577. Is Badenoch Finally Stopping Farage and Why Are French Schools on Fire?

By any reckoning, Labour had a good conference last week and Liverpool was the

Burnham Bounce continued to lift the party in the polls. This week, at the

Tory Converse in Birmingham, there is a much better mood than there was a year ago.

Both Andy Burnham and Tory leader Kemi Badenock seemed firmly in control of

their parties. Pessimism these days is more likely to be found in reform UK,

which has been hit, continued by scandal and personality clashes and the

Greens, with Zach Polansky struggling to make a mark in the Holben and St

Pancras by election taking place on Thursday. Both Polansky and Nigel Farage

will seem might well have peaked. But how confident can Labour afford to be with

such a challenging economic scenario and a budget later this month in which

some very tough choices are going to have to be made. And with the Tory still

behind reform in the polls, how confident can they be of ever regaining power

without some kind of deal with the parties to the right of them. To help me

answer all of this I'm joined by someone to the right of Rory Stewart otherwise

engaged this week and that is the former Tory cabinet minister Michael Gove.

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Welcome to the rest of the politics with me, Alistair Campbell and me, Michael Gove.

So Michael thank you for standing in for Rory Stewart having yet another week off.

I've had none thus far and our four years together and we are going to talk about your party

and my party and the various conferences we're going to talk about

Kimmy Bade-Knot's leadership style and how she's developed and grown in a very interesting

document that she wrote on the eve of the conference. We're going to talk about France and Spain

where there is a lot of protests going on in France very violent involving school kids

and in Spain have led to the calling of a general election by Pedro Sanchez. We can talk about

Brazil and we're briefly going to talk about the election in Bosnia as well.

So I'm looking forward to that and looking forward to even more looking forward to question time

where I suspect you and I will disagree agreeably possibly on Brexit and Israel

Gaza where I think we have very very differing positions. So thank you for being here. Let's

start with the Tories and Labour. It's an absolute pleasure, Alistair. And I know that I can't live

up to the standards set by Rory of restableness and I know that we're going to disagree but I will

do my best to make sure that it's agreeable. And the first thing that I would have to say is that I

agree with your broad analysis. I think that the introduction that you set is absolutely correct

that both the principal parties have over the last two years faced pesky insurgents who have

been energised and who've been successful in eating away at the votes, the core votes of both

Labour and Tories. But for the reasons that you've outlined, the Greens being in Hock to a particular

group within the party who've elevated Palestine over other issues and with reform because of the

scandals that have hit their leadership and the splits that that's exposed. Both of those parties

have had difficult summers and that's given the Conservatives in particular a sense that they're

back in the game. But while the Conservatives you're absolutely right to unite behind Kemi-Badenock,

they still remain anchored at around 20% in the polls. And this week there was a very sobering

message from John Curtis, the polling guru who said to the not quite exuberant but certainly

more confident Tory grassroots that their polling position was exactly the same as the 2024

election. And of course that was the election that resulted in the most humiliating defeat that

my party ever endured and one which saw my own seat fall to the Liberal Democrats and I lived

down success as a few or five and a half hours of majority. Now I want to come back to the Tories

and in particular this very long essay that Kemi-Badenock has written which I read yesterday,

the right way as it's called. But I just want to first all ask you about your impressions of

Labour because you were at Liverpool. Yes. I just wanted to first all how weird that is for you

to be at the Labour Party conference. What your impressions were and what do you think the big

changes been from Starmer to Burnham? Well the key thing about governing party conferences

is that there's an eerie similarity to them. So I don't want to disheartening those people

who are encouraged by Andy Burnham's arrival by saying that I felt quite at hope because the

corporate lobbyists, the NGOs, the charities, they're out in force. So in that sense there was

an element of being reminded of what it was like when the Conservatives were in government. It has

that complexion. However the big difference is not so much between Labour and Conservative but

between Labour last year and Labour this year. Last year there was a sense if not of despair of

uncertainty. So there was a willingness on the part of the grassroots to give Kierst

Starmer more time to prove that he could be the leader that they'd hoped. But also a sense of

deep anxiety that despite the successful 2024 election victory that Labour wasn't doing anything

worthwhile with it, that it had alienated its core support, that the sense of hope that a majority

of over 200 should bring was entirely absent. This year it was very different that Andy Burnham had

infused the party with a renewed sense of optimism. I think that for Labour there are going to be

very very challenging days ahead when the budget comes with economic difficulties and also with

some security questions that remain unresolved. But nevertheless it was undoubtedly the case that

across the party there was that enthusiasm. I think Burnham's taking the party to the left, not

to the further shores or the outer reaches of the left, but he's situating the party firmly in

its soft left, kinachite, comfort zone. But what was striking is that there wasn't any

disquiet from those people whom you might think of as on the right of the Labour party. So some of

those who might call themselves continuity blare rights were just happy that they had a Labour leader

who was articulate, engaging, could forge an emotional bond not just in the whole, but with the

viewing audience at home. And so in that sense I think for Team Burnham it was a wholly successful

exercise. Roy and I interviewed Shabbana Mahmoud last week and she's a current episode on

leading and she said to me I thought well she said a lot of interesting things but it was something

that stuck with me. She said that she felt Andy Burnham had given Labour a second chance to make a

first impression. And I thought that was very very well put because I went to that conference.

