570. Why Trump Acts Like a Russian Asset and Miliband’s West Bank Sanctions

Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have just held talks with Vladimir Putin and President Zelensky. It's the latest chapter in a betrayal that goes back to the start of Trump's second term. And here's what that betrayal actually means. In August, Russia fired 27 missiles at Kiev, and Ukraine was able to shoot down just one because there were no US Patriot interceptors left. The reason has almost nothing to do with Ukraine, nothing to do with Russia. It's because they've been firing almost half their stock at Iran. Which brings us to Mark Carney's idea, a constellation of middle powers combining their weight to matter without Washington. But is that a real answer to the world that we're in now? Or is it just what you say once you've discovered you can't build a missile? This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. £100. That is what one message to a friend could earn. 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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, and it was a little. It's a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in 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. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com slash restlesspolitics. That's NordVPN.com slash restlesspolitics. Nordvpn.com slash restlesspolitics. And the link is in the episode description. Welcome to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. Today in Question Time, we are going to be discussing, firstly, what's happening on the ground in Ukraine after the Kushner-Witkoff visit. Secondly, we're going to be looking at Mark Carney's idea of a coalition between the two countries. And secondly, we're going to be looking at the constellation of middle powers. And we're also going to talk about the extraordinary funeral of the convicted genocidal war criminal, Mladic, apparently greeted with a hero's welcome in Serbia. Alistair, we're starting actually with a question from a listener who is in Kiev, Beatrice. After the US's latest betrayal of Ukraine, is it finally time to admit that Trump is a Russian asset? And start you on that. Well, I've believed that Trump is a Russian asset for a long, long time. We talked in the main episode about this book, Betrayal, that Luke Harding has written, which is essentially about how the Americans, by the way, including Biden, have sort of sold out Ukraine. But Trump has taken it to a completely different level. And essentially how Trump and Putin are both coming at Ukraine from both sides. And one of the things we talked about, we talked about a Russian asset. There's a line in Luke's book where he, you know, you and I've said this before, that if he were a Russian asset, would he have done anything differently to what he's actually done in his second term? And the thing is, I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And the thing about, you know, people have all these sort of rumors and sort of guesses about this thing, what does Putin have on him? I can remember when we were in government, we used to be told in advance, there was this little bubble inside the embassy where they assured you that you could speak freely. But they basically said, there is nowhere else that we are going to be where you can speak freely. We now know as a fact that the hotels that most visiting Westerners stayed in, in the time that Trump was being cultivated, they were not going to be cultivated. He was, it's not as if he went, I'll go and find out about Russia. The Russians approached him and said, we think you'd find Russia really interesting. And he was, he was sort of fated. And he started looking for commercial opportunities and loans when his business was not going very well. And Russia has often helped him out when his business has been in trouble. So the idea that Luke was saying, for example, he discovered, he said, I'm just a journalist, right? Who's a bit annoying to the Russians. He discovered that his bedroom was bugged for sound and film. The idea that he was bugged for sound and film was bugged for sound and film. Forget it. And regardless of how much it's directed by him or whether it's just that he shares Putin's worldview, it would be impossible if you were the head of the KGB or the SVR now to imagine any more perfect scenario. I mean, if you were literally sort of sitting there 2015 and thinking, what would be the type of US president which would be most in Russian interest? Why don't we come up with a guy who could totally wreck confidence in NATO and take away basically any guarantee of the US security guarantees, back the pro-Russian parties in Europe, undermine the European Union. If we invade Ukraine, remove all American financial support for Ukraine to facilitate our entry. I mean, it's very difficult to think of anything that Trump has done, which is not like a. I mean, in fact, actually, I'd worry that if you're sitting in SVR headquarters trying to think of something more for him to do, he's already done it all. Well, it is, you know, like we talked a lot last night at the event about Alaska, the thing in Alaska, based upon, I mean, honestly, you should read this book for his descriptions of Witkoff and Kushner. This was before this week's stuff, okay? And I felt this week to see, okay, so they've done eight visits. Witkoff has been eight times to see Putin. You'd have thought by now he'd done enough. I mean, Putin must have the cleanest shoes on the planet because he has licked them every single time, including this time. He literally said, did you see the thing he did with Putin? He said, we'll look back at these meetings as the greatest moments of our lives. These are the highlights of our. We'll be able to have the memories of these meetings. Well, so he'll sit there when Putin's in jail as an international war criminal. They can reminisce while they're serving out their sentences. No, no, no. He and Dmitriev and Kushner, they can sit around with Putin and just drink to each other and toast to each other. It was. Disgusting. In that happy retirement that Putin is going to have where he's going to be able to. Exactly. And then, so then they fly to Kiev via Poland. And so it's their first time there. Zelensky has to sit there at this joint press conference where, to be fair to some of the journalists, they put some pretty tough questions. They basically said, you lot, you know, you go on about Iran, you've failed on that. You've failed on this. You've failed on pretty much every peace initiative you've done. But Kushner sits there with Zelensky just. A few yards away and says, we're working to satisfy Putin's aspirations. Putin's aspirations are to kill this guy, to destroy his country and to take the whole thing back into Russia. I honestly, Luke said last night that Zelensky's self-control