544. How Trump Is Weaponising AI and Martial Arts at the White House

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Last week, the President of the United States did something
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that no technology company would ever have done. He took
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the most capable artificial intelligence that America's leading lab had
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ever built, and he stopped it at the border on
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national security grounds, which means the latest frontier model from
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Anthropic is now, in effect, a weapon. Americans get it,
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But the rest of us, allies included, get whatever version
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they're willing to let out. Now, I've spent a lot
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of the last few months trying to tell anyone who'll
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listen that this couldn't be ruled out. And then being
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told politely that I was catastrophizing, that the Americans would
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never do this. So what if the central technology of
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the next century, in other words, the technology on which
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everything will depend, our government, our defense, our economy, turns
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out to be something we can only rent? something which
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America can withdraw whenever it wants. Is Britain, is Europe
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still a power that governs itself, or are we just
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quietly discovering that we've become a vassal? And if it's
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the second, then what do we do about it? And
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the answer, I've come to believe, is something very radical.
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So that's what I want to work through today. What
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actually is the threat? What are we going to do
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about it? All that, more to come in today's episode
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of The Rest Is Politics, Question Time.
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This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy.
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Visit fuseenergy.com for full terms and conditions. Welcome to the
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Restless Politics Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.
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And with me, Rory Stewart.
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Rory, we're going to talk about defence. We're going to
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talk about this remarkable election in Peru, one of the
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closest elections ever. We're going to reflect on the UFC
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cage fighting that went on at the White House to
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celebrate Donald Trump's birthday. So, Rory, let's start with AI
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and defence. Daisy Oakman, what are your thoughts on the
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US government's suspension of two crucial AI models? What does
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it mean now? for the UK and the world as
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a whole.
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So people will, most people listening, will now have been
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using AI models a lot. And you will have found
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that you're getting a more and more updated model every
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few months. So your OpenAI system will take you from
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ChatGBT3 to ChatGBT5, and Claude will give you different types
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of model. What's happened is that over the last two
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and a half years, these models are getting better and
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better and better. So one way to illustrate it is
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that were having this conversation two and a half years ago,
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you'd be saying, well, yeah, it can do GCSE maths,
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but it can't really do A-level maths. Now they're saying, yeah,
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it can do advanced graduate-level mathematics, but it can't quite
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yet get a Nobel Prize. So there's been an incredible eruption.
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And software, they were saying, well, this thing could do
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the sort of thing that a human software programmer do
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in about half an hour and a minute. Now it
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can do what a human software programmer can do in
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48 hours in about a minute. There's been incredible improvement
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in performance. As the performance increases, the positive potential for
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this massively increases. You can have much more productivity. You
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can do much more exciting things with your companies. For
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productivity brackets, you can also lay off a lot of employees.
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On the negative side, you can use it for bad
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in a much more powerful way. You now have much
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more facility to build bioweapons, mount cyber attacks, etc. But
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the fundamental thing that's been revealed is America's finally done
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the thing that I've spent the last few months warning
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that they would do and being rubbished for saying it.
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I was at a conference a week ago and I said,
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what if you know, Mythos 15 were developed and the
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US government suddenly announced on national security grounds that it
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wouldn't be released and nobody could use it except for
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the Americans, right?
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By the way, do you accept that there are genuine
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national security grounds on this? Are there national security grounds?
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Might there be a logic to what they've done?
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I think there would be a logic to saying it
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can't be released at all, right? If the thing is
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so dangerous that getting in the hands of any ordinary
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person could bring the world to a grinding halt by
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mounting cyber attacks or building bioweapons, don't release it. The
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logic of only releasing it to American citizens is completely different.
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That's saying this is such a powerful competitive advantage for
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the US, not that this is an existential threat to
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global security. It's basically treating it as though America's developed
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its latest fighter plane, and it's not going to share
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that fighter plane with any other country. Except it's not
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just defense tools. It's not just like America having a
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nuclear bomb and nobody else having a nuclear bomb. It's
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also America having steam and electricity when nobody else has it.
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What are the implications? Like the British government, So I
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was meeting somebody in the government who said they've been
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really trying to get the Americans not to do this.
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What is the impact for a country like Britain?
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Well, in the short term, it means that you're stuck
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with the last model while they push ahead. So let's
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say you're trying to do things that we've all been
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talking about for years. Take NHS data and looking at it,
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find out new things about the relationship between exercise and
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prostate cancer. You're going to still be working on the
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old creaky models. the A-level model instead of the advanced
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maths model, and with all the problems that you will
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have encountered when you use them, their hallucination, their fuzziness
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around the edges, their memory problems, the things they can't
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quite do, while America pushes forward.
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And what's the most dangerous thing that these new ones
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can do? When you hear people saying it could bring
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the entire economic system, entire banking system to a crash,
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it can it can find its way into any kind
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of system in the world. Is that what we're talking about?
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Is that the level of threat?
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Yeah. The first threat that they've identified with these models
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is cyber attacks. What these models are very, very good
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at doing is going through all the code of Microsoft
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or all the programming on your phone and finding thousands
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of weaknesses that no human had ever found. They find
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it almost instantly, and then they can design attacks. there
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is an incredible potential for cybercrime. Now, to defend against it,
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the only way to defend against it is to have
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the same advanced model, doing all the stuff on the
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defensive side, finding all those weaknesses, coming up with all
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the defenses. If we end up in a world in
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which one country has the advanced models to mount the
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offense and none of us have the defensive models, we're
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in a very different world. But let me add to that.
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If these models continue to improve at the rate at
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which the tech bros claim they will, And my guess is,
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and this is the big judgment call that you have
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to make if you're prime minister. So you're Keir Starmer,
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or you're Andy Burnham, or you're Alistair Cameron. You're going
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to have people like me saying, listen, yes, maybe Elon
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Musk and Sam Orman overpromise. But broadly speaking, they have
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been vindicated. These models are unbelievably powerful. They're already changing
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the world. And my guess is within three, four years,
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these things will be capable of doing almost everything that
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a human can do remotely. They may not be able
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to be a good plumber. they're going to be able
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to do almost everything else we can do. And therefore,
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this is not just like steam or electricity, something that
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maybe over 40, 50 years transport's going to do, something
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over four or five years will accelerate American GDP, totally
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transform defense and security, totally transform public services. And we
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cannot afford to be completely dependent on the United States
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for the biggest technology story in the world because Trump
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can switch it off. He can either blackmail us. He
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can either say, well, you can continue to have it
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if you pay me oodles of money and give me Greenland.
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Or he can just say, well, you can't have it
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at all. And we're going to accelerate forward. And you
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guys are going to be like, I know this is
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a horrible analogy I've used in the past, but you're
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going to be like the Zulu Empire meeting the kind
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of British Industrial Revolution.
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I get that. And yet I keep being told, and
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I'm sure you keep being told, that America and China
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are way out ahead of everybody else. But then not,
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you know, When you're looking at the sort of the
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second division, the UK's kind of at the top of it.
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Is the answer, or is this just my Brexit derangement syndrome?
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Can Europe not become the third power within this? And
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how close to that are we? Or how far behind
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are we?
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So we're massively far behind. But I think the honest
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answer is, if I were advising as prime minister, we
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need to do it. But we would need to do it, UK, Canada, Australia, Europe, Japan,
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South Korea together.
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Do it in competition?
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We would have to develop our own sovereign capacity. Now,
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this is a really weird thing. It would be like
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us saying, America's got F-35 fighter jets, and we're going
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to build a Eurofighter, or we're going to build a Typhoon.
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The obvious normal answer to that is, but the American
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F-35 is better, and it's cheaper, and you're going to
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spend all this money building your Eurofighter, and it's still
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going to be not quite as good as the American fighter,
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and you're still going to have to buy the American fighters.
