411. Question Time: Gaza’s Aid Blocked, Trump’s Power Tested & Dominic Cummings’ Big Mistake

Summary

The Rest Is Politics – Episode 411 Summary

Title: Question Time: Gaza’s Aid Blocked, Trump’s Power Tested & Dominic Cummings’ Big Mistake
Hosts: Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart
Release Date: June 4, 2025

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1. Gaza Humanitarian Crisis and Misinformation

Timestamp: [02:32]

Alastair Campbell delves into the complexities surrounding the humanitarian situation in Gaza. He highlights the significant challenges in obtaining accurate information due to restricted access for journalists like Jeremy Byrne and the BBC. "Most of the reporting we see is from Jerusalem, from Israel, not from Gaza at all," Campbell explains. He critiques Israel's decision to block traditional UN humanitarian delivery mechanisms, emphasizing the inefficiency of private contractors compared to experienced international NGOs. Campbell asserts, “Instead of which, what Israel's tried to do is essentially contract a pretty inexperienced private contractor to come in and deliver some assistance in very limited points. And the result has been an absolute disaster” ([02:32]).

2. Roles of Individuals and Governments in Gaza Aid

Timestamp: [07:24] - [09:26]

Rory Stewart addresses listener Jennifer Brown's concern about effective aid delivery to Gaza. He acknowledges the propaganda against aid organizations but affirms the positive impact of charitable donations. "If you give to charities, some of that money at least is going where it is needed," Stewart assures listeners. Campbell recommends supporting reputable organizations like the Disaster Emergency Committee and Save the Children, stating, “there's a lot of good stuff out there to choose from and don't get into a cycle of thinking there's nothing you can do” ([08:50]).

3. Young Women in UK Politics

Timestamp: [10:12] - [13:27]

The hosts discuss Catherine Dunn’s questions about the marginalization of young women in politics. Alastair Campbell presents a detailed account of the challenges faced by young female politicians, including being taken for granted and encountering threats of violence. He quotes listener Sarah Peters: “As a woman under 30 in politics, the Green Party is, in my view, the only truly left-wing major UK political party” ([11:32]).

Rory Stewart responds by recognizing a gender divide in political engagement, noting, “there is a sort of hardening of views amongst those young men who feel that politics is just completely failing them” ([13:27]). He emphasizes the importance of listening to young women and addressing their concerns to bridge this divide.

4. Trump’s Tariff Policy and Judicial Challenges

Timestamp: [15:43] - [18:08]

Alastair Campbell provides an analysis of former President Donald Trump’s tariff strategies. He explains how Trump’s recent tariffs, deemed beyond his emergency powers, have been challenged in U.S. courts. "A US court has ruled that he does not have the power to do this," Campbell states ([15:43]). The uncertainty surrounding the tariffs hampers business investment, as companies are unsure about future trade policies.

Rory Stewart adds, “we are definitely heading in that direction [Trump spoiling for a fight]," suggesting that Trump may eventually defy court decisions, escalating tensions between the executive branch and the judiciary ([18:08]).

5. The Rise of Far-Right Politics in the Netherlands and Europe

Timestamp: [19:58] - [24:07]

The conversation shifts to the political instability in the Netherlands following the collapse of the government due to Geert Wilders’ withdrawal over immigration policies. Rory Stewart connects this to a broader European trend where far-right parties hold significant influence. “In Austria the far right has a lot of power and of course in Germany the far right has a lot of power,” Stewart observes ([20:20]).

Alastair Campbell echoes this sentiment, noting the strategic maneuvering of far-right leaders to destabilize governments and push their agendas. “They are used to dealing with that stuff,” he says, referring to the chaos created by blocking traditional aid mechanisms ([20:20]).

6. Dominic Cummings and the Critique of the Westminster Model

Timestamp: [24:07] - [32:50]

The hosts critique Dominic Cummings’ recent activities and his impact on perceptions of the Westminster model. Alastair Campbell criticizes Cummings for spreading misinformation and manipulating public discourse: “Dominic Cummings is setting up a new political party and the Tories are toast, etc. Never Happened. Why does he get to portray himself as this amazing seer who predicts the future” ([29:57]).

Rory Stewart emphasizes the dangers of figures like Cummings and Elon Musk, who promise radical change without accountability. He argues for the need to demonstrate governmental competence without resorting to disruptive tactics: “what we don't need is people like Musk to come along and say the entire thing needs to get blown up” ([26:19]).

