549. Mamdani’s Wrecking Ball and the Rise of Anti-Migrant Vigilantes

How does an opposition party define its identity after it loses? That's the question hanging over American politics this week. Zohran Mamdani has suddenly become much more than a mayor. Every congressional candidate he endorsed one, including two who unseated incumbent Democrats. Some people think it's proof that the Democratic Party is now moving decisively left. But I think the more interesting question is whether New York is telling us anything at all about voters and the midterms. And this week, one of the questions we've received

is whether Zohran Mamdani is the future of the Democratic Party or in reality a gift to the Republicans and Trump. The answer could determine the future of the United States. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. Right now, Fuse Energy's tariffs are up to £200 below the off-gem price cap. Plus, They've just launched a new referral offer that can bring your bill down even further. What I love is the simplicity of it. If you refer a friend, one of those few people who haven't heard about fuse from us every week, and they switch both their gas and electricity, you each get £50 towards your next bill. So it starts with one conversation.

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It's question time with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And we're going to be talking about Zohran Mamdani and what he says about the future of the Democrats in the United States. We're going to be talking about whether there might be a new party in Australia. We're going to talk about some horrible stuff happening in South Africa, in the treatment of their undocumented immigrants there. And we'll maybe have to touch a little bit, I think, at some point, Rory, upon the World Cup. But let's start with Zohran Mamdani.

Catherine in New York. Zohran Mamdani can't run for president himself. that's because he was born in Uganda, not the US, but is he effectively already running a shadow presidential campaign through the candidates he's backing? And if the Democratic Party establishment keeps dismissing New York as a one-off, aren't they making exactly the same mistake they made with Trump in 2015? First thing is what Zohran Mamdani did in New York.

It's amazing and people who haven't been following it. What effectively happened is that he backed three candidates against the Democratic Party establishment, against, in fact, sitting members of Congress who were Democrats. So I don't know whether people can reach for a British analogy, but it would be as though, I don't know,

was in a place where the median income is $52,000. So one of the poorest areas of New York. And in both cases, Zohran Mamdani brought in figures who did many things. I mean, they talked about cost of living, but they were most dramatic because they were radically critical of Israel. These are people very comfortable talking about genocide in Gaza. And in the case of Chevalier, she had some very, very, very, very radical positions. She doesn't believe in prisons.

Just in the run-up to the election, she was asked at an event whether she thought somebody should go to prison for murder, and she wasn't very convinced about that. She's way over on the defund the police thing. But I'll tell you what's really interesting about Zohran Mamdani. We talked about, well, two things really. We talked in the main episode about Andy Burnham and how he showed a bit of ruthlessness. Zohran Mamdani went against people who had actually supported him to become mayor, who had worked with him and worked for him, because he wanted these more. they call them Democrat Socialists. And it's interesting, the terminology in America is so different to ours.

I mean, you know, hard left here means a lot, something very, very different. Donald Trump has already labeled these people as communist, okay? Now, they're very left-wing by American standards. But as you say, New York is not classic America. These people are going to get elected. The question, I guess, is then what impact that has on the broader debate? But the other point I want to make about Zohran Mamdani, this guy is such a great communicator. he was interviewed about some of these positions.

I don't know if you saw the clips from here, I sent you the clips. He was interviewed about some of these positions that Chevalier had been promoting. And his ability, without looking remotely defensive, or without looking at all embarrassed, to flip the question to a bigger point that he wants to make, he does it so effortlessly.

