welcome to the rest is politics with me Alis Campbell and me Rory Stewart and a reminder that we're going to be with you this election night Thursday night right through the night with an amazing team Christian gury Emily matless Gary Gibbon best political editor in the UK I would argue very good and we'll be on a uh 9:50 p.m. to 900 a.m. in the morning so you'll be able to go to sleep with us and wake up with us too oh Lord okay and will have been there all day as well so if we look ABS even more shattered than we do now that will be the the reason will you promise to wear that very fetching pink jacket well the the the jury is out on the jacket the the main judge of my sorial lack of Elegance is one Fiona Miller and she thinks it's a lovely jacket but not for telly not for telly so it's going to be quite good for whatever you're doing today in the sunshine I imagine well I'm actually going to see the tennis oh yeah it's very good for that yeah it's fine this episode is sponsored by nor VPN which means Rory that you are about to talk me through yet again another benefit of signing up for a virtual private Network absolutely I mean there are incredible number of benefits huge number of practical uses um here's one uh which is nordvpn's dark web monitoring so that continuously scans dark websites in case any of your login details up for grabs there and then alerts you of any of its fines so you can change your passwords and protect your accounts I wouldn't even know how I hear about the dark web but I don't even know how you access the dark web thank goodness you you do not want to be accessing dark web but you also don't want people on the dark we having your login details well with nor VPN you don't need to be text Savvy you only need to download it and turn it on and it actually now covers 10 of your devices a month for the cost of a cup of coffee so well worth the protection it buys you okay so to take advantage of our nordvpn discount go to nordvpn.com politics you can receive a bonus four months on top of your plan and there's no risk with nord's 30-day money back guarantee and you can also find the link in the episode description box anyway what we're going to talk about today we are going to talk about UK elections just took a few days to go uh and we're going to talk about America with this supreme court judgment which basically says that Trump can do what the wants and we're going to talk about France because what is happening in France is beyond belief and you know what I've been following lots of international media as I know you do our election is barely getting a look in in the media around the world whereas the French election is kind of Mega dominating everything yeah yeah I was in France actually for the um during the election so I saw people going out talking to them but you will have been getting much more inside information the mere fact of being geographically collocated with the voters probably doesn't give me that much Insight it gives you a bit gives you a bit and you sort of feel the vibe so should we start with the UK start with the UK so how are you going to vote ah we're still staying off that actually I got a good good argument from Andrew Neil yesterday said to me that he's now got this pompus line that he doesn't vote he now thinks it's a broadcast that he shouldn't vote oh no I'm sure he voted in the brexit referendum and I'm sure he's voted at every other election that's basically a labor vote isn't it if he says he's not voting he's basically thinks it's all over I think whether you're a broadcaster or not I think you have a duty to vote um you don't have to say what you're going to vote although I'm shocked that you won't tell me Rory especially after your encounter with the labor candidate who I hear you liked I did labor candidate in Kensington very very Charming amazing guy he uh was involved in evacuating staff from Afghanistan fact a vote for him so the staff that he AC from Afghanistan along with our in charity all ended up in Macedonia together he went to visit them he's very thoughtful very serious and some great actually young Labor candidates how can you not vote for that then well we're going candidate by candidate but I'm thinking hard I'm one of those 20% undecided that enrages you so much before you get into they don't enrage me but I tell you I was um I went out at the weekend uh in Ellsbury in bucks I went to rushcliffe where my nephew James nay she's the labor cand it I went to Newark where Mr Robert genrich is defending more than 20,000 majority and what was and how did you choose these places what was the uh Ellsbury was almost an accident I just happened to be there signing a load of books in a warehouse and because the Laura the labor candidate is an old friend of mine went to see her and obviously going to help my nephew and then knew it because I think it's really interesting I mean if genck goes which is not impossible um that is we're talking super defeat territory but but what was interesting is how many people were still saying don't know I mean there's one guy I met in in rushcliffe who was he said I've been sitting at the kitchen table staring at my postal vote ever since it came and I just can't make mind up historically he' voted Tori and libdem uh wanted to vote labor but was still kind of struggling with the thought and what and yeah it's a bit like me in 997 I think if you if you come from a Trad Tory background it's hard it's hard it's hard Reaching Across but do you think he'll get there in the end I think he will and I think to be fair to my nephew he did a really good job on the doorstep it is amazing to watch this is why get out the vote the whole get out the vote operation is so important um and some you know labor now I saw K starma we we're recording this Tuesday Morning yesterday he was out in a constituency with a huge Tory majority so they're obviously think that they're going into places that maybe even we 97 didn't go to but I mean I had some extraordinary conversations I had one guy he told me he couldn't vote labor he said I can't can't vote for you lot no I'm not doing that I said why not he said well your last prime minister absolutely ballsed up this G I said what Gordon no the other one what Tony Blair no the other one what Harold Wilson any no the other one the one with all the anti-Semitism stuff I what Corbin I said Corin was never prime minister yes he was no he wasn't yes he was I mean what did you do with that lots of people though I'd say the main the time for a change thing is the most powerful thing people saying I voted Tor all my life I can't believe that well definitely for someone like me I mean I don't know whe people are pitching someone like me I sometimes worry about that when I talk to Rachel Ree and Bridget philon how interested they are getting my vote but Kia S I think is interested in getting my vote I think the the candidate in kensington's interested in getting