7. Geopolitical Significance Post-9/11

Timestamp: [33:14] - [35:45]

Guest Gordon Carrera questions whether 9/11 remains the most significant geopolitical event of the past 30 years. Alastair Campbell responds by identifying more recent transformative events such as the rise of social media, the Arab Spring, and the election of global leaders like Xi Jinping. “The collapse of democracy and its replacement by populism, the collapse of global trade and its replacement by protectionism, and the collapse of international intervention, its replacement by isolationism” are highlighted as more defining trends ([34:42]).

Rory Stewart concurs, recognizing 9/11 as a pivotal moment but acknowledging that other developments have had a more profound and lasting impact on global dynamics ([35:45]).

8. Importance of Culture in Politics

Timestamp: [35:59] - [39:21]

Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell discuss the relevance of popular culture in politics. While acknowledging that politicians don’t need to be experts in pop culture, Stewart emphasizes the importance of understanding cultural influences. “I really do think there is a progressive female Prime Minister of the UK's future out there and it's not too far away,” Stewart notes, linking cultural engagement to political leadership.

Campbell adds that the UK’s cultural sector is a significant export and influence, citing British successes in fashion, film, and digital industries. He asserts, “we are a great cultural force... we still don't think that we make enough of it” ([37:59]).

Conclusion

The episode of The Rest Is Politics offers a comprehensive analysis of pressing political issues, from the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the rise of far-right politics in Europe to the challenges within the Westminster model exemplified by figures like Dominic Cummings. Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart provide insightful discussions on the roles of individuals and governments, the importance of addressing gender disparities in politics, and the evolving geopolitical landscape post-9/11. Additionally, they underscore the significance of cultural engagement in shaping effective political leadership.

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Notable Quotes:

• Alastair Campbell: “Instead of which, what Israel's tried to do is essentially contract a pretty inexperienced private contractor... And the result has been an absolute disaster.” ([02:32])
• Rory Stewart: “If you give to charities, some of that money at least is going where it is needed.” ([08:50])
• Rory Stewart: “There is a sort of hardening of views amongst those young men who feel that politics is just completely failing them.” ([13:27])
• Alastair Campbell: “Dominic Cummings is setting up a new political party and the Tories are toast, etc. Never Happened... Why does he get to portray himself as this amazing seer who predicts the future.” ([29:57])
• Rory Stewart: “We need to demonstrate governmental competence without resorting to disruptive tactics.” ([26:19])

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This detailed summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from Episode 411 of The Rest Is Politics, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners and non-listeners alike.

Transcript

[Rory Stewart]

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[Rory Stewart]

Time with me, Rory Stewart and with me Alistair Campbell. Let's start in Gaza. Rory and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Stephen Raikes how do you two personally know what to believe about Gaza when there's so much misinformation journalists can't get into Report on the ground. Take the 31 Palestinians killed in Rafah this weekend. The IDF are straight out saying the reports are fake. Jennifer Brown what can individuals do for the starving in Gaza? Do donations to share a meal, the Red Cross, et cetera actually get to people? What can governments do? Airlifts, delivery by sea. It is horrible to watch?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, a couple of things. Firstly, it's very difficult to get clear news out of Gaza because people like Jeremy Byrne and the BBC are not allowed into Gaza. So most of the reporting we see is from Jerusalem, from Israel, not from Gaza at all. And the people who are operating in Gaza, which is Al Jazeera, a lot of their journalists, are getting killed. There's no doubt that sometimes the stories that come out of Gaza from Hamas are false. So sometimes Israel is right to say that that was false. And equally, Israel itself has clearly made things up and lied. And that was true in terms of the killing of the aid workers a few weeks ago, when they were buried in shallow graves and accused of being terrorists who advanced without lights on when all the video evidence showed otherwise. And this is a problem that we're seeing a lot around the world. And one of the reasons we don't really know much about what's happening in China and why reporting from India is getting less good is because people are just not allowing access to journalists quickly on the aid things. So listeners will probably know, or most listeners will probably know, that Israel has effectively blocked the traditional UN humanitarian delivery mechanisms. So there were these enormous UN mechanisms which have been running since the Second World War, with very, very practiced partners. And if you go to a UN camp in South Sudan, for example, Somalia, you will see UNHCR or IOM organizing the camp. You will see Save the Children, you'll see the Red Cross, you might see Medecin Sans Frontiere, these kind of big international NGOs, IRC, your friend Dave Miliband's thing. And they are very, very, very experienced in doing this. They know how you organize the lines. They know what kind of food you should be delivering, when, what kind of emergency nutrition to bring, what kind of psychosocial services is kind of pretentious way of saying, how do you find a child that's being raped or abused or is in trauma and how you deal with that? Instead of which, what Israel's tried to do is essentially contract a pretty inexperienced private contractor to come in and deliver some assistance in very limited points. And the result has been an absolute disaster. They are doing it exactly in the way that the UN wouldn't do. They're concentrating people after 60 days so that there are basically riots to get to the food rather than spreading out the distribution. They're giving out things like pasta that need to be boiled in water. When there's no clean water, there are no proper psychosocial services surrounding it. And the only way that you're going to sort this out is by giving it back to the people who have the capacity and the knowledge to do it properly.

