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He’d give it his mate down the pub who rides a fast bicycle, they wouldn’t make it too kessell, it’s would take much longer than 5 parsecs and the taxpayers would have to guarantee payments no matter the result = Tory win!
I think a better question is why don't the rest of us dress like Han Solo? It is the oddest body warmer I've seen in a while, other than the very idea of wearing one in the summer at all. Big open cuffs with no buttons too. Eclectic.
I don't have to agree with Rory Stewart's politics but I respect that he his fundamentally honest according to his principles and that as someone with conservative views he still has the independence of thought to not simply follow party dogma but is capable of supporting more tax or more public spending etc. even if those views still fall short of what I'm in favour of. Given that I think the next Tory party leadership will be just as, if not more toxic, I'd really like for the LibDems to be the opposition, but I agree with Rory that due to our electoral system it's incredibly unlikely. If the Tories keep cosying up to the far right I can't see him returning to the party, but the idea of him becoming its leader is far more preferable than any of the alternatives that come to mind.
@@macsmiffy2197 That's true, but in this imaginary scenario that's almost certainly not going to happen he would be the party leader and so would be the one setting the boundaries & tone of the party. The policy preferences he's talking about here would be the ones he'd seek to implement. Again, it's all never going to happen, but it would be a far better Tory party than the one we've put up with for so long.
@@Timlagor I believe there's a little more evidence than there is to suggest that he's dishonest if you look at what he's done since leaving politics. There was at least one talk he did where he talks about his time in government and is quite open about the criticisms he has of the system, his own failures and impact on his mental health. Not the action of someone seeking to protect their record. There's the podcast he does with Alistair Campbell, who's potentially a more controversial figure with his history of being Labour's spin doctor. However he is staunchly pro-Labour and they both engage in open and critical discussion of one another's views. Then there's just the evidence before you of Rory simply engaging in discussions in good faith. He doesn't attack, obfuscate or spin the answer. He's simply telling you what he thinks. I might disagree with him, but there's nothing to suggest he's doing anything else.
He’s what they call a ‘high Tory’. That is a compassionate conservative who rules while casting an empathetic eye on the useful serfs struggling below. God, King, Establishment and Tories as the natural party of government is his mantra.
@@geraldbutler5484 that's a good description; and i'm not entirely against it - that's a conservative position; and at their best the Conservatives do seek to preserve our traditions and environment and the way we do things. He's thoughtful, erudite and I think quite compassionate; but extremely privilged.
Theres a lot of hate for Rory in this comment section because he was a conservative MP, I would recommend his blog post “diary am I a conservative anymore”. He is something that I wish the Conservative Party was.
Definitely agree, especially with your final point. There will always be people more conservative and reactionary than the likes of us who willingly watch and enjoy Pod Save the UK. Given that fact, I'd much rather the Conservatives (whether they're the same party or a new outfit) to be calm, rational, willing to engage with others of different viewpoints, value consistency and honest, and make POSITIVE points in favour of their beliefs rather than simply opposing "woke" or whatever other nonsense they can come up with. Rory has made some fantastic points on how (small c) conservative ideals pair well with environmentalism (look no further than King Charles, who I don't support as I dislike monarchy but who is unquestionably on the right side of the climate change question), and about Britain's possible role on the world stage, which I don't always agree with but is clearly less blood-thirsty and opportunist than many others, including some within Labour. Essentially, we'll never win over 100% of people, so I'd rather our opponents to the right be more like Rory and far, FAR less like Boris, Mogg, Farage and Trump.
I don't think the hate is entirely because of his time as a Tory MP. It's because he's a very intelligent and basically decent person who presents as quite politically naïve, and who clings desperately to this idea that his beloved conservative values, which are all a result of him being born into outrageous privilege that very few will ever even come close to comprehending, let alone experiencing, still have something to offer the country, despite the Tories having spent the last 100 years and then some trying to undermine and destroy any attempts to improve the lot of the average person in this country because it challenges their perception of who should be allowed to wield power. I'd happily go for a beer with the bloke, don't get me wrong, because he strikes me as someone I could have a mature debate with about a number of topics I hold dear, but he's still, ultimately, a massive part of the problem in this country.
I keep saying, you have to reform the tax system so people can’t hide their assets. You can’t have the NHS, good education, social care without reforming tax. No more non doms, no more assets in tax havens.
That's far easier said than done in a global financial system. The sort of people with that level of wealth can very easily relocate to a country with a more favourable tax code.
@@kanedNunable That's just not true. He declared his earnings for 2023 which were £2.2 million from the sale of assets on which he paid an effective tax rate of 22%, which is exactly what he should pay under current tax rate for capital gains. Now if you want to argue that capital gains tax should be higher then I'd agree with you, but don't go spreading blatant lies to try and sensationalise the problem and mislead uninformed people into agreeing with you.
13:14 why was this suddenly cut after Coco's comment like it was a fait accompli, nothing else to see, when it seemed to just be an exemplar of Rory's point of how the freedom of politics can be curtailed on either side when there's demonisation of the "other" (no matter how justified the reasons to start with). I was more interested in Rory's (or Nish's) response to this as a continued conversation, but it got cut there. Really bad editing, and seemed to be more interested in scoring liberal conversational points rather than actually interested in the conversation (and I say this as a lefty myself).
Exactly the same here. Very disappointed with Coco's energy & attitude throughout this interview, actually - it felt like she just wanted to berate him?
I mean, he deserves to be berated? He postures as if he didn't really cause the harms, but he caused the harms. And until he can grasp that, beration and hard questions should continue.
@@jsrodman no, I agree, hard questions should be asked, but then show us the response, unlike at the half way point where Coco asks a big question in a pointed way, but then they cut off without giving us Rory Stewart's response...
I hate the hard right (farage etc) as much as anyone, but the hard left hate free speech and do not want diversity of opinion. If you dare to disagree, you are branded to be racist/sexist/elitist.
Yeah, just before the half-way break, Coco asked quite an important but loaded question, and they didn't give us Rory's reply? I wonder if they didn't like his answer so just cut it.
Yeah, I sort of find this weird “he’s one of the good ones” stuff to be very… well, weird. He’s clearly not a sociopath; that’s not exactly something that is to be applauded. He still supported policies that caused people in the UK to die, after all.
@steveharrison76 he has a blind spot for people who speak like him and went to similar schools He genuinely had concerns about austerity, but someone with a posh accent told him it was harsh, but the only way to save the economy, so he nodded along in posh solidarity
There are some really weird edits in this video. There are a few occasions throughout where it seems like questions and/or answers are being truncated or cut out completely...
Why not, Rory? Why is our healthcare not worth £20/hour? These are not fat cat politicians or bankers. Including inflation that takes them back to pay from 20years ago only. Its a restoration, not a rise.
@@patchworkpants This. It's obviously easy to say that doctors and nurses should be paid more from a moral standpoint, and pretty much everyone would agree with that. However from a practical standpoint finding the money to do so when we have a debt to GDP ratio of 100% and tax is already at an all time high is another thing entirely.
Because "our healthcare" (salary) reduces funding from our healthcare (healthcare) and because that figure is probably made up by taking the most junior doctors. Also medicine remains one of the most well payed degrees over lifetime and is highly nepotistic.
With no offence intended, Rory Stewart seems to belong to the school of conservative commentators who look at Trump and call for a return to Reagan, without seeing that one is the direct result of the other.
I don't think so - he says in this video that an incoming Labour government shouldn't be a "tribute act to the '90s" which seems to show an awareness that bringing back an older kind of politics won't solve today's problems. Also, the UK and the USA are more different politically than is often acknowledged so analogies between them are usually best done carefully.
Nah, he’s said explicitly multiple times in the past that he and the centrists in the Conservative Party bear responsibility for allowing populism to rise. Not to say that Reagan was a centrist.
Yeah, right. I think you have entirely missed the point of a hypothetical example. He wasn't giving an actual example, he was trying to explain the concept of why he prefers income tax to 'wealth' tax.
@@jonevansauthor I see your point. The main problem is that critics of a wealth tax want to create a bogey man and say that anyone with a little bit of spare dosh lying around, or anyone living in a house that's a little bigger than they need, will get clobbered. It's a fear tactic, to make ordinary people think that the taxman would be coming for them. When it's very much NOT the case. The wealth tax is genuinely for people who are WEALTHY, not for ordinary middle class people who have happened to accumulate "a little".
@outofideas42 Giving an example of why you prefer one over the other isn't what we call a strawman. It's fine for you to disagree in preferring income tax over wealth tax but don't pretend its a strawman.
For a government that preaches small government and big business, the introduction of market forces has BLOATED the services that are "opened up" to corporate influences and created HUGE MONEY SINKS in the way decisions are reached. MoD procurement is a perfect example that has plagued our military expenditure for nearly 100 years! This model, far from being eliminated and used as a warning, has become the model for the NHS, and every other department in our administration! "The markets" have been given almost 50 years to prove they can be a positive force for good in the way the country is run, but have proven themselves completely SELF SERVING and unable to cope when it counts!
@@JohnBeeblebrox but why vote for more Liz Truss style tax giveaways (Farage said her budget was the best since the 1980's)? The £1.5k / year the average worker will save will be eaten by other costs but will be dwarfed by the saving the rich will get. Unless you're already rich, you'll get poorer by comparison (see garyseconomics for how this works). Why vote for a guy who's known for wanting an insurance based NHS?