And the other extraordinary piece of communication this week, as the mayor, he was launching some swimming, event, okay? He was dressed in a suit with a shirt and tie, okay? Now, a lot of politicians don't like showing their bodies, though I think that given Donald Trump clearly fancies him madly, I'm sure he's got a perfectly presentable physique, but he decided to take part in the swim, just dive in wearing his suit and shirt and tie. Now, I can think of both politicians, that is going to look so weird as to be absurd. He just looked cool. He looked really, really, really cool. So now the problem I think that the Democrats more generally will have on this is that,

and you already see that, I did something really foolish that I dipped into Fox News. I don't know why I did it. I dipped into Fox News. And they were just talking about this woman Chevalier like she was the entirety of the Democrat Party. So this is why some Democrats will be very, very worried. It's how this will be weaponized against them, a bit like defund the police was. British analogy is this will be like what Jeremy Corbyn did to the Labour. party, right? The existence of some people out on the far left will be used to brand it and it'll be seen by people like Trump as a gift because they'll be able to say to, there's a particular slice of voters for whom this really matters. I've been trying to look at the midterms through

this lens and this particularly matters, I think, to suburban, fiscally conservative, soft right, anti-Trump Republicans who the Democrats need to flip. seats. They need to flip the Lower Hudson Valley, which is New York 17. They need to flip Pennsylvania 10. And these are places which will be very, very nervous about what they will see as the radical far left. And the radical far left, as you say, I mean, a lot of the views of Zohran Mamdani Zohran Mamdani would be mainstream soft left labor in Britain. And actually, I was trying to explain to Sasha why these things were frightening. And he was like, well, but I agree with everything Zohran Mamdani says. I don't really understand why that's going to scare.

voters in those things, but it does. So I think that's going to be interesting. It's interesting also that, of course, the Democrats aren't all following the same path. So Ritchie Torres, who we interviewed on leading, who's very pro-Israel and represents a poor Bronx district of New York, won by 50 points in the primary against someone from the radical left. And, of course, the person the Democrats have selected as their candidate for New York 17

is Kate Conley, who's what they now call a combat veteran. It's not enough just to be a veteran. You have to be a combat veteran now to run for the Democratic Party. So anyway, back over to you. How do you think they should deal with that political thing? And then I'd love if you've got a second, just to take you through some of the stuff I've been looking at at the midterms, because it's really intriguing.

The first thing it shows is that Zohran Mamdani is a national figure. In fact, he's an international figure. He's probably one of the best known politicians in the world right now. And of course, Trump is part of the... that. Trump has this sort of strange, he really finds him a very attractive personality, even though he sort of doesn't agree with any of his politics. But I think that's because he recognises in him something that's really quite special in terms of the way that he projects himself. I think the most interesting thing in the midterms is going to be the Senate, because I think

the Democrats, they will take the House. But I think if they're going to take the Senate, they're going have to win five out of the following seven states. Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Alaska, Iowa, Texas, and Ohio. I think Maine, Michigan, North Carolina are likely. Maine is getting the most attention because of this guy, Graham Platner, who's got some pretty wild out there stuff going on. Well, it just did remind people a little bit about Graham Platner. So Graham Platner has what is politely referred to in the New York Times as a tattoo that looks like a Nazi symbol as the polite way of fronting it. you know, he is a guy with some pretty outspoken crazy social media posts running against Susan Collins, who is a main institution.

You know, some people see her as a bit old and a bit stayed, but she's seen as somebody who delivers from Maine. And she's very much not a Trump Republican. So the question is, can Graham Platner's kind of raw, brutal, social media-friendly authenticity? he is somebody actually unusually in a democratic senatorial race who's very, very critical of Israel and Gaza, win it out against Susan Collins' ability to beat Trump by 10 points in midterms in the past. So these are not easy races. No, no, no, they're not. But I think the, I think the cent, look, Trump, he has his base, obviously. But I think somebody like Susan Collins will be thinking he's not that much of an asset for me in this battle. She's also got. a record of lots of the Nancy Pelosi-style stock trading, which, you know, you and I both think

should be outlawed, but it's not. And it's whether Graham Platner will be able to make something out of that. But let's just assume that the Democrats are going to take those three, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, than the others, the fact that they're even being talked about as possible Democrat wins, I think does underline that Trump is very, very unpopular. The fact that Alaska and Texas might go, Democrat is extraordinary when you think what the numbers were last time around. So I think, you know, that's where I think the real interest is going to be is in the Senate. Yeah. Well, let me just on the House Representatives, because I've been looking at this bit, and I think it's a really interesting picture of the problem the Democrats have,

