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okay I
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welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gatri is
Theresa May the new Iron Lady or is she
rather tener is she the new Mrs Merkel
or more Mrs Merton is she left right or
Center is she brex it or will she wreck
it either way she now owns us and all on
the strength of the votes of
199 MP peace democracy is so
overrated to help us understand more is
Dr Peter catell eminent British
political historian of the University of
Westminster and the Hansard Society he's
the author of among many things the
conservative century and he's working on
a history of the labor party and he
joins us now Dr Peter a lot of questions
in that introduction who is what is
Theresa
May she's the new prime minister of the
uh United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland or at least she is at
the moment and she tells us that she
wants to remain so she also tells us
that she wants to be friends with Europe
but quite what that friendship means in
practice is a work in progress she has a
back history in various ways so of
course she's been home secretary for the
last six years um and in her
announcement of her campaign the speech
she gave in Birmingham on the 11th of
July she went out of her way to say that
among other things if you're black
you're more likely to be pulled over on
the street than if you're white and
dealt with more harshly I'm quoting
dealt more harshly by the justice system
rather an admission for the Home
Secretary indeed um and so that's one of
the issues that uh needs to be thought
about when we look at her back history
where she's coming from and where she
thinks she's taking us now after all so
far beyond the phrase brexit means
brexit she's not really filling in much
detail you almost need to resurrect the
skills of the criminologist of the Cold
War to try and work out what it is she's
actually promising to do with Britain
it's not only that it's
unclear what the f future relationship
with Europe is because on the one hand
you have to think about well do we stay
in the single Market or not do we end
free movement of Labor or not do we
continue to have some kind of military
relationship with Europe which is
something policy exchange um argued for
earlier this week and may indeed become
increasingly important to the European
end of NATO given the kind of noises
emanating from Donald Trump should he
ever get anywhere near the White House
um or not do you move towards having
some kind of south sea bubble scheme
whereby you pursue the transpacific
partnership because the ttip agreement
is probably dead in the water following
brexit all of these are masses on which
um everything is up for grabs and
everything is unclear all we've got as a
kind of guidance is the kinds of noises
she's been making so far and the kinds
of appointment she's been making to the
cabinet it is a right-wing cabinet it is
the most right-wing cabinet for many
decades isn't it it would appear to be
so it seems that um whereas Mrs Thatcher
left the conservative
party in a state of disarray um which
John Major briefly papered over and then
it all fell
apart Mrs May is trying to stick all
that together again and this essentially
I think Thatcher held it together
through a combining rhetoric A Narrative
of economic renewal through some kind of
neoliberal scheme which in the aftermath
of the difficult Decades of the 1960s
and 1970s made sense to sufficient
number of people for the Tories to win
elections the problem that Mrs May has
now is she's not really an economic
conservative she's a social conservative
I mean that's uh her
at the home office that's the record of
rhetoric around immigration even though
ironically of course she didn't really
tackle immigration she presided over a
huge increase in indeed and and to some
extent she's been the chief beneficiary
of her vote against her own policies but
you have a shift towards social
conservativism you also have however a
number of rather curious appointments
because you look like look at people
like Andrea ledum and pretty Patel who
are are hangam and flum uh social
conservatives but they've both been put
in a positions where they must hate the
jobs they're in Andre leedum not known
to like the countryside is now in charge
of the countryside uh pry Patel wants to
destroy the department of International
Development which she's just been given
does this tell us that Theresa May has
some kind of understated sense of humor
and then the answer to that is Boris
Johnson yes I mean short of putting the
Duke of Edinburgh uh Prince Phillip in
charge of the foreign office she could
hardly have chosen someone with a
greater track record of insulting Johnny
forigner and and and upsetting Apple
carts everywhere he's gone what do you
make of that appointment well I suppose
one of the things you can say in favor
of Boris is that he can speak several
different languages so that means he he
can insult people he can be rude to
people in more languages than his
predecessor Philip Hammond who was
probably never going to insult anyone or
indeed interest anyone terribly much I
mean Boris is someone who will uh
