I would say our politics is currently less apocalyptic the news, while I'm happy for you haven't get vocal, it comes. You can say we were complain. hello and welcome to the five thirty eight politics pod cast Iron Galen. We largely stick to american politics on this pod counts, but every so often we ve called up our friends at the UK based Pie cast talking politics to Hell. Explain british politics, particularly relating to breaks it. Comparing The new countries has at times helped us better understand. What's going on here in the states breaks, it is largely behind us, but in recent months the british people- have had another uncertain period. News reports revealed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson attended party. in government buildings. Well, Britain wasn't strict covert locked down in twenty. Twenty is approval,

It has now sunk to a mere twenty two percent and its unclear if he'll hang on his leadership position that news comes amid There are big news out of the UK after covering an eventful six years in british and american politics. The talking politics podcast is winding down before they close up shop, need to catch up with them to discuss this latest scandal and also reflect on how the? U S and UK, have navigated a turbulent handful of years. So here of meat from the talking politics, podcast and the University of Cambridge are professor of political economy, Helen Thomson and professor of politics,

David Ranchman welcome to the shop pledge without Galen allowed. So, of course, I am sad to hear that your winding things down, but thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me tonight. Let's began by talking about political scandals and how the public reacts to them. What is it about? Johnson's parties at government, buildings that have caused the british public, to have such a negative reaction. I think that bottom line, if she liked the distinguishes this scandal from other ones, is that it involves the relationship of rules between voters and politicians because quite hard to think of of anything. In my office pay taxes falls into this category. But it pay taxes, isn't the same intrusion and daily life that lockdown rules were the rules in the United Kingdom during the first locked down in particular, but consider extending the third locked down as well were extremely strict and at the very least, Boris Johnson's attitude towards those rules.

We got to how they apply to himself in his immediate colleagues, was cavalier and some say that he showed a total in utter disregard for the rules like everybody else to live by, given that these I made it very difficult for people to hold funerals with more than a few people somebody died, ought to go in to see someone who is in a car home at the end of life, the idea that rules apply to masses, light life and death and they didn't apply to parties when involve the prime minister, that's not gonna scandal. I think that we have before it touches sunlight, a just war news some very painful places for many people with them. ways of what happened in two thousand and twenty David you're worried about you. I do it. I think they ve been asked this a couple of times that mean didn't people think that Johnson The sort of loan hypocrite anyway and wisest struck such a code because either he's a pretty cavalier politician as part of his selling point, but I think the key thing is this Helen said he did take. These rules

seriously in telling us how to behave there was tromp in kind of indication that he he wasn't serious about their stuff. All in that it was absolutely gay press conference after press conference, in which he could have had an opportunity to say not only was heap in stating these rules reluctantly, but he was uncomfortable with me. Didn't at all. He committed to telling us all. We had no choice saudi out of character. I have to say some of these press conferences, persons and was not really particularly Boris. Johnson, he sounded like a different kind of politician and that's what's caught him and he's got nowhere to go now because he did tell us

all this was how we absolutely have to live. We had no choice and he didn't do it himself. So it is the hypocrisy, but it's with with him certainly is a rare hypocrisy in that most people think the hypocrisy with Johnson is baked in, but covert forced him into a place where he had to fake sincerity and areas been co town. I want to talk a little bit about the approach that jobs and tucked her covered restrictions, but before we get to that, I am interested in the comparison between how Americans and brats react. Cheer. political scandals because, of course, we're coming off of the trunk presidency during which this scandal seemed endless. You know he was impeach twice once for abuse of power in trying to get the ukrainian President to investigate this political rival, Joe Biden. A second time for insight an insurrection in the January sex, the tap on the capital and then beyond that there were scandal surrounding all kinds of things, paying little to no federal tax. Two dozen allegations of sexual misconduct not masking when he even had

but his approval rating never came close to being as well as twenty two percent. You know he was in the low forties from most of his time in office. So do Britain Americans just see political scandals differently, and if that is the case, why might it be? the vote. I think that we really have approval ratings, that I think that they mean the same thing. You could have a prime minister who was going to winner a majority in the next election, more comfortably them publicly. Boys Johnson would do if he was remainders conservative, Prime minister, and they wouldn't what particularly positive approval. Writing. I think that the Eu S warm words, animal binary. Why? Partly because of the way in which the party competition is mostly fourthly binary than it is in the? U K, I mean

