Speaker 1: Jilda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Earlier this month,
Speaker 2: Justin Trudeau resigned as Canada's Prime Minister, marking the end
Speaker 2: of his nine years in office. Trudeau was also one
Speaker 2: of the last leaders standing from an era of younger
Speaker 2: left leaning or liberal politicians. Alongside the likes of Finland's
Speaker 2: Son of Maarn and our own Jacindra Dern, who garnered
Speaker 2: global attention for bringing a fresher approach to politics, that
Speaker 2: era seems well and truly over. Last year, more than
Speaker 2: sixty countries went to the polls, and many countries saw
Speaker 2: voters swing to the right or voting against incumbent governments
Speaker 2: rather than necessarily voting in favor of the opposition. Peter
Speaker 2: Frankopan is an author and professor of global history at
Speaker 2: Oxford University and joined us on the Front Page last
Speaker 2: year to preview the year of elections. He joins us
Speaker 2: today on the Front Page to discuss the shifting sense
Speaker 2: of global politics. Peter, I've seen some commentary around Justin
Speaker 2: Trudeau's resignation as being the latest casualty of the pronounced
Speaker 2: shift to the right taking place in many Western democracies.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's fair.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. It's so hard to generalize, you know,
Speaker 1: we see these patterns and assume that everything must be
Speaker 1: the same in every single country. I think what is
Speaker 1: interesting is that this year that's just gone by, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four was the year in which more people voted
Speaker 1: than at any time ever in human history. And one
Speaker 1: of the themes that was consistent around the world was
Speaker 1: it was almost impossible for a party to stay in power.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter whether you were left or right. Voters
Speaker 1: felt that they're not being well served by the people
Speaker 1: who they put into put into office. So some of it,
Speaker 1: I think is about the big the bigger picture about
Speaker 1: what's actually going on. Is it that people don't like Trudeau?
Speaker 1: Is it that people don't like the right the left?
Speaker 1: Is it populism? And I guess one of the things
Speaker 1: that's really important is that we're living in an age
Speaker 1: of revolutions, but we're also in an age of transitions.
Speaker 1: You know, whatever your political persuasions or views, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got obviously a major climate reorganization, these new technologies
Speaker 1: that you know, we don't quite know how they're going
Speaker 1: to change the world around us. We've got demographics that
Speaker 1: are changing quite quickly, a big shift of political and
Speaker 1: economic power, lots of states that are more ambitious than
Speaker 1: they maybe used to be. And I guess in that
Speaker 1: sort of sense of uncertainty, you want someone who's going
Speaker 1: to set a course for you and has a vision
Speaker 1: that says, this is what's going on and this is
Speaker 1: what the future lies in store. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the challenges a lot of politicians have had is
Speaker 1: that they're not used to having to take that long
Speaker 1: term view. So I don't know whether you could use
Speaker 1: what's happening in Canada to judge these big shifts in
Speaker 1: different parts of the world, but I think that there's
Speaker 1: you know, people are not very happy right now. You know,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to see a country anywhere on the
Speaker 1: planet where people are really pleased with their leadership. And
Speaker 1: that's not just in democracies too. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: all about fundamentals, and if you think that tomorrow is
Speaker 1: going to be better than today, you're much more forgiving. But
Speaker 1: I think in most parts of the world, people think
Speaker 1: that the world and tomorrow is going to be more
Speaker 1: scary and worse.
Speaker 3: Every morning I've woken up as Prime Minister, I've been
Speaker 3: inspired by the resilience, the generosity and the determination of Canadians.
Speaker 3: It is the driving force of every single day I
Speaker 3: have the privilege of serving in this office. That is
Speaker 3: why since twenty fifteen, I've fought for this country for you.
Speaker 2: Well, going back to twenty fifteen, when Trudeau became Canada's
Speaker 2: Prime minister, I remember how much excitement there was on
Speaker 2: social media about this, you know, good looking, well spoken,
Speaker 2: fresh faced politician coming onto the world stage. And we
Speaker 2: saw that actually again two years later here in New
Speaker 2: Zealand when Jacindra Ardrn became our Prime minister. What was
Speaker 2: it about that time do you think that led to
Speaker 2: that global excitement in these types of I guess people's politicians.