continue to attract attention on the
world stage and at a time when Britain
seems to be at risk of occupying a
diminishing uh role in that world stage
having someone who distracts from that
you add to the gity of Nations as it
were absolutely well lock up your
daughters though the chanceries and the
grand viers would do well to lock up
their daughters yeah in the country of
um boris's patronal line as it were um
the Boris comes across as being a
welcome relief from what's going on in
uh in turkey at the moment I suppose and
after all he just insults people he
doesn't kill them so well he knock he
knocked a boy down he almost killed that
little Chinese boy but is is the detail
not there because they're keeping it
from us or because there is no detail
and they're having to make up as they go
along I think one of the problems is
that well there are a number of reasons
why there's no detail there's no detail
because White Hall has not done any
planning for any detail and as you know
essentially it's not ministers who
design policy ministers set the
Strategic direction if they're any good
right Cameron didn't cam intended to
just think about tactics but Minister's
job is to uh set a strategic Direction
for government then the civil servants
go away and work out how to turn this
into detailed policy now when you're
trying to unravel a relationship which
has been lasting for 40 odd years and
covers not only your relationship with
30 other European countries because
we're talking about the European
economic area not just the
EU but also and relations with a whole
range of other parties around the world
trade relations which are governed
through EU negotiations that's not going
to be the work of a moment however in
sual uh David Davis sounds about these
kinds of things not least because of the
huge range of different things they
cover it's not just tariffs tariffs are
only a tiny part of it it's also
regulations for a whole series of uh uh
of products including very complex
financial instruments so there's been no
work on any of that before the
referendum vote has just uh in rather
damning words that have been under
reported accused David Cameron of a
dereliction of Duty by not making uh a
plan B uh do you think he did that
because it never occurred to him that he
might lose the referendum or that he
would leave anyway as he
announced early days I think what there
are various ways in which you you could
answer that now obviously I'm not David
Cameron but one way of interpreting it
is to say well if he prepared for it it
and the vote had gone the other way he
would have been told off for wasting
money um as it is um it was up to the
leaf side in many ways to come up with a
scheme rather than for them to say it's
up to the state uh and the I can assure
you on the basis of almost 30 years in
Parliament the British civil services
never usually found wanting of a plan B
they normally prepare for any and all
event
well they did as you know the uh
referendum legislation actually
specifies that the government had to
produce something called alternatives to
membership and this sets out this is
what happens if you stay in and there is
this bleed of
Alternatives and it goes through various
different models so it talks about this
is the Norwegian model this is the
Turkish model this is the Canadian model
and so on and clear it's clear to me
that the intention of the government and
maybe it was in the back of the minds of
your former colleagues in Parliament who
knows that the the publication of this
was supposed to frame the debate as you
know it didn't no nobody talks about the
Alternatives indeed we have the words of
people like Liam FOX NOW happily sitting
around the cabinet table that they were
deliberately avoiding doing things like
that because they wanted to maximize the
ambiguity so they could build a broad
Coalition which would vote for leave now
what you have to do then is get everyone
invested with what they want it to mean
and then sort it out afterwards well
that of course is where Theresa May is
that's where we now find her she was
elected if I can use that term uh
loosest term by 199 people now of course
we both know there John Major James
cigan there are other precedents of
people becoming prime minister without
facing an election but on the cusp of
such gigantic uh changes to Britain's uh
position in the world don't you think
the case for an earlier general election
is going to become
irresistible I think in some ways it
might be quite attractive to
her though we already know that she
tends to play her cards close to her
chest she tends to
uh have a uh to to to blame other people
rather than necessarily uh taking blame
herself so uh in speech after speech to
the police Federation she's tended to
bash the police uh rather than uh take
responsibility for her own policies so
uh going out of her way to take on the
leadership role in a general election
would be slightly out of character but I
think from her point of view if she's
going to win a general election this
autum might be the her best chance of
doing so because the labor party are in
disarray in various ways and they
haven't come up with a narrative against
what she's saying she's come out with
