The Rest Is Politics - 570. Why Trump Acts Like a Russian Asset and Miliband’s West Bank Sanctions

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

After Trump’s latest betrayal of Ukraine, why does he act like a Russian asset? Has John Healy already missed his moment to be a radical Chancellor, and does Ed Miliband’s move to impose economic sanctions on Israeli settlements prove he would have been the bolder choice? Is the President of Serbia a fascist? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more in this week's edition of Question Time. __________ Enjoy Rory and Alastair’s interview with Anthony Scaramucci by searching ‘Leading’ on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube. Go deeper into the world of The Rest Is Politics by signing up for our free newsletter HERE, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis and weekend reads from Alastair and Rory. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus. Start your free trial at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, exclusive newsletters, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Stop overpaying for energy. Switch at fuseenergy.com/politics and get a free TRIP+ subscription. 🌏 Upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app! Get an exclusive NordVPN deal + 4 months extra here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk free with NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee! __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [e-mail] __________ Social Producer: Emma Jackson Lead Video Editor: Josh Smith Video Editor: James Clayden, Oli Ortega Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Producer: Evan Green Exec Producer: Bella Soames Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trump's envoys Steve Wittkoff and Jared Kushner have just held talks with Vladimir Putin and President Zelensky. It's the latest chapter in a betrayal that goes back to the start of Trump's second term. And here's what that betrayal actually means. In August, Russia fired 27 missiles at Kiev, and Ukraine was able to shoot down just one, because there were no U.S. Patriot Interceptors left. The reason has almost nothing to do with Ukraine, nothing to do with Russia, it's because they've been firing almost half their stock at Iran. Which brings us to Mark Carney's idea,

a constellation of middle powers combining their weight to matter without Washington. But is that a real answer to the world that we're in now? Or is it just what you say once you've discovered you can't build a missile? This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. 100 pounds. That is what one message to a friend could earn for you. Fuse Energy has one aim, keeping energy prices down for everyone, not just for those who ring up and threaten to leave. Their tariffs are already among the lowest on the market, and now they're doubling their referral offer. Refer one friend and you will get £100 off your bills.

And that's each of you, £100 off your bills. So the maths does itself, you save on the tariff and then you both benefit from the referral on top. Simplicity, rarely seen today in today's political climate. And just remember the £100 is a limited offer, and it drops back to £50 when it ends. Energy prices, as we keep reminding you, are not settling down. Switching takes three minutes. Go to fuseenergy.com slash politics, use code politics to get your free Trip Plus membership on top and start referring. Earning money for both you and your friends.

Visit fuseenergy.com for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought you by NordVPN, something you would have heard a little bit about from me and us that we love NordVPN. Now August always feels like the last chance to switch off enjoying the final days of summer before life starts catching up this again, unless of course you're doing a podcast once a week. The problem is, that means we're usually rushing out last-minute emails on airport Wi-Fi or connecting to dodgy cafe networks on the go. And it's very easy to let your guard down when you're in holiday mode. Suddenly you're left vulnerable with your personal data exposed in that busy airport cafe.

Which is why NordVPN's app is so useful. It's not just a VPN, it's your first line of defence against everyday online threats. What I like about is that it quietly filters out scam calls, malwares and trackers behind the scenes. So whether you're traveling or working away, you can access your usual content without worrying about security. To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash rest is politics. That's NordVPN.com slash rest is politics. The links in the episode description. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025.

Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca.ca. Luxury sales claim based on SMP Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac Definition of Luxem. Welcome to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alice Campbell. Today in question time, we are going to be discussing. Firstly, what's happening on the ground in Ukraine after the Kushner-Wittkoff visit?

Secondly, we're going to be looking at Mark Carney's idea of a constellation of middle powers. And we're also going to talk about the extraordinary funeral of the convicted genocidal war criminal, Maladit. which apparently greeted with a hero's welcome in Serbia. Alisa, we're starting actually with a question from a listener who is in Kiev, Beatrice. After the US's latest betrayal of Ukraine, is it finally time to admit that Trump is a Russian asset? And it starts from that. Well, I believe that Trump is a Russian asset for a long, long time. We talked to the main episode about this book betrayal that Luke Harding has written,

which is essentially about how the Americans, by the way, including Biden, have sort of sold out Ukraine, but Trump has taken it to a completely different level, and essentially how Trump and Putin are both coming at Ukraine from both sides. And one of the things we talked about, when you about a Russian asset, there's a line in Luke's book where you know, you and I've said this before, that if he were a Russian asset, would he have done anything differently to what he's actually done in his second term? And the thing about, you know, people have all these sort of rumors and sort of guesses about this thing, what does Putin have on him? I can remember when, you know, we were in government, we used to be told in advance. There was this little bubble inside the

embassy where they assured you that you could speak freely. But they basically said there is nowhere else that we are going to be where you can speak freely. We now know as a fact that the hotels that most visiting Westerners stayed in in the time that Trump was being cultivated, it's not as if he went, I'll go and find out about Russia. The Russians approached him and said, We think you'd find Russia really interesting. And he was sort of fated. And he was probably looking for commercial opportunities and loans when his business was not going very well. And Russia has often helped him out when his business has been in trouble.

So the idea that Luke was saying, for example, he discovered, as he said, I'm just a journalist, right, who's a bit annoying to the Russians. He discovered that his bedroom was bugged for sound and film. The idea that Donald Trump wouldn't be bugged for sound and film, forget it. And regardless of how much it's directed by him or whether it's just that he shares Putin's worldview, it would be impossible if you were the head of the KGB, the SVR now, to imagine any more perfect scenario. I mean, if you were literally sort of sitting there, 2015 and thinking, what would be the type of US president, which would be most in Russian interests?