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It's a hell of a bet, right? This is your
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problem as prime minister. If you believe me and you
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believe this is completely vital to your security and just
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working backwards, if the stuff's that advanced and if America
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can't be relied upon to give it to us, we
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need to build our own. You're talking about hundreds of
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billions of pounds of investments, hundreds of billions. the frontier
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labs are likely to spend over the next two to
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three years $ 740 billion US dollars. You would have to
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have enormous data centers. You would probably have to have
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your own chips because America might stop giving you the
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NVIDIA chips which power these things. And it's a moonshot.
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And the likelihood, people being skeptical as well, forget it.
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You're going to spend hundreds of billions and you're still
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going to be behind the US. I would argue better
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to have the infrastructure, the talent, the chips, and be
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a little bit behind the US, then have nothing at all.
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Because if the US switches you off, at least you
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can go to the Eurofighter model, not the F-35.
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Are you talking about governments building this or about governments
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encouraging European versions of Musk and Altman and the rest
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of them to try to get in the race? What works?
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Well, I guess this would go back to your experience
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in government, whether you think the best way to get
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this kind of infrastructure built is putting together a big
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Canadian-British-European fund that invests in Mistral or the UK sovereign
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startup or gets these amazing Canadians who keep offering to
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do this for us to come over from their universities
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in Canada and build it for us. Is it like CERN,
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where we build it together as a government, or is
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it a question of investing in two or three European companies?
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Because I'm assuming that if we had really clever people
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in the UK, the sorts of money that these American
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companies are offering of starting salaries for some of the
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brightest of the best are of a scale that is
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unimaginable for a government to be funding.
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It's not something government do. So probably you're right. You
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just have to let private companies do this. And then
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you would have a huge fight. So imagine the fight
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that you'd have. Firstly, you'd have the fight from your
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friends saying, This is environmentally catastrophic. These data centers use
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too much energy. They use too much water. They're ugly.
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Then you'd have a fight saying, why is the government
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subsidizing people getting 200 million pound salaries when we can't
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pay for the NHS? But the third argument that you'll
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get is the argument that really you're hearing in number 10. So,
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going to the counterargument to me, and this is why
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it's so difficult. The counterargument is America isn't going to
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keep cutting us off. They need our markets. They need
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our data. The only way they're going to make their
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money back is with the 450 million customers that they
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can access through Europe and their allies. Our data is
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very valuable. We can use Chinese open source models. We
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don't have to build our own frontier models. What we
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can focus on, where the economic value is, is in
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building the application there. Let them spend hundreds of billions
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on the frontier. We can build the really cool apps
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which apply it to life sciences or apply it to law.
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Then we can build wonderful companies off the back of
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the American models and we'll get the economic value off
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the back of this. Everything comes down to two questions.
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Number one, is America likely to switch this stuff off?
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Number two, can we possibly afford to build these things
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and get them done?
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Generally, Well, you seem to think yes and no is
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the answer to that. Yes, the Americans could, and indeed
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currently have. And secondly, no, Europe couldn't.
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And my conclusion is we've got to make that no
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into a yes. But Europe and the UK and our
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neighbors have to do it. We have to work backwards.
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But there will be so much resistance. And because it's
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so expensive and so difficult to do. everybody's going to
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be saying, this is ridiculous. This is a moonshot. Why
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are we wasting all our money on this? And there
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will even be people saying quite quickly, maybe this American
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investment won't work out. Maybe they're wasting their money. Maybe
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this 740 billion they're spending isn't going to work out.
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Maybe these AI models are always going to be a
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bit crappy. Maybe all these predictions about how they're going
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to transform the world are wrong and we can just
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sit back. My fear about that is.
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It's a little bit- You just get left further behind.
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Yeah. Well, I feel like this is basically like, I think,
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in return to my Zulu empire idea, that I'm Shaka
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Zulu and I say, well, they keep boasting about steel
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and coal and all this marvelous stuff. They're doing the
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industrial revolution. Maybe it's not going to work out. Maybe
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they're just wasting all their money on that stuff. And
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I've got a very wise man living in my community
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who keeps assuring me that he's got a different approach
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to this whole thing. And Maybe it will all work out.
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It's always worked out in the past.
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How much of this is about, we'll come to UK
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defence in a minute, but how much of this is
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about the ongoing battle between the Trump administration and this
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specific company, Anthropic? Because they had a difficulty with the
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Pentagon when they basically said they would not allow the
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Pentagon to do certain things with their gear that they
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wanted to do. And that led to them attacking them.
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They've called the CEO an ideological lunatic. And they've said
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that Anthropic is all about trying to create woke AI,
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whatever that means. So is this Anthropic model ahead of
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everything else? And how much of the motivation to do
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what the White House announced last week is actually about
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this company? And how much is about the sort of
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making of a new weapon that you talked about?
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I mean, as usual, these two questions, everybody disagrees on.
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So number one, is it ahead of anyone else? Yes,
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for my money, I think it's ahead of us.
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Everyone else.
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But there are some people who will say that actually
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putting other models together, you can achieve pretty similar performance. Secondly,
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is it about the genuine threat or is it bitterness
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towards Anthropic? With the Trump administration, it's completely impossible to distinguish.
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And there's a lot of evidence that quite a lot
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of it is bitterness towards Anthropic because Pete Hegseth has
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been cheerfully saying, we told you this was a bad
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company and this is why we've just stopped the export
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of the product. And Anthropic are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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Can you please tell us what the grounds are for
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you stopping our product so that we can assess what's
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different between our product and our competitors? Or are you
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just trying to kill our business model?
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Am I right in saying that it's not that they
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can't export it to Brits, Australians, Germans, French, Koreans, et cetera,
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but non-Americans inside the United States can't have access to it?
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Absolutely, which removes.
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Which is completely unpoliceable, I thought.
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It also removes... a lot of the very smartest AI
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researchers in the world. If you look through the great
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heads of all these tech companies, they're absolutely full of
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people who are South Asian or of Iranian heritage or
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Chinese heritage.
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There are over 100 first languages in anthropology. Yeah.
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When I turn up to these conferences in the States,
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the guy presenting on Quantum has a strong German accent.
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The guy telling me about his new legal program is
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obviously a recent South Asian immigrant. So America has built
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Silicon Valley off immigrants. It's an immigrant culture. You start
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saying only American citizens can access, it becomes really, really weird.
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But the problem is, let's say Anthropic wanted to say, okay, enough.
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We're moving out of the US. We're going to move
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to Europe. They don't really have the optionality because we
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haven't got the data centers, because we haven't got the chips.
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We can't host their weights. We can't host their models.
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We don't have that security.
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And I've got to say, Roy, this issue, AI and
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also defence in the context of John Healy and Al
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Khan resigning from the government, were the issues we got
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the most questions about this week. Let's start with this
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one from Charlie. On British defence, what do we do now?
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We're getting run into the ground here. Robert, has Al
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Khan's got a legitimate chance of being Labour leader? What
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does he stand for? Well, you won't know the answer
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to the first until you know the answer to the second,
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I would suggest. he's certainly on maneuvers.
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Yeah, he's certainly on maneuvers, and we look forward to
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having him on the show. Okay, so UK defense. Well, fundamentally,
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we're trying to do it all, and the only people
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who can do it all are people like the US
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and China. The US and China are spending so much
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on defense, the US is spending a trillion dollars a year,
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that it doesn't need to make decisions and prioritize in
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quite the way we do. So they bet on everything.
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They have an advanced fighter, they have submarines, they have
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aircraft carriers, they recapitalize their army, they can munition stockpile.
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We can't do all those five things, and that's the
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fundamental problem. We cannot afford to both fund our own
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sixth-generation fighter in 2040 and have a full aircraft carrier
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group and have the next generation of advanced submarines and
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recapitalize our army and have our munitions. We just can't
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do it. But the government incapable of making any decisions.