my vote and the way they do it is they appeal firsted to the fact that nobody can disagree that the Tories have been in too long yeah and want get them out nobody thinks it's going to be healthy for the country to have them in for another 5 years and then I think it's a question of and and this is why in a way I can completely understand I think the dynamic part the is that because labor is having to be so cautious on the money they can't make any promises on spending they have to and I think this is what Rachel re and bridet Phillipson doing is to reassure people that they're more radical than they seem by talking about class and talking about uh their backgrounds and slightly setting themselves up understandably against privilege but I think if you're going to really win a big majority and I think labor needs a big majority to get stuff done that's not very helpful because you don't want moderate swing voters feeling that they're joining a party in which they're not welcome and I think that that's where there's some really really great Labor candidates I mean there's a guy good guy called heish folk now he's a friend of mine Charlie Son charlie son yeah who he's another one with Afghanistan connections Afghanistan connections was it Yale with me um I mean these are very reassuring people um that there was actually an amazing guy who was uh one of the senior well he's actually sort of almost a spad in defra with us who's now become a labor candidate um but I do think that's important final thing just just as we're talking I think that labor looking back probably two weeks ago should have been much quicker to turn around this conservative conversation on the super majority and say we need a super majority we want a super majority and this is why and I I see Kia has begun to do that yeah um but I I push back on that a bit I actually think they should have been very quick to say this super majority thing is a constitutional nonsense all it is is a way of trying to suppress the vote they're trying to scare you about something which doesn't exist there is no such Concept in our constitution but then make the positive case because I think and then say yeah we need a big majority to get stuff done yeah and I think the reason that also works the Tories is against the stories is that what Richi sunak is trying to say is that if labor gets too many votes they're going to be two leftwing what Kama needs to say is actually the only way that we can stand in the center is by having a lot of seats that they will be held hostage by the left of the party if they have a small majority they're trying to do very unpopular things they're trying to control spending they're trying to not put up taxes they're taking very difficult decisions for example on planning at least that's the Hope from centrists like me mhm their only chance of doing that is if they have a really big comfortable majority so in a sense if you're on the right of Labor or you're a floating Centrist voter you want labor to have a really big majority if you're on the left of Labor you want them to have slim majority I think the other thing I think the other thing tactically the the because people keep saying there's no excitement there's no sort of buzz in the way that there is about lots of other elections happening in the world right now I think actually to say to people look be part of something seismic be part of a change that will only come if there's a real mandate for it because there is a danger I said this on sky at the weekend if labor get a huge majority with fewer votes than Corbin got or a smaller share of the vote and the liberal democr RS get way more seats on the same share of the vote as they've had when they used to Get Next To None and reform get a few million votes but only a couple of seats then the kind of the message around the Fallout the election is going to be about our electoral system as opposed to the change that the country needs so they've got to be appealing for a big mandate and I just I just feel even in these last days it's been a little bit too cautious well this this is I think one of the things that we haven't talked about enough uh the new poll which which we've just produced on trip JL partner poll suggests that label will get 39% of the vote conservatives 24% of the vote so put them together that's only 63% of the national vote going back in time if you look historically at the elections in the 50s and 60s the parties were getting close to 50% of the vote on their own together they were easily clearing 90% of the vote so one of the big stories in British politics is we've gone from a world in which conservative labor were getting almost all the vote like 90% plus of the vote to a world in which they're down to about 60% of the vote yeah so it's a story about the fact that almost half the voters are now going to smaller parties going to reform going to Liams going to Greens one more thing on that this is also part of the fact that Kama is coming in with the lowest popularity ratings of any winning prime minister on record and that figure if he wins at 39% yes it's going to give him a huge majority if the conservatives are on 24 but historically it's pathetic Corbin got 40% of the vote in 2017 as you say Boris Johnson got 43.6% of the vote last time around 2019 for a majority of 80 for a majority of 80 yeah no there's no doubt that will that will sort of proed difficult and of course having farage in Parliament if he's there um banging the drum for proportional representation which he will that's going to make life very very interesting for the liberal Democrats because do they really want to be on the same side of of an argument as as farage um the other thing i' I've found about the last bit of the campaign particularly on the back of the betting situation which we talked about last week There's a very very interesting thing happening in Wales today we get criticized a lot for not talking enough about Wales so I'm going to mention section 64 of the elections and elected bodies brackets Wales brackets bill which is and this been brought in by the Welsh labor government no it's it's actually been it was started by you probably know Jennifer Nadal from compassion in politics um and it it's been driven through by an alliance at various points of plied conservatives libdems and Independence and it's now about there's a vote literally today as to whether this thing so so not driven by the governing labor part no in in fact at various points the governing labor party has been keen on it but the worry some of them have is that the labor party nationally is saying hold on we need to see how this works out in practice but just to I I think this is a really good idea it basically gives candidates in any election 14 days to correct clarify or Retreat a deliberately misleading statement and the punishment goes up to a ban from the Welsh assembly of four years now I think and what's the argument