It's the first one I've actually been inside the conference zone for some years because I find

I find it quite stressful what we're out of the place. But I was struck by a complete change

in mood from as you say despair to a sense of confidence. And it is extraordinary how quickly

that has emanated to the cabinet as well. I felt that Shabbana is a very very very good example.

I think that the feedback we've had to her interview has been extraordinary. And yet this is

somebody that people think they have known quite well for some time and they have an image of her.

But I so I think that's what he's done is he's injected a sense of confidence and maybe that's

a good link to to Kimmy Badenock and the Tory Connors where you are now because the one thing

I have to say about Kimmy Badenock she sort of does he zood and it's extraordinary self-confidence.

I just wonder why whether I'm right about that you know better than I do. And secondly,

where it comes from, where does that confidence come from? I think you're right about it. And there

is a parallel fun lay enough with Shabbana Mahmoud. I found the interview that you and Rory

conducted with her absolutely fascinating. And right from the off she was candid about her faith

and the impact that it has on her politics. And you all remarked on the fact that probably for

the last sort of 20 years in politics maybe longer having someone talk so openly and honestly

about their belief in God, how it motivates them, why it's so central to their life. That would

have been the sort of thing that for any politician would have invited skepticism or hostility from

some. In the past the view would have been as you pointed out in the case of Tony Blair. Are you

trying to claim God for your party? Are you trying to claim the mandate of heaven for your policies?

Come off it. But actually in Shabbana's case what it was I thought was both moving and powerful.

What you see is what you get with Shabbana Mahmoud. She is someone who's faith and also whose position

in the Labour Party is devoid of spin or self-consciousness and one of the reasons why I admire

her though I don't always agree with her is that at a time when people seek authenticity she has it

and she can't be anything other than the type of politician that she is. And the same I think

is true of Kemi Badenor. So Kemi partly because of how life experience earlier on. Partly because

she was a student at Sussex University where she was almost alone in having conservative views.

Partly because people assumed both when she was a student and when she was a young professional

that because of her Nigerian background she must be on the left. That's meant that she's got

used not just to defending her position but asserting it. And that confidence carried through

to her time in Parliament. She was a junior minister when I was a secretary of state and I often

remarked afterwards that if people came in to any meeting that the two of us had they would have

assumed that she was the secretary of state and I was the junior minister because she had that

intellectual self confidence. Some people find it irritating because she's so clear in her own

mind that she can be sometimes brisk almost to the point of rudeness with people with whom she

disagrees but actually in her mind she's paying them a compliment. She's saying okay you take

your politics seriously so do I. There's no need for any politesse. Let's get down to it.

I will defend my ideas. You defend yours. I mentioned this booklet. She calls it a booklet.

But it's actually I think a much more you know booklet sounds a bit trivial. It's actually

I think quite a serious piece of work the right way and it's obviously modeled on Margaret

Thatcher's the right approach in the 70s. In fact she says that that's largely inspired by that.

And the reason why I found it interesting yes there's a bit of party political knock-about

within it but you get a sense of there being some sort of pretty big ideas and big

intellectual analysis going on. I'll come on to some of that. I feel however that and I was

honestly Michael I was going to come to this podcast prepared to praise Kebi Badelock for this

serious piece of work but I think it's clashed with the way that the party your party is

conducting itself with this conference because she says that we've got to get away from this idea

that thinking an announcement is more important than actually what the policy will do over time.

And of course what have we seen so far this week? A lot of allowance that strike

will be not very thought through. At the eve of conference on the back of Labour following

through with your prisoner release scheme. That actually comes say we're going to build is it 50,000

new prison places I'm going to pay for them by getting rid of overseas aid at which there's

next to none left and cutting some budgets on DCMS including I would imagine for youth clubs and

that sort of thing pipeline back to more prison population that felt a bit weird. I then think

this morning we wake up and we've got a 10 billion pound pledge on some kind of iron dough is

rarely styled defence system which again does not feel to be terribly thought through. We have this

thing about we're now going to anybody earning over a hundred thousand pound a year we'll get the same

childcare as somebody earning less and here's one I'd love your opinion on she says we're going to

keep the triple lock as well. Now I've I've talked to many conservatives over the last decade

who all have said to me the triple lock is an absolute disaster it's fiscally incoherent

and we've got to get rid of it and yet there she is saying we're going to keep it. So less serious

this week than her document I would say. So there are two things there the first thing is the

document and I agree with you and I think that we're asking a lot of the rest of politics listeners

to go through a 30,000 word document from a party leader but I think well I did it exactly the

listeners can do it if I did it precisely. I think it the first thing is I'm glad that long

essays are back as ever Tony Blair was the trail laser his essay which shaped or framed or should

have framed a Labour Party leadership election. I don't think many of the contenders or one of

the contenders paid enough attention to what he was saying but I think that that has raised the

bar overall and I think Kenny Bade knock to her enormous credit wrote this herself you can hear

her voice in the pages and the fact that one of the thinkers that she cites is the American academic

Thomas Sol is reflective of that he's the biggest intellectual influence on her and he

is the person who made the point that you make which is that you should judge a policy by the

incentives it creates rather than the intent that you cloak it in. So you may say that this

policy is designed to generate grief as this trusted at the time of the mini budget.