All I would say on the specifics of: what's happened to Johnson the people who he's lost a basically a certain kind of leave, OTA, probably those who were most reluctant about conservative in the first place and felt that they were pushed into it and because it was the only party that was left standing at the end that want to implement breaks it to actually take kingdom out of the European Union, and in that sense, is he stood outside the politicians who look what they weren't taking their vote to leave his very seriously. He looked like he was different. I mean, I don't think he ever was different. Nothing suggests the concept of circumstances once he articulated a set of rules that everybody was by pine thought they didn't apply to him? Then he just became in those voices minds just like another. politician, who didn't tell the truth about that list that you gave of trumps misdemeanours, just the sheer length of it, the relentlessness of it

and this may be putting it is implicitly, but the thing they can't be levelled against Trump. Is that he's a hypocrite in the sense that what you see is what you get you know is not there were those men it's. Where were the Trump Presidency ways behind the mask behind the scenes, and he thought my got this guy's. Nothing like the public persona he's just like the public persona, was cool Johnson. So much trouble is on this issue. The public, the side in the private behaviour completely out the Persona was about serious sober, my did. Man trying to projector consistent health message following the advice of the experts, it was not Trump Johnson's covert, press conferences in many ways couldn't have been more different from trumps covert. Press conferences. Is hypocrisy, not lying. The does politicians so with joy. since story. There are two things going on here that that the attempt to

pin him with a lie in the House of Commons, which is a resigning issue, because in the House of Commons he effectively said that he didn't attend these parties, and I stand out of the house. I, during the public a bother too much about Johnson lying. What that bother by is the double standards and it's the double standards at a fatal, and in this case you can say many things about Donald Trump he's, not a man, particularly problem by double standards, the standards a consistent, even if you hate them- are there more incentives in the british system for members of the Prime Minister's own party to break with them, because I'm thinking in the american context there's somebody little to be gained by breaking with a president from your own party, maybe if they're already super unpopular, but it seems as though conservative Members of parliament have had less of an issue, may be breaking went, Boris, droughts, and I think that what certainly too is that british Prime Minister

this, at least, is the last part. The nineteen sixties have quite frequently go into trouble with our parliamentary parties, but they conservative parliamentary party always had an awkward relationship with Boris Johnson. They wouldn't have chosen him. I think, in any other circumstances down the father. They were facing existential annihilation in the summer of two thousand and nineteen after the conservatives it gotta nine percent in the European Parliament elections in May of this year. He seemed to be the only possibility and to be honest at the time it and even seem like he was a very good possibility for actually be outlawed. I am not kingdom out of the European Union, there's some sense. It was always a fast, the impact aspect to it, and so,

all the doubts that many of them had about boys Johnson's character, including his attitude towards risk in his attitude towards rules, were were cast aside, because in the quite literally I think, was no alternative for the conservative party to survive so they have a majority once the in some sense politically. The pandemic has been dealt with, though, with some political casualties. I think for the conservative party. Then they can return to the doubts that they had and the problems about the story for Johnson is it. Is it fair exactly all those doubts? The obvious difference, of course, is that they can get rid of him a molecular presidential system and they can't three bodies I caught on this. The members of parliament can choose his successor. They choose the two candidates who then go to the membership, which complicates things but is entirely up to them to get rid of it

if he loses, the vote of confidence in the parliamentary party is gone, and that creates an incentive for them press. If we call him the presto to speculate about this, civility. So there is a dynamic to the new cycle, eight, which would be absent in the american case, which is the possibility of their being enough letters sent in fifty four. They need to trigger a very competent there's, still a subtle gap. I think between that speculation and the actual event after hasn't happened yet, and there is, difference between incentive that conservative position might have to incur suspect- relation actually do the deed. Their concerns but he has a reputation. In contrast, the Labour party of getting rid of leaders, including prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and to resume were both got rid of, and leaders, including, politically and Duncan Smith, was got rid of David Cameron quit, but they pretty would have got rid of him anyway. The Labour party doesn't do it. Everybody has a reputation for ruthlessness, which I think is slightly oversold, doesn't happen that often,

it happened. Yet it took a long time to get rid of tourism. That is ready the outstanding example, I think there is still a gap between the talking about the deed and the doing of the deed, and that gap is where most of the news happens. Idiotic. They creates a huge market for gossip, basically on british politics in the last month has been dominated by gossip, something that how you mentioned earlier was that approval ratings work differently in the UK that they work in the. U s- and I was looking at you- got data in the UK and the most popular politician. Emanation is at balls and only thirty, five percent of have a positive view of him. That's lower than Biden, that's lower than Trump ever was, but he's the most popular politician in the country is actually a form of politician is well. Do you know why,

