433. Question Time: Epstein’s Inner Circle, Ukraine’s Zelensky Backlash, and Destroying the Addiction Economy

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Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Asda Campbell. And me, Catty Kaye.
And Catty, thank you for being here.

As I said on the main episode yesterday, Roy Stewart is absent without leave or on leave without permission, just disappeared, vanished to the other end of the earth.

Wandering somewhere vaguely around Colombia. Nowhere, somewhere in Colombia.
He will be back, fear not, next week. But in the meantime, it's great to have Catty.

Epstein, you said said yesterday that Epstein has been dominant in the American media and clearly been breaking through in Australia as well. Jennifer is a member from Adelaide.

What is the likelihood that Trump will be impeached over Epstein? Would this be an opportunity for Vance to make a move to assume the presidency? I'm guessing not.

Yeah, I think the chances of him being impeached at all, even if, first of all, the Democrats would have to take back the House in the midterm elections next year, because at the moment they don't control the House, so they can't do anything about an impeachment process.

There's a whole load of things that various Democrats have muttered about trying to impeach Donald Trump on, particularly around corruption and money issues.

But the chances of him being impeached over Jeffrey Epstein, I think, are pretty slim.

The reporting is from the Wall Street Journal that Donald Trump's name is mentioned in the mysterious Jeffrey Epstein files, whatever they may be.

But that doesn't necessarily mean he was kind of doing anything particularly nefarious with Jeffrey Epstein.

It just means that, you know, Jeffrey Epstein had his contact or they were at a party together, all of which we already know. So I think the chances of him being impeached are pretty slim around that.

I think JD is going to play, we spoke about this on the podcast yesterday, and David Frummer spoke about this with you in your interview, Alistair, around JD Vance.

JD is going to keep Donald Trump very close.

for as long as he needs him, which is probably going to be right up until the primary process, even through the primary process, because even if Donald Trump is not running in 2028, he's going to be a very big figure in the election process.

He still has people who adore him, millions of Americans who adore him. And so I don't think JD is going to move against Trump in any way, and particularly not over Epstein.

If you're hoping that this is the way this ends, I don't think that's the right ending for this story. Can I just ask you something?

So Rory and I talked about this last week, and I and a few people say, hold on a minute, Trump and Epstein were unbelievably close, unbelievably close for quite a long time.

There's little that Epstein will be doing that Trump wouldn't wouldn't necessarily have known about. And you read on the Restus Politics US last week, you read some of the testimony.

And I must be honest, I had not read it. It was interviews with some of the children that had been abused by Epstein.
And it was pretty,

I don't even know the word. It was like, oh my God, this is even worse than I thought.
Do you think there is a desperation in Trump for the full story of Epstein not to come out?

I I think anyone who had an association with Trump, and remember, you know, Vera Wang, the amazing fashion designers, allegedly has sent one of those letters to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday as well.

I mean, there is a whole host of people which now, given what the public knows Jeffrey Epstein was doing at the time, don't want any kind of association. don't want their names to be linked.

Both Democrats and Republicans. Bill Clinton has often been associated with Jeffrey Epstein.
They don't want their names coming out. They don't want this to go anywhere.

And I think the reason I read that out on the podcast last week is I think there's a tendency with the Epstein story to see this in political terms. You know, will he be impeached? Could J.D.

Vance move? Yeah, exactly. And when we do that, we ignore the voices of these victims.
I read through that testimony. God, it's making me almost tear up again thinking about it, Alistair.

It's so chilling because it's so clinical. And the way he moved on these girls and deliberately seemed to go for 14-year-old girls, many of whom had already been abused.

Who were we then told when they became 18 they were too old? Augur Lane Maxwell stopped calling them and the understanding was that they were too old at the age of 18.

It's not just that these girls suffered then. Every time this story comes back again, they have to relive that trauma of abuse, the guilt, the embarrassment, the shame, the fear that comes with that.

And I think it's that story, actually, in a way, that is the important political story as well, because this was a really awful thing that Epstein did.

