WEBVTT - What Centrist Politics Is Getting Wrong 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:07.480 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.919 I feel that we talk obsessively that the problem in 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:23.680 politics is at the extremes, far right, far left. I 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.200 think the problem is actually in the center. 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.880 Welcome back to voter Nomics, where politics and markets collide. 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:34.559 This year, voters around the world have the ability to 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:39.280 affect markets, countries and economies like never before, so we've 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.760 created this series to help you make sense of it all. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:44.880 I'm alegro Stratton and I'm Adrian Woodridge. 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.160 In a week of difficulties for political leaders around the world. 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.400 I Love Schultz in Germany just about clinging on in 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:56.080 an important election, Prime Minister Michelle Barnier in France in 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.400 power but struggling to see how he will get his 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.440 agenda through the French Parliament. And in the UK, Keir 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.880 Starmer hit by a scandal around free gifts that pretty 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.880 much nobody saw coming. We're going to talk more to 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.360 the gentleman you heard at the top of the podcast. 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.240 Michael Ignatief was the leader of Canada's Liberal Party from 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.040 twenty or six to twenty eleven. He led his party 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:22.240 to an historic defeat. More of that interview later, but 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.800 first of all, we're heading into the final stretch of 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.320 this year of elections, aren't we, Adrian and I think 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.199 actually the realities even for some of those elections which 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:32.840 have been and gone and we have conclusive results like 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.600 the one in the UK, it is not plain sailing 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.400 for those new governments. It's quite a startling turnaround, isn't it. 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.880 It's quite extraordinary. We have the Labor Body conference it 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.800 order to be a great celebration. You know, Labor has 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.720 just come back to power with a massive majority of 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:52.040 the tours have collapsed. They have i think the goodwill 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.040 of most people in the country, and yet it's a 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:59.240 pretty miserable atmosphere reading between the lines, partly because of 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:04.360 this extraordinary scandal over accepting gifts that Starmer has got 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.840 itself involved in, partly because of his sort of miserablest 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.600 a gender. He's talked constantly about how bad things are 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.360 and now they're trying to change it a bit, but 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:15.720 in a very performative way. But the problems of this 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.240 country are really very deep and it's going to take 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.880 a long time to fix them. It's difficult for you know, 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.800 what are essentially centrist politicians to come back into power 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:26.320 and you know, righte onto victory. 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.440 But Sir Adrian, I'm interested in your take on the 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:38.079 free clothes, get tickets, spectacles, uh, personal shoppers. Froth Or 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:39.600 says something deeper. 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.079 You only get one chance to make a first impression, 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.079 and their first impression has not been good. And they've 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.040 also acted in you know, hypocrisy is the greatest of 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.080 all sins in the democracy, and they've been hypocritical. They 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.680 lacerated the Tories for corruption, for party gates and all 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:57.760 the rest of it. They come in to pow and 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.919 they do what most people consider as be very similar things. 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.440 When Rachel Reeves made her speech to conference, the backdrop 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.960 was something we called it read out the booming gloom. 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:08.840 You know, it's gone too far, And as you say, 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:10.880 they all were sort of instructed to go out and 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.560 course correct and be less gloomy. And one of the 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:15.960 nuggets in her speech was this idea that you know, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.480 the investment is the answer, and that maybe even the 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:21.840 government treasury rules might be looked at in order to 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.160 allow borrowing to invest. So I think they're trying to 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.799 say to their supporters, are who are immensely grumpy that 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.360 they've had to go out and defend these free clothes, 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.560 which they don't think are defensible. They've contorted themselves into 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.200 all sorts of weird arguments in order to make the case, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.560 which they're not comfortable with. So they're having to say 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.080 to their own followers, look, you know, there is a 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.520 point to this labor government after all. Just just wait 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:46.720 until the budget, which is six weeks away. 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:47.320 Yeah. 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.720 The problem is that they sort of have this mentality 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.520 of basically saying, invest in Britain, We're a basket case. 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.520 I mean, they've spent so long saying how awful things 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:58.839 are and how many deep structural problems Britain has, which 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.080 it does that it's also now very difficult to get 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.880 foreign investors to come here and invest. Also, a lot 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.440 of the solutions to the shortage of money, for example, 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.480 such as public private partnerships, which I think they will 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:13.760 revive in some sort of way. In the past they've 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.080 demonized and said is a terrible set of ideas. 