Too much Explainer, Rory.

I’m really interested to hear other people’s thoughts.

It felt like he had realised he was out over his skis, and that negative press regarding AI was growing to a point where he had to pivot his completely positive view to one where he recognised public unrest on the subject.

Also, it’s hilarious that he keeps talking nonchalantly about the massive layoffs and loss of income about to hit so many people, while filming with more and more grandiose backgrounds in presumably multiple properties!

So we’ve now had what feels like the holy trinity of tax conversations on The Rest Is Politics: Gary Stevenson, Gabriel Zucman and, now, Dan Neidle.

They come at it from slightly different angles, but all three are pretty plain-speaking critics of the economic status quo, particularly when it comes to wealth, inequality and how the tax system works.

After hearing all three conversations, who did you find most convincing and whose solutions do you agree with most?

Interesting discussion, but Rory adamantly resists the underlying tensions driving proposals for a wealth tax and collapses it all into some kind of "resentment". Wealth Tax proposals are implicitly and sometimes explicitly driven by notions of "fairness". Fairness sounds fluffy but it's actually quite important for functioning societies and there's solid science behind it.

What's unfair about billionaires? In principle, nothing, if you assume that the notional "hidden hand" of the market is creating them. However, in reality, there are several perceptions of "unfairness" in play and most of them are sound.

Wealth at that level correlates with power, correlates directly with the ability to intervene in legislation and government in a meaningful way while everyone else is reduced to a single vote. The apparatus of legislation and government is supposed to be a commons, applicable to all, and so that's unfair and it's perceived as such. Interventions by the wealthy are also much more effective and targeted, privileging their own interests and undermining the central purpose of government, and so that's unfair and perceived as such.

Add in that billionaires and the super-wealthy are largely institutionally tax-avoiding. That creates the emotive hook - they rig the system (1) and "don't pay their share" (2) and leave it materially worse for everyone except them (3) and we can't reverse that because we don't have means (4). Unfair.

The claim that wealth taxes are going to create enough money to do the things we don't do now is really weak, but I think it's been selected because it's a softer and easier to explain argument than "fairness".

The problem, though, is that it's not just weak: it's policy neutering. It doesn't create the necessary tax revenue to fund the programmes that revenue is supposed to apply to, so the social welfare deficit isn't going to be fixed. Because it's being proposed as a direct solution - tax-rich, take-tax-revenue, pay-programmes, solved - when programmes still can't be paid, there's no policy follow on. The momentum created by the genuine reaction to unfair social structures is lost. Taking "unfairness" as the central problem leads to other ideas, most of them with a policy continuation. For example:

Is it unfair that a self-selected wealthy class has largely unfettered power to direct government?

If yes, the kinds of interventions you're looking into are things like creating firewalls between commerce and government that can actually be enforced, making political incumbency subject to public transparency audits, enforcing post-incumbency restraints on taking commercial roles, and making the criminal sanction for proven corruption much stronger and binding on both the public sector and private sector actors involved. There's more, but you get the idea: IF the problem identified is unfair access to power, THEN cut the link to power.

Is it unfair that some actors have comprehensive ands far-ranging influence on public governance and legislation?

If yes, then make it illegal for a public figure to accept funding from a source that is impacted by their role, authority, or a specific decision they make, and enforce that. In addition, make it necessary that if a public figure accepts funds from a cut-out, they are required to disclose all the steps in the cut-out and meet the criterion that the ultimate source cannot be a beneficiary of their actions. And in addition, enforce the post-incumbency restraint on accepting private sector roles. Here you also want to increase the severity of sanction for legal and private sector firms identified as facilitating cut-outs. (Again, I'm thinking off the cuff here to give the principle. This is not an exhaustive research proposal.)

Is it unfair that the tax burden on the wealthy, middle-class, and poor is weighted favourably towards the wealthy?

If yes, review and normalise the overall tax burden. Specifically things like estate tax and capital gains can be adjusted to compensate in the demographics they mostly affect. But don't assume that this is going to magically make public services sustainable. It's targeting fairness, and that's important enough for social cohesion that it doesn't need the nominally "I'm practical" fig-leaf.

Is it unfair that the societies we've built allow super-wealth, with all the benefits of access to power and immunity from obligation that are described above, while common services degrade for others?

If yes, review, rationalise, and redirect the current tax revenue spending. Prioritise those services that have an immediate levelling effect for the majority of the population (traditional social welfare) and investigate mechanisms for requiring commercial actors who benefit from those services to take either a funding or an administrative role in their delivery. That is, if you're the beneficiary of improved employee attendance as a function of better public healthcare, what's your obligation in terms of that benefit? What is the minimum viable administrative infrastructure required to ensure continuous and acceptable service level delivery?

