. And the thing is, it's more, it's complicated, though. It's not simply saying the AFD are on the march. Because over in Berlin, you've got them attacking from the left. And the Berlin thing is a double-edged sword. So this vote for Die Linke, which, as you say, is a pretty far-left populist party. I mean, it's got elements of the East German Communist Party. It was running on tickets that including things like the expropriation of all corporate landlords in Berlin, as well as, you know, stuff you love, like wealth taxes and all this kind of. Yeah. Stuff that you want to lean into. And stuff I really hate, though, like very, like the AFD, leaning into anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia, very, very weak on NATO. So. Committed traditionally to leaving NATO, aren't they? Yeah. And a deep strain of anti-Semitism. Yeah. Now, that was something I really wanted to look at. So, credible young vote for Die Linke. And something like 45% of young women voted for Die Linke. I was talking to a friend who is a young woman, plays football in Berlin. Everybody who plays football with her voted for Die Linke. And they were mostly driven by Gaza. Yep. Because they feel that the German government hasn't represented them on their horror about Gaza. The police have been pretty brutal when they've done demonstrations in favor of Gaza. But there is this very nasty undercurrent, particularly not at the leadership level, but down of proper anti-Semitism. Now, the problem there is the Springer Group of newspapers is now using this to say, the AFD is not the problem. Die Linke is the problem. And this is going to be a really dangerous thing because it will normalize the AFD because they will be presented as the people who aren't anti-Semitic. So, I wondered whether actually the time hasn't come for the centrist parties, the equivalent of Labour, the equivalent of Conservatives, the Greens, CDU, SPD, Greens, to come together and say, we're going to exclude Die Linke in Berlin. And we're also going to take the opportunity to the AFD to the constitutional court. And maybe the price of that is that the CDU gets the mayorship in Berlin as part of a deal that says, we are against all forms of extremism. We are against the anti-Semitism from Die Linke. We're not going to go into coalition with Die Linke unless they really- Well, that has been their position for some time. So Merz has been clear that he sees the radical populist left probably not as bad as the AFD and certainly not as popular across the country, but they're both, they see them both as needing this firewall. The famous firewall, the Brandt Mauer, this is where the mainstream parties essentially say, we will never go into government with the AFD. And the CDU being clear that they don't want to go into government with Die Linke either. So the firewall- Once the numbers get bigger and bigger and bigger, if they do, then in a way, the firewall collapses because they get power anyway. The question that Valentine's asking about whether and how you get rid of Merz, interestingly, the CDU minister presidents, of which there are a few in the different lender, they came together very, very quickly and said, we're backing him. One exception was Markus Söder, who's the leader of the CSU, their sister party in Bavaria, who probably- At some point does fancy his chances of going for the top job. The only one that people seriously talk about as a possible successor is this guy, Hendrik Wüst, W-U with an umlaut, love a good umlaut, Wüst. And he is the minister president of Nordrhein-Westphalia. Now there's two problems with him, well, that he will be thinking. One is they've got an election in six months time. He is popular, and he probably thinks he can win that and buck the trend. But, you know, it's going to be tough because all elections are tough at the moment. But so he's probably thinking, why on earth would I want to take on this basket case politics in Berlin, where this coalition seems not to be working? And Merz, in a way, Merz really is in a tough place, because he's essentially saying, and he's not wrong, we have got to make some very, very serious reforms here. But let me- On the surface, what Merz is saying appeals to sort of centrist Tories like me, because it sounds like it's pro-brisness. We've got to sort out welfare and pensions. We've got to grow the German economy. At another level, it is unbelievably unpopular. I mean, his popularity rating is now down about 14%. I think it's going lower than that. Unbelievable. And it's a warning for Andy Burnham, actually, in a way in which, because really, what are the big picture stories? The big picture stories are still international. What do you do about Russia, Ukraine? And how do you make sure Germany remains properly integrated into Europe? And what are the AFD and Die Linke? They are existential threats to Germany's membership of the European Union, its membership in NATO. So I would be thinking that the big narrative that you need to be putting out in Germany for all the centrist parties is we are fighting for the existential future of Europe, NATO, and our insecurity. And actually, tinkering around with the pensions is fine. But that's not the main message, because that will have to be done again for demographic reasons. And you're never going to win an election on, we're going to cut your pensions. And Macron, they say on Ukraine, he's