which is they're having to face in at least three different directions. So one direction I talked about is how do you reassure the suburban, more process, fiscally conservative voter, people who are pretty horrified by Trump, but don't want to be too radical. And that's where they end up running the combat veterans. But that's only, I mean, who knows which seats to look up? I looked at 10 in particular,

which seemed to be the key House representative seats as far as I can work out, although actually there are probably about 18 seats, which are toss-ups. So a couple of them are like that, New York, Pennsylvania. Seats, which are suburban, fiscally conservative.

Then there are a couple of absolutely classic what we would in Britain call red wall seats, including Scranton, the Coalfield seat that Joe Biden comes from. So these are Pennsylvania, white working class, de-industrialized places

where there is a massive fight for the white working class, which is about, it's something that everybody in Britain would relate to when it comes to the red wall, collapse the traditional working class identity, unions, deindustrialization, and those voters being driven to the far right.

And then you've got a third final category of seat, which is Latino seats. So in California and Colorado, you've got poorer Latino districts that traditionally the Democrats would have assumed would vote for them, but in fact, with Trump too, have moved strongly towards the Republicans. And they've moved strong towards Republicans because it feels as though, they're not leaning into their Latino identity so much. They're behaving like normal American voters. They're prioritizing crime.

They're prioritizing family. They're prioritizing faith, prioritizing law and order issues. And I think there are two things I took from that. One is the jiu-jitsu that the Democratic Party has to try to do dealing with these very, very different seats. The analogies would be, let's say, Scranton is like some of the Red Wall seats in the northeast. Let's say these fiscally conservative seats are like the kind of seats that supported me and David Gork, you know, that have gone Lib Dem and Britain, suburban seats around London. And the final Latino seats are something that would be more like Muslim voters in Bradford suddenly deciding they weren't going to vote remotely on ethnic lines anymore and going to start voting reform because they feel they're more law and order, small business profanity.

So that's one thing. The second thing is that it's incredibly narrow and specific. There's not a national strategy. It's seat by seat on almost tiny Latin American margins. If the Democrats don't make it, you're right their odds on to take the house. But if they don't make it, it will be a story of something going slightly wrong in ten little seats. Well, another difference with the UK, of course, is that they have a leadership, but they don't have a leader until they really decide he's going to fight for the presidency.

and the trouble since the election, in your introduction, you sort of highlighted what you do when you lose. There has been a sort of post-mortem of sorts, but it's been very chaotic. It's not been very clear what the sort of center of gravity of that analysis has been. And the truth is the recognized leadership, particularly Chuck Schumer, are basically seen as a negative. And so that makes the campaigns even more local. The other big change, I think, that you've made.

mentioned a couple of times that, okay, Ritchie Torres, we know very pro-Israel and he won big, but it is no longer the case that you assume that a Democrat candidate has to project a sense of, you know, sympathy towards Israel. What happened in New York is that basically the more sympathetic you were towards the Palestinians, the better you were going to do. And I think the other thing that is maybe driving people to think, we've got to just be out of this conservative small-sea mindset that the Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are kind of identified as, is you lot let Donald Trump win. You know, Donald Trump is a convicted felon. He was one of the worst presidents we've ever had. And somehow the strategy that you lot put together, we lost.

So please stop telling us how to win these elections. And please stop telling us who should be our candidate. Well, so the figures to back you up, the Pew survey, in 2022, negative views of Israel amongst Democrats, 53%, 2026, 80%. I mean, nobody's ever seen a shift like this, and that's driven by Gaza. Americans overall, for the first time in decades, are more pro-Palestinian than pro-Sraeli. And yet, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are still funded by APAC controlling hundreds of millions of congressional funds. It's also a story, these midterms, and we studied it a little bit when we looked at Kentucky and Thomas Massie, who was a Trump critic. He lost to a pro-Israel candidate called John Cornyn.