is the most popular, but because he is no longer relevant. I did a little bit of research there because he was on. He was on his shows. Is cool strictly come dancing? What's your cool, the ballroom dancing dancing with stars? so he wasn't dancing with the stars. That's the only reason he's not a politician he's a dancer. He wasn't. He was a politician to be clear. Even so the thirty five percent number is the one that struck me. What is it about the british public or the way that british politics works, that almost all matter? Why you just don't approve of your politicians thing it is the consequence of being a significant part of. It is a consequence of having a parliamentary democracy, this very much centred on the parties on, although oversee there led by individuals. Then all presidents and they never in the position where there being as American, This also attach the head of government and head of state. So I think that that means

just in some sense a kind of light, lack of respect, that's baked in there from the start, the knowledge that they gonna do that thing for a while some party leader in the once a successful amazon. Prime Minister. you going to watch some of it you go to just like some of it and then it's going to end probably badly and somebody else is going to come on and do it instead, I just don't think there's ever the same emotional investment in individuals, the same way as it is presidential system. I think that those You know like moments in part. The cuban phenomenon in a way was kind of flight tapping into something that was the more about the cult of personality, and I think the Johnson try, I'd for the costs of personality, but I think he was actually did in some sense more effective when he was mayor of London than ever has been as leader of the conservative parties. I think my answer is that this is less space for the culture of personality and perhaps

a culture that anyway discourages it, because it's more sense of these things happen. People rise people for, but is not always the case that they never have. I prefer ratings. Tony Blair had stratospheric approvers after that the princess Diana. My memory is his approval. Writings were similar to George W Bush afternoon. eleven Teresa may even in the early part of her premiership, had very high approval writings, its fickle amazed fickle in the states. Do maybe it's more fickle here, partly because the reasons to suggest it is it's much more random. Cyclical, you know, there's not a rhythm too there's not a full year rhythm to it and the campaigns of erratic you don't know when they're gonna beat and the hell am I gonna love So there's a disincentive to invest too much in these people because they might not be around for that But there are periods for sure where, including with black then style leadership and its yachting. Is it if it was the death of Princess Diana that produce this particular

that I remember where he seemed to have almost universal approval? It was a very presidential moment. British politics is not mean to that by any means. You mentioned not knowing how long people will be, round or how long things will last from where you set it. Does it seem like Boris Johnson but last much longer since it is kind of a bit dependent on a weekly basis. In part this this up and down my inclination is, is it he quite possibly can survive I am certainly the immediate crisis around party gay, just because it's been so attracted now, and I think it's time a pressure point his has built up its fallen away and another one could come. I think that is lost some urgency to it. Have you said that that there is a possibility of things is taking a different turn which would be in May.

here there are local elections. If the conservatives which do extremely badly in orange, very badly in those elections. I think that the races within the parliamentary conservative party could well rise again, and I think the thing that really just makes it difficult for him to stabilize is premiership is is that he just hasn't been able to construct an operation around him. The exudes even kind of like basic competence about a decision making structure to sport in the last Rennie period of time, I'm so the numbers of staff that have come and gone out of number ten during these premises is really very high. So I think that issue is the core of his liability rather than the parties, even though the parties could have been is just at the moment. Just went on too long, but there is a connection between

in the two, because the person whose essentially pull the party gates story into the public spheres is dominant Cummings, the man who did run his number ten operation and then with whom he in them his wife, ITALY for now and dominant Cummings is absolutely determined to bring Boris Yeltsin down the next general election the again. But there is one the obvious there is this now as you with the american case here, which is that if Johnson goes, you don't know who will succeed him and that changes incentive structure for the people who might get rid of him, because the conservative party would be pretty divided on that question. There are various candidates, but there's no one that would command obvious assent. It would be pretty bitter said that would If I think some of those who might get rid of him pause, I was one of the reasons I thought for a while he might well survive. Is that it would set a precedent to get rid of him. They wouldn't be,

politicians have been driven out to resume Margaret Thatcher and others, Tony Blair, it's not by scandal its by what you might call it a deeper both structural crisis, around policy making in the direction of travel of the This is straightforward scandal. There may be other incentives and reasons why people want him gone, but it would be the parties that did for him and if I was a member of the parliamentary consultative body, I'd be a little nervous about creating the precedent that this kind of new cycle agenda could get rid of a prime minister. If our or is Johnson, and I'm sure he does do this when he speaks to them one on one. He remind them that to get rid of him is to hand a victory to dominate comings, and that also sets a kind of precedent for embittered former AIDS Chiefs of staff deciding it's up to them, whether the guy who fought them is allowed to carry on in office and for all

of these reasons I felt for a while now that he will probably survive, certainly for the next few months he might be done by election results. The police will have to decide what fines, if any, has to pay for his mister. Is but talk about getting rid of him as a lot easier than the deed. So if I to put money on an obsolete you'd still be here in the summer, so that some of the specific surrounding the scandal, but the broader context for all of this is covered in part and because the? U S and UK, and particularly the american right and the british right- have diverged so much on this. I'm curious for your thoughts on why that's been the case. The american rate has argued for most of them have done it again, stringent covered measures, but, as you mentioned, Boris Johnson was all for them with pretty earnest in promoting them. Obviously he did nothing.