Why don't we come up with a guy who could totally wreck confidence in NATO and take away basically any guarantee of the US security guarantees? Back the pro-Russian parties in Europe, undermine the European Union. If we invade Ukraine, remove all American financial support for Ukraine to facilitate our entry. I mean, it's very difficult to think of anything that Trump has done, which is not like. a dream. I mean, in fact, actually, I'd worry that if you're sitting in SDI headquarters, trying to think of something more for him to do, he's already done it all. Well, it is, you know, like we talked a lot last night at the event about Alaska, the thing in Alaska, based upon, I mean, honestly, you should read this book for his descriptions of Wittkoff

and Kushner. This was before this week's stuff, okay? And I felt this week to see, okay, they're first, so they've done eight visits. Wick-Kov has been eight times to see Putin. Yeah. You'd have thought by now he'd have done enough. I mean, Putin must have the cleanest shoes on the planet because he has licked them every single time, including this time. He literally said, did you see the thing he did with Putin? He said, we'll look back at these meetings as the greatest moments of our lives. These are the highlights of our. We'll be able to have the memories of these meetings.

Well, so they'll sit there when Putin's in jail, an international war criminal, they can reminisce while they're serving out their sentences. No, no, he and Dimitriev and Kushner and they can sit around with Putin and just drink to each other and toast to each other. It was disgusting. In that happy retirement that Putin is going to have, where he's going to be able to. Exactly. And so then they fly to Kiev via Poland. And so it's their first time there, Zelensky has to sit there at this joint press conference where, to be fair to some of the journalists, they put some pretty tough questions. They basically said, you lot of, you know, you go on about Iran, you've failed on that.

You've failed on this. You've failed on pretty much every peace initiative you've done. But Kushner sits there with Zelensky just a few yards away and says we're working to satisfy Putin's aspirations. Putin's aspirations are to kill this guy, to destroy his country and to take the whole thing back into Russia. I honestly, Luke said last night that Zelensky's self-control at these things is extraordinary. Let me explain on what's been happening in Ukraine. Tragically, the Ukraine war has now been going on for four and a half years. It's longer than the First World War.

In fact, we started doing a podcast as this invasion was happening. And it's taught us so much about two things. One of them is resilience and the other one's technology. And somewhere in the heart of this is the fact that everybody has miscalled this war again and again, and doubtless we're miscalling it today. So in quick succession, story one when Russia began its invasion is Ukraine's doomed Kier-4-4 because Russia's this enormous superpower. Story two, when Russia failed to take Kiev, is the Russian army's so incompetent Putin will collapse. Story three was, there's going to be this amazing Ukrainian counter-offensive with all these Western tanks, and we're going to push the Russians back. Story four was Ukraine is screwed because it doesn't have enough manpower.

And story five, which Trump and J.D. Vance was selling, was without American support. There's no way that Ukraine can continue. So we'll be able to force them to the power because actually Europe's youths were. useless, Ukraine's useless, it's just America money that's keeping the whole thing going. Fast forward to today, we are in a completely different world. Everything's changed in four and a half years. Those tanks, those leopard tanks that we discussed in this podcast getting out to the front line are completely useless.

They're sitting in sheds, nobody can use them. Drones have paralyzed the front line. Russia has lost now somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 killed and 1.2 million. casualties. To put that in context, Russia has lost, in this fight with Ukraine, more than the United States lost in the entire Second World War, more than the United States lost in the entire Second World War. Or to put another way, they have lost something like a hundred times as many people as the U.S. lost in Afghanistan. I mean, the scale of the Russian deaths is beyond imagining. But now the problem is this, because the technology keeps changing.

Ukraine can basically stop the Shahid drones, which are these Iranian drones, with its own counter drones. It seems to be able to stop cruise missiles, which are basically guided mini-airoplanes, and it seems to be able to deal with actual airplanes. But it's really struggling to deal with ballistic missiles, which are these things that give about four minutes warning, fly up into space and then come plummeting down again. Because in order to deal with those, you need patriot missiles. Those are the only interceptors that can really take them out. And of 30 ballistic missiles fired last week, Ukrainians intercepted only one. And why? Because America are spending them like a drunken sailor in Iran.

That's a good link, actually, to the question here, which we'll bring it back to Ukraine, but it relates to Olli. What would a middle powers alliance actually look like and is it actually achievable? I mean, I guess this is an example of where this is Mark Carney's vision, where the middle powers, which include us, which include the Gulf, include Turkey, also Australia, Japan, South Korea, that we would actually form some kind of alliance. But I guess this is an example of where, even though Europe is strengthening its own defences, that is not necessarily going to work for Ukraine right now.

Yeah, because, and we'll get on to middle powers in a second, but fundamentally, the problem is production timetables on Patriot missiles. And there is this idea that France is going to co-produce a brand new generation of missile that might be able to take out ballistic missiles. But if it doesn't, the next stage of this war over the winter will be energy and electricity. What Putin is doing at the moment is targeting all the electricity generation, which now in Ukraine is down to about a quarter of what it was at its peak. So that's not just heating in brutal winters, which will make cities in Ukraine almost

uninhabitable through the winter if they don't have any heating. It's also the entire industrial production facilities that allow the Ukrainians to build the weapons to defend themselves. So now the war is getting into a much more complicated discussion, which is quite difficult to talk about quickly on a podcast, which is how does Ukraine generate electricity? And that is mini generators, that's oil, that's quick fix transformers, that's what do you put in this factory, what do you put in this hospital, how do your alliances with Europe work? And all the time, Russia will be hitting generation transmission lines with these ballistic missiles again and again. And that's clearly the Russian strategy.