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My guess is that even John Healey, he tries to
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get around it by just asking for more money. If
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he had wanted to cancel one of those programs, let
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me try one on you. The most obvious one, aircraft carriers,
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total waste of time. Total waste of time. These aircraft
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carriers can only operate if you have a whole fleet
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of other ships around that we can't afford to have.
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We can barely afford to pay for the planes on them.
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They were all based on projecting us into the Indo-Pacific,
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which we're not interested in anymore, and fighting. Forget it.
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Is any politician going to say, we're canceling our aircraft
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carriers and tell the Navy we're getting rid of all that?
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Not without a massive opposition from within the armed forces. Absolutely.
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Second one, this fighter, let me explain about the GCAP fighter.
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This is a fighter plane we're developing with the Italians
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and Japanese. Question number one, do we actually need pilots
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and planes anymore, or are they going to be replaced
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by drones? What is this plane there to do? Is
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it hovering around in the air coordinating drones, or is
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it doing its own strikes? Get this, this thing will
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be delivered in 2040. Does anyone seriously think that we
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know what the world of AI technology and drones will
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be like in 2040? Is there any point to spending
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billions of pounds designing a plane with a pilot in
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it to fight a war from 10 years ago in
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a world that's increasingly about drones? Because the real risk
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is you build this thing, it costs, I don't know,
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200 million pounds a pop, and all it is is
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an exquisite target for everybody's cheap mass drones to hit.
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I guess this is one of the points that Al Khan,
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the Armed Forces Minister, made in his resignation letter, that
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we're preparing for wars of the past rather than wars
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of the future. That is all, and particularly when you've
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got very complicated, slow procurement systems that we have, that
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is a problem. Now, listen, we talked about John Healy's
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resignation on the day that it happened, but just to
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revisit that for a bit, what seems to have happened
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and what seems to have emerged since then, you mentioned
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the Canadians coming over to try and help us on AI.
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It seems that what John Healy was particularly upset about
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was the Treasury blocking any move towards this thing called
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the Defence Security and Resilience Bank, which is a Canadian proposal.
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And as I understand it, is a way of sort
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of getting more money into defence and defence investment without
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necessarily having to offend the fiscal rules. I don't know
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much more than that. But So I think John Healy
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was looking, he had a sort of really cryptic line
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in his letter about, you know, there are other ways
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of raising money without, you know, causing too much trouble
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in the markets. But you're describing a gap between need
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and reality that feels a lot wider than it did
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even when you were chairing the Defense Select Committee.
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Yeah, because when I was chairing the Defense Select Committee
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in 2014, that was the moment at which Putin invaded Crimea.
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Yeah.
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And Up to that point, the assumption had been that
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really our military was an expeditionary force connected to the
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US and NATO that fought wars like Iraq and Afghanistan.
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So what kind of military are you talking about? You're
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talking about Royal Marines or paras with armored vehicles traveling
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around villages in Afghanistan, and you need protection against improvised
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explosive devices, and you're fighting a guerrilla warfare with people
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with Kalashnikovs. Fast forward, there are two completely new types
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of war that we're dealing with. and they are Ukraine
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and Iran. Ukraine is a war with endless hovering cheap drones,
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now nearly 60 miles deep, freezing a frontline where its drone,
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counter-drone strikes. Iran is the dream of the high-tech US-Israeli planners.
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The most exquisite, expensive equipment in the world, incredible radar,
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incredible targeting, incredible precision bombing. wiping out all Iranian air
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defenses in 24 hours. And then we have the threat
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of Russia to Europe. So what are we doing with
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Russia to Europe? Are we trying to be Ukraine, defense
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in depth, cheap drones, or are we trying to be
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the US and Israel? Let's have exquisite planes and take
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out Russia's air defenses on day one and then be
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able to use our fancy planes to take out all
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that stuff. And when's Russia going to attack? Because if
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they're attacking in 2030, having a plane delivered in 2040
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is not much easier. If they're attacking in 2040, then
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this is my final point. Actually, we need to be
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investing in AI. I'd actually scrap most of this stuff
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and put it into building data sensors, frontier models, because actually,
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what are we learning? Modern warfare is about new software
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every six weeks, new hardware every six months. There's no
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point pretending that we know what's going to happen in 2040.
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What we have to do is build the engineers, the systems,
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the industrial manufacturing capacity, that is able to do new
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software every six weeks, new hardware every six months. And
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that's basically leaning into software engineers, industrial production capacity, ability
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to build munitions, rather than betting on exquisite platforms.
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And yet last week, you were saying that, you know,
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the Strategic Defense Review, having been brought forward, the government
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should follow that plan. But even what you're describing there
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is very different to that plan, because this thing is
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moving so fast. Yes.
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And which is why I think pretentious things like kind
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of the ecosystem or the environment of British innovation, technology, talent,
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infrastructure is probably much more important than trying to guess
460
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what the weapon or what the war will be in
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15 years' time. Just a quick plug for a brilliant
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final six-page Economist article by my friend Shashank Joshi, who
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tries to lay out what he calls transparency. He thinks
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war is all about transparency, that these devices can see
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things they were never able to see before. I think
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the future war, I'd add to that, is sovereignty. It's
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all about sovereignty. And our real problem is we're having
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to build all the stuff without being able to rely
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on US defense equipment anymore.
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Yeah. By the way, before we get to break, Andrew Kinebra,
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does that name ring a bell? He's the DG of
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Make UK. And you and I have both spoken at
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Make UK conferences. He says, I have a major bone
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to pick with Rory. And his statement, Glib, he calls it,
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the defense spending doesn't lead to economic growth. Ask anyone
476
00:25:21.869 --> 00:25:25.849
in Barrow, the Clyde, Plymouth, Bristol, Yobel, Preston, even the
477
00:25:25.950 --> 00:25:28.809
outer Hebrides. And he then goes on to say this.
478
00:25:28.849 --> 00:25:31.980
He says, our biggest frustration is with the Treasury, echoing
479
00:25:32.039 --> 00:25:35.440
both John Healy and Ben Wallace, who we interviewed on Leading.
480
00:25:35.900 --> 00:25:39.220
They refuse to consider the Defense and Security Resilience Bank.
481
00:25:39.829 --> 00:25:42.210
which John Healy and Number 10 have told us they
482
00:25:42.309 --> 00:25:45.130
liked and we love. And this is something that I
483
00:25:45.150 --> 00:25:47.049
think Mark Carney has been pushing. This is the thing
484
00:25:47.089 --> 00:25:49.750
that it seems to be about. I think when John
485
00:25:49.789 --> 00:25:53.839
Healy said in his resignation letter to Keir Starmer that
486
00:25:54.220 --> 00:25:57.480
the Treasury were unwilling and you were unable, that I
487
00:25:57.680 --> 00:25:59.099
think that is what this is about.
488
00:25:59.220 --> 00:26:01.880
Well, so answer to Andrew, there has been a lot
489
00:26:01.900 --> 00:26:05.180
of research on this and what academics have been trying
490
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:08.680
to look at is Pound for pound, what kind of
491
00:26:08.740 --> 00:26:11.359
return do you get investing in a nuclear submarine and
492
00:26:11.400 --> 00:26:17.089
barrow for your economy compared to investing in education, infrastructure skills? Generally,
493
00:26:17.130 --> 00:26:19.309
the conclusion is if what you're trying to do is
494
00:26:19.349 --> 00:26:22.039
generate economic growth, pound for pound, you'd be better going
495
00:26:22.079 --> 00:26:25.359
for education, infrastructure skills. Defense is not a very productive investment.
496
00:26:25.400 --> 00:26:26.720
We don't really do that either, though.
497
00:26:28.539 --> 00:26:30.200
I think the reason to go to defense is not
498
00:26:31.119 --> 00:26:33.990
that it's the cheapest way of getting economic growth. The
499
00:26:34.029 --> 00:26:36.730
reason to go for defense is there's a threat from Russia.