Speaker 1: I think ten years ago, you know, we were coming
Speaker 1: out of the horrors of the Great Financial Crisis, you know,
Speaker 1: people feeling that that you know, maybe the all the
Speaker 1: generations had messed stuff up for us, and there was
Speaker 1: a kind of you know the freshness of people like
Speaker 1: Jacinda Adrn and Justin Trudeau, you know, David Cameron and
Speaker 1: Nick Klegg. They were all young as leaders. You know,
Speaker 1: Cameron had never had a government post, never had been
Speaker 1: a shadow and never even been a shadow minister before
Speaker 1: he became primes here in the UK twenty ten. And
Speaker 1: I think there was just a lot there was something
Speaker 1: in the air that people felt that it was really
Speaker 1: exciting that there were these new telephones we could all connect,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea that there were new ways that
Speaker 1: you could share information on Twitter. And now a lot
Speaker 1: of those things that we all thought were going to
Speaker 1: be exciting look like they're slightly poisonous or toxic, you know,
Speaker 1: the social media. We sort of are aware that that's
Speaker 1: really bad for young people and their sort of interactions
Speaker 1: with each other, completely compulsive and in fact, just over
Speaker 1: the water from you guys, Australia banned social media for
Speaker 1: young people. The idea that we were going to have
Speaker 1: automation and robotics that will make our lives easier. People
Speaker 1: are now worrying about how they're actually going to pay
Speaker 1: their bills if we all get replaced by by robots.
Speaker 1: But I think there was something about that first wave
Speaker 1: of a new, brave, new world that we sort of
Speaker 1: slightly got wrong, that we weren't all going to sit
Speaker 1: around the campfire and hold hands and sing songs and
Speaker 1: all get rich and old together. Suddenly the world looks
Speaker 1: a lot more dangerous. But I think there was a
Speaker 1: moment ten years ago of optimism, hope, and younger leaders
Speaker 1: who could sort of frame what they thought was going
Speaker 1: to happen. You know, Barack Obama was part of that
Speaker 1: story too. Looking back on it, I wonder how many
Speaker 1: of those leaders we all thought look the part, and
Speaker 1: we could all imagine them dropping in for dinner with
Speaker 1: us and sharing a drink and having a good chat
Speaker 1: about lots of different things. How many of them were
Speaker 1: quite superficial and actually under delivered. I think that that's
Speaker 1: quite a long list. Macro probably is joining that club
Speaker 1: at the moment, as well as a lot of leaders
Speaker 1: around the world. And there was something of the kind
Speaker 1: of of an excitement a decade ago that's not here Today.
Speaker 4: All ten of the world's most populated countries half leaders
Speaker 4: or a leader elect over the age of seventy. Compare
Speaker 4: that to a decade ago when that was true for
Speaker 4: only one country.
Speaker 5: Well more than half of the world at this point
Speaker 5: lives in a country where a leader is over seventy.
Speaker 4: And those leaders are on average more than forty years
Speaker 4: older than their population's median age.
Speaker 2: Well, when we spoke to you last and you mentioned
Speaker 2: this before, it was the year of elections. Over sixty
Speaker 2: countries went to the polls last year and there were
Speaker 2: some left leaning or liberal victories, which will get too so,
Speaker 2: but the big trend was a shift to the right,
Speaker 2: or often the far right. We saw what's leading this
Speaker 2: shift to embracing these populist leaders.
Speaker 1: Do you think, oh, people want simple answers, that's it.
Speaker 1: You know, you people have lost lost the patience to
Speaker 1: hear that problems are complex. So someone who stands up
Speaker 1: and gives a one line answer saying, you know, it's
Speaker 1: all about immigration, that's just stopped people coming. That sort
Speaker 1: of sounds simple, and it sounds that, you know, it's dramatic,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like it's action. One of the problems
Speaker 1: with populist is that they overpromise and then under deliver,
Speaker 1: you know, because these problems are complex and it's very
Speaker 1: hard to have a single solution. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think that that people have got frustrated with the lack
Speaker 1: of action, and you know, buy and large. What tends
Speaker 1: to happen as a historian, and I'm not here to
Speaker 1: defend the far right far left. You know, obvious you
Speaker 1: probably could imagine when we met Chelsea pretty pretty centrist
Speaker 1: in wanting to hear lots of opinions and will split
Speaker 1: the difference down the middle, but buy in larger habits
Speaker 1: In history is populists who promise action and promise results
Speaker 1: tend to make complicated issues worse rather than better. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's a real challenge for democracies that we
Speaker 1: find leaders who can actually make improvements and who actually
Speaker 1: understand how difficult the job is and can explain that
Speaker 1: and communicate it to voters. And you know, if you
Speaker 1: can do that, voters are not stupid. Often they're smarter
Speaker 1: than the politicians they put into office. But it require
Speaker 1: requires a special ability to be able to communicate and
Speaker 1: to get people to trust you. And they'll trust you
Speaker 1: if they can see that you're working hard. They can
Speaker 1: trust you if they think that you are really getting
Speaker 1: stuck in. And one of the problems that people like
Speaker 1: Trudeau had was that, you know, if you get photographed
Speaker 1: dancing at a Taylor Swift concert while people worrying about
Speaker 1: about paying the bills, you know, it's not a great look.