And therefore, anyone who knew what he was doing, tolerated what he was doing, even if they didn't do it themselves, they're complicit in this unbelievably awful series of rapes of children. Yeah.

Well, I'm going to make an executive decision here, Catty. I think we should play into this part of this podcast.

For those who don't necessarily yet listen to Trip to the US, what you read out last week, because it was horrific. It's quite a difficult listen, but listening to Catty from last week's Trip U.S.

Okay, so this is

the questioner is Maureen Comey, who was the prosecutor for the prosecution in the trial of Ghillane Maxwell.

Now, Jane, I want to ask you, did there come a time in your life when you met someone named Jeffrey Epstein? Yes. What year was that? 1994.

Did there come a time in your life when you had sexual contact with Jeffrey Epstein? Yes. How old were you when that first happened? 14 years old.

There's another bit I want to read you from another witness too, and this is when a young girl is brought to Jeffrey Epstein's house. When you walked into the kitchen, what happened?

We were greeted by Ms. Maxwell.
Did Mr. Epstein touch you during this first massage? No.

After that ended, what happened next?

I was paid. In total, approximately how many times did you go over to Mr.
Epstein's house to give him massages? Over a hundred. About how often did you go over to his house to provide those massages?

Two or three times a week. About how old were you the first time you went over to his house? 14.

And about how old were you the last time you went to his house? 18.

When you interacted with Maxwell, what, if any, conversations did you have with her about about your family? About my upbringing and things that were going on at the time? What did you tell Maxwell?

That my mum was an alcoholic and I had been molested and just random personal things. I remember telling her that I'd been raped and molested by my grandfather starting at the age of four.

After you told Maxwell you were 14, did she continue to call you to schedule massage appointments with Jeffrey Epstein? Yes.

During how many of the massages you gave Jeffrey Epstein did he masturbate? Every single time. During how many of the massages you gave Jeffrey Epstein, did he touch your breasts? Every time.

During how many of the massages you gave Jeffrey Epstein, did he touch your buttocks? Every time. Were there ever massages you provided Jeffrey Epstein where nothing sexual happened? No.

Something sexual happened every single time. Why did you stop going to Jeffrey Epstein's house? Because I became too old.
How old were you?

18.

That kind of in many ways speaks for itself. But let me just put something back to you.

You made a point somewhere, I can't remember where I saw you say this, but Donald Trump has not once said anything that I would define as being empathetic about the victims.

The only person he has been nice about in this entire thing, Epstein's now a sort of terrible person, he always knew he was a terrible person, nothing to do with me, go away, is Ghillaine Maxwell.

Now, I know Ghillain pretty well from my days on the mirror.

In fact, I've written my entire page in The New World this week about my knowledge of and insight into Ghillaine, who I've always thought was a lot more...

I always found her very funny, very engaging, but there was something deeply sad about her as well.

And if you'd have said to me back then, she'd have become the sort of madam to the notorious sex trafficker. I said, no, no, that's not her.

But if if you'd have said to me, she'll become attached to a very, very powerful man who moves in mysterious circles and lives a life where fact is a bit stranger than fiction, I could have seen it because that was her, that was her dad.

And I don't want to go psycho-babble, but I think if you've got a father like Robert Maxwell, it's going to be quite hard to come out sort of unscathed.

But what does this say about Trump that he's even now quite openly talking about the fact that he does have the power to pardon her? Could he get away with that? Listen to that testimony, right?

That That is from Ghillaine Maxwell's trial, and she is clearly the conduit of these girls. She's the recruiter of these girls.
And the idea that she might be pardoned, I think you would have uproar.

He did say up in Scotland this week that he had the power. It was something that he could potentially do.
And it is weird.

It's almost unprecedented, according to constitutional lawyers that I've spoken to, for somebody senior from the Department of Justice who is a political appointee to go to a prisoner to have kind of post-trial discussions.

And it looks like they're trying to get something from Ghillene Maxwell in exchange for some sort of, you know, commutation or lessening of her sentence or something. So it all looks very fishy.