And again and again, despite Trump's unpopularity, it's Trump's candidates who are winning through in the Republican primaries, including, I mean, Trump is basically doing what Zohran Mamdani does. He's able to mobilize his base to topple sitting in. incumbents and bring in his own people. Anyway, so much to watch, so exciting. I'm hoping to be there for the midterms. I think you're still refusing to visit the United States, particularly now that Scotland hasn't qualified.

What are they out? When did that happen? Where do you mean they're out? They're not out, are they? Oh, my God. Just very quickly, a short follow-up question, Kieran from Bradford, Alistair. What do you make of JD Vance's comment that if the Watergate scandal happened,

and it would be out of the news cycle in 24 hours, and it would have no chance of bringing down a precedent. What does this tell us about how fast standards have slipped in public life across the Western Hemisphere? JD Vance said this whilst promoting his new book about his conversion to Catholicism and the importance of faith in his life. I mean, if anything signified,

what I would term to be a kind of moral collapse within both an individual and a culture, it is that. Watergate was about an elected president breaking American law and thinking he could get away with it. And what I think it says, so what JD Vance's statement says to me is, I mean, he may be right that because of the breakdown in the media morality as well, the fact that the media has sort of just become so much part of this sort of Trump populist agenda, that maybe is right there would be a sort of 12-hour thing. I mean, I would argue that Trump has done far worse. in all sorts of ways than Nixon. But Nixon was forced out of office because back then, in what was already a fairly corrupt political culture, they did at least have standards.

It's also staggering that of all the people to point this out, I mean, extraordinary that the person pointing out the shamelessness of political culture is Donald Trump's vice president. The Jad Yvance himself is saying just how shameless political culture has been. It's kind of the mental kind of weirdness of the whole thing. Yes, I think he's right. I mean, I think this goes back to the thing that you often quote, which is Trump saying he can walk down streets of Manhattan and shoot someone,

and it would have no impact. But he's also, if you do a little bit of simple maths, he said this would be a sort of 12-hour story. So what he's basically saying is that every day, the current administration is doing at least two things that are worse than Watergate. That's my very simple calculation on that. His other great public relations triumph, I don't even saw him.

He appeared as the guest on his wife ushers, podcast about reading. There was nothing awkward about that. Nothing awkward, no. It was horrific because it looked like they were meeting for the first time. I mean, he called each other honey and babe and all that stuff. But it looked like they'd never met before. And he gave her the most patronising pat on a leg that I think I've ever seen.

I mean, it also shows how awkward advances, how he really struggles with informal communication in a way that wouldn't be true with Trump or Zohran Mamdani. And maybe a really interesting weakness if he decides to run for the presidency. Yeah. No, listen, he hasn't got it. He hasn't got it. Also, this amazing new book that's getting a lot of attention in the States by

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, regime change, which is about Trump term two. It has this extraordinary account of where Donald Trump has invites Rupert Murdoch in for a chat, and Marco Rubio and JD Vance are both sitting there. And Trump says to Murdoch, which one do you think is better then? And Murdoch says, well, Marco Rubio is, you know, he's. Marco's pretty good. He's done pretty good. And, yeah, JD, he's got potential.

It's like putting them through kind of, you know, the Rupert Murdoch test. I thought we were through the Murdoch era, but clearly not. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and then come back and talk about these pretty horrible events happening in South Africa. Very good. See you off the break. Hey, parents. How do you make smarter choices for your kids college today?