500
00:26:36.769 --> 00:26:39.109
We can no longer rely on the US and we
501
00:26:39.130 --> 00:26:41.529
will have no sovereignty or independence unless we build up
502
00:26:41.549 --> 00:26:44.349
the capacity. If anyone wants to get into any of
503
00:26:44.390 --> 00:26:47.829
this more, I've done a mini-series on AI with Matt
504
00:26:47.869 --> 00:26:51.849
Clifford that we're quite proud of. We get deep into
505
00:26:52.089 --> 00:26:55.289
all these debates How much does technology matter? And what
506
00:26:55.309 --> 00:26:57.269
should the UK do about it? And what should Europe
507
00:26:57.289 --> 00:27:00.269
do about it in particular? So just go to therestlesspolitics.com.
508
00:27:00.549 --> 00:27:02.380
Okay, quick break, and we'll come back and talk about
509
00:27:02.619 --> 00:27:03.920
UFC and Peru.
510
00:27:04.319 --> 00:27:04.619
Lovely.
511
00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:12.900
This episode is brought to you by Vauxhall. Electric cars
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have become part of life on the road, and Vauxhall
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is supporting the UK's transition to electrification.
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in accelerating the UK's on-street charging infrastructure. And it's exactly
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what you want to see from Vauxhall, which is, of course,
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also supporting the next generation of athletes on their journey
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to the 2028 Olympics.
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Vauxhall Grandland or visit your local Vauxhall retailer today. Electric grant,
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T's and C's apply. Visit voxhall.co.uk for more info. We
529
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are getting a.
530
00:28:20.250 --> 00:28:23.670
Statement from number 10 on that flight with 350 passengers
531
00:28:23.849 --> 00:28:24.750
on board.
532
00:28:25.980 --> 00:28:31.410
The Great Gain. The strategic struggle between Britain and Russia.
533
00:28:33.450 --> 00:28:38.890
We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian.
534
00:28:39.750 --> 00:28:42.039
Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took
535
00:28:42.059 --> 00:28:44.980
down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. The man
536
00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:48.500
in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. You've got to ask yourself,
537
00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:52.259
do you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister.
538
00:28:52.759 --> 00:29:00.069
You've done nothing! We would need to understand the policy context.
539
00:29:00.289 --> 00:29:03.890
All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today,
540
00:29:04.299 --> 00:29:09.420
and disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO. A FRAGO
541
00:29:09.460 --> 00:29:16.130
that says to kill the President of Russia? Yes. New
542
00:29:16.190 --> 00:29:18.789
from Gallhanger. Who is going to be able to pull
543
00:29:18.829 --> 00:29:26.470
this off? An audio drama journey like no other. Men
544
00:29:26.509 --> 00:29:30.849
like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as
545
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a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller. Where Britain plays its
546
00:29:36.299 --> 00:29:45.440
strongest hand against its strongest foe. Bear Hunt. Available now
547
00:29:45.640 --> 00:29:47.220
wherever you get your podcasts.
548
00:30:01.079 --> 00:30:03.799
Welcome back to the Rest Is Politics Question Time with me,
549
00:30:03.839 --> 00:30:04.380
Rory Stewart.
550
00:30:04.480 --> 00:30:05.519
And me, Alistair Campbell.
551
00:30:05.740 --> 00:30:09.400
Now, first question for you from Akash. How did you
552
00:30:09.480 --> 00:30:12.240
celebrate Trump's birthday last weekend, Alistair?
553
00:30:14.779 --> 00:30:19.400
Well, the only connection I had with Trump's birthday was
554
00:30:20.259 --> 00:30:26.329
to watch the news coverage of the utterly hideous UFC match.
555
00:30:27.059 --> 00:30:29.559
cage fighting on the lawn of the White House.
556
00:30:30.180 --> 00:30:30.890
Did you watch a bit of it?
557
00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:31.869
I watched a bit of it.
558
00:30:31.869 --> 00:30:34.490
I mean, I won't show it to my kids. I mean,
559
00:30:34.829 --> 00:30:36.230
I used to do a lot of martial arts. I
560
00:30:36.250 --> 00:30:38.329
did karate. I did Aikido. I did Judo. So I'm
561
00:30:38.390 --> 00:30:42.049
quite interested in it. But when you actually see some
562
00:30:42.069 --> 00:30:44.720
of the matches, I mean, there was the Netflix big
563
00:30:44.779 --> 00:30:48.019
match that I saw four weeks ago. It's horrifying. I mean,
564
00:30:48.039 --> 00:30:49.299
it's not what you want a kid to see.
565
00:30:49.500 --> 00:30:50.180
Well, it's fighting.
566
00:30:50.859 --> 00:30:53.920
There's a lot of blood. And sometimes you're seeing, I mean,
567
00:30:54.640 --> 00:31:00.980
there was an extraordinary match between the most enormous, incredibly
568
00:31:01.160 --> 00:31:05.799
impressive French-African fighter going up against a guy who they
569
00:31:05.880 --> 00:31:08.359
tried to trail as having rested for two years, but
570
00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:12.599
he was back. And the poor man was destroyed. I mean,
571
00:31:12.700 --> 00:31:14.640
destroyed within a few seconds.
572
00:31:14.720 --> 00:31:17.349
It's brutal. It's absolutely brutal. And of course, that's partly
573
00:31:17.380 --> 00:31:19.849
why he loves it. And Pete Hegg said, Keeps talking about,
574
00:31:19.869 --> 00:31:23.289
you know, lethality is his favorite word. Now, I think
575
00:31:23.309 --> 00:31:25.410
the thing is I find most troubling because there is
576
00:31:25.450 --> 00:31:28.210
something about the White House that is very special. And
577
00:31:28.269 --> 00:31:32.089
it's a beautiful building replete with history, beautifully kept. And
578
00:31:32.150 --> 00:31:35.839
suddenly that lawn where you normally have meetings with heads
579
00:31:35.900 --> 00:31:39.420
of state or big events. Well, it was a big event,
580
00:31:39.980 --> 00:31:43.599
but it's got this sort of makeshift stadium put together.
581
00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:47.859
You've got a whole load of evil, Knievel-type motorbike riders
582
00:31:47.900 --> 00:31:51.700
kind of flying through the air. The honor guard, which
583
00:31:51.779 --> 00:31:56.480
is normally there, you know, to greet Xi Jinping or
584
00:31:56.500 --> 00:31:59.490
Keir Starmer or the king, whatever it might be, they
585
00:31:59.549 --> 00:32:02.250
were there, standing there as an honor guard for the
586
00:32:02.349 --> 00:32:05.390
fighters as they came out. The worst moment, and I
587
00:32:05.430 --> 00:32:09.269
think even the crowd, even though the crowd was pumped up, USA, USA,
588
00:32:09.329 --> 00:32:13.440
and loving Trump, was one of the fighters who did
589
00:32:13.559 --> 00:32:19.119
an in-the-ring interview afterwards and said, first of all, Donald
590
00:32:19.140 --> 00:32:21.079
Trump's the only man in the world who could deliver
591
00:32:21.180 --> 00:32:21.900
shit like this.
592
00:32:22.720 --> 00:32:23.359
It's probably true.
593
00:32:24.119 --> 00:32:27.299
Almost certainly true. Then went on to say how the
594
00:32:27.420 --> 00:32:29.289
only person in the world that he loved more than
595
00:32:29.309 --> 00:32:31.430
that was Jesus Christ because Jesus.
596
00:32:31.829 --> 00:32:34.089
Could he also deliver Evel Knievel and stage fighting?
597
00:32:34.130 --> 00:32:35.750
He could do all that stuff and he could probably
598
00:32:35.809 --> 00:32:39.390
ride a mean motorbike himself. And then went on to say,
599
00:32:40.009 --> 00:32:44.950
and Michelle Obama is a man. America, we all know this.
600
00:32:45.990 --> 00:32:55.849
So neatly bringing together misogyny, racism, white supremacy, allied to Christianity.