Which Kenny Bade knock is very very critical very critical but the key thing is never mind your good

intentions what are the concrete consequences of what you've done and that I think is core

to the Kemi view she is as I say sometimes scornful of the idea that you need to demonstrate

your good faith your benefit is your compassion what she is absolutely focused on it is the logical

outcome of what she's done and she makes great play with the fact that she's an engineer

and that as an engineer the judgment you have to make is about how your input changes the system

hopefully for the better and that of course takes us to the points that you make about the policies

and that I remember once I'm at a political cabinet making the point that we shouldn't

rush out policies for conference simply in order to be seen to be dominating the media grid

that almost always those policies fell apart on contact with reality and that the ultimate

desire or appetite for the country for good government trumped the need to fill the immediate

media appetite for those three or four days but this time round I think that as we were touching

on earlier what the Tories feel they need to do is to demonstrate momentum because reform

have stalled not just in the polls but more broadly in terms of generating any sense of excitement

the conservatives are locked in a death match with some and the conservatives feel that they've

got to show that at that point where people are asking the question which is the energetic force

on the right which is the rising party between the two that they've got to show on tax as you

quite rightly point out but also on the questions of national security and migration that they're

the party that is capable of taking things forward now as one looks at each of those individual

policies I can see the merits and all of them but I do think you are right that there is a

natural risk that if you throw policy out at this rate that your opponents will find the weakest

policy plank in what you've put forward scrutinize that and if that falls apart under pressure it

damages the most important thing which an opposition leader needs which is credibility.

Yeah I mean so is the I think she would have been better to have actually be to stay true to the

conviction she's trying to put across in this document and actually taking some of the talking

points from that and and and built the conference around them as opposed to these sort of big policy

positions which I think will either disappear or fall apart because I don't think they do stack up

I mean I'll just give you one example actually this comes from the document

the removals force the removals force will have doubled the budget of the current immigration

enforcement directorate and border force this will cost an extra 802 million a year or 1.6 billion

in total this will be funded from closing the asylum hotels at the wider costs of the out of control

asylum system well there is an awful lot of wishful thinking in that and I think you saw that in

the prisons announcement as well but let me just read you one part which which I thought was really

interesting because she's very critical of trust and the mini budget she's quite critical of

the governments of which both you and she were part and all she says this and in the royal but he's

having a day off or is it you don't have to kick it no I won't they do Britain's problems did not

begin with the 2024 Labour government some began under earlier Labour governments I can dispute

that and became worse under conservative ones I don't dispute that others arose because assumptions

shared across the political spectrum went unchallenged for too long we promised lower immigration

without a strategy for delivering it you Michael net zero was legislated for before we had an

economically feasible route to get there we left the European Union you Michael without the economic

plan that should have gone with it the path to failure was paved with announcements targets and

good intentions now I think that is a very strong thing to say and I broadly agree with it and

yet I think that is what she is undermined by some of the announcements that have been made

in the last few days I think you are right and more to the point so is Kemi however I think that

the key thing that the public will take away from the Conservative Party conference will be her

we can look at each of the individual policies and all oppositions feel the need to command

attention by announcing these policies even though we are probably two years out from an election

even though the state of the public finances then could be far better or far worse than we have now

they've become the sort of entry fee they've become the down payment the political parties feel

needed to make in order to enter a contention and it will be I think ultimately the clips of

Kemi Baydenov not just on the evening news but also on social media after she's spoken that will

determine whether or not this has been a success so all of these policy canopies you might find

them indigestible I might think that they only wet my appetite for more but they are not what the

chef is going to be judged on and I think that your analysis of those those three things those

three policy errors is as I say your judgment is right Kemi's analysis is spot on and it reinforces

I think a hunger for a degree of candor and seriousness from a political leader and that is where