@@MarKeMu125 I don't agree with your tax analysis. Many other countrues operate an insurance based (or equivalent) system. OK so we don't agree. What's your solution to help people out of the welfare inspired poverty trap or to "fix" the NHS? Reform proposals are not perfect but they are asking the right questions and attempting to cgange the Uniparty hegemony...
Would you rather have it be Reform? Because whether you want to admit it or not at least 40% of the population naturally lean right and without the Tory party they'd be looking for a new party to fill that void, and right now the only alternative is reform.
If anyone here has also not checked The Rest is Politics out yet and has the time, I'd definitely recommend it. I was wary at first because the format seemed reminiscent of Crossfire (the US programme so famously taken down by Jon Stewart), but actually it's always a good conversation and even if I don't always agree with either host, it's useful to see other points of view including a rationally minded centre-right kind of viewpoint.
I’m a doctor on strike for the 11th time in 18 months because Rory voted for my pay to be cut over and over in the Tory spending plans. Every other peer country in the world, including Ireland, would offer me at least double for less labour. And they would bite my hand off, especially when training is finished. The UK is not competitive about retaining doctors, and what is happening is a demographic shift whereby more working class people are coming into medicine. This is good for outcomes, for patients, for shared decision making and empathy. And it’s bad for conservatives because we have fewer doctors than ever that can have a poor wage subsidised by wealthy benefactors. You need to pay to retain skilled labour. Doctors have begged, for 18 months, for their pay to be restored to what it once was in the UK. Not for a penny more, and not all in one go. We have been ignored and laughed at. We are not asking you to match the pay of the peer countries poaching us, we have admitted that the country shouldn’t pay that level, and have simply asked for restoration. The cost is 1bn. But direct and indirect taxation would lower that substantially (as most of the income is likely to be at the 40/50% tax and that’s just income, student finance costs rise, as does local community spend with more income). Not convinced yet? The strikes have cost 3bn, three times the sticker price of settling. Thus it’s an affordable, political decision. Rory, who still defends brexit, betrays v limited knowledge on health and economics every time he mentions this debate.
I will preface my questions to you by saying I sympathise with your cause and would like to see all workers (especially those in the public sector) paid fairly. And I will not argue with your figures, as I trust that you know what you're talking about. My questions: 1. You say that the strikes have thus far cost the government £3bn. Over what time period is this? 18 months? So around £2bn per year? and 2. You say the cost to the government to settle the dispute would be £1bn. Over what period is that? £1bn per year in perpetuity?
@@-JT-543 no one forced Rory to be a conservative mp. You're making it out like he had no choice. But of course he did. It's a weak excuse for him doing terrible things. For years.
I find it frustrating that this point is not discussed: The actual role of representative government is to protect and serve those who DO NOT have power. Giving power to a few who then rationalize their role as "assisting business"( or others who already HAVE power) is absurd. Those with power will always find a way to succeed. The current problem of populism is a direct result of the post Reagan/Thatcher ideology that abandoned the government's attention to the needs of the powerless. Each admin did it little by little until now, the largest body of voters/citizens are the disenfranchised. I'm just a housewife, but this is pretty simple.
Which is a fair point, but you do then need someone megarich to buy it - I know someone who has a house probably worth close to £1m. They want to downsize, they've had the house on the market for months, but the market is just dead.
@@tommykldoesn't the downsizing of prices for houses equal those who own them owing more money to the mortgage owner? If a house price goes below what you bought it for you end up owing more money than if it was above that.
Every time Roy Stewart talks about AI his creditabilty just drains away for me, I think a lot of people will be disapointed by the amount of things AI will not be able to do in the short and Medium term
It's the hot hand fallacy in action - they see amazing leaps forward, and assume such leaps are going to continue, while a more active analysis shows that progress has pretty much plateaued, and minor incremental improvements in efficiency are the more likely occurance for the foreseeable future
I'm very sceptical of people who talk about how we need to embrace AI but never seem to say why or what exactly it is we need to be doing with it. AI can be perfectly useful, my line of work has been using it way before this big wave. There are lots of uses but those tend to arise naturally. What is it Starmer should be doing with AI? A lot of these arguments tend to sound like "new technology good" which is just as pointless and potentially damaging as "new technology bad". To be fair to Rory Stewart maybe he's elaborated more elsewhere idk.
@@Krytern no what am saying is AI is not a mature tech and ramming it into public serivces just beacuse it seems like were things are going isnt a good idea, imagine if the data set has a bais in it for example.
Rory Stewart would probably get a seat.Hes the only Tory with any credit. As there will be a few dozen Tories on the opposition bench and none of the rest are popular,, he should win leadership easily.
I do find it curious to talk about the danger of Starmer's centrism, which I agree with, while acting as if Corbyn's actual left-wing position was the cause of Labour's death.
Yeah, Corbyn in 2019 got nearly the same number of votes as Cameron in 2010, 1.5 million more than Brown in 2010, and 1 million more than Milliband in 2019. Not to mention that Corbyn in 2017 won 1.5 million more votes (& 4% higher vote share) than Cameron in 2015, which gave him a majority. It's why we so desperately need PR
@@alexharrison2743But how can you ignore the huge mobilisation of opposition to Corbyn’s policy platform. We don’t operate in a PR system, and in the FPTP voting system, the people fundamentally rejected him. It’s a massive shame that large media platforms have such vitriol against some sensible policies he suggested, but plainly people didn’t want it, so therefore you have to attack from a different angle to attempt to oust the tories.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with him dressing as an entirely unelectable man who couldn't be taken seriously - you'll notice that Starmer dresses like an adult who listens to his tailor whereas Corbyn dressed like a polytechnic lecturer. But also, there's the whole anti-semitism thing, and the fact he just loved hanging around with terrorists when he wasn't on some authorised diplomatic mission or anything remotely similar. Oh yes, and he ran a team who couldn't competently book him a first class train ticket, so sat on the floor as if he was proving a point about how much of a man of a people he was as a super wealthy politician with an expense account who is expected to get on trains and actually do some work while he's on them. Oh and the in bed with Dianne Abbot incident is pretty vile when you hear what he did.
I certainly don't want 5 more yrs of the Tories for you good people. But there is a certain evil delight I would take in Rishi Sunak having to go back to work after today and not fuck off to California like he clearly wants to.
There are two places which need to change their electoral systems, the UK and the US, we need to get rid of first past the post / electoral college systems and have PR. We need continuous co-operative coalitions, a large part of Europe has this, we need to stop this extreme adversarial behaviour, it does not work in the public interest. If MPs can't behave in the public interest then get rid of them, we'll vote on policy electronically, directly, all policy options will be formulated by the bureaucrats and experts, and some other smaller countries have lots of referendums, so the public help decide public policy directly.
If it wasn’t so toxic and deadly, it’d be fascinating to track the end of tradional Toryism into what it’s become today. Is it just the facade fallen away or has Conservatism always been this toxic and self-serving?
I like Rory Stewart. He should run.. i mean being the leader of a party with 13 seats in parliment would be an achievement. PERHAPS he would bring in PR.. stop billionaires and their proxies.. funding their party.. support a Wealth tax.. i could go on..
The bloke still supported policies that have caused 330,000+ excess poverty- and austerity related deaths since 2010 though; I’m not sure I can take his ideas particularly seriously.
Rory Stewart is one of a group of moderate ex-Conservative Party politicians that talk a lot of sense. Typically these people left the Party when Johnson became PM and they fundamentally reject the way the Party has developed since 2019. I think Rory overestimates the impact of an opposition party on any government with an effective majority. I didnt see Conservatives hesitating to carry out their policies (many of them unconstitutional) because Labour was presenting a coherant opposition voice. The incompetent Tory government has been run onto the rocks as a result of an absence of coherent strategy. Far from crowding out unacceptable extremist views, it has, increasingly, stolen or embraced them - becoming the very thing the original Party leadership hoped - in 2015 - to vanquish. Rory also talks about the limits to growth in the UK and suggests the Trusss debacle might be evidence of this. However, the problem with the Truss 'plan' was that it was an ill-conceived rush unsupported by evidence - and the markets revealed this. Cutting taxes and hoping for growth is not the same as seed investment for green energy and housing plus rebuilding services with a costed and credible plan. I think the latter can address the problems with austerity economics perhaps taking advantage of a modest rise in taxes (to the average level of leading European economies (we have no desire to be like the USA) and the flexibility available to any government having effective monetary sovereignty (even if its not the world's leading reserve currency).
I wonder whether Rory believes an opposition party can have enough of an impact if the ruling party is, at the end of the day, honest & decent. The issue with the Tories over the last 5 years is that they haven't been honest or decent at all, and so when major holes or downright illegality of their plans have been pointed out, they've shamelessly pushed through, whereas a Labour government might be more morally inclined. If that is the point he's making though, I don't know why he'd want to once again join the ranks alongside Tory despots
@@alexharrison2743 I suspect Rory knows that opposition parties are not really able to exert moral pressure on governments (eg. Labour against Thatcher, Conservative against Blair) in the way he describes. Rather, I think he is trying to make a reasonable political case for the kind of moderate, traditional Conservative Party that he would like to see operting in Parliament. Sadly, it looks unlikely that his ex-Party will get itself into any position to do this.