No, and also it was clear from what Zelensky said at the press conference with these clowns that, you know, they're really, really worried about this winter. In fact, the other great thing about Luke's book is not just about the geopolitics. It's also about real people in Ukraine. And he talks about visiting these people last winter who are no lifts working, pensioners with no lifts because of no electricity, get into their flat. And it's like two, three degrees. It's going to be tough.

It's going to be tough. But I just think we have to give up on the idea that, I mean, obviously you've got to try to press Trump to do the right thing. But, you know, Luke's description yesterday of what the Alaska summit, this is a hunted war, international war criminal who is being fated with a red carpet. And then gets in the car and then does a 12-minute press conference, totally dominated by Putin. What a Trump's press conference is normally like, sort of 40-minute ramble. by him where the other guy is just a stand in. Putin totally owned that thing. And I go back to that point. If he wasn't a Russian agent, what would you do differently? Let's come back to the question that you gave us from Olli. What would a middle power alliance actually look

like and is it actually achievable? So I was thinking about that this is Kani's idea, which came from Davos. And I noticed in a piece of newspaper reporting, they said, Alistair Campbell has described this as one of the greatest speeches. So, you know, they're like you endorsing the Pope, I'll send it you, endorsing the Pope encyclical. This is the Kani speech too. So what are the problems for this middle power rights? And the idea, obviously, is something we deeply believe in, which is Europe, Canada, UK, Norway, who knows, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Ukraine, coming together as an alternative to the U.S. and China. First problem, these powers don't all agree on what the threats are.

So if you're Ukraine, your number one threat is Russia, if your South Korea or Japan, your number one threat might be China. If you're Canada, your number one threat might be U.S. coalition. Secondly, these middle powers, which could be most of the G20 except for China and the U.S., have very different capacities and very different ideas themselves. So, you know, Brazil might actually see itself as being, or South Africa, might see itself as being sort of skeptical of the West in general. And then, finally, this is this collective action problem, which is that every single time what

Trump or Sieging Pink can exploit is that we stay together until the moment comes when we want to cut a deal. And we're not really prepared to sacrifice for the others. Is Canada really going to sacrifice for the sake of the Philippines? Is Saudi Arabia really going to go out on a limb for a Canadian U.S. trade deal, particularly, and maybe this relates to yesterday's podcast, in the domestic context, which is that we now have parties emerging, not just the AFD, but actually the way that our new conservative shadow foreign secretary is speaking, it's increasingly nationalistic, Britain first, slightly dismissive of international, traditional international rules-based alliances, etc. If basically domestic politics becomes increasingly our country first, we don't care about

international, there's less and less room for making these middle power arguments. But I just think this is the only way forward. I just think we have to keep going with this and trying to build the alliances. I'll tell you the other thing, we did this live show at the Festival Hall, we did two live shows at the Festival Hall this weekend. And I don't know if you've seen today, Donald Trump's latest sort of AI fantasy that he wakes up in the middle of the night and does, is him playing ice hockey with Mark Carney

and ends up sort of beating him up as a get up, Governor. I don't know how much you play with AI. Not at all. But in order to do that, he needs to write a prompt. And the prompt will have said, I want you to create, and it has to be quite specific. An ice hockey match between me and Mark Carney. Mark Carney must be referred to as governor, governor of 51st state, not as prime minister of Canada. And I must not just win.

I want physical violence. I want you to show me beating him up. It's actually quite difficult to get an AI model to do that. Well, he did it. And we, but the point I was going to make, we showed as part of the. event that we did, a kind of compilation, the sort of most embarrassing AI slop stuff that he does. And I was really pleased because nobody laughed. Hardly anybody laughed.

Now, I think a year ago, people would have found it funny. And I think he's just becoming more and more demented, more and more ridiculous. And the guys who are serious have got to stick together. Well, there's also a connection to something you've talked about before in your definitions or you're moving on from the three P's to, I think, the three Cs. which is what you're describing is the theatre of cruelty. So we saw a little example of that in the Reform Conference celebrating a woman having a hair pulled and being beaten with a stick. But it's the celebration of physical violence.

It's Trump deciding to say to the AI model, no, no, no, I don't just want to score a goal. I want people to see me physically assorting the Canadian Prime Minister. Would you have had to tell him to break the stick? Because the stick broke. Yeah, yeah. You'd have to instruct it to do all that. Make it more violent. break the stick. I mean, because you have to go through many iterations of the video until it's

got to the stage that you want. Its first version will be quite bland. It'll just be him scoring a goal. I mean, you would think he had better things to do, wouldn't you? Well, except maybe what all these guys have worked out is the theatre of cruelty is the whole thing, that that's actually what their base wants. That's their whole appeal. That's what their authenticity is about. So do you think that General, so Robert Jenrick, when he is quizzed on the television about the woman having been dragged out by the hair. And he says, boo-hoo. Yeah, they must consciously or subconsciously sense

that the modern political environment rewards them. For people who didn't hear the last episode, what happens is that a protester at the Reform Conference, a climate protester who's challenging Farage on corruption, she doesn't just get someone grabbing her hair and pulling her back. You can see the pain. Somebody comes forward and hits her with a stick, right? And what we then have is Lee Anderson, who's one of the chairs of reform, saying, why don't we do a little collection for a new stick, right?

So I think they must know, and Trump must know, that this actually works for them. Their supporters absolutely love it. The more outraged you and I get, the more disgusted kind of mainstream opinion gets, the more terrific it is. And this was, you know, very core to fascism. I mean, if you look at the theory of fascism and actually the theory of a lot of the communists was always about that. Two things. One of them is you can't overdo offending mainstream opinion in the mainstream media and being cruel

because actually your supporters love it. And secondly, and this is the problem with your AFD story, you know, people are saying, well, maybe if they get into office they'll discredit themselves. That's the other thing that we learn, and we learn particularly from communism. It takes decades to actually discredit people on performance because they can keep saying saying, oh, we've been let down by our enemies abroad or we've been let down by our enemies internally, or we're not doing it right yet. You can keep going that for decades.