been great. But should we not see this? Is this not, again, to return to what we did in yesterday's episode, a great opportunity to use the Carney middle power reset to not just rebrand Mertz, but make the world a better place? Obviously, yes. My problem, thinking from his perspective, is that going to work? I mean, the AFD is now avowedly, openly saying, you know, Ukraine is a problem. So lean into it, have an argument with him. That's exactly the argument he should be having, right? Well, I think he's tried to do that. Why is it not connecting? I just don't know. I think they're in this place where there's a rejection. There's just a rejection of the so-called uni party. And they now talk so openly about it. They basically talk about the CDU and social democrats as one and the same thing. Both Die Linke on the left and the AFD on the right. Look, he's in a hellish position. Absolutely hellish. I mean, to have to cancel his visit to the United Nations General Assembly, because he's having to deal with the fallout from this is not a good place to be. The other thing that German people will say to me is that, you know, Wust is the nearest to it, but there kind of isn't an Andy Burnham in the wings. There isn't anybody that they can say, yeah, that's an obvious. And there was something obvious about Andy Burnham. And he sort of, you know, developed that profile and that sense of the change that he wanted to bring. There just isn't anybody there. So, but I, listen, I agree with you. And his back is right against the wall. What do you do when your back's against the wall? You've got to really come out fighting. And the fight to have, I agree with you, is about these big existential questions facing what is Germany about? And also these people, they're very good. This is why I so worry about the 72 million pounds of reform. They're very good at campaigning. And what you can do with 70 million quid in terms of hiring organizers in every part of the country, you know, you're talking about every postcode, they can get organizers in every postcode. Media lies and disinformation that they can pump out, which is a lot of which we saw in the, in these German elections. So this is, this is really, really alarming. And the consequences for Europe, for NATO, they are absolutely massive. It is an economy which is right at the heart of the whole future of the European Union, increasingly with its defense spending, all European security. And if anything's really going to determine, you know, what happens with the middle powers, it's Germany. So we're not just talking about Germany, because you happen to know a lot about Germany, but actually Germany sorting itself out is the answer to so many of the problems we're talking about around the world. Yeah. Sent in their own question with a video with a cow walking the background. And it's Minette Batters, the former head of the National Farmers Union, who we interviewed on Leading. And here's the question. The countryside, it's fair to say, has had a really, really challenging time recently. On this farm, we faced into our worst harvest ever. And although everything looks green now, this has been a dust bowl for my cows for many months. And we've been feeding our winter forage throughout the year. And on the back of this year comes a real challenge for the countryside and what they've faced into. We've had a run of policies on tax, on traditional country pursuits, on horse racing, all of which have left the rural community feeling that government is working against them and not with them. So my question to you. My question to the Prime Minister is how do we achieve a proper rural reset, one that can deliver on his aims of growth in every postcode? Here, here. Well, I thought one of the clever things she did there, actually, is to tie into making it positive that it's not we're victims. In the end, she was saying, the Prime Minister believes in growth in every postcode. And the big question is, what's he going to do for rural Britain? Well, I agree with that. I wouldn't make it. I really wouldn't. I think they've got enough to go on. And so I thought, Minette, we interviewed Minette on Leading a while back. She's very clever. She's a good campaigner. She probably thought, I know what I'll do. I'll send a little video to Rory and then I'll bet he'll want to do it on Question Time. He'll be on my side. But we've been in hunting. Anyway, what is the answer to the question about the reset? Listen, where I've got massive sympathy is for, you know, I speak to people in farming who, you know, it's a lot of people. Economically, it is a massive challenge, particularly small farmers. It's a massive challenge. And the drought, I read the other day, is that we need seven months of rain without stop to get the country out of drought. That is terrifying. Therefore, we need to do more on climate change. I think the inheritance tax situation is, and it's become one of those things, my sense is that even those who don't feel terribly affected by it, it's become something that they all talk about all the time. Yeah. And it's- Can I just explain it for a second? It's actually about the fact that rural areas are very different to urban areas. And one of the strongest examples is around small farming. So some of the farms in my constituency could be a small upland farm where people are reporting tiny incomes, maybe 6,000, 10,000 pounds