Pod Save the World - French Election Shock, NATO Descends on D.C.

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Tommy and Ben discuss the surprising French election results and debate whether Macron’s decision to call early elections was a success or failure, the Labour landslide in the UK, and how American politics loom large at this year’s NATO summit in Washington, DC. They also talk about the election of reformist Masoud Pezeshkian in Iran and how a new president could change relations with the West, the latest on negotiations to end the war in Gaza, what to expect from Bibi Netanyahu’s address to Congress, and why you should wear a poncho if you’re planning on visiting Barcelona. Then, Ben speaks to Coco Khan and Nish Kumar of Pod Save the UK about last week’s elections. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, good to see you again. I feel like I've been off a lot from this show. I don't like it. You've been, yeah, you missed the David Lammy preemptive victory tour. I know, I know. I know. I listened. I enjoyed it very much. I mean, everything he says is just fun to listen to. And what a smart guy. And, you know, I don't want to jump ahead of ourselves. But how cool is it that that guy is now the foreign sector? Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, I actually, I was thinking about it. I think he's the most frequent I'd say the world guests that we have. I bet if you clocked the leaderboard, you'd be at the top, right?

And so now we get worldos everywhere, including running British farm policy. It's pretty exciting. That's what I'm talking about. Get us that nuclear code. There's an amazing story in the Atlantic about when you're the British prime minister, apparently one of the first things you have to do is like days after you're sworn in, you're handed four pieces of paper and a pencil. And you write down like one of four orders.

orders for your four nuclear sub commanders in the event that London is like wiped off the map from a Russian nuclear strike. Basically there are these like there's one of four British subs is deployed at sea at all times when they go out they don't communicate. They only take internal communications, no outgoing because no one can know where they are. And basically if the commander of that sub finds out that London was just destroyed, they try to like ascertain if anyone is still alive in government, then they open a safe inside another safe. And in that safe are these handbrain, written notes from the British Prime Minister that's like retaliate, don't retaliate, hand over your sub to like the British fleet or figure it out yourself, basically, something like that. Do we think Liz Truss had enough time to write these instructions, really? Yes, she did. Because apparently no one's ever opened them because you just kind of like burn the last guys and no one even looks at them. But pretty cool. That's their, you know, that's their deterrent. I guess like, you know, old school, right? There's no new technology for that. No, no. Just a pen and a phone. is a bottom of day. Yeah, just spend the phone. Yeah. So we got a great show today. It's great to be back. Ben's in New York, by the way, where it's hot is it, like, 95. It's really hot. But yeah, it's 95, but it feels way hotter. It's gross. How about all these, like, Nordic NATO members going to D.C. where he invests is like a buck 20. Yeah, it's like, it's a swamp. Like, it's got to be awful. Yeah. Just hell on earth. The idea of having a NATO summit in DC in July, you know, a little bit of a flaw there in the weather. I gotta say our guy, Lammy's going to sweat it up there. I mean, that's, that's, uh, that's, uh.

It's a hot first trip to the U.S. It's a hot, hot trip. We got a hot show for you, Ben. We're going to talk about the French elections in the debate over whether French President Emmanuel Macron's early election gambit was success or a failure. We'll also do a little victory lap, dance on some graves for our progressive friends in the UK after labor is decisive victory. Then we're going to preview the NATO Summit in D.C., discuss the implications of Iran's elections

and new government, cover the latest from guns. Gaza and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Niyahu's upcoming trip to D.C. And then we'll talk a little bit about why outdoor diners are getting attacked with squirt guns in Barcelona. A little fun for you at the end. And then, Ben, you had the chance to do a very fun interview yesterday. Tell the people what they're going to hear. Yeah, I talked to our sister podcast.

Actually, we had a debate about whether it's a sister or cousin podcast. But Nish Kumar and Cocoa Khan, the extraordinarily likable, talented, smart. and funny co-host of Pod Save the UK came on to break down the UK election and have some fun at the Tories' expense and talk about the expectations for labor. So people should definitely check it out. And I actually did a, what do we call like a double, like I appeared on their podcast too. Reach around? Yeah. Not your cousin podcast. So yes, whatever we want to call it, I'm also on Pods of the UK this week if you want extra content, you know. Nish will appreciate that joke. Coco, we'll find out. The show is so, so, so great.

They're really funny and smart. And also, I think, cover British politics from a more progressive point of view than I think you're going to hear anywhere else. So could not recommend Ponce of the UK more. But let's turn to France, Ben, because on July 7th, French voters went to the polls for the second round of France's two-round parliamentary elections. And the results were surprisingly okay. So after the first round of voting in late June, most French political analysts predicted that

Macron's party would get crushed and that Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally Party would win the most seats. Instead, what happened was the left-wing new Popular Front Coalition got 182 seats. Macron and his allies got 163 seats and the far-right coalition that includes Marine Le Pen's crew only won 143 seats. So that is a big gain for Le Pen and National Rally. In 2022, they got, they had 89 seats, but her supporters were devastated because, because they thought they would win far more seats and be able to install their little, like, baby-faced TikTok fascist candidate Jordan Bardella as prime minister. And there's lots and lots of delicious videos going around Twitter, Ben, of just like sad little right-wing fascist

in France, sad, vichy. Holding their wines, yeah, getting crushed by the results. But so what people need to know is the reason that National Rally did worse than expected is because the far-left coalition, the far-left block of candidates and Macron and his allies came together. and strategically had about 210 candidates withdraw from various races. This is according to the AFP. Remember, so the French system has two rounds. Only the candidates that get over 12.5% of the vote in the first round make it to the second round. So in districts where you had a far right, far left, and Macronist candidate all making the runoff, the far left or the Macron team, one of them withdrew to avoid splitting the vote.

And so that's, you know, historically how French political parties have kept. the far right at bay and out of power. So it's not clear what happens next. Parties need to get the support of 289 of the 577 seat parliament to form a government. And there's no clear path forward there since a lot of these parties and the leaders of the parties have refused to work with each other. So, you know, the future is uncertain. But Ben, like politically speaking, I'm struggling a bit with how to what to make of all this. So in absolute terms, Macron lost a bunch of seats while the far left and the far right gained a bunch of seats. He also probably bought himself two years of, you know, political gridlock and not getting much done. So that's obviously bad. But he did manage to reset the

narrative that Le Pen and National Rally were ascendant in France. So I don't know, where do you land on the question of like, was this a good idea? Did it help him? Did it hurt him? Yeah. I mean, I had that what seemed at the time like the dubious distinction of like arguing the Macron point of view when he made this original decision. Look, I think the core point that he proved, the point that he demonstrated is that the far right does not have anywhere approaching like a majority in France. And even though Le Pen has been building support for the national rally, you know, it tops out or in the 30s, you know. And so that was enough in the European parliamentary election and in the first round of the parliamentary elections, that was enough to make her party the top vote getter,

because the other parties were all splintered, and McCrone was unpopular. What he proved, by kind of forcing this issue on the French people, do you really want these people in charge of the government? He proved that there's a ceiling on their support that does not allow them to get a majority. And so in that regard, he succeeded, as you said, in kind of demonstrating, wait, these people are building support, but they're not the majority party. They're not going to get a mandate from the French people to govern France. Beyond that, though, he didn't resuscitate a,

his own popularity. And he went from having a prime minister who was an ally of his to almost certainly needing to have a prime minister who comes from the left wing block. I mean, the other things that jump out to me about this are the French left, which has been really on its back foot. I mean, it managed to unify in a way that gave it power, real power, for the first time in a long time. And that includes everybody from the kind of further left parties in France, but also the kind of traditional socialist party. I mean, Francois Hollande, who, you know, who was a socialist president. Want a seat?