Just to give you an example of that, Donald Trump should have been finished by January the 6th. Nigel Farage should have been finished by Brexit. But neither of those things happened. I keep trying to work out what on earth the solution to this is. And I think the solution is to get away from the Trump-Faraj world, which is so much that theatre of cruelty, those kind of AI-generated images, are so much about virtual abstract, they have nothing to do with people's lived reality, right? I'm in the case of Trump, obviously, they're made out fantasies. So this is a chance, obviously, again, to plug not just my

political philosophy, but my book, middle-back. I knew this is going. I knew this is going. I could feel it. I could feel the plug coming. How can you see the plug? What's the connection? It was the way, I could thought, this is interesting. I think he's going to talk about Andy Burnham and devolution, but then I thought as you sort of made that little pivot, I could feel it coming. It was fine, it was fine. And did you feel when you read the book that there's a kind of point there, that weirdly, one of things that's gone wrong with politics is we're not finding a way of talking about real places, real people, real high streets. Well, I'll tell you what, I know after the break we're going to talk a little bit about the Middle East. We had that wonderful pairing at the Royal Festival Hall at the weekend, Mao Zinon, whose parents were murdered by Hamas in the October 7 massacre,

joined by his fellow peace campaigner, Palestinian, Aziz Abu Zah, who lost his brother, to torture in Israeli jails. And do you remember they were basically, we were asking them about what's going to happen in the Israeli election, what's going to happen in the Palestinian elections. And they were saying, well, it's kind of important, but far more important is actually what people do in their own lives and what differences they can make. And I actually think that's something that joins your book, Middleland, to Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham's book, Head North, which we talked about a lot in the miniseries we did on Andy Burden with Steve. is this sense that the gap between politics as practiced in Westminster and Whitehall, politics as conveyed by, I guess, people like us and the media more generally, is so divorced from politics as a force for good in local communities. And I think that's what you're trying to do with your book,

and also that Andy and Steve are trying to do that. And it's not just a negative story. It's not just that we've sort of ignored people. It's that there's so much to be hopeful about there, so much energy, so many of the solutions come from that. I mean, what I felt is that things that seemed impossible to fix in Westminster when you turned up in Cumbria, actually people had ideas because they really knew their neighbourhood, their street, what the problems were and what the solutions were and were prepared to get involved in solutions. So actually, it's a lot of things.

It could be, I totally agree with Andy Byrne and partly about changing the structure of our politics, you know, getting power down locally because local people no more can do more than distant people. But it's also taking ideas from the ground, fixing things from the ground, will sort of fix our politics. But one of the problems I've had with this book is how do you get people excited? Because the conversation in politics is still so Westminster related. If I say to people, actually the answer to a lot of Britain's problems is places like Cumbria, look closely at this particular constituency, these issues. Everyone's like, oh, well, that sounds a bit boring.

But actually, it's the freshest, most exciting thing. what we feel in our own neighbourhoods. The thing that actually makes us positive about our lives are what we see around us, not what we see in primisters' questions. This week's newsletter extracts from Middleland by Rory Stewart. And there will be a special chance to win a signed copy too. So to read that and enter the draw, go to the rest of politics.com forward slash newsletter. A couple of prizes, you'll get a free signed book and you'll also get slightly more bizarrely a new sculpture that I've made. If anyone wants to own a Rory Stewart made work of ask, and if you'd like to come to a live show to hear more about this, I will be on at the

Dominion Theatre this Sunday with Lewis Goodall discussing the themes of the book, and you can buy tickets with feign.com.com. Let's take a break, and then when we come back, as I say, we'll talk a little bit about West Bank settlements. We can talk about John Healy's first outing, big speech as Chancellor, and also what the questioner calls our friend, Alexander Vuchich, and what's happening following the death of Miladich, and a very interesting Putin-Mur. Medvedev-style move by Mr. Butchich. The great caging struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess a Prime Minister.

With high confidence, it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself, do you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. We've done nothing! We would need to understand the policy context.

All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today, and disseminated into an operation order, or Fraggo. A Fraggo that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. News from Gullhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my soldier, are you? Sergeant Tom McDuff. Duffy.

An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous, geopolitical action thriller. We have two times friendly key. Where Britain plays its strongest hand. He's the best. Against its strongest foe. Bear Hunt.

Available now wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to The Restless Politics Question Time with me, Roy Stewart. And me, Alice, the first pretty challenging question from Michelle for you. Does Ed Miliband's speech and actions on Israeli settlements compared to John Healy's first statement as chance to suggest that actually, Burnham made the wrong choice, and Ed Miliband would have been a better chance to the exchequer? Ah, a live debate, a live debate at the time. Well, tell us firstly about the John Healy speech. Well, I didn't see it all. I saw bits on the news. I haven't read it. And as you know, I like to read speeches before I pass judgment. but sometimes you don't have time.

But I did think there was a bit of a problem that the main news that I picked out of it appeared to be John Healy refuses to rule out tax rises in budget. Right. And so just to learn that, I mean, it's obvious to you and it'll be obvious to all professional politicians listening. But that is exactly what you don't want to achieve as your press release, right?

I mean, that is central, no positive, story coming out of the Chancellor, all there is, is the potential attack line on labour, which is they're going to raise taxes. Yeah. So you had, and like I say, I haven't read it, but what that says to me is, do you might always use to say, I don't know why Keir Stammer does that think of making a speech and then taking questions? Yeah.