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.080 Adrian looking further afield France, you know, the kissed armor 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.520 could take some comfort from thinking he's you know, he's 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.600 not alone looking across to France, where Michelle Barnier has 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.640 become Prime Minister, but it is still not clear how 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.320 he can get through Parliament what he'd like to get through. 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.719 And then Olas Schultz in Germany just about clung on 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:38.640 in an election at the weekend, but it was a 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.200 very very close wrung thing. So, as is the theme 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:45.680 of this podcast, the travails of world leaders continue. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:52.760 Oh absolutely, Barnier is trapped in a really paralyzed political system, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.080 and Schultz, I mean, the way the only way he 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:56.960 sort of survived I think in this election was not 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.960 appearing himself, you know, he sort of he sort of disappeared. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.880 He hid himself during the election campaign because he's so 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.440 so unpopular. He's a drag on the ticket. But I 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.040 think there's something bigger here that's going on, not just 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.880 France and not just Germany, Europe as a project. I 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.080 read that the Draggy Report on European economic performance, and 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.880 not only is it incredibly depressing, but the one solution 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:23.800 that Draggy seems to think we need to have, which 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.640 is much more centralized investment in high tech and the 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:29.520 rest of it, seems to be something that we can't do. 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.040 So it's hard to see the great phrase the light 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.440 at the end of the tunnel, which Kisamoril and doubtedly 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.840 use in his speech today. It's hard to see any 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:39.360 light at the end of the tunnel for the whole 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:43.240 of the European continents, so not good news for anybody 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:43.719 at the moment. 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:45.520 Didn't somebody want to say that the lights from the 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.080 end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.480 Be careful of those lights at the end of the probably. 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.720 Okay, Now let's get to our main conversation of the podcast. 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.000 We're joined by former politician and professor in the history 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.279 department of the Central European University in Budapest, where he 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:17.520 was also president for five years, Michael Ignatief. Michael led 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.560 Canada's Liberal Party and official opposition from twenty ozh six 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:24.440 until he lost his seat in the twenty eleven election. 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:27.640 That elections saw his party win the fewest seats in 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:30.880 its history and be reduced to third party status for 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.560 the first time ever. Now, Michael, we often have analysts 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.800 and academics and writers on this podcast, but we don't 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:41.040 frequently have politicians or people like yourself who've actually been 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.720 on the front line. Before we get onto sort of 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.719 high minded questions of voted discontent and so on. Just 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:49.920 talk to us about you know, just for me reading 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.840 out those sentences, fewer seats in history and so on. 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:55.360 Is it still painful? 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.400 Oh? Sure, sure, you don't go into Pola digs unless 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.600 you think you got a pretty good chance of winning. 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.039 And the Liberal Party of Canada was like to think 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.640 of itself as the adults in the room, the natural 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.600 governing party of the country. I think we failed to 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:17.280 respond to the two thousand and eight financial crisis. I 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:22.200 think we failed to understand just how radically destabilizing that 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.400 had been to everybody's expectations and how destructive it was 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.560 to their confidence in the center of Canadian politics. And 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:35.080 so I ran as a centrist, moderate gradualist of a 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:38.600 kind that we'd known for many years, and it didn't 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:44.480 fit the sense of radical destabilization and uncertainty that hit 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:46.960 the Canadian public in two thousand and eight and two 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.920 thousand and nine. So we got clobbered, and to go 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.920 back to where we started it's a very very difficult 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.560 experience to get over. I've had a fantastic time since politics, 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.560 and I'm all fine and don't cry for me, Argentina, 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:04.160 but it wasn't easy. 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.320 I'm can I ask you a little bit about the destabilization. 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.640 I just wonder there was a sort of formula that 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:15.440 liberalism reached, which was economic liberalism to social liberalism, and 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.760 that did brilliantly in the nineteen nineties under Blair and Clinton. 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.280 But are we seeing that formula falling apart everything like 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.440 immigration and public health and all sorts of areas. Do 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.200 we need a new formulation of liberalism to deal with 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.920 the fallout of the economic of the financial crisis and more. 