The issue was 14 years on anti-growth politics : first austerity reduced investment from the public sector, then Brexit drove away private investment This is why the British wallet is 11,000 a year below where it should be 1. Wealth tax 1% (non on home occupied) 2. Property tax readjustment 3. Infrastructure Build (schools, hospitals, roads) 4. Housing Build to 500k (6 new cities over 20 years) 5. Specific borrowing to fund NHS pay compensation.
He doesn't exactly pull his punches when reffering to Truss or Johnson. But he's incredibly charitable on Sunak's time in office. And also in regards to Theresa May, Cameron and George Osbourne. He's obviously doing this with a view to possibly returning to the fold one day. That's understandable. But it does suggest certain things that he's said in the past have to be taken with a fair sized pinch of salt.
I'd recommend reading his book (or listening to the audiobook). He's only light on May, as he sees her thrust into a situation she tried to do the best with and she had a public service ethos he identified with. He's pretty frank about the rest and they don't come out well (especially Cameron).
I detest conservative but I can't help respecting Rory for his basic decency, Honesty and integrity. Also I am impressed that he seems to have turned up dressed as a thinner Han Solo!
you have never heard of his and alastairs podcast? 😮 yours and theirs are my favourites. (and i live in vienna...) you should check them out. they disagree very agreably ❤
I thought surely that was a poor attempt at sarcasm? If she was being serious, I think that's quite a rude and hostile thing to say to a guest on one's podcast...
@@dorothea_walland you're welcome! But yeah, I really don't think one can host a political podcast, and never have heard of the most popular political podcast in the UK (and the one that started the trend for them)...
@@alexharrison2743How could it possibly be *sarcasm*? Irony, perhaps. Not rude in the slightest. Typical English banter of the sort that ex-public schoolboys live and breathe on. Perhaps shocking to American ears and people who expect brown women to be nothing but subservient and grateful.
Wealth tax on those with over ten million pounds in assets could be on a sliding scale. People like the Duke of Devonshire, etc., have such enormous assets that a fifty to a hundred million quid would hurt them not at all.
@@rjScubaSki His project is definitely cross party. I think we should be thinking consensus and recognise that a decent, one nation Tory party is worthy of our respect
Did Rory respond to Coco’s point about ‘not debating with hate’? The edit stopped there and honestly would like to hear his response if one was offered. I like him but the need to avoid polarizing people is so strong with him it’s somewhat blinding to why this polarization may arise.
Leaving aside party politics, Rory Stewart has always seemed (from a distant outside view) to be a reasonable, intelligent, and basically decent person. It is important for democracy to have strong and ethical opposition, and I don’t see the Tories as meeting that ethical qualification. Perhaps there are individual members who do have the national interest as their primary concern, but most of those in the public eye - as with our Australian right-leaning Liberal-National coalition - do seem to put their personal interests first and foremost. If your Lib Dems meet the ethical requirement and they get enough seats then there should be no issue to them becoming a credible opposition party.
I always thought that Rory Stewart was supposed to be a more decent sort of Tory, but he has the same awful baggage the rest of them do. Had to turn off eventually.
Like millions of Brits I was unaware he ever ran for pm…or maybe that’s why he spends his time on media telling us all how bad…other tories are..bad blood
He's the only chance the Tories in the future, can't they tell most of us dislike all this othering and hate they seep. The only people I know who are doing well are wealthy and the current situation a lot of us find ourselves in doesn't even tickle their skin.
Rory's description of how wealth taxes are bad was terribly narrow and specific we need a wealth tax and i hope his refusal to engage with the subject does not continue to be diversionary
Tax wealth not income. You can’t move SSE or London property portfolios. 7% of the wealth of the middle class went to the 1% who are rent taking. No one I know got the £14,000 debt each we got saddled with. No one who has £100,000,000 in wealth is going to hurt if they’re taxed.
Way too many lazy/wrong criticisms in this comment section. The arguement that he isnt criticial enough of the establishment, the conervative government's gone by or his "fellow etonians" is just wrong. He has been pretty scathing about Boris and Camerons governments
As much as I disagree with his political ideology I do agree with him that the radical far right is gaining too much traction and that terrifies the hell me.
The thing about Reform and FPTP is; look at the French results from yesterday. In a PR system, a centre-left coalition would be the most likely result here. As it is, the far right party is on for a big majority after winning about 34% of the vote. Now, if the coordination of the second round goes well enough we could still see that, but the pollsters seem to think otherwise. France's 2 round system does mean its easier for new/small parties to get on the ladder but Britain is not immune to a swap or Tory/Reform merge, and once they're in they're more baked in than in France. Similarly, it's the lack of a two party system in France that has allowed for the left wing coalition to take second place to the far right. Here we have a situation where the right wing are willing to take some years of Labour to try and boost reform up, but the left are (understandably) too afraid of the Tories to deviate much from Labour. So with Tories chasing Reform votes and Labour chasing Tory votes, Reform are essentially pulling the strings of politics without even being elected. In france Macron is very unpopular he simply can't hold them off alone - in our system, should Labour go the same way we have no defenses against them. Point is there's no system that guarantees the far right never get power, ultimately if thats what people vote for then it is, but I think it's a mistake to fall into the trap of thinking that rigging the system against them is the best way, because ultimately if they break though or manipulate it the way they have, then we've rigged the system against ourselves too.
Rory comes across as an intelligent, sensible and honest man. We need more of that in politics, whether in power or opposition. Imagine how much could get done by a government full of thoughtful and courageous people. I found a folder marked “today’s government plans towards Utopia”, it was empty.
At 18:27, I dont know what is the hotter take. He claimed that higher income tax is more redistributive than a wealth tax, and that high income earners wouldnt mind paying more tax. Neither claim was challenged though. A wealth tax that starts at 10 million would mean that the GP's widow would be unaffected, and the popularity of tax lawyers and voting record of high income areas strongly suggest that high salary earners care a lot about their tax bills.
The issue for the Uk electorate is : 1 The conservaives have 14 years of bad managment behind them, 2 It is obvious that Tories dont feel that consensus can be achieved in calm spaces away from the media. The effect is : Poor government.
🤔The conservatives campaign and watching sunak's speeches you see the five stages of grief in his delivery. We've had denial and anger I think we're on begging? 😅😅😅
Rory argues that we've reached the upper limits of borrowing: "is Britain basically bust?" and doesn't face any challenge. Britain is bust if it isn't credit worthy, if markets don't believe in viability of government plans. No-one believed in Truss-onomics because it was obviously nonsense. However a new government could borrow to invest, if it can takes the time to process its plans pay for themselves (invest in renewable energy!).
Rory is looking to the future, the new Labour Government is to create a platform to allow everyone the opportunity to grow the UK and improve their own lot in life, we need can-do, positive, optimistic approaches, we're about to witness a new dawn, let's not squander it. This isn't a spectator game we all need to be players aiming for a win.
There’s a difference between a comfortable majority and such an enormous majority that all the other parties lack space in parliament for talented and intelligent people to make the case for a different way of doing things. If the right-wing is better represented in the press than in parliament, Starmer will have to react to that instead of the established parties, which I don’t think is good for intelligent debate.
I am very unsettled by Rory Stewart. He has been courting the centre and the left, but he basically just speaks in rhetorical fallacies and buzzwords in a posh, semi-authoritive accent, much like a mild Rees-Mogg. Completely disagree with his argument to moderation, it means nothing but is used constantly. There's is nothing inherently virtuous with the middle ground, in fact it's the shit in which fascism roots and grows. Just because he speaks politely and doesn't guffaw like Farage or dogwhistle like Braverman doesn't mean he is more progressive.
I don't mind RS as he was a more moderate Tory who is out there keeping moderate ideas alive. The issue with a supermajority came from the Tories becoming completely lazy and degenerate and focused on culture wars. They would not make a decent opposition, it would be a pantomime. Labour would not be challenged properly anyway. You need a moderate Tory party to challenge effectively. I'd prefer a sensible opposition and if that is the Lib Dems so be it.
Something no one said was if Keir did push through these various things and they were unpopular it would one play into the hands of the Reform crowd and two possibly lose him the next election. He’s in a bit of a damned if you damned if you don’t scenario.
I think it comes down to the timing. If he pushed it through at the beginning of the parliament, some people might get upset (hopefully some others might accept although they don't like the policies, they'll give them a chance). They'll then give themselves 3+ years for the benefits to be seen, and convince those who were unhappy that the policies were the right thing to do because they can personally see the benefits. Then when they are pushed through in say 18 months of the beginning of the parliament, you then start focusing on a more popular policy agenda and start preparing for the next election. A big majority will definetly help with that, and MPs that can be whipped (a lot of new MPs might let in some wierdos).
@@user-tg2km maybe but it does worry me. The prescription with the sub 30 years olds in my family is they’re taxed too much. But they’re all on around 22k and struggling to make ends meet if they live on their own.
@@EmiSuperTrans71 I just used the tax calculator on gov.uk and for someone on £22,000, they would pay £2639 a year on tax, which is a rate of 12%. And wages should be higher I agree there. But in reality most people in their 20s struggle to make ends meet for a long time, although it seems even more of a struggle now with the price increases of the last few years. But no matter who is in government, in a few years they will be a better off, it's just the nature of things.
@user-tg2km Yes this is true it had always been common for people on their 20s to get house mates. I'm almost 40 and when I was 20 two decades ago when the country was in a better position, all of my friends had house mates or still lived with their parents. That's even when VAT was lower so everything was cheaper.
I was a bit disappointed by this. Not having Rory Stewart respond after the 'you can't debate hate' point was the sort of trick Fox news do. You shouldn't invite someone on and then just shout your opinion unchallenged. It's especially odd as that opinion is fundamentally undemocratic (even though I do sympathize with it to a degree). Nish introducing Rory like he was some sort of far-right figure with mad tory views was hilarious. Either you have disappeared so far into leftist popularism you can't see the center with a telescope or you don't know who you are interviewing. I'm fairly left wing myself, and have enjoyed this pod, but now I feel like a bright light has been shone on how shallow it is.
Thoroughly agree, it had that "win via the video edit" feel of a propaganda news piece which these two don't need, as they've got the moral high ground usually anyway. And portraying Rory as someone representative of the "other side" is laughable.
Rory is wrong about wealth tax. You could possibly argue that there might need to be a structure for owning properties, that won't hurt people without other resources, that haven't invested in a property as a way of shielding their wealth. But you do need wealth tax, as the richest people mainly become richer by other means than income. Some do invest in properties, but mostly it is stocks. And the way they can borrow against their stock portfolio means that they can have access to money that isn't taxed. And regarding national debt. As long as the borrowing is for actually investment in growth of the economy, or to deal with climate adoptations (save the economy), there is no issue with debt. What he said about Truss was completely misleading, she wanted to borrow for things that would not grow the economy. Britain, like sweden need a lot of housing investment, to drive down cost, and thus provide housing near the hubs of economic growth. Britain also needs to invest in energy efficiency upgrades of houses. And large part of Europe need to climate adopt housing, including energy efficient heating and cooling, as that is health related, and done right, also helps with dealing with energy issues, in terms of price and planning.
Having seen a couple of clips of Biden's debate performance, you have my deepest sympathies. Of course, even if he had to have a lobotomy he'd still be smarter than Trump and more capable but it's going to be really hard to get dimwits to vote in their interest this November. :(
Rory wanted to be leader and knows nil about economics. The Covid comparison to Sweden was disingenuous or just straight bull, there are a dozen countries that would make a straight comparison. You can borrow money if you invest it, Liz Truss wanted to borrow for a tax break. Paul Krugman also said that in the end, productivity is almost everything.
Stewart an advocate for the failed/failing neoliberal consensus. 'What Labour needs to do is change planning to build more houses'. It hasn't worked for the last 14 years, or the 20 years before that. The solution was affordable social housing, that we had. Just like the solution for health was/is the NHS and the solution for water, energy and rail was not giving them all away to the private sector to profit gouge. They were assets on the balance sheet, now they are are publicly subsidised profit machines. Rory has no answers.
Seems to me that Rory is insisting that the left wing growing more left-wing must inevitably cause the right wing to grow more right-wing in response. On the contrary, we've seen around the world that the right wing growing more extreme has only caused the left to become more centrist or even explicitly right-wing. Frankly if there's a healthy, effective left wing majority in a fair system I would expect the right wing opposition would have to rise to their level, not sink even further.
I like Rory and listen to ‘The rest is politics’ regularly as he is always well informed. However, despite him being intellectually light years ahead of Starmer, Sunak and ‘the others’, who are all rubbish leaders…He would be better than any of them but I feel he is lacking strong leadership qualities. Sorry Rory.
The idea that Rory Stweart is a 'compassionate Tory' is laughable. Scratch the surface, and he supports austerity and all the other vile policies. His counterpoints are always built on a strawman of the alternatives. Eg. His idea that austerity is necessary/essential/unavoidable because the economy is in such poor shape ignores that austerity caused it to be so FFS. And the covid/Ukraine defence ignores that we we going down the drain of austerity and trickle down policies before 2020
I'm so glad to see someone else thinks this. All this talk of him being reasonable is just because he speaks slowly and amicably, and always begins his answers by agreeing with people before explaining why they're wrong. In this interview he defends austerity, insinuates that people should vote Tory to avoid Starmergeddon, kinda implies we were wrong to spend money on COVID, etc. Utterly rank views but said in such a non-confrontational way that they just slip through the cracks and it makes me utterly furious 😂
Exactly 💯 Tory's that voted for austerity over and over should be shunned forever. Much like war criminals like Alastair Campbell who Rory has buddies up with.
@@70Freefallifyand the (sparsely populated) Sweden false equivalence is a shameful distortion of reality. I stopped listening to his podcast with Campbell because Stewart gets away with so much rubbish it’s infuriating
@@Notalloldpeople yah the 'for some unknown reason' bit really grated on me. It felt flagrantly dishonest. Honestly I tried listening to The Rest of Politics but I just couldn't get passed it being a flagrant attempt at reputational laundering by two absolutely awful people who have caused an unforgivable amount of harm.
As an avid follower of The Rest is Politics, where the hosts have mutual respect and value their audience… I’m having trouble warming to these two hosts who seem to be competing for the award of most irritating human 😬
Consolidated wealth is destroying the buying power of income. Rory's a jolly nice chap, and a floppy cloistered ignoramus. If it was anyone else you'd assume they were lying.
Throwing out the prediction Rory will launch 'New Conservatives' in a similar way to Blair's new labour just before the next election and will get in the election after...
not enough right wingers in the country. tories only ever won because they were the only right leaning party. now we have reform too. most people arent right wing.
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Why has Rory Stewart decided to dress like Han Solo? Could he do the kesel run?
He’d give it his mate down the pub who rides a fast bicycle, they wouldn’t make it too kessell, it’s would take much longer than 5 parsecs and the taxpayers would have to guarantee payments no matter the result = Tory win!
Does that make Alistair Campbell his Chewie?
I thought the exact same thing 😂
I think a better question is why don't the rest of us dress like Han Solo?
It is the oddest body warmer I've seen in a while, other than the very idea of wearing one in the summer at all. Big open cuffs with no buttons too. Eclectic.
@@jonevansauthor It's a Gilet, countryside people like them
I don't have to agree with Rory Stewart's politics but I respect that he his fundamentally honest according to his principles and that as someone with conservative views he still has the independence of thought to not simply follow party dogma but is capable of supporting more tax or more public spending etc. even if those views still fall short of what I'm in favour of.
Given that I think the next Tory party leadership will be just as, if not more toxic, I'd really like for the LibDems to be the opposition, but I agree with Rory that due to our electoral system it's incredibly unlikely. If the Tories keep cosying up to the far right I can't see him returning to the party, but the idea of him becoming its leader is far more preferable than any of the alternatives that come to mind.
I think the Lib Dem’s as the opposition as unlikely as it is will do the country a lot of good
Maybe he can only say these things because he’s not controlled by the whip. If he was back in government, he wouldn’t have that freedom.
@@macsmiffy2197 That's true, but in this imaginary scenario that's almost certainly not going to happen he would be the party leader and so would be the one setting the boundaries & tone of the party. The policy preferences he's talking about here would be the ones he'd seek to implement.
Again, it's all never going to happen, but it would be a far better Tory party than the one we've put up with for so long.
He's certainly more competent than other recent Conservatives but honesty is just something you are assuming in the absence of evidence either way.
@@Timlagor I believe there's a little more evidence than there is to suggest that he's dishonest if you look at what he's done since leaving politics.
There was at least one talk he did where he talks about his time in government and is quite open about the criticisms he has of the system, his own failures and impact on his mental health. Not the action of someone seeking to protect their record.
There's the podcast he does with Alistair Campbell, who's potentially a more controversial figure with his history of being Labour's spin doctor. However he is staunchly pro-Labour and they both engage in open and critical discussion of one another's views.
Then there's just the evidence before you of Rory simply engaging in discussions in good faith. He doesn't attack, obfuscate or spin the answer. He's simply telling you what he thinks. I might disagree with him, but there's nothing to suggest he's doing anything else.
Rory Stewart is a media darling because he's a conservative who's not a psychopath. What a low bar in this country.
he defo is he cant hide a tory is a tory he is up to something
@@octaviamcdougall7170 All Tories must be looked upon with suspicion. Even the "normal" ones.
@@jackdubz4247 they all have a hand in the constant mass death from neglect
He’s what they call a ‘high Tory’. That is a compassionate conservative who rules while casting an empathetic eye on the useful serfs struggling below. God, King, Establishment and Tories as the natural party of government is his mantra.
@@geraldbutler5484 that's a good description; and i'm not entirely against it - that's a conservative position; and at their best the Conservatives do seek to preserve our traditions and environment and the way we do things. He's thoughtful, erudite and I think quite compassionate; but extremely privilged.
Theres a lot of hate for Rory in this comment section because he was a conservative MP, I would recommend his blog post “diary am I a conservative anymore”.
He is something that I wish the Conservative Party was.
That’s because he is all over the place just join Labour and call it a day
@@Edwinthebreadwin no hate it was a wardrobe question.
Definitely agree, especially with your final point. There will always be people more conservative and reactionary than the likes of us who willingly watch and enjoy Pod Save the UK. Given that fact, I'd much rather the Conservatives (whether they're the same party or a new outfit) to be calm, rational, willing to engage with others of different viewpoints, value consistency and honest, and make POSITIVE points in favour of their beliefs rather than simply opposing "woke" or whatever other nonsense they can come up with. Rory has made some fantastic points on how (small c) conservative ideals pair well with environmentalism (look no further than King Charles, who I don't support as I dislike monarchy but who is unquestionably on the right side of the climate change question), and about Britain's possible role on the world stage, which I don't always agree with but is clearly less blood-thirsty and opportunist than many others, including some within Labour.
Essentially, we'll never win over 100% of people, so I'd rather our opponents to the right be more like Rory and far, FAR less like Boris, Mogg, Farage and Trump.
I don't think the hate is entirely because of his time as a Tory MP. It's because he's a very intelligent and basically decent person who presents as quite politically naïve, and who clings desperately to this idea that his beloved conservative values, which are all a result of him being born into outrageous privilege that very few will ever even come close to comprehending, let alone experiencing, still have something to offer the country, despite the Tories having spent the last 100 years and then some trying to undermine and destroy any attempts to improve the lot of the average person in this country because it challenges their perception of who should be allowed to wield power.
I'd happily go for a beer with the bloke, don't get me wrong, because he strikes me as someone I could have a mature debate with about a number of topics I hold dear, but he's still, ultimately, a massive part of the problem in this country.
'Minor Gangsters '.
I keep saying, you have to reform the tax system so people can’t hide their assets. You can’t have the NHS, good education, social care without reforming tax. No more non doms, no more assets in tax havens.
and people like rishi earning 126m a year but paying 0.4% tax on it. takes the piss.
That's far easier said than done in a global financial system. The sort of people with that level of wealth can very easily relocate to a country with a more favourable tax code.
@@kanedNunable That's just not true. He declared his earnings for 2023 which were £2.2 million from the sale of assets on which he paid an effective tax rate of 22%, which is exactly what he should pay under current tax rate for capital gains.
Now if you want to argue that capital gains tax should be higher then I'd agree with you, but don't go spreading blatant lies to try and sensationalise the problem and mislead uninformed people into agreeing with you.
13:14 why was this suddenly cut after Coco's comment like it was a fait accompli, nothing else to see, when it seemed to just be an exemplar of Rory's point of how the freedom of politics can be curtailed on either side when there's demonisation of the "other" (no matter how justified the reasons to start with).
I was more interested in Rory's (or Nish's) response to this as a continued conversation, but it got cut there. Really bad editing, and seemed to be more interested in scoring liberal conversational points rather than actually interested in the conversation (and I say this as a lefty myself).
Exactly the same here. Very disappointed with Coco's energy & attitude throughout this interview, actually - it felt like she just wanted to berate him?
I mean, he deserves to be berated? He postures as if he didn't really cause the harms, but he caused the harms. And until he can grasp that, beration and hard questions should continue.
@@alexharrison2743The off-white tone policing continues. You people are consistent and committed, I'll give you that.
@@jsrodman no, I agree, hard questions should be asked, but then show us the response, unlike at the half way point where Coco asks a big question in a pointed way, but then they cut off without giving us Rory Stewart's response...
I hate the hard right (farage etc) as much as anyone, but the hard left hate free speech and do not want diversity of opinion. If you dare to disagree, you are branded to be racist/sexist/elitist.
Some weird edits in this lots of questions with no follow up answers. Some back and forths seem truncated.
Rory does seem to spend a lot of time reframing questions he doesn't want to answer.
Yeah, just before the half-way break, Coco asked quite an important but loaded question, and they didn't give us Rory's reply? I wonder if they didn't like his answer so just cut it.
@@alexharrison2743Or it was just a mistake. Incompetence is usually a better explanation than nefarious intent.
@@EdwardLindon you really are consistent and committed to white knighting against any suggestion of improvement for a left wing voice
@@EdwardLindon I really didn't like that. Maybe it was just bad editing. But it is the sort of trick I would expect from poularists.
I would vote for Rory if he stood for Prime Minister, we need integrity back!
I feel like Rory Stewart is more horrified by impoliteness than things like austerity.
I think that's just a fact. He presided over austerity without opposition.
Yeah, I sort of find this weird “he’s one of the good ones” stuff to be very… well, weird.
He’s clearly not a sociopath; that’s not exactly something that is to be applauded. He still supported policies that caused people in the UK to die, after all.
@steveharrison76 he has a blind spot for people who speak like him and went to similar schools
He genuinely had concerns about austerity, but someone with a posh accent told him it was harsh, but the only way to save the economy, so he nodded along in posh solidarity
haha 100% this
@@markwelch3564 He acknowledges this also; it is a blind spot he has with the establishment.
There are some really weird edits in this video. There are a few occasions throughout where it seems like questions and/or answers are being truncated or cut out completely...
Why not, Rory? Why is our healthcare not worth £20/hour? These are not fat cat politicians or bankers. Including inflation that takes them back to pay from 20years ago only. Its a restoration, not a rise.
He didn't say that the healthcare wasn't worth that. He said that it's not fiscally doable.
@@patchworkpants This. It's obviously easy to say that doctors and nurses should be paid more from a moral standpoint, and pretty much everyone would agree with that. However from a practical standpoint finding the money to do so when we have a debt to GDP ratio of 100% and tax is already at an all time high is another thing entirely.
Because "our healthcare" (salary) reduces funding from our healthcare (healthcare) and because that figure is probably made up by taking the most junior doctors. Also medicine remains one of the most well payed degrees over lifetime and is highly nepotistic.
With no offence intended, Rory Stewart seems to belong to the school of conservative commentators who look at Trump and call for a return to Reagan, without seeing that one is the direct result of the other.
Standing O for this.
I don't think so - he says in this video that an incoming Labour government shouldn't be a "tribute act to the '90s" which seems to show an awareness that bringing back an older kind of politics won't solve today's problems. Also, the UK and the USA are more different politically than is often acknowledged so analogies between them are usually best done carefully.
Considering he doesn't like Thatcher I would be surprised if he was a fan of Reagan
Nah, he’s said explicitly multiple times in the past that he and the centrists in the Conservative Party bear responsibility for allowing populism to rise. Not to say that Reagan was a centrist.
He did a big speech at Gresham Colleague saying that Thatcher/Reagan economics are the source of our current issues
GP widow living in a £2m house wouldn't fall into the Green Party's wealth tax. It starts at £10m.
Yeah, right. I think you have entirely missed the point of a hypothetical example. He wasn't giving an actual example, he was trying to explain the concept of why he prefers income tax to 'wealth' tax.
@@jonevansauthor I see your point.
The main problem is that critics of a wealth tax want to create a bogey man and say that anyone with a little bit of spare dosh lying around, or anyone living in a house that's a little bigger than they need, will get clobbered.
It's a fear tactic, to make ordinary people think that the taxman would be coming for them. When it's very much NOT the case. The wealth tax is genuinely for people who are WEALTHY, not for ordinary middle class people who have happened to accumulate "a little".
@@jonevansauthor he was talking about a hypothetical situation that no one is standing on. We call that a strawman.
@outofideas42 Giving an example of why you prefer one over the other isn't what we call a strawman.
It's fine for you to disagree in preferring income tax over wealth tax but don't pretend its a strawman.
@@Krytern Stewart's objection to the proposed wealth tax was absolutely founded on a strawman argument.
For a government that preaches small government and big business, the introduction of market forces has BLOATED the services that are "opened up" to corporate influences and created HUGE MONEY SINKS in the way decisions are reached. MoD procurement is a perfect example that has plagued our military expenditure for nearly 100 years! This model, far from being eliminated and used as a warning, has become the model for the NHS, and every other department in our administration!
"The markets" have been given almost 50 years to prove they can be a positive force for good in the way the country is run, but have proven themselves completely SELF SERVING and unable to cope when it counts!
Where’s the reply to 13:30?
Yes, His Majesty's Government needs a proper opposition. That opposition cannot be the Conservative Party. Their time is over.
I agree. That's why I'm voting Reform...to hell with the Uniparty that is Lab/Con/Lib....😊
@@JohnBeeblebrox but why vote for more Liz Truss style tax giveaways (Farage said her budget was the best since the 1980's)? The £1.5k / year the average worker will save will be eaten by other costs but will be dwarfed by the saving the rich will get. Unless you're already rich, you'll get poorer by comparison (see garyseconomics for how this works).
Why vote for a guy who's known for wanting an insurance based NHS?
@@MarKeMu125 I don't agree with your tax analysis. Many other countrues operate an insurance based (or equivalent) system. OK so we don't agree. What's your solution to help people out of the welfare inspired poverty trap or to "fix" the NHS? Reform proposals are not perfect but they are asking the right questions and attempting to cgange the Uniparty hegemony...
Would you rather have it be Reform? Because whether you want to admit it or not at least 40% of the population naturally lean right and without the Tory party they'd be looking for a new party to fill that void, and right now the only alternative is reform.
You've never heard of The Rest Is Politics".....!? What rock have you been living under! X-D
If anyone here has also not checked The Rest is Politics out yet and has the time, I'd definitely recommend it. I was wary at first because the format seemed reminiscent of Crossfire (the US programme so famously taken down by Jon Stewart), but actually it's always a good conversation and even if I don't always agree with either host, it's useful to see other points of view including a rationally minded centre-right kind of viewpoint.
I’m a doctor on strike for the 11th time in 18 months because Rory voted for my pay to be cut over and over in the Tory spending plans. Every other peer country in the world, including Ireland, would offer me at least double for less labour. And they would bite my hand off, especially when training is finished. The UK is not competitive about retaining doctors, and what is happening is a demographic shift whereby more working class people are coming into medicine. This is good for outcomes, for patients, for shared decision making and empathy. And it’s bad for conservatives because we have fewer doctors than ever that can have a poor wage subsidised by wealthy benefactors. You need to pay to retain skilled labour. Doctors have begged, for 18 months, for their pay to be restored to what it once was in the UK. Not for a penny more, and not all in one go. We have been ignored and laughed at. We are not asking you to match the pay of the peer countries poaching us, we have admitted that the country shouldn’t pay that level, and have simply asked for restoration. The cost is 1bn. But direct and indirect taxation would lower that substantially (as most of the income is likely to be at the 40/50% tax and that’s just income, student finance costs rise, as does local community spend with more income). Not convinced yet? The strikes have cost 3bn, three times the sticker price of settling. Thus it’s an affordable, political decision. Rory, who still defends brexit, betrays v limited knowledge on health and economics every time he mentions this debate.
I will preface my questions to you by saying I sympathise with your cause and would like to see all workers (especially those in the public sector) paid fairly. And I will not argue with your figures, as I trust that you know what you're talking about.
My questions:
1. You say that the strikes have thus far cost the government £3bn. Over what time period is this? 18 months? So around £2bn per year?
and
2. You say the cost to the government to settle the dispute would be £1bn. Over what period is that? £1bn per year in perpetuity?
Rory does NOT support Brexit...
you do know about the whipping system right?
@@-JT-543 no one forced Rory to be a conservative mp. You're making it out like he had no choice. But of course he did. It's a weak excuse for him doing terrible things. For years.
13:30 why doesn’t Rory answer, this is a super important point!
Why don't they show his answer, seems statistically unlikely he was lost for words
It's edited. This whole interview was pretty heavily edited and whether deliberately or not that editing makes Rory come off worse.
I find it frustrating that this point is not discussed: The actual role of representative government is to protect and serve those who DO NOT have power. Giving power to a few who then rationalize their role as "assisting business"( or others who already HAVE power) is absurd. Those with power will always find a way to succeed. The current problem of populism is a direct result of the post Reagan/Thatcher ideology that abandoned the government's attention to the needs of the powerless. Each admin did it little by little until now, the largest body of voters/citizens are the disenfranchised. I'm just a housewife, but this is pretty simple.
How much is that widow's house worth? I think it's time she downsized.
Which is a fair point, but you do then need someone megarich to buy it - I know someone who has a house probably worth close to £1m. They want to downsize, they've had the house on the market for months, but the market is just dead.
@@alexharrison2743it's almost like people know assets are overvalued, the market is broken and a crash is imminent 🤔
@@alexharrison2743 almost as though house prices are too high and should decrease
@@tommykl oh 100%
@@tommykldoesn't the downsizing of prices for houses equal those who own them owing more money to the mortgage owner?
If a house price goes below what you bought it for you end up owing more money than if it was above that.
Every time Roy Stewart talks about AI his creditabilty just drains away for me, I think a lot of people will be disapointed by the amount of things AI will not be able to do in the short and Medium term
It's the hot hand fallacy in action - they see amazing leaps forward, and assume such leaps are going to continue, while a more active analysis shows that progress has pretty much plateaued, and minor incremental improvements in efficiency are the more likely occurance for the foreseeable future
So you're saying we shouldn't invest in the long term? Are you serious?
Google - Figure 1 robot and let me know if you still feel the same way.
I'm very sceptical of people who talk about how we need to embrace AI but never seem to say why or what exactly it is we need to be doing with it. AI can be perfectly useful, my line of work has been using it way before this big wave. There are lots of uses but those tend to arise naturally. What is it Starmer should be doing with AI? A lot of these arguments tend to sound like "new technology good" which is just as pointless and potentially damaging as "new technology bad".
To be fair to Rory Stewart maybe he's elaborated more elsewhere idk.
@@Krytern no what am saying is AI is not a mature tech and ramming it into public serivces just beacuse it seems like were things are going isnt a good idea, imagine if the data set has a bais in it for example.
Rory Stewart is so clever and sensible. Such a great man.
What happened in that cut during Coco's monologue lol
Rory Stewart would probably get a seat.Hes the only Tory with any credit.
As there will be a few dozen Tories on the opposition bench and none of the rest are popular,, he should win leadership easily.
I do find it curious to talk about the danger of Starmer's centrism, which I agree with, while acting as if Corbyn's actual left-wing position was the cause of Labour's death.
It was. A pro-Brexit Putin-appeaser like Corbyn would have been the end of the UK.
Yeah, Corbyn in 2019 got nearly the same number of votes as Cameron in 2010, 1.5 million more than Brown in 2010, and 1 million more than Milliband in 2019.
Not to mention that Corbyn in 2017 won 1.5 million more votes (& 4% higher vote share) than Cameron in 2015, which gave him a majority.
It's why we so desperately need PR
@@alexharrison2743But how can you ignore the huge mobilisation of opposition to Corbyn’s policy platform. We don’t operate in a PR system, and in the FPTP voting system, the people fundamentally rejected him. It’s a massive shame that large media platforms have such vitriol against some sensible policies he suggested, but plainly people didn’t want it, so therefore you have to attack from a different angle to attempt to oust the tories.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with him dressing as an entirely unelectable man who couldn't be taken seriously - you'll notice that Starmer dresses like an adult who listens to his tailor whereas Corbyn dressed like a polytechnic lecturer. But also, there's the whole anti-semitism thing, and the fact he just loved hanging around with terrorists when he wasn't on some authorised diplomatic mission or anything remotely similar. Oh yes, and he ran a team who couldn't competently book him a first class train ticket, so sat on the floor as if he was proving a point about how much of a man of a people he was as a super wealthy politician with an expense account who is expected to get on trains and actually do some work while he's on them. Oh and the in bed with Dianne Abbot incident is pretty vile when you hear what he did.
@@euanmorrison11 I can't help feeling that if major newspapers were held to a basic standard of honesty, the tabloid vitriol might do a lot less harm.
Good on ya Coco
I certainly don't want 5 more yrs of the Tories for you good people. But there is a certain evil delight I would take in Rishi Sunak having to go back to work after today and not fuck off to California like he clearly wants to.
There are two places which need to change their electoral systems, the UK and the US, we need to get rid of first past the post / electoral college systems and have PR. We need continuous co-operative coalitions, a large part of Europe has this, we need to stop this extreme adversarial behaviour, it does not work in the public interest. If MPs can't behave in the public interest then get rid of them, we'll vote on policy electronically, directly, all policy options will be formulated by the bureaucrats and experts, and some other smaller countries have lots of referendums, so the public help decide public policy directly.
If it wasn’t so toxic and deadly, it’d be fascinating to track the end of tradional Toryism into what it’s become today. Is it just the facade fallen away or has Conservatism always been this toxic and self-serving?
nobody moaned when tories got a huge majority. why is the press bringing it up this time?
I can't imagine. Nope. Completely escapes me.
80 is not a huge majority on the scale we’re talking about. Labour could get 150+ seat majority
I like Rory Stewart. He should run.. i mean being the leader of a party with 13 seats in parliment would be an achievement. PERHAPS he would bring in PR.. stop billionaires and their proxies.. funding their party.. support a Wealth tax.. i could go on..
The bloke still supported policies that have caused 330,000+ excess poverty- and austerity related deaths since 2010 though; I’m not sure I can take his ideas particularly seriously.
and he claims to be centre left, surely labour would have been perfect for him then? or liberals. yet he knowingly joined the nasty party. wtf.
2019 was a 2nd referendum on Brexit and completely skewed party loyalty and other important policies.
Rory Stewart is one of a group of moderate ex-Conservative Party politicians that talk a lot of sense. Typically these people left the Party when Johnson became PM and they fundamentally reject the way the Party has developed since 2019.
I think Rory overestimates the impact of an opposition party on any government with an effective majority. I didnt see Conservatives hesitating to carry out their policies (many of them unconstitutional) because Labour was presenting a coherant opposition voice.
The incompetent Tory government has been run onto the rocks as a result of an absence of coherent strategy. Far from crowding out unacceptable extremist views, it has, increasingly, stolen or embraced them - becoming the very thing the original Party leadership hoped - in 2015 - to vanquish.
Rory also talks about the limits to growth in the UK and suggests the Trusss debacle might be evidence of this. However, the problem with the Truss 'plan' was that it was an ill-conceived rush unsupported by evidence - and the markets revealed this. Cutting taxes and hoping for growth is not the same as seed investment for green energy and housing plus rebuilding services with a costed and credible plan.
I think the latter can address the problems with austerity economics perhaps taking advantage of a modest rise in taxes (to the average level of leading European economies (we have no desire to be like the USA) and the flexibility available to any government having effective monetary sovereignty (even if its not the world's leading reserve currency).
I wonder whether Rory believes an opposition party can have enough of an impact if the ruling party is, at the end of the day, honest & decent. The issue with the Tories over the last 5 years is that they haven't been honest or decent at all, and so when major holes or downright illegality of their plans have been pointed out, they've shamelessly pushed through, whereas a Labour government might be more morally inclined.
If that is the point he's making though, I don't know why he'd want to once again join the ranks alongside Tory despots
@@alexharrison2743 I suspect Rory knows that opposition parties are not really able to exert moral pressure on governments (eg. Labour against Thatcher, Conservative against Blair) in the way he describes.
Rather, I think he is trying to make a reasonable political case for the kind of moderate, traditional Conservative Party that he would like to see operting in Parliament. Sadly, it looks unlikely that his ex-Party will get itself into any position to do this.
@@alexharrison2743 Because they have a vote. Opposition MPs can vote and make a difference.
The issue was 14 years on anti-growth politics : first austerity reduced investment from the public sector, then Brexit drove away private investment
This is why the British wallet is 11,000 a year below where it should be
1. Wealth tax 1% (non on home occupied)
2. Property tax readjustment
3. Infrastructure Build (schools, hospitals, roads)
4. Housing Build to 500k (6 new cities over 20 years)
5. Specific borrowing to fund NHS pay compensation.
Great interview! Love you guys!
For obvious reasons, Rory Stewart is very light in his criticism of the conservative government. Certainly Rishi Sunak.
Not so sure about that, he has been very critical on the rest is politics podcast
He doesn't exactly pull his punches when reffering to Truss or Johnson. But he's incredibly charitable on Sunak's time in office. And also in regards to Theresa May, Cameron and George Osbourne. He's obviously doing this with a view to possibly returning to the fold one day. That's understandable.
But it does suggest certain things that he's said in the past have to be taken with a fair sized pinch of salt.
I'd recommend reading his book (or listening to the audiobook). He's only light on May, as he sees her thrust into a situation she tried to do the best with and she had a public service ethos he identified with. He's pretty frank about the rest and they don't come out well (especially Cameron).
Never tell Rory the odds
I detest conservative but I can't help respecting Rory for his basic decency, Honesty and integrity. Also I am impressed that he seems to have turned up dressed as a thinner Han Solo!
you have never heard of his and alastairs podcast? 😮 yours and theirs are my favourites. (and i live in vienna...) you should check them out. they disagree very agreably ❤
I thought surely that was a poor attempt at sarcasm? If she was being serious, I think that's quite a rude and hostile thing to say to a guest on one's podcast...
@@alexharrison2743 ah ok didn't think of that. that is certainly a more generous interpretation, i am giving her a benefit of the doubt ❤️ thank you
@@dorothea_walland you're welcome! But yeah, I really don't think one can host a political podcast, and never have heard of the most popular political podcast in the UK (and the one that started the trend for them)...
@@alexharrison2743How could it possibly be *sarcasm*? Irony, perhaps. Not rude in the slightest. Typical English banter of the sort that ex-public schoolboys live and breathe on. Perhaps shocking to American ears and people who expect brown women to be nothing but subservient and grateful.
Wealth tax on those with over ten million pounds in assets could be on a sliding scale. People like the Duke of Devonshire, etc., have such enormous assets that a fifty to a hundred million quid would hurt them not at all.
Rory has found himself with an incredible amount of power all of a sudden and I trust him to seize the day for the good of the world
Not a chance. Rory Stewart is just as vile as Boris Johnson or Kemi Badenoch. Don't be fooled.
He still at least thinks he is a Tory. Until he completely wipes his mind of that, he should be nowhere near power.
@@rjScubaSki His project is definitely cross party. I think we should be thinking consensus and recognise that a decent, one nation Tory party is worthy of our respect
Rory Stewart recognises the difference between the INFLUENCE he can now exert and the POWER that political office brings.
@@VinceLammas influence is a better word but it could be enormous and far reaching and I honestly wish him well
13:18 what is going on here
Coco is a fantastic interviewer. She does a great job of getting the most out of guests.
Did Rory respond to Coco’s point about ‘not debating with hate’? The edit stopped there and honestly would like to hear his response if one was offered. I like him but the need to avoid polarizing people is so strong with him it’s somewhat blinding to why this polarization may arise.
So what part do the UK people voting for then brexit election lays with them?
Leaving aside party politics, Rory Stewart has always seemed (from a distant outside view) to be a reasonable, intelligent, and basically decent person.
It is important for democracy to have strong and ethical opposition, and I don’t see the Tories as meeting that ethical qualification. Perhaps there are individual members who do have the national interest as their primary concern, but most of those in the public eye - as with our Australian right-leaning Liberal-National coalition - do seem to put their personal interests first and foremost. If your Lib Dems meet the ethical requirement and they get enough seats then there should be no issue to them becoming a credible opposition party.
Only 25% of the vote share went to the Conservatives in 2019: nowhere near half of the electorate
I always thought that Rory Stewart was supposed to be a more decent sort of Tory, but he has the same awful baggage the rest of them do. Had to turn off eventually.
Like millions of Brits I was unaware he ever ran for pm…or maybe that’s why he spends his time on media telling us all how bad…other tories are..bad blood
He's the only chance the Tories in the future, can't they tell most of us dislike all this othering and hate they seep.
The only people I know who are doing well are wealthy and the current situation a lot of us find ourselves in doesn't even tickle their skin.
Good luck for the election. Go out and vote.❤
You made a good point on PR then didn't give Rory the chance to respond. Is there an extended version of this?
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "SUPER-MAJORITY" IN UK POLITICS! JUST STOP!
Rory's description of how wealth taxes are bad was terribly narrow and specific we need a wealth tax and i hope his refusal to engage with the subject does not continue to be diversionary
Tax wealth not income. You can’t move SSE or London property portfolios.
7% of the wealth of the middle class went to the 1% who are rent taking. No one I know got the £14,000 debt each we got saddled with.
No one who has £100,000,000 in wealth is going to hurt if they’re taxed.
Putrid little tory was just as much a part of austerity as any of them.
I love Rory! How could you not have heard their podcast? (Hard core Democrat and American here)
They were joking, TRIP is by far the most popular politics podcast in the UK
The default when Brits speak is sarcasm. If our lips are moving, we're usually being sarcastic/and or joking. :)
Never heard of this podcast before.
Way too many lazy/wrong criticisms in this comment section.
The arguement that he isnt criticial enough of the establishment, the conervative government's gone by or his "fellow etonians" is just wrong. He has been pretty scathing about Boris and Camerons governments
Rory for PM.
As much as I disagree with his political ideology I do agree with him that the radical far right is gaining too much traction and that terrifies the hell me.
The thing about Reform and FPTP is; look at the French results from yesterday. In a PR system, a centre-left coalition would be the most likely result here. As it is, the far right party is on for a big majority after winning about 34% of the vote. Now, if the coordination of the second round goes well enough we could still see that, but the pollsters seem to think otherwise.
France's 2 round system does mean its easier for new/small parties to get on the ladder but Britain is not immune to a swap or Tory/Reform merge, and once they're in they're more baked in than in France. Similarly, it's the lack of a two party system in France that has allowed for the left wing coalition to take second place to the far right. Here we have a situation where the right wing are willing to take some years of Labour to try and boost reform up, but the left are (understandably) too afraid of the Tories to deviate much from Labour. So with Tories chasing Reform votes and Labour chasing Tory votes, Reform are essentially pulling the strings of politics without even being elected. In france Macron is very unpopular he simply can't hold them off alone - in our system, should Labour go the same way we have no defenses against them.
Point is there's no system that guarantees the far right never get power, ultimately if thats what people vote for then it is, but I think it's a mistake to fall into the trap of thinking that rigging the system against them is the best way, because ultimately if they break though or manipulate it the way they have, then we've rigged the system against ourselves too.
Rory comes across as an intelligent, sensible and honest man. We need more of that in politics, whether in power or opposition. Imagine how much could get done by a government full of thoughtful and courageous people. I found a folder marked “today’s government plans towards Utopia”, it was empty.
He'd run for anything that massaged his ego.
At 18:27, I dont know what is the hotter take. He claimed that higher income tax is more redistributive than a wealth tax, and that high income earners wouldnt mind paying more tax. Neither claim was challenged though. A wealth tax that starts at 10 million would mean that the GP's widow would be unaffected, and the popularity of tax lawyers and voting record of high income areas strongly suggest that high salary earners care a lot about their tax bills.
Also you could easily just say that a person's primary home would be exempt.
The issue for the Uk electorate is : 1 The conservaives have 14 years of bad managment behind them, 2 It is obvious that Tories dont feel that consensus can be achieved in calm spaces away from the media. The effect is : Poor government.
🤔The conservatives campaign and watching sunak's speeches you see the five stages of grief in his delivery. We've had denial and anger I think we're on begging?
😅😅😅
Fuck me, is that Han Solo?
Rory argues that we've reached the upper limits of borrowing: "is Britain basically bust?" and doesn't face any challenge.
Britain is bust if it isn't credit worthy, if markets don't believe in viability of government plans.
No-one believed in Truss-onomics because it was obviously nonsense. However a new government could borrow to invest, if it can takes the time to process its plans pay for themselves (invest in renewable energy!).
Rory is looking to the future, the new Labour Government is to create a platform to allow everyone the opportunity to grow the UK and improve their own lot in life, we need can-do, positive, optimistic approaches, we're about to witness a new dawn, let's not squander it. This isn't a spectator game we all need to be players aiming for a win.
There’s a difference between a comfortable majority and such an enormous majority that all the other parties lack space in parliament for talented and intelligent people to make the case for a different way of doing things.
If the right-wing is better represented in the press than in parliament, Starmer will have to react to that instead of the established parties, which I don’t think is good for intelligent debate.
Credits were endless
I am very unsettled by Rory Stewart. He has been courting the centre and the left, but he basically just speaks in rhetorical fallacies and buzzwords in a posh, semi-authoritive accent, much like a mild Rees-Mogg. Completely disagree with his argument to moderation, it means nothing but is used constantly. There's is nothing inherently virtuous with the middle ground, in fact it's the shit in which fascism roots and grows. Just because he speaks politely and doesn't guffaw like Farage or dogwhistle like Braverman doesn't mean he is more progressive.
Fascism has quite literally only ever grown when the centre has collapsed allowing both the hard left and the hard right to go mental
If fascism grows from the centre as you claim doesn't that mean starmer's labour is feeding fascism as he's a centrist?
I don't mind RS as he was a more moderate Tory who is out there keeping moderate ideas alive. The issue with a supermajority came from the Tories becoming completely lazy and degenerate and focused on culture wars. They would not make a decent opposition, it would be a pantomime. Labour would not be challenged properly anyway. You need a moderate Tory party to challenge effectively. I'd prefer a sensible opposition and if that is the Lib Dems so be it.
Something no one said was if Keir did push through these various things and they were unpopular it would one play into the hands of the Reform crowd and two possibly lose him the next election. He’s in a bit of a damned if you damned if you don’t scenario.
I think it comes down to the timing. If he pushed it through at the beginning of the parliament, some people might get upset (hopefully some others might accept although they don't like the policies, they'll give them a chance). They'll then give themselves 3+ years for the benefits to be seen, and convince those who were unhappy that the policies were the right thing to do because they can personally see the benefits. Then when they are pushed through in say 18 months of the beginning of the parliament, you then start focusing on a more popular policy agenda and start preparing for the next election. A big majority will definetly help with that, and MPs that can be whipped (a lot of new MPs might let in some wierdos).
@@user-tg2km maybe but it does worry me. The prescription with the sub 30 years olds in my family is they’re taxed too much. But they’re all on around 22k and struggling to make ends meet if they live on their own.
@@EmiSuperTrans71 I just used the tax calculator on gov.uk and for someone on £22,000, they would pay £2639 a year on tax, which is a rate of 12%. And wages should be higher I agree there. But in reality most people in their 20s struggle to make ends meet for a long time, although it seems even more of a struggle now with the price increases of the last few years. But no matter who is in government, in a few years they will be a better off, it's just the nature of things.
@@EmiSuperTrans71People on 22k do NOT pay a lot of tax.
@user-tg2km Yes this is true it had always been common for people on their 20s to get house mates. I'm almost 40 and when I was 20 two decades ago when the country was in a better position, all of my friends had house mates or still lived with their parents. That's even when VAT was lower so everything was cheaper.
Thanks guys - really good to see Rory on your podcast.
I was a bit disappointed by this.
Not having Rory Stewart respond after the 'you can't debate hate' point was the sort of trick Fox news do. You shouldn't invite someone on and then just shout your opinion unchallenged. It's especially odd as that opinion is fundamentally undemocratic (even though I do sympathize with it to a degree).
Nish introducing Rory like he was some sort of far-right figure with mad tory views was hilarious. Either you have disappeared so far into leftist popularism you can't see the center with a telescope or you don't know who you are interviewing.
I'm fairly left wing myself, and have enjoyed this pod, but now I feel like a bright light has been shone on how shallow it is.
Thoroughly agree, it had that "win via the video edit" feel of a propaganda news piece which these two don't need, as they've got the moral high ground usually anyway. And portraying Rory as someone representative of the "other side" is laughable.
Rory is wrong about wealth tax. You could possibly argue that there might need to be a structure for owning properties, that won't hurt people without other resources, that haven't invested in a property as a way of shielding their wealth. But you do need wealth tax, as the richest people mainly become richer by other means than income. Some do invest in properties, but mostly it is stocks. And the way they can borrow against their stock portfolio means that they can have access to money that isn't taxed.
And regarding national debt. As long as the borrowing is for actually investment in growth of the economy, or to deal with climate adoptations (save the economy), there is no issue with debt. What he said about Truss was completely misleading, she wanted to borrow for things that would not grow the economy. Britain, like sweden need a lot of housing investment, to drive down cost, and thus provide housing near the hubs of economic growth. Britain also needs to invest in energy efficiency upgrades of houses. And large part of Europe need to climate adopt housing, including energy efficient heating and cooling, as that is health related, and done right, also helps with dealing with energy issues, in terms of price and planning.
Just because he's somewhat charismatic and plausible doesn't mean it's OK to forget that Stewart is entirely a Tory.
Stewart is not a Tory in any sence
@@robertsandison2298 You must be thinking of some Stewart who wasn't a Conservative MP
As a proud American Democrat, I am sadly jealous of you Brits right now
Having seen a couple of clips of Biden's debate performance, you have my deepest sympathies. Of course, even if he had to have a lobotomy he'd still be smarter than Trump and more capable but it's going to be really hard to get dimwits to vote in their interest this November. :(
Rory for prime minister, I say.
Rory wanted to be leader and knows nil about economics. The Covid comparison to Sweden was disingenuous or just straight bull, there are a dozen countries that would make a straight comparison.
You can borrow money if you invest it, Liz Truss wanted to borrow for a tax break.
Paul Krugman also said that in the end, productivity is almost everything.
Why the hell is he still associating himself with the Tories at all
Because he's a tory. Even if he's pretending not to be. "I didn't mean the bad votes. The nasty whips made me do it!". He chose to be a tory mp.
Can Rory explain about Le Cercle, a CIA funded group he once chaired??
Stewart an advocate for the failed/failing neoliberal consensus. 'What Labour needs to do is change planning to build more houses'. It hasn't worked for the last 14 years, or the 20 years before that. The solution was affordable social housing, that we had. Just like the solution for health was/is the NHS and the solution for water, energy and rail was not giving them all away to the private sector to profit gouge. They were assets on the balance sheet, now they are are publicly subsidised profit machines. Rory has no answers.
Seems to me that Rory is insisting that the left wing growing more left-wing must inevitably cause the right wing to grow more right-wing in response. On the contrary, we've seen around the world that the right wing growing more extreme has only caused the left to become more centrist or even explicitly right-wing. Frankly if there's a healthy, effective left wing majority in a fair system I would expect the right wing opposition would have to rise to their level, not sink even further.
I like Rory and listen to ‘The rest is politics’ regularly as he is always well informed. However, despite him being intellectually light years ahead of Starmer, Sunak and ‘the others’, who are all rubbish leaders…He would be better than any of them but I feel he is lacking strong leadership qualities. Sorry Rory.
he was chancellor under boris do not forget.
Are you talking about Rory, or Rishi? Rory definitely wasn't chancellor.
The idea that Rory Stweart is a 'compassionate Tory' is laughable. Scratch the surface, and he supports austerity and all the other vile policies. His counterpoints are always built on a strawman of the alternatives. Eg. His idea that austerity is necessary/essential/unavoidable because the economy is in such poor shape ignores that austerity caused it to be so FFS. And the covid/Ukraine defence ignores that we we going down the drain of austerity and trickle down policies before 2020
One study estimates 140,000 dead from austerity.
I'm so glad to see someone else thinks this. All this talk of him being reasonable is just because he speaks slowly and amicably, and always begins his answers by agreeing with people before explaining why they're wrong.
In this interview he defends austerity, insinuates that people should vote Tory to avoid Starmergeddon, kinda implies we were wrong to spend money on COVID, etc.
Utterly rank views but said in such a non-confrontational way that they just slip through the cracks and it makes me utterly furious 😂
Exactly
💯
Tory's that voted for austerity over and over should be shunned forever.
Much like war criminals like Alastair Campbell who Rory has buddies up with.
@@70Freefallifyand the (sparsely populated) Sweden false equivalence is a shameful distortion of reality. I stopped listening to his podcast with Campbell because Stewart gets away with so much rubbish it’s infuriating
@@Notalloldpeople yah the 'for some unknown reason' bit really grated on me. It felt flagrantly dishonest.
Honestly I tried listening to The Rest of Politics but I just couldn't get passed it being a flagrant attempt at reputational laundering by two absolutely awful people who have caused an unforgivable amount of harm.
Come on, challenge him when he dismisses wealth taxes with the widow example! £10 million in assets isn't a poor old widow!
Who is this Alfred E. Neuman character who keeps cropping up. I knew he had to be a Tory.
Wealth tax on millionaires and billionaires that have asset rich companies that buy everyones housing and land. 18:27
As an avid follower of The Rest is Politics, where the hosts have mutual respect and value their audience… I’m having trouble warming to these two hosts who seem to be competing for the award of most irritating human 😬
Glad you enjoy listening to a war criminal and tory scum. Those two are responsible for a lot of innocent people's deaths.
The Gilet returns!
That intro was a hard watch
Consolidated wealth is destroying the buying power of income.
Rory's a jolly nice chap, and a floppy cloistered ignoramus. If it was anyone else you'd assume they were lying.
Throwing out the prediction Rory will launch 'New Conservatives' in a similar way to Blair's new labour just before the next election and will get in the election after...
not enough right wingers in the country. tories only ever won because they were the only right leaning party. now we have reform too. most people arent right wing.
Which is why he should join Labour
@@blanctonia TBF Starmer has pretty much done this to the Labour party...