413. Question Time: Reform, Russian Cyber Gangs, and Battling BBC Bias

Summary

Episode 413 Summary: "Question Time: Reform, Russian Cyber Gangs, and Battling BBC Bias"

Released on June 11, 2025, "The Rest Is Politics" hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart delves deep into pressing political issues facing the UK and the wider world. In this episode, titled "Question Time: Reform, Russian Cyber Gangs, and Battling BBC Bias," the hosts engage in a robust discussion covering migration policy, media bias, international conflicts, cybersecurity threats, and the evolving landscape of political parties.

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1. Navigating the UK Migration Debate

The episode opens with a nuanced debate on the UK's migration challenges. Rory Stewart introduces the topic, prompting Alastair Campbell to emphasize the need for redefining the tone of the immigration discourse.

• Alastair Campbell [02:23]:
  "I honestly do think the first thing we have to do is to change the tone and the nature of the debate. Because the reason why we have an issue and why we do get a lot of questions about this and why it is so salient in our politics is, is that I think a lot of the fears may be genuine. Okay. But I think a lot of the facts in quotes around which the debate is based are not."

Rory shares his perspective on processing asylum seekers in third countries, critiquing the previous government's Rwanda policy.

• Rory Stewart [05:07]:
  "I absolutely think that Ruana was the wrong choice, done in the wrong way, incredibly expensive, and was never going to work. But the principle behind it, what. Which is that you look for safe third countries..."

2. Critiquing BBC's Coverage of the 'Reform' Party

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the BBC's disproportionate focus on the 'Reform' party, leading to perceptions of media bias.

• Alastair Campbell [17:22]:
  "Why can you name Zia Youssef? Because I know that the BBC and all the other media outlets, they have to compete, they have to try and get our attention, but honestly, to get a breaking news alert, Zia Youssef has resigned as Chairman of Reform."

Rory concurs, highlighting instances where minor political events receive undue media attention, potentially skewing public perception.

• Rory Stewart [21:15]:
  "Nick Robinson's got a point is that it would be completely mad for the BBC to ignore the rise of reform. I think there is a decent chance now that something that hasn't happened in a hundred years will happen in British politics, which is that reform will replace the Conservatives as the major party."

3. Greta Thunberg's Humanitarian Efforts and the Israel-Gaza Conflict

Responding to listener questions, the hosts examine Greta Thunberg's attempt to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza and the subsequent Israeli response, critiquing the lack of open debate surrounding the ongoing conflict.

• Rory Stewart [30:07]:
  "They got Greta Thunberg a sandwich exposes the hollowness of lefty activism. What was the real point of this stunt? Who did it help?"

Alastair defends Greta's actions, arguing that her efforts momentarily challenged prevailing narratives without achieving sustainable change.

• Alastair Campbell [30:21]:
  "What I think is necessary is to understand that there is something really weird when you get Piers Morgan, for example, saying, showing this shows that she's a sort of, you know, entitled self obsessed narcissist."

4. Addressing Cybersecurity Threats and the Role of AI

The conversation shifts to the escalating cyber threats exacerbated by global trade wars. Rory expresses concern over policy gaps in the UK and EU regarding cybersecurity resilience.

• Rory Stewart [35:04]:
  "All I've got to go on here is this brilliant article by Misha Gleeden in the Financial Times, which was pretty scary."

Alastair concurs, underscoring the vulnerabilities exposed by recent cyber incidents impacting essential services.

• Alastair Campbell [36:51]:
  "He starts off with this thing about, you know, there's lots of focus on the fact that Marks and Spencer got hit and it led to empty shelves and this. And it's going to cost them, like, hundreds of millions."

The hosts also critique the reliability of AI systems, referencing a Sky News incident where ChatGPT misrepresented recorded content.

• Rory Stewart [44:45]:
  "I thought it was weird, actually, because. Because I thought Sam should have known this. It was as though he didn't really understand what an AI system is."

5. Rebranding of the 'New European' to 'New World'

In response to listener queries, Alastair discusses the strategic rebranding of the 'New European' group to 'New World,' aiming to broaden its appeal beyond post-Brexit sentiments.

• Alastair Campbell [53:10]:
  "The New World has never been copyrighted."

Rory reflects on the implications of this change, suggesting it signifies a shift in focus from solely European issues to a more global perspective.

• Rory Stewart [53:31]:
  "But what is the new name of it? The New World."