I'm imagining, I'm guessing that came out of questions after the speech. Otherwise, he wouldn't be refusing to rule out. Well, otherwise he wouldn't, you're not going to say, yeah, exactly. You're not going to put in a speech, you know, and I hear by today refuse to rule out. So that means none of the speech made it into the headlines. It would be the failure to answer a question that made the headlines. What I think he did was to set out how difficult things are, which Rachel Reeves and Kirsteim did a lot, set out some of the positive agenda that Andy Burn has been putting forward, particularly about devolution and some of the stuff we've talked about.

But it said to me, and then on the tube in this morning, I was looking over somebody's shoulder as they were reading John Crace and the Guardian. the headline was something like boring, insubstantial, something. It was very, very, very, very hostile. It's really sad because I'm afraid one of the fatal problems from the beginning of the start of the government was Rachel Reeves basically giving those sort of speeches. Speeches which were we've inherited a grim situation. We don't really have much answer on what we're going to do. And I'm not really communicating. And I was hoping Healy would be a different sort of figure.

Now, people like me, who are more centre-right, thought he was quite a reassuring figure because we thought he was a safe pair of hands. He wasn't going to bankrupt the country. He wasn't going to do anything too reckless. But I would also hope that he will begin, as he keeps going, to get a bit of liveliness and fun and humor. He can take some risk. I mean, he's quite a veteran. He's not like Rachel Reese.

He's relatively young politics. He's somebody who presumably could afford to enjoy himself about. Well, I think the most important thing is to have arguments that people want to debate and discuss and talk about and get moved by. And so one thing I thought was very interesting at our live show is how much enthusiasm there seemed to be from, you know, there were a lot of young people there, but it was a fairly middle age to older audience, but actually seemed to be completely up for the idea that they've got to look at the triple lock as a way of addressing intergeneration equality

and also raising some money. And I know we're in London, and London's very kind of anti-Brexit, but that's another one where I just think we need to hear more than just the sort of mood music we've been having so far. And sorry, the really disappointing thing is that it signals that there is basically no new radical economic policy or vision. So he could have said, and I think you and I would have support this, we're getting rid of the triple lock.

That would have been an unbelievably exciting moment. And this is the moment to do it. It's the moment where Burnham's riding highest in the polls. This is the honeymoon period. This is where you take the risk. So get rid of the triple lock. Announce that you're going to radically simplify the taxation system. Who knows?

Combine national insurance with income tax. Announce that because of the defense problems, you're going to raise income tax. You're going to have a broader tax base, more Scandinavian tax base, instead of tinkering around at the edges. This is the moment. And he's missed it.

Does that mean it's never going to happen? No, because it might be that he's, because what the Treasury will be saying to him and always do say chances, don't put stuff out before the budget. But I think those days have gone. I think you need a big framing argument ahead of the budget. And the, so listen, I am going to go back today and read the whole thing, because it may be that we're being unfair doing what I don't like to do,

which is just sort of absorbing the negative headlines. But I was hoping for something that, you know, I actually penciled in the diary. He's making his first big speech on the Monday, you know, query. Do we talk about it in the main episode? Well, here's another question for you. I mean, I know you like to go for a bit of a walk on Hampstead Heath with your friend, Kier-Sahmer, right? Is he not in an absolute boiling rage?

Because John Healy, who was his defence secretary, was the nail in Kier-Stama's coffin. He resigned from Stama's cabinet because Stama refused to commit to 3% of GDP. And John Healy said that meant that defense wasn't safe in his hands. Absolutely. Healy then becomes Chance 6-Checker and announces he's not going to commit to 3% of GDP-O-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D. But the mood music is. Right. So if you were Keir Starma, how would you be feeling? I'd be very pissed off about that. I think Keir Starma, I'm not saying I've been for a war with him, Rory.

I'm not saying I've been anywhere in the Amster. But you're not saying you haven't spoken to him either. No, I'm not saying I haven't spoken to him. I'm, you know, keep in touch with all people across the government and across all apologies, as you know. But I would imagine he is, I think actually when he was stepping down. Alistair Alistair refuses to rule out having spoken to Kea Stama. No, you don't rule out having spoken to. You refuse to confirm or deny. Very good, very good.

But what I think he would be thinking, because I think when he stood down or he announced you were stepping down, to be fair to him, and actually there was quite a lot of, to be fair to him in that audience. We asked them whether they're broadly sympathetic to Kirstar and what he'd done as lead of the Labour Party. But I think he said he was going to do it with good grace and with that bitterness and anger.

Yeah. And he did that. Although, listen, just quickly on this. I also think this. I was going to do a butt, but carry on. Stepping down is a bit weird. I mean, without over-praising Theresa May or indeed Rishi Sunak, everybody said when Rishi Sunak lost the election that he was going to go off to California,

put his kids in, become a tech entrepreneur, live the life for the super rich. And he has remained in Richmond as a member of parliament, remain on the backbenchers, continues to attend Parliament. So if Rishy Sunak can do it and Theresa May can do it, why is Keir-Sahma not doing that? I think a little bit different when you are stepping down as prime minister. I think if Rishi, so Rishi lost the election. Well, Theresa May, she stepped down. She did.

She did. She did. No, I think these are massive. I think they're really, really, really. There's a big, big personal decision to make that, isn't it? Do you want to just hang around knowing that the only interest is going to be in you as a political figure is how you're then seen in relation to your predecessor? Well, I think Theresa Mennar, you know, found a bit well. I think they've both done it well.