[Rory Stewart]

I think the other thing that is a part of this, you and I both keep banging on about Doge and Musk and Trump getting rid of or cutting usaid and the knock on effect then of we did the same in the UK cutting back on overseas aid and development. When you've had propaganda going from the White House, echoed by Israel, that these aid organizations are sort of, you know, radical left wing lunatics, when actually these are incredibly brave people, genuinely committed to public service, trying to help people who are starving or fleeing war and conflict and then to sort of put this thing together. I'm almost at the point of wondering whether it's been designed to create this chaos. The question about how do we know? How do we find out what's true? You kind of have to make a judgment based upon all the different things that you hear and see. And certainly on these incidents that Stephen Raikes in his question is talking about. You know, I listened to an interview with one of the doctors who was treating the people who had been brought from the incident at Rafah into his hospital where he said they were suffering from blast and gunshot wounds. So that there had been shooting of civilians, of people who were queuing or trying to queue for food that they were hoping to get. I don't think there's any doubt and I think, I'm afraid the old cliche about truth is the first casualty of war. It's very hard to believe anything at the moment that comes out there. And I think this goes back to a point I've been making from the start about the way that some of the Israelis communicate. They are absolutely brutal in the way that they put over their messaging. And I'm sorry, I think they've made themselves largely unbelievable. And that's, I think, to their detriment as well as to the detriment of people trying to understand what's going on, but watching. There were some aerial shots of these crowds gathering, then the chaos that followed. And I've got no doubt there are really bad people in Hamas who've been ripping off food and what have you. But those international organizations that you talked about, Roy, they're used to dealing with that stuff.

[Alistair Campbell]

To add to it, there are not just Hamas in Gaza. There are, there's also alternative tribal crime linked families in Gaza which have traditionally been supported against Hamas, who are actually involved in a great deal of the looting as well. I mean, the lack of Any administration, the lack of the ability to stand up any kind of legitimate authority, any Palestinian authority, at the same time as Israel refuses to take responsibility or declare a formal occupation, essentially means that the whole thing is also in ways that we don't report enough, often very, very lawless. And that's something Israel will point to. But of course, Israel isn't taking responsibility for the fact that to a large extent that lawlessness is caused by the fact that it isn't making any steps to help set up any kind of government.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. I think Jennifer Brown though, on your question, what can individuals do? And do donations actually get to people? They do. And of course those who oppose do gooding, like the right wing newspapers and so forth, they like you to believe that all the money that you give to charity goes on fat cat salaries and people fly in business class and all that stuff. If you give to charities, some of that money at least is going where it is needed. And even the charities that can't get in there, they're worth supporting anyway. And I think these charities are needed now more than ever.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. Very, very quickly, a shout out for the fact that if you're interested in supporting humanitarian causes, which is supporting refugees and who are starving in very concrete ways, look at the Disaster Emergency Committee, which is a fantastic organization which coordinates charities and appeals in the uk. Look at well established blue chip organisations, Save the Children, irc. Look at people doing innovative things in cash like give directly. But generally there's a lot of good stuff out there to choose from and don't get into a cycle of thinking there's nothing you can do.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. Also we didn't mention on the main podcast we normally plug, happily plug, our leading interviews, but Jacinda Ardern, former New Zealand Prime Minister and I thought one of the best bits in her book was when she was writing about handling the Christchurch massacre as Prime Minister and she had a conversation with Donald Trump who said, is there anything I can do to help? And she said, be kind to your Muslim community. And I just think sometimes that, yes, I think people feel absolutely helpless at the moment. They're watching the news, they're seeing these kids in absolute abject desperation, starvation and so forth. And I think we've just, you know, we can't get in there. Jeremy Bowen can't get in there. As you say, lots of the agencies can't get in there, but we should still support the ones who are trying, put it that way.