against it well the argument against it is I guess that it could lead to spurious complaints but bit like your point about you know the loser get if you lose an election you get persed Etc but I just think if you think about what's happening in in the UK election right now the Tories have been holding back loads of their spend and they are currently bombarding people on social media in particular with directly targeted messages Labor's going to tax your pension Labor's going to tax your car labor all basically untrue at least totally denied or not labor policy I mean I think it would be fair for them to say there's a very interesting example that somebody gave under how this this this new law would work if it was passed if you were to say I met the Russian Ambassador at 100 p.m. yeah okay but it turned out that actually it was 300 p.m. yeah that's fine there's no material difference if on the other hand you said I have never met the Russian but then a picture emerges of you having met can't imagine who we're talking about here then you have two weeks to correct retract or withdraw and apologize now if you just think about when you look at including in our poll one of the issues that really drives people mad is lack of integrity and dishonesty in politics I think this would really help it's very it's very attractive just a technicality though because I sometimes worry about dodgy memories I mean let's say you know famously Tony Blair thinks he was at a particular football match which he wasn't at Rory that was a myth invented by a journalist we've dealt with that one you can have a better example forget about t let's say let's say you said to me have you ever met the Ecuadorian Ambassador and I'm like I never met the Ecuadorian Ambassador yeah I get that is is it that I've got two weeks from when I make my false claim or two weeks from when you point out that actually there's evidence that I I think it's two weeks from you making the claim or when it's been drawn to your attention but that's a perfectly easy thing to do I think people will will be fine with you saying oh yeah had forgotten about that I'm not so sure about the Russian Ambassador and some members of the political establishment on the right but just to give you some figures 9% of people say they trust politicians to tell the truth that's dire 75% say they have no faith in government that's dire um 72% support criminalizing politicians who lie in public life now how you do that is obviously a point I guess that I guess sorry just now I'm getting my head around this I think it's very interesting but presumably the problem is going to be that in the future if this goes through in every election there will be 50 claims being made against everybody in every direction and MPS will begin to feel they're being buried under claimed some legitimate some spurious some a little bit on the edge because it'll be part of the Warfare of campaigning was it yeah but but it is now without any kind of framework for it and if you throw in the fact that political advertising there is no rules there are no rules surrounding that either so every other Walk of Life if you're selling cars if you're selling drugs Pharmaceuticals if you if you're if you're selling anything if you missell you are punished and the advertising standards Authority something comes up yeah exactly and and and and most advertisers respect that yeah whereas in politics you can literally say whatever you like and there's no comeback because the answer oh well people don't like it they can vote against it now Alison can I challenge you on on a strategy that you continue to endorse and I I have it here I'm showing for those of you not watching uh a picture of the 59-year-old rather aged lib Dam leader flying off a bungee jump and then a picture of him being dragged along in a large rubber ring behind a boat yeah and I mean uh so look I I get in the first couple of weeks of the campaign he was doing this he was falling off paddle boards he was going down water slides to get photographs like this and the answer was this was going to help tilt towards the most serious thing do you not think enough already that actually continuing to play the same joke for six weeks is beginning to look a bit daed no I don't because I thought I thought that I thought the bungee jump was particularly spectacular and I thought to and quite Brave actually I'm not sure if I would do it and I'm even more aged although probably slightly fitter um he's I'm also slightly worried he's going to injure himself I'm afraid I mean I no they the old elf and safety were there elf safety there so the one of the weird things we don't talk about in Parliament is that every time I came back to Parliament after the kind of February break there would always be very large numbers of MPS staggering around on crutches because basically the thing about members of parliament is they've got massive egos they've got no sense of limits their body they're all getting a bit old they've all pushed themselves too hard doing they've fallen off their bicycle they've gone skiing and broken their leg I mean the I I would not be insuring these people well I would Ure I think I think Ed Davey has added a little bit of color to a pretty dull campaign and I thought yesterday he because when I heard he'd done a bunny jump I thought oh my God so I went and checked it out and the message he delivered was he was flying around in the air going do something you've never done in your life before vote liberal de rat as he SH now will it have won people over no but I'll tell you what did happen is once he got unpicked from the the Bungie uh is that what you call it you call it Bungie and he got un straddled from that and then he was doing interviews talking about you know all this other stuff look what what stuff that's the big question is it I think he was talking about care or sewage orage this is my you are a very very attentive listener and even you are struggling to remember what his actual message was true that's well listen let's tick him off let's tick him off let's give let's give marks out of 10 for the campaigns so far so libdems you're going low well no I'm going six and I'm saying they could have done much better I'm going six as well if they' if they'd gone for a Sirus campaign put National policies front and center they had a real opportunity there has never been an opportunity like this for the Liv Dems the tor's down at about low 20s a unpopular incumbent labor leader it was the moment for the lib dams to position themselves to scoop up all those moderate conservatives and do so by seeming serious credible in the party of government well for different reasons we're both going six Tory campaign Tory campaign I mean for goodness sake I I mean I look they lost it again and again three what's what are you giving them that's generous I I I'll go it's hard to think of anything that they've done well I guess you've