Speaker 1: And if you lose you know, if you if you
Speaker 1: lose that common touch, you lose the dressing room. And
Speaker 1: when that happens, you know you're you're looking for a
Speaker 1: new job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, do you think that cultivating that global online attention?
Speaker 2: You mentioned him at the Taylor Swift concert.
Speaker 4: Luzeal And five Minister just send Ardern, what are you
Speaker 4: doing here?
Speaker 1: Saved my name?
Speaker 2: I came out.
Speaker 1: I thought, that's how the show.
Speaker 5: Works, so right right, that's how Jeff Poblum always.
Speaker 2: Gets in here. Letting yourself become a celebrity. Does that
Speaker 2: do more harm than good long term?
Speaker 1: I guess so. I mean, God, God knows what you
Speaker 1: and I would do if we were Prime Minister and
Speaker 1: Foreign Minister in New Zealand. If you get offered a ticket,
Speaker 1: or you even even I dare say even you guys
Speaker 1: in New Zealand occasionally have to buy your own tickets
Speaker 1: rather than get give them for free. It's quite hard
Speaker 1: to live your life constantly in public under public pressure.
Speaker 1: But you do need to have quite good judgment. I
Speaker 1: mean that I think is the key to to you know,
Speaker 1: having a happy relationship at home, to being a parent,
Speaker 1: to being a child. So you know, we all have
Speaker 1: friends who've just got some of them got really good judgment,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately we've all got a few friends who've got
Speaker 1: really bad judgment. But you know, you want someone who's
Speaker 1: able to recognize that they sometimes have to change how
Speaker 1: they're doing things. And you know, it's hard if you're
Speaker 1: if you're a celebrity and people are always either saying
Speaker 1: good things about your bad things about you, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to live your life where you're being
Speaker 1: judged all the time. But that's what happens when you
Speaker 1: work for the people who vote for you. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's a tricky one about how to get
Speaker 1: it always right. But for sure, right now, with people
Speaker 1: worried about their paychecks, interest rates being high, the world
Speaker 1: becoming tougher, you know, we want to know that our
Speaker 1: leaders are working full time, flat out and taking it
Speaker 1: really seriously. You know, no one's stupid that you've got
Speaker 1: to have time to recharge your batteries, but probably it's
Speaker 1: a good idea to do that in private and ideally
Speaker 1: maybe not in the Maldives or somewhere where people know
Speaker 1: that you're going to be there, but just try and
Speaker 1: get on with your private life. In private.
Speaker 2: It also feels like a lot of leaders aren't being
Speaker 2: voted for on their personal popularity anymore. I guess the
Speaker 2: UK is perhaps the best example of this right now.
Speaker 2: Labour won that huge majority last year, but it felt
Speaker 2: really like a vote against the Conservatives and kicking them
Speaker 2: out after fourteen years. And in Australia as well. I
Speaker 2: know that Peter Dudden, one of the most unliked politicians,
Speaker 2: looks pretty primed to be winning in Australia this year,
Speaker 2: and now you're seeing a pretty mixed polling going back
Speaker 2: to the UK of Sir Keir Starmer and his government.
Speaker 2: Our deputy political editor at The Herald, Thomas Coglan put
Speaker 2: it this way last year, saying, it's.