[Alistair Campbell]

Following on from your Jacintra Aradhan, here's a question for you. About women in politics. This follows on from the excellent listener question from Catherine Dunn, who asks why young women are being taken for granted politically. I'm 22 years old, involved in politics since I was 14. She works at the Senate for a Welsh Labour member. She's interested in becoming a Senate member, a member of the Welsh Parliament, and applied to be a candidate when applications opened earlier this year. School governor, local youth organization leader. But she thinks she won't be successful because older party members often don't take young women seriously as candidates. Young women are ignored in policymaking. There are threats of violence against female politicians, mainly online, which are not dealt with effectively within politics. And then Lyncoffee and then I'll hand over to you. None of the political parties ever try to appeal to women. If they did, they'd be making offers around child care, the 2 child benefit cap, social care, maternity leave, legalising abortion, making our streets safe, sorting out misogyny and politics. But no party is interested in that and sorry, I broke my promise. Sarah Peters As a woman under 30 in politics, the Green Party is, in my view, the only truly left wing major UK political party. Labour have lost so many of us as a demographic by mimicking right wing policy and rhetoric. Why should we trust a party that can't keep their promises or do what they're supposed to stand for? Over to you.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. And then maybe finally we did get lots of responses to this, asking young women to tell us whether they thought it felt ignored and if so, why and what we should do about it. And I think it's fair to say from the responses that yes, they do think that young women are ignored, possibly taken for granted. Interestingly, in the Polish election there was a gender divide on the voting that more young women voted for the liberal Warsaw mayor and more young men voted for the more right wing guy. Final point here, maybe from Angie Jacinda Ardern proves it can be done. I really do think there is a progressive female Prime Minister of the UK's future out there and it's not too far away. And Jacinda Ardern did prove it can be done and really did put kindness and compassion at the heart of her politics. But in a way her experience then underlines the problem that these young women are highlighting because she did and continues to suffer an awful lot of online abuse, an awful lot of misogyny and a lot of hatred. And she sort of made the point that she had to protect herself from it. She didn't say that she left because of all the. The Kind of negativity. She basically said she left because she felt she was running out of steam and she wasn't operating at the standards she felt she should. But I think that constant negativity erodes your sense of self confidence and your, your belief that you can do stuff.

[Alistair Campbell]

Let me, let me sort of pin you down. I mean, some of this is very directly against the Labour Party. I mean, this is somebody who actually wants to be a Welsh Labour member of the Senate saying she doesn't think the Labour Party's going to take her seriously as a candidate, and someone else saying Labour's lost her, she's going green. And Lyn saying no party's actually interested in female issues. I mean, what do you think about that? I mean, imagine you're Keir Sama. Imagine you were trying to put a coherent policy together. Why isn't the government doing more to win over women? What could it be doing to win over women?

[Rory Stewart]

This comes from the starting point. The question that started this debate off was whether enough attention is paid to young women or whether it's all about young men. And I think there has been huge focus on young men. I think that TV program Adolescents sort of brought it to a head in a way. And we've seen, you know, in the whole sort of Andrew Tate stuff and online hate and misogyny and pornography and all this stuff that we, that we know about. And we've got Jonathan Haidt coming up on Leading Soon. The social media guy who really is the author of Anxious Generation, really wants us to sort of crack down on this stuff. This feels to me like an area where a section of the population feels taken for granted. And your answer to what should labor be doing? Do not take any section of the population for granted and understand where these arguments are coming from. So, for example, there's another one here. MZ0202. Keir Starmer pledged to tackle violence against women and girls so far has done nothing. That's 50% of the population is ignoring now, as I understand it, Jess Phillips has actually done quite a lot in this field. But here's somebody clearly who doesn't feel that that is something that they're aware of, they've heard of, that they therefore can see as a priority from the government. I need to think about this. I'm not sure what the direct answer is, but I think what you're seeing here is, and you know, you and I get this out when we're out and about. I, I sense a, a real sort of gender divide amongst young People, and we shouldn't overstate it because, you know, you'll get very right wing populist women and you'll get very, you know, woke, for want of a better word, young men. But I think there is a sort of hardening of views amongst those young men who feel that politics is just completely failing them for one set of reasons, and a different set of reasons amongst young women who feel that politics is failing them, but they don't even feel they're being heard. So I think this starts with them being heard and listened to and their and their concerns addressed. Keep your responses coming though, people. Thank you. Right, Joya. Da Please, can we have an explainer? That's your treasure. Rory. On Trump's tariff court appeal. Where are we now? And are the tariffs here to stay? Ultimately, who will win, Trump or the courts?