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Welcome back to the rest of politics question time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alastair Campbell. And we have a question here ori from Richard Cohen, who describes himself as a South African living in London. What do you make of what's happening in South Africa where anti-immigration groups March and Operation Dudula have effectively given undocumented migrants until June 30 to leave amid reports of violence, intimidation and growing xenophobia that is increasingly affecting legal migrants too? Is this part of a broader trend in which grassroots groups, frustrated by perceived government, failure, immigration, take enforcement into their own hands. What does it say about the limits of state authority and legitimacy? Firstly, just to explain what's going on here. So these are two South African groups, and they're not government at all, but they've set a deadline. And the deadline actually, when this show goes out, will have passed. And it's leading to tens of thousands of migrants being displaced. When we're talking about migrants in South Africa, we're normally talking about people coming in from neighboring countries so could be people from Zimbabwe for example coming

into south africa um these migrants are relatively small part of the south african population it's not like you know britain where a equivalent number might be 17 percent of the population south africa is probably about four percent of the population but it tells you a lot it tells you that anti-immigration sentiment is not just a british phenomenon i mean we talked about how dramatic it is in Latin America where people are very worries about Venezuelan migrants, and that's a big electoral. It's also true that when we talk about immigration in Europe, we're forgetting that most of the people hosting immigrants and not Europeans, huge numbers are hosted in African countries, like Uganda that takes a lot of migrants, Pakistan, Iran taking Afghan migrants over the past

tensions and all these places. But what we're seeing in South Africa adds a second bit, which is essentially vigilante groups and militia beginning to mount pogroms against migrants and there's something about that that's really, really disturbing. I mean, that really, you know, if you were talking about the 1920s, 1930s, that is where you begin to think, this is brown shirts, this is really crazy stuff.

It's something that no government should ever tolerate back over to you. Yeah, you know, before we sort of see this as you say, this is a problem that's happening all different parts of the world. You know, it's not that long ago that we had those awful scenes in Belfast where, you know, far right thugs were going around attacking the homes of migrants, many of whom were working in our public services. And I think that this is just classic scapegoating where people are made to believe or encouraged to believe that the problems in their lives are the fault of immigrants. and we see that right around the world at the moment. Now, if you were to analyse what the problems are in South Africa, they have a massive youth unemployment issue, massive.

That is a problem which governments have to seek to address. What's happened is that government has failed to address that. Government is failing also to deal with a security issue. And to go back to Richard's question, that is then what leads to people saying, I take this into my own hands, but they're doing so. What I find really terrifying about this is they're doing so based on so much misinformation. And there's also been evidence that one of these anti-immigrant campaigns is actually being backed by people who have a pro-Russian agenda to do with Russian energy and wanting to get Russian energy into South Africa.

So this is horrible. What's happening is horrible, and you've seen some really terrible pictures of these people who, in the main, have nowhere to live, or where they do have places to live, they're being driven out, so then they're sort of trying to gather outside foreign consulates, outside foreign embassies, hoping that they'll be protected. And as you say, we're speaking on the day that this deadline, which has no legal status whatsoever. Well, if it has no legal status and the government security authorities are not dealing with it adequately, where does that lead to? It leads to it. It leads to it. It leads to it. the sort of violence that you've just been talking about. Actually, this really neatly leads us back to the World Cup because one of the interesting things is that when South Africa was playing Mexico, very unusually, a lot of African fans, rather than supporting South Africa, were supporting Mexico. And that's partly because the sense of rising xenophobia in South Africa,

South Africa's aggressive attitude towards other Africans. Now, I'm going to use that as a transition, though, to get you to talk a little bit about the World Cup because we got Felix asking, predictably. And it's the commiserations on Scotland being kicked out of the World Cup. Who are you rooting for now? And maybe I want to expand that up to a sort of broader question of what do you think about this World Cup?

What's interesting you? What's engaging you? Now that your team's out, what are you going to be looking for and following? Well, I think the fact that two of the big European countries were knocked out less than I. It was pretty extraordinary, Germany and the Netherlands. I'll see what's really surprised me and pleased me, and maybe I owe President Trump an apology,

is how little he seems to be involved and how little he seems to care. Infantino, the head of FIFA, has said that Trump will be at the final and will present the trophy with him Infantino. He just doesn't seem to be engaged in it at all. And I wonder whether that's partly because he got booed at the New York Knicks. when he went to the basketball, he got booed there,

he maybe thinks he'll get booed at any game he goes to in the World Cup. But also I think it's probably because the football is taking off now, particularly now we're into the knockout stages, and it means that he won't be the main attraction. Once you get to some really amazing football matches, Trump won't be the main attraction.