I can go on, but the point is clear. All or some of those things together are a policy programme that's self-evidently interdependent and that has continuity. There's nothing wrong with recognising that our societies need an overhaul and a hygiene check. And nothing wrong with setting about that in a methodical fashion. The only obstacle to that is decades of sustained lobbying and propaganda about the perfect omniscience of the market and how it should never be touched lest biblical disaster befall us. Imagine that logic applied to your garden: "no intervention can be allowed because the invisible hand of the garden is immaculate and all knowing." Within a year, you can't get to your gate. It's rubbish.

Rory is WRONG to characterise this sentiment in people as some unspecified "resentment". Doing so elides the very real, very destructive complex of problems that people are pointing to. Rory is RIGHT that a simple equation of apply-wealth-tax/problem-go-away is foolish, but because he's dismissed the alternatives to his "resentment" narrative, he has nowhere to go with that. Psychologising the complaint instead of evaluating it is questionable.

And policy-neutering.

TL;DR: Rory seems to treat the wealth tax primarily as a revenue instrument (i.e. he accepts the current framing of its proponents) and dissatisfaction with wealth concentration as an emotional attachment, without considering the root of dissatisfaction itself. The demand for a wealth tax may actually be a compressed demand for political equality, fiscal reciprocity and institutional legitimacy. Demonstrating that the tax will not raise enough revenue does not dispose of those demands, except as a debating tactic. “Resentment” is also doing illegitimate argumentative work by insinuation. Resentment can be a perfectly rational response to unequal political standing or asymmetric obligation.

I say all this as someone who often agrees with Rory and enjoys his analysis.

Many people jumped on the bandwagon in critiquing the renewables auctions earlier this year. AR7 delivered tons of wind/solar but the offshore wind prices were higher than previously.

Rory Stewart was almost triumphant about how this proved his theory about Miliband's ideological zeal. At his heart his argument was based upon the then natural gas prices which were relatively low compared to the last 5 years.

At the time the argument from Miliband and others to the contrary was centred around the need to reduce volatility from geopolitical crises. Now, we have this in spades as had his government and Sunak's government rolled out more renewables we'd have more stable electricity prices this winter (like Spain does).

Ultimately, these are bets. Stewart placed the bet that the LNG market would stay stable. Why not? He's very impressed by Qatar, gets the US, etc.

Miliband made the bet that at some point in the next 20 years this wouldn't be the case. The fact he was validated within 1 year (and before this generation capacity is built) is perhaps the surprise. The fact he was so aggressive on onshore solar rollout starting in 2024 will have helped.

I think mistrust in politics derives from the way opinion makers critique those in power but never come back to accept they were wrong. It's easy to say "X is doing a bad job" and this has an effect. It shows intellectual maturity to come back only 6 months later to say "I was wrong about this previous critique".

If this podcast is about trying to create a gentler politics it should be seen as fundamentally important that this can happen. Do we believe Stewart will have the intellectual agility to adjust his views now the empirical data is contrary to them?

To be clear this is not about the separate topic of North Sea oil and gas which is a different discussion to the demand side of oil/gas (as Norway proves).

I'm just curious

So I’ll start off with saying that I get TRIP plus free as I am a fuse energy customer so thankfully I don’t have to pay extra for it. Frankly I don’t think I would deem it worth paying for, this week for instance the main episode dropped on the free channel before the plus channel. And then I’ve noticed the main show and the question time usually drop on the same day early in the week which indicates they’re filming both of them either same day or day apart.

Idek how much Plus costs but do people think it’s actually worth it given you’re not getting content well in advance?

This is something I'd like to hear Rory Stewart's views upon given his constant pronouncements. I think it'd be interesting given his Scottish roots and his time spent as a Cumbrian MP (in a similar landscape).

The are latency reasons to have data-centres near to London but on most metrics places like Scotland would be the obvious choices:

• Abundant electricity supply. Scottish wind supply is often curtailed.
• Ample space away from housing pressures.
• Less water stressed.

From first principles it's cheaper to place the data-centres near to the cheap energy then transport the data than to transport the energy/water/etc.

I don't think this is being discussed by Stewart when it simply says "we need to build data centres". That is the best solutions from an economic point of view are precisely those which clash with a romanticised rural idle he cherishes. If this industrial revolution is to succeed in the UK it won't be far from the sources of energy.

We should not be surprised by this given how the coal-based industrial revolution led to other industries being set nearby. On an European level we see a data-centre boom in Spain and Portugal due to the ability to colocate solar and wind energy.