[Alistair Campbell]

The Trump administration, both last time and this time have implemented tariffs. And the first time, largely the courts allowed them to do it because they thought that what they did was in one case about national security and another case about dumping practices, and that these referred to the 1962 and 1978 four Trade Acts. But this time he's done something different. So what people will remember is with his famous Liberation Day tariffs. So this was April 2, not April Fool's Day. He announced these tariffs that went to everybody, including the penguins. Then he brought them down to 10%. And now he's signaled that Europe and China and everyone could be hit with 50%. A US court has ruled that he does not have the power to do this. What he did is he used emergency powers really designed for wartime. And the Supreme Court in the United States has tended to rule that when presidents start using weird ancient decree powers, they need to get some authorization from Congress to do so. And in this particular case, Congress is supposed to have, not the president, but the legislature, control over trade policy. Another court has now come in and said basically that the tariffs can stay in place to give Trump time to appeal. So the situation is, if you are importing to the United States, you're still paying the 10% tariffs and the US government's still collecting the 10% tariffs. While the courts try to get round to hearing this case, Trump is enraged. And it underscores two things. One of them is the continuing uncertainty, which stops business investment, because you simply don't know. I mean, you might have thought in January I need to move my production to the US because if I don't, I'm going to be hit by 10% tariffs or 50% tariffs. Now, you think, well, who knows what's going to happen because he's playing the hokey cokey and the tariffs are going up and down. Now the court's going up and down. The second thing is this bigger issue around the fact that so far at least, and thank goodness, Trump has tended to try to work round the courts, not openly defy them. Vance talks much more macho language about not implementing court decisions, but Trump tends to send new bunches of lawyers and trends to work his way around the back. We haven't yet gotten to explicit situation of Trump explicitly refusing to implement the decisions of courts.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, but we are definitely heading in that direction. And you do get the feeling that he's sort of spoiling for that fight at some point, but he's probably keen to pick the right moment. Okay, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and talk about what on earth is going on in that stable, modern, progressive country, the Netherlands. This episode is sponsored by NordVPN now.

[Alistair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

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[Rory Stewart]

Welcome back to the Rest is Politics Question time with me, Alistair Campbell.

[Alistair Campbell]

And with me, Rory Stewart.

[Rory Stewart]

So, Harry Cooper, what's next for Holland following the Dutch government's collapse? Well, I guess. Will they get through this without another election? I don't know. The government has collapsed because Geert Wilders has pulled the plug because he didn't feel that his ideas on asylum and immigration were being taken seriously, taken forward or properly implemented.

[Alistair Campbell]

And I think if I'm right, unless I'm being too grand about this, this is the theme that we might see repeated. Because in Austria the far right has a lot of power and of course in Germany the far right has a lot of power. They're not in the government, but they've. They are now ahead in the opinion polls and immigration's right at the heart of that. So there are these unstable coalitions which have got the right on the side saying what we want to do is actually challenge the European Union's rules. And Germany is pretty close to doing this, actually, even under Merz's government of challenging the European Union rules around asylum and what you can do on borders, which calls into question Schengen, the European Court of Justice. Quite big stuff in, in terms of the functioning of the European Union. And in the case of the Netherlands, Hedfelder's, because he was in government's basically been able to collapse the government over it. And in each case, I guess what they will do is they will say this government a wimps. They weren't tough enough on immigration. We want a new election and hope they'll get more votes in the next election. That's the far right. Is that right?

[Rory Stewart]

I mean, you said the time when Wilders came top in the election that he would probably be waiting, biding his time, waiting to pull the plug and assume that he'd then be able to do even better next time. Because people would say, oh, to hell with them. They can't even keep a government going. We'll see. Because the reaction of the other parties predictably has been very, very angry, basically saying this is all sort of his, his opportunism. But you know, they have this poor guy, Dick Schoof, who's the. He's a civil servant who's been the. The prime Minister trying to hold this thing together. And basically Wilder's pulled the plug with a tweet, no signature for our asylum plans, no changes to the agreement. Pvv, that's his party, is leaving the coalition and that was that. So there'll be a meeting later today, expectation that the prime minister and the cabinet will offer their resignation. So it looks like we're headed for more elections.

[Alistair Campbell]

And do you think this strategy will work for the far right in general, that refusing to cooperate and bringing down governments is the best way of getting themselves in a better position?

[Rory Stewart]

I think it can play both ways. I think actually that there's people generally. I mean, you and I might enjoy elections because we're sort of political geeks, but once you've had an election, most people in most countries just want the government to get on and do stuff so it could go against him. But then of course you're into a campaign. But he will be hoping that by the end of the campaign people will have forgotten why the whole thing's happened in the first place. At the time of recording, we don't have the result the South Korean election. Interestingly, the arguments about the declaration by the previous president of martial law remained a very, very, very dominant theme. So maybe Wilders won't have get the leap on this that he's expecting, but we'll have to wait and see.

[Alistair Campbell]

Remind me, is this not part of the calculation around marrying the pen's far right party in France, this difficult decision about whether they support government budgets and government votes and by doing so get compromised by seeming to have sold out, or on the other hand stand in permanent opposition and try to gamble in the next election they can reject it all.