But when you hear that testimony and you are reminded of the role she played in destroying the lives of these girls, I do think you'd have real pushback from evangelical Christians around the country.

I know they've been in the Trump camp, they've tolerated an awful lot, they did a Faustian bargain, bargain. But look at the whole Epstein saga.

The Epstein saga is being kept in the front pages, not by Democrats, but by MAGA, right? And it would play into the idea of powerful people defending powerful people, defending paedophiles.

The world is run by paedophiles. It's the ultimate conspiracy theory.
And if she's pardoned, that plays into the conspiracy theory. Okay.

Now, Catty, you were on instead of Rory for this week, but it coincides with me receiving this question last week from a lady called Kira Bergman.

She's the chief executive of Rape Crisis England and Wales. There is a link, clearly, to what we've just been discussing about, but this is specifically about England and Wales.

Despite repeated strategies, says Kira, successive governments have failed to reduce violence against women and girls in a meaningful way.

The current government pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, but its strategy has been delayed and key funding decisions like the £53 million investment in the Drive Perpetrator programme were made without consultation with with questionable evidence of impact.

Meanwhile, rape crisis centers are closing, services for marginalized survivors are underfunded, and the response to rape remains deeply inadequate.

Why do you think governments continue to fail on this issue? What would a serious, effective strategy to reduce violence against women and girls look like?

How can politicians, especially male politicians, help drive real change?

And Kira actually said that she wanted me and Rory to talk about this because she felt male politicians felt they couldn't really engage in this issue issue in a way that women can.

But you first, and then I'll have a few thoughts on my own. You should answer this because it's a very UK-specific question when it comes to funding and policy and what's being done.

But I will say that one thing I'm noticing in the States is that

there is a pushback against women and women's issues. At its easiest, it's around DEI issues, but it's happened in the last few months.

And the progress of that from kind of, well, women have just been appointed because because of DEI. We should clamp down on DEI.

And I've had lots of my friends who work in this space say there's no funding for it anymore. You can't really talk about it anymore.

You can't really talk about equity issues in the workplace anymore. And the sort of steps from that to violence against women and increasing violence against women, I could see that happening.

And I think it is something that women generally are afraid of. And I think it's true.
It's something that male politicians feel very squeamish about talking about.

And I wish we could pull them into the conversation much more because we would all be better off if men joined us in this conversation.

I do agree with that and of course you know my daughter Grace who is a comedian and talks about sex a lot, writes about sex a lot and she had an experience of rape in America a few years ago now and she wrote a piece about it and she in that piece which obviously you know was a very very difficult read on all sorts of levels for her parents but one of the points that came through to me was that she

and I spoke to her friends about this as well,

the idea of reporting it to the police is just like,

they don't even think about it. And one of the points that Kira made to me is that the conviction rate on rape, it hovers somewhere between 1 and 2%.

Whereas there is

more, probably not adequate and the services aren't good enough, but... domestic violence that we think of as, you know, a man knocks a woman about and the woman goes off to try to find a refuge.

Men can kind of handle that. Rape, it gets to a different sort of level and maybe we don't want to be part of the debate.

When, as you say, we have to, not least because governments are going to have to address this. And so just to give some of the stats, around, this is the England and Wales,

798,000 women. raped each year.
That's one in 30. So most of us will know somebody raped or sexually assaulted.

The waiting time, and this is at a time when Brian Leveson, the retired judge, has just done a report about Crown Court trials and the massive, massive backlog that there is.

So we're talking about an average of at least two years to get to court.

Currently, almost 12,000 waiting. The answer to Kira.
And I mean, look, you know, she knows about this a lot, lot more than I do. But I think that when we talk about having a strategy,

that has has to mean something. There has to be a strategy that says, this is the scale of the problem.
These are the kind of measures that we think we ought to be able to address it.

But one of them has to be that women feel much more. And men, by the way, men who get raped

tend not to report it because they say the police don't understand. So I think it's about understanding.
It's then about us understanding that we think the services are there.

Actually, the women you talk to who work in this area, they say the services are disintegrating in part because we're not prepared to talk about this.