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.240 Andrew, I think there's something to that. I feel that 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.280 we talk obsessively that the problem in politics is at 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:46.920 the extremes, far right, far left. I think the problem 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:51.040 is actually in the center. I'm a liberal, proud liberal, 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.560 but I think we didn't listen at all to the 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.960 white working class that in my childhood was in unions, 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.640 was organized, felt intense pride in the work they were doing, 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:09.319 and then lost income, lost status. From the early nineteen 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:14.280 seventies onwards. We didn't listen or pay attention to the 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:19.160 staggering increase in inequality that began to set in after 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.640 the oil crisis of the seventies, and so instead we 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:28.400 focused this is the more controversial part on a revolution 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:35.080 and inclusion, which men embracing a multicultural society, embracing the 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:40.679 consequences of feminism, bringing racial minorities into the center. I'm 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:44.360 in the universities now, and we've enormously promoted the entry 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:50.920 of recent immigrants, minority groups, women into the heights of 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:56.080 higher education, preaching the doctrine of equality of opportunity. But 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.880 the equality we delivered were for those groups and not 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.960 for the white majority, and I think that's triggered an 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:10.360 enormous backlash and it's threatening the center of politics. Let 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.960 me be clear, I am a passionate believer in the 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:18.880 revolution of inclusion. It's been the best thing that liberalism 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.440 did since nineteen sixty. But I think we neglected to 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:28.520 realize how disruptive it was to the subtle expectations of 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:33.040 the white majority, and that now has left our politics 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:38.800 open to politics of revenge, of politics of resentment, which 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:43.360 simply has to be dealt with. These are good citizens, 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.760 they need to be listened to. We need to think 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.559 this through, but without I woult to want to emphasize 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.280 walking back on the inclusion that I think has done 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:53.640 so much good to society. 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:55.520 Michael, what would you do differently? 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:02.080 Boy? That's such a good question and so difficult. I think, 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.679 first of all, we'd simply acknowledge that this is a problem. 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.760 Instead of acknowledging that it was a problem. We condemned 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:15.800 white working class voters as racist or sexist when we 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:21.840 weren't addressing the politics of feeling disempowered, excluded, and not 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:26.240 listened to. There are racists out there, there are sexists 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:30.040 out there. But we adopted a kind of conviction that 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:37.120 our moral belief in a multicultural, feminist, inclusive society was 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.840 such a self evident good that it didn't need to 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:46.400 be politically defended. And I think we lectured people instead 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.479 of listening to people. That's kind of number one. Number two, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:57.040 since immigration has become the ferocious source of discontent across Europe, 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:04.400 we didn't manage something basic, which is a have a 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:10.280 regular legal immigration stream that is, welcome immigrants through a 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:17.960 legal channel, and secondly, have an extremely tough repatriation strategy 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:24.880 for illegals. The thing that is devastating the fragile consensus 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.559 on immigration is a sense that the country's borders are 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.760 not secure. Is a problem in the United States, it's 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.600 become a problem in Canada. It's a problem in every 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:40.560 European state, and until we re establish the legitimacy of 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:45.680 national borders and the credibility of immigration control, we can't 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.199 sustain what I firmly believe in as the son of immigrants, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:55.160 a regular, lawful immigration stream that compensates for our declining 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.679 birth rate, fills the jobs that need to be filled, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:03.640 and creates avenue of opportunity for the fantastic people who's 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.320 so enrich for example, Britain, Canada, every society. 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.680 I mean, we're talking about twenty eleven when you left power. 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.079 We're now in twenty twenty four. This is thirteen years 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.480 where the dynamics don't seem to be hugely different from 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.160 the ones you're describing as getting wrong in twenty eleven. 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.480 Have you been surprised to watch things over the last 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.960 thirteen years not change and possibly get even worse than 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.240 successive governments not dealing with them. 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.360 I think I am surprised. I think you've got a 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.560 good point there. I think what's staring us in the 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:39.000 face is a capacity problem as well. I'm struck by 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.280 the fact that we have so much difficulty controlling borders. 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:44.960 I mean, in Italy, I get it, it's got such 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:51.680 a huge literal and it's exposed into the Mediterranean. But 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:56.120 I am a bit surprised that two powerful nation states, 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:01.680 Britain and France cannot control these boats. I simply don't 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:05.000 understand it. And then the solutions that are proposed flying 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.320 everybody to Rwanda are so ridiculous that you can't imagine 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:12.840 that they aren't laughed off the table of British politics. 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.400 So there is something very odd about what's going on. 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:21.920 And I think it's corroding not just support for migration, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.280 it's corroding support for the liberal democratic state. If you 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:31.360 can't control your borders, you're failing the primary obligation of 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:33.120 any state, liberal or otherwise. 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.440 But I wonder if there's a sort of strange paradox 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:40.480 here that if liberals, if centrists, fail to deliver policies 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.680 that can be judge in a practical way improving people's 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.440 living standards, they get punished, But if populists fail to 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:51.000 deliver practical solutions to problems, they get rewarded, in the 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:55.120 sense that people ask the more and more extreme populist policies. 