I think that the contrast between Kemi and Nigel Farage works to her advantage until recently Farage

was in the position where he could present himself as the truth teller the person who was the

insurgent outside the unipotent not constrained by the rigged rules of the establishment game now however

after the summer he looks like just another politician on the take and Kemi and here I draw the

comparison with Shabbana is someone who tells the truth even though some of what she says will

alienate or confuse potential supporters but she doesn't care because it's more important to her

to be true to herself than to offer honeyed words to lead people to support her when she knows

that the policies that she is going to implement and to which she is committed are not those which

her listener wants to hear yeah and and there's there's another very very interesting passage we're

actually reminding me a little bit of what Andy Burnham's saying about past labor governments

she says this that labor believes more in spending direction regulation conservatives too often

oppose that approach in rhetoric while preserving or extending it when it office between 2010 and 24

this is the root of the often heard criticism you had 14 years you know and I do think by the way I

don't think your party's going to recover until there is more honesty about from both the people

who were there and the current leadership about some of the mistakes that we were made she goes on

to say in relation to this 14 years the charge which we must accept is that we did little to reverse

the structural changes labor had made which in her view took the country in the wrong direction now

Andy Burnham makes the same case as it were from the left says that we the Blair government the

brown governments we did not change the near liberal or faturite model so I think that's what's

interesting about the battle that's been developed that is going to develop between the two of them

and I on your point about Nigel Farage I Andy Burnham's name comes up a lot in this document some of

it is the sort of particle knockabout that we might expect which he's trying to get rid of but actually

I thought there would have been more of an attack upon the populist right and I still worry from your

perspective that she's not yet decided whether her future lies in having people like Rory Stewart

and Gavin Barwell and David Gork back in the fold or whether she has to try to get some of the

soft reform voters back in the conservative camp and I think until that's resolved in her mind

I'm not sure where she goes I think there's a fair point and I think you are you're right

that both Burnham and Badenach are in effect saying that the promise of the country was not

realized over the course of the last two or three decades four decades and that reflects the fact

that we are in broadly a populist moment across the west ever since the global financial crisis

low growth sluggish productivity and in particular growing inequality between generations has

created this profound sense of discontent so if you are now saying the centrist ads got it

completely right and it's time to recover our moderate mojo there are big sections of the country

that say no you're the guys that got it wrong you're the guys that have landed us in the current

mess we have voted consistently for change so of course different people will mean different things

by that we don't want a pose of moderation and an approach which essentially says trust us we're

the establishment we want something more radical both Burnham and Badenach are offering that and

that I think goes to your point about the rejection of Farage and the populist right more broadly

Farage is a flawed advocate for whatever cause he leads articulate charismatic for some but flaky

and reform bears the imprint of his character but the country has moved particularly on questions

like migration over the course of the last 10 or 15 years and I think that any party that

is supposed to go in particularly a party of the right has to take a kind of that and therefore

positions that you or I might have thought were quite outre in 2005 and 2010 and now positions

that are actually in the European mainstream and if you look at what Macron or the CDU or Malone

certainly are now articulating or the Danish social democrats they're articulating policies that

when we were a hesitate say in our prime because you're in your prime Alistair well we had jobs

well we had proper jobs when we had proper jobs those positions would have been regarded as a pretty

spicy and so I think that's that's one of the explanations interesting yeah well look there's a lot

in this I I think we should put it in our it I'll use letter the right way I think if you could

strip out some of the more obviously party political thing and I'll tell you the thing that leptown

when you talked about dealing with activist judges that sort of made my flesh crawl somewhat but

but I think there's a lot in it I can see put it this way I think I underestimated a year ago I

think she grew when she got rid of Robert Jenrick which was a very probably a very good move and

it is extraordinary how both of them now Burnham is completely in charge of labor it strikes me that

she's very very strong within her own party I'm also very pleased that she pointed out that Brexit made

immigration worse we'll talk about that in question time tomorrow along with the Middle East

because I think we should baby I think some of our listeners will be horrified at the extent to

which you keep telling me how right I am but that's because you're a very polite person will disagree

more tomorrow but in the meantime we'll take a break I will come back we're going to talk about

France we're going to talk about Spain and we're going to talk about Brazil and if we've got time

we might even squeeze in a bit of Bosnia Brilliant thanks very much Alistair this episode is brought

to you by Lloyd's corporate and institutional of the next few weeks decisions will be made that will

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when big decisions need to be made the quality of your intelligence is critical and that that's

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welcome back to the rest is politics with me Michael gov and me alistakamble and Michael gov

is standing in for rory's shirt who is otherwise detained now rory oh god now Michael

that was it that was for us to have it Michael we go to talk about the country where I am right now

which is france there is so much going on we're recording this on Tuesday morning france is today

bracing itself for three separate things the first is continuing protests at their lisae their

senior schools which has seen some extraordinary scenes of violence in the last couple of weeks

other protests going on today is a public sector a series of public sector marches to protest against

the planned budget cuts which the government is trying to take through and the third being

think big thing happened today is marina lapen has got a big speech where she's going to

try to persuade the french people and perhaps more important in the markets that she actually has

a bloody clue when it comes to the economy because thus far in her very very long career that is not

really been the case you were secretary of state for education probably i think that was the

job you served in the longest your various ministerial roles in britain have we ever seen anything

like this that's going on in france now because i can't recall anything like it no i'm tempted to sort