various nice sounding phrases about
burning Injustice and so on well the
longer you're empower the more you have
to invest these with policy content and
there are no quick wins for her in this
doctor my money is on an October general
election that's all we've got time for
but we'll have you back to discuss your
new history of the labor party which
sounds fascinating thank you very much
for joining us on the Sputnik coming up
next from Ankara still reverberating
after the comic Opera it's Liz Gman of
the
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Guardian welcome back to Sputnik it was
a 1960s style coup grab the airport the
television station put your tanks on the
bridge over the Bosphorus and hunky dor
except this is 2016 the age of FaceTime
and the Twitter sphere and the mly crew
of wouldbe Juna members underestimated
the president they were seeking to
overthrow erogan has millions of enemies
in turkey and Little Wonder but he has
millions of supporters too turkey's
democracy has even more and so it was no
contest by breakfast time it was all
over and the plotters may now discover
the ancient truths expounded by the
French Revolutionary stust that he who
half makes the revolution digs his own
grave joining us from the Turkish
capital ankor is the Intrepid News
correspondent Liz cookman Liz first of
all congratulations on your excellent
work uh in the front line uh tell us
first of all what it was like to be
there amidst the tumult thank you um it
was like being in the middle of a war
basically we had uh Jets going overhead
explosions going off all around us uh my
friends were crying people were hiding
in the hallway we had no idea what was
going to happen it was pretty bad did
you know from the beginning it was a
fool on coup at first there were reports
that maybe a plane had been hijacked or
that the um chief of general staff had
been assassinated but fairly fairly
early on we heard that it was a coup
although it seemed pretty unlikely to
start off with there was no sense of
this coming in the few days before it
there was no noticeable increase in
tension uh none whatsoever nobody
predicted it but a few analysts had said
a few weeks before that erdogan had
given more autonomy back to the military
um because of the tensions going on in
the Southeast and this could potentially
lead to a coup but nobody expected it
now so the public answered his call
didn't they he made this FaceTime
interview uh in which he called on the
people of turkey to rise up to come
out what did it feel like to see them do
so at that late hour of the evening um
honestly very scary actually uh there a
certain mob mentality although it was
amazing thing what the Turkish people
did um there is a certain scary
nationalism that's been um Unleashed
from the Turkish people and um well last
night was the fifth night in a row that
the people are still out on the streets
um what were protests have become more
like a carnival a pro erdoan Carnival um
there's a lot of nationalists out
there's a lot of um the streets of very
very tense at the moment Turkish
nationalism is not a new thing of course
it's a defining characteristic of the
state and uh one of the impressive
things for me was that the millions were
not out on the street carrying the
picture of their president as they would
be in an Arab country for example they
were carrying the flag of their country
and their state isn't this one of the
characteristics of this that turkey has
a real state real institutions that real
people are prepared to
defend um that's definitely true real
people are very proud of their nation
and there are three main types of
nationalism in Turkey there's an ethnic
nationalism which is um a sense of um an
ethnic unity in true Turks and also
Turkish tribes such as the weers in
China and the tartars in the
Crimea um there's also um an Ataturk
nationalism a chemism which is based on
the Republic uh the founder of the
Turkish Republic Ataturk and his secular
um beliefs and there's now an islamist
um nationalism which is very much
erdogan's AKP followers and although no
people weren't holding up pictures of
erdogan but the states were so for
example all the advertising electronic
Advertising Signs have been turned into
Turkish Flags but they also have
pictures of erdogan um the celebrations
that have been going on for five days in
taxim in Istanbul which is like in Maine
Square uh there are big pictures of
erdan these are pictures from the big
cities uh what is the news from the
other places throughout the turkey I
mean turkey is obviously also a tourist
destination how how is it looking
throughout the
country well certainly the more touristy
areas in the west and the South Coast
don't tend to be too politically charged
but on Saturday night there were reports
in malaa which is in the South that a
group of Turkish nationalists were um
invading an Levy area the levy are a um
a minority quite liberal um Islamic
religious group um there reports that a
violent mob were invading the area but
they were never confirmed um aside from
that there has been reports of uh Syrian
migrants having their houses burnt down
and sort of various one-off attacks
there was a terror attack in trbs on