But I look, back to one of my constant bug bears, I do think politicians on the left get treated and judge differently. So I sort of understand it. But I think the last time I did see him, he said, you know, he genuinely seemed to think that it was a good thing that Andy Burnham was having such a good honeymoon. Does Labor need a by-election moment? Is that the ideal thing if you're a Labour strategy, it's for him to trigger a by-election? No, no. Right now, I don't think bi-elections are any good for anybody. But I think Labour will win it.

Obviously, I don't think Pellansky is going to win this by-election. And interestingly, he's being challenged for the nomination by one of the Green Councillors who says he's got six of their ten Camden councillors backing him. So that suggests Plansky's maybe in the wrong part of town for this. But I think that he, but Keir will be, if there's one thing that I think we'll be making him utterly enraged, is this thing about defence. He knows that that was. I mean, we said on the podcast at the time, this was like a death blow.

You know, we did it, I think we did an emergency podcast, didn't we? We said that, you know, this could be the end for Keir Starmer. And it turned out it was the end of Keir Starma. So then to see John Healy sort of essentially, and Andy Burnham said, look, I made him defence chancellor because I know about his commitment to defence. Well, that has to mean what he said he was going to do when he was defence secretary. So that's going to be very, very tricky. So you, I get from the way that you read out Michelle's question, I get the sense that you are probably more content with Ed Miliband's... Yeah, yeah, actually, you know, I owe an apology to Ed Miliband, which is that I am, I've consistent.

underestimated him. I'd sound like your friend, the biographer of Kiyosama. But I think it, I think I've been... Tom Baldwin is his name. I see, yeah. He has a name. I think I've been consistently unfair to... I love the way you're so dismissive by friends. Your friend, Emmanuel Macon. But you did it with a sudden, Your friend, Emmanuel Macon.

Exactly, I do that, don't I? Anyway... Your friend, the king. Your friend the king, exactly. So, Edmundaban, I think, has been really genuinely surprising. That was a big deal. Now, it's consistent. Just to explain what he's done?

So what he's announced is that there will be sanctions on goods produced in Israeli settlements, particularly agricultural goods. If they are grown in what Britain considers to be occupied Palestinian territory, illegal Israeli settlements, we will not be purchasing goods from those places. And it was very interesting talking to Maoz about this. So Mao is obviously in Israeli, and he's been doing a lot in London, talking in JW3, talking to the Board of Deputies. And he was saying, it's very striking that when he talks to Jewish friends in London, they're very much in favor of sanctions because they understand that being Jewish and being a supporter of Israel does not mean that you support illegal settlements.

But when the British government does it, they're much more thrown off balance and worried. And I think a lot of the British Jewish community are very, very troubled by. the idea that Edmul-Aband could do it. So even if they privately feel that they don't support the settlements, when the British government makes a policy, and of course what we've learned with the recognition of Palestine, is that it can quite quickly embrace quite a lot of the rest of the world. Remember, the Canadians recognized Palestinian state, French recognized Palestinian state. I'm also a little bit cross, as I was with that recognition, they haven't coordinated more. This goes back to our middle power discussion before the break. It would

have been more powerful if a range of countries had done this together. I mean, look, Ed's going to get a lot of blowback on this from all sorts of people. Mick Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador in Israel, even before this had been announced. He said this was Jew hatred. He said this is Jew hatred. Well, I'll just point out to him that Ed Miliband is Jewish. And indeed, there were, and I noticed that there were Palestinian critics who said, you can't have a foreign secretary who's Jewish because they were assuming he was going to be too pro-Israeli.

And also, there is then also the argument about particularly. Oh, and Tom Tuganhart's now been attacking him, so, you know, we can't afford to imperil our relationship. for this important allies. So it's really interesting the way that the Conservative Party is reframing itself against the sort of more liberal values-based international order that Miliband is still championing. In fact, actually, what Sucan Hart says is that Miliband is behaving like his brother, your friend, David. Look, I think this will be, I think broadly this will be approved of by the British public. It will certainly be approved of by most people in the Labour Party who think that we've been too soft. But there is always a really,

risk in this. I mean, don't forget the Labour Party is still pained by the Corbyn leadership and the issue of anti-Semitism and the damage that did. So there will be, there is a balance to be struck here. And it was interesting to watch. I don't think, I mean, it'd be very difficult to accuse Evan O'Berna being anti-Semitic. I mean, his parents are literally Jewish refugees from Europe. I mean, it's not. Exactly. But it doesn't mean that they won't. It doesn't mean that the Americans, there might be a price to pay with them. And I mean, Did you not think it was extraordinary? Because when we had this whole rest is fest where Gary Linniker was there and the rest is money and the rest of his history, all the rest is podcasts at the South Bank.

But the guy who's in charge of the whole thing told me that the loudest applause across the whole weekend was when we announced Mao's and Aziz coming on stage as surprise guests. And they were just, I mean, they were brilliant. And anyone who hasn't listened to our leading interview with them, please do. It doesn't matter what side you are in this debate. what they do which is so radical is they say you just start from peace. You don't start from the technicalities of a deal. You start from do you or do you not want the killing to stop? Yeah.