We follow them by in front of the cameras. As you said, he was a very different from Donald Trump. Why do you think the two approaches diverged to video either they did. I didn't think he was all for them. I think part of his appeal actually that he was very reluctantly for them. He gave quite a good example. mission of someone who is doing it. A last resort and therefore that's why he took it so seriously. Now his instincts were, I think In line with many on the right that this is something that you should resisted all correspondence and as it were, the responsibility of office meant that he did it. I think, for a long time, despite the fact that Britain doesn't have a great record through the current crisis of preventing illness and death, that was a big part of his appeal with the public that he was actually in line with. I would have thought majority opinion, which was quite suspicious of people who are very enthusiastic lockdown us

that includes a lot of members of the Labour Party, including possibly the leadership, but also the british public by no means lockdown sceptics, as always, a strong majority of opinion in favour of strictures and Johnson. I thought struck her cooled and that's why this scandal has been so toxic for his brand because that's just been blown up, although of course the experience as have been pretty different alternately right. So at the very beginning of the pandemic, the trap Administrashn had this sort number of days to stop. spread somewhat of a locked down, but mostly businesses have been opened. You can do what you want it ultimately up to you to make decisions and and localities to make decisions about what risks you're willing to take during the planet the UK didn't leave. Up to the Brits to decide how to much more stringent programme for two countries that often consider themselves somewhat similar. Why do you think that approach has been so different?

I think that this is one thing that really clearly different, though it's got a deficit of a peculiar british variant. Is we not a federal country? So nobody in this he would fact that anybody other than that in principle the UK government would be dealing with it. health emergency. There was nothing that was equivalent of. This is to be extremely strict response, and this is extremely state response Do you think you have to bear in mind that the news is that at the centre of this The crisis in this emergency in the Uk- and I now generally mainly the UK, has been house it is the national service, and this has been I commend that has been used pretty much every time for locked out of thin air think we had three slogans in the first, not that I got them what they were, but I do remember, protect the annex as and when there was a lot of pressure to some extent. I think Johnson was trying to resist about the timing.

Second looked down the extent of it and then certainly the third lockdown The thing that seems to have pushed him into the locked position was. We cannot. situation where the annex is on the point of collapse and having to turn people who infectious away in the street say the same. My party, the conservative party in this country is absolutely bound up with the politics of the energy system is an issue that caused them quite some difficulties. The one is she, where lay beside a clear structural advantage over the but the idea that they could be a crime So the ownership of that magnitude on the conservative parties watch that'll be the stuff of their absolute political nightmares so that they had to stay away from They had to stay in the center ground and sent ground, I'm was protected and it just ass David said, do locked down, but don't do it in ways that make it that your enthusiastic about it in any way or make it look like you want to use it for some more general purpose of establishing more state control.

I was can say exactly the same. We have a national service, a new data that Polly creates capacity, these are the national services. It means a government is able to do things nationally, including a successful early and quick vaccine. Rollout programme because if you want an illustration of the difference, Trump got covert. Johnson got covert. Johnson Eddie died of it from we don't know, but we suspect he didn't but Johnson's response to his cave. It experience when he was taken. International health Service Hospital was to come out, and give her speech an address in which he talked about the national health services, the beating heart of the nation, powered by love and fully embraced his personal experiences, emblematic of the centrality of the chest, a british politics very hard to imagine a Put the trump like President. Doing that, never mind the circumstances, and it creates a completely different dynamic around this. There are people in