got to no they landed they've landed some of their messages even though lot of their message would fall foul of section 2 64 of the Welsh bill um I think I think I tell you what I will give I'll give sunak I'll give sunak a point for his indefatigability the ability just to keep going I have been quite impressed by but it's true but on the other hand what's he saying well and also it's his fault he did not need to call the election and this why I think at some subconscious level he has some sort of Freudian wish to get out because he called it in the middle of the Reign at exactly the wrong time without having his party behind him I mean when he could have actually spent another six months in government yeah and seen just seen if he could actually prove that some of the things he's claiming were true fill filled the skies with planes to Randa well could he actually have brought those NHS waiting L down we don't know could he have actually proven that the cost of living is coming down and the economy's growing we don't know but another 6 months maybe he might have been able to do that and actually what we know about things like inflation the economy is nobody can predict the future anyway yeah he might even have got lucky even if it wasn't due to his own skills yeah there was to go at the moment where you're feels like going in the wrong direction no and it's been it's been a terrible campaign on so many levels I mean so much has gone wrong the launch uh the rain not looking out the window not giving the guy an umbrella not dragging him inside the D-Day thing was a catastrophe I think actually although they think the the lies on tax have helped them and I sensed on the doorstep that they have to some extent they have troubled a few people who are coming over to labor at the same time I think they've they've damaged his brand I think he comes I I met no I I met literally nobody over the weekend with an enthusiastic word to say about him nobody I did meet people who said I don't like K sta but I met a lot of people who said I do like GE sta you've become very fond of John Major over the years do you think riak in 20 30 years time will be a National Treasure no no how will he be regarded 20 30 years time well it depends what he does next but I I suspect he'll be regarded as a bit of I mean I I regret to say Boris Johnson is a historic figure because he he he was responsible for brexit or largely responsible for it as was Cameron so they are historic figures I think Liz truss and rishy sunak will be viewed as aberration I don't really think that rishy sunak is a is a politician um and and and then so that himim now let's talk about the S&P veryy good Mark out of 10 s SMP well I think overall marks four but for swinny probably six he's done a better job turning it around good in looked good in the Kil at the football very good steadied the ship a bit pled I was very impressed with their leader on one of the debates I saw um but and it's hard for us here because we've not although we've talked about Wales today we've not been to Wales um and it the campaigns that have thought there are very different it's been really interesting to me the extent to which plyer trying to put hs2 at the center of the campaign but normally they say nobody cares about Wales for this but now they're saying well there's this massive infrastructure project and we're not involved in it and why is none of the money coming back to us really sort of weird little tactic I'm um writing a column for the for an American newspaper and fascinatingly they wanted me to lead this American newspaper on hs2 oh you know they they want they tried to insert into my oped the biggest indictment of the conservative government was this huge Railway line that they built and actually in the in the eyes of the American editor it's already been built but it's 100 miles short of London and it's it's kind of wi elephant I saw yesterday talking infrastructure I saw a thing yesterday a graphic on this new rail infrastructure project that's been built in China that was mind-blowingly Advanced and modern right so I'm going for S&P I'm going I think the same campaign itself I think they really struggled John swiy I think above his campaign right what about the greens well obviously greens I think actually took the opportunity that the Dems should have taken to really lay out some clear radical thoughtful policies you disagree with many of them as we know as do as do you I disagree with some of them you don't want to B TR I think though it's really good to have a party doing that saying okay we are going to come out and say we do not think spending all this money on these very expensive nuclear submarines is the right way of spend defense budget clearly public services are creaking and there needs to be a colossal amount more money and we're going to be honest about how much more money but probably the most exciting thing for me which I cannot understand why labor won't do is their idea for media reforms so they've said they're going to push ahead with the second stage of the control of media and they've also said that they're going to reduce to 20% the ownership of media companies so yeah i' about that um now finally your least favorite person who well sorry you haven't we haven't we've got not you say finally we've actually got two parties main parties left oh I'm so sorry who have I neglected you've neglected the labor party I've neglected the labor party okay who probably going to win so let's go for reform first right reform look in terms of setting their objective for The Campaign which was to be a disruptive force and through Nigel fr's leadership get up in the polls they've succeeded yes now they've done it in their usual Way by lots of you know dubious statements and Etc but you know they've succeeded and but the reason you they only get seven out of 10 is that actually there was a moment three and a half weeks ago if you look at our polling where it really looked as their reform was easing into the conservative vote lots of people the jail Partners polls we can share again were looking at moving from conservatives to reform he seemed to blow that with his comments which were Pro Putin over Ukraine and suddenly many moderate conservative voters thought actually this man doesn't think even Kelvin McKenzie who I I hesitate to utter the name on this podcast given awl is but even he said he couldn't vote for reform yeah and and the Daily Mail moves against him and all that kind of thing so actually I think if you were a Reform Party person you would have initially been very excited that farage came in you got a big bump and then you would have thought you absolute humoristic arrogant bigheaded idiot you blew this whole thing just speaking off the cuff about I bumped into him by the way at Sky on uh Sunday oh did he agree to come on the show I said why do you keep bottling coming on the podcast he say cuz I'm never in London I