a year. But they could be sitting on an inherited family farm, which they might have been on for many, many generations, which could be worth many millions if they were to sell it. They don't want to sell it. They want to continue farming. And this is something the government finds it very difficult to understand because we're in a very materialistic world where an economist looks at it and says, it's not efficient allocation of resources, sell your farm, put it on the stock market or whatever, right? But the backbone of rural life, the people that keep the roads clear, the people that get their kids into school, the whole character of these areas is driven by people who have a vocation in farming. But that is not possible if they have to pay inheritance tax when they pass those farms on to their kids. And these DEFRA figures that keep being produced on where they claim almost nobody will be affected, it doesn't make sense to me. I can think of so many farms in my constituency, and that's just one out of 650 constituencies that would be directly affected by this and make it difficult to pass on their land to their kids. And it's also, if they're acquiring more land in order to build a farming business, they're trying to build a farming business multi-generationally. They're trying to invest in the land, hoping their grandson, their great-grandson can keep farming this stuff. If they begin thinking, "Well, as soon as I acquire a bit more than this, it's going to be a huge inheritance tax bill, and the guy's going to have to settle off the whole structure." So where would I go to on this? I would say, we need to recognize that rural areas are amazing. They're attracting incredible, energetic, young, retired people from all around the country, but that's driving up property prices. The councils are not getting the revenue. Services are much more expensive. Buses were a problem in my constituency back in the day, but rural buses have fallen by another 18% in just the last five years. That was a catastrophe enough in 2010. It's getting worse and worse and worse and worse. The number of farms, farms is dropping all the time. Almost everything that people relied on, their local magistrate's court, their local community hospital, the local fire station, the police station, the bank, all these things are vanishing. We're hollowing out these communities. And that's why I think Manette is wonderful in saying, "Let's make it positive." There are a hundred Labour MPs now in rural areas. It's all about growth in every postcode, but let's not make it London or even Manchester-style growth. It's a growth that reflects what these areas are and what people want there. But that is why I think, so for example, the Countryside Alliance, who were a very, very effective campaigning organisation when we were in power, they might argue they didn't achieve all the things they did, but they've done 27 demands of the government. Most of them are actually about hunting and shooting. I think they should move away from that. I really do. I think where she's absolutely right is I think you could build, because this is what happens in politics. Leaders get identified with certain postures and certain phrases and certain policy priorities. And of all the language that Andy Burnham has been using, growth in every postcode is kind of getting through to people. That's what he's trying to do. So what I think is really clever about what Manette did was actually to say, "Look, he's saying growth in every postcode. We've got a lot of postcodes out here that look like this, with trees and farms and cows and sheep and all the rest of it. So what's your strategy and what's your plan for us?" And the truth is, in a way, they are one of those sectors, one of those communities. You could argue they get, I think they get reasonable attention. You still have the BBC farming program, if you get up really, really early. But generally, they're not in the political debate. So your point, I think if you ally her point, growth in every postcode, with the point that you just made, that Labour have a lot of rural MPs now, you've got the making of a strategy there. I think if you make a strategy all about hunting and shooting, you're not going to get the support you need. I think some of the stuff that's come out, it's been great stuff from your friend, David Blunkett, in a very small way. Middleland published this week, paperback edition, is an attempt to provide a kind of manifesto for these areas. It's an attempt to try to say to the Treasury in London, what is it that Cumbria is like? What do they really need? What do people care about? What kind of policies do you need to make an area like that feel alive and thriving rather than the kind of marginalised place with weird templates being imposed from London? So- David Blunkett, who I saw this week, he's one of our interviewees for the mini-series we're going to do on Perseverance in a few weeks after you've shocked and terrified us with your existential threat series. But he's very engaged in this. And actually he and David Cameron teamed up quite recently to do something together. So I think you can, I guess what I'm saying to Minette is I'm not saying there aren't people in Labour who might have strong views on hunting, but hunting and shooting is so. Identified with the right. We also need more rural representation, particularly in places like