601
00:32:56.109 --> 00:32:58.069
I mean, utterly horrific.
602
00:32:58.390 --> 00:33:01.529
And even that- And it's quite Roman Empire, isn't it?
603
00:33:01.549 --> 00:33:04.250
Because actually what I feel like seeing the blood is
604
00:33:04.329 --> 00:33:05.609
it's like gladiatorial games.
605
00:33:05.789 --> 00:33:08.410
Oh yeah. And that's why he loves it. And he
606
00:33:08.559 --> 00:33:11.700
and the guy who runs UFC, And this, by the way,
607
00:33:11.759 --> 00:33:14.990
was filmed. You had to pay to watch this on Ellison's,
608
00:33:15.130 --> 00:33:16.950
one of Ellison's new channels. He was, of course, in
609
00:33:16.970 --> 00:33:19.750
the crowd. So all part of the sort of Trump corruption.
610
00:33:20.130 --> 00:33:21.990
One of the sponsors, it comes up, you know, the
611
00:33:22.039 --> 00:33:26.400
sponsor of this fight is Truth Social. Right. So he's
612
00:33:26.440 --> 00:33:30.369
making money out of it. He's a shareholder in UFC,
613
00:33:30.549 --> 00:33:32.890
it turns out. So I thought it was pretty horrific.
614
00:33:32.930 --> 00:33:35.410
What does it suggest about masculinity? Because remember there was
615
00:33:35.490 --> 00:33:40.940
a story amongst the various things that haven't been delivered
616
00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:43.440
by Elon Musk. And we're talking, he's just become the
617
00:33:43.500 --> 00:33:47.079
world's first trillionaire. And he's just done an amazing, I mean,
618
00:33:47.099 --> 00:33:50.579
if people haven't followed, you read the prospectus of the
619
00:33:50.660 --> 00:33:55.130
SpaceX IPO. Basically, you're going to make money if he
620
00:33:55.170 --> 00:33:57.450
manages to put a million people on Mars and put
621
00:33:57.470 --> 00:33:59.650
all this stuff up into space. Oh, and by the way,
622
00:33:59.670 --> 00:34:01.730
you're going to have no control as a shareholder. The
623
00:34:01.750 --> 00:34:03.789
whole thing's written for Musk to control the whole thing.
624
00:34:04.710 --> 00:34:06.589
But amongst the various promises, he's not just putting a
625
00:34:06.609 --> 00:34:08.349
million people on Mars. He promised that he was going
626
00:34:08.369 --> 00:34:11.409
to fight Mark Zuckerberg in a ring two years ago,
627
00:34:11.429 --> 00:34:12.369
and we haven't yet seen that.
628
00:34:12.409 --> 00:34:13.849
No, we haven't. I've watched that.
629
00:34:13.869 --> 00:34:15.309
Who do you want to win?
630
00:34:16.980 --> 00:34:18.519
I think Musk would probably win, but who would you
631
00:34:18.559 --> 00:34:18.960
want to win?
632
00:34:19.199 --> 00:34:22.019
What's going on, though, between these? Actually, it turned out,
633
00:34:22.159 --> 00:34:24.679
I think, that he dropped out because he suddenly discovered
634
00:34:24.699 --> 00:34:26.909
that Mark Zuckerberg had literally been training two hours a
635
00:34:26.929 --> 00:34:27.739
day with.
636
00:34:27.590 --> 00:34:30.190
Some martial arts. Yeah, he's like you, Rory. He's got
637
00:34:30.210 --> 00:34:32.909
a sort of killer streak in there.
638
00:34:32.949 --> 00:34:35.889
So what do you think is going on in the world?
639
00:34:35.929 --> 00:34:37.650
I mean, would this have been true 20, 30 years ago?
640
00:34:37.769 --> 00:34:41.030
Are we becoming much, much more violent?
641
00:34:41.070 --> 00:34:44.030
It was very interesting, though, the polling. I saw some
642
00:34:44.090 --> 00:34:48.809
polling on this. The support, it was something like 13%
643
00:34:48.809 --> 00:34:51.289
of Americans thought that this was a good use of
644
00:34:51.309 --> 00:34:53.889
the White House. And the Republicans, it was only one
645
00:34:53.909 --> 00:34:56.699
in three. So that is very, so it's basically, I
646
00:34:56.699 --> 00:34:59.239
think what we're seeing is Donald Trump as the emperor.
647
00:34:59.980 --> 00:35:02.159
It's my birthday. This is what I want to do
648
00:35:02.179 --> 00:35:03.960
in my birthday. And by the way, you know the
649
00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:06.139
reason why the G7 Summit started?
650
00:35:06.179 --> 00:35:07.380
You don't even like birthdays, do you?
651
00:35:07.579 --> 00:35:10.099
No, I don't. He clearly loves his birthday. It's not
652
00:35:10.179 --> 00:35:12.019
anybody else's birthday. I bet he doesn't know where Bilardi's
653
00:35:12.039 --> 00:35:16.409
birthday is. But the reason why the G7 Summit that's
654
00:35:16.449 --> 00:35:19.449
going on now was started the day that it did.
655
00:35:19.929 --> 00:35:21.630
a day later than it was meant to because Trump
656
00:35:21.670 --> 00:35:22.530
wanted to have his UFC fight.
657
00:35:22.550 --> 00:35:24.230
He wanted to have his Evel Knievel and his UFC.
658
00:35:24.329 --> 00:35:27.829
Exactly. So there you are. You're thinking, maybe this is
659
00:35:27.889 --> 00:35:30.349
a day really to focus on Iran. I mean, okay,
660
00:35:30.369 --> 00:35:31.829
it's my birthday, but I think I should focus on Iran.
661
00:35:31.849 --> 00:35:33.530
But no, he has this. So I found the whole
662
00:35:33.550 --> 00:35:37.389
thing pretty revolting. Sheryl Crow, who, as I've told you before,
663
00:35:37.469 --> 00:35:40.210
once complimented me on my hair, one of the highlights
664
00:35:40.289 --> 00:35:41.630
of my life.
665
00:35:41.650 --> 00:35:42.719
Remind us who Sheryl Crow is.
666
00:35:42.820 --> 00:35:45.000
Sheryl Crow is an amazing singer. And at the time,
667
00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:47.099
she was living with Lance Armstrong, the cyclist that I
668
00:35:47.139 --> 00:35:48.699
turned up with a new haircut. She said, I love
669
00:35:48.719 --> 00:35:53.269
your haircut. But she did a fabulous post about just
670
00:35:53.329 --> 00:35:56.440
how sickening and disgusting and awful this was. But I
671
00:35:56.500 --> 00:35:58.119
think this goes back to, I was talking to a
672
00:35:59.219 --> 00:36:02.440
Democrat friend yesterday and I was raging about it. He said, listen,
673
00:36:03.019 --> 00:36:05.659
stop the rage on the stuff that doesn't really matter.
674
00:36:06.360 --> 00:36:07.349
This is why they do it.
675
00:36:09.130 --> 00:36:11.309
I'm with you. I'm with you because I disagree with
676
00:36:11.329 --> 00:36:13.449
the Democratic friend because I was talking yesterday to one
677
00:36:13.469 --> 00:36:16.510
of the great cornerstones of the US foreign policy establishment.