He won a seat, which is kind of interesting to see. Imagine Obama just won some random, like, random Carbondale, Illinois and, like, won a congressional. Yeah, totally. Yeah, so, so the French left is kind of rejuvenated. Now, what do they want to do with that? I think the opportunity is that Macron has been a centrist who's constantly tacked right, you know. He's kind of like this neolib avatar. Now, in the remaining time, he has an office.

Like he's going to have to attack left. And essentially, I imagine everything from the formation of this government to Macron's own domestic agenda is going to be a kind of negotiation between him and the left. And frankly, I think that's good, you know, because he kind of lost the plot in terms of, and I know some people will at me, you know, he was trying to do important reforms to, you know, the French economy that are badly needed. Yeah, but he didn't bring people along around those reforms. and frankly, maybe it's time to reset things and, and, you know, respond to the concerns of the left.

On foreign policy, like, he still calls the shots. The French have a very presidential system. Now, I will say that the left, Malanchon, who's the leader of the kind of left wing alliance, the kind of further left, you know, Bernie Sanders. He's like a Trotskyite. I mean, you know, he's, you know, he is. He's very, very pro-Palestinian. And so I think you might have, like, a very pro-Palestinian. And that led to a weird dynamic where, you know, he's not. Netanyahu's diaspora minister was campaigning for the national rally, which is full of anti-Semites.

So it was a very strange situation. I mean, not to go down that rabbit hole. Well, let's go down that rabbit hole for one second. Because it came out today that President Macron called BB Netanyahu to express his displeasure with the fact that current Israeli government ministers, including this diaspora minister, had meddled in their election by endorsing Marine Le Pen. Again, so just think about this for a second. An Israeli government minister endorsed a party that was founded by a Holocaust denier and an actual Nazi, like a member of the SS. Well, and this is the weirdness of the Nanyahu government, which is, you know, he's buddies with Orban, who's also basically an anti-Semite. So very strange.

What it does portend, though, is I think, you know, a lot of push from the left to recognize Palestine, you know, for France to follow the example of countries like Spain and Norway and Ireland who recently recognized. Palestine. I'm not sure what McCrone will do about that, but French politics is going to be kind of negotiation from the center to the left in the coming years. And that will weaken McCrone somewhat, but probably not in areas of foreign policy. The last thing I'd say, Tommy, is that I saw a lot of like hot takes flying around. Now, you know, the Democrats are going to win the U.S. Because the pollsters are wrong. It's just, it's not, it's not particularly comparable because I wish it was. Like, don't get me wrong. But you described it. This is a parliamentary system with two rounds of voting in which there was highly effective tactical voting in the

second round. And the polling and projection couldn't really figure out how to, you know, factor that in because you suddenly have candidates dropping out. You've got the left telling people to vote for the centrist over here and the centrist saying vote for the left over here. And so it's a sign, yes, that if you put a big tent over the center and the left, you can beat far-right authoritarian. That is a very important political lesson that does apply here. But I don't necessarily think it portends our election results. Yeah, there's people tweeting about French elections for the first time. We're like, see, Biden's going to be fine. It's like, ah, it's way more complicated than that. Listen, I came on the show, whatever, a couple weeks ago, and was talking about, like,

you know, pollsters and projections, and La Figuero that looked terrible for Macron and was dancing on his grave. So, you know, I'll eat shit for that. I think you're right, though. I mean, Macron will have to listen to the left. It'll be unclear how much he's able to, though, because, you know, this leftist block, the biggest piece of, there's like communists, there's socialist, there's greens, and there's this group called France Unbound, which is led by Melanchon. They want to increase spending by $380 billion of the next three years. They want to boost public sector wages, increase housing benefits, reinstate a wealth tax, and rollback Macron's pension overhaul, all things that sound great to me, but I think it's going to be, you can imagine

why it will be hard for him to agree to some of those, some of those changes, given how much political capital he just spent trying to get French spending in line. I guess, like, yeah, on the big picture question, like, was this a good idea, was it bad? I guess I kind of come down on like, we won't really know until 2027. That's right. Because Marine Le Pen and National Rally, they are arguing that this was a rigged election that the coalitions denied the will of a plurality of, the voters, because I think they got like 37% or something like that in the first round. And that basically national rallies rise is delayed but not denied. I guess time will tell it will probably depend in large part on kind of what government is

able to come together and how effective or ineffective they seem. But man, Macron kept us guessing. You're right that essentially the real test is the next presidential election because, again, the danger is let's say it's total chaos. us. And let's say they can't agree on everything and it's a real mess. And, you know, then the national rally runs, the real prize in French politics has always been the presidency. It's an incredibly strong presidential system, even more so than the U.S. And so if they can run against kind of a dysfunctional, chaotic government, you know, maybe they have a better shot in that election.

I will say, though, it's not clear to me, you know, because the French presidential system makes it hard for a party that doesn't really have 50 plus percent, you know, support. Like in Italy, Maloney could get elected prime minister with a vote share like in the 30s, like the kind of national rally size because a bunch of parties split the vote, right? Parliamentary systems, it's easier for these far right parties to kind of get a foothold in power. I think what Macron was counting on and thus far has been proven right is that these people have a ceiling on their support that is well below 50%. Yeah, that's right.

Well, let's turn to the UK where it was more clearly great news. So, you know, Ben, again, we'll talk with Nish and Coco from Pods, of the UK later in the show. So do listen to that. But I think we all deserve a little victory lap, Ben, after 14 years of Tory rule. So, you know, again, like, so cool to hear Lammy on the show. It's also wild that David Lammy and Barack Obama met, I think, at a law school alumni function, you know, 20 plus years ago. They became friends. And now David Lammy is foreign secretary, while Obama rose to be a podcaster. You know, that's pretty storybook stuff. That's a real, unpredictable stuff there.

But enough of this inspirational crap. Let's be petty for a second. So former British Prime Minister, well, for 30-something days, Liz Truss, she lost her seat. She had a 26,000 vote majority in the last election and then lost this time. Here's a clip of Liz Truss on election night.

I think this is from the BBC. But do you accept that first as a cabinet minister and then for a brief time as Prime Minister, you were part of the people in power who were overseeing those things not being delivered? I agree I was part of that, that's absolutely true, but during our 14 years in power, unfortunately we did not do enough to take on the legacy we've been left, in particular things like the Human Rights Act that made it very difficult for us to deport illegal immigrants,

and that is one of the reasons I think we've ended up in this situation we are now. Do you still want to stay in conservative politics? I've got a lot to think about it's been a very very hectic few weeks I haven't slept last night so give me a bit of time but I will definitely talk to you again when I've got the opportunity

One more question would you like to say sorry to the people of Norfolk because they clearly feel a little left down by you I love the British person Aren't you a fucking loser Just savage I mean yeah 14 years It just wasn't enough to erase those labor disasters, Ben. So Prime Minister Rishi Sunak immediately moved out of number 10 Downing Street.

I guess shout out to him for not hosting an insurrection, but Kirst Armer moved in. I don't know if you saw it. Sunak did deliver a speech in front of 10 Downing Street, like a goodbye speech, where his wife kind of awkwardly loomed in the background behind him. And someone said on Twitter that he looked like he was being haunted by the woman he ran over with his car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I think is my favorite tweet of all time, maybe.