of these things is extraordinary. Let me explain on what's been happening in Ukraine. Tragically, the Ukraine war has now been going on for four and a half years. This is longer than the first world war. In fact, we started doing podcasts. As this invasion was happening. And it's taught us so much about two things. One of them is resilience and the other one's technology. And somewhere in the heart of this is the fact that everybody has miscalled this war again and again, and doubtless we're miscalling it today. So in quick succession, story one, when Russia began its invasion is Ukraine's doomed Kiev will fall because Russia's this enormous superpower. Story two, when Russia failed to take Kiev is the most incompetent Putin will collapse. Story three was there's going to be this amazing Ukrainian counter offensive with all these Western tanks. And we're going to push the Russians back. Story four was Ukraine is screwed because it doesn't have enough manpower. And story five, which Trump and JD Vance was selling was without American support. There's no way that Ukraine can continue. So we'll be able to force them to the power because actually Europe's useless. Ukraine's useless. It's just American money. That's keeping the whole thing going fast. Looking forward to today, we are in a completely different world. Everything's changed in four and a half years. Those tanks, those leopard tanks that we discussed in this podcast getting out to the frontline are completely useless. They're sitting in sheds. Nobody can use them. Drones have paralyzed the frontline. Russia has lost now somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 killed and 1.2 million casualties. To put that in context, Russia has lost in this fight with the Ukraine, more than the United States lost in the entire Second World War, more than the United States lost in the entire Second World War. Or to put it another way, they have lost something like a hundred times as many people as the US lost in Afghanistan. I mean, the scale of the Russian deaths is beyond imagining. But now the problem is this, because the technology keeps changing. Ukraine can basically stop the Shahid drones, which are these Iranian drones with its own counter drones. It seems to be able to stop cruise missiles, which are basically guided mini aeroplanes. And it seems to be able to deal with actual aeroplanes, but it's really struggling to deal with ballistic missiles, which are these things that give about four minutes warning, fly up into space and then come plummeting down again. Because in order to deal with those, you need Patriot missiles. Those are the only interceptors that can really take them out. And of 30 ballistic missiles fired last week, Ukrainians intercepted only one. And why? Because America, are spending them like a drunken sailor in Iran. That's a good link actually to the question here, which we'll bring it back to Ukraine, but it relates to Olly. What would a middle powers alliance actually look like? And is it actually achievable? I mean, I guess this is an example of where this is Mark Carney's vision, where the middle powers, which would include us, which include the Gulf, which would include Turkey, also Australia, Japan, South Korea, that we would actually form some kind of alliance. But I guess this is an example of where, even though Europe is strengthening its own defences, that is not necessarily going to work for Ukraine right now. Yeah, because, and we'll get onto middle powers in a second, but fundamentally, the problem is production timetables on Patriot missiles. And there is this idea that France is going to co-produce a brand new generation of missile that might be able to take out ballistic missiles. But if it doesn't, the next stage of this war over the winter will be energy and electricity. What, what Putin is doing at the moment is targeting all the electricity generation, which now in Ukraine is down to about a quarter of what it was at its peak. So that's not just heating in brutal winters, which will make cities in Ukraine almost uninhabitable through the winter if they don't have any heating. It's also the entire industrial production facilities that allow the Ukrainians to build the weapons to defend themselves. So now the war is getting into a much more complicated discussion, which is quite difficult to talk about quickly on a podcast, which is how does Ukraine generate electricity? That is mini generators, that's oil, that's quick fix transformers. That's what do you put in this factory? What do you put in this hospital? How do your alliances with Europe work? And all the time, Russia will be hitting generation transmission lines with these ballistic missiles again and again. And that's clearly the Russian strategy. No, and also it was clear from what Zelensky said at the press conference with these clowns that, you know, they're really, really worried about this winter. In fact, the other great thing about Luke's book, it's not just about the geopolitics, it's also about real people in Ukraine. And he talks about visiting these people last winter, who are no lifts working, pensioners with no lifts because there's no electricity, get into their flat and it's like two, three degrees. It's going to be tough. But I just think we have to give up on the idea that, I mean, obviously you've got to try to press Trump to do the right thing. But, you know, Luke's description yesterday of what the Alaska summit, this is a hunted war, international war criminal who is being feted. With a red carpet. And then gets in the car and then does a 12 minute press conference, totally dominated by Putin. What Trump's press conference is normally like, sort of 40 minute rambles by him, where the other guys just are standing. Putin totally owned that thing. And I go back to that point, if he wasn't a Russian agent, what would he do differently? Let's come back to the question that you gave us from Olly. What would a middle power alliance actually look like? So I was thinking about that. This is Carney's idea, which came from Davos. And I noticed in a piece of newspaper reporting, they said, Alistair Campbell has described this as one of the greatest speeches. So, you know, I'll send it to you. Endorsing the Pope encyclical. This is the Carney speech too. So what are the problems for this middle power alliance? And the idea obviously is something we deeply believe in, which is Europe, Canada, UK, Norway, who knows, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Ukraine coming together as an alternative to the West and China. First problem, these powers don't all agree on what the threats are. So if you're Ukraine, your number one threat is Russia. If you're South Korea or Japan, your number one threat might be China. If you're Canada, your number one threat might be US coercion. Secondly, these