[Rory Stewart]

But it's hard to think that somebody like Wilders, it's a bit like Farage in the UK now. I mean, Farage is a sort of, you know, pretty perseverant character. He's been around for a long time and Wilders has been for around for a long time. I think he's the longest serving member of the Parliament, isn't he?

[Alistair Campbell]

Yes, he is, since 97.

[Rory Stewart]

You know, he's playing a long game, wants to end up presumably in government. The coalition was formed largely on the basis that he wouldn't be allowed into government, he individually, even though his party was. So he must be hoping that this is the. He's pulling the plug at the right time. I think one of the things I spoke to somebody in the Netherlands the other day who said that what Vilnius was struggling with is that although immigration is a big issue, he wants it to be the only issue. And actually a combination of Ukraine and Trump and China, geopolitics has become much more important and that has not necessarily been playing to what he sees as his strengths. So we'll have to see. Now, Rory, you've clearly got something in common with the subject. We've got a lot of questions about this chap, a gentleman by the name of Dominic Cummings, and people clearly see him very much as being a bit like you. Finn Hayworth, Dominic Cummings interview with Sky Is it a valid criticism of the broken Westminster model. So there's you and Cummings both arguing that the Westminster model is broken. Did you. I couldn't bring myself to watch this interview, but did you?

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, I saw a bit of it and then I following his tweets. So we're back in the normal territory, which is the tricky stuff for you and me, which is there's no doubt that part of the problem that we're facing, and this is something we talked to Ezra Klein about, is that government feels all over the world paralyzed and inert. We're tied up in process and regulations and we find it really difficult to get things done. And you keep talking about this in terms of how quickly infrastructure is built in China, how slowly it's built with us. And it's going to be very difficult for the Progressive center to ever win again unless it can really demonstrate it can do stuff. And the risk is that it then gives space to the Elon Musk's and Dominic Cummings of this world who pretend they can get stuff done by taking a chainsaw to everything. I think part of the challenge I'd want to throw back on you is how do we acknowledge that the public thinks things are broken, services aren't working, everything's far too slow and useless and convey a sense that we get it and that we've got the energy to fix it without falling into the kind of trap of sounding like we're endorsing Cummings and Musk.

[Rory Stewart]

Look, I don't think we can endorse, I mean, Cummings. I didn't see the interview. I was away. He's not exactly on the sort of on the list of people I feel I have to, you know, look it up and wind back and take another look. I read about it. I don't think we need to worry too much about him as an individual, but the thinking that he's trying to get out there one is to evade any proper scrutiny and argument about his role in getting us into the mess that we're in. And in part I think by. I think it was in this interview that he said that he lost it with Boris Johnson when he realized that Boris Johnson was a compulsive liar. Well, I could have warned him of that long before he walked through the door of Downing street to help him. And indeed he knew that long before that. So there's a sort of. He has no kind of moral authority as far as I'm concerned, he wasn't very effective active in government and he's doing what Farage does on Brexit. Farage says on Brexit, well, if only I'd been in charge of the Brexit that we went for, it would have been different. And Cummings is sort of saying, well, if only I've been allowed to get my hands on all the levers and change things, then the country wouldn't be in such a mess. I think Wes Streeting, in his own way, is showing it. The challenge of the health service is enormous. It is massive. And yet he's focused on certain metrics where things are improving. And then if you ally that to the sort of passion and lack of defensiveness that Ed Miliband showed in relation to talk about Net zero, and then you ally that to Peter Kyle and some of the energy and enthusiasm that he's showing in relation to his brief on AI, and you ally that to the seriousness with which, say, somebody like John Healey set out his response to the Strategic Defense Review. I think there's a network of ministers there that can persuade people that the government, yes, the government needs to change and the ways of working government need to change. But. But they're already, I think, within a year, shrouded by all the negativity that we've talked about. Lots winter fuel farmers and all the other stuff that we've talked about, plenty. But actually they're showing, I think, that government doesn't need to be completely and totally blown up in order for a specific government to make progress. And then I think if they change the ways that they operate in relation to working with the private sector, you and I, we got a lot of feedback from our podcast last week talking about the housing conference difference in Leeds, the UK reef, because that was a great example of where people feel that the government goodwill is there, but the systems get put in place, make things harder rather than easier to deliver on their own objectives. Well, in a big private sector organization, I don't think that would be that difficult to fix. So we just need more radical thinking about how to fix those things. What we don't need is people like Musk to come along and say the entire thing needs to get blown up. Or somebody like Cummings comes along and just has his sort of, you know, he's kind of running mad ideas that he thinks everybody should be following.