678
00:36:17.510 --> 00:36:20.800
He was in Washington. I was in London. He was saying, listen,
679
00:36:20.840 --> 00:36:24.940
we're beginning to think, Democrats as well as Republicans, that
680
00:36:25.059 --> 00:36:28.739
maybe what Trump's done is not too bad. It's encouraged
681
00:36:28.820 --> 00:36:31.010
Europe to stand on its own two feet and take
682
00:36:31.050 --> 00:36:34.389
more responsibility for security. In the end, the noise will
683
00:36:34.909 --> 00:36:37.829
die down. Actually, our alliance will be stronger because you
684
00:36:38.050 --> 00:36:40.170
will have spent more on defense. It's true that you
685
00:36:40.190 --> 00:36:44.659
weren't spending enough on defense. I said, you simply do
686
00:36:44.719 --> 00:36:48.659
not understand that. how the whole world has changed. If
687
00:36:48.699 --> 00:36:50.679
you really think the conclusion of all of this is
688
00:36:50.699 --> 00:36:51.679
we're going to come to the end of the Trump
689
00:36:51.699 --> 00:36:54.099
administration and Europe and Canada and the UK will be like,
690
00:36:54.500 --> 00:36:57.000
our relationship with the US is stronger than ever before.
691
00:36:57.460 --> 00:36:59.000
We're standing on our own two feet. We're going to
692
00:36:59.019 --> 00:37:00.280
be wonderful allies around the world.
693
00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:01.000
Forget it.
694
00:37:01.099 --> 00:37:04.139
But that's partly, that's what worries me, that when people say,
695
00:37:04.860 --> 00:37:07.559
stop getting wound up, stop the Trump derangement syndrome, the
696
00:37:07.639 --> 00:37:10.380
risk is they end up thinking we're in a normal world.
697
00:37:10.719 --> 00:37:12.320
Well, it's like when we're talking about Germany in the
698
00:37:12.360 --> 00:37:15.480
main podcast, I was talking to somebody who said that
699
00:37:16.190 --> 00:37:19.550
the actual Springer group, which, look, it's not like Murdoch
700
00:37:19.590 --> 00:37:21.309
and it's not like the male, but it's kind of,
701
00:37:21.360 --> 00:37:25.760
it's Develdt and Bildt-Seitel, that they're becoming, he used the phrase,
702
00:37:25.800 --> 00:37:29.780
he was German, he used the phrase, the banalization of
703
00:37:29.800 --> 00:37:33.900
the AFD. And I think we're way through that with Trump,
704
00:37:33.940 --> 00:37:35.820
is why he is able to get away with more.
705
00:37:36.159 --> 00:37:37.860
And funnily enough, when I was, I mentioned on the
706
00:37:37.900 --> 00:37:42.690
main podcast, the encounter I had with Jacob Rees-Mogg, offstage
707
00:37:42.710 --> 00:37:44.809
when he was being his usual polite and charming self,
708
00:37:44.829 --> 00:37:46.630
and we were talking about Farage, and he said, yeah,
709
00:37:46.650 --> 00:37:48.809
the thing about Farage, though, he was saying I would
710
00:37:48.849 --> 00:37:52.050
welcome an alliance with Farage, and we should have a deal,
711
00:37:52.130 --> 00:37:54.699
and we should stand down our candidates where they can win,
712
00:37:54.739 --> 00:37:56.460
and they should do the same with ours, and I
713
00:37:56.480 --> 00:37:58.920
think it'd be fine in government, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
714
00:37:59.440 --> 00:38:00.960
And I said, what about this five minutes? He said, oh,
715
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:03.500
it's terrible, it's terrible, but he's got the Trump effect.
716
00:38:03.539 --> 00:38:05.780
He seems to be able to survive scandal. You only
717
00:38:05.820 --> 00:38:10.880
survive scandal if politics and the media allow you to
718
00:38:10.920 --> 00:38:14.690
survive scandal. I was very glad to see Mehdi Hassan
719
00:38:14.730 --> 00:38:17.969
coming back to the UK with his new, you know,
720
00:38:18.010 --> 00:38:20.730
taking British politics in the same way he's done American politics.
721
00:38:20.750 --> 00:38:23.289
Because I think our media is just too soft and
722
00:38:23.309 --> 00:38:26.190
the American media is even softer. You know, they let
723
00:38:26.469 --> 00:38:28.630
the stuff. The thing that really gets me is when
724
00:38:28.670 --> 00:38:31.880
Trump is abusing people and the rest of the crowd
725
00:38:31.909 --> 00:38:34.340
don't stand up for them. They all just, they're all just,
726
00:38:34.579 --> 00:38:37.059
he's dividing and ruling all the time, even in that context.
727
00:38:37.079 --> 00:38:39.119
He'd be doing it at the G7 now. Anyway, you're
728
00:38:39.139 --> 00:38:40.659
getting me going. I'll shut up now.
729
00:38:40.699 --> 00:38:43.360
Next question then. Luca, can you please talk about the
730
00:38:43.460 --> 00:38:45.010
Peruvian election? What's going on?
731
00:38:45.389 --> 00:38:47.630
Oh, I'm obsessed with this, Rory, as you know from my...
732
00:38:48.550 --> 00:38:50.969
I mean, the first thing to say is it's a
733
00:38:51.050 --> 00:38:57.210
classic left-right. You've got Roberto Sanchez was on the left
734
00:38:57.409 --> 00:39:03.860
and you've got Fujimori... relative of a previous Keijo Fujimori she's.
735
00:39:03.570 --> 00:39:06.079
The or as we say Fuhimori.
736
00:39:05.679 --> 00:39:08.960
I'm sure you do but okay okay Fuhimori thank you
737
00:39:08.980 --> 00:39:10.280
for correcting my language.
738
00:39:10.920 --> 00:39:12.739
You tell me often I don't with the encyclical I.
739
00:39:12.659 --> 00:39:15.599
Do it's true it's true I noticed you corrected me
740
00:39:15.639 --> 00:39:18.199
on remigration as well I don't like saying remigration because
741
00:39:18.239 --> 00:39:20.650
it's what they want you to say so they they
742
00:39:20.690 --> 00:39:23.650
went through it's a French system lots of people can
743
00:39:23.670 --> 00:39:26.309
stand and then the top two go through until somebody
744
00:39:26.349 --> 00:39:31.679
gets 50% so get this The initial count. was Fuhimori, 9,036,046. Sanchez, 9,034,743.
745
00:39:31.659 --> 00:39:33.539
So what's the gap again? Sorry, I can't do the
746
00:39:33.559 --> 00:39:34.619
math in my head. 50.004% against 49.996%. Oh, my Lord.
747
00:39:47.500 --> 00:39:49.119
And then, and of course the votes were coming in
748
00:39:49.159 --> 00:39:51.800
and being counted, a bit like during the Leave Remain referendum.
749
00:39:52.519 --> 00:39:55.940
And then there was a couple of sort of big oop, suddenly,
750
00:39:56.539 --> 00:39:58.980
when a lot of the foreign votes, overseas votes came
751
00:39:59.019 --> 00:40:01.969
in and they helped Fuyimori. So Sanchez is now demanding
752
00:40:02.010 --> 00:40:05.610
a total recount. Lots of the tallies have now gone
753
00:40:05.630 --> 00:40:07.989
into the court. So it's going to be ages till
754
00:40:08.010 --> 00:40:09.670
we find out actually who the president is. I think
755
00:40:09.710 --> 00:40:12.909
Fuyimori is narrowly ahead. But yeah, Luca, thank you for
756
00:40:12.929 --> 00:40:16.280
that because I've been following this election... far more closely
757
00:40:16.300 --> 00:40:17.000
than I should have been.
758
00:40:17.019 --> 00:40:19.280
It's been the most fascinating election, hasn't it? Because I
759
00:40:19.340 --> 00:40:21.840
believe the mayor of Lima was considered to be a
760
00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:24.469
real player on the right and was narrowly pushed out
761
00:40:24.510 --> 00:40:26.849
by Fujimori. But there was a whole narrative that Fujimori
762
00:40:26.869 --> 00:40:29.210
wasn't going to make it through to the last two.