of reflect rooffully on the most thunderous denunciations that the teachers unions or indeed some

students directed my way the worst that ever happened is when the sushis workers party occupied

the lobby of the department for education to protest against what they considered to be a

my crime in getting rid of to kill a mockingbird from gcse i hadn't actually cancelled it but they

were they was it was their campaign but apart from a few surprisingly well mannered trots attempting

to get in my way when i was on my way to get my pretemolge sandwich there was nothing really

to compare and i shouldn't really make light of it because it's horrifying we've had schools being

burned down we've had a student as i understand it was hand is being blown off because of the way in

which a police grenade was somehow deployed accounts various of as to who's to blame but it's

undead to the case that we've had millions of euros worth of damage we've had people hurt we've

had scenes on the on the streets of students and they say our s at at at loggerheads it's horrific

and it speaks to a sort of fundamental problem in in french society we mustn't consider ourselves

superior in the uk that would be a mistake but there is a fundamental problem in french society

which i think is rooted in the sense in particular but not exclusively amongst ethnic minorities in

poorer areas that french society operates a two tier system that education for the elite in

France is pretty good but if you're in the ban you or if you're in any of the cities that are

less fashionable that have been overlooked in the past by paris than your educational opportunities

are narrower and the amount being invested in your future smaller this whole thing because it's

become so huge and so it's getting covered this is getting covered right around the world it actually

started with a very small protest by teachers at a particular school so it started at one school

as lisee sante exubire in a place called chate and it was teachers protesting about the fact that

teachers that they were losing were not being replaced it wasn't a strike it was a protest and then

the kids at this school they they join the protest and this is where it developed into something about

class sizes i had no idea i come to france all i had no idea that you have some of these classes

in senior schools class sizes of 40 the other big big thing that happened was during the heat wave

which we had a while back that the the kids were just complaining that it was impossible to learn in

this sort of you know horrible hot environment and buildings that were saying in some cases falling

down so this protest started and then spread so quickly and whether i don't think this is just

social media it's also organization and then it's also it's now playing into we've had today

500 schools shut we've had over 5,000 arrests we've had hundreds of police officers who've been

injured and as you say some pretty horrific acts of incidents involving the protesters as well

and of the arrests 85% are miners under the age of 18 but it's also playing into the politics

of france which are very very tense and very very tricky got election presidential election coming up

and both the government and the and the lapen party the rassom bra munnissian al they are trying

to pin this on Jean-Luc melanchol the left wing leader who has been encouraging these protests

there was one and one of these senior figures who said that actually in some instances violence

can be legitimate which is of course being seized upon a saying that they're fueling this but

it's very hard to see how the france bring this under control in the short term because of course

you have a I mean I really enjoy what you think about this I was watching some of the coverage in

france and you had parents who were effectively saying the kids have got a point and they were

effectively they were all they were sort of say there was a parent of one child who's saying well

what do you expect them to do is that a generational thing do you think if this kind of thing did

happen in Britain that parents would actually be supporting their children in setting bins on fire

in some cases you say setting schools on fire including one that's named after Nelson Mandela

would parents in Britain do you think still be of a view that there is never ever any excuse

for violence would you think there's been a generational shift I think there may have been some

shifts across the generations but I'd like to think that the basic attitude of the overwhelming

number of British parents would be get over yourself that there is something literally self-defeating

about objecting to the fact that you're not getting a good enough education by burning down your

school it is the case that there has been a growing sense amongst some parents I don't want to

overstate it that if their children are unhappy in school that may be the fault of the teachers

or the system rather than a requirement on the part of the student to buckle down as my mum would

have put it so I think there is there is that but I don't think it's at anything like this scale

but we've seen exhibited in France and again I have to be very wary about being someone who's

too patronizing and too inclined to indulge in stereotypes but it is the case that in France

social discontent finds its outlet on I has found its outlet on the streets in a way that has

been far less frequent in the UK but Michael you're you're you're a radical you're a radical

is there anything in you that admires that is there anything in you that sort of admires the

fact that they they had a proper revolution no and in 1960 the thing at all in 1960 they had

these extraordinary riots and it led to real change nothing at all one of the things I'm

going to talk about the French is that they take ideas very seriously and French political

debate is absorbing and fascinating and French political leaders they attract attention on the

basis of the the rigor of their ideas I find that genuinely amiable but however radical I might be

the cross-dealed Tory in me means that I like or draw on our streets and so you know French farmers

are they make Jeremy Clarkson look positively reticent and self-effacing when it comes to

drawing attention to their discontent and similarly French students you were around at the time