And the truth is that, you know, the Israeli government, particularly that tale of it, Ben-Gavir Smotrich, they don't want to stop because they basically think that, you know, Palestinians, Palestinian territories are theirs and they're going to take them. So, look, I support what Edmilla Banda's done in this, but I'm simply saying there's always a balance and it's a difficult balance because there's so many competing arguments around this. Okay, now here is a question which really hits this hard. This is from Marco. Marco. Your friend Vouchich is calling election two years early. Is it a sign of confidence or proof of the protests since the canopy collapse rattled him? And Jared, what does Mladic's funeral

reveal about the political identity of modern Serbia? Well, when it says your friend, was that directed at both of us because we went to Ser-Belgrade? I think both of us. I'll take that as well. Okay. So we went to Belgrade. And if you remember, during the interview, I asked him whether he might do a Putin Medvedev. He's working his way through his second term as president. He can't do a third. And if you remember, he was basically saying, well, there'll be discussions in the party and we'll see. And it depends on the sort of pressure that might come on me, etc., etc. You and I both said afterwards, look, he's definitely going to be, he's going to run for prime minister. So his party is now, surprise, surprise, he's going to run. He's going to run. as Prime Minister. There's going to be an early election. And meanwhile, I don't know whether the time is related to it or not, but the outpouring of nationalism on the back of this, you know, convicted war criminal who died in the Hague. Let's just remind me that because this is very much our world and, you know, we both worked on Bosnia and Kosovo. Rekom Ladich was convicted at the Hague of mass displacement, genocide killing. This is.

The general who oversaw the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia and, more than anything else, went into the so-called UN safe area, Srebrenica, where there were 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, was filmed there with civilians who then proceeded to be murdered. Filmed, telling them that they were safe and patting the children on their head and all that. 8,000 of them killed. I mean, it's very, very difficult to think of somebody who is more clearly associated with the horrors of that war. So this guy is flown back. He comes off from the Hague. He comes off the plane with essentially everything that feels like a state welcome. He's taken into the main cathedral that we saw.

Vuchitsch's son is there. The head of the Orthodox Church is basically praising him as a martyr. And I sent you yesterday what's happening in the football stadiums, which is Serbian crowds basically... This is Red Star Balgrade with the huge Tifo of Maladich. So that, those things take organization. And essentially threatening a second genocide against her opponents. This is well beyond, you know, normal nationalism. And this is takes...

And the fact that Vuchich has refused to condemn this or distance himself properly from this thing, he didn't attend the actual funeral. But basically, yeah. A convicted genocidal war criminal has returned to a hero's funeral in Serbia. And Vucic, who tried to pose on the interview with us as saying it's a sort of intelligent, chess playing, moderate. Basically, the mask is off. The guy is a fascist. Wow. Okay. So there was me thinking, I'll give Vutritcher to call and see we can get another interview with him now that. Do you think I've helped with that?

I think you probably hindered it slightly. Yeah. But, you know, what is absolutely clear is that the scale of the Serb nationalism that was represented. And not just the tolerance of a convicted war criminal, but the celebration. Because that funeral was massive. And it was a celebration. If you're celebrating somebody's life, above all, you're celebrating their values, their character, and the things for which they're most remembered.

He is most remembered for the events that you've talked about. So that banner, sorry, I didn't properly give it, but the banner runs Direction Potokari. And Potokari is the Serbian word for Shrebenica. So it is basically like holding up a pitcher of Heinrich Himmler with the sign Direction Auschwitz. In a football stadium. Yeah. And Vuchich doesn't come down at it. Yeah.

I'm wondering whether his calculation politically, because the time, Timing is interesting. They've done this now around this. Was his Minister of Justice meeting the casket at the airport? Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. When I was at my football match in Croatia, one of the players was Nomania Vidich used to play for Manchester United. Serb, very, very good guy and a very intelligent guy who's got a really good political mind. I'd love it if he went into politics one day. I think you'd be great. And he felt, as a lot of people felt, that we were way too soft. On Richchich. We were. I think. Yeah, and we probably were, and we probably were, and that was because our general approach was, let the guy speak. Don't just get down and dirty about you were this in Kosovo. And even when he said I was unprincipled and all that, I didn't even respond.

If I go back to the time when we were virtually opposite numbers, he was Molozvich's right-hand man, I was Tony Blair's right-hand man, and I was working at NATO during the Kosovo War, Would I have thought that somebody who was so close to Molozovich had the capacity to be as nationalist and aggressive and your word fascist as is now can be seen? Probably, yeah, probably. Did I think that because of his political skill, he had navigated a very, very different approach to this that had made, maybe made me think he'd become a bit different, yeah, probably. Would something like the money of it, and others say to me, maybe you're being a bit naive, yeah, maybe. It's a big problem though, isn't it, for the things that we all believe in,

which is the Western Balkans coming into the European Union, Turkey coming to the European Union, when you see people, like that, and actually some of the ways that Erdogan behaves, you can see why people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're really up for Iceland coming in, happy with Norway.

But this is pretty tough stuff, which is why actually I'm increasingly in favor of a single market for freedoms option. Yeah, yeah, yeah. rather than bring them into the EU. I was talking to a European commissioner over the weekend, not Marta Kossi who's in charge of enlargement, but somebody else who's more on the economic side. And we were talking about enlargement in general context.

And we're going through the list of all the things, you know, Canada, we'd love it, Norway, we'd love it. UK's got to happen. Serbia was a very big no-no, and this has not helped. To finish, Jenny, really loved the two live shows. What did you make of the live shows and what's the difference between doing a live show and doing a pre-recorded podcast? It's interesting, isn't it? They are different. They're very different. They're very different. I think with both, it's kind of how do you stay uplifted and how do you stay positive? We're talking about all this grimness. You're also quite a, I think you're quite a thespian. The more I see you on a stage, the more I'm sort of won over by the idea that actually you're quite a performer.

Like what? Well, you've got. I play the bagpipes. No, no, not just the bagpipes, although it is true that you let me dance, which was cool. You dance twice. You dance with the mooch and you dance in Mao. Does you like the tune that I wrote from Myers-Aniz? Lovely. I thought it was really beautiful. Lovely. I pissed off.

I've not seen. Nobody filmed nobody filmed the whole damn thing. No, really? Nobody has sent me a complete film of me playing that tune, which I want to send to my friend Finley. I also thought Maoz danced much better than the mooch. He's set properly. The mooch just spun around in a circle. I was also a little worried because with a mooch, because he looks so young, thanks to the amazing plastic surgery in hair.