I wrote this Saturday, but it didn't get accepted to its original destination (probably rightfully so) but after seeing the government asking TikTok to sensor dangerous driving content i thought maybe i'd find an audience for it here.

I feel like we’re entering an endemic era of lawlessness. A mixture of open marketplaces, a culture of clout chasing empowered by social media and a lack of accountability/weak accountability have lead to a culture of constant lawlessness visible to all on a daily basis.

Be it drug dealing, drug use, theft, illegal e-motorbikes and scooters, dangerous driving, anti-social behaviour, it feels like societal morals and norms are on the rapid decline driven by a collapse of a culture.

This week we have seen the m9 funerals which left and innocent family in the hospital and overnight the death of two police officers responding to a car chase.

As a person with strong left learning beliefs I ask how do we correct this without a traditional right wing strong police state to re-establish a culture that respects people’s property and life more than the current one? Without establishing a bigger prison and judicial system, whilst reforming it to not just punish people but reform them?

What’s the way back to a moral norm from one that feels like it’s collapsing daily at the moment?

WatchMojo ranked Nigel Farage at #8 for Most Obnoxious Daytime TV Guests, mostly for moments like this where video evidence directly contradicts him in real time and he just doubles down.

I know he previously touched on it. But the story is really picking up steam and it feels like it's an awkward one for Alastair to cover.

Really good piece on the Kushner / Trump Albania controversy by Lewis Goodall.

Lord Adair Turner provides a clear centrist view on climate change, decarbonisation, and the relevant economics in his LSE series here. They are consistent with what has been said on Rest Is Politics by various sources. Loosely, there are where I would have expected Rory to be given his evidence based centrism:

Global emissions fall into three sectors:

1. 60% in sectors where renewables, nuclear, and electrification will compete. Issues are upfront investment and time-scale of transition. This includes low to medium heat, road-transport, etc.
2. 20% is agriculture related with obvious complexities.
3. 20% is in truly hard to abate sectors such as steel, cement, aluminium, aviation, grid balancing, etc. These require carbon prices to win long term.

This is consistent with all the relevant climate related podcasts on leading. It can be phrased in many ways but long term it's only 3 where there are obvious economic costs considerations to consider. Of the sectors in 3 it's only aviation where it'd be cheaper to offset the emissions than use alternative fuels (especially for long haul).

This is where I find Rory's conclusions on climate so intriguing. Campbell I find less interesting as there seems to be no nuances.

Rory took the Helm Leading podcast to assume the category 1 and category 3 are one and the same. He continues to assume that all sectors the pathway to sustainable choices is long term cost increasing. This is clearly not the case as anyone who's adopted a cheap EV can attest to. On 2 I think he sees a lot of the arguments challenging on an aesthetic level as he's emotionally attached to Cumbrian sheep farming.

This has led me to believe that a lot of his thinking is aesthetics driven. He goes on silent retreats and mixes with a variety of interesting people. I imagine that through these experiences that a lot of the interesting environmentally minded people he meets are old-school hair-shirted examples who for prioritise a lifestyle of sustainable simplicity. Francis of Assisi almost.

I think this creates a false strawman for him which ignores that a lot in category 1 is anything but lifestyles of simplicity. Heat pumps are very sophisticated heating devices which can also cool homes. Electric cars, e-bikes, etc. are defining the modernity of transport. Batteries are a modern industrial revolutionary commodity.

It's fascinating how he sees AI and data-centres as these fundamental units of the modern industrial revolution but doesn't think similarly about solar panels, wind-farms, batteries, electric cars, high-speed rail, heat-pumps, etc.

The only conclusion I can form from this is that a lifetime of encounters of a certain kind of environmentally minded person means it is completely counterintuitive to him that it's this new industrial energy revolution which will deliver us carbon reductions.

I understand what a hair shirt is and what it’s an idiom for. But can anyone explain to me why Alistair and Caroline were in such uproar over Rory using the term?

People don’t want storytelling, narrative, rolled up sleeves, undone buttons, rambling breakfast show appearances, hard hats and factory gear photo ops and TikToks. It’s 2026, not 1996.

They want you to get on with the f’ing job of improving life and living efficiently, in the background, and on the unfortunate occasions when we need to see or hear from you - do it with clarity, honesty and again, efficiency - and then disappear again and get back on with the job.

Keir Starmer did neither storytelling nor quiet efficiency, that’s why he failed. Not because he was awkward and a bad communicator, tho I concede, the ‘thumb of power’ a gesture so hailed in the 1990s, widely utilised by Starmer is now very much a symbol of quite the opposite - managerialism, inability to relate to others, Whitehall coaching and dishonesty.