the House of Lords that used to have a lot of people who knew about the countryside who farmed. There are fewer and fewer now. Well, partly because they got rid of all the hereditaries, which I know you wanted to do. But the one thing that they had in common is that they were generally people who actually ran farms, understood- You know, they were just major landowners. Were they really out there milking the cows in the morning? I'm not so sure. They certainly knew far more about rural areas than most other people in the House of Lords. So they're actually struggling to man the committees. They're struggling to get people speaking in debates. So that's another thing. If we're going to keep an appointed House of Lords, we need to keep thinking about rebalancing to make sure these different interests have a voice. Yeah. So as a pledge to Minette and to all our rural listeners, we will come back to this at some point. And also in the newsletter this week, we've got a piece from Julian Glover. Former Guardian correspondent, former speechwriter for David Cameron, who is very concerned in his case, in the Peak District, about how to think about proper rural policy for Britain. If you haven't signed up, sign up at therestispolities.com/newsletter. Okay. Well, let's take a break and then we'll come back and talk about- First thing we're going to talk about is the Lib Dem Conference, and then we'll get on to some more jolly questions for Question Time. 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 screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's wholesale club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices, beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. 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/mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's, home of the Save. Hi, everybody. It's Dominic Sandbrook here from The Rest is History, and we are here to tell you about a thrilling new series on the blood-soaked climax of the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror. So the French Revolution is one of the most significant episodes in the whole of world history. It essentially lays the foundations for contemporary politics as we know it, but it is also unbelievably dramatic. We'll be discussing the murder of the firebrand Jean-Paul Marat in his bathtub. We will be going to the guillotine with Marie Antoinette. And in our final episode, we will be telling the story of the extraordinary and grotesque downfall of one of the chief architects of the terror, one of the most evil men in history, some would say, Maximilien Robespierre. So if you want to hear this epic series, search for The Rest is History wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to The Rest is Politics, leading with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alastair Campbell. And Rory, you're gagging to talk about your friends, the Lib Dems. Well, question from David. Rory said the Lib Dems can't get these middle-third flexible voters. Why not? Sorry, Rory, what is a middle-third flexible voters? Where did you say this? I think David's referring to the fact that there's been some really interesting polling suggesting that there is a very optimistic, often younger, more dynamic third of the voting population, which is quite different, strangely, from either left-wing labor voters or right-wing Tory reform voters in so many different things. They're more confident about the economy. They're more relaxed about immigration. They're more interested in global alliances, and they feel better about their lives. And they should be the natural central vote. And the Lib Dems, I think, are somehow struggling to really animate and excite them, just being the Lib Dem conference. And I just thought there's something kind of heartbreaking about it. I mean, we've kept saying for years now that I thought Ed Davies should be taking more of a national, international position. They've got 70 seats in the House of Commons. It's huge. And I still believe the right leader would be able to turn that into a formidable fighting force, preparing to go into coalition, after the next election, probably with labor. It's a likely scenario. So it could be incredible. And they probably won't lose those 70 seats either. Those are pretty safe seats because the Tories, in their monstrous mistakes, have basically lost what were Tory seats to the Lib Dems because a lot of traditional Tory voters, like me, are so horrified by the right-wing lurch that they're going to the Lib Dems. Do you think the Tories are going the way of the CDU? I think the Tories are in real danger, real, real danger. And they're in real, real danger because that's even worse than the CDU position. Because I don't think they're going to be able to, in the end, capture back those reform voters. But the sort of voters that David Cameron built his coalition on have gone to labor in the Lib Dems. And I'm not sure they're coming back anymore. So some have gone to the Lib Dems. Of those 70 seats, an enormous number of them were Tory seats. And the Tories have vanished. I mean, it's incredible. Places like Sussex, where the Tories were once dominant, I mean, they barely have a seat on the council. They barely appear in places like Lewis and Hastings. It's weird what's happened to the Tories. They have stepped up the gas a little bit on Europe. Now talking about, you know, we've