But I wasn't quite sure how long I could spin him for without. the ticker going on. Yeah, or without him falling off the stage. I was a bit worried. That's why I only played one part of one tune. But those who'd like to get more of the unique personality and charm of the mooch, not just dancing live, can hear him on leading, where we are interviewing him about Trump himself, America, and much more. But I'll tell you the thing that really uplifted me. Obviously, Mao Zin was just amazingly uplifting. And Fiona said afterwards, that was just like, you could have literally, they were hanging on every word and it was so moving and positive and etc. I also like the fact that when I asked people, because we had been so grim,

hands up who's feeling optimistic about their own life, virtually everybody put their hands up. Well, this is my sort of grief story. This is your middle. This is my middle land. Yeah, yeah. Basically, so many parts of Britain I go to, which is brilliant. People are creating really worthwhile, valuable, interesting lives. They're not easy lives, but there's so much to be positive about. It's a bit weird that the narrative is Britain's broken because of course there are bits of Britain are broken, but so many bits of it seems so much better than they were 20, 30 years ago. We also had a, we did our live polling thing.

So, and I'm guessing, you know, I'm there pretty identified as Labor, you're there as sort of, you know, not very fond of your old party. But we actually, probably a sort of centre, centre left audience, but we did ask them. And this was very different to how it was a year ago. Who do you think will be prime minister after the next election? Remember when we did that last year, we did it several times, and Keir was struggling. Yeah, Kier, nobody thought he'd be the prime instructor. Kier was struggling. Kier was struggling.

And this time, more than 80%, is that right? 83% Burnham, 7% Bad Knock. 1.5% Davy, 8% for a, not 0.5% Pallanski. But it shows you why changing a leader can make an enormous difference. I mean, you go from a narrative of an almost inevitable labor won't win to now people feeling it's almost inevitable that Burnham will be prime minister for the next eight years. And it's actually the same thing, of course, God forbid this happens to Burnham, but of course the same thing did actually happen with Boris Johnson. You remember in 2019, people thought, oh, for goodness sake, the Tories have been in for nine years, there's no way they can win a majority.

They bring in a new leader and they get a stonking majority. And if the guy hadn't been such a dishonest, incompetent wretch, he was actually in quite a strong position. Yeah. So that was interesting. No, I really enjoyed it. I thought the – and I think it's great that people just want to sit down. Talk about this stuff. I also loved bringing on Mao Zazaziz, and actually, Cassie and Anthony, I think it takes

some of the pressure off us. I find one, it's just the two of us. Do you find that hard? I feel that's quite pretty much. Is that why you've gone off with Lewis Goodall instead of me? Yeah, yeah, too pressured, yeah. And more people on stage four is good, because then we can do a bit of interviewing, we're back on. Well, when I do, I've just been going through my schedule for this trip I'm doing to

Australia in November. I mean, bloody hell, I didn't. You're attempting to kill yourself, aren't you? I had a long conversation with your mentor, Neil Kinnock. Oh, yeah. who's an absolutely lovely man. Total ledge. Total ledge.

But he was saying that he was a bit worried about how much you were working. When did Neil develop this Scottish accent? No, no, that's true. That's the preparation for going around tomorrow. But anyway, he's worried, along with me. And Fiona, yeah. I'll be fine. I'll be fine, I'll be fine, I'll be fine.

But I think most of the events I'm doing there are going to be kind of just me rocking up and wandering around the stage. Neil gave me and Fiona a lift home after the event because he was at the thing. He said, and he's got a very adorn. the nickname for the Newkins' leader of the Conservative Party. What does he call that? He calls a bad Enoch. Oh, Bad Enoch. Interesting.

I thought we're going to go with Bad Enoch enough. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting. Yeah, get it, yeah, get it. You know, that's what you want. Don't you tell you this one of my great moments in my life? So it's a young man at age sort of 16. 60?

16. 16? Yeah. I'd overslept at my boarding school at Eton. and I went into the headmaster's study where they were before lunch, where we were meeting people. And there was this old dude standing in the corner. And I went over to him, and nobody was talking to him. And I thought, I felt sorry for him.

I old grandpa. And I said, you know, what do you do? And he said, in my declining years, I translate the Greek New Testament. And I said, oh, well, and what do you do before your declining years? And he said, I was a politician. My first name's Enoch. And he stormed off. And it had turned out that I'd missed his sermon where he had apparently said,

everybody has forgotten me except for you, the younger generation. And you've forgotten it? And it was Enoch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's interesting how actually sort of public figures are surprisingly vain and sensitive if you don't recognize them. They get quite chippy and offended quite easily.

Yeah. Although some people love it. Some people love going from being very, very well known. They're not being talked about. Most I agree in the opposite direction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We've done a lot of plugging as usual, Rory, you with your pedulterous. relationship with Lewis Goodall. Final plug, we've done this really good interview for members that was part of the Gen Z series which went down so well with our listeners and viewers of all ages, where with Rosie Whiting and Keir Mayther, who are two very young Labour MPs, both still in their 20s. And we think that their voice needs to be heard more than it may be is. So that episode is going out this Friday. Looking forward to it very much.

To get that, you've got to be a member. Sign up for the rest is policies.com. And see you all next week. Going on vacation, we're here for it. With kids who turned the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tablet is louder, whose charger is faster, and while watching the same cartoon for the hundredth time is the human right? Yep, we totally have vehicles to handle that.

Because whether it's a road trip or a business trip, where your flight's delayed, your phone's at 2% and your dinner is, weather is open. Yeah. Here for that too. Enterprise, we're here for it.