Malcolm Rifkind

Obviously, when Ed Miliband put those sanctions on exports from the West Bank, there were many who said, the timing's terrible because this is just going to sort of caused people to rally around Netanyahu, and what we really need at the moment is for the opposition to win.

Malcolm Rifkind was on the Channel 4 podcast making that argument to Hossam Zomlot the day after those export bans were put into place.

And I think what this is showing is, oh yeah, that opposition you've all been saying is so important and give us hope about the future of Israel.

They've got the opportunity to overthrow Netanyahu, and they won't do it if it means allying with anyone who is Arab, who's not Jewish.

If the president wants to actually bring down energy prices, he can do it by solving the Iran problem, not by sh- doing a solid for Vladimir Putin." And finally, our allies have quickly figured out that generations of alliances forged in blood are being eviscerated by a man who knows nothing of sacrifice or the price paid for freedom.

Malcolm Rifkind, a former defense minister of the United Kingdom, said this: "Donald Trump has shown himself as a person to be repulsive, as a president of the United States to be a disgrace to his own people, as well as to the international responsibilities.

We all know his actual reasons for this are a grubby attempt to win a few more votes in the midterms by trying to get oil prices down.

Trump will now be directly responsible for the deaths of Ukrainians who will die while Putin uses a Russian alliance with America to continue fighting." It is unbelievable, my friends, that we sit here today as the leader of the free world, our president, is attacking an ally that was invaded by our enemy, the Russians, who disavow democracy.

It's a yellow and blue thing you mentioned on the show last week, and it's currently about to be resprayed, but the rest of the family wants it in red, whereas I want it to continue being yellow and blue in the way that it's been for the last goodness knows how many years.

And it also pretty much matches identically my town crier outfit, 'cause I'm MMP for 191 East Grinstead, Nutfield, and Uckfield's town crier.

Very good.

Well, th-this is perfect, so we've got...

You obviously worked with her, uh, for a, a considerable amount of time.

We actually had Sir Malcolm Rifkind on our platform recently, um, and it was interesting hearing from him stories of his time with Margaret Thatcher.

It's quite well-known, I think they had a fairly frosty relationship, but I think one in which he, um, he really respected her.

What was your relationship like-

Before my relationship, let me tell you about Malcolm.

The Prime Minister rang me up and said, "Discuss the cabinet," and it was a sigh.

She said, "It's going to be your friend, Malcolm Rifkind, who will be Secretary of State for Scotland." And it was clear she was not pleased about it, but she would've been the first to acknowledge that Malcolm was an extremely able man, and we were very privileged to have him running Scotland.

Of course, he went on to become foreign secretary.

Uh, but, um, uh, I was lucky because there were a n- lot of very congenial people there, both senior officers and, and, um, uh, civil servants.

And also I had a very nice boss in the form of Malcolm Rifkind, who was extremely tolerant [laughs] I thought.

Um, a- and who became a great friend.

Um, and I did sort of slightly pick out the people who I th- who I thought particularly sympathetic and say, "Come on, um, what's this really about? And what do f- do you think my job is?"