Speaker 1: Just, you know, as an era of like relatively unpopular
Speaker 1: people sort of jooking it out for setne.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's fair.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's it's one thing getting into the
Speaker 1: team and it's another thing going out to bat.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know what other analogy apart from
Speaker 1: from cricket to use, but you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's a different story getting into office and sometimes you
Speaker 1: can you get there because your opponents are making mistake
Speaker 1: of the mistake covered mistake. Sometimes it's because people seeing
Speaker 1: you hope for change. But once you get the keys
Speaker 1: to ten Downing Street, or once you once you once
Speaker 1: you get elected, it's about how do you get your
Speaker 1: agenda up and running, how do you actually get into action?
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's a tricky It's a very
Speaker 1: different thing being in opposition to being in power. And
Speaker 1: one of the problems about getting into office in democratic
Speaker 1: states is that quite often those in the most senior positions,
Speaker 1: not just the prime minister, hasn't got management experience, hasn't
Speaker 1: had training of how to run big offices and order
Speaker 1: the foreign section, all all ministers, and so suddenly you're
Speaker 1: caught in the headlights. And then you've got civil servants
Speaker 1: who are telling you this is the way you should
Speaker 1: do things, and you need to have lots of briefings
Speaker 1: and be scared of your own shadow because the press
Speaker 1: are going to come after you. I think one of
Speaker 1: the challenges in a lot of democracies today is the
Speaker 1: lack of connection between the backbone and the brain. So
Speaker 1: there are lots of clever leaders around the world, and
Speaker 1: there are quite a few brave ones, but you need
Speaker 1: both of those characteristics together to work in harmony. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that's been striking for
Speaker 1: sure in the UK is how nervous labor have been.
Speaker 1: And when you're sort of worrying about what's going to
Speaker 1: go wrong, then the new cycle comes for you and
Speaker 1: you get problems about who's paid for your glasses or
Speaker 1: your suits, or which constantly be going to. But I
Speaker 1: think what all of us here have been waiting for
Speaker 1: the last six months is to really see the new
Speaker 1: government set out its stall of what it thinks its
Speaker 1: priorities are. Where where do they think that the UK
Speaker 1: needs to be in twenty thirty five. I mean, as
Speaker 1: it happens, I was at a speech of David Lamio,
Speaker 1: Foreign Secretary in the UK, talking exactly in these terms,
Speaker 1: but that that's the first time I've heard him or
Speaker 1: a senior government minister here even kind of engage with
Speaker 1: that since since the election. And as that's very similar
Speaker 1: to Australia, very similar to New Zealand and plenty of
Speaker 1: other countries too. I mean last year our French cousins
Speaker 1: across the water here from us in the UK, they
Speaker 1: managed to have four prime ministers, which it even beats
Speaker 1: the British record where we had three two years ago
Speaker 1: with Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Rishie Sunak. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that that turbulence at the top speaks to
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, there's a real sense of
Speaker 1: uncertainty and you're you know, you're worried about playing for
Speaker 1: your place and again, whatever sport you might like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're nervous about being kicked out of the team,
Speaker 1: then then you never perform as well as if you
Speaker 1: if you know you're going to be in for a while,
Speaker 1: and you know that that's something that hasn't quite fired
Speaker 1: here in the UK since the election.
Speaker 5: The thesis going into the election amongst the chattering class
Speaker 5: of which I'm a member here was that the red
Speaker 5: states were getting redder and the blue states were getting bluer.
Speaker 5: That should not be completely false. Almost every state, I
Speaker 5: think except one, moved somewhat to the right. Some of
Speaker 5: them moved very very hard to the right, including California,
Speaker 5: New York, New Jersey. Look at Donald Trump only lost
Speaker 5: New Jersey by five percentage points. I mean, that's fewer
Speaker 5: than he lost in Virginia four years ago.