763
00:40:29.269 --> 00:40:31.110
And the mayor of Lima, who was a sort of
764
00:40:31.130 --> 00:40:34.949
a kind of aged genius on social media, who knew
765
00:40:35.030 --> 00:40:38.119
how to tell a good story, was going to get
766
00:40:38.179 --> 00:40:40.519
rid of somebody who was compromised by her father and
767
00:40:40.559 --> 00:40:42.380
who'd been trying to be elected for umpteen times. I mean,
768
00:40:42.400 --> 00:40:45.269
she's one of the great survivors. Keiko Kiko Fujimori, I think,
769
00:40:45.309 --> 00:40:49.190
has run again and again and again. Her party's dominated
770
00:40:49.269 --> 00:40:50.699
Parliament at frequent occasions.
771
00:40:50.760 --> 00:40:52.920
Yeah. But also, it's like, you know, a bit like
772
00:40:53.159 --> 00:40:56.360
Marine Le Pen having to kind of sort of have
773
00:40:56.380 --> 00:40:59.480
the shadow of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was
774
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:03.519
kind of out and out neo-Nazi and she's tried to moderate.
775
00:41:03.980 --> 00:41:06.860
So the father, you'd have thought, given his record, it
776
00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:09.429
would have damaged her more than it did. She didn't
777
00:41:09.469 --> 00:41:11.349
do very well in the first round, though. This is
778
00:41:11.369 --> 00:41:13.730
the thing about their system. It wasn't like, it's like,
779
00:41:13.730 --> 00:41:16.099
20% or something, even less than that, I can't remember.
780
00:41:16.599 --> 00:41:19.639
But so she gets through and it became this incredible
781
00:41:19.699 --> 00:41:22.329
left-right battle because that is what's going on across Latin America.
782
00:41:22.670 --> 00:41:25.869
And I think the left were just desperately hoping that
783
00:41:25.929 --> 00:41:27.809
maybe we'll have one of the left-wing people win this.
784
00:41:28.309 --> 00:41:31.900
So I can't remember an election as... In a national
785
00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:34.420
presidential election. I can't remember anything quite as close as that.
786
00:41:34.440 --> 00:41:36.320
Except for the hanging chads in Florida.
787
00:41:36.380 --> 00:41:38.539
We had the hanging chads, but that was in, this
788
00:41:38.619 --> 00:41:42.340
is like literally right, that time Al Gore had quite
789
00:41:42.360 --> 00:41:44.409
a considerable lead on the popular vote. This on the
790
00:41:44.449 --> 00:41:48.150
popular vote is, anyway, it's now in the courts and
791
00:41:48.210 --> 00:41:51.929
we shall report back. But I was intrigued by that one.
792
00:41:52.309 --> 00:41:56.230
Okay, final one. Scotland at the World Cup. Clarice, World
793
00:41:56.289 --> 00:42:01.460
Cup expectations. How far can Scotland go? And after Scotland's
794
00:42:01.500 --> 00:42:04.300
match against Haiti, is it too much to hope, says Ewan,
795
00:42:04.559 --> 00:42:06.760
that the Cup comes home to Edinburgh?
796
00:42:07.539 --> 00:42:12.340
Well, it comes home suggests that Jules Rimet was a Scot.
797
00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:15.070
I mean, I've got to say, I don't know how
798
00:42:15.090 --> 00:42:17.949
to put this, Roy, but my principles are being very,
799
00:42:18.050 --> 00:42:19.809
very badly challenged right now.
800
00:42:19.829 --> 00:42:20.849
We would forgive you.
801
00:42:21.070 --> 00:42:21.550
Would you?
802
00:42:21.710 --> 00:42:25.150
No, we'd forgive you partly because we like flaws. It's
803
00:42:25.210 --> 00:42:29.179
more interesting to see someone admit flaws that their principles
804
00:42:29.260 --> 00:42:31.880
are warring with that interest. We know that you're a
805
00:42:32.239 --> 00:42:33.889
great football fan. We know Scott's doing very well. We
806
00:42:33.929 --> 00:42:36.130
know you hate Trump. So it'd be quite interesting to
807
00:42:36.150 --> 00:42:39.190
see you navigate through this. I wouldn't tie yourself into
808
00:42:39.710 --> 00:42:42.489
the fact that you publicly announced you weren't going, but
809
00:42:42.530 --> 00:42:44.789
you'd just have to explain yourself to us, but we'd
810
00:42:44.849 --> 00:42:47.969
forgive you. As a Christian, I'm all about forgiveness.
811
00:42:47.989 --> 00:42:50.869
You are, I know, I know you are. You would,
812
00:42:50.889 --> 00:42:52.550
but would I forgive myself.
813
00:42:53.929 --> 00:42:56.150
Well, would you also forgive yourself if Scotland gets through
814
00:42:56.190 --> 00:42:56.969
to the quarterfinals.
815
00:42:56.690 --> 00:42:57.769
And you're not there watching? No, that's why I put
816
00:42:57.789 --> 00:42:59.050
myself between a rock and a hard place. I should
817
00:42:59.070 --> 00:43:00.170
have just kept my mouth shut.
818
00:43:00.190 --> 00:43:02.050
Can you explain about World Cup tickets? I mean, if
819
00:43:02.070 --> 00:43:03.679
Scotland gets through to the quarterfinal, would you be able
820
00:43:03.699 --> 00:43:04.280
to get a ticket?
821
00:43:04.519 --> 00:43:05.420
Oh, I think I've got ways.
822
00:43:05.519 --> 00:43:06.059
Oh, you've got ways.
823
00:43:06.119 --> 00:43:06.619
I've got ways.
824
00:43:06.659 --> 00:43:08.000
Would a normal person be able to know?
825
00:43:08.300 --> 00:43:09.960
No, it'd be bloody hard. I mean, look, there were
826
00:43:10.139 --> 00:43:12.960
tens of thousands of Scots in Boston who didn't have tickets. Right.
827
00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:15.500
The reason I'm feeling massive FOMO.
828
00:43:15.800 --> 00:43:15.920
Yeah.
829
00:43:16.510 --> 00:43:18.570
Is because do you know that when Scotland sang the,
830
00:43:18.750 --> 00:43:21.050
when the fans slagged the fire of Scotland, it's been
831
00:43:21.090 --> 00:43:25.280
recorded as the loudest moment in World Cup history. And
832
00:43:25.320 --> 00:43:28.340
then even better than that, Roy, this would have been brilliant.
833
00:43:28.840 --> 00:43:30.699
I don't really like baseball, isn't it? They say it's
834
00:43:30.719 --> 00:43:33.920
like cricket. Cricket's way superior to baseball. Most European things
835
00:43:33.960 --> 00:43:37.039
are way superior to American things. We know this. The
836
00:43:37.099 --> 00:43:40.110
Scotland fans decided to go to a Red Sox game
837
00:43:40.570 --> 00:43:44.449
at the Fenway Stadium. They were led by a pipe band.
838
00:43:44.469 --> 00:43:46.929
There were thousands and thousands of them. And they spent
839
00:43:46.969 --> 00:43:52.570
the whole baseball game singing Flower of Scotland, Loch Lomond, Yes, Sir,
840
00:43:52.670 --> 00:43:55.949
I Can Boogie. And the American media has gone nuts
841
00:43:55.989 --> 00:43:59.190
for the Scots fans. So Scotland's soft power has been
842
00:43:59.210 --> 00:44:01.409
doing a lot of good. The other thing, because I
843
00:44:01.449 --> 00:44:04.480
knew I wasn't going to go, I've now got commitments
844
00:44:05.599 --> 00:44:09.369
that are very difficult business. to break without another principle
845
00:44:09.489 --> 00:44:12.929
being broken for both the Morocco and the Brazil games.
846
00:44:13.530 --> 00:44:16.010
And then, so it's, I guess the real test is
847
00:44:16.050 --> 00:44:18.489
going to come when they get through to the next round.
848
00:44:18.630 --> 00:44:20.929
Presumably the chances of them actually winning the World Cup
849
00:44:21.030 --> 00:44:21.909
is quite slim.