The conservative party, you don't think like that and would like to change the role that the unit this place in politics, but they are in the minority and rhetorically no contrived a politician. Yet in Alisha position has gone down that route and it makes all the difference recently in the U S governor is now in blue states, have been rolling back mask mandates, and it appears that from the polling that a majority of Americans want to move on from covered restrictions, things that were once upon a time popular or no longer popular, including certain vaccine mandates, requirements for jobs and so on? Is there a similar sentiments in the UK about you know covetous over it's time to move on? We don't want any more restrictions, and is there any sense that the country went too far in terms,

walked out. I think, has definitely considerable movement from where things were six months ago and just before I mccrone in a way where there was quite a bit of criticism about how quickly most of the restrictions in England had been removed, because Johnson announced what he called. I think its freedom day, some time in July of last year, when almost all the restrictions on how you live data I've anyway, other than the isolation requirements were removed, and I think it was a big moment when there was the possibility clear. that Johnson was so to speak at a council Christmas again to use a language that was adopted. Over here we were all gonna, be confined back in our houses and unable to make our families and for maybe twenty I was so it seemed like he was leaning in that direction and then he seems to have been pull back from it by a cabinet rebellion or at least part of his cabinet rebellion, and I think, given what's happened since I'm Christmas and there hasn't been a significant

Greece in hospitalization that that was seen now is the right decision. Now see a fairly clear contrast if you break a different preparing between what's going on in Britain and what's going on in some other european countries in relation to mandates, including the like Black Sea mandate. If you compare the position that ITALY is got too and drive, you become very fierce about the practical policies, about vaccine mandates and about the kind of language that drug is amusing? That's a long way we move now from where we are in Britain. It would take another really sorry make development in the current crisis for Britain to retreat back into the lock On a Monday world, only pressure public opinion is hard to know, but I think politicians, including deserve the parties, have been prized I've lost two years by the public's appetite for lockdown them in block three. Frictions are all of always polled as chiming with the views of the majority. Sometimes the magician

They wanted to go further when Johnson late last year. This resisted the advice of some of his scientific advice that astray, look down was needed. He was also going against opinion polling, which suggested the public still had not tight for it, or least that's how they responded to those questions. Who knows what it really means and is part of the reason his position is not as disastrously weak as party might have. You believe, He believes that he made a big call right and the bridge moving on now, because we didn't enter the lockdown that was suggested to him by his advisers and I suspect, the publican broadly again sympathetic to that? In the same way, there was sympathetic to reluctant lockdown, even if it goes against what I was saying I think most people would not feel it. Johnson

responsible of two to three months of August. That was your incoherent though it was as probably produced and out come. The most people are comfortable with it happened. He would be in a much weaker position eyes, but I suspect he would be finished if I could. Gone wrong or if it had to look down later say he resisted over Christmas and then come January. It had a tough, not the rules again, he would probably be finished with the parliamentary body. He isn't and part of. The reason is that I think remains, of course, tell a pandemic. There's a general narrative now in the United States that we ve entered something of families. There are high levels of disapproval with President disapproval went the direction of the country in a state of the economy and even poles about happiness. in people's own personal lives show an attack in unhappiness, and there are other measures that will suggest that parts of society are frustrated increases in crime inflation. Things like that.

Is there something similar happening in the United Kingdom, or is this a specific american response to the pandemic? Helen how unhappy decent people my senses. Just from light. Observing, from this side of the Atlantic? What I pick up from, what's going on on your side of the Atlantic, there isn't that same, feel to the countries and politics in part. I think, maybe because there's nothing, that's the equivalent of the end of trump and the arrival of Biden as well as a moment of hope for many millions Americans of sea, not for all workers, and then the bottom presidency, for reasons that we know is turned out to be quite complicated to just say and plenty of food for disappointment. I think that what is true- and you can see this in the autumn before I reckon arrived, an overcoat arrived here like in early December

was a sense that the economic recovery was gonna, be quite difficult. The fears about it nation, was certainly being expressed. There was a sense I knew pity We feel it in London and I signed in November of the city. Finally, coming back to life. Lots of people, out being outside doing the kinds of things of going out to dinner theatre such a rush films that they were doing before but this sense that ok as we economically recover, then we bring this economic problems with us, particularly the fear of it. nation and that was accentuated by the energy situation and what we ve got Country is a an immediate price, present tense problem coming in April, when the energy caps on gas and electricity bills of being removed or what they going to be changed anyway, and so that was going to be a big hit too many household

incomes fear that change, and I think you can sense a sense of fear around over this issue in particular, and the sense of light. What's gonna happen next, so that in one sense the better we do with the pandemic, the more we go back to the problems of economic recovery, so more sense it becomes like it's one or the other. We want things you mentioned, isn't really analogous that's anxiety about rising crime. I mean there is anxiety about rising crime in the UK. It's not gun crime Obviously, I mean there's a lot of anxiety about knife crime that gets credible coverage that the head of the police force has just resigned, partly because of us a sense that the police, all out of control in various ways and a need reform hasn't happened, but that is it is not mobilizing insane wife for my understanding from us. out of the? U S doesn't have the kind of ability to ready, destabilize politics at the moment anyway, in the UK, as it does there and