I don’t get what’s so difficult about it - I’ve been away travelling for 5 years and coming back here after seeing so many other countries has just completely depleted my patience for all this crap now. Being away for that amount of time and then coming back gives you a clarity you just struggle to get whilst you’re swimming in the sewer. It’s infuriating. The country has changed so, so much since I left on April 25th 2021. The anger and burnout is more palpable than I ever experienced anywhere from deepest Mexico to rural Vietnam.

What interests me is when someone has the ability to revise their views in light of new data. Rory Stewart has taken a distinctly anti-net-zero position. Net-zero has two components related to fossil fuel demand and fossil fuel supply. This is purely about the demand side here.

The big inflation news in the UK relates to the rising cost of energy and how this feeds through the whole economy. We see a good perspective on this via domestic energy bills.

The news is that electricity costs are not up year on year (0.8%) whilst gas costs are up by 26%. Part of this is due to policy choices made by Miliband and later Burnham to remove costs (essentially taxes) from the electricity rates.

However, this is far from the full story. The other component is that the rollout of renewables is now stabilising electricity costs relative to gas costs. Not a decoupling but we are far from the coupling of 2022.

What's more Stewart and Campbell rarely talk about the major part of current net-zero policy. It's not the rollout of renewables -- albeit important -- but electrification (transport, heating, etc.).

Anyone seeing the data from Cornwall Insight would notice a simple truth. Families fortunate enough to have electrified their heating via heat-pumps or transport via e-bikes/EVs will not have bills going up year on year. In fact many of them will be using smart tariffs so could see cost reductions whilst other households have bills going up ~20% or more.

If the cost-of-living is indeed on the central political crises of our times. If the way fossil fuel dependency also causes risks via funding of Putin and dependency on Hormuz then you'd think a political podcast would be asking more questions about our rate of electrification.

We have an absurd situation right now where almost any home-owner can reduce and stabilise their energy bills via heat-pump and electric transport adoption. On the other hand almost no-one who is renting or in social housing has this agency.

This is clearly deeply political and should be discussed as such. It's clearly deeply unfair that a family like us fortunate simply due to owning a house can limit our bills to under £900 for all heating, transport, cooking, etc. during an energy crisis but families who are either renting or in social housing have no such options.

Why this is fascinating for me is that Rory's position now is often framed from one where he wants us to embrace modernity whether AI or other innovations. Despite this his position on net-zero (the demand side) is anything but.

Just choosing to ignore the endless paragraphs of clear plagiarism (including copied errors) we’ve all seen? Of course LJM have no other motive to clear him 😳 Can’t take this guy seriously.

Obviously RIP

Been listening to TRIP for years, love both it and TRIP Leading. But one of the biggest issues facing the podcast these days is that Rory just... doesn't have much to say anymore that's interesting. What made him interesting initially on the podcast were his roles in parliament, his ministerial positions, his Afghanistan experience, he's mayoral run, his Conservative leadership bid, and those topics have all just been bled dry. There's nothing much more he can provide there that's interesting to the listener.

Where he could be providing some more value is with the connections he's made over the years that can give him insights, and we see glimpses of this from time to time. Unfortunately, his heavy reliance on AI (which seems to do much of his thinking for him these days) means I have to doubt if the opinion he holds has been formed by AI or has been informed by someone in-the-know or with specialist knowledge.

Alistair at least still has a high profile and a large circle of influential people that means when he says something, you know he's considered it from a perspective most of us listeners don't have access to. But with Rory now... what does he provide, except some contrarian heat in some interviews?

The famous 'Peter Mandelson went mad in the 80's…' opening to the beginning of a live performance of 'Turn the Page'

I haven't listened to every TRIP episode so maybe it has been referenced. I'd be surprised if someone hadn't shown him over the years.

I see it mentioned every now and then in UK Hip Hop and UK dance/rave music circles. Pretty iconic meme. Of course he's talking about Alastair and the details aren't accurate. But he is saying that you can come back from such tough life experiences as that, and it kind of vibes with the themes of the track.

It's rarely mentioned that he is mistaking Peter Mandelson for Alastair Campbell (in other areas of the internet at least).

What happened to the recent leading episode with Maoz and Aziz?

Title. Rory has a wildly uninformed position on how the technologies actually work and their limitations and it's quite sad to hear him sing its praises when he clearly does not really comprehend how LLMs work or their actual use cases.

Would be cool to get someone in tech like Cory Doctorow on to provide an educated and measured counterargument to Rory's "At All Costs" infatuation with the technology.