Between the National Rally and that image, there's great content out there. Look, the Liz trusting is funny to me because sometimes I almost want to feel sorry for this person because she's been so thoroughly humiliated. And then she opens her mouth and says that she's just sorry they couldn't get rid of something called the Human Rights Act. Like, of all the things, she's like, we just couldn't quite get rid of the Human Rights Act. It seems like an act you want to keep in place, you know? And it's good to be reminded of just how odious the Tories were.

And again, their lasting legacy of the 14 years is Brexit. And it's interesting that, I mean, the austerity, too, that gutted UK social services. But really, that's the thing that the mark they left. And it's been a disaster. And you saw David Lammy in his first trip as Foreign Secretary kind of do this tour across Europe to Germany and Poland and Sweden. because, you know, they are literally just trying to rebuild a relationship with Europe that was kind of wrecked by the Tories. Yeah, I mean, so I think that's a good segue. I mean, the election wasn't entirely good news, right? Like, Labor won 411 seats, which is huge, the 200-seat increase. But it's vote share barely increased over the last election. So that's a little worrisome. Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK party only won five seats. But by vote share, they're now the UK's third largest party. So this is a very right-wing anti-amborism. anti-internationalist party, Farage is now in parliament. The conservatives got crushed. That is a

wonderful thing. They lost 250 seats. But for labor, I mean, they now inherit a brutal economic situation, a national health system in crisis, and this post-Brexit reality that in the election at least, like, neither party really wanted to seem to talk about or address. And it's not clear to me, like, where labor is going to go from here when it comes to Brexit. Well, I think the vote share thing is interesting because I have had, I have some, you know, progressive friends in the UK who've made this point that Corbyn actually got a lot more votes in his first election. But I actually don't think that's a good argument, I have to say, because what he did is he drove up the labor vote share and kind of left-wing districts, but then lost all these seats in Northern England and Scotland.

Right. You know, it's kind of like saying here, like the goal of a presidential election is to win the Electoral College, not the popular vote. And I think Starmor focused pretty relentlessly on, on, you know, winning seats back and not on kind of driving overall poll numbers. But you're right. It's a bit of a warning sign that this is not, you know, Tony Blair came in in 97. If you're not old enough to remember, you can watch that movie The Queen. I mean, he was a rock star and people were excited. And that is not kind of the vibe. People are relieves that the toys are out. People are happy to give Starmor chance. But it's not the same kind of wave. To your point, you know, they have to kind of reformulate this

relationship with Europe. They're not going to go back into the EU, but I think they're going to start to negotiate some agreements. Lammy announced an effort to negotiate kind of a security pact between the EU and the UK. I think they could spend some time here, obviously fixing things up at home. And you'll hear Nish talk about how there's literally like shit in the rivers in the UK that they got to clean up and they got to make the NHS work again. But I think in foreign policy, they'd be well served to just kind of build a new relationship with Europe. that is the kind of post-Brexit version of how the UK lives and works with its and trades with its closest neighbors.

Yeah, and I did see that I think they've already announced the new government that they are going to terminate this outrageous deal to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. So, you know, a win for just like human decency already to get rid of that deal. Before we go to break Ben, Ben, just a couple quick things. First of all, thank you to everyone, including you, Ben Rhodes, who bought, worked on, on told people about our book democracy or else. We actually got number one on the New York Times bestseller list. So kiss my ass, Christy Noem, you dog killing creep. If you want to read it, books are still available, but we really, really, really appreciate it. So thank you. Also, Ben,

all eight episodes of an excellent new Crooked Podcast, Killing Justice, are now available on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're your pods. Catch up on the episodes now as host Ravi Gupta follows the reporting and legal fallout from the death of a prominent Indian justice. It examines the conflicting evidence to answer how one man's death has become a magnet for the increasingly polarized politics in India. It's an excellent, excellent show, a timely show, an important show as we were talking about kind of what path India takes in this new world. So listen on Apple or Spotify now. We're joining the Friends of the Pod community for ad-free episodes at cricket.com slash friends. Ben, let's talk about NATO because we mentioned at the top, the NATO summit is happening this week in Washington, D.C.

So happy 75th anniversary, everyone, hope it's not our last. The major focus of this week is going to be on shoring up NATO support for Ukraine, where luckily things have stabilized. U.S. officials told the New York Times that they don't think Russia will take more Ukrainian territory this year. That said, I mean, the situation is just like steady state, horrific on a day-to-day basis. On Monday, the Russians literally bombed a children's hospital in Kiev, which is just an evil that I can't truly fathom. The NATO allies, they're expected to pledge another $43 billion for Ukraine,

which is less than Zelensky had hoped. They will also are expected to pledge more air defense systems, which is very important. Ukraine won't get what it really wants and has wanted for a long time, which is to join NATO, but there will be, once again, some kind of discussion about like a long-term path to NATO membership for Ukraine that punts the issue. There will also be renewed efforts to get the NATO allies to spend more on defense. Right now, 23 of 32 members are on track to hit the 2% target. But Ben, the elephant in the room at this conference is Trump in our presidential election. If Trump wins, he says he will force Ukraine to make a bunch of concessions to end the war. And in the past, Trump has suggested that he would walk away from the bedrock principle of NATO,

which is that an attack upon one is an attack on all members. And then just to raise the stakes of this thing even more, on Thursday, Biden is going to do his end of summit press conference, which in the wake of the disastrous debate a couple weeks ago and some not great interviews since will be watched by everyone, basically, who is worried about Biden's candidacy. So it's like, you know, no pressure, man, like the future of the campaign, the NATO alliance in Ukraine is kind of like riding on this week in some ways. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. I mean, the first thing on Ukraine, I'd say, is that Putin's been kind of fluxing his support in recent days, clearly calculated to kind of counterprogram NATO.

So first of all, Victor Orban, who now has the kind of rotating presidency of the European Union, he flew to Moscow and shocked his fellow Europeans and fellow NATO allies, by the way, because he didn't tell them he was going to Moscow. That was a bit of a, you know, fuck you to the alliance, not just from Putin, but from Orban. Then Modi, Narendra Modi, comes to Russia, like, all. on the eve of the NATO summit, like, given all the hugging of Modi that the Biden administration has done and that the West has done, a bit of a message from Modi, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not in your camp. I'm not in Putin's camp either. I'm a free agent. I think

that's kind of Modi's message. And Modi invited Putin to India to visit next year. Yeah, I mean, he also received the Order of St. Andrew, the highest civilian honor. Well, pretty big demonstration, though, that, I mean, because India has not been playing ball with sanctions either. It's a pretty big message did, like, Putin is not isolated from the world. He's isolated from Europe and the United States, essentially. And then maybe, you know, Japan and South Korea and a handful of other countries, Canada, Australia. So to me, like, it sets up the stakes here. You know, there's a bit of a still made on the battlefield. The Russians believe time is working on their side, even if they can't take much more territory. They can seem to hold what they have already occupied inside of

Ukraine. Their horrific strike on that Children's Hospital recalls the horror that is being brought down on the Ukrainian people. And what Ukraine needs at that NATO summit is a sign of staying power from its supporters, that not only are they getting this tranche of weapons that just passed Congress, but that there'll be kind of ongoing support for Ukraine, both to defend its territory, but also to be in a strong position for a negotiation with Putin. And the reality, Tommy, like if we're honest, I bet you that the only thing that's being talked about in the hallways of that NATO summit and in dinners and side conversations that leaders are having is American politics. Because, you know, they all know at that meeting that they can make all the pledges of support to Ukraine they want. They can have all the language in the communique about security guarantees for Ukraine and long-term support and we're in it for as long as it takes. But everybody there knows that if Trump's elected, he's going to pull the plug on the Ukrainians. and he's going to emboldened Putin. And all of a sudden, it's not just going to be Orban and Putin and G.

It's going to be Orban and Putin and Trump, you know, as well. And so the summit is kind of clearly was meant to be something of victory lap for an expanded NATO, which is an achievement of Joe Biden's and NATO's relevance in defending Ukraine. But it takes place now under this kind of cloud of anxiety about whether this is the last NATO summit of its kind, at least for the next few years. Yeah, you'll occasionally read reports about attempts to Trump-proof NATO. And I just, it's not possible. Yeah.

There was an interesting story in Politico that talked about how some of the folks visiting are trying to kind of speak in language that Trump might understand. This is a clip from the Estonian defense minister, Hano Pevker, that I think gets at that. NATO is a club. Trump is a golfer. So when you pay your fee in the golf club, you can play. doesn't matter how big is your wallet. When we talk about the commitments, then yes, we have 23 countries now who are above 2%.

We had a year ago only 11. So there is a clear process and progress in that sense, but 2% is not enough. So we have to go to 2.5, maybe even to 3%. I love it how they put it in the dumbest terms possible. but like Gilly has two apples. Marlago is a club. NATO is a club. Therefore, you won't leave this club.

I mean, I will say, Tommy, I've had some conversations, some Eastern Europeans who've been in high-ranking positions and governments at some of these things I've gone to in recent months. I've been surprised at how much they, there's a bit of a divide in Europe. Some of the Eastern Europeans kind of felt like that, you know, Trump wasn't that bad. And they kind of liked that Trump beat up on NATO members to spend more money.

But what seemed to be missing was an understanding that like Trump 2.0 is probably not going to be the same guy you had last time, where, you know, you had Jamadus as the defense secretary and you had, you know, Rex Tillerson and even Mike Pompeo, you know, no friend of this pod, but like kind of a conventional hawkish guy. Right. I don't know if these guys are ready for like the Rick Grinnell, Cash Patel's of the world to be running things and are taking seriously enough the reality that he might just withdraw support entirely for Ukraine because he sees it as kind of some extension of, you know, his own domestic

political challenges, right? The Democrats like Ukraine, so I don't. In terms of Trump proofing it, I mean, there have been a lot of, you know, good efforts by the Europeans to try to regenerate some of their own defense industry so they could support Ukraine. But that takes years. You know, you can't just kind of magically pop up an entire defense industrial base that you don't have. And so if the U.S. does cut off Ukraine, it's going to be felt and felt immediately. Yeah, I mean, I saw just before we walked in that Rick Rennel, this, you know, former Trump aide who is now runs around the world saying he's going to be the new Secretary of State. He wants Mark Ruta, the incoming Secretary General of NATO, replaced because his home country is not spending enough on defense. So these guys are already kind of like thrashing about kind of screwing things up.

CNN also had a weird report that I just want to mention that U.S. military bases in Europe were put on alert last week because of concerns about Russian-backed actors carrying out sabotage operations. against them. So, you know, it seems like sometimes the, the war in Ukraine can seem contained at times, but it is not. It can spill out at any moment. All right, Ben, let's turn to Iran. Because last Friday, Iranians voted to replace their late president, Ibrahim Risi, who died in a helicopter crash in May. It was a runoff between two candidates, a reformist, Massoud Poreshian, who favors the easing of dress codes for women and the softening of Iran's attitude towards the West and Saeed Jalili, a hardliner who other, you know, has a bunch of ultra-Orthodox positions. He opposed the Iran nuclear deal, for example.

He's just, you know, the pretty hardline guy. Peschian started the campaign as a long shot, but he emerged victorious with almost three million more votes than Jalili. Now, the one thing we should flag is interpreting these results is a little complicated because opponents of the Iranian government advocated a boycott in the first round of voting. in turnout ended up being historically low, around 40%. That increased at the runoff, but it was just sort of complicated results. We spoke with Ali Vez, who is the Iran Project Director for the International Crisis Group,

about the election and that dynamic. Here's a clip from Ali. I think the first round of the presidential election was a referendum on the Islamic Republic's legitimacy, and with the lowest participation rate of 39% in history of the Islamic Republic, The regime clearly failed at that test, demonstrating how wide the gap between the state and the society has become and how much disillusionment exists within the Iranian society about their ability to bring meaningful change through the ballot box. The second round of the election, I think, was a referendum on dogmatic versus pragmatic approaches to governance. And here is where the hardliners lost miserably, given the fact that they were in charge of all levers of power in the past three years. And almost everything they touched went from bad to worse, from the economic situation to the deep discontent within the society and also Iran's relations with the West.

Pestashkians is the first reformist candidate to win since 2001. and the first reformist candidate allowed to participate in the elections since 2005. In Iran, ultimately, authority lies with the Supreme Leader. But the President has a lot of influence on domestic policy and can set the tone for how Iran engages with the rest of the world. So this could be interesting. Also, Supreme Leaders don't live forever. So, Ben, we also asked Ali about what this leadership change means or might mean for Iran's diplomatic relations with other countries, especially the United States.

Here's another clip from it. President Peschkjian is coming to office with the promise of engaging with the West, especially with the United States, and in order to try to lift sanctions. He has admitted, unlike his hard-line rivals in this election, that sanctions have had a devastating impact on the Iranian economy. And he has even admitted that Iran's approach during the previous Raezi administration of indirect engagement with the United States was not in Iran's interest. because the intermediaries always put their own interests first.

So it is expected that he will try to engage and try to find a diplomatic path forward. I think the real risk here is that there might be a misalignment between the more moderate administration of Mr. Pesigyan in Iran and the return of much more hawkish Trump administration post-January 2025. So, Ben, Iranian voters, you know, said that they're mad about inflation. They were frustrated that the morality police was, you know, beating up or killing women on the streets. They want sanctions to go away just to generally improve the Iranian economy. The question is, assuming Joe Biden wins reelection and there is an appetite for diplomacy with Iran, how much space do you think the U.S. will end up having to negotiate with this new government on something like, you know, a new nuclear

agreement, knowing that, you know, the Supreme Leader ultimately calls the shots. And he, I think, understandably feels like he got screwed when Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, the Obama-era nuclear agreement, even though Iran was complying at the time. Yeah. But the first thing is, it's just striking. Whenever the Iranian people have any capacity whatsoever to register their opinion, they kind of always move in the more reformist pragmatic direction. I mean, we've gotten several windows into this. Whatever window opens a crack they take in these presidential elections to kind of send a message. They don't like the kind of hardline elements of the Islamic Republic. Some of them don't like the Islamic Republic at all. And this reminds me of when Rahani won the

Iranian presidential election in 2013, the more pragmatic alternative to the hardliners, he too came into power kind of wanting to pursue engagement with the U.S. And that was something that opened the door to ultimately getting the Iran nuclear deal. Even if the Supreme Leader is more of a hardline guy, even if the guys in the IRGC don't like engagement with the West, the reality is that they have to be somewhat responsive to public opinion. And if the public opinion clearly wants to get out from under some of these sanctions, doesn't want to be in some inexorable conflict of the U.S., you know, I think they would be willing to test that. So I think if Biden wins, the likelihood of their

being some kind of deal, I think will be quite high. Now, to your point, though, Tommy, I'm not sure it will be possible to do something even as ambitious as the Iran deal, because there's just not a trust that the U.S. will keep a deal for more than a few years, you know, you can make a deal for the time that you're president, hopefully it's a Democrat, Joe Biden or another Democrat, not Donald Trump. But the other point is that nothing's going to happen for the next few months. As with NATO, a common thread here is that a lot of geopolitical events are now involved in our election and people are just going to take a step back and wait and see what happens. Why on earth would you negotiate something for the Iranians with the Biden administration

if Trump would obviously tear it up if he came in? So this too goes in a holding pattern, but it's in a holding pattern where we know there's some opportunity here to diffuse what is a real nuclear crisis. Iranians are right on the doorstep of having enough material for a nuclear weapon. And that can be diffused, hopefully, if the election goes right. And it kind of, I don't know, Tommy it reinforces, I don't want to get too into the, you know, that you guys covered this so well in Potsay of America. But whatever decision making Joe Biden has to do about his own future, all these other events touch it too. You know, it's obviously above all the American people, but like the future of the war in Ukraine,

the future of NATO, the possibility of a diplomatic opening with Iran versus a conflict of Iran. Like all of this is tied up and and whether he decides that, you know, he's the right person to, to do this. The entire world is watching. The entire world is watching. All the foreign, you know, sort of international news shows I listen to to like kind of get ideas for this show were leading with the U.S. elections for like the last week. Yeah. They're talking about the debate. They're talking about the ABC interview.

They're talking about, you know, concerns in Congress about Biden's ability to win. I mean, the whole world is watching so much rights on this election for us as a country, but literally for everyone else, the whole world, everyone in Europe, everyone in Ukraine, everyone in Taiwan, you know, like the stakes are just absolute. And that's why I get so fucking pissed off when people say that we shouldn't have an honest conversation about like how best to win. Like, how can you possibly think that that is the rational path for it? Well, people in other countries, too, don't understand, they generally don't understand what's going on.

Because in their systems, it's easier to kind of just replace a party leader, you know. And so this kind of reflexive, no, no, get with the program. Like you must be loyal to the leader. Don't question it. Like it makes even less sense the further you get away from the U.S. and probably from Washington itself, you know. Yeah, the Tories are like, we're just going to bounce this goober and have 150,000 like, decrepit old conservatives.

Next one. They just sort it out in weeks. It's not a great system either. I don't know. bit low. No, no system's perfect. Hey. The ability to call snap elections kind of cool and kind of exciting, even if it doesn't always turn out well. All right, Ben, let's turn to Gaza, speaking of just steady state, awful. The war has now been going on in Gaza for more than nine months. It's hard to believe that. In the past week or so, there were glimmers of hope that Israel and Hamas

might agree to a ceasefire deal because Hamas dropped its demand that Israel commit to a permanent ceasefire before they would sort of enter into this phase deal. Remember, it's supposed to go, it's supposed to be a phase process with a temporary ceasefire and a hostage release, followed by negotiations over permanently ending the war and then sort of a reconstruction period after. But then on Sunday, right before negotiators were set to meet again, Netanyahu's office released a new set of principles that included a demand that, quote, any deal will allow Israel to return to fighting until its war aims are achieved, which just sort of up seems to have upended things. And I guess it seems to have rule out this deal ending the

war more than anything else. But I don't know. We'll figure it out. Israeli citizens continue to take to the streets. They're demanding a hostage release deal, including the mother of one of the hostages who suspended herself from a cage above a protest and told the crowd, quote, we are all held captive by Netanyahu and Sinwar, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Yaya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas. Meanwhile, Ben, the situation on the ground in Gaza, It's just hell on earth for civilians. They're at constant risk from airstrikes. There's not enough food.

And they're also just getting displaced over and over again by Israeli ground operations. The Israeli government has repeatedly sent ground troops back into areas that they had already cleared, like Gaza City, because, you know, they cleared out Hamas fighters. And then they left, and they just left a vacuum. And Hamas has since reemerged. This was predictable and predicted by military experts. but Netanyahu's government just seems to refuse to come up with a viable plan for who should govern Gaza, so it's, you know, happening over and over again. A few weeks back, Israel's top military spokesman said, quote, the idea that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish, that is throwing sand in the eyes of the public, which is a pretty direct shot at Netanyahu, who is called for eradicating Hamas. And I think it clearly reflects the Israeli military's frustration with Netanyahu's failure to figure out a, a person.

plan for the day after the war. The New York Times reported that Israel's top generals want to ceasefire and that the Israeli military needs time to recuperate in case there's a war with Hezbollah. They're literally like running out of munitions. So Ben, you know, once again, American politics are right in the middle of this. Netanyahu's coming to D.C. to deliver a speech to Congress on July 24th. That date falls after the Republican convention. But it's also could be in a period where Biden is in this, you know, precarious political moment. So I'm wondering what you think Bibi wants out of this visit, like what, how he's going to come in here, whether he kind of, you know, is as overtly political as he's been in the past.

Like, what are you expecting from this? Well, I think Netanyahu's like never been this politically vulnerable. And yet he kind of survives because the right wing parties, the far right parties that kind of prop him up know that if Netanyahu is out, it's more. more likely that a more centrist politician like a, you know, Benny Gans, replaces him. So they'd rather stick with Netanyahu. And what we're seeing is the complete collapse of the logic of Netanyahu's approach to this military operation. Look, Netanyahu wants his military operation to continue because it keeps him in power. But he set a goal destroying Hamas, which we've said for months

on this program, is completely unachievable. Like, you're not going to eradicate Hamas. And so he's repeating over and over and over again this goal that you can't achieve. And then also, he's entering into the ceasefire negotiations. What's so clear if you follow the ceasefire negotiations is that Israeli negotiators will be painstakingly putting together proposals with Egypt and Qatar and dealing with Hamas and the U.S. really leaning in. And then Bibi comes in and blows it up every fucking time, you know, because he always, you know, says, no, no, no, we're going to keep trying to destroy the people that we're trying to get to. sign this agreement to give us the hostages. And so his approach is not achieving the military

objective of destroying Hamas and not achieving the objective of getting the hostages back, which could be done through a ceasefire agreement that is on the table right now. And Bibi is the biggest obstacle to it. In the military wants. And the military wants and a couple point on the military before we get to Bibi's visit. I was struck by that reporting, Tommy, about them believing that they're running so low on munitions that they kind of want this thing to be wrapped up. Yeah. I was starting. for this reason. The U.S. has been providing all of these offensive military munitions to Israel to the people who say to us, well, it doesn't really matter if the U.S. would cut off Israel from

offensive weapons because people would ignore us anyway. He wouldn't be able to ignore us if we weren't pouring weapons in, you know? Like inadvertently, it reveals the leverage the U.S. has that Biden has chosen not to use. And so kind of really bothered me in that regard, because I heard this argument from people that, well, he has no choice but to give them these weapons because they'll ignore us anyway. Well, no, they won't because they actually depend on these things that we're giving them. Now, where all this comes together is what does he want out of Washington? He wants a big political boost because B.B. wants to be able to show that I can continue to play the Americans. I can I can insult them. I can ignore their president, but I can still get

a hero's welcome in Washington, get fully embraced by the Republican Party and have enough Democrats eager to be seen with me to hug me, that it doesn't matter if some people are criticizing me on the left in the United States. And frankly, like, Biden has already been weakened politically. What is the incentive for Netanyahu to be pressured into a ceasefire deal from a president that he doesn't believe is going to win? Let's be honest about this. And that he doesn't want to win.

Bibi wants Biden to lose. He wants Trump to win. No doubt. And so he's not trying to give him some win with a ceasefire deal. The real pressure on Bibi for, for the C-Star deal is coming from the families in Israel. But I think what he's going to hope to get out of this is I can go. I can upstage Biden.

I can humiliate Biden. I can show all the support I have in the U.S. And I can kind of continue this game of like, I depend on the Israeli far right and the U.S. Congress to back me up and help keep him in power. And it is insane to me that he's being given a platform in Washington to do that, including by Democratic leaders in Congress. What do we wake up? What are we doing people?

Massive mistake. doing. Also, relatedly, you know, very recently Miriam Adelson, whose husband, Sheldon Adelson, was a huge Republican donor and, you know, very like sort of hardline pro-Israel family announced that she's going to spend 61 million on TV and digital ads attacking Biden, presumably, you know, over Gaza or whatever it might be. You know, the real sort of, the real thing politically that could actually harm Netanyahu is there's now a 90-day deadline, I for ultra-Orthodox men of a certain age in Israel to report to army enlistment centers in accordance with this Israeli Supreme Court ruling that they are no longer exempt from military

service. That issue could crumble Netanyahu's coalition and lead to ultra-orthodox cadetsate members to pull out of it and topple the government. We'll see. It still hasn't happened yet. I'm sure they're all banking on, you know, kind of the devil they know versus the unknown, but we'll see. Yeah, no, that's the, that's the Jenga piece that could bring it down because then that cuts into, you know, his, literally his coalition, right? But man, he's been such a survivor. And unless, you know, unless there's a real shove here, like he's, you know, navigating, he's just trying to make it to the U.S. election, then he's got Trump to deal with. And then maybe things get easier for him, you know. Yeah, it just plays day by day. Final thing, Ben, just a quick PSA for listeners. If you were planning to visit Barcelona, anytime, soon, maybe consider a plan B because over the weekend, thousands of residents of Barcelona took to the streets to protest against too much tourism. They had signs that said tourists go home. Some of them squirted tourists who are dining alfresco with squirt guns. These protesters blamed

tourism for increasing the cost of living. The mayor of Barcelona tweeted over the weekend that he would reserve more housing for residential units and increased taxes on tourists, presumably in response to these protests. No word if he was threatened with like a super soaker or something. Ben, I did check the weather and tomorrow when this episode comes out, it's going to be 84 degrees in Barcelona, which tells me maybe squircuns are not the most effective way to harass people. Maybe like go with a stink bomb or something. I think I would just appreciate getting cooled off on a hot day. Yeah. Maybe I think that was like a very polite welcome, you know, just a little like sprinkler system. I saw that they basically outlawed air.

B&B. And so there were like 200-something,000 Airbnb units. And look, I got to say this across my mind, I went to Florence over spring break, you know, with my kids. And, you know, it is kind of weird to be in one of these smaller cities that, because like a big city like Paris, it's kind of big enough to like absorb the tourists and still feel like French and Parisian. But you're walking around Florence and you're like, are there, are there any Italians here? Like what? Like, I'm quite sympathetic to this idea that, you know, there's got to be some limit on how many, like, shorts wearing Americans, you know, yelling in English, you know, yeah, with, like, it's, they should figure this out. I mean, I like Airbnb, but maybe that's a logical way to limit the intake. Yeah, there's got to be a reasonable cap.

There's also got to be a way to ensure that, you know, money that was raised through tourism. gets spread out to everybody and not just to a couple of big winners. But yeah, anyway, I still would like to go to Barcelona sometime soon, have not been in a very long time. If not ever, have I been? One of the great world cities. It's absolutely. Spain's amazing.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, you'll hear Ben's interview with the excellent host of Pottae of the UK. But one last thing, if you want to see Potta of America on the road, we are coming to the Orphium Theater in Madison, Wisconsin on Friday, July 19th. Also, love it or leave it is there on Saturday, July 20th at the Barrymore Theater. in Madison. So go to kirka.com slash events and grab your tickets now. Okay, so we are very pleased

to welcome Cocoa Khan and Nish Kumar of our sister podcast, our cousin podcast, Pots of the UK. Nish and Coco are going to help us break down the seismic political transformation of the United Kingdom. Welcome, guys. Hello. Thanks for

having us. I prefer estranged cousin. How about you, Nish? I'm actually an estranged cousin in my own family. This is a nice double whammy for me. Le Carre always called the Americans the Cousins, but it wasn't like a nice cousin. Well, okay, so we're not here to talk about our political dysfunction. We are here to talk about what's happened in the UK.

So, you know, not a shocking result, but the landslide for labor that people had predicted happened. 411 seats for labor, 121 for the Tories, the Lib Dems. Kynman 3rd at 72, Najal Farage, finally got his seat. We've all seen the iconic images of Rishi Sunak and his glowering wife over his shoulder, leaving number 10 and Kirstarmer walking in, and then cabinet announcements and new days. Just to start, what's the vibe over there? How are people feeling about the election result? I mean, I think it's an interesting one only because it had become so painfully apparent

based on all available polling data that this was the kind of result that we were heading towards. And I think also that sense of inevitability was heightened by the total incompetence of the Conservative election campaign, the like of which we've never seen before. I mean, Rishi Sunak managed to make Theresa May

look like your old boss, Barack Obama, in terms of like effectiveness as a campaign politician. And the kind of last couple of weeks were taken up with this sort of vaguely extraordinary scandal where starting with a Conservative Member of Parliament, who was Rishi Sunak's closest parliamentary aid, a succession of people involved in the Conservative Party and campaign were investigated for having bet on the election day.

It's the sort of stupidest political scandal I can think of in my entire life. But yeah, what we've been left with is, I mean, it's an interesting thing because of the inevitability of the result, it may be a slightly dulled the shock of it. To set this in a kind of historical context, this is a majority of 174 seats, which is only four less than the one Tony Blair achieved in 1997. It's also, I guess, a reflection of our slightly screwed up electoral system that Labor have won this massive majority with actually a lower vote share than they achieved in 2019. And whilst I think lots of people find that there are things to be frustrated about with our electoral system, our electoral system is also the reason that not.

Nigel Farage's Reform Party managed to accumulate 4 million votes, which is 500,000 votes more than the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats' final seat count is 72 and reforms is 5. So, I mean, it's an election that leaves us sort of scratching our heads about our electoral system. And then also, and I think this is probably quite an awkward thing to admit, secretly relieved in some ways, given that it has boxed reform out from further electoral success. Yeah, relief was exactly the word I was thinking when you asked a question, Ben. I think that, I mean, partly that's because Labor intentionally were quite vague in terms of their promises.

So, you know, if you compare some of the footage that's come out of France in the last few days, you know, you're seeing, like, people out on the street. Like, it's a real energy. It feels like the football. You know what I mean? We didn't quite have that here. And I think that was because the main feeling was relief. In terms of all the polling of why people chose to vote Labor, the top reason was to get the Tories out. So in that regard, it was more a vote against than a vote for. And I think that's impacted the mood. And certainly from our side of things, the progressives, because of the vagueness in the Labour manifest and just general feelings about, you know, needing radical change and potentially it not being promised, the sort of language that's being used by the kind of progressive press is something along the lines of, we're going to enjoy it for now, but we'll be keeping an eye on it. And I think that that certainly sums up how I feel.