in that sense, that things are falling apart. Anything Britain feels like a country where people believe things are falling apart The third, the area, whether is unquestionably growing unhappiness, is among the younger people have borne the brunt of the endemic in many ways, particularly those in many of them in a hurried UK, within that looking at a pre unfavourable job market and so on, and there's a lot of evidence that this is having a knock on effect on mental health. It doesn't come to the surface of politics on the whole, not least because politics is still electrical system dominated by older voters in their interests. But I would be surprised if that doesn't get worse over time and become more of it. Landfill for british politicians, but it is impossible to know from the outside. But what what I read about american politics and that sense, we don't have a is there a second civil war coming debate going on in this country

You know we ve had a civil war too long ago, but I must Mr Hallam haven't seen it couldn't settings that, and you know you you, you ve. the whole round. There isn't the end of democracy, discourse here in quite the same way, your ten years to save democracy in this country, tends to be twenty. Four hours to save the age ass, I would say our politics is currently less apocalyptic the news. While unhappy we haven't, gets vocal. It comes you can say we were complaint before we but I wanted, but back at some of the questions that you ve contented with during your tenure at talking politics, but first today's podcast is brought to you by new. Unlike other restrictive diet or walk out programmes. New way uses psychology to empower you with the practical knowledge and skills you need to build. Smarter mortal

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oh, oh, am dot com, slash politics to sign up for your trial, Europe, our gas talking politics began during the heat of the breaks at referendum and the twenty. Sixteen? U S! Presidential campaigns! Of course, those resulted in a win for breakfast and went for Trump, both of which fell like significant political upsets and perhaps paradigm shifts so now, five years later, as you think about wrapping up your podcast that started amidst all of that, Do those two events appear as consequential as they felt at the time, and we will hear, but one of the things we tried to do throughout this? Isn't some regional slogan was cool been breaks at Trump to Britain? The three really surprising things happen in many ways. Cuban was the most surprising of all and the most disastrous but breaks in Trump and not the same thing. No, we spent quite low time trying to desegregate them, and,

take them seriously on their own terms, breaks it still feels extreme. The consequential has no one near played out. It doesn't have the same political heat around it and the most intense period of our put casting was so mid late. Twenty nine, when there was real chaos, but also just the sort of mind, melding stalemate in british policy. We had the opportunity to talk during that guy I remember those days of area an inner came together. It was like stagflation, it was just these two things came together in a way that just made your head explode and that's gone and is quite hard to recap. Read, but the inner, the underlying issues and consists of a huge shift in british politics, including a huge amount, we spend a lot and talking about this, a huge constitutional shift which hasn't by any means, resolved the questions that it.

Raised, including questions about the future of the United Kingdom. We spent a lot of time talking about that. Is the UK sustainable. We spend a lot of time talking about whether the euro with sustainable those questions are very very far from being resolved and breaks. It is by symptomatic of those questions as well as causal of some of them, and that to me is very different from tromp phenomenon, which also there is symptomatic of many things as well as causing many things, but it has a different written two. It has a different time frame to it. I mean there's another question about Trump and Trump coming back, which is not the same with breaks it, but I would say to speaking for myself: I still spend a lot more time. Thinking about the long term consequences of breaks it. I do about the long term consequences of tromp bath idle, finally agree without me. I will just add, on the brakes it front tat the place where this is going to cloud quite intensely.

Over the next few months is in relation to Northern Ireland, and it gets to the heart- and now I think, of the governance of Northern Ireland itself and the future of power sharing there, and then that has the possibility of, raising questions about the future position of Northern Ireland. In the United Northern Ireland will play a significant part in then shape. what the future of the rest of the UK relationship with the European Union is the transfer. Think is harder in some sense to think about, partly because I think that we have to remember that at the end of all that and the end of that presidency, he still one video remarkable number of votes, and so that is part of the domestic story of the trunk presidency too, as well as the way that it just completely imploded at the end and sky

he's gotta think to imagine Joe Biden being president of the United States without Donald Trump. So it seems to me and in some part of the bargain story, administered continuity, Trump story, because he's he's right, everybody that only exists in some senses, president, because of Donald Trump. So it seems to me that Trump wasn't some aberration that happened, and then he saw a sealed off and moved on is it is what came next is so fundamentally, I think shaped by the term presidency, So then, I think, if you think about it in in foreign policy terms in in geopolitical terms, we can see that Biden has actually done things. That of that different. I think the more trump did he has wanted to draw a line under clear line under the ninth States war in Afghanistan? He hasn't. We set the China Relationship is not being able to get around back to the negotiating table, it really see. I know that the talks are going on but has not been able to. It doesn't look at them