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.200 There's a sort of asymmetry here in the way that 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.160 the politics is judged, which is extreme destabilizing. 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.800 That's a very interesting remark, Adrian, and I think it 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.560 has to be true, but it reinforces my point that 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:15.400 the center can hold only so long as the center delivers. 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:20.800 When the center lectures the public, why aren't you more rational? 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.800 Why aren't you more reasonable? Why don't you accept our 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:29.120 entire liberal agenda? And then doesn't deliver the basics that 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:33.560 is a health service you can trust, a secure border, 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:39.520 and some degree of economic stability. Then the credibility of 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.160 the center gets punished, and then, as you say, the 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.840 extremes get rewarded. And that seems to be to capture 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:48.840 some of what's going on with our politics. 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.520 So I mean, let's just stay in the abstract for 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.440 a second before looking perhaps if you at your home 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:57.960 country of Canada. But before that, is this a problem 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.320 of maps, which is that we say that the center 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:02.280 can hold as long as it delivers, But the problem 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:06.320 is delivering. Delivering is now really expensive, and delivering requires 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.880 with all of the problems facing advanced nations around aging 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.280 populations and so on, it just requires a lot of money. 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.680 In therefore, tax increases, and that is not something that 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:15.560 many people vote for. 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:21.600 I think that's certainly true. I live Allegra in Austria, 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:26.800 where the center holds because it's basically a high taxation 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:32.120 environment that manages to hold its legitimacy because it delivers 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:34.800 the trains around time. The health service is pretty good, 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.360 the education is okay, that you get a kind of 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:43.600 balanced equiliverum, high taxation but good public goods. In Britain 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.920 you appear to have in international comparison, low rates of 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:53.920 taxation and very poor public services. And the whole privatization 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:58.320 effort in the nineties seems to have not delivered the 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:03.800 service improvements. You have a kind of constantly discontented electorate 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:08.080 paying more for less, and that's just pulling the center 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:12.040 out of liberal centrist politics. 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.520 Can you talk to us about the Canadian situation right now, 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.760 which is you've got Trudam in power. He's supposed to 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.280 face an election next year, but it could happen at 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.720 any point, couldn't it. Michael, just talk to us about that. 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.919 And apparently he's facing a politician that some people are 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.920 calling a polite Trump. You may not look. 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:37.639 I think that my successor as leader of the party 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:42.040 led the party to a thumping victory in twenty fifteen, 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.280 I left the party in third place, and he took 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.160 it to first place and has been in power ever since. 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.920 But he is now the least popular politician in the country. 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.600 I think the irony there is that I said at 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:01.120 the time he's an actor who fully inhabits the role, 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:06.159 which people thought was a very snarky, unkind remark, but 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.840 actually was meant its praise since I was a poor 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.199 actor who didn't inherit the role. I actually intended it 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.000 his praise. But I think people have got tired of 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:20.000 the act. He's always on message, he always sticks the landing, 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:26.520 every speaking point is hit, and yet the cumulative effect 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:31.400 is of inauthenticity. People simply don't believe it anymore. And 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.960 so he's in that terrible situation of often saying the 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:40.760 right things, but nobody's listening. And I think at the 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.400 moment he faces the prospect of defeat, although he would 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.080 be the last person in Canada to admit it, and 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.119 believes he will lead the party into the next election 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.880 and that he will win the next election. I don't 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.720 quite see how. But one of the great things about 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.760 political leadership is you sometimes have to believe in yourself 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.879 when nobody else does, and that's clearly what he's doing. 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:05.800 As for his opponent, he's facing a man that I 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.400 knew well in the House of Commons, Pierre Polief, who 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:14.480 has an extraordinary story. He's from the Midwest of Canada, 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.840 very poor, difficult childhood. This is enormously in his favor, 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.040 but he's the downside, and this is a feature of 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.479 British politics and other politics. He's never done anything other 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.600 than politics. He's been a staffer since the early twenties. 