[Alistair Campbell]

Also, nobody ever holds Cummings accountable or remembers when he bullshits and lies. He managed to get an incredible amount of publicity. I'm not sure whether you remember before the election, 2024, saying he was going to set up his own party called People's Action, which he registered as the shell company said he was going to wipe out the Tories, that he was going to raise all this money from tech donors and he managed to get huge stories in the Telegraph mix. Dominic Cummings is setting up a new political party and the Tories are toast, et cetera. Never happened. Why does nobody ask? Why does it never happen? Why does he get to portray himself as this amazing seer who predicts the future needs to be taken seriously, envisaged a new party reshaping politics? Why does nobody remember that he bullshits him?

[Rory Stewart]

And also, why is he allowed to do any interview without actually being pinned on all of the lies that he told during the whole Barnard Castle episode? The answer to the question, Rory, is a media that doesn't really have much of an attention span. I don't say, you know, I've been looking into the COVID Inquiry stuff. I tell you, a proper media would be getting front page after front page out of what's being said at the COVID Inquiry right now. But that's yesterday's story. So Cummings is allowed to sort of just flit in and out of the.

[Alistair Campbell]

Debate, posing as a kind of prophet and a seer and an increasingly eccentric one. I mean, I thought, very revealing. If you see his tweet, you can see somebody being drawn into that weird musk world. It's actually very Trump. It's got a little bit of hanging out with wealthy people in the Gulf. It's got a little bit like Pete Hegseth of showing off about knowledge of classified operations, a little bit of deep states conspiracy theory. Let me read it to you. This is me quoting Cummings. If you talk to senior people in places like uae, they tell you what big shots in that region now tell each other. Don't send your kids to be educated in Britain. They'll come back radical Islamist nut jobs. Right now, number one, this is a very weird world. This is Dominic Cummings apparently having fun hanging out with wealthy people in the Gulf who are grumbling about their kids in British universities. All the statistics suggest there's no evidence at all for what he's talking about or what on earth he means by the Islamic nut job. In fact, if anything, people are increasingly moving their kids from American universities, British universities. Then he goes on. Terrorists being hunted from cave to cave in Afghanistan by JSOC brackets. US classified special forces have used satellite phones to procure London barristers to bring legal cases against the MoD. Please, just one MP dare to ask the PM about this in Parliament and see what happen. So actually he's a child. I mean, that's a bit like Pete Hegseth on his signals chat, putting in all this sort of ludicrous acronyms in order to sound like he's on the inside line. It's very, very Cummings. This is how he does it. Sound confident, create a conspiracy theory, drop names, sound like he's all across classified information that nobody else knows about, and basically just hang out with tech bros in Silicon Valley, write tweets for Elon Musk and cozy up to the Emiratis.

[Rory Stewart]

And be a bit of a twat. Yeah. So do you think I made the right decision, Rory, in pushing back somewhat on the original goal Hanger suggestion that my podcast partner should be dominated? Coming. Do you think that was probably not a very good idea.

[Alistair Campbell]

It's extraordinary the deference that he achieves. I mean, I've just been invited again to hear him pontificate about AI at something. I mean, it's amazing. He sits there stroking his chin like some equivalent of kind of Putin's intellectual Alexander Dugan.

[Rory Stewart]

I must admit, maybe I'm looking at the wrong things. I. I don't see much reverence. I really don't.

[Alistair Campbell]

His little Tweet got in 143,000 views.

[Rory Stewart]

I've told you not to look at these Twitter metrics. Right, let's get a question from somebody who does know about this stuff. Okay, so this is a question from Goal Hanger colleague Gordon Carrera.

[Alistair Campbell]

Hi, Alistair. Hi, Rory. It's Gordon Carrera here from the Rest is classified. Myself and my co host David McCloskey have just launched a new on Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the long struggle with the CIA. And the question I've got for you is, do you still think that 911 was the most significant event in geopolitics in the last 30 years? It certainly felt it at the time, but does it still look like that now today? Well, I think weirdly it doesn't. You're completely right. A lot of people wrote books. In fact, I wrote a preface to a book called the World how the world changed at 9 11. I think if you compare it to stuff that happened after it. The founding of Twitter and Facebook fell on the iPhone. The Arab spring, which is 2011, the 2008 financial crisis, the election of Modi in 2014, Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Trump's election in 2016, the Brexit referendum in 2016, the rise of Xi Jinping to power. These things actually have turned out to be much more definitional of the world. That was a world where we Thought the fundamental question was terrorists in failed states. Actually, we're now in a world which is much more about three main things. The collapse of democracy and its replacement by populism, the collapse of global trade and its replacement by protectionism, and the collapse of international intervention, its replacement by isolationism.

[Rory Stewart]

I guess another way of looking at it, if you take all of those events that you mentioned, plus say what Putin's up to, which of them will we still be talking about in 50, 75, 100 years? I think rise of China, almost certainly. Unless it does a Japan social media. Will we. Yeah, possibly, but it'll have morphed into something completely different. Artificial intelligence will taken over. But I think 9, 11, I think is one of those dates that is part of language for certainly for the rest of our lives and beyond. You talk there about the rise of the far right and populism. I think some of that can be traced back. I think that's when the. The sense of. Of Islamophobia really kind of took on a new dimension which fed into our politics more generally. So, yeah, very good question and we should look forward to listening to their. Their series here.

[Alistair Campbell]

Alistair, is. Is a question question perfect for you and me from James Mool, which I guess means muscles. He's a muscly guy. How important is it for politicians to be clued into popular culture?

[Rory Stewart]

Oh, God. So, Rory, who won the Champions League?

[Alistair Campbell]

Dunno.

[Rory Stewart]

You seriously don't know?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, don't know. Was it Liverpool? Liverpool?

[Rory Stewart]

No. They won the Premier League. PSG. Paris St. Germain beat Milan 5 nil. You didn't know that?

[Alistair Campbell]

I didn't know that, no.

[Rory Stewart]

There were riots in Paris following it and a thousand arrests. Okay, name one Coronation street star.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I don't even watch Coronation Street. Have you watched Coronation Street?

[Rory Stewart]

I used to watch it quite a lot when I was a kid. If I was on. On my plane back from Istanbul the other day, I was sitting next to this woman who was. She sat herself down and she got her laptop out and she proceeded. She lived in abroad, she'd lived in Saudi Arabia for quite a long time. And she proceeded to watch as she said she's done every year since she left Britain, Coronation Street, Emmerdale. And she. She downloads them and she just binge watches them at the end of the week. I think it's quite important to be clued into popular culture, but you shouldn't force it. I think more important is that politicians understand the importance of culture. And I'm obsessed with this idea that we, even though we are a great cultural force, the uk. I still don't think that we make enough of it.

[Alistair Campbell]

That I couldn't agree with more. I was in Japan. I saw the new chief designer of Uniqlo, this Japanese brand who's British. She was explaining how British fashion designers dominate a lot of the French fashion houses, how huge film made in the UK is and what a massive income earner is. Video games, digital in the uk, music in the uk, Football, of course. So, no, I think it's incredibly important part of our lives. I guess my sense of the House of Commons there, if I was looking around, if I was going to be mean, I didn't think the fundamental problem with the House of Commons was that my colleagues didn't know enough about football. I thought my fundamental problem, House of Commons is they didn't know enough about China.

[Rory Stewart]

Listen, I do, I do agree with that. I'm going to. While we're on the culture, I'm going to give a big shout out to a film that Fiona and I went to see the night called the Ballad of Wallace Island. Very small cast. There was a Q and A with the cast afterwards and Tim Key and Tom Basden, who wrote it together. Carey Mulligan, the only. I mean, she's like a lister who was, who was in it as well. But it's a, a wonderful film. It's a. Really makes you feel good and it's. And it's partly about music as well. Roy, which is, you know, is a. Is a great love of my life, so. And the other thing I discovered at the do after is that they're all big fans of the podcast, so I think they, they deserve a massive shout out. The Ballad of Wallace Island. And it's a great story. It's about a guy who wins the lottery and he goes, and with all his millions, he, he goes and lives in this remote fictional Welsh island where he gets his favorite folk duo who used to sing together and were partners as well in life as it were, and he, he entices them to his, to his, to his island because he's basically just a massive fan. And the guy gets 500,000, the woman gets 300,000. And I won't give away the ending, but it's, shall I say, one of the smallest gigs that any musicians have ever done. But it's really, really, really funny. So anyway, cultural superpower, that's what we need to be.

[Alistair Campbell]

Very good.

[Rory Stewart]

Thank you for the question and we'll see you soon.

[Alistair Campbell]

See you soon after. Bye bye.

[Rory Stewart]

Right, well done, everybody who's still listening because that means you've listened right to the end of the episode. Thank you very much. Impressive. But can I ask you something? Did you hear an advert on today's episode and did you think you know what, I'm sure the listeners would rather hear about my brand rather than all these other things they're promoting. Well you could be right but there's only one way to find out.

[Alistair Campbell]

That's right. You could be the next NORDVPN or betterhelp put your brand in front of millions of like minded listeners by advertising on the Restless Politics and other shows across the goal hanger network. So who a Gohanger? Well they're the company behind this very show and if you're in the market to increase the value of your brand they want to hear from you. You can register your or your company's interest by going to goalhanger.com right now. That's goal H-A-N-G-E-R.com see you there.