there's going to be able to get a new around nuclear. Do you all tensions within NATO. Around issues about Russia and russian gas position of you we now have been very much into the foresight. I think that in in political terms, Trump looks more like a symptom of something that is much more structural than just about himself, and in that sense we still living in the world, the trumps turn major physically, even though, as I say, I don't think so said something about him to say one more thing against obvious, but breaks it was a referendum. It could have been a second referendum. Actually politically would have been impossible and a referendum is a one off event is not cyclical. It's not you have the brakes. Referendum Then, four years later you see what you feel about it and then four years after that Trump bite, tromp is not lie in many ways, but its explicable in the land. wage and understanding of electoral politics with its rhythms and cycles the continuity in the brakes, all of them

it's to me. A lot of it is still familiar breaks. It is a one off it set the terms for british policy. x for a generation or more it's a fundamental constitutional change which the United States has not had a What the analogy would be for something on which there was a popular vote which changed the way that America does its politics, I mean, maybe maybe word to be a change in the role of the Supreme Court, maybe that if there were to be a change in the constitution, but that doesn't happen in your politics We went through that and it's it's fundamentally different. It's all electoral politics, but referendum politics and general elections are just not the same one area where there was a lot of course, as you mentioned, are alot of deference

is maybe the way that they helped realign the parties in the sense that the Republican Party attracted more Non college, catered voters, fewer, suburban urban college, educated voters, things I got you saw similar patterns in how people voted to either remain in or leave the European Union me. Do you think the past five years has produced for a durable realignment for conservative and liberal parties in the UK and in the United States, and we have seen this definitely been some kind of realignment in a number of countries, and I'd say that the Bush states at what has happened most clearly, perhaps where the power c of the right? Has teased first language increased the number of working class basis that it attracts. I think that since in the UK case is is, what we saw with activity victory in the tube

nineteen general election was that they were able to use those funds to add to their existing coalition. They didn't actually in practice, despite a lot of fears, particulates it about this, then lose significant, one of the main voters, conservative remain voters either to the Royal Party or to the liberal Democrats. So The conservative party was turning in an electoral performance in in two thousand and nineteen that it haven't seen since decades. You can't really saying the same thing about the Republican Party in the United States, even in the two thousand and sixteen election in the victories that it had there, not least because actually in popular vote terms, is we note that the Democrats do better in the presidential election and nothing so sets them a part? Is that there's nothing like the scottish question?

for the Democrats in terms of being able to recover from the difficulties that they got themselves into in two thousand and sixteen, whereas the FAO The labour has largely been wiped out in Scotland is a real significant impediment to the party taking power. Sir, is majority party for the foreseeable future in the United Kingdom so even if labour were to find a way, nothing is decent. Try and kissed armor to peel back those voters that were added by the consumer. This is an actual coalition in December of two thousand and nineteen. It is still gonna struggle to make a breakthrough, I mean in the we ve been doing output podcast. We ve seen embraced politics as planned This realignment the rise and fall of parties other than the two main parties in the breaks it party doesn't exist anymore, but for a really shaped british politics through the brakes, appeared as Helen said, Scotch National parties a huge

a significant player in this, it doesnt all happened within the parties. It spells out the two main parties are constantly having to watch their backs. It's much more european than it is american. In that sense, even though we have a first past the post system, Will call you one of our lost podcast today about France, the collapse of the traditional coffee structure in France, more extreme than anything that we've seen here. But you know there are echoes of your some of that volatility in our basic Party, much as we still have the two main parties, but that they have a real sense that things could fall apart, which I dont think holds. In the case The states where I say that it is another guess he touched on it. The politics in Britain, as in parts of Europe, as in the other states

turns on these divisions that we won't conscious of ten fifteen years ago, one of which is between college graduates and people haven't been to college and that's true our politics to the electoral map, the actual map abreks. It was university towns versus the rest. The electoral map, of where labour wins, can be mapped onto a sort of networks of higher education. I didn't that's changing anytime soon. It poses problems for, though the parties of the workers which have become the

it is of the graduates- have to build coalitions, cost around yet enough graduates to win with that constituency entirely, because the other division is age old of us. His younger and poorest Johnson is Prime Minister, because older non college, educated voters voted for his party because they also tended to vote for Black said, and that shift is profound and the parties of reacting to it. They are not driving it and it is comparable across your politics allows saw a final question here to wrap upon, which may be a little unfair as it's a big question at a big unknown by a significant unknown facing are too