said there's Big Ben right over there look we're we're in yes but I'm on my way to Birmingham doing the biggest rally there's ever been right labor labor well I think labor I mean I would have thought nine out of really yeah I mean where have they really gone wrong and even when they've gone wrong they've somehow managed to control the story so there was this issue around Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbin but in the end that kind of played to starmer's Advantage I mean it really annoyed the left the labor party and there's a good article you can read today in the guardian of leftwing Labor voters feeling depressed but the fundamental story that comes across the middle Britain is this is him imposing discipline and controlling otherwise I can't really think I mean well it's interesting so you are going to give them a higher Mark than I uh I would say seven and a half eights because I think that they've got through the six weeks as you say reassurance really strong kier's actually performed pretty well but I still think that I found too many people on the doorstep over the weekend who when I was saying to them what's your favorite labor policy and there was not there was not enough knowledge of what labor are going to do pretty dangerous question if I was to ask a large crowd what's your favorite labor policy that's quite embarrassing question I think that helps your campaign I wasn't necessarily campaigning Rory I was trying to I was trying to take the mood I mean these these were these were actually people who said they were voting labor okay so they some of them knew about the private schools the vat on private school fees some of them knew about the GB energy thing but mainly people knew that what they weren't going to do well and and this is a really problematic thing which came out in a poll yesterday which is that only 5% of Labor voters think that labor is going to be cutting spending but labor is committed cutting spending yeah 80% of Labor voters pulled think that Labor's going to increase spending when they're reducing so there's a big gap between the expectations of the voters and what Rory growth Rach is and to grow the economy Rory um the the reason I'm not giving 10 out of 10 is that I think starmer's debate performances have been absolutely lamentable I mean you you can think what you want about Richi sunak style and I think it irritated people but starma was not succinct he was not crisp he really doesn't oddly for a barrister seem to be able to think quickly on his feet and debate in that kind of cumstance now that as we'll find out I suspect on Thursday doesn't really matter probably in the modern world I don't know how many people watch these debates a lot yeah had pretty good figures okay so on the campaign Omer Labour win stories lose so that I guess May Feed The Narrative that they're on the way out just reminder to everybody first general election ever where you need voter ID to vote so don't do what Boris Johnson did and get sent away from the polling station I've just come back from France I there for the election I know um but actually despite staggering my way through the French newspapers slightly and and for what it's worth as you will seen um the fundamental message in every paper is Fury anger and disbelief with macron calling election I mean just as a sort of basic explainer for people macr won by far the most seats when the election was last held the legislative election in 2022 and there's no way of putting a positive spin on calling an election where absolutely certainly he's going to massively lose having the largest amount of seats certainly go into third place and so as many of his MPS were saying these articles that I was reading they feel like Lambs being driven to the slaughter house no it's I mean you can hardly talk to anybody without them talking about La anger frustration uh one of his closest supporters saying to me this is an act of Madness who who's this somebody who works for him okay um so you're not going to tell us here no I'm not um I will tell you about somebody though I was first introduced to maon by a I hope she won't mind me saying this by a journalist called Mar fanm a Belgian name but French and she this was at a time when she felt macron was going to be the savior of France and she introduced me to him and that's why I got involved in the in the first campaign and she's been a really solid supporter and she's written a column in lepress which is just absolutely extraordinary tell us a bit about lepress where does it said on the front what sort of British news spap it like well it's kind of we don't really have I suppose we have spectator new Statesman type it's kind of Weekly Magazine you know kind of it sort of gives all sides a fair fair hearing probably a bit right sort of prospect yeah that kind of thing but but maybe a bit more right yeah um and she said that she I I'll translate as I go say you know it's it's not the least of the paradoxes that on the evening I love the fact when you translate French you have to begin with it is not the least of the paradoxes if you were if you were editing a piece of English would you begin with it is not the least of the [Music] paradoxes that on the eve of the European elections the on the eve of the most important European elections in history the most European of French presidents uh essentially took the least European of decisions to sort of shake up Europe wait wait wait before we get I mean what a beautiful sort of expression of the French mind I mean it's brilliant not the least the Paradox is the most Europe the European election took the least European what about what about this one then so that's how it starts and then at the end the this decision recalls the British referendum on of June 2016 on brexit a bet without a strategy an election without a campaign leading to self-destruction National and European now up to us to block the next stage so a bet without a strategy an election without a c campaign now this is true I think absolutely of what Cameron did with the brexit referend it's also true I think of what Rak did calling this election yeah that's also a bet without a strategy in an election without a campaign um tell us though just before we get on to the current dat tell us a little bit about the first macron campaign just to give listeners a sense of where we've come from what that Elation was like how he did it well he and how unexpected it was yeah well so there he was there's a guy we talked about Jack atali last week who introduced m on to aland Oland put him into the government and and aland was a leftwing leftwing socialist who's just been reelected as an MP cuz he's becoming back as part of this sort of should we listen to on leading absolutely absolutely interview I did from a crackly line in Kenya you did so macron comes along and although it became sort of paraded this on meon on the one hand on the other essentially