And also, without getting too political, I couldn't help noticing we're a year on from the Southport riots that followed the murder of those three little girls.

And I saw something that two out of five of those who were convicted of violence were known to the authorities for domestic violence.

I'm not saying, by the way, domestic violence is an exclusively right-wing thing. I am saying this is a way bigger problem than we sometimes like to admit.
Yeah.

And it's one of those subjects, whether it's domestic violence or rape, I thought those figures that our great producing team put in there about how one of the things that women say, and we heard this during Me Too,

does make me think of the Epstein story, is the embarrassment and the shame that women face when they've been sexually abused or raped and that they carry that guilt with them for years.

Somehow they feel they were at fault or they were too weak or they should should have fended this off, or if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And when they go to the police, very often, what these women say in the States and here in the UK is my understanding, is that that increases their mental health stress because the police treatment is not sensitive enough and is not open enough to what they are feeling and what they've gone through.

And, you know, the thing that Grace said about her thing is that, you know, she had this even from her own kind of

her own circles online of people saying, Well, hold on a minute, if you if you're going to talk so much about sex and you're going to do comedy shows about sex, it's almost like saying, Well, you know, you're going to have to expect a bit of this.

You know, it's like the old judges used to say, Well, if you're going to wear a mini skirt, if you're going to wear a short skirt, it's not for a short skirt, you can't expect

boys will be boys, boys will be boys. Boys will be boys.

Another stat that's kind of relevant to this, which Kira from the Rape Crisis Center told me: an average of two women each week are murdered by men, and yet women and children really struggle struggle to find a refuge.

And of course, we had a very, I don't know if you saw this, Katie, you were probably in the States at the time.

We had a big case recently where the controlling husband of a woman who was in a refuge tricked her into revealing where she was and he found her and he killed her.

So there you are, Kira. Thank you for that.
That is a very, very, very heavy subject, but I think it's one that Kira's right, that men do need to talk about.

We'll come back to it with Rory another time. Shall I read the next one? Yep.
Okay, this one comes from Viv Thelton.

Why did the European Union withhold $1.5 billion in aid to Ukraine and how does this reflect the EU's stance on President Zelensky's recent domestic policy decisions?

Why don't you explain, Alistair, what happened and why?

Well, the reason that they've said they're withholding it, I suspect that given the way he's reacted in recent days, it will not necessarily be seen through is because Zelensky, who has, you know, I said in the main podcast yesterday when I was introducing this, I think has been an extraordinary leader and has barely put a foot wrong.

But I think he did put a foot wrong with this.

Essentially, what happened was that they brought in a new law in the Ukrainian parliament to relieve two big anti-corruption agencies of their independence and put them under the control of the prosecutor general who is appointed by the president.

It led to the first really big protests.

It led to a couple of days where the Ukrainian government was very defensive and saying, no, no, no, this is because these guys have been infiltrated by the russians and da da da da people didn't really buy that it may be true but people were not willing to buy it there were more protests and eventually not least under pressure from the european union and others um zelensky reversed this and he reversed it pretty quickly so i think he was aware that this was a bad bad move and one of the the the things that this has brought out and much more into the public is that there are people who have been close to Zelensky in the past, including a former deputy prime minister, including somebody in his own team, who were under investigation and have been under investigation by these bodies for corruption.

So bad move to do it in the first place, good move to reverse it, and probably

damage undone, but with a bit of a tarnish still there. Yeah, that's what I'd heard from UK officials who follow this, that it could be that it was just getting too close to Zelensky.

And that was why he felt he should push ahead with these moves.

But something that clearly annoyed not just the Europeans, by the way, but a lot of American senators, including Republican senators who want to see corruption stamped out in Ukraine.

Okay, let's take a quick break and then we're going to come back for more questions.

I'm David Orleshoga. And I'm Sarah Churchwell.
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Welcome back to the Rest is Projects Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell. And me, Katie Kaye.

Now, Roy and I had a discussion a few weeks ago about health, the health service and prevention rather than cure.