6. Theatrics in Political Speeches and Media Narratives

Concluding the episode, the hosts critique the performative aspects of political speeches, noting how background participants and scripted speeches can undermine authenticity.

• Alastair Campbell [54:10]:
  "But then when you saw the wider shot. The other thing is that if you're behind them, both of these speeches were delivered by autocue. Right. So it sort of gets rid of the magic."

Rory shares anecdotes illustrating the disconnect between scripted performances and genuine political engagement.

• Rory Stewart [55:22]:
  "I thought it was weird, actually, because Sam should have known this. It was as though he didn't really understand what an AI system is."

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Conclusion

Throughout Episode 413, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart exhibit their trademark blend of insightful analysis and agreeable disagreement, tackling complex issues with depth and clarity. From dissecting media biases and migration policies to highlighting cybersecurity vulnerabilities and the evolving dynamics of political parties, the hosts provide listeners with a comprehensive overview of contemporary political landscapes. Notably, their inclusion of direct quotes with timestamps enriches the discussion, offering tangible insights into their perspectives.

For those seeking an intelligent and engaging exploration of British and global politics, this episode serves as a valuable resource, encapsulating the essence of "The Rest Is Politics."

Transcript

[Alistair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

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[Rory Stewart]

Welcome to the Rest of this Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.

[Alistair Campbell]

And with me, Alistair Campbell. And Rory, you've insisted that we start with this question. I assume it's because you're brimming with ideas. Adam Hensall. As professional armchair critics, I might rebut that actually.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, we do have arms on our chair.

[Alistair Campbell]

We do have arms. But are we armchair critics? Anyway, offer us some potential solutions to the UK migration issue. At least Adam doesn't call it a crisis. He calls it an issue.

[Rory Stewart]

This can be unfair, but let's imagine that I was stereotyping you. I would say you're somebody who is very comfortable with multicultural Britain, probably feels the anxieties about immigration overdone, certainly has said on the podcast in the past that talking about it too much hands stuff to Nigel Farage, and that you don't really want to be associated with Rwanda style politics. Stop the vote, stop immigration. In fact, in fact, you used to wear a T shirt saying something like open minds, open borders, didn't you?

[Alistair Campbell]

That was the slogan of the New European now the New World. Yeah, I also wear a T shirt sometimes that says refugees welcome. Look, I honestly do think the first thing we have to do is to change the tone and the nature of the debate. Because the reason why we have an issue and why we do get a lot of questions about this and why it is so salient in our politics is, is that I think a lot of the fears may be genuine. Okay. But I think a lot of the facts in quotes around which the debate is based are not. And so, for example, you mentioned the stop the boats. I completely agree with the importance of quotes, stopping the boats.

[Rory Stewart]

You do agree with that?

[Alistair Campbell]

Totally. And by the way, this is what so riles me up about Farage. The situation has got a lot worse since Brexit. The numbers have got a lot worse since Brexit because the systems that we depended on have eroded. So I'm all in favor of them trying to stop the boats, not least because it stops people dying needlessly.

[Rory Stewart]

So you're not on the side of the argument that these are incredibly vulnerable, needy people who are just trying to get a better life and fleeing persecution, getting on rubber boats, therefore we should welcome them.

[Alistair Campbell]

What I'm against is them being in the position where they either. I'm in favor of, quote, smash the gangs.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Because it's become a big thing for organized crime. But I'll give you one idea which I think might be worth thinking about. So as I understand it, you can no longer just turn up at a British Embassy anywhere in the world and say, I'm being. I'm fleeing persecution.

[Rory Stewart]

Which was true. When I was in the embassy in Indonesia, we had somebody hopped over the wall. In fact, we built these big walls to try to stop it happening. But when they hopped over the wall, they were taking refuge in rmc, a bit like Assange.

[Alistair Campbell]

So let say you went. But now I know the numbers are large. Okay. And we don't have big embassies in a lot of the countries from which these people are fleeing. But if you were able to have your case assessed at a local level by a local diplomat, let me say.

[Rory Stewart]

I like that idea. Not quite that idea to get lean into my slight disagreement, agreeable disagreement. I think we've taken another level. It's actually the idea that David Cameron started to pioneer. Theresa May did a lot on, which is that you rely on unhcr, the UN Agency, to screen genuine cases in country. We did it first in Lebanon and Jordan, on the borders of Syria with refugees, Pakistan with Afghan refugees. The idea is that you give a quota to UNHCR. So let's say Britain's going to take 25,000 asylum seekers a Year, but they're going to be processed outside the United Kingdom and then they're brought in. But what's the problem? The problem is that actually the tradition of international law.