I was just a baby non in 1968 French students are prepared to take to the streets in order to

demonstrate their discontent at times of sort of high political temperature and and again one of

the things about French politics at the moment and that relates to the street protests and to the

school insurgency as it were is that both political fringes I was going to see fringes but the

now the leading figures in French politics can see something in it for them so melancholy can say

this is an example of inequality and discontent and lapen and her auxiliaries can say this demonstrates

the failure of the government and the need for order and there is an echo of 1968 in France in

that in that the street protests then were exhilarating for figures on the left who saw this as a

chance finally to break the sort of bourgeois hold of the republic but then for figures on the right

it was also empowering this was the a demonstration of the need for for greater authority and the

need to protect property and the need to rally behind conservative forces so these sorts of

projects are polarizing they do speak to a populist moment on both left and right and actually

that's one of the reasons why as I say the Horeal Tory in me feels that these things are

unsettling eruptions into the body politic which rarely end well before we flip to another

European country which has got a lot of protests going at the moment Spain which is leading to

a new election just briefly on lapen the speech that she's made yesterday we've been we've been

promised she's going to give us details of how she's going to get 125 billion of government spending

cut in the next in five years of a presidential term thus far this sounds a bit like the criticism

I was making about the tourism there big announcements thus far she said it's going to be done by

reducing fraud or have heard that one a million times cutting public spending on migrants and

illegally withholding France's payments to the EU so I think the markets are going to want to hear

a little bit more than that and the other point about the interesting thing going on with lapen at

the moment is Jordan Bardella this young handsome chap who thought he was going to be the presidential

candidate and she'll tell she decide no you can just be prime minister he has been exposed by

this investigative website media path for making antisemitic statements when he was a young party member

for 13 14 years ago and what's interesting is he's not come out and said oh well I might have

said that but I'm now a very different person the parties changed he's actually come out and said

these messages have been fakes and media part say they have the proof that these are real messages

sent by him and I think that will become a problem for them if he's shown to a line on this subject

which is so central to lapen sort of saying that they've cleansed this once under her dad a

validly antisemitic racist party so interesting stuff going on there now what about Spain we interviewed

Pedro Sanchez the Spanish prime minister well back and your fellow conservative Maurice Churros

very impressed by him as was I we were both impressed I don't know if you have you followed

been following this story about the this is a housing rental crisis which has been he has tried

to make changes to the law to prevent these sort of rogue landlords from whacking at rents as much

as as they want and the right wing parties voted him down so he has now gone to the country saying

I need a proper majority which he's not had for a long time I need a proper majority to be able

to get through the changes the country needs yeah so Pedro Sanchez is a formidable politician

and he's in power at the moment because he also on a previous occasion just over two years ago

outfox is opponents by calling an early general election one that he was expected to lose he did

actually record slightly fewer votes in that election than the conservative opposition but he

knew that he had a path to government through the the smaller parties the regional and separatist

parties he he hung on to power and this time round he knew that he would face defeat at the next

election unless he managed to change the terms of trade and he's succeeded well he suddenly

succeeded on finding an issue where a majority particularly of younger Spaniards will be on his

site because if you're a part of the right your natural tendency to defend property rights

can lead you into sympathy for landlords and at the moment across Western Europe

we're living through a housing crisis that housing crisis has experienced most acutely by younger

people in rented accommodation and being on their side even if it may not make long-term economic

sense makes short-term political sense and there's another thing as well which is that he can as he

did in the last election turn the argument against his opponents not just by saying I'm on the

side of the young and the aspirational but also by saying to the party to poplar a they the mainstream

a Spanish conservative party that's in the lead you guys are only going to manage to construct a

majority with the help of vox the party to your right and last time round the PP suffered because

people thought well I might like the moderate conservatives but I don't want them dependent on

vox and also vox is a overall approach to Spanish federalism as it were is we don't like it so if you

are a Catalan or a Basque even if you're on the right you might be worried about what vox might

do and so how they might influence a centralite government so I still think Sanchez is on a

losing wicket but he's managed successfully in the past to frame an election to put the pressure

on his opponents and I wouldn't underestimate him going into this contest no I think that's right and

I think as you say the the right wing parties face the same challenge that Ken the Badenot does is

how close do you get to these parties that those who like them love them but actually a lot of the

people that you're trying to win over are very very wary of them and it's just it's just worth

underlining the specific because sometimes it is this sort of specific thing that will act as the

the kind of the light the flame that really flies up and sets this thing off and has let you

and calling this election and this was about an 87 year old woman called Maria Carmen Abbascal

disabled and she lived in the same flat in Madrid for 70 years the block was bought by one of

these big faceless investment funds and suddenly slapped on a 230 percent rent rise so her rent

went immediately from 500 euros to 2650 they later cut it but still it was well well well above

what she gets in as a as a pension and the thing that really pictures is so important in

politics as you know and as a journalist you know a picture of her being carried out on a stretcher

being evicted just became the sort of symbol for these extraordinary protests that have taken place

right across the country and I think in that Sanchez has seen right well there is a cause there is

a left right cause I think he thought at one point you know that maybe the position he was taking

vis-a-vis Trump and the and the very strong position that he was taking on Gaza in particular

that that might have been the cause that United the left the funny thing well the many funny things

