The rest is politics - “The Taliban took over the country and it's much safer”

[HiggledyPiggledy33]

Just outraged at what I’ve just heard in the rest is politics.

They are discussing why aren’t we boycotting Afghanistan, and I can’t believe what Rory is saying.

“For the first time in over 20 years, you can travel safely through the country.”

Well maybe you can Rory, but I don’t think women can - is that fine? Throw half the population under the bus, as long as you’re OK.

“The Taliban have very repressive views on women, but they've also in other ways changed”
oh well that’s ok then.

“We're in a culture now where it really suits a lot of people, particularly on the far right, to emphasise Muslim countries where women are not treated correctly”
Women not being treated correctly is the problem. Once that’s sorted, let’s look at any sensitivity about muslims.

From The Rest Is Politics: Question Time: Assad’s People - Syria, Torture, and Justice, 9 Jan 2025

https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/question-time-assads-people-syria-torture-and-justice/id1611374685?i=1000683050797

Here they are, the pair of planks.

To be honest I think that Rory imagines he's something out of a Kipling novel with his travels to Afghanistan. I read an interview with him once and the privilege and superiority just dripped out of him.

@feellikeanalien hence the nickname “Florence of Belgravia”😂

They don't see women as full human beings.

It simply reveals how women are not seen in our society. Traveling around Afghanistan is DEADLY for 51% of the population Rory. Just the invisible unimportant 51%. And there are no men wanting to be women there I’d wager.

I've just had a look at the Apple podcast charts and am much comforted to see that TRIP US and The Rest Is History - both presented by articulate, knowledgeable duos who recognise women's rights - outrank Campbell and Stewart.

More people subscribe to them, too.

Ah, let's be charitable. Perhaps they can see some women, it's just the ones in Afghanistan that are specially invisible to them, for some reason.

Is he on something?
No protection from violence for women;
forced child marriage;
no right to an education
highest rate of infant mortality and death in childbirth;
and that's the short version. Life is hell for these women. Disgusting.

I used to listen to TRIP but the US election has really exposed their inadequacies. TRIP US and Americast had much better, more balanced and more reflective coverage.

Campbell and Stewart only understand people like them and are not willing to learn, hence their appalling biases regarding anything about women.

That's hilarious

Personally I hope Rory relocates to Afghanistan permanently if he likes it so much. Maybe he could do a swap with a woman and her children? I'd much prefer to listen to whatever she has to say about the country too.

I don’t forgive Brecht for putting my DS off peas for life.

Campbell I had no hopes for, but I am surprised at Stewart.

Do you just think that women are to be subjected to endless up-is-down trolling by men who identify as the good guys now?

<looks around>

Well...

😶

Pair of dangerous wankers.

I hope they are wankers, anyway, I can’t imagine anyone with that level of understanding of women being much good at swordsmanship.

Trip is such a soggy biscuit of a thing. So is the New Statesman. They come put with such schoolboy howlers. You find yourself thinking ' Wow. So what else doesn't he know?'
You might get a smidgen of sense from Novara - though not on trans issues. Some American sites are good with that same caveat.

I used to like Rory, for me he was one of the more tolerable Tories. Now, I think he is an absolute tool.

I like the podcast generally but yes he has said this several times and I agree with you.

Never tolerated TRIP that much - I fancy like Alastair Campbell despite disagreeing with him on some things, but he is massively evasive on anything complex - but I thought more of Rory until going to see him interviewed live at a local venue. He's really not as impressive as all that.

I don't really listen to TRIP America either - Scaramucci was equally wrong about the election and with less excuse IMO, though he's a much more interesting character.

Honestly the women on The Rest Is... podcasts really do show the men up.
Marina Hyde in particular is brilliant. I'd like her to step in on a few TRIP actually, it's not like she's not knowledgeable about that world although appreciate she's writing from the outside.

Yes I heard that. It should go in a museum under “default male thinking”

Smug centrist bastards, laying down the law from their lofty positions of self-appointed global expertise.
Just this. I stopped listening a long time ago

I used to like TRIP but how wrong they have been over the last year. Its become more and more about their personal views rather than reporting on what is happing in the world of politics with their views added

I have always been surprised how AC has been able to reinvent himself from being the manipulative bully that so many feared, but then he is the master of spin

He’s like a caricature of a nineteenth-century orientalist