Yeah, well, I want to get to labor in a second here, but let's just take a moment here to kind of dance on the Tories grave. I mean, you got to enjoy it. Come on. We don't get that much good stuff in life. Let's enjoy it. I know. So I want to put it to you this way. What was the most satisfying in terms of the humiliation of the Tories and where they're at? Was there an individual? You know, Liz Trust lost her seat, which is pretty remarkable. Who are the individuals your happiest to see Go? and how would you, you know, how do you communicate the kind of scale of the humiliation of the Tories here and the extent to which they're in the wilderness? See, this is the thing about the conservatives, is that they are hard to humiliate because I would say they're shameless. And so, you know, I saw a video of Liz Truss being losing her seed. And I don't know what anti-anxiety drugs that lady is on, but they are strong.

Can I have some? She looked completely nonplast. I mean, Jake could re-smog as well. The man lost his seat, stood next to a man in a bare. baked bean balaclava. And again, not plus. I enjoyed those moments, Ben. They were great for me.

But in terms of how they felt about it, I'm not sure. And actually, both those politicians have subsequently said, oh, it's because we weren't right-wing enough. So, you know, again, this might come back to bite us. I mean, I think Liz Truss, I believe this is right, is the first ex-prime minister to lose their seat in 100 years. I mean, that's partly because sometimes when people step down to the prime minister, that they immediately stop being members of parliament.

And so they generally tend to stage manage their own exits. But Liz Truss sort of staged managed her own exit in the way that she sort of stage managed her time as Prime Minister, i.e., she hopped in the car and drive it directly into a wall. But that moment felt, I have to say that moment felt very satisfying for me because that was the kind of completion of the process of accountability for what Liz Truss did to the country. in her, you know, relatively speaking, short period of political influence in this country.

But yeah, that was very satisfying. Jacob Rees-Mogg is a harder figure to explain largely because I don't think he would have made the same waves in America because he's never really been an actual front-line conservative politician of consequence. But he is this sort of, he's kind of the incarnation of everything that's wrong with this country. You know, his father, William Rees-Mogg, was like a sort of disaster. capitalist who wrote a kind of quite influential book that modelled a huge amount of disaster capitalism some 30 or 40 years later. And Rees-Mogg is a kind of, you know, sort of hedge fund,

kind of aristocrat. And he has, you know, he's sort of become this kind of figurehead for a section of the hard right of the Conservative Party. And him losing his seat, again, is sort of extraordinarily satisfying. He's the sort of political figure that if I didn't, know, I would assume was being played by Sasha Baron Cohen as part of a sort of Ali G Barat-style film. Apart from the fact that about 25 years ago, he was interviewed by Ali G because he was an example of an expert on poshness. Like truly, he, he, he, he, he, Sasha Baron Cohen did a sketch involving him. That, that's the kind of level of aristocratic breeding he comes from. But I think in terms of the sort of seismic political shockwaves, I think

Liz Trust, it felt very symbolic in terms of closing a chapter on this period of conservative rule in this country. So I want to get to Labor now and building on the very good primary you just did for us on a couple of personalities there. Before we get to Kure Starmer, I want to focus on what I found to be some pretty hopeful things to watch. People here probably don't know. a lot of people don't know who Angela Rainer is. I thought it was kind of particularly, I don't know,

moving actually to watch her, you know, walk into number 10 and deputy prime minister. Can you just explain to people who Angela is and, you know, what her role as deputy prime minister and minister for, I guess they're going to change it from leveling up, what that represents in terms of what part of the Labor Party she represents in her story? Yeah, so Angela Rainer is, you know, a really inspiring figure here in the U.S. UK, particularly over the last 14 years, it's been terrible social mobility. There's been improvements under other governments, but generally it's been quite stagnant. So it's quite nice to see someone who is genuinely from a challenging background. So you must forgive me,

I can't remember if she had her first child at 16, 17 or 18, but she was very young. She was a single mother. She lived in social housing. She was a cleaner for a while. Then she did like home care for vulnerable patients. Through that, she started working with trade unions and representing other workers in that sector and almost that was her route into politics. So you have not only someone who has genuinely experienced what it's like to struggle, has had to overcome all sorts of social barriers, but also has come through the trade union route. And Labor's origins have been a movement for the workers and has worked very closely with trade unions. After Margaret Thatcher's legacy of union busting, you know, the unions never really had the same power

again. So there's something quite almost historic about someone with that background so close to the Prime Minister. Yeah, she's an extraordinary she often credits the last Labour government with creating the opportunities

that allowed someone like her to actually end up in a career in politics. And, you know, she often uses her own story as an example of the kind of transformational power of a Labour government. So you're absolutely right to focus on her. It is an extraordinary story.

And she's really funny, which it's not the point, obviously, like comedy, but she's got a personality, you know, she's, you know, famously when she did an interview with Beth Rigby, one of our kind of preeminent journalists here, she talked about the battle bus, so the bus that politicians and members of the Labour Party would be taking around the country for campaigning. And the thing she pointed out was that it had its own fridge. And there's just something deeply relatable to that, which I think actually, given we've just spoken about Jacob Rees-Mogg, relatability, obviously, that's a bit of a poison chalice in many regards,

but in this case, it's quite nice. And certainly for women, it's very touching. Well, on the subject of charisma, let's talk about Kier-Starmour. So people are getting to know Kier-Starmor around the world. You know, from my vantage point, right, it seemed like he kind of relentlessly worked to make labor, you know, quote unquote electable, moving to the center, kind of purging Jeremy Corbyn and some of the Corbinites, kind of building bridges back to some of the British establishment, to the business community. But, you know, one has to say, like, it worked in terms of generating

the huge majority. What, you guys are more on the progressive side of the spectrum of UK politics. I mean, what is the sense of Kyr-Starmor? It doesn't feel like, you know, the kind of same charisma bomb that Tony Blair brought to bear in 1997, but he's delivered a big win. How will you be evaluating Starmor? I mean, is there a part of Kirstarmer that you want to see if he's kind of potentially drawn towards the center, but obviously comes out of, as you said, a labor party that is more historically tied to trade unions? I mean, how will you be evaluating his initial days as prime minister? Well, definitely not on comedy or banter. I think that would be a pointless point system for him.

But that's fine, actually. That is genuinely. I also think, to be honest with you, regardless of people's political background, I think given the sort of last 14 years of conservative rule, and I guess given particularly the sort of toxic aftershock of Boris Johnson's time as Prime Minister, I think the majority of the people in this country would prize competence over charisma. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. I think that across the entire political spectrum, I think people are. people have had enough of a showman.

And, you know, I think one of the things that Sunak actually sort of tried to pride himself on was that he was more of a kind of competent middle manager. I think the problem for Sunac was that, A, the Conservative Party caused too much damage as a political institution on this country. And I think also the problem with Sunak's claims to competence were that there was very little evidence of competence other than him saying, I am competent over and over again. So with Stama, I think the kind of, I don't really think there's a problem with the charisma gap. There is, yes, there is this sort of comparison with Blair who, when he was elected in 1997,

was seen as this kind of dynamic, charismatic leader. I actually think after the last 14 years, people, you know, our rivers are filled with shit. Yeah. You know, truly, like, you can't see a doctor. The trains don't work. Again, I cannot stress this enough for American listeners. I am not speaking figuratively. There is human shit in our rivers.

and all in our seasides because regulations of change that mean water companies can just pump feces. My partner was swimming on the coast and said it permanently smells of shit. Literally that happened this Saturday. So again, what we return to is this idea of actually the British public would, I think, you know, apprise competence more than anything else.