about Spain but one of them is maybe I should have mentioned this that it's had relatively good

growth recently now I believe that it's had relatively good growth because austerity was imposed

and endured and that meant that the Spanish economy was rebooted but the the striking thing is

that many of the things that Sanchez does and stands for I don't like at all but he's a

politician of great gile and Spain's relative economic success at the moment means that he's in

a stronger position than almost any other European left wing leader we'll be coming back to it

and to those who haven't listened to our interview with Sanchez I do recommend that he's a

as Michael says he's a he's a very impressive political operator he's also got these corruption

charges regarding family members hanging around which are never good as you go into election

now what about Brazil let's stick with the um the theme of elections so in Brazil these two giant

names in Brazilian politics Lula and Bolsonaro and it looks to me like Flavio Bolsonaro son of the

serving a 27-year sentence for doing what Donald Trump tried to do in America on January the 6th I

think this was on January the 8th Bolsonaro but his son who says the first thing he'll do if

he wins his pardon his dad I think he looking pretty nailed on because he's 2% ahead in the first

and the smaller parties who now get eliminated before the second round they tend to be more right

wing than the left wing so it's looking pretty tricky for Lula I would say it is and again Brazilian

politics again like a lot of Latin American politics and indeed American politics seems increasing

in the dynastic so Lula wins loses then returns again and then similarly Bolsonaro wins loses

and then his son returns again but behind that there are deep divisions in Brazilian society and

actually if you look at a map of Brazil to see which regions Lula is strong in and which regions

Bolsonaro has won it tends to be the south which actually tends to include some of the the richer

areas both the areas where the beef barons are stronger but also where you've got the sort of the

gilded business elite they are Bolsonaro stronghold alongside and this is a striking thing in what

was a Catholic country what is still a majority Catholic country there's a growing evangelical

Christian movement Protestant movement in Brazil as well they're very strongly behind Bolsonaro

and I think that the strength of that base combined with economic discontent and also the fact that

Latin America as a continent or South America as a continent has moved to the right we can

you know you can attribute that to the Trump effect you can attribute that to a populist effect

but it's broadly moved to the right so I think it's only Uruguay now and of course Brazil at the

moment that has a left wing progressive or even center left government that means I think that

the wind is in Bolsonaro's sales and it is striking that South America which we looked to five or

ten years ago as a place where there was a sort of left alternative to globalization where

discredited through he may have been chavez was acting as an in Venezuela acting as a flag bearer

for that and and there was a strong feeling across the continent it is striking that it has

succumbed or opted into that broad right wing move yeah and of course you still got Claudia

Shambam up at the top in Mexico but as you say that Mexico and Uruguay are bad all that's left and

I mean I shared with our team we'll put it in the newsletter a map of Latin America and it has

literally gone from red prominent red to dominant blue yes if we if we have the the British European

red and blue rather than the the American one and I guess I you know hard to know exactly but I

guess Trump the factor of Trump is it it doesn't play into all this he's somebody who has been very

very clear that he even even announced tariffs on Brazil because they sent Bolsonaro to jail which

I think gives you a very clear clear idea as to where his his sympathies lie so we'll see where this

goes but I think if I was on the lular side of things I'd be feeling I mean who's who's you going to

get to turn unless he feels he can squeeze some some of these people who who voted for right wing

parties because they so don't like Bolsonaro I don't know but if you look it's not like a French

election where generally people will come back to them the more centrist candidate because both

of them are very very polarizing figures it's a very traditional left right battle yes and the

Bolsonaro brand is so strong he's even got his own Bolsonaro's third wife Michelle she's been

elected his son has been elected into it and one of his other sons has been elected to another

position and they did very very well in the congressional in the senate elections as well the

Bolsonaro lot so there we've got very very very briefly Michael would you like to explain the

Bosnian electoral system to our listeners and viewers Michael do you be able to do that well I think

I think the main thing about the Bosnian electoral system is that it is unfeeze-be-complex so complex

that only announced a Campbell with his gift for rendering the esoteric accessible would be

able to explain it to even the discerning rest as politics audience but the key element in Bosnia

is that the ethnic divisions between Bosnia Muslims uh Croats and Bosnian Serbs

mean that there has to be even within Bosnia Herzegovina a recognition not just of how you

reconcile those three ethnic identities but also a proportional system which if it can do seeks to

encourage working across ethnic boundaries but that is formidable difficult and of course one of

the challenges that we have in Bosnia is that the people who've been least reconciled to Bosnia's

existence as an independent state has been its serve my loyalty and they've been strengthened by

a resurgence in Serb a national feeling you and Rory interviewed Alexander Vuchich on

leading um a fascinating interview but one of the things that was pretty clear about that

is that Serb is probably the one country in the Balkans that has decided pretty firmly

that in the choice between the EU on the one side and Russia on the other it does not want to

be forced into the EU camp um I wouldn't say that it was firmly in the Russian camp but it

doesn't want to be considered a candidate country in the same way that others do because there is a

some would say sturdy nationalism others would say a compromised attachment to Russia amongst