middle powers, which could be most of the G20, except for China and the US, have very different capacities and very different ideas themselves. So, you know, Brazil might actually see itself as being, or South Africa might see itself as being sort of skeptical of the West in general. So, you know, there's a lot going on there. So, you know, we're going to have to wait and see. And then finally, there's this collective action problem, which is that every single time what Trump or Xi Jinping can exploit is that we stay together until the moment comes when we want to cut a deal. And we're not really prepared to sacrifice for the others. You know, is Canada really going to sacrifice for the sake of the Philippines? Is Saudi Arabia really going to go out on a limb for Canadian-US trade deal, particularly in the domestic context, which is that we now have parties emerging, not just the AFD, but actually the way that our new conservative shadow foreign secretary is speaking. It's increasingly nationalistic, Britain first, slightly dismissive of international, traditional international rules-based alliances, et cetera. If basically domestic politics becomes increasingly our country first, we don't care about international, there's less and less room for making these middle power arguments. But I just think this is the only way forward. I just think we have to keep going with this, and trying to build the alliances. I'll tell you the other thing. We did this live show at the Festival Hall. We had two live shows at the Festival Hall this weekend. And I don't know if you've seen today, Donald Trump's latest sort of AI fantasy that he wakes up in the middle of the night and does, is him playing ice hockey with Mark Carney, and ends up sort of beating him up, and saying, "Get up, governor." I don't know how much you play with AI. Not at all. But in order to do that, he needs to write a prompt. And the prompt will have said, "I want you to create," and it has to be quite specific, "an ice hockey match between me and Mark Carney. Mark Carney must be referred to as governor, governor of 51st state, not as prime minister of Canada. And I must not just win. I want physical violence. I want you to show me beating him up." It's actually quite difficult to get an AI model to do that. Well, he did it. But the point I was going to make, we showed, as part of the event that we did, we showed that we were going to beat him up. We showed that we were going to beat him up. And I was really pleased because nobody laughed. Hardly anybody laughed. Now, I think a year ago, people would have found it funny. And I think he's just becoming more and more demented, more and more ridiculous. And the guys who are serious have got to stick together. Well, there's also a connection to something you've talked about before in your definitions, or you're moving on from the three P's to, I think, the three C's, which is, what you're describing is the theater of cruelty. So we saw a little example of that in the reform conference, celebrating a woman having her hair pulled and being beaten with a stick. But it's the celebration of physical violence. It's Trump deciding to say to the AI model, "No, no, no, no. I don't just want to score a goal. I want people to see me physically assaulting the Canadian prime minister." Yeah, he does. Would you have had to tell him to break the stick? Because the stick broke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd have to instruct it to do all that. Make it more violent, break the stick. You'd have to go through many iterations of the video until it's got to the stage that you want. Its first version will be quite bland. It'll just be him scoring a goal. I mean, you would think he had better things to do, wouldn't you? Well, except maybe what all these guys have worked out is the theater of cruelty is the whole thing, that that's actually what their base wants. That's their whole appeal. That's what their authenticity is about. So Robert Jenrick, when he is quizzed on the television about the woman being dragged out by the hair, and he says, "Boo-hoo." Yeah. That's it. They must consciously or subconsciously sense that the modern political environment rewards them. For people who didn't hear the last episode, what happens is that a protester at the Reform Conference, a climate protester who's challenging Farage on corruption, she doesn't just get someone grabbing her hair and pulling her back. You can see the pain. Somebody comes forward and hits her with a stick, right? And what we then have is Lee Anderson, who's one of the chairs of Reform, saying, "Why don't we do a little collection for a new stick?" Right? So I think they must know, and Trump must know, that this actually works for them. Their supporters absolutely love it. The more outraged you and I get, the more disgusted mainstream opinion gets, the more terrific it is. And this was very core to fascism. If you look at the theory of fascism, and actually the theory of a lot of the communists, was always about that. Two things. One of them is you can't overdo offending mainstream opinion and the mainstream media and being cruel, because actually your supporters love it. And secondly, and this is the problem with your AFD story, people are saying, "Well, maybe if they get into office, they'll discredit themselves." That's the other thing that we learn, and we learn particularly from communism. It takes decades to actually discredit people on performance, because they can keep saying, "Oh, we've been let down by our enemies abroad," or, "We've been let down by our enemies internally," or, "We're not doing it right yet." You can keep doing that for decades. Just to give you examples of that, Donald Trump should have been finished by six, Nigel Farage should have been finished by Brexit. But neither of those things happened. keep trying to work out what on earth the solution to this is and i think the solution is to get away from the trump farage world which is so much that theater of cruelty those kind of ai generated images are so much about virtual abstract they have nothing to do with people's lived reality right i'm in the case of trump obviously made up fantasies so this is a chance obviously again to plug not just my political philosophy but my book i knew this was going i knew this was going i could feel it i could feel the plug coming how can you see the plug what's the connection it was the way i could thought this is interesting i think he's going to talk about andy burnham and devolution but then i thought as you sort of just made that little pivot i could feel it coming and it was fine it was fine and did you feel when you read the book that there's a kind of point there that weirdly one of the things that's gone wrong with politics is we're not uh finding a way of talking about real places real people real high streets well i'll tell you what i know after the break we're going to talk a little bit about the middle east we have that wonderful pairing at the royal festival hall at the weekend mao's in on whose parents were murdered by hamas in the october 7th massacre joined by his fellow peace campaigner palestinian aziz abusaru who lost his brother to torture in israeli jails and do you remember they were basically asking about what's going to happen in the israeli election what's going on in the palestinian elections and they were saying well it's kind of important but far more important is actually what people do in their own lives and what differences they can make and i actually think there's something that joins your book middleland to andy burnham and steve rotherham's book head north which we talked about a lot in the mini series we did on andy burnham with with steve is this sense that the gap between politics as practiced in westminster and whitehall politics as conveyed by i guess people like us and the media more generally is so divorced from politics as a force for good in local communities and i think that's what you're trying to do with your book and also that andy and steve it's not just a negative story it's not just that we've sort of ignored people it's that there's so much to be hopeful about there's so much energy so many of the solutions come from that i mean what i felt is that things that seemed impossible to fix in westminster when you turned up in cumbria actually people had ideas because they really knew their neighborhood their street what the problems were and what the solutions were and were prepared to get involved solutions so actually it's a lot of things it could be i totally agree with andy burnham partly about changing the structure of our politics you know getting power down locally because local people no more can do more than distant people but it's also taking ideas from the ground fixing things from the ground will sort of fix our politics but one of the problems i've had with this book is how do you get people excited because the conversation in politics is still so westminster related if i say to people actually the answer to a lot of britain's problems is places like cumbria look closely at this particular constituency these are the places where people are going to be like oh well that sounds a bit boring but actually it's the freshest most exciting thing and it's what we feel in our own neighborhoods the thing that actually makes us positive about our lives are what we see around us not what we see in primus's questions this week's newsletter extracts from middleland by rory stewart and there will be a special chance to win a signed copy too so to read that and enter the draw go to the rest is politics.com forward slash newsletter couple of prizes you'll get a free signed book and you'll also get slightly more bizarrely a new sculpture that i've made if anyone wants to own a rory stewart made work of art and if you'd like to come to a live show to hear more about this i will be on at the dominion theater this sunday uh with lewis goodall discussing the themes of the book and you can buy tickets with fane.co.uk let's take a break and then when we come back as i say we'll talk a little bit about west bank settlements we're going to talk about john healy's first outing big speech as chancellor and also what the questioner calls our friend alexander vucic and what's happening following the death of mladic and a very interesting putin medvedev style move by mr vucic hi everybody it's dominic sambrick 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 history of the french revolution 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 grotesque downfall of one of the chief architects of the terror one of the most evil men in history some would say maximilien crovispierre 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 question time with me rory stewart and me alistair campbell so alistair first pretty challenging question from michelle for you does ed miller band speech and elections on israeli settlements compared to john healy's first statement as chancellor suggests that actually burnham made the wrong choice and ed miller band would have been a better chance to the exchequer ah a live debate a live debate at the time well tell us firstly about the john healy speech well i didn't see it all i saw bits on the news i haven't read it and as you know i like to read speeches before i i pass judgment but sometimes you don't have time um but i i did think there was a bit of a problem that the main news that i picked out out of it appeared to be john healy refuses to to rule out tax rises in budget right and and so just to just to learn that that i mean it's obvious to you and it'll be obvious to all professional politicians listening but that is exactly what you don't want to achieve as your press release right i mean that that is central no positive story coming out of the chancellor all there is is the potential attack line on labor which is the most important thing and i think that's the most important thing in terms of the labor which is they're going to raise taxes yeah so so you had um and like i say i haven't read it but what that says to me is do you remember i always used to say i don't know why kia starmer does that thing of making a speech and then taking questions yeah i'm imagining i'm guessing that came out of questions yeah after this otherwise she wouldn't be refusing to rule out well otherwise he wouldn't you're not going to say yeah exactly you're not going to put in a speech you know and and i hereby today refuse to rule out so that that means none of the speech made it into the headlines it would be the the failure to answer a question that yeah i i think look what what i think he did was to set out how difficult things are which rachel reeves didn't kia starmer did a lot set out some of the positive agenda that andy burn has been putting forward particularly about devolution and some of the stuff we've talked about but it said to me and then i on the on the tube in this morning i was looking over somebody's shoulder as they were reading john crace and the guardian the headline was something like boring insubstantial something it was very very very very hostile really sad because i'm afraid one of the fatal problems from the beginning of the starmer government was rachel reeves basically giving those sort of speeches speeches which were we've inherited a grim situation we don't really have much answer on what we're going to do and i'm not really communicating and i was hoping healy would be a different sort of figure now people like me who are you know more center right thought he was quite a reassuring yeah because we thought he was a safe pair of hands he wasn't going to bankrupt the country he wasn't gonna