got to get back into the single market and the customs union. This is the Lib Dems, not the Tories. And they've also, you know, big speech saying we need global regulation on we need to think about AI safety. But so the question I guess for you is, how do we get to this world where I will say on the show, "Why are they not talking back international issues?" And then they will come back to me with a series of furious WhatsApp saying, "We are literally taking something identical to your position on everything from middle powers to Europe to AI. Why the hell are you not reporting on it?" And the answer is that, I mean, I do have a lot of sympathy for the Lib Dems, and I think it goes back to our culture and our media culture. Their conference coincided with Charles Spencer's book that we talked about, "Anything to do with Royal Scandal." And it used to be that that would, okay, be very big fodder for the papers, but it's now like all the media will go for one big story. And you almost feel sometimes like, unless it's Trump, although I think even thankfully, I think that's fading a bit, but there was a point at which, you know, unless it was Trump, you weren't getting much debate about politics more generally. So I think the downmarket sort of thrust of much of our media, not all, and I don't want to tell them all the same brush, but you know, generally, my view is that something like the Liberal Democrat conference, regardless of whether journalists think it's a bit dull, regardless of whether they think the positions aren't radical or exciting, should be covered, should be covered on all of our TV channels. I don't mean live, I just mean that it should be taken seriously, should be covered seriously. Not as a sort of add-on, especially when you compare it with the way that the media cover reform, with what is it, seven MPs, six or seven MPs, the Lib Dems have got tons of them. Now you can complain, and I can criticize the Lib Dems for not understanding how you need to build a profile, why they need to do better than they are. But I think it is unfair to treat them like, you know, well, if they're not going to be as interesting as reform, we're not going to cover them as much as reform. Here's an idea for you. I think part of the problem is they don't really believe in themselves. They don't really see themselves as a national governing party. And that is foolish, because we're in a world where, over the last four years, all over the world, parties collapse, parties explode. I mean, everything we cover is about the fact you can't assume where you were four years ago is where you're going to be again in four years' time, right? So I would like to see them presenting themselves almost like a Mamdani insurgent party. I'd like them out in every constituency, out on the street. Everybody would like to see them. Everybody doing cool social media, giving a sense of a party that's really moving, and that could actually get a majority at the next election. I think they're in a defensive crouch. They're like the England football team in the final stage of that ghastly World Cup. Okay, interesting. Rory brings in football commentary of the Lib Dem Conference. Thank you very much indeed for that. Anyway, yeah, I watched Ed Davies' speech. Look, he's not a great orator. He's got a nice manner and a nice style, but there's something… There's a fire in his belly. There's a fire. Does he feel like somebody who's campaigning to win, who's disrupting, who's pushing, who's driving the national conversation? Probably not. Probably not. Will they think that their conference went quite well? Because that would speak to complacency if they did. But listen, it's bloody frustrating. I remember there was a press officer called Olly Grender back in the day when I was on The Mirror, and we used to make jokes. She'd come down every day with these press releases, every day, all around the press gallery. And, you know, I love your perseverance. So you've been doing it for 40 years? 40 years. This has been a problem for me. It has been a problem, but they only break through sometimes on an issue. Charles Kennedy on Iraq. Nick Clegg got some breakthroughs. Nick Clegg got into government. So the right leader could really give a sense of energy and possibility. Well, there was a bit of talk around the conference about whether they needed to replace Ed Davey with Daisy Cooper. Daisy Cooper was very, very clear, not interested. Ed's going to be there till the election. Is Daisy Cooper the kind of the Mamdani Burnham figure they need? She's got a bit of fire in her belly. Anyway, they're not in a great place, but as you say, they should be in a better place. But honestly, I think it's bloody hard for them, really hard. They need to think again about what they're doing. They do. Why don't you help them? Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, if I was involved, I would be making the pitch that they're going to be the next government. And I would say, we're in a world where everything can change in two years. And take the fight out to everybody in every constituency, make the big national arguments. Because that's what effectively reformed us. Why are people interested in reform? Because they think they could be the next prime minister. Why is nobody interested in the Lib Dems? They're giving the impression they've got 70 seats. They'll always have 70 seats. And all they've got to do is do the right campaign. I think they've set themselves a goal of getting 100. It's not enough. The goal should be 300. Okay. All right. Okay. Think big, says Rory Stewart. Right. Talking of thinking big and long, Carl, when will you do proper two to three-hour conversations with guests? We've done some, but we put them into parts. Listen, Carl, you may think you're going to be the next prime minister, but you're not going to be. You may think that we just live in a studio for your benefit, to give you our wisdom. We have lives to live. We have things to do beyond the podcast. Would you? But I was quite interested in this. I wouldn't mind. So Joe Rogan does them, obviously, famously. Is it that you sort of think that the audience would lose attention or is it. I mean, why don't we do longer? Well, we have to. Who have we done? We've done a few two-parters, haven't we, with Theresa Mage or Major. But as you say, the two-parters sort of implies we don't quite trust people to stick with the Joe Rogan three-hour. The three-hour is quite interesting, isn't it? Because it reminds me of. My father had a friend who was an interrogator and he was famous for being the best interrogator. Oh, interrogation is a different matter. I don't know about a long interrogation. But he would just sort of ground people down through. Actually, he was famous because he was so boring that people would tell him everything by the end of three hours, just to get out of the room. Oh, he wasn't sort of torturing and stuff like that? No, no, no. His technique was to be so persistently dull that by the end, you'd tell him anything to get out of the room. Well, it's not going to make a very good podcast, is it? Well, except I'm hoping. I'm hoping. Oh, God. I'm hoping that we'd be really dull for two and a half hours. And then, finally, in desperation in the last half hour, they'd drop their guard and release some incredible sort of revelation. Yeah. Well, look, if. Who would you. If you. Very difficult for a politician to just repeat the same line for three hours. I think there is something quite interesting about it. Because if you'd been advising a politician on the sticky book, you'd tell them not to do a three-hour interview. Okay, Carl, we will do this. Let's get our listeners and viewers to tell us who do they think they would listen to, talking to us for three hours. Who would we want to talk to for three hours? All these Lib Dem names are running through my head, and I'm not going to mention them, because it would be mean. Go on, then. I'd talk to your friend, the King, for three hours. I'd definitely talk to the Pope for three hours. Would you talk to Rishi Sunak for three hours? Three hours would be a stretch. Yeah, I think I would. Yeah, you could. It'd be a stretch, though. It'd be a stretch. Okay. What you'd probably have to do is, like, a lot on his life, a lot on his childhood, but then you'd. I think an hour is pretty. Would Blaise Metruoli do her three hours? Blaise, head of MMS6, three hours? No, because I don't think she'd be able to give what we'd want over three hours. I think she'd be brilliant over three hours, but maybe she'd have to be discreet. Discretion is always a bit of a problem for three hours. No, I think for an hour, Braise would be great, and there is a plan. Don't worry, we've got a plan. I've just read this book, Profiles in. Cowardice. Cowardice. I'd actually love to get George W. Bush for three hours. One, because he never does interviews, so he probably won't ever do it. Two, because he's actually a much more interesting character than people think. Why don't we lean into this? We can fly out to Texas to see him. He won't do it. Really? Pretty sure. Pretty sure. I've asked, yeah. Let's try again. Okay, we'll try again, but listen, he's done no interviews since he left office. Such a lovely idea. What a great. The Profiles in Cowardice book, it has him as. This is going to lose us the interview. It has him as one of the Profiles because he says nothing about Trump. That doesn't sound very good. No. So I don't think he'd do it. Romney would be good, wouldn't it? Romney? Romney, three hours. No, you wouldn't do Romney for three hours. Do you know who I'd love to do, but he's dead? Yeah. Lee Kuan Yew. Lee Kuan Yew would be great. I'd love Lee Kuan Yew for three hours. I thought for some horrible section, you're going to mention some football manager or something. I'm sure he'd die for three hours, I think so. Okay, Carl, we'll leave that with us. We'll have a think about it. Here's a great question, Rory. Dylan, would you rather be a master of languages or instruments? Well, this is really a question for you. No, it's not because you're a. Come on, come on then. Would you. Go on. Languages in my case, how about you? I think languages, but I'll tell you what, if I could play. I only play the bagpipes. I think if you could play the piano really, really, really, really beautifully, I think that would be quite a cool thing. Be an amazing thing, wouldn't it? Yeah. Be a really, really amazing thing. Just a little plug for Perseverance, a lovely moment in it where you reveal that one of the reasons your German got so good is that Fiona pushed you back to focus on German during COVID. Yeah, because she knew that I would be impossible to live with imprisoned without being able to live my normal life. No, it's one of the best things ever. I