nations, and this moment is Ukraine and a potential russian invasion, and I'm not gonna, ask you whether not Russia is going to invade. I'm sure you don't know, I don't know either. I think, for our purposes. The question that this brings up is how United is the court and quote west after tromp after breaks it does. It still seem like the United States and NATO and the sort of corn court western Alliance is as strong as it once was. Is it as credible as it once was? Is there just to a more interesting isolationism and less interest in foreign intervention? I think that the problems of NATO, a very long standing, I think in some sense of that they give out to its beginnings, and I think that it rode out those differ. since during the cold war- and it rode out the tea

chins between the european Project, if you like, as it then was- and NATO Nato now like providing essentially external security for the european community. But I don't see that now there is ever got to grips with NATO and the European Union, has ever got to grips with what the post cold war world. As look like, In that sense, I think that the ukrainian crisis has been a long time coming. I dont think that it is the differences that have emerged between our countries- politics, european countries, politics over the last four the six years that can explain the underlying disunity that now exists in NATO, as this, I think, is much more structural than that and what it actually means to give security guarantees to those states that have borders with.

I mean I think what we could say about recent weeks is that nicer? You can still put on a a sheriff you like of rhetorical unity, that there's not the same kinds of divisions that were exposed by the withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer, where you always obviously had fierce criticism being directed at Washington from european capitals. I still think that these are pretty profound differences that, with we see between, NATO states, not least, obviously mean, if you just want to tell you know like polarizing the position of Poland compared to the position of France, that France still wants to think in terms of a european strategic autonomy and for the countries that have borders with Russia in american guarantee will always come first. I don't have much to add to that, except I suppose that things can cause we're almost everything that the biggest divisions within Europe rather than there are, of course, always happen. Transatlantic division

but the points attention the points of real difficulty. I liked it come out within Europe. This is a longstanding set of challenges were, and it has a long way to go. I didn't really What people mean when they talk about the unity of the west? it was those things things a bit. I bore sons and there's a lot of talk about it. There is a big gap between the talk about the west, falling passing it actually happening, but there are deep political, structural, strategic challenges for the member states of the European Union to face in the coming year, is, and in a way that the pandemic has been. Creators of the pandemic has put a lot of things on hold, and this year and next year those things are gonna come back just briefly, I think one thing that we saw with Trumps presidency and, of course, with violence.

draw from Afghanistan is that there is a stronger desire for a bit of isolation, as in the United States, less foreign intervention, it doesn't clear that there is one american Party now, that's all for the kinds of interventions that might have once been proposed is that specific to the United States or that a sort of western phenomenon post Iraq, Post Afghanistan in terms of not wanting to engage in these kinds of foreign, tangled once I did. Then, he west european countries, including Germany, has been part of a european country here that wants to send soldiers to fight for Ukraine's independence. I think that that's what. the things is going on in some sense in this crisis. That's a bit odd, because The issue is about Peter saying: oh, Ukraine can't join NATO. Well Ukraine isn't gonna join NATO because our members of NATO outside the immediate countries, our borders with Russia, who can't deal with this problem themselves,

the wounds make sacrifices in order to defend Ukraine's independence. I think, if you're back a bit further and you go back, the syrian crisis. I think, there's a big moment- ninety thousand and the team that leads essentially to Burma, not following through One is red lines and responding to the chemical weapons attack. And the Assad regime engaged in is what was probably too almost decision. It was the british parliament basically making it clear to David. Someone that they were willing to support british military action. In that case, the post Iraq and I think in some cases that she goes further than that and I'd say in the? U S case the taller for these things, probably ones from nine eleven to Iraq, because the intolerance was there was a product of the Vietnam WAR. Citizens in western democracies do not want to see lots of people.

thus the soldiers dying in foreign wars- and that is a constraint on the on the foreign policy- can be pursued by their governments all right. Well, let's leave things there. Thank you so much for joining. May I thank you for helping us all understand the world a little bit better over the past six years, whether you're talking politics, Podcast David, runs Man and Helen Hudson professors at the University of Cambridge. Thank you so much for its good night suspected. My name is game and drink. Twenty chow is a virtual control room Clare. Budgetary Curtis is on audio editing and Emily even asking is, are in turn you get in touch. My emailing us at podcast at five, thirty eight dot com. You can also horse treated us with any questions, comments. Terrified of the show me a rating or review in the apple pie, cast store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon.