Populism's Growth In Europe | Question Time
What this covers
Why was Sam Altman fired from OpenAI? Would a secret ballot have saved a soft Brexit? What options are left for Rishi Sunak after Supreme Court’s Rwanda ruling?
Join Alastair and Rory as they answer all these questions and more on this week’s Question Time.
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00:00 - Intro 00:59 - Sam Altman and Open AI 06:31 - AI taking root 08:31 - Shouty journalists 10:46 - Alastair on handling Iraq outrage 12:00 - Dutch election 16:00 - Big policies 18:40 - Compulsory voting 20:15 - Behaviour of MPs 21:28 - Rwanda 26:00 - Refugee barge cost 27:00 - Understanding the UK political system
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Campbell and Stewart discuss contemporary UK and international politics, focusing on the OpenAI board crisis as emblematic of how small elite networks drive major decisions, the Dutch election and rise of anti-establishment politician Peter Omtzigt through exposure of government failures, and propose structural democratic reforms including citizens assemblies and stronger parliamentary ethics oversight.
- The OpenAI crisis reflects how tiny, interconnected networks of Stanford-educated tech entrepreneurs make consequential decisions with little transparency or external accountability
- Peter Omtzigt's rise in Dutch politics demonstrates how exposure of government malfeasance (child benefit scandal) can rapidly empower outsider politicians and destabilize establishment coalitions
- Structural democratic reforms—citizens assemblies, automatic voter registration, parliamentary ethics oversight—could address public disengagement and institutional credibility deficits
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The world of AI leadership is extremely small and tightly interconnected, with major players having known each other for 15-20 years, many from Stanford, and many previously involved in PayPal
“it's got much more of a feeling of what I guess of what it felt like with you when you were coming into office in 97 of a very close group of people who've known each other for 15 20 years who basically um many of them were at Stanford together um Sam Alman ran the big Venture Capital firm the most famous sort of tech startup investing firm um in California before he he went on to Launch Open AI many of these people as I as we've talked about were at PayPal so Elon Musk Reed Hoffman all these people Peter teal all knew each other when they were setting up um PayPal”
International business leaders report that AI is changing their strategic thinking faster than any technology in the past 40 years, affecting decisions about functions like call centers and software engineering roles
“I was having um dinner with some very very interesting International CEOs so heads of big International companies America Swedish Spanish Etc and how quickly AI is changing the way they think they were saying that nothing in 40 Years of business they ever seen is having an impact as quickly as AI is it it's changing the way they think about tools it's changing the way they think about whole functions in their company you do we even need to have a a call center anymore do we even need software engineers”
Peter Omtzikt rose to prominence by exposing the Dutch child benefit scandal and refusing to let the government cover it up, then established a new party (NSC) that has rapidly risen to lead in polls despite Omtzikt refusing to clarify whether he wants to be prime minister or who he would form a coalition with
“he rose to he's been around for a long time um basically a kind of you know you'd have said a kind of life time back venture really um and on the right and a sort of Labor is MP they basically exposed this Scandal um and it led to I hadn't I didn't even know about this to my shame but it led to lots of people killing themselves”
The UK Supreme Court's decision on the Rwanda plan was not ruling that shipping asylum seekers to another country is illegal, but rather that Rwanda had a record of sending people back to dangerous home countries (refoulement), making it unsuitable
“the Supreme Court though knocked down the government's appeal to try to push ahead of this plan on the ground of something called rumo and rumo is if you believe a country is likely to send the Asylum Seekers back to their home country and they belived that Rwanda had a record of reforma so this is important because Supreme Court was not saying that the idea shipping people to somewhere yeah is illegal”
The assumption that information technology would produce major productivity gains has repeatedly failed to materialize over 30-40 years despite widespread digitization
“the problem is of course people are very skeptical because there's this great cliche from an economist who said we see computers everywhere except in the economic statistics that technology was supposed to 30 40 years ago bring these incredible productivity gains that it never quite seem to bring one of the the jokes is that you get Ever better versions of PowerPoint but instead of improving your productivity you just make ever fancier PowerPoint decks”
There is significant disagreement within the AI community between those who believe AI poses catastrophic existential risks and those who think such concerns are overblown and AI is primarily a new technology with manageable risks
“there's this argument between people who think that the whole thing is going to be a catastrophe um and who really really worry that what they're actually doing with the stuff that they're creating and those who feel that they're more realis which is that this is new technology but it doesn't pose massive extensional threats and that's where Alman was”
The Dutch child benefit scandal involved the government pursuing 30,000-40,000 parents for suspected benefit fraud, disproportionately targeting immigrants, driving many families into hardship and contributing to suicides
“the Dutch government seems to have gone very very hard on parents claiming Child Benefits suggested that they were fraudulent demanded that they paid back a lot of money particularly targeted immigrants ended up driving a lot of families into hardship and if I'm right Peter omit was the first person to really come out clearly and call this out and this brought down the government”
The asylum system is fundamentally broken because it was designed when relatively few people had legitimate asylum claims, but contemporary conditions have produced hundreds of millions of potential claimants
“there's a very interesting article by Matthew S on in the times basically saying the Asylum system is fundamentally broken because when it was designed it was not anticipating hundreds of millions of people to have a legitimate claim to Asylum just how crazy this debate has got”
Jonathan Sumption, a former Supreme Court judge, has criticized the government's Rwanda strategy for attempting to use parliamentary sovereignty to override factual determinations about country safety, which exceeds parliament's legitimate authority
“Jonathan suon wrote a very good piece on this saying that he has uh written calling into question the European Court Supreme Courts and he's got a lot of sympathy with the government claiming that Parliament is Sovereign but but what Parliament cannot do and what it seems to be suggesting that they might try to do is to rule on a matter of fact right they can pass laws but it's up to the courts to determine whether a country is or is not safe you can't just rule that a country is safe”
The official reason given for Altman's firing was lack of transparency in interactions with the board and undermining their decisions, but the underlying disagreement appears to be about ethical risks of AI versus commercial opportunities
“the phrase that keeps being repeated by open AI is that he's been fired for lack of transparency in interactions with the board effectively undermining their decisions so the idea is that he was getting on with a agenda as the CEO that the board didn't endorse but it's an unbelievable decision and the story that people seem to be circling around whether it's true or not is that ilas Suk who is one of the other Founders and he's on the board is worried that he wasn't taking seriously enough the ethical risks around AI that Sam wman was beginning to lean more more heavily into the commercial opportunities”
The key issue with MPs' second jobs is conflict of interest rather than salary amount, particularly when the work involves lobbying or contracts with entities that relate to the MP's public role
“well I think the key question always with this is conflict of interest and I think that's what you really need to focus on above all it's not the amount that you earn it's whether the company you're working for conflicts with your public role so that's why the most dangerous bit is is the lobbying uh getting involved in contracts that touch companies that you've been involved in all that kind that that's where the real corruption starts”
Sam Altman was fired from OpenAI without warning by the board, which did not include the chairman, and Microsoft was not informed despite having just invested $13 billion in the company
“Sam Alman was the CEO of openai he created this thing and is therefore one of the most significant Tech entrepreneurs businessmen um in the world and the end of last week he was without any warning fired by his board which didn't include the chairman of the board who also walked out in protest so the CEO's gone chairman of the board has gone and they didn't bother it seems to tell Microsoft that had just invested 13 billion in open AI”
Ilya Sutskever, one of OpenAI's co-founders on the board, publicly expressed regret about participating in Altman's firing and stated he never intended to harm OpenAI
“Ilia sua has put out a short statement I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions I never intended to harm open AI I love everything we built together and we'll do everything I can to reunite the company”
Brexit is a major policy gap that the UK's main political parties have failed to address, and reopening the idea of a customs union with the EU would be a significant political opportunity
“Europe it's the big one isn't it I I mean I I'd want to go for I'd want to reopen at least the idea of Customs Union and and that's a huge gap in the market now”
Brandon Lewis, a recent cabinet member, is earning a six-figure salary from a company under UK economic sanctions, raising questions about conflicts of interest
“this is about Brandon Lewis who is not long ago in the cabinet and now is picking up a very large six-figure slab for his relationship with some company that's under sanctions”
Automatic voter registration would add approximately 8 million currently unregistered UK citizens to the electoral roll
“one in seven UK citizens are currently not registered to vote that's 8 million potential voters in the forthcoming election who exist outside of the UK's Democratic processes”
A citizens assembly composed of demographically representative, randomly selected UK citizens could serve as an advisory third branch that could push back legislation deemed harmful, with the possibility of forcing a secret ballot revote
“I think a huge citizens assembly which could almost be a third branch government advisory so it wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't be able to pass laws but I've got a very interesting friend who an Australian academic who suggested that what it might be able to do is if the citizens assembly and it'd be like a jury so it would be people around the United Kingdom demographically representative randomly selected sitting in this assembly for a period if the government passed the law that the citizens assembly thought was really bad they could push it back for a second vote and maybe even a second vote under a secret ballot”
Abby Innes' book 'Late Soviet Britain' argues that neoliberal economic policy has become as rigid and dogmatic as Soviet central planning, creating an isomorphic relationship between late Soviet bureaucracy and British economic policy from Major through Cameron to Sunak
“for an amazing book which is quite a serious book but I think a very very well observed Ry inventive book which is just about to be published called late Soviet Britain by Abby inis and Abby basically argues that neoliberal economics has become as mad as sort of Soviet economics under BNF as rigid as sort of defended in an insane way uh and that the way to understand Britain is what she calls an isomorphism in other words a a sort of weird Echo between late Soviet bureaucracy and British economic policy from major through Blair to David Cameron and now rishy sunk”
The Rwanda asylum plan has already cost the government 140 million pounds without a single person being flown to Rwanda, and legal costs will likely increase the total substantially
“let's just remember not a single person has been flown we're already into the uh 100 million plus territory it is God knows what it'll be up to when the legal bills come in um and then they're still determined to go ahead with it so the costs are only going to rise”
Stewart has been involved in making a documentary about Julius Caesar for BBC2, arguing that Caesar was an early example of populism comparable to contemporary figures like Trump, Bolsonaro, and Milei
“now okay that allows me to get in a little plug so I have been uh involved in making a documentary called juliia Caesar the making of no I read about it and that's the first I knew about it you and and even though I asked you last week how often did you talk about the Roman Empire you didn't even mention it well it's going to be out next Monday on BBC 2 at 9:00 I've done it with Tom Holland the great star of the rest is history so this show is my trying to make the case that Julius Caesar was what we mean today by a populist W here is an early play of Donald Trump or bolsonaro or the figure M that's now emerging in Argentina”
AI could potentially drive a productivity revolution that would help the British economy achieve sustained growth, but only if government develops a coherent strategy for AI adoption
“if you were labor coming in to run the British economy the great hope would be that AI might actually lead to a real productivity Revolution and that that might be the thing that would get growth off the ground again”
Stewart proposes applying John Major's Nolan Principles of public life to all MPs with an external judge as arbiter, to improve parliamentary standards of conduct
“the other thing I would do again pretty cost neutral I would take John Major's Nolan principles and I would make them somehow applicable with an outside judge to every single member of parliament”
Rishi Sunak's promise of integrity, accountability, and professionalism as Prime Minister is undermined by his government's attempt to legislate that Rwanda is safe (despite courts finding otherwise) and then claim parliamentary sovereignty over factual determinations
“this is why I think sun is in trouble because when he stood outside number 10 and said Integrity accountability all that professionalism Integrity accountability you've got to deliver on that and what essentially this whole thing is saying is that we don't like the judgment and therefore we're going to legislate to say that the judgment is wrong by signing a treaty with the country that they say isn't safe for them to say that they're safe and then will say to Parliament that we're saying they're safe as well and that's the law”
Peter Hennessy's book 'Whitehall' is a classic investigation of how the UK civil service operates
“so the one of the great Classics is a book by Peter Hennessy called White Hall which goes back many many years but is the great sort of Investigation of how how White Hall worked”
Julius Caesar delivered 'Veni, vidi, vici' (I came, I saw, I conquered), one of the greatest sound bites in history
“he he he did deliver or is said to have delivered or has had delivered through history the greatest sound bite of all time yes gone give us give us your sound bite VY V vichi”
Julius Caesar reshaped the Roman calendar and is commemorated in the month of July
“he he also did a lot he also you know put the word July into the um into our calendar that's from old Julius yeah reshaped the whole calendar”
The historical debate about Julius Caesar parallels contemporary disagreements about Napoleon, with some defenders arguing for his achievements while critics emphasize his authoritarianism
“we're going to have the same debate of course the crowned around Napoleon um where where again we're again Andrew Roberts and people are saying you know much underrated did wonderful things for France and people like me are trying to line up and say is a Grizzly old dictator”
News reporters ask politicians shouted and aggressive questions outside government buildings as a strategy to provoke reactions or emotional responses, and these tactics have low success rates
“most of the time it's a completely complete waste of time I mean when I the only time that I've really had um intense sort of personal media scrutiny was in the buildup to the the Iraq inquiry and we had them outside the house the whole time and I just decided day one I'm not going to say a single word at any point outside my house right and I'm not going to look at them react at them nothing”
Stewart supports compulsory voting but opposes lowering the voting age below 18, arguing that there is inconsistency in requiring age 18+ for military deployment but lower for voting
“I'd also like compulsory voting I like compulsory voting where are you on lowering the voting age no no I'm against you on that partly because I think it's a bit I I I we don't want to get drawn down into that but it's a bit weird because so many bits of our society are about increasing ages from 16 to 18 um for example about your ability to deploy to fight and things like that”
MPs in schools express strong support for lowering the voting age, and Stewart dismisses this as evidence of the popularity strategy rather than a genuine policy position
“I go to loads of schools as you know and I think most kids in most schools know a lot more about politics than a awful lot of 50 60 70 definitely something I picked up when I was an MP is if you wanted to be popular in schools you definitely said you want to drop the voting age to 14”
The Dutch election polls now show Omtzikt in the lead, the far-right Geert Wilders not far behind, and Frans Timmermans (leading the labor-green coalition) slightly behind, representing a highly fragmented political landscape
“the the latest polls show this guy um onck in the lead vilda is not far behind and and France timman who's leading the labor green Coalition uh he's a little bit behind them”
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller provides insight into UK political system dynamics
“there's I I would be tempted to say Catch 22 is a good insight into it”
Writing for primary school audiences is challenging because it requires compressing complex concepts like parliamentary history into very few words while maintaining accuracy and engagement
“I've really enjoyed it though because it it's it's actually I mean obviously my journalistic background is on tabloids where have to sort of you know try and keep to as few words as possible to say quite complicated things but it's really quite tough to do you know the history of parliament in like five paragraphs and that sort of thing but I've really enjoyed it”
Tom Holland, the co-host of 'The Rest is History,' views Julius Caesar as witty, glamorous, bold, inventive, and mesmerizing, suggesting a more favorable interpretation than Stewart's populist critique
“here is an early play of Donald Trump or bolsonaro or the figure M that's now emerging in Argentina he's somebody who pretends to be on the side of the people in order to take power and wrecks the entire constitution of Rome and what does Tom Holland think Tom Holland thinks that Caesar is witty glamorous uh bold inventive and that the whole thing is mesmerizing”
The government is keeping the cost of running the Bibby Stockholm (migrant barge) secret, likely because it is embarrassed by the expense, which runs to hundreds of thousands of pounds per week
“I don't know well the public audit office will the National Audit office require it I mean you can't get away with not publishing your figures I can't I can't really understand what this not in the public interest stuff's about it sounds to me like the government's embarrassed by how much it's spending and it's trying to trying to weas”
Campbell has recently finished writing a guide to politics for primary schools
“I um have I told you about my my new book that I've just finished you just written another book yeah no wonder you're never doing enough work on the podcast what you doing writing a book oh but get off honestly how many hour research have you done today no not as much as you probably although I don't know how much time you spent writing this book what is this book um it's a it's a guide to politics for primary schools”
Victoria Atkins, the Attorney General, is unlikely to permit the government to attempt to legislate that Rwanda is safe, because she is serious about constitutional principles
“fortunately I I don't think it's going to happen because we have a very good attorney general in the for of Victoria Apprentice who's very serious about these things and I don't think that Victoria Apprentice would allow this to happen”