actually love being able to speak. When I go to Italy, I can understand a lot what's going on, but I find it really stressful that I can't engage properly. Engage properly, yeah. So I think languages, but I've got to say my bagpipes have given me an awful lot of pleasure over my life. Okay. Here's a serious one for you, Alistair. Julia, your thoughts on the attacks on the RNLI, Royal National Lifeboat? Oh, just. Disgusting, horrible, revolting. We'll remind people what's been going on. So the point is the RNLI have actually been saving migrants' lives, so often escorting them across the channel. And one of the things that I think really struck people is there was imagery of the French escorting these boats essentially out of French waters and then them being met by British boats and then escort them all the way to Britain. And I can see why the public would be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're told these guys are illegal migrants, that we don't want them crossing from France, and here's these visions." So basically, they set off in their rubber dinghy, and the French escort them and then hand them over to the English, and the English escort them through. The RNLI are an extraordinary organization, and they're exist around our coastline, mainly volunteers to go out and rescue people at sea, which is incredibly dangerous. And so I think that as a result of this hard right protests and these guys in balaclavas putting online the names, the faces, and in some cases, the addresses of people who are working for the RNR, it is utterly disgusting. Even worse in a way, well, it's all bad. There was actually an RNIB, Royal National Institute for the Blind, that came under attack because some of these idiots didn't realize that the RNIB was different to the RNLI. And now you've had in Portsmouth, seaside, sea, the RNLI actually saying they've had to shut down their RNLI base because of all the attacks they've been getting. And this is what gets me, gets my goat about, I'd love to talk to Nigel Farage about this when he comes in for his three-hour interview. The way that he will light a fire and then go away. So he at one point described the RNLI as being like a migrant taxi service. Okay. Now I get that as a piece of rhetoric, but you can't then divorce that from this kind of thing happening when people that you will then say are more extreme than you go out and put these people under pressure. The reason obviously to explain this strange phenomenon is the RNLI would say they're not political. Their major objective is to stop people dying and- Yeah. The fact is it's unbelievably dangerous crossing the channel in a small boat and people have died. And so they feel they need to save their lives. Now, the answer to this, keep coming back to, is we need to have a proper agreement in place with France, Belgium, Europe. Yeah. But while we don't, you need charities like this who will do the work that nobody else appears to want to do. And let's just think, what are they actually saying? What are they saying in saying that this organization, which existed, rescue people at sea, are they saying that actually if anybody gets into distress while trying to cross the channel, that actually they should just die? That's what they're saying. Yeah. They're saying that the possibility of death might deter people from crossing. It doesn't actually deter people from crossing. People will just cross anyway and they'll die. No, it's worse than that. It's not even about the deterrence. It's the fact they say, well, they deserve to die. And nobody should help them. And if they help them, we should attack them. Anyway, I hope I'm not the only person who as a result of these people, protesting as they did, made a reasonably sized donation to the RNIL, hasn't we? I hope lots of people do the same. A great organization. One of my formative experiences as a journalist was the Penley lifeboat disaster. A long, long time ago, back in the early 80s. And it was just a lifeboat that went out and was lost. These organizations are amazing. I mean, mountain rescue teams, also extraordinary cave rescue teams, air ambulances, a lot of these things. When we talk about talking to Gordon Brown about what was his, his twin thing that, you know, we've got breakdown of the world order, but then we also have breakdown of community and civic churches, trade unions, people wanting to volunteer to support things in their locality. So for these people, then to sort of turn this into a campaign for their racist, you know, right, far right stuff. Disgusting. So Rory, there's me complaining that I'm too busy. It's not very good for my brand of saying that I'm too busy that you add something else. to your portfolio this is from kate could rory talk a bit about his new position at the lse thanks francis what lse module are you teaching rory well this has been a big change i'm very very grateful london school of economics as you know i was teaching at yale and you're no longer doing that i'm doing a little bit oh i see you drop something to pick up something basically because i suddenly thought i love teaching students and then i thought it can't be that the only students in the world are in america and i have to keep flying back and forth across the atlantic surely i can find some students in britain who might be prepared to put up with me yeah and london school of economics looks like