But that's what surprised me. I've really enjoyed the World Cup more than I thought I would. I think I thought that 48 teams was ridiculous, but actually it's been amazing to see Capo Verde qualify get through. It was fantastic to see them whole Spain and then... Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, this is big news. So you might support the World Cup doing this again? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I do, I think that has been good. Yeah. I think, and we're now into kind of every game's going to be good now. I think that, you know, France, Sweden will be

good. England playing Dr. Congo is thick. One of my daughter's friends calls them Dr. Congo, because this is DR Congo. So that's the Democratic Republic. Look, I'm very torn, Rory, because I'm obviously British and I like British teams always to do well. I was sad about Japan. I was sad about Japan because their fans were outnumbered about 10 to 1, but you could hear them the whole game singing the same chant. They've got this song, Vamos Nippon.

Okay, let's go, Japan. And they sang it literally the whole game. I think England have got a very good chance of winning, but I'm very torn in the next one, because DRC have got a Burnley player in the back line. Transzabie. He's so, you know, it's club or country. It's very, very hard. Anyway, there we are.

You know, I've enjoyed the World Cup. I'm sure you have, too. You've been loving it, obviously. I know absolutely bugger all about this, and I'm about to say probably the most obvious thing in the world. But one of the things that struck me, both with Wimbledon and with this World Cup, is how some of the players who, when I watched the World Cup in Qatar, I was told this was their last appearance

because they were all getting old and crocked and we're never going to see them again. They've all popped up again four years later. Like your lookalike, Luca Modrich. Exactly. So I think it's kind of interesting how people are prolonging their playing players and how oddly some of these old dudes

seem to be still scoring goals. Name an odd dude who's still scoring goals. Lionel Messi, for example. Oh, yeah, he's pretty old, right? He is absolutely extraordinary. And when I saw him in Qatar, I saw him moving pretty slowly around the pitch. I didn't think four years later it'd be scoring goals. Well, Rory, I will be playing in a charity match in Croatia at the end of August with Luca Modrich.

I am going to be captaining Luca Modrich. And I think we've both reached that stage of our careers where we're allowed just to control the game by slowly moving and flicking the ball in different directions. That's my strategy for that game. Two of my heroes together, and you and you and Modrich. Exactly. Now, third hero of mine, or temporary hero of mine, which I want to plug a bit, Malcolm Turnbull, the former Prime Minister of Australia. Now, this is really going to wind up Australian listeners that I've managed to name Malcolm Turnbull as one of my new heroes, since there will be many Australian listeners with very, very strong views against Malcolm Turnbull. The fact that I'm projecting onto him a sort of vision of a kind of centre-friendly right, a kind of reincarnation of a more effective slicker part of the, David Gork style of conservatism.

But we've just infute them on leading. And I'd be really interested to hear what people make of the infew. Just search leading wherever you get your podcasts. And we have a new party in Australia. Noah has asked, how significant is Australia's new party? And could it be down in the UK? Bit of background again. The story that we've been talking about a lot with Australia recently is the very surprising

rise of One Nation, very surprising rise of this far-right party, who many people had written off over decades because compulsory voting, preferential voting, wouldn't seem to favour parties. Pauline Hanson, many people saw as not being a very effective campaign, and now it's looking really strong. But the counter-move to that is something coming much more with a teal flavour

and remind people about that. That was this wonderful movement that really captured imaginations around Sydney, where you had people who were fiscally conservative, environmentally friendly, very impressive women who both of us met when we were in Sydney. Anyway, back over to you on that. I enjoyed Malcolm Turnbull.