850
00:44:22.809 --> 00:44:24.699
I think if you were to go to Polymarket, one
851
00:44:24.739 --> 00:44:27.579
of the sponsors of the UFC fight, I think you'd
852
00:44:27.619 --> 00:44:31.039
get it down at about 0.2%. Or maybe a bit
853
00:44:31.079 --> 00:44:35.300
more than that. But interestingly, one of the criticisms we
854
00:44:35.460 --> 00:44:36.980
all had of the World Cup is it's too big,
855
00:44:36.980 --> 00:44:40.730
48 countries. It's ridiculous why countries like Cape Verde are there.
856
00:44:41.309 --> 00:44:42.349
He drew with Spain.
857
00:44:42.389 --> 00:44:46.230
Amazing. Absolutely fantastic. But then Germany won 7-1.
858
00:44:46.389 --> 00:44:47.429
Germany won 7-1, yeah.
859
00:44:47.590 --> 00:44:48.489
I mean, that's extraordinary.
860
00:44:48.510 --> 00:44:50.210
Against Curacao. You've been following it, Rory.
861
00:44:50.269 --> 00:44:51.800
Well, just enough to that, a little bit.
862
00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:54.340
Okay, how did Iran get on against New Zealand? Yeah,
863
00:44:54.360 --> 00:44:54.719
I don't know.
864
00:44:54.800 --> 00:44:55.639
How did they get on?
865
00:44:55.659 --> 00:44:55.840
2-2.
866
00:44:56.380 --> 00:44:58.199
Oh, I thought Iran would win easily.
867
00:44:58.239 --> 00:45:00.159
Did you? Yeah. Well, you don't like New Zealand. You
868
00:45:00.179 --> 00:45:00.659
don't think New Zealand.
869
00:45:00.679 --> 00:45:01.300
No, no, against New Zealand.
870
00:45:01.320 --> 00:45:03.280
New Zealand are captained by a former Burnley player, let
871
00:45:03.300 --> 00:45:04.369
me tell you. Oh, my goodness.
872
00:45:04.389 --> 00:45:04.550
Yeah.
873
00:45:04.809 --> 00:45:07.110
I've got a big bone to pick with the commentators.
874
00:45:07.150 --> 00:45:10.869
They normally... You know when John Watson... wrote his book.
875
00:45:12.420 --> 00:45:14.219
He had a wonderful line and it said that when
876
00:45:14.539 --> 00:45:17.840
Greece won the Euros, which is one of the biggest
877
00:45:17.880 --> 00:45:20.699
stories in football history, and he said in his book
878
00:45:20.739 --> 00:45:23.590
that he got back, he turned his phone back on
879
00:45:23.610 --> 00:45:25.869
and the first message that came in was from me saying,
880
00:45:26.289 --> 00:45:29.570
why didn't you mention that Papadopoulos once played for Burnley?
881
00:45:31.719 --> 00:45:35.840
It's the same with Haiti, their centre-back, Hannes Delcroix. He
882
00:45:35.860 --> 00:45:39.349
made 12 games per appearances for Burnley. We can do that.
883
00:45:39.389 --> 00:45:41.409
Well, maybe we should do the rest as Burnley. We
884
00:45:41.449 --> 00:45:43.079
should just go through the whole World Cup looking at
885
00:45:43.179 --> 00:45:45.670
any team that has a Burnley player in it. How
886
00:45:45.690 --> 00:45:47.190
many teams do have a Burnley player out of the 48,
887
00:45:47.170 --> 00:45:48.349
would you say?
888
00:45:48.670 --> 00:45:51.289
Four or five, I think. Former Burnley players quite a lot.
889
00:45:51.309 --> 00:45:52.969
Chris Wood, captain.
890
00:45:52.429 --> 00:45:55.920
Of New Zealand. But if you went for one of
891
00:45:56.019 --> 00:45:58.920
the kind of giant teams like Manchester City or something,
892
00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:01.340
would you find that many more of the teams have players?
893
00:46:01.639 --> 00:46:05.619
Virtually the whole team. Not all playing. some of them
894
00:46:05.639 --> 00:46:08.369
were sort of benched. Anyway, I'm glad that you're developing
895
00:46:08.409 --> 00:46:09.110
this interest in.
896
00:46:09.130 --> 00:46:11.130
I was just trying to keep up with you, Desmond.
897
00:46:11.150 --> 00:46:12.409
I know, I know. So anyway.
898
00:46:13.150 --> 00:46:16.199
Whereas my sporting interest in UFC is massively limited by
899
00:46:16.219 --> 00:46:18.420
the fact that although I'm happy to sit my kids
900
00:46:18.460 --> 00:46:21.070
down to watch World Cup match, I'm not letting a
901
00:46:21.110 --> 00:46:26.300
nine-year-old see someone clinically destroyed in a ring with blood everywhere.
902
00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:28.199
What about boxing? Would you send him to a boxing match?
903
00:46:28.219 --> 00:46:30.880
Just about. I mean, some of this UFC stuff that
904
00:46:30.900 --> 00:46:32.519
I've seen is beyond imagination.
905
00:46:32.539 --> 00:46:33.079
That's the point.
906
00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:34.579
I mean, it's really weird.
907
00:46:34.599 --> 00:46:35.099
That's the point.
908
00:46:35.159 --> 00:46:37.059
And it's also really weird how it's changed over time.
909
00:46:37.519 --> 00:46:42.380
They basically don't do kicks anymore. It's very brutal, very,
910
00:46:42.420 --> 00:46:46.110
very efficient, few holds on the ground, and then pummeling
911
00:46:46.130 --> 00:46:47.829
the side of the body.
912
00:46:48.380 --> 00:46:49.420
And Colin McGregor.
913
00:46:49.599 --> 00:46:50.699
Yeah, very good.
914
00:46:50.760 --> 00:46:52.440
This has got to be the big one. Good.
915
00:46:52.579 --> 00:46:54.809
Well, we actually, remember you made us interview boxes and
916
00:46:55.090 --> 00:46:58.590
you still haven't delivered Tyson Fury. Tyson Fury, yeah.
917
00:46:58.809 --> 00:47:00.369
I'm still on the case. We've got a long list
918
00:47:00.389 --> 00:47:00.730
coming up.
919
00:47:00.769 --> 00:47:01.070
Very good.
920
00:47:01.150 --> 00:47:02.730
Now, Rory, the one thing we haven't talked about this
921
00:47:02.769 --> 00:47:07.070
week is the Makefield by-election happening on Thursday. One of
922
00:47:07.090 --> 00:47:11.090
the most covered by-elections has ever been, probably. We will
923
00:47:11.130 --> 00:47:12.820
be talking about it sometime on Friday.
924
00:47:13.199 --> 00:47:14.579
Very good. Looking forward to it. So it'll be a
925
00:47:14.659 --> 00:47:16.900
special episode for those of you that really want to know.
926
00:47:17.019 --> 00:47:19.900
And of course, it is about future of britain almost
927
00:47:19.920 --> 00:47:21.789
certainly the new prime minister might emerge out.
928
00:47:21.750 --> 00:47:23.250
Of this well robert kenyon is going to be prime
929
00:47:23.269 --> 00:47:23.989
minister yeah robert.
930
00:47:23.829 --> 00:47:27.989
Kenyon the new president yeah the remainder the remainder remainder
931
00:47:28.010 --> 00:47:31.500
robert kenyon yeah okay see you soon see you soon bye-bye.
932
00:47:38.579 --> 00:47:42.840
Hello, dear listeners. As many of you will know, Father's
933
00:47:42.920 --> 00:47:46.559
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00:47:46.760 --> 00:47:48.159
And we know that a good number of you will
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00:47:48.179 --> 00:47:51.530
be wondering what to get your centrist dad this year.
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00:47:51.809 --> 00:47:55.909
And we have the perfect idea. Get him a membership
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00:48:11.050 --> 00:48:14.869
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