And I dropped into the conversation that, you know, well,

we do seem to have this sort of fondness for things that damage us, like alcohol, like crap food, and whatever you have.

And a guy called Joe Woof, amazing name, W-O-O-F, got in touch and told me he was writing a book. And the question goes as follows.

Considering your idea of a public health fund, I'd have said, I said that maybe it should be a public health fund where we actually get these food companies and drink companies, they have to make contributions as well.

How do we stop treating addiction as just an individual fault? Instead, how do we break down this addictive environment by limiting how products are sold and advertised?

Surely we need alternative forces like youth clubs, community spaces that help people connect and thrive, especially the young, rather than just offering more support to quit or more education.

And Joe Wolf's point is that, and this is the book he's writing about, is called The Addiction Economy, that alcohol, fast food, junk food, it's designed to make us addicted to us.

And this is what he is going to be writing about. So, listen, you live in the capital of the

global, but I allowed to say America is the capital of global junk food with a president who loves it as well.

We do have a Secretary of Health now in Bobby Kennedy Jr., who is actually trying to diminish the amount of addictive properties that are in junk food, has been pretty successful in moves to take out, for example, bright.

I don't know if you've ever had fruit loops. Have you ever had the pleasure of a bowl of fruit loops for breakfast and

there in the south of France is not perhaps something that's available. They are bright neon-colored little circles, purple, blue, orange, yellow, green.
And they're basically pure sugar and food dye.

I mean, it's a bowl full of sugar with some food dye. At least now, Bobby Kennedy, to his credit, is trying to diminish the amount of addictive properties and sugar and food dyes and things.

And you're right that there is a huge amount of addiction to fast food. And there's a great book called The Fast Food Nation, which is all about how the big fast food companies have

deliberately put addictive properties into food to make us addicted.

But what I'd be interested in from your perspective and Joe Woof's perspective is to what degree do both of you think that some of these addictions are actually genetic and therefore we should be looking at the scientific measures to stop whatever it is.

that turns on those genes in people from

getting them caught in addictive behavior. Because that is the focus of attention in the States at the moment with drugs like

the idea that drugs like Wagovi, the fat-fighting drugs that were taken on for obesity, has a different name here in the UK, doesn't it? But in America. Azempic.
Wagovi. Azempic.
Yeah.

That they actually have the potential to cut addiction. So that's where the most of the focus is.

Yeah, although they are going to be 15% at least more expensive to American consumers as a result of the tariffs.

I did actually suggest to the Danish government when Trump was going on about Greenland, where apparently he's still going on about Greenland more privately than he is publicly at the moment, that actually what Denmark would just say, well, you invade Greenland and we block all sales of all the silvering drugs to America.

See how you like that, fat man.

So I think on this that that's pretty interesting because I did a BBC documentary about depression a few years ago and I went to Canada to interview a really interesting woman called Dr.

Janine Austin. And she's a geneticist.
She studies genetics. Now we were talking about genetic in relation to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.

Her view was that it was much more environmental than genetic. But I hadn't really thought about it in the context of straightforward addictions.
But I think this is where the environmental

mixes with the experiential, if you like, because of course if you're brought up in a house that is

addicted or believes that there's nothing wrong with fast food, there's nothing wrong with junk food, there's nothing wrong with all the stuff that we, you know.

I mean, I imagine that breakfast that you described is a breakfast cereal that kids eat before they go to school. Absolutely.
On a sugar high. Exactly.

So, so, and, and I, I, you know, regularly, when I'm going to this, coming back from the swimming pool in the morning, we'll see kids going to school, eating crisps, eating chocolate, drinking Coca-Cola, whatever, yeah, and I kind of get in a rage about it because I just think, well, that's so bad.

But what Joe is saying is that we shouldn't blame the people who are doing this because they are conditioned by the industry.

And then, of course, this is not a genetic point, but it's a parental point. And then by parents who have grown up thinking there's nothing wrong with this stuff anyway.

And then, of course, what you have where this becomes political, you have the sort of Nigel Farages of this world say that people like me who say, you know, it's bad to eat crap all day long, we just want to spoil people's fun.

