Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Welcome to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. So, Rory, we're going to talk about your AI series, which I'm thoroughly enjoying. We're going to talk about Keir Starmer and the Customs Union and the single market and a few interesting things he said about that.
We're going to talk about the Bondi Beach terrorist assault and the continuing political fallout. We're going to talk about Roman Abramovich and his lawyer. Tory Shadow Attorney General, and we're going to talk about the curious world of the release of National Archives. First question, we had a very foreign policy based main episode.
Let's start with a more, well, it's a bit foreign, but quite domestic. Finley Morris, who is from Devon, is a Trip Plus member. Is there anything in Keir Starmer's comments about the single market worth getting hopeful about? Or is this yet another lukewarm statement which doesn't excite anyone? This is a comment on an interview that Keir Starmer did with Laura Koonsberg on the BBC.
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Chapter 2: What does Keir Starmer mean by 'closer alignment' with the EU?
Why not try to come up with one big idea? Now, you'd presumably have to reorient your electoral coalition because you'd worry that there would be people up in Red Wall seats who remain pretty firm on Brexit, who will feel alienated and betrayed. So you'd be hoping to pick up what Lib Dem Green votes is. centrist Tories.
But you'd certainly win back, I think, remain Tories like me might look more kindly at a labor government because instead of what we currently do, which is look at it and say, this is a bunch of slightly odd socialists who don't really like rich people and are going after wealth and shutting down private schools and putting up taxes and don't feel proud.
Suddenly there's a big thing where we can be like, oh, all right, actually Stalin's not too bad and he's doing something big and exciting in geopolitics.
Yeah, and which would lead to a better, stronger economy, would allow us to build on, because I think one of the successes of Keir's leadership has been this E3 thing. And Mertz and Macron really do appear to have taken a turn to rely on them. The E3 thing is meaning something. And so I just think that you're right. I think they're going to need something pretty big.
And you do it through geopolitics. In a way, the argument that didn't work... during the Brexit campaign, but should have been pushed much more powerfully, which was the European Union had actually been the key to peace in Europe for 70 years. Suddenly now, with Trump in place, with Putin in place, you can put a very, very different argument. It feels statesmanlike.
You can start invoking Winston Churchill. You can start talking about the benefit for the UK defense industry. What we don't need is to all push up our NATO defense spending to 2%, 3%, 5%, and then find that we're buying 70% of our kit from the United States and becoming ever more vulnerable and dependent.
Or that we're all as European countries buying the same things for the same reasons which we could be doing together. Absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay, Rory, here's a question from Daniel, TripPlus member in Sydney. Following Australia's deadliest terror attack at Bondi Beach, Albanese Prime Minister is resisting intense pressure for a federal royal commission while facing extraordinary personal attacks. including claims that he bears personal responsibility for the 15 deaths. Is this principle leadership or political miscalculation?
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Chapter 3: How does the political landscape affect the perception of Keir Starmer's comments?
That's why you have a Royal Commission.
Why doesn't he want a Royal Commission? I mean, that's what he has to answer. That's the problem. And that's why I think he's going to conceive one next week. Because in every interview, it's going to be like this. They're going to be like, why won't you do a Royal Commission? And the answer is what? It costs too much?
No, the answer is, cost is a factor, but that's not the answer you necessarily give at this stage. The answer is that a terrible, terrible thing has happened since when the government has already made changes, for example, in relation to gun ownership, for example, in relation to hate crime and hate preachers and so forth. He's actually done quite a lot.
Chapter 4: What is the significance of the Customs Union versus the Single Market in UK politics?
And what happens in these situations, and it's very hard to stand up against this, and I get the sense of pressure upon him to do it, But I think if you're a leader, you actually do have to sometimes step back and say, well, is it actually the right thing to do?
And I think what he will do, all these people who've signed petitions and said that this would happen, all the sports people who've come out and all the sort of celebs and all the rest of it, is that by the time it happens, years down the track, look how long this COVID inquiry is taking. Right. Well, you're going to talk about something here. Okay.
It's not maybe as complicated as that, but it could be. And I've yet to see a Royal Commission or a public inquiry at the end of which all of the people who asked for it then said, oh yeah, that's answered all the questions.
I think that's right. But again, you're much savvier on politics than me, but I think the line you're taking might have worked if he'd been better in the immediate aftermath. If he'd communicated more powerfully, if he'd been more emotionally literate, if he'd seized the public mood more, then the credibility and legitimacy he would have to resist the Royal Commission more.