what he did was to take support from the right and from the left and so he'd originally been in a leftwing government yeah but he was quite sort of rightwing F he was a c politician yeah absolutely yeah and and and and and made his name in a bit like sunac in the kind of world of money yeah he'd been a banker yeah and and then came into Politics as a fairly technocratic enormous Charisma um very very clever I I honestly do remember the first time meeting him just thinking this guy is so smart it's very rare you meet people this guy's so smart and yet politically he literally has had his rise and fall in a matter of a decade and initially he was a sort of political genius I mean as you say this a thing I remember when I was trying to run as an independent for Mar of London quite a lot of uh macron supporters came over to try to advise me and what they explained is that being in the centerr is not being in a gray Bland position in the middle it's taking radical right positions and radical left so he would say he would say the French need to apologize for what they did in Algeria and really anger the right and please the left but get a lot of headlines and then he'd say and immigration is a disgrace they kind of angering the left and pleasing the right and he's generating headlines on both sides sometimes they headlines against him but that doesn't matter moment but but what what essentially has done I think the reason there's this anger is that you've always people have known about the rise of the hard right and that's been something that's been a feature of several elections in in in the recent past but in a sense what you've now got is this cleavage within the country where the Cent is being crushed by the two extremes and I think one of the most interesting things that's happening in this current debate so by tonight tonight's the deadline for whether stand candidates are going into the second round or Not by last night uh by sort of midnight wonderful word da desis desisto withdrawals there had been 185 withdrawals of candidates who were in third place okay because sorry just put the context so the way the French system works is that you need to get more than 12 and a half% of the vote to make it into the second round yeah you have to get 50% to win and and generally uh that is expected to generate two candidates but unusually in more than half the seats this has generated three candidates and the three candidate problem is certainly for for people who are anti- Leen is the danger of splitting the vote correct so all these questions of people withdrawing are never about uh or or very very rarely about anything other than either macron's party withdrawing in favor of the left or the leftwing fav part now so as of last night there'll be more today because 6 o00 by the time this goes out you know there'll be more uh 185 121 were those on candidates on the left and 60 were from M macron's campaign and then today now within that however within macron's team you've got the Finance Minister Bruno L you've also got Edward Philip the former prime minister Bruno L has withdrawn no but the but they're saying they cannot vote for the left they cannot vote for melon Shon who is a big part of this popular front and and let's try to understand this a little bit more because this this this is quite important in understanding what's driving people towards Leen so I I one of the things I was I got two very different views talking to people in France during the vote on Sunday one was people who are very very worried about the pen but who are saying you don't understand how broad this Coalition yeah was so I was talking to a a French civil servant who is um she's she's a prosecutor in a post-industrial town north of Paris and she says everybody she knows is voting Le Pen and why are they voting Leen they're voting Le Pen not so much about immigration it's a very white Town they're voting Le Pen because they just feel nothing has happened in their lives for 40 years that the economy is not performing for them nothing's going in the right direction the second group of people are people who are trying to justify now voting fapen and these are often let's say upper middle class professional people who would have been embarrassed to vote for the far right before and their excuse is the left so this is why we need to know more from you about who melan Shaw is why it is that the left is considered so scary that macron's finance minister is not prepared to say listen anything is better than Leen I'll indorse Mel so tell us tell us a bit about the left in France well so melon is the leader of this thing called La laf Anum uh we sort of won't succumb and he's part of this popular front that was created when macron called the election anybody who was looking on the back of the result for him to come out and say I'm going to be modra I'm going to be reasonable with this thing he came out basically and effectively said I am the leader of this he did so standing alongside somebody called Rema Hassan who is not even a candidate but who is a Palestinian activist you know kitted out in the cafir and who I think is in this sort of camp that says not really sure that Hamas is really a terrorist organization and so Mela is not doing the Kama strategy he's not trying to go to the he's like full on Jeremy Corbin yeah I I think he he he he makes Corbin looked pretty moderate um and so he's he's on on issues like tax spending Gaza melona is is further left than Corbin I I would say so I mean they probably see themselves as allies but melon melona and melona is an unbelievably way more divisive in French politics than even than Corbin was was here and the point so so you've got so sorry I'm just just really pinning it down if you are a sort of center right I don't know doctor or lawyer or something you see melona as basically a kind of dangerous communist well he is he's a kind of trotskyist and and and so so so that you've got this situation where the and this is now becoming I mean there was a one of the Green Party leaders was on television interview I watched in tears because she felt that L mer in saying I can't vote for one of those candidates essentially was was saying okay well you're letting the hard right in but if you think about it from the the the point of view of Leen and melon Shong they now see the center disappearing they both say that there is no Center he actually melanon said in his speech there is them over there there is us here there is nothing in the middle and what they want both of them actually they actually quite like the chaos that might come from a a parliament that's ungovernable because you can't get anybody with a majority because that then takes them forward to the presidential election where melona will intend to be the candidate of the of the hard left Leen the candidate of the hard right and somebody replacing macron in the center and in the second round there the the runoff