which is in the north yesterday I
believe so the main focus of the coup
has certainly been Istanbul and anchor
but the rest of the country seems to be
descending more into some slight
infighting and minor Terror attacks now
two at least of those strands of
nationalism that you described are
usually uh manifested in hostility to
the Kurdish minority the main party uh
that is supported overwhelmingly by the
Kurdish population was quickly uh out
against the coup uh to what extent can
we expect an
intensification of anti-kurdish feeling
and actions from the center from the
state um so since the AKP Who are the
ruling party the justice and development
party have been in power for about 13
years they championed the peace process
they um were instrumental in brokering
the ceasefire with the pkk in the
Southeast well they're everywhere but
mostly in the
Southeast um it collapsed last year
since then erdogan and various other
people within the pkk have made it very
clear that uh they will not give up on
this fight until they've achieved full
neutralization of the pkk so until
they've disbanded the pkk and um
finalized their existence I guess um in
terms of the average Turkish person
there isn't a lot of open obvious
problems or racism towards the Kurdish
people
but there is certainly a lot of anger at
the terror attacks recently from the pkk
in terms of going forward
the recent state of emergency has been
sold as something that needs to be in
place not only to tackle the Military
Coupe but also to tackle um terrorism so
I I will expect I would expect a lot of
crackdowns on the pkk in the coming
months although morale in the Army uh
must be uh rather uncertain at the
moment it's not the best time to start a
new war that's true but the Turkish Army
is massive I believe it's the second
largest in NATO um there have been a lot
of arrests and a lot of purges from the
Army but there's still a lot like a a
very sizable Force left now uh it's
difficult I think for erdogan to
contemplate the real consequences or
logic conclusion from what he's saying
but if all of this was got up by an
American exiled uh cleric uh the uh the
gulen
movement uh the United States must have
known what gulen was doing he lives in
Pennsylvania he's not very far away from
from the CIA he's definitely monitored
by the American state so if he was doing
all this then erdogan has to face the
logical conclusion that the United
States government knew of it and yet
they're supposed to be his friend and
Ally to what extent is that seeping in
now to public discourse um I would say
that's not an entirely new situation
there has been a Witch Hunt against
Gillen and his followers for about three
years since um there was a corruption
scandal in December
2013 uh which was largely thought to be
a gulenist plot and since there has been
a concerted effort to remove any
gulenist from National institutions the
police uh the Army various other
organizations conspiracies are very
common in turkey and a lot of Turkish
people believe the US are behind almost
every single thing that goes wrong in
Turkey um The Daily Saba which is a pro
government newspaper um a couple of days
ago did a Twitter poll and said asked
people yes or no the US was involved in
some way in the um failed coup and 79%
of people voted yes there is a definite
belief that the US is out to get turkey
in the light of that Liz is there any
possibility that erdogan might now make
some significant political turns now
that he knows that his American Ally
isn't really all that much of an ally
why should he continue to serve US
policy in the
region well it certainly seems that
erdogan is turning away from the EU um
after warnings about the Revival of the
death penalty he seems to be wanting to
push through with it as something that
the people want um in terms of the
US there have been threats of uh war
with the us if they don't exite Gillan
which I think seemed very unlikely um
they've already let the us back into
inel air base for the um so they can
carry out strikes on Syria so it's a
little bit uncertain at the moment Liz
cookman thanks for joining us from
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ankora and now it's your turn to tell us
what you think through the portals of
social media what's ratling guy so
Theresa May rebranding the conservatives
or more of the same Mac 59 says brand
nasty is the official Tory line and the
which she of course devised she's the
first person to describe the Tory party
as the nasty party and now she's its
leader go figure wow uh other Harry Cole
says it is actually worse the world
events are accelerating so it's perfect
cond do it and on Turkey what motivated
the failed coup and where does the
country Go From Here Sheila says it's
arrogant schol he benefits and now he
can iron out everyone who would have
stopped him I think it's a bit more
complicated than that but I guess we
don't have any more time no that's right
that's all for today what which alas
means it's the end of the show but you
can stay in touch with us through
Twitter at rtor Sputnik or on Facebook
Sputnik on Russia today it is goodbye
from me gri and from me George Gallow
it's been marvelous
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