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:35.639 He's learned and attack dog style of politics, taken straight 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:39.080 from the US Republican Party. And when people say he's 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:43.320 a small version of Trump, I think he's adopted the 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:48.520 entire style of American politics, and it's disturbing that's finding 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.359 an audience in Canada. But because Canada walks around saying 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.760 we're a nicer, kinder America, and our national identity survives 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.359 on invidious comparison with our awful neighbors to this south, 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:06.359 whom we frantically envy but simultaneously despise. But I think 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:11.000 we're gonna get possibly a version of Canadian version of 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.520 Trump in twenty twenty five, and that I think is 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.720 not good for the country. Because the fact about Canada 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:25.280 is that it is this gigantic democracy on tiny population, 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:30.600 on a huge landscape. We're so spread out from Atlantic 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.160 to Pacific to Arctic that the job of a prime 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:39.639 minister is basically one thing, keep the show on the road. 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.840 And you can't keep the show on the road if 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.560 you run one section of the country against the other, 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.920 one group of Canadians against the other. Unity is the 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.600 only thing a Canadian prime minister has to do. And 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.240 I fear that Pierre Poliev has forgotten that. 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:59.840 Because Polief's major proposal is axe attacks, which is, get 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.120 did this forcecoming increase in carbon tax? Do you think 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:05.440 that's putting one bit of the population against another. 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:10.360 Well, he's figured out something that is a real issue 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:15.560 in liberal democratic politics everywhere, which is that climate change 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:22.600 politics is not religion, it's politics. It's highly divisive, and 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:27.359 at a time of rising inflationary pressures on people's household 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:31.840 incomes the prospect of spending money on a carbon levee 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:36.640 on your gasoline is extremely unpopular, and so he's seized 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:40.160 on that and hopes to ride his way to power. 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.960 But it's symptomatic of a wider problem across liberal democracies 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.359 is that climate change policies are becoming more and more 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:52.480 and more unpopular, and so a liberal politics that cares 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:56.560 about climate has got to stick with its convictions. And 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.400 you know, Trudeau has sacrificed some of his legitimacy by 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:05.960 warbbling on carbon tax issues at a time when I 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:07.280 think we need to double down. 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:11.760 You've been very pessimistic about liberal democracy during this talk, 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:14.920 which I resent a bit normally my job when you've 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.360 speeds the mantle. But I wonder if there's anything sort 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.840 of positive that we can think about over the last 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:27.000 year or so, and whether there is a chance that 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:29.600 we may be seeing that sort of the end of Trump, 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:32.879 you know, in the next in the coming election, doesn't 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:36.199 seem to be the leader in this election. Rate Is 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:37.800 there any good news that you can see in the 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:39.119 past and potentially in the future. 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:49.720 Boy, I'm I'm struggling a bit. Yes, I think liberal 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:57.080 democracy is having a very difficult time at the theoretical level. 0:22:57.320 --> 0:22:59.879 And that's not the right way to answer the question, 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:02.560 I know, but let me go there. The reason we 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:05.560 should care about liberal democracy, in my view, is that 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:11.720 it's power checking power to keep the people free. One 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.280 of the things that I think has got lost is 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:17.359 we have a liberal democracy in which we have an 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:23.160 ever more overpowering state that is ever less competent, so 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:27.879 it fills the gap between its power and its actual 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:32.360 competence with lecturing the public, and the public is more 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:36.520 and more impatient with this, when in fact we need 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:40.600 to deliver a liberal politics that really says we care 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:45.480 about your freedom. I don't mean the thatcheri freedom. I 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.560 mean the freedom that is sustained by just good, decent 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:53.359 public goods that we all share. But if you don't 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:56.560 have hospitals that care for your mom and dad, if 0:23:56.600 --> 0:23:59.600 you don't have schools that educate the kids, if the 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:04.400 real way is always late, the liberal democratic vision of 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:09.240 freedom sustained by public goods just begins to collapse. And 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:14.120 my own view is that it does require a very 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:18.320 solid tax space, and that tax space and then is 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:24.640 being eroded by accountants to super rich people who basically 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:28.399 game the system and drain the treasury the resources we 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:32.320 need to sustain public goods for all. And then we 0:24:32.440 --> 0:24:35.600 have to say to middle and upper middle class people, folks, 0:24:35.840 --> 0:24:38.480 if you want a society, if you want a place 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:41.680 that holds together as a place you want your kids 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:43.440 to grow up, and you got to pay for it. 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:48.040 And most liberal politicians, I include myself, are very reluctant 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:49.840 to say, if you want public goods, you got to 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:52.159 pay for But this is what I think we have 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:52.679 to go to. 0:24:53.359 --> 0:24:55.199 We have a labor government here that is trying to 0:24:55.200 --> 0:24:58.920 do exactly what you're saying. But partly because they've handled 0:24:58.920 --> 0:25:01.840 it very badly, taking a lot of phoebees and all 0:25:01.880 --> 0:25:05.640 sorts of weird things, they're not getting the message you costs. 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:08.000 But also because it's difficult, It takes a long time, 0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:10.680 and democracies are impatient places. 0:25:11.280 --> 0:25:17.080 I wish kir Starmer could listen to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 0:25:17.119 --> 0:25:20.480 speeches again, because the thing that old Franklin got right 0:25:20.680 --> 0:25:25.720 is whenever it's really tough, you can't spend the whole 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:30.919 time blaming Herbert Hoover. You can't keep saying there is 0:25:31.000 --> 0:25:34.960