they might be able to do that um yes i want to talk about the difficulty of politics and the reality of it so i'm about to give a lecture in a course taught by somebody called johnny hall on british diplomacy and international development talk about what it's like being a minister but i also want to talk about hope i want to talk about what we do about a world where the old world has collapsed and a new world is being built in the difficult circumstances of an american president like trump and ai and the way it accelerates everything and how we do talk about things like middle powers and how we construct values and a better future so i'm really looking forward to it i'll do it with some public lectures i'm also not this year but next year we'll be doing some seminars where i'll be sitting with smaller groups of students uh going through readings together discussing um and it's lovely i love teaching good excellent well you mentioned hope there on the way to the studio this morning i will stop by a guy just around the corner who said he came to our show at the festival hall and he said that when we brought on miles in on and aziz abusara the israeli and the palestinian who now lost the members of their family in the violence and who now campaign together on peace he said that he took his young son and they left watching them talk to us with hope this week podcast you i'm so glad you talked about hope in the context with the lse because you remember the every year now there's this campaign be hope trying to get podcasts to be more hopeful and we've been pretty gloomy on lots of things this week but let's just end with this question from sir tim berners-lee inventor of the world wide web etc when we look back at history major technological shifts from the nuclear age to the birth of the internet have forced humanity to invent new models of global cooperation in an era marked by geopolitical friction competing interest what gives you hope that governments industry and civil society can still come back to the ground to tackle new challenges for the common good rather than letting them deepen our divisions yeah then he mentions ai well look it couldn't be a better question could it he's he's been driving on trying to set up a cern for ai we're doing this at the time of the un general center we're doing it when we're talking about khani um i think interestingly i'm much less gloomy than i used to be because i think people like khani and to some extent tim berners-lee are suggesting what the shape of things could be even with ai you're beginning to see the shape of things that are going to be the things like the king's summit actually with details this is how verification is going to work this is how international cooperation could work so i think we can develop quite a hopeful vision local level could be devolution civil society international level alliance of middle powers and then work out what the missing components are you know we talked about a un secretary general who could really begin intervening directly in state conflicts and peace so i think we need to think about what the missing components are so i think we need to think about what the missing components are so i think we need to think about what the missing components are and also the ways in which the challenges we see today may not be the challenges in five years time five years ago we wouldn't have been talking about ai now ai is absolutely central to everything burnham's saying at the un right so who knows what demography will do what climate will do what poverty will do what flooding will do but we need the structures to do that which is why it would be such a pity if burnham didn't rise the challenge if mertz became more and more domestically focused in germany rather than taking germany's leadership role in the world we desperately need everyone japan south korea australia to be following that canadian lead and that's what gives me hope over to you i actually found gordon brown's interview hopeful he's over at the un now sort of you know banging the drum for the things that he believes in i think what tim is saying and what we're saying and what you're saying about your course and what this be hope campaign is about is it's so easy to just feel completely downcast by all the stuff that we hear all the stuff that we see and we shouldn't sugarcoat problems there are massive problems out there but i i thought it was interesting at the festival hall when we asked them asked for a show of hands on who was pretty happy with their own lives and most people said yes now lots of people some people aren't happy with their own lives but i think there is a disconate we talk about the disconate between politics and people i think sometimes there's a disconate with people's sense of the world as a whole and the sense of their place within it and the latter tending to be more and so that's what keeps me hope and also as i keep telling you that you do the students i i love talking to school kids because they give me hope some of them are a complete nightmare but a lot of them are not and they've got a better take on the world that we give them credit for brilliant well let's let's finish on that thank you very much bye-bye 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 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 twenty dollars 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