I mean, for progressive people, there is certainly a concern about Stammers cleaving to the centre on a huge number of issues. He certainly equivocated in quite a strange way in the early period of the Gaza War, especially as a kind of human rights barrister. He said some things about Israel having the right to shut off water and electricity that are quite clearly in violations of human rights. So I think there are concerns about that element of it.

There are also concerns about the extent to which private companies, will now have an influence in the National Health Service. That's something that traditionally spooks progressives in this country. But I also think there is such fatigue after 14 years of a Conservative government that I think everybody in this country is willing to give Stama a chance. Certainly the very early appointments, there's reasons to be encouraged. One of the first things that's happened, which actually happened this afternoon, is the laws have been changed to make it easier to be.

build wind turbines. So immediately, Labor is pushing forward with this plan to continue the decarbonisation of the grid and also create more energy autonomy, you know, so that we're not as reliant on Russian oil or oil from the Middle East and actually moving to decarbonized grid. And that part of the, part of the obstacle to that and using wind power was in planning regulations. And that's actually that rule has been changed this afternoon. And Ed Miliband, who's a former Labor leader, leader and is now the climate secretary was very sort of front and centre announcing that policy. So there are positive signs for sure. Yeah, I would just add, I completely agree of Unish in terms of the charisma gap. I don't think anyone wants a charismatic or entertaining

politician right now. What we need is competence and people that do what they say they're going to do. I do think that for Labour there may be a belief gap though. I mean, at the moment they have broad support. But inevitably, every leadership. every leader, every government will run into an issue and they rely on the public to give them the benefit of the doubt. And it's hard to do that when the public didn't actually buy into, didn't actively vote for you rather they were voting against. So that could be a problem for Stama.

But like Nish was saying, he's coming out swinging, man. He is coming out swinging. And also he, there is this idea that he might benefit from lowered expectations. Yeah. You know, there is a chance that... I mean, every relationship I've ever had. Go in, expect low. It's great when it's okay.

Yeah. Britain has just has spent 14 years in a relationship with the most toxic partner possible. Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, I think there is a chance that he might benefit from load of expectations. But certainly on the issues of the Labour Party's official position now is to push for a ceasefire in Gaza, certainly on the issue of Gaza, certainly on the issue of clean energy, and certainly on the issue of the national. health service and improvements made to it that don't involve encroaching privatization,

those would be three hugely significant areas that progressives who have maybe voted for Keistama potentially against their better judgment will be keeping a close eye on him. And also what remains of the left of the Labor Party will also, we would hope, be keeping a close eye on those issues. No, that makes sense. I mean, you know, if you can stabilize NHS, you can kind of rejuvenate the clean energy transition, have a more values-based position on Gaza. Those are achievable objectives. Now, one more question on the Tories. What happens on the right now? So you've got, you know, the Reform Party,

the Nigel Farage Party did well in vote chair, but doesn't have a lot of seats. The Tories are kind of at an historic low point. Do you think there's a kind of battle to move to the right wing? Does the Tory party try to move somewhat towards the center? What should we look for in terms of the right? Well, I mean, obviously, I don't want this to happen because it's quite scary. But if you imagine, if it's true that Labour is going to occupy the centre, I think it's too early to say for sure what they're going to occupy. But like, let's say that they are going to occupy the centre. There is a space for further right politics.

Like, they've left that vacant. Someone will fill it. Nature abhors a vacuum. I don't see why it wouldn't be the Conservatives. I mean, reform because of the quirks of our electoral system like Nish was saying, okay, fine, they only got five seats. but they've got 14% of the votes. That's more than the Greens.

You know, that's significant. So I imagine there is going to be a contest for the soul of the Conservative Party. And I wouldn't be surprised if there is a significant block of people that think, well, they do need to tack to the right. Jacob Rees-Mogg has certainly been saying so. Liz Truss has certainly been saying so. Luckily, they both lost their seats. But nonetheless.

Yeah, we should reiterate, you know, as well as winning the five seats, reform came second in a further 98 constituencies. 10 of those constituencies, they came within 5,000 votes of winning the seat. It was quite an extraordinary thing to watch because on election night, as the results started to come in, different members of the Conservative Party started jostling for positions and started making the case of the Conservative Party either needed to tack further to the right or tack further to the centre. This is literally, I mean, this is, you know, this is carving up the house during the wake. Like it really was

quite an extraordinary spectacle to see that bun fight begin. The people towards the right of the Conservative, in fact, actually you can make an argument and it started before the election because Suella Braverman, who is the former Home Secretary and is a kind of

was an advocate at various points of the Conservatives' tacking even further to the right, including some possible soft cooperation with the Reform Party, was already essentially writing the obituary for the 2024 election and saying it was because the party had lost touch with conservative values. So there is a real concerted push to drag the conservative party to the right because in several

of these constituencies, you know, these 98 constituencies where they were pushed out of second place into third and in some cases fourth place. The line is, well, we need to push harder and further to the right. The counter argument to that is how is it possible for this conservative Party to push further to the right than it already has been. This is a party that tried to pass a law that said that they could deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, a country that they were willing to rip up a lot of our human rights agreements that we've signed in order to simply declare as a safe country unilaterally. So it is difficult to see where the Conservative Party goes further in that direction.

Bear in mind that Liz Truss's economic platform, which crashed the economy, was a kind of supercharged, deregulated neoliberalism. It was kind of neoliberalism on steroids, and it nearly collapsed the country. It's a reason that people's mortgages have increased by 200% in some cases in terms of their monthly payments. So it's hard to see how much further to the right that would go. I think that Farage is going to be in Parliament,

and that is going to be a huge change. I mean, whether I like it or not, and spoiler alert, the answer. is not. He is without question the single most influential political figure of the last 15 years in this country because of the impact he's had on the Conservative Party. The fact that he, you know, when Cameron comes to power in 2010, he dismisses Eurosceptic Conservatives as being lunatics and fruitcakes, I think is the phrase that he used. And then he ends up having to promise a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union to head off the rise of Farage in the

2015 election. Farage has essentially called the shots in the Tory party. I see no reason why that's not going to continue, given that he's going to be in Parliament, pressurizing them from within Westminster on a weekly basis. Well, a lot to watch. You guys should at least feel like, you know, we had a much narrower victory over Trump in 2020. At least it felt like there was a more thorough rebuke of your right wing, albeit not out of the woods yet by any stretch. Nish and Coco, thanks so much for coming on. People should definitely listen to PODS Save the UK to follow what is going to be a pretty historic few weeks and months in the UK going forward. So everybody should check out Pod Save the UK wherever you get your pods.

And good talking to you guys. Thanks, Ben. Good luck. Thanks. Thanks. We need it. Thanks again to Nish and Coco for joining the show. And Godspeed out there, all you NATO attendees.

Stay cool. Get a fan. Well, actually, hopefully you get some super soakers. Maybe bring some people in Barcelona to just spray the leaders coming in and out of the NATO summit. Yeah, you get the Spaniards out there with pointing supersoakers at NATO world leaders. That'll end well in Washington. All right, buddy. Stay cool in New York and nasty soon.

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