He was putting the boot into Donald Trump, which always gets him in my good books. He also was pretty brutal about Keir Starmer. He'd watched Keir Starmer in the Queen's Speech debate. He happened to be in London, went to Parliament, watched the debate. And as I said in the main podcast, he sent us a message about Andy Burnham saying he thought he was going to be pretty good.

Anyway, look, he is a Tory. But as we were already, you know, the new Alistair Campbell, I recognise that not all Tories are evil, okay? So I think he's a good listen, and I'm glad that we had him on. It is interesting this sort of idea of a new party. Part of the appeal of the Teals, in a sense, was that they weren't a party. I think I'm right that only two Teals have signed up so far.

There is some suggestion that actually a lot of this is about trying to raise funds for centrist candidates. But Australian politics is always interesting, but I think it's very interesting at the moment for all sorts of reasons. that you've mentioned the One Nation Party. Also, the government's budget didn't really go down that well, and the One Nation Party has kind of exploited it pretty well. Some polls have now got Pauline Hansen as their preferred prime minister. Another interesting change in the Liberal Party, their Tories, Tony Greg Abbott, and fair to say Malcolm Turnbull,

not a massive fan of Tony Greg Abbott, he's now been made president of the Liberal Party. Now, it's only an honorary role, but that suggests to me that they're going to move further to the right. and I'm going to make a prediction that their current leader, Angus Taylor, is not going to last. I just don't think he's cutting it. And we're going to go down the former S-A-S route. There's a guy called Andrew Hastie, H-A-S-T-I-E, very good communicator, quite a big thinker as well.

And he has, quote, declared war on the One Nation Party, which says to me he is not going down the route of saying the way to out-flank the, the far right, is to be a bit more like them. It's the Al-Kahn's approach to politics. Well, it's the Al-Kans approach to politics in terms of the backstory. And Al-Karns is very, very busy on the media at the moment. What I still don't quite know about Al-Karns is what he stands for in the political core, as it were. Just to remind people for a second, Al-Kanz is this defense minister with this incredible military record. I'm a genuine war hero, special forces, action man, who I've been very interested in,

because I think he could prove a real retail offering for Labor. But he's been out there setting tests for the Prime Minister, which I guess for a good Labour loyalist like you is pretty uncomfortable and makes you raise your eyebrows a bit. Final question, Alistair, from George, very much directed towards you, but I want to just stick something in before you give us an answer, which is, Alist, do you still keep a diary? Have you ever missed a day?

The reason I was going to stick something is I've just discovered my grandmother's diary written almost exactly 100 years ago. It's not your type of diary. It's a tiny little book. She writes just a page about this size every day. And it's the year running up to her wedding to my grandfather. And it's astonishingly, Frank. I mean, I had no idea about the sort of social life

and relationship life of a bright young thing in late 1920s, early 1930s, London. But it's pretty racy stuff. Oh, pretty exciting. So my mother doesn't really approve of my reading it. My aunt who saw me with it said, I'm not really sure that your grandmother would have intended you to get hold of it.

But my grandmother died 50 years ago, and she wrote this 100 years ago. And I think it is the most moving, fascinating account of a 21-year-old's love life, her thoughts about marriage, her thoughts about travel, and her emotional journey, which resulted in my appearance,

because the kind of the thing ends with her getting married after lots of ups and downs and marriage, you know, almost broken off, and is she doing the right thing, married to my grandfather, giving my mother and me and now my children. Wow. Would, I mean, Rory, I can feel the ears of publishers pricking up

all around Bloomsbury. Would it create a big family rift if you suddenly decided that an introduction by you of this book, I'll tell you what it's so interesting, though, because I'm reading a book of the mind. There's a German novelist called Charlotte Link. I think I may have mentioned it before, and I discovered her books because near the French town, where I am now, they have this thing where there's leave books lying around, and I saw this German book one day, and I picked it up, and I read it, I loved it.