And this then becomes the sort of political thing.

We're the killjoys and they, the populists, are the people who want to give you a better life because you want to eat this crap and you should be trusted to make those decisions for yourself.

And what Joe Woof said about the discussion that Rory and I had, he said we were sort of revealing what he felt was a sense that being fat, being drunk, losing your money to gambling, that's your fault.

These are choices you're making.

The point that Joe's book is going to make is that well maybe up to a point and i said actually in that film i remember you know when when an alcoholic picks up a drink that is the individual choice that they are making at that time but alcoholism is in part created by an industry that wants people to drink more and more and more and by genes i don't know about the genetic bit i know about the genetic bit on some addictions and there's definitely a genetic profile in certain addictions but is it a genetic profile or the fact that if you're raised in a family that says addicted to drugs or addicted to alcohol or anything else, that you might be more liable to follow those patterns of behaviour?

I don't know. To be discussed.
This is for you, Alistair, from Sam, who is a member. Thank you for being a member, Sam, from Hertfordshire.

I know I'm young and probably over-optimistic, but I've been thinking a lot about whether hope is a weakness or a responsibility. You've both seen how messy the system is up close.

But from the outside, I see something still worth salvaging. Do you think people like me are wasting time trying to fix it? Or do you think we're essential to saving it? I love this question.

And I know, Alistair, you've spoken a lot about this. So

what's your optimistic answer to Sam? Well, look, Sam, thank you for that.

And yes, I mean, I often say to Rory that where I get my hope is talking to young people. I think there are more people like you, Sam, than you might think.

I certainly think there are more people like you than the older generations think. And you've got to stay hopeful.

In fact, breaking news, I'm probably saying something I shouldn't say here, but I'm involved in a campaign.

A former colleague of mine in number 10, Kate Garvey, who went on to do all sorts of amazing things working on, and she's currently working on the Sustainable Development Goals, which right now feel like they're under pressure.

And she is currently putting together a campaign, which I am going to be part of, and the rest is politics, is going to be part of, called Be Hope.

And as we work our way up towards the United Nations General Assembly, we're going to be trying to find ways of being hopeful.

Kate actually wants all the big podcasts in the country and in the States and around the world to have an episode where we just find things to be hopeful about and talk to people that make us hopeful.

So I think if you don't, what's the alternative to hope? It's despair. And right now, okay,

you turn the television on tonight, and what do you see? You see Gaza, feels hopeless. You see Russia, Ukraine, it feels hopeless.
You see see wildfires going across Turkey, Albania, Greece.

It feels hopeless.

But what do you do if you just say, well, okay, it's hopeless, therefore I'm going to stop trying to do something. So you have to retain that hope that these are problems that can be fixed.

And I think there's none of those problems that you look at and you think, well, we haven't. The world hasn't dealt with things like that before.
The world has dealt with things like that before.

So no, Sam, you are not wasting your time trying to fix it. You are essential to saving it and

keep on keeping on. I agree, Alistair.
People like Sam are indispensable.

And whenever I get really gloomy about the state of American politics and global politics, I look to younger people because I see so much energy there.

It's hard for them to stay optimistic because of a lot of the things that we've done, particularly around the climate.

But I'm so glad that somebody like Sam is still committed and engaged and wanting to be engaged. Right, Catty, maybe I should ask you this one.
I think it's a very, very, very unfair question.

We put out a call for questions and for some weird reason, our producers included a photograph of me.

I know to the day when it was taken, because it was the day that we called off the 2001 general election because of an outbreak of foot and mouth. So that was 24 years ago.

Why are they using 24-year-old pictures of me, Catty? Is it to make me look the same age as you? I think that's quite good, isn't it?

Wouldn't you like it if somebody uses a much younger?

No, because I don't look like that.

It's fake news.

I've got no receipty hairline. I've got no lines under my eyes, even though I was working 23 hours a day.
And you've been moisturizing like Anthony, so you've learned, which is good. I like that.