do anything too reckless but i would also hope that he will begin as he keeps going to get a bit of liveliness and fun and humor he can take some risk i mean he's quite a veteran he's not like rachel reese he's relatively young politician he's somebody who presumably could afford to enjoy himself well i think i think most importantly is to have arguments that people want to debate and discuss and talk about and get moved by and so one thing i thought was very interesting at our live show is how much enthusiasm there seemed to be from you know there were a lot of young people there but it was a fairly middle-aged to older audience but actually seemed to be completely up for the idea that they've got to look at the triple lock as a way of addressing intergenerational equality and also raising some money and i know we're in london and london's very kind of anti-brexit but that's another one where i just think we need to hear more than just the sort of mood music we've been having so far and and sorry the really disappointing thing is that it signals that they're it's basically no new radical economic policy or vision so he could have said and i think you and i would have support this we're getting rid of the triple lock that would have been an unbelievably exciting and this is the moment to do it it's the moment where burnham's riding highest in the polls this is the honeymoon period this is where you take the risk so get rid of the triple lock announce that you're going to radically simplify the taxation system who knows combine national insurance with income tax announce that because of the defense problems you're going to raise income tax you're going to have a broader tax base more scandinavian tax base instead of tinkering around at the edges this is the moment and he's missed it well he might does that mean it's never going to happen no because it might be that he's he's because what the treasury will be saying to him and always do say chances don't put stuff out before the budget but i think those days have gone i think you need a big framing argument ahead of the budget and the so listen i am going to go back today and read the whole thing because i may you know maybe we're being unfair doing what i don't like to do which is just sort of absorbing the the negative headlines but i was hoping for something that you know I actually penciled in the diary, he's making his first big speech on the Monday, you know, query, do we talk about it in the main episode? Well, here's another question for you. I mean, I know you like to go for a bit of a walk on Hampstead Heath with your friend Keir Starmer, right? Is he not in an absolute boiling rage? Because John Healey, who was his defence secretary, was the nail in Keir Starmer's coffin. He resigned from Starmer's cabinet because Starmer refused to commit to spend 3% of GDP on defence. And John Healey said that meant that defence wasn't safe in his hands. Absolutely. Healey then becomes chance six checker and announces he's not going to commit to 3% GDP on defence. Well, he hasn't quite announced it, but the mood music is on the move. So if you were Keir Starmer, how would you be feeling? I'd be very pissed off about that. I think Keir Starmer, I'm not saying I've been for a walk with him, Rory. I'm not saying I've been anywhere near Hampstead. But you're not saying you haven't spoken to him either? No, I'm not saying I haven't spoken to him. I mean, you know, keep in touch with all people across the government and across all apologies, as you know. But I would imagine he is, I think actually when he was stepping down. Alistair refuses to rule out having spoken to Keir Starmer. No, you don't rule out having spoken to him. You refuse to confirm or deny. Very good, very good. But what I think he would be thinking, because I think when he stood down or announced he was stepping down, to be fair to him, and actually there was quite a lot of to be fair to him in that audience. We asked them whether they're broadly sympathetic to Keir Starmer and what he'd done as leader of the Labour Party. But I think he said he was going to do it with good grace and without bitterness and anger, and he did that. Although, just quickly on this, I also think that- I was going to do a but, but carry on. Stepping down is a bit weird. I mean, without over-praising Theresa May or indeed Rishi Sunak, everybody said when Rishi Sunak lost the election that he was going to go off to California, put his kids in, become a tech entrepreneur, live the life of the super rich. And he has remained in Richmond as a member of parliament. Remained on the back benches, continues to attend parliament. So if Rishi Sunak can do it and Theresa May can do it, why is Keir Starmer not doing that? I think a little bit different when you are stepping down as prime minister. I think if Rishi, so Rishi lost the election. Well, Theresa May, she stepped down. She did, she did, she did. No, I think these are massive. I think they really, really, really, there's a big, big personal decision to make that, isn't it? Do you want to just hang around knowing that the only interest that's going to be in you is a political figure? Is whether you're, is how you're then seen in relation to your, your predecessors? Well, I think Theresa May and Rishi Sunak have done a bit well. I think they've both done it well. But I, but I, look, back to one of my constant bugbears. I do think politicians on the left get treated and judged differently. So I sort of understand it. But I think the last time I did see him, he said, you know, he was, he genuinely seemed to think that it was a good thing that Andy Burnham was having such a good honeymoon. Does Labour need a by-election? Is that the ideal thing if you're a Labour strategist for him to trigger a by-election? No, no. Right now, I don't think. By-elections are any good for anybody. But I think Labour will win it. Obviously, I don't think Polanski is going to win this by-election. And interestingly, he's being, he's being challenged for the nomination by one of the Green councillors who says he's got six of their 10 Camden councillors backing him. So that suggests Polanski is maybe in the wrong part of town for this. But I think that he, but Keir will be, if there's one thing that I think will be making him utterly enraged, it is this thing about defence. He knows that that was, I mean, we said on the podcast at the time, this was like a death blow. You know, we did it. I think we. We did an emergency podcast, didn't we? We said that, you know, this could be the end for Keir Starmer. And it turned out it was the end for Keir Starmer. So then to see John Healy sort of essentially, and Andy Burnham said, look, I made him defence chancellor because of, I know about his commitment to defence. Well, that has to mean what he said he was going to do when he was defence secretary. So that's going to be very, very tricky. So you, I get from the way that you read out Michelle's question, I get the sense that you are probably more content with Ed Miliband. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I, you know, I owe an apology to Ed Miliband. I mean, which is that I am, I've consistently underestimated him. I'd sound like your friend, the biographer of Keir Starmer. But I think it, I think I've. Tom Baldwin is his name. I see. He has a name. I think I've been consistently unfair to Ed Miliband. I love the way you're so dismissive of my friends. Your friend, Emmanuel Macron. But you did it with a sort of your friend, Emmanuel Macron. I do that, don't I? Anyway. Your friend, the king. Your friend, the king, exactly. So Ed Miliband, I think, has been really genuine. And he's surprising. That was a big deal. Now, it's consistent. Just to explain what he's done. What he's announced is that there will be sanctions on goods produced in Israeli settlements, particularly agricultural goods, if they are grown in what Britain considers to be occupied Palestinian territory, illegal Israeli settlements. We will not be purchasing goods from those places. And it was very interesting talking to Mao's about this. So Mao is obviously an Israeli. And he's been doing a lot in London, talking in JW3, talking to the Board of Deputies. And he was saying it's very striking that when he talks to Jewish friends in London, they're very much in favor of sanctions because they understand that being Jewish and being a supporter of Israel does not mean that you support illegal settlements. But when the British government does it, they're much more thrown off balance and worried. And I think a lot of the British Jewish community are very concerned about that. And I think a lot of the British Jewish community are very, very troubled by the idea that Ed Miliband could do it. So even if they privately feel that they don't support the settlements, when the British government makes a policy, and of course, what we've learned with the recognition of Palestine, is that it can quite quickly embrace quite a lot of the rest of the world. Remember, the Canadians recognized the Palestinian state, French recognized the Palestinian state. I'm also a little bit cross, as I was with that recognition. They haven't coordinated more. This goes back to our middle power discussion before the break. It would have been more powerful if a range of countries had done this together. I mean, look, Ed's going to get a lot of blowback on this from all sorts of people. Mick Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador in Israel, even before this had been announced. He said this was Jew hatred, didn't he? He said this is Jew hatred. Well, I'll just point out to him that Ed Miliband is Jewish. And indeed, there were, and I noticed that there were Palestinian critics who said, you can't have a foreign secretary who's Jewish, because they were assuming he was going to be too pro-Israeli. And also, there is then also the argument about. Oh, and Tom Tugendhat's now been attacking him, saying, you know, we can't afford to imperil our relationships. We're this important ally. So, it's really interesting the way that the Conservative Party is reframing itself against the sort of more liberal values-based international order that Miliband is still championing. In fact, actually, what Tugendhat says is that Miliband is behaving like his brother, your friend, David. Look, I think this will be, I think broadly this will be approved of by the British public. It will certainly be approved of by most people in the Labour Party who think that we've been too soft. But there is always a risk in this. I mean, don't forget the Labour Party is still pained by the Corbyn leadership and the issue of anti-Semitism and the damage that did. So, there will be, there is a balance to be struck here. But I, and it was interesting to watch. I don't think, I mean, it would be very difficult to accuse Ed Miliband of being anti-Semitic. I mean, his parents are literally Jewish refugees from Europe. I mean, it's not. Exactly. But it doesn't mean that they won't. It doesn't mean that the Americans, there might be a price to pay with them. And I mean. Did you not think it was extraordinary? Because when we had this whole rest is fest where Gary Lineker was there and the rest is money and the rest is history and all the rest is podcasts at the South Bank. But the guy who was in charge of the whole thing told me that the loudest applause across the whole weekend was when we announced Maus and Aziz coming on stage as surprise guests. And they were just, I mean, they were brilliant. And anyone who hasn't listened to our leading interview, please do. It doesn't matter what side you are in this debate. What they do, which is so radical, is they say you just start from peace. You don't start from the technicalities of a deal. You start from, do you or do you not want the killing to stop? Yeah. And the truth is that, you know, the Israeli government, particularly that tale of it, Ben-Gavir Smotrich, they don't want to stop because they basically think that, you know, Palestinians, Palestinian territories are theirs and they're going to take them. So, look, I support what Ed Miliband has done in this, but I'm simply saying there's always a balance and it's a difficult balance because there's so many competing. Arguments around this. Okay. Now, here is a question which really hits us hard. This is from Marco. Marco. Your friend Vucic is calling an election two years early. Is it a sign of confidence or proof of the protests since the canopy collapse rattled him? And Jared, what does Mladic's funeral reveal about the political identity of modern Serbia? Well, when it says your friend, was that directed at both of us because we went to Belgrade? I think both of us. I'll take that as well. Okay. So, we went to Belgrade. And if you remember, during the interview, I asked him whether he might do a Putin-Medvedev. He's working his way through his second term as president. He can't do a third. And if you remember, he was basically saying, well, there'll be discussions in the party and we'll see. And it depends on the sort of pressure that might come on me, et cetera, et cetera. You and I both said afterwards, look, he's definitely going to be. He's going to run for prime minister. So, his party is now, surprise, surprise, he's going to run as prime minister. There's going to be an early election. And meanwhile, I don't know whether the time is related to it or not, but the outpouring of nationalism on the back of this convicted war criminal who died in The Hague. Yeah, well, let's just remind people of this because this is very much our world and we both worked on Bosnia and Kosovo. Radko Mladic was convicted at The Hague