becomes melon sha Leen that's why people are worried about melon sha and and if melon Sha's going to hold to an extreme position on the left that provides an enormous incentive to Maring the pen to try to Rebrand herself as a more moderate cist absolutely so that's well they they have this thing called La strategy de laat the strategy of the tie uh they all go around and I can remember the last not the last time but I was in Paris a few months ago and I was talking to somebody who was worked at the from the assembly and we're in this quite Swanky restaurant and in walked Marine Le Pen with her Entourage of very young good-look people like bardella incredibly well-dressed and they've had this sort of normalization strategy they haven't they don't actually say that much outside campaigns and but what they managed to do they become quite disciplined they're they are they are very and that's important too because usually what goes wrong with the far R they become a Rabel yeah look at look at look at farage I mean you know again and again his candidates are caught saying completely outrageous disgusting things he has the distance in from it's the same with the afd in Germany I mean the basic problem for the far right is you have a bunch of lunatics charging around she seems to have been able to impose discipline which is critical if she's going to try to present herself the sort of moderate Center yeah so now le let's let's just say that um I I think the likelihood of anybody being able to get a majority there's some talk about whether the if the if the do well enough to be able to get in some sort of alliance with the Republicans but I don't think that's going to happen so what you end up with is a pretty ungovernable sorry explaining for people um because you're so good at this but the the terminology that's Le Pen's party potentially getting in bed with the old conserv the right of the old Tory party like a sort of braan rump as it were um so so now what you have is the the the prospect of uh a Constitution which says there can't be another election for 12 months the possibility of chaos within the parliament absolute stagnation by the way this is terrible for Ukraine terrible for Ukraine because this becomes very very difficult now a lame duck president I'm afraid who's become effectively Persona nrat within his own Camp uh atal the Prime Minister was the one who fronted Ed up the results um so so macron's in a terrible place and we'll know better by the end of the day but they'll be a lot of people who feel why should I uh why should I be told what I can and can't vote uh people feeling the whole thing is being engineered and others who'll say okay let let them let them have the government and let them make a mess of it and then we can vote against them but that is such a big risk and and and and the making a mess of it could either mean going with the far left which presumably if they won't make a majority though there's no way they can I don't think they can get majority or you've got to rely on the votes from the far right but I mean exactly but so M and impossible position I think just as we go to the break that one basic fact to get through to people in the last legislative election in 2022 4.2 million people voted for Le Pen's farri party y on Sunday 11 million people voted for it I mean that's the kind of fundamental fact and that's the fundamental problem with macron's calculation yeah there is well there are some people who say the BET will pay off because the national front will be seen to cause nothing but chaos but at the moment macron is the one who's getting the blame for and it can't and whatever the BET was the BET cannot have been I'm going to take my party from having the most seats in Parliament to putting them into third place that can't have been the BET and and also this line that you know you can't vote for the left and you can't vote for the right I mean that has just failed in the first round so why is that going to succeed in the second round no it's a bit of a disaster I'm afraid now aliser we did an emergency pod after the Biden Trump debate yeah and um it's been one of the most popular things we've done recently got a lot of attention a lot of focus um think but Joe Biden didn't listen Joe Biden did not listen and not only Joe Biden didn't listen I have received an incredible amount from Big Democratic figures Democratic campaigning organizations Democratic donors very very angry m pushing back hard so and why are they angry because you and I are saying Biden needs to step down and it's been fascinating watching the Democratic party close ranks MH and say we're not going to do this you've seen Obama come out and endorse Biden you talked about Joe Biden greeting him you've not seen any of the senior Democratic Leadership in the senate or congress coming out against him and the arguments that they're making are really uh striking some of them I think are really bad arguments so the number one argument from one of the biggest Democratic boners was this is a decision for Joe and Jill not for anyone else I mean that I completely disagre this entire world is at stake this is not I mean he gets to make decision on what color tie he puts on in the morning but he doesn't get to decide future of free wealth anyway what's what what response have you got to this well in terms of people in America a mix actually I got some of that but I also got a lot of people saying you've got a point and we're very very worried um the Panic that was ensuing as a result of his performance doesn't go away because they decide to make it go away um and if you look at the numbers for I mean for example I know as you know neither of us bet but the betting markets now on Trump are he's something like 7 to four on yeah which means you know it's almost slam dunk territory so you've got now three quarters of Americans saying he does not have the mental capacity to perform and he should step down now many of those people will of course still vote for Biden y including a lot of my own family that are very worried about his mental capacity well well if you if you if you hate Trump as a lot of people do you can't possibly vote for Trump um by the way I said I I regreted the minute I said it but it was alive I I said of of robbert F Kennedy The Wack he was wacko I think that was a bit over the top yeah so I withdraw wacko I still think though that he is he is his role in this campaign is malign because he takes votes away from Biden more than Trump there's a an argument that's been one person who has been passionately taking the position that that we've taken on this is is somebody I know called Ezra Klein who's a big podcaster in in the US and he's got a argument that I think is Central here which is that the a lot of the Democrats who are supporting Biden are saying he's got great values and he's got a great team yeah great policies so we don't need to worry but Ezra's point is that the US president is not just about policy it's also about about communication persuasion and that's particularly true in an unstable Global context World stage I mean that one of the president's roles is to get out there publicly and take that position on Israel Gaza take that position on Ukraine and lead and bring people with them and and that's and and that's what one's really got to worry about if he stays in over the next four years that you and and and I I want to I want to guess into this with you because this is a question about how much the leader matters do do you if I had said to you let's say Tony Blair for some tragic reason had ended up in some kind of elid position where he was not really able to function and I'd said to you is it all okay because he's got a great team around him it doesn't really matter that the Prime Minister can't really what's your sense on that does the person at the top matter can you absolutely it's fundamental well for a start the person at the top chooses the people around uh secondly the big decisions have to be made by the person at the top for all the advice that they get uh and thirdly as you say one of the reasons that people get to the top is because they have these capacities that others don't have and in the Modern Age A lot of that is about communication and Leadership and strategy and so forth which I think Biden has been good at throughout his career but that one performance I mean if it look if it shook somebody like me as much as it did heaven knows what it does to somebody who's wobbling a bit between the two parties and and this is this is this is our marine the penpoint that we had on the last slot which is that it provides cover for somebody who's embarrassed to vote for Trump suddenly has an excuse absolutely so let's say you are I don't know center right you think Trump's going to cut your taxes so he'll be good for you economically you've been very ashamed ready to vote for Trump but now you can say I'm really sorry but this guy doesn't have the capacity years and the worst thing about it of course is that had Biden performed at the top of Biden's capacity I think there's a very good chance that the the news that was made out of that debate was the fact that Donald Trump lied in every single statement that he made um and the fact that that's just gone and further normalizing lying further accepting that and I guess the other big news this week out of the United States is this supreme court judgment uh essentially saying that you know when when it comes to job act taken in his capacity as president that he Trump does have immunity from Criminal offenses he may have committed so this is a technical decision but Supreme Court Supreme Court is as as listeners will know has got increasing numbers of right-wing justices and it ruled 6 to3 and this is one of the tragedies of the court again and again almost every decision seems to be falling along party lines yeah 6 to3 in favor of the idea that the needs to be a very high bar with a president to prove that they've actually done something that that is illegal or or rather that that they don't get immunity from prosecution on and so imagine imagine if it was you know Uganda or Botswana where you said that you know the president has packed the court full of Judges who now say that they can do whatever they want I mean it really this is really is putting democracy to be fair it's not quite can do whatever they want what they've done is they've pushed down to the other court but they've set quite a high bar for that Court to prove that what Trump did was Beyond his capacity as president but it was definitely seen by Trump's people as a as a big win absolutely and and by the Democrats as a huge blow um the thing that we need to get on to once we're through the UK and French elections is the process of how Biden could be replaced and who that replacement could be and that's where a lot of the trouble happens in fact probably the most compelling argument that people are making you know you and I think now believe that you have to get rid of Biden because he can't win and so therefore you just work backwards from that you've got to have a solution to this that that running him doesn't work it's too much of a risk Trump is very likely to win but he has because of the way that the Democratic Party Works we didn't report it because it was a done deal but there was this primary process not just that produced Trump right which was which was the process where Nikki Haley was defeated and Trump emerged there was a democratic process got all these delegant so he's the presumptive nominee and under the rules those delegates are almost obliged to vote for him and there's nothing that can be done unless Biden voluntarily steps down it's down to him it's down to him and even if he voluntarily steps down the high likelihood is that he will endorse camela Harris who has even worse popularity ratings than he has and is very unlikely to be able to beat Donald Trump so the problem that the Democratic party faces is that even if they agree with us Biden's unlikely to defeat Trump they're very worried that all these internal big wigs in the Democratic party and are going to produce someone even worse and that's a structural flaw in American democracy because in the UK system we're able to get rid of people really easily I mean you know that that's why uh LZ trust lasted less than a letters if the conservative party decided they had a Joe Biden figure 49 days boom they're Johnson the same the MPS just kick them out yeah but in this case everybody's nobody knows what to do and the only way you'd get that I think is probably President Obama privately changing his position with the clintons going into c b saying you got to step down yeah yeah well it all makes our election look kind of you know grown up and mature and serious and sensible and I've been shocked by how little coverage there's been of our election around the world I guess it's because people think it's a foregone conclusion but and and also because because k summer seems quite a reassuring figure yeah I mean crazy world the American coverage I think the headlines the New York Times never will be Centrist victory in Britain they'll they'll the The Narrative around the world will be Britain has passed its peak populism France and America are lurching into popularism is Britain the future good well there we go soft power soft power all around right that's it for this week uh this is our last Channel 4 podcast before the election itself and we'll be there all night as we said with Christian gury Emily matless Gary Gibbon loads of good guests and goggle box as well see you there looking forward very much to seeing you on the night through the night stay out with us as long as you can and if you're having an election night party Channel 4 is the place to see Alistar and his fancy jacket and uh eating his healthy food through the night