Given where he is, which is basically everybody thinks he's defensive, he hasn't got it, and he's trying to cover up, he's go with the Royal Commission. What's he got to lose? Nothing really.
We shall see. I mean, the other thing I would, whether you make this part of the argument or not, I don't know, but there have been other, okay, nothing quite as horrific as this, but there have been previous disasters that have not had royal commissions. I just think sometimes we want to blame. We want to say that there's some sort of easy solution that could put this right, and there isn't.
And I think the blame game is just… I think that plays into the… But some of these commissions came… I don't have a dog in this fight, but I was just rereading the 9-11 commission report. It is fantastic. I mean, the world should be hugely grateful for that. That was an unbelievable bit of work, and we learned so much about failure in US intelligence services coordination. Yeah, okay.
But is there not a case with this that one of the guys is dead, the other one I presume is going to spend an awful lot of time in prison. Are we really, through two people, and we have a royal commission looking at all aspects of all gun laws and all this and all that, are we really, really going to get to a place where you uncover the sort of scale of the thing that you had with the 9-11 report?
Look, I could be wrong, and I suspect there'll be quite a lot of Australians listening to this thinking, What the hell are you on about? And you deserve to get smashed in the ashes. But the other thing is I feel for Albanese on this because I think he's actually a decent guy. He's not the most natural, charismatic speaker.
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Chapter 5: How should a centrist government respond to national trauma after the Bondi terror attack?
It went on for days, these arguments.
Why did he think the Women's Institute was the appropriate audience for some grand speech?
Middle England, in fact. On the day, we very rarely fell out. We didn't fall out over this, but I basically said, I thought this was a really bad idea. You should just go up and sort of, you know, be nice and be Tony Blair and not worry too much about a big speech. It was a big audience, about 6,000 women.
So there could be a speech where he'd just be like, the Women's Institute are wonderful. Aren't you wonderful? Let's celebrate.
And I'm here today. I'd love to talk to you about, you know, the future of something or other. But it was like a big... And we briefed it. He wanted us to brief it as this is like a big moment in the calendar. And this is the fight that starts here. So anyway... I decided I'm not going to go to Wembley.
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Chapter 6: Is a Royal Commission necessary in response to the Bondi Beach tragedy?
You know, on your own head bit, off you go. And Angie Hunter went with it with the car. Angie had been arguing very much for this speech. She saw herself as the Middle England voice, which she was in many respects. So I used the time while Tony went off to have this meeting in my office in Downey Street with John Prescott. And John and I were talking about whatever we were talking about.
And I had the TV on in the background. And Tony's speech was live on the news because we'd billed it as a big deal. And at one point, John Prescott's just looking at the telly. He goes, oh, what's going on? He says, he's got his Bambi look on. And his Bambi look was where he just looked a little bit scared.
And what happened was he started the speech and then there was a few tuts and then there was a little bit of sort of heckling. And then eventually there was this one person starts to slow down. And before you know it, he's got thousands of women basically slow hand clapping the speech. So the headline in the Daily Mail the next morning was death. Middle England turns its back on Blair.
It was heaven for them. So yeah, but anyway, that, so the Guardian, serious newspaper. And this is the answer to Katie's question. There are hundreds of these memos that get released.
Of which a more controversial one, certainly from the point of view of people in the Middle East, is what Al Jazeera picked up on, which is that Blair seemed to be resisting, he seemed to be coming back to royal commissions, a big investigation into allegations of British soldiers conducting atrocities in Iraq.
So what happens with these is that the papers... I mean, the system's changed over time, but essentially some papers get released fairly early after the events have been covered. There's a whole kind of system where, so for example, I think a couple of years ago, loads of stuff came out about the Good Friday Agreement. And some of it was quite controversial, some of it was quite difficult.
Because what's happening is, you've been there as a minister, you're in these meetings, there's somebody in there who's taking notes, who's writing it up, who's filing it away. Now, the truth is, Most of the people who are involved in that and players in that, they're not reading the notes of the meetings because they're on to the next thing. These meetings get recorded and then out they go.
And then of course, big decisions, there's all the kind of internal correspondence. And of course, we, you know, to Tony's regret, we brought in freedom of information anyway. So we always assumed this stuff's going to come out at some point anyway. So I just thought it was fascinating to see the different stories that people picked on.
The question, Katie's question about how the journalists decide, I think actually these days, because journalism isn't kind of what it was and there are fewer of them doing more stories and covering more, I suspect most of them rely on the press association. The press association go in there, they sit down, they get quite a lot of time, they go through everything.
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