of mass displacement genocide killing. This is the general. The general who oversaw the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and more than anything else went into the so-called UN safe haven. where there were 8,000 Bosnian Muslims was filmed there with civilians who then proceeded to be murdered. Filmed telling them that they were safe and patting the children on the head and all that. 8,000 of them killed. I mean, it's very, very difficult to think of somebody who is more clearly associated with the horrors of that war. So this guy is flown back. He comes off- From The Hague. From The Hague. He comes off the plane with essentially everything that feels like a state welcome. He's taken into the main cathedral that we saw. Vucic's son is there. The head of the Orthodox church is basically praising him as a martyr. And I sent you yesterday what's happening in the football stadiums, which is Serbian crowds basically- This is Red Star Belgrade with the huge Tifo of Mladic. So that- And- And essentially threatening a second genocide against their opponents. This is well beyond normal nationalism and the fact that Vucic has refused to condemn this or distance himself properly from this thing, he didn't attend the actual funeral, but basically, yeah, a convicted genocidal war criminal has returned to a hero's funeral in Serbia. And Vucic, who tried to pose on the interview with us as saying it's a sort of intelligent, compelling, moderate, basically the mask is off, the guy's a fascist. Wow. Okay. So there was me thinking, I'll give Vucic a call and see if we can get another interview with him now that- Do you think I've helped with that? I think you've probably hindered it slightly. But you know, what is absolutely clear is that the scale of the Serb nationalism that was represented, and not just the tolerance of a convicted war criminal. But the celebration, because that funeral was massive and it was a celebration. If you're celebrating somebody's life, above all, you're celebrating their values, their character, and the things for which they're most remembered. He is most remembered for the events that you've talked about. So that banner, sorry, I didn't properly give it, but the banner runs Direction Potokari and Potokari is the Serbian word for Srebrenica, so it is basically like holding up a picture of Heinrich Himmler with the sign Direction Auschwitz in a football stadium, and Vucic doesn't come down to it. Yeah. I'm wondering whether his calculation politically, because the timing is interesting, they've done this now around this- With his minister of justice meeting the casket at the airport. Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. When I was at my football match in Croatia, one of the players was Nemanja Vidic, he used to play for Manchester United. Serb, very, very, very good guy and a very intelligent guy, and he's got a really good political mind. I'd love it if he went into politics one day. I think he'd be great. And he felt, as a lot of people felt, that we were way too soft on Vucic. We were, I think. Yeah. And we probably were. And that was because our general approach was, let the guy speak. Don't just get down and dirty about you were this in Kosovo. And even when he said I was unprincipled and all that, I didn't even respond. Yeah. Yeah. And that was the time when we were virtually opposite numbers. He was Milošević's right-hand man, I was Tony Blair's right-hand man, and I was working at NATO during the Kosovo war. Would I have thought that somebody who was so close to Milošević had the capacity to be as nationalist and aggressive and, your word, fascist as now can be seen? Probably. Yeah, probably. Did I think that because of his political skill, he had navigated? He had navigated a very, very different approach to this that had maybe made me think he'd become a bit different. Yeah, probably. Would somebody like Manny Vidic and others say to me, "Maybe you're being a bit naive?" Yeah, maybe. It's a big problem though, isn't it, for the things that we all believe in, which is the Western Balkans coming into the European Union, Turkey coming to the European Union. When you see people like Václav Schenachy, some of the ways that Erdogan behaves, you can see why people are like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. We're really up for Iceland coming in. Happy with Norway." Yeah. It's pretty tough stuff, which is why, actually, I'm increasingly in favor of a single market for freedoms option rather than bring them into the EU. I was talking to a European commissioner over the weekend, not Marta Kos, who's in charge of enlargement, but somebody else who's more on the economic side. We were talking about enlargement in general context, and we were going through the list of all the things, Canada, we'd love it, Norway, we'd love it, UK, it's got to happen. Serbia was a very big no-no, and this has not helped. To finish, Jenny really loved the two live shows. What did you make of the live shows, and what's the difference between doing a live show and doing a prerecorded podcast? It's interesting, isn't it? They are different. They're very different. I think with both, it's kind of, how do you stay uplifted, and how do you stay positive? We're talking about all this grimness. You're also quite, I think you're quite a thespian. The more I see you on a stage, the more I'm sort of won over by the idea that actually you're quite a performer. Like what? Well, you've got- I play the bagpipes. No, no, no, not just the bagpipes. Okay. Bagpipes. Although, it is true that you let me dance, which was cool. You danced twice. You danced with the Mooch, and you danced with Maoz. With Maoz, yeah. Did you like the tune that I wrote for Maoz and Aziz? Lovely. I thought it was really beautiful. Lovely. And I- I'm pissed off. I've not seen, nobody filmed the whole damn thing. No, really? Nobody has sent me a complete film of me playing that tune. Of the whole thing. Which I wanted to send to my friend, Finley, because he helped me write it. I also, I thought Maoz danced much better than the Mooch. He actually, he set properly. The Mooch just spun around in a circle. I was also a little worried, because with the Mooch, of course, he looks so young, thanks to the amazing plastic surgery and hair, but I wasn't quite sure how long I could spin him for without the ticker going wrong. Yeah, or without him falling off the stage. Yeah, I was a bit worried, but that's why I only played one part of one tune. But those who'd like to get more of the unique personality and charm of the Mooch, not just dancing live, can hear him on Leading, where we are interviewing him about Trump, himself, America, and much more. But I'll tell you the thing that really uplifted me, obviously Maoz and Aziz were just amazingly uplifting. And Fiona said afterwards, that