I've never used moisturizer in my life. Talking of Anthony, the question is this.
Martin Greg, Catty, how do you keep such massive egos as Alistair and Anthony Scaramucci in their place?

Well, first of all, Martin, both Alistair and Anthony are delightful human beings with very well therapised egos who are very happy to let me participate in the conversation and they're pretty easy to manage.

And I say that in all seriousness, actually, both of you are people who are men who have worked all your lives with women whose voices have sometimes struggled to be heard and who have taken that on board.

And Alistair, partly because of your daughter, I think, and your wife, you know that, well, first of all, you're going to get shit from your daughter if you don't let another woman be heard.

So your ego is well-tempered.

But, Martin, I thank you for the question because, yes, in my life, it has been on occasion the case that I've had to deal with male egos, rather expanded male egos.

Apparently, I've been told that men tend to think they're 30% better than they actually are.

I am currently reading because we're going to be talking to her on the leading soon, Nicola Sturgeon's autobiography, which I'm thoroughly enjoying.

But she does make the point that women have to sort of be twice as good as a man to be considered to be half as good.

And I think there is something that I've, you know, one of the people in my life that I think is, I was talking earlier about Ghelane Maxwell. And when I worked on The Mirror,

Eve Pollard was my editor at the Sunday Mirror. And she was a very

She was just a very, very good woman and a very good person. And I liked working for her.

I've never had that hung up about thinking that if you work for a woman you're somehow you know demeaning yourself.

It's why I don't get the thing in America and frankly we've also had it in the Labour Party.

You know, I honestly do think that one of the reasons that was held against Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris is they're women.

And I've got to say I still think Hillary and Kamala will be better than what we've got right now. Because if you want to talk about massive egos, Martin,

don't look to Scaramucci, look to the guy that fired him after he looked to Scotland. 11 days.

Look to the greatest country of the world where currently the greatest ego in the world is planted himself. There we are.
Cassie, it's been an absolute joy. That was great.

I feel very, you know, honoured to be invited to the top table, included with the grown-ups. That was fun.
Thank you.

And thanks, everyone, for listening. Take care.

It's David Ulishoga from Journey Through Time. Here's that clip that we mentioned earlier.

If you look at all of the accounts of the fire at this point, as we get to the end of Sunday the second, the first day, this fire is not behaving in any way. the way fires traditionally did in London.

And there are some people who've argued that it was becoming a firestorm, that the heat and the wind and the movement of air caused by the fire was feeding it, was becoming self-sustaining, as it were.

John Eveling, who's a great writer and a diarist of this moment, he talks about the sound of the fire. He said it was like thousands of chariots driving over cobblestones.

There are descriptions in Peps and elsewhere of this great arc of fire in the sky.

I mean, imagine that everything around you is coloured by the flames, yellows and oranges, and above you is this thick black smoke. This is a city you know.
These are streets you walk.

This is a place that's deeply familiar to you, and it looks completely otherworldly. It looks like another, like a sort of landscape you've never seen before.

People describe the fire almost as if it's supernatural. If you want to hear the full episode, listen to Journey Through Time wherever you get your podcasts.

As the year draws to a close, it's time for our annual reminder that even in an age of political noise and division, one national consensus still stands firm. Roast potatoes.

Oh, God, all this British stuff.

If you're wondering, however, what to buy the politically obsessed person in your life this Christmas, might I gently suggest a year's membership to the Rest is Politics Plus?

It's the thoughtful kind of present.

Ad-free listening, bonus episodes, early access to Q ⁇ As, book discounts, and perhaps I think most interesting, it's our mini-series, available only to members focusing on the world's most complex characters and topics.

We've already explored Rupert Murdoch and J.D. Vance, and we're doing many more subjects to come.
So think of this as a civilised gift to allow families to disagree agreeably over Christmas.

What could be nicer? And if you've left it until Christmas Eve, as I fear I often do, the great thing is it's digital. No cues, wrapping or panic.

The membership lands neatly in their inbox on Christmas Day. So spread a little political peace and goodwill.
Head to therestispolitics.com and click gifts.