Speaker 2: Where does this shift I guess in going towards the
Speaker 2: far right or right or people getting fed up with
Speaker 2: governments who aren't particularly hitting goals. I guess using another
Speaker 2: sporting analogy, How does that sit with historical context? Have
Speaker 2: we seen big swings like this in the past.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean the most time in history people didn't
Speaker 1: get a chance to vote for their leaders. You know,
Speaker 1: you had someone who was a tribal chief or a
Speaker 1: king who you decided what was right for you, and
Speaker 1: usually started by what was right for them and then
Speaker 1: filtering things downwards. So you know, you've got lots of
Speaker 1: times when that happens. I mean, you know the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: you know, as rights got extended. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we sometimes forget how recent full voting is. I mean,
Speaker 1: women weren't allowed to vote in the UK until after
Speaker 1: the First World War had ended. Women in France weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to go to work without written authority from their
Speaker 1: husbands until the nineteen sixties. So you know, the idea
Speaker 1: that that of equalities and of freedoms and are be
Speaker 1: able to choose your leaders. You know, you could take
Speaker 1: the view as a historian like I do that, it's
Speaker 1: quite unusual and it's quite it's quite modern. I mean,
Speaker 1: what's interesting, I think is that there are countries where
Speaker 1: the right has been booted out, like in Poland, Centrist
Speaker 1: party ader Donald Tusk pushed out the far right, and
Speaker 1: the first thing that they've been trying, the first thing
Speaker 1: they did as when they got into power, was to say, look,
Speaker 1: judge us on what we do, and if we solve
Speaker 1: the kinds of problems about things like people worried about migration,
Speaker 1: economic growth, pluralism, trying to tone down some of the
Speaker 1: more tricky and poisonous debates about identities and you know,
Speaker 1: and culture wars. Then if you can do that and
Speaker 1: have rational conversations for people you don't agree with, but
Speaker 1: to do so in a mature way, then then then
Speaker 1: the voters fall in behind you because they see what
Speaker 1: you're trying to do, and so that there are ways
Speaker 1: that that can happen. But I mean, I don't think
Speaker 1: you need me to remind what happens when you get
Speaker 1: populism into power, and that starts with you know, obviously
Speaker 1: starts with Germany the nineteen thirties, but you know that's
Speaker 1: what the Russian Revolution did too. That's what happened with
Speaker 1: Mao as well in China. That's why we Paul Potts
Speaker 1: in Cambodia. You know, that's what happens with men is
Speaker 1: in Ethiopia. And if you have strong men, and they
Speaker 1: typically are men who get into power, then you can
Speaker 1: you can you can persuade your followers to inflict terrible
Speaker 1: things on people who look different, worship in a different way,
Speaker 1: or who they're not part of your your plans. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think we need to be care in
Speaker 1: protecting freedoms and democracies. But you know, when you have
Speaker 1: the richest man in the world owning a major social
Speaker 1: media platform and trying to dislodge prime ministers and elected states,
Speaker 1: then you can see that the tools we've got, you know,
Speaker 1: we're like teenage we're like teenagers. We don't know what
Speaker 1: our limits are. And until those things get resolved, you know,
Speaker 1: then I think there's still more of this kind of
Speaker 1: uncertainty to come.
Speaker 2: What do you think the future looks like for those
Speaker 2: good looking, globally popular politicians.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a gentle reminder to listeners in New Zealand
Speaker 1: that most of the world don't live in democracies. The
Speaker 1: pushback against democracy for the last fifteen years is every
Speaker 1: single year the world's become less free. So the default
Speaker 1: we all think is that everybody in the world wants
Speaker 1: to be like us, admires our systems and so on.
Speaker 1: And if you have that kind of system where people
Speaker 1: vote for you, if you're charming, young, handsome, beautiful, charming,
Speaker 1: that goes a long way. But you know, content is
Speaker 1: more important than what you look like. And I don't
Speaker 1: think the voters are that stupid that, you know, if
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift stands for office, or you know, take your
Speaker 1: pick of who you think is the best looking, most charming,
Speaker 1: you need to be able to back it up with results.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you can't do that, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how charming you are or otherwise. It's all about outcomes.
Speaker 1: I mean, in fact, I had a charity dinner with
Speaker 1: Alistair Campbell, who does a very very successful podcast globally
Speaker 1: it's not just in the UK, called The Rest Is Politics,
Speaker 1: and you know he's been he was involved as Tony
Speaker 1: Bless sort of gatekeeper and media manager. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that he was talking about is
Speaker 1: how important is to have an agenda that you set
Speaker 1: out how you have to be brave. But you know,
Speaker 1: and if you don't do that then then then it's
Speaker 1: quite right that you lose your place in the queue.
Speaker 1: You know, these are these are tricky times. But the
Speaker 1: charm of a photogenic young leader. That's great as long
Speaker 1: as the photogenetic young leader delivers results. If they don't,
Speaker 1: then they're just a photogenet young leader.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Peter.
Speaker 1: Absolute pleasure, Chelsea. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
Speaker 2: Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 2: tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.