was just like, you could have literally, they were hanging on every word, and it was so moving and positive and et cetera. I also liked the fact that when I asked people, because we had been so grim, hands up who's feeling optimistic about their own life, virtually everybody put their hands up. Well, this is my sort of grief story. This is your middle land. This is my middle land story. Yeah, yeah. Basically, so many parts of Britain I go to, people are creating really worthwhile valuable, interesting lives. They're not easy lives, but there's so much to be positive about. It's a bit weird that the narrative is that Britain's broken, because of course there are bits of Britain that are broken, but so many bits of it seem so much better than they were 20, 30 years ago. We also had a, we did our live polling thing. So and I'm guessing, you know, I'm there pretty identified as Labour, you're there as sort of, you know, not very fond of your old party, but we actually, probably a sort of centre-left audience, but we did ask them, and this was very different to how it was a year ago. Who do you think will be prime minister after the next election? If you remember when we did that last year, we did it several times and Keir was struggling. Yeah, Keir, nobody thought he'd be the prime minister after the next election. Keir was struggling. And this time more than 80%, is that right? 83% Burnham, 7% Badenoch, 1.5% Davey, 8% Farage, 0.5% Polanski. But it shows you why changing a leader can make an enormous difference. I mean, you go from a narrative of an almost- Almost inevitable Labour won't win, to now people feeling it's almost inevitable that Burnham will be prime minister for the next eight years. And it's actually the same thing, God forbid this happens to Burnham, but of course the same thing did actually happen with Boris Johnson. You remember in 2019, people thought, for goodness sake, the Tories have been in for nine years. There's no way they can win a majority. They bring in a new leader and they get a stonking majority. And if the guy hadn't been such a dishonest, incompetent wretch, he was actually in quite a strong position. Yeah. Yeah. That was interesting. No, but I really enjoyed it. And I think it's great that people just want to sit down and talk about this stuff. I also love to bring on Miles and Aziz, and actually Cassie and Anthony. I think it takes some of the pressure off us. I find when it's just the two of us. Do you find that hard? I find it quite pressured. Is that why you've gone off with Lewis Goodall instead of me? Is that why? Yeah, that's good. Too pressured. Yeah. And more people on stage four is good, because then we can do a bit of interviewing. Well, when I do, I've just been going through my schedule for this trip I'm doing to Australia in November. Oh, bloody hell. I don't. You're attempting to kill yourself, aren't you? No, I'm not. I had a long conversation with your. No, I'm not. mentor, Neil Kinnock. Oh, yeah. Who's an absolutely lovely man. Total edge. Total edge. But he was saying that he was a bit worried about how much you were working. When did Neil develop this Scottish accent? I don't know. That's true. That's because of preparation. We're going round tomorrow. But anyway, he's worried, along with me, about. And Fiona. Yeah, yeah, yeah. the possibility that you're working too hard. I'll be fine. I'll be fine. I'll be fine. But the people sitting there are going to be kind of just me rocking up and wandering around the stage. Neil gave me and Fiona a lift home after the event, because he was saying these things. And he's got a very interesting nickname for the new leader of the Conservative Party. What does he call her? He calls her Bad Enoch. Oh, Bad Enoch. Interesting. I think we're going to go with Bad Enough. Yeah, that's. Bad Enoch. What do you think of that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. I get it. Yeah, I get it. You know, that's actually what. Did I tell you this? One of my great moments in my life. At age sort of 16. Sixty? Sixteen. Sixteen. Yeah. I'd overslept at my boarding school at Eton. And I went into the headmaster's study where they were before lunch, where we were meeting people. And there was this old dude standing in the corner and I went over to him and nobody was talking to him. And I felt sorry for him, like an old grandpa. And I said, what do you do? And he said, in my declining years, I translate the Greek New Testament. And I said, oh, and what do you do before your declining years? And he said, I was a politician. My first name's Enoch. And he stormed off. And it had turned out that I'd missed his sermon where he had apparently said, everybody has forgotten me except for you, the younger generation. And you've forgotten him. And it was Enoch. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's interesting how actually sort of public figures are surprisingly vain and sensitive if you don't recognize them. They get quite chippy and offended quite easily. Yeah. Although some people love it. Some people love going from being very, very well-known. They're not being talked about. Most, I agree, are in the opposite direction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've done a lot of plugging as usual, Rory. You with your pedulterous relationship with- Lewis Goodall. Final plug, we've done this really good interview for members that was part of the Gen Z series, which went down so well with our listeners and viewers of all ages, where with Rosie Whiting and Keir Mather, who are two very young Labour MPs, both still in their 20s. Gen Z. And we think that their voice needs to be heard more than it maybe is. So that episode is going out this Friday. Brilliant. Looking forward to it. To get that, you've got to be a member. Sign up at therestiespolitics.com. And see you all next week. We are getting a statement from number 10 on that flight with 350 passengers on board. The Great Gain. Strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess Prime Minister with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. The man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. You've got to ask yourself, do you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing! We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a- You've got to understand the framework today and disseminate it into an operation order, or FRAGO. A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia. Yes. New from Goldhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my soldier, are you? Sergeant Tom McDuff! Duffy! An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical war. A political action thriller. We have two times friendly key. Where Britain plays its strongest hand. He's the best. Against its strongest foe. Don't do anything! Bear Hunt. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.