Serbian elites well I thought that was very showed a considerable depth of knowledge there Michael

may I say so um just on the election it is an incredibly complicated system and it was set up by

the peace agreement back in the mid 90s under the date and the cause um but if there is a big

and it's impossible to say there is an overall winner because you have you have this three

headed presidency you have one from each of the ethnic groups who sort of rotates as president

but if you look at which parties done particularly well I'm afraid to say the big winner is this guide

Miloar Dodik who is pro-Russia he's anti-NATO he's a Bosnian Serb he's banned from office he cannot

stand but he was a big big big part of the debate and and he's now going around saying that he won

because his party won because of support from from Trump and Putin so their stated goal a bit

like Serbia of becoming a member of the European Union I think it's looking I'd say quite

I was in Belgrade on holiday over Easter and if you're in Belgrade it's a beautiful city or most

of it's beautiful lovely lovely places incredibly friendly people and it feels like a sort of you

know European city overall feels like a Prague or a Budapest or not quite a Vienna but certainly

Bratislava or you know any standard European city however one thing that you are aware of is the

strength of national feeling and there was fresh graffiti on one wall in quite a you know

attractive area that we were visiting which said the real victims of the genocide were the Serbs

and so there is the sense amongst sections of the Serbian population that going right back

to the war in the 1990s they believe that they were not the oppressors but the victims and it is

also the case for historic and commercial reasons that Russian business and political interests

have their tentacles very deep into Serb society again we have to be wary about

towering everyone with one brush or characterizing a whole nation on the basis of one single

piece of graffiti but what is clear and the Bosnia elections as you point out reinforce this

is that Putin wherever there is an opportunity to suborn or to seduce a political movement

will take it and the problems that we face with Putin aren't restricted to

the horrific slur for a new crane it's also the case that he's in a constant campaign of political

subversion across the continent. I'm glad you enjoyed our interview with Vyaches. We got quite a

lot of stick for it in from the sort of anti-vive Vyaches brigade in Serbia because they felt we were far

too soft on him but actually I think we I think what we did bring out was his the difficulties he has

in deciding which way he wants to go on a strategic level and the generally one sense he's going

into the into the Serb comfort zone. Yes but this result this result in Bosnia I regret to say will

be as welcome in the Kremlin as was the Brexit referendum result of Michael which we will talk

about tomorrow Michael is very interesting for you and I to be saying roughly the same thing

in relation to the Balkans because there was a time I remember when you used to attack me

ferociously about the role I played in supporting Kosovo in the dispute the war with the

vile evil slobber down the lozavic that is absolutely correct so my my record in a Campbell fandom

and anti-cambalism is a very mixed one so it was the case you may not remember and you may not

rejoice in it that I was an enthusiastic supporter of you during the Iraq war and stood up for your

position however I was also a foam-flect opponent of what you were trying to do in Kosovo for a

variety of reasons but I'm very happy to admit Elister that I was wrong about that so the terrible

thing and I know that there's only in rage this there's of my own podcast quite right and the

conservative sort of blogger verse more broadly is that as to Campbell war monger what I'm on

the same side as Alistair and all of the wars that he mongered well thank you for that thank you

for admitting you were wrong it's a rare rare thing to hear maybe that's something we can see

we continue in question time when we talk about Brexit because I see you are wrong about that too

but we shall discuss to be continued but before we go Michael Rory and I always plug something

and you'll forgive me if I if I plug my own book a copy of which has now arrived this is number 22

and you're in it already and would you like to know the circumstances which you're in it

is it my attack on experts is not your attack on experts it's on June 22nd June 22nd

2011 less than a year after his first Labour Labour leadership election defeat Andy Burnham

came to our house for dinner he was shadowing then education secretary Michael Gove and really

not enjoying it so the theme of the book is perseverance and my point is that Andy Burnham learns

from the things that set him back and learns from the things he doesn't enjoy I think you're one of

the reasons he left Westminster how do you feel about that now that he's come back as pro-adjuster

uh conflicted I think he's probably better to say um but so far you'd have to say he's quite a

persevering character uh perseverience is his middle name Michael we should see you tomorrow and

I'm looking forward to thanks very much that's the thank you thank you

oh

the great gay strategic struggle between Britain and Russia

we assess uh premister with high confidence it was Russian

holding the Russians accountable is world war they took down a British passenger

to contain 350 people man in the Kremlin is playing Alex got to ask yourself you want to play

or not you're the prime minister if done nothing

we would need to understand the policy context all the relevant context will be structured as a

framework today disseminated into an operation order or frago frago that says to kill the president

of Russia yes new from goal hanger who is going to be able to pull this off

a dog

an audio drama journey like no one men like doffy they are our most valuable weapons

devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action forever

to take friendly key where Britain plays its strongest arm he's the best

against its strongest vote

bear hunt available now wherever you get your podcasts