She sets a lot of her novels in the UK. She's got a certain, she's got a particular thing about the Yorkshire Moors. She actually goes to the late district for quite a lot of her novels, novels. But the latest one is a German couple who go to North Yorkshire to try to repair their marriage and they end up being snowed in. Okay. They're running out of firewood and they're running out of paper as they try and sort of stay alive in this remote Yorkshire cottage. And she stumbles across a book, the autobiography written by somebody who lived in the house in the last century. So a very, very similar story. So the book then becomes a book within a book,

and it goes through the First World War, it goes through the suffragette movement. Anyway, I'm absolutely loving it, but it sounds very, very similar. So I think you should tell the story of how you discovered the story of your grandmother who gave life to you. I think that's a great, great thing. This weird question about why she kept it, whether she intended it to be found. I mean, Shoshana and my aunt were saying she probably didn't intend her grandson to read it she probably just on various occasions

when she thought, shall I throw this away, thought, I know, I'll keep it and put in a drawer. But this question of, yeah, what is privacy and family? What are scandals in family? What she were allowed to talk about? What you can't talk about. I mean, and one of the amazing things when I do ancestry DNA

is that I find all these extraordinary scandals in my family history. suicides, one of my relatives marrying an Afro-Caribbean doctor in the 1920s, which would have been really big news at the time, none of which I was ever told about. I mean, there's close relatives, because everybody thought it was better just not to talk about these things. I think I can feel in my family and other animals coming on, Rory. I think you've got your next book all lined up. Once you've done your little middleland tour, I think this is your book.

Back to the question of diary, I do still keep a diary. I very rarely miss a day, but I am much, much, much less disciplined about it than I was. And the reason for that is that I made a terrible mistake about, I think about 10 years ago now, when I started to type it, and it's just not the same. And I should go back to pen, paper, ink.

I'm just not as good as it. I keep being asked by publishers, you know, can you, I mean, I think I'm up to, I'm up to the ed, millibandere in terms of politics. So I've got several million words sort of sitting there but I don't feel I'm as disciplined as I was and I agree with that. I am not going to tell you what it's about Rory. I have started

work on another book though. Oh good. I won't tell you about interest done. Very good. Well, this is a bit of a sign off for me because I'm about to retreat into my 11-day silent meditation retreat, getting up at 4.30 in the morning, going to bed at 10 and not speaking 21 for 10 days. So, Alistair, you're going to be on with another co-presenter, which will probably be a cheery change for the public.

Your announcement of your planned adultery with Lewis Goodall, I am now going to be committing pedultery with Medi Hassan. He is going to be standing in for you, and he's got a very, very good brain. I'm not saying you haven't got a good brain, or you've got a very good brain as well, but I like Medi Hassan's brain, and that's why he and I will be doing the rest of time.

politics and question time next week. Well, very exciting and I look forward to hearing it when I emerge. I will emerge, as you know, in a state of like Buddhist calm for about two days, and then I will revert back to my normal gibbering self. Will you not even know who's still in the World Cup? Missed literally everything. I'll miss the American 250th anniversary celebrations because there's no phones, there's no books, there's no paper. I'm stuck in a dormitory, and in this case, I'm meditating almost entirely surrounded by Burmese Nationals, which is another challenge because they are so much more disciplined and accustomed than I am to sitting cross-legged for 14 hours a day.

You're not allowed to write anything. I can't, no, can't write anything, no paper, no pen, no phone, no book. I can't read anything. I can't listen to anything. All I can do is sit in the dark from 4.30 in the morning till 10 at night. trying to ignore the increasing extreme pain in my knees. God, I don't know how you do it. Why are you doing it?

Why? It gives me, I mean, well, I'll talk about it when I come out. And I'll see if I get a different answer this time. I've got a different answer every time. I think the answer is it tells me what the meaning of life is, but we'll work out. Maybe I'll just come out and say it was a total waste of time. I know the meaning of life.

Go on? What's that meaning of life? Have to live it. Have to live it. Yeah. Live it. Yeah. Okay, well, we'll get back to that.

All right. All right, Ray, have a nice time. Thank you. Bye-bye.

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