[Alistair Campbell]

Hold on. The question of madam, is solutions, Rory.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, yeah, okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

So don't give us the problems. You want solutions. I've given you a small solution.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

A small part of a solution, which.

[Rory Stewart]

Is the processing in third countries.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. And by the way, you could take that into a third party organization. And that's why, for example, I know you're in favor of the whole Rwanda thing. Now, I thought the Rwanda thing in the last government was a complete gimmick and a total waste of money. And I recently met somebody who works for the Rwandan government who literally said the words, we so saw them coming. So we wasted a lot of time, a lot of effort. But I'm not against. I'm not against some sort of processing and some sort of assessment taking place in different countries.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay? So as usual with disagreeable agreement, that's not quite my position. I absolutely think that Ruana was the wrong choice, done in the wrong way, incredibly expensive, and was never going to work. But the principle behind it, what. Which is that you look for safe third countries, and you say that anyone arriving on your shores, they're coming, after all, from a safe country. Right. They're coming from France, which is safe. To Britain. You can say, look, we don't have a responsibility to put you up in Britain. What we have a responsibility to is to make sure that you're safe. And the EU did a deal exactly like this with Turkey, and it had an incredible impact. They did it in the midst of the migrant crisis. The EU Turkey deal involved the. The European Union providing a lot of support for Turkey and Turkey in response, agreeing that they would keep people in Turkey rather than facilitating them getting on boats to Greece. It cut the numbers down in a couple of months from tens of thousands down to a few hundred. And it only broke apart because the EU Turkey relationship broke apart. So actually, the answer to this in Britain and across Europe is partly about agreements with Turkey, North Africa and other safe third countries to take asylum seekers.

[Alistair Campbell]

Don't you think the whole problem, this entire debate, is that it's happening at a time when nationalism is, in a lot of our politics, more powerful than internationalism. So I would argue this thing, a bit like climate, a bit like some of the environmental challenges, is not going to be solved country by country. This is where I think we're in agreement. But I think it's how you then do it. So you've talked before about maybe every country agreeing to take a number of what you're trying to find.

[Rory Stewart]

Let me explain that quickly. So this is my idea that you set up. Actually, it's an idea that I developed. My friend Gerald Knauss, that you develop a global refugee coalition where every country agrees to take 0.05% of its population annually. Right. So there's maybe five families for a town of 10,000 people on average spread across the country every year.

[Alistair Campbell]

But are you talking there about asylum seekers?

[Rory Stewart]

Asylum seekers, Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

So not the economic immigration. We're going to need more of that as well.

[Rory Stewart]

Exactly. So asylum seekers only talking about here. And let's say the UK would take 40,000 every year. So over 10 years, that's 400,000 people, a lot of people. But at the same time, Canada's taking 20,000, the United States taking 120,000. Of course, easier before Trump.

[Alistair Campbell]

Is one person a person or is it a family?

[Rory Stewart]

One person's a person. And the idea here is that if the whole world shares the burden and sets up good criteria and you're targeting not. And this is another thing that's going to annoy some people listening to this. I'm afraid it is true that a lot of the people crossing those boats are young men who were not necessarily in lethal danger of their lives. The problems they were in might have been bad, but it's nothing like what a female judge faced under the Taliban in Afghanistan. So you want to target the female judges from Afghanistan, not a 16 year old kid who's come over from Kurdistan, who's paid a lot of money to a people smuggler and who's hoping to bring their family over after them. Because that's just nonsense. Right? I'm not saying that those people are not great in many ways. I'm not buying into this idea which the far right's trying to sell, which is that they have made London unrecognisable and unsafe and that they're all creating criminal gangs. That isn't true at all. My experience with enormous number of young Afghans that I meet in London is that they're working incredibly hard, they're doing well in school, they're doing well in businesses, they're making a real contribution. But we do not have a moral obligation to take people from France. They're not persecuted and recitalised.

[Alistair Campbell]

So hold on. So just on that, on the France. So sort the boats problem out.

[Rory Stewart]

And the only way of sorting the boats problem out is if the French Government want to sort it out. And the only way in which the French government will want to sort it out is if the government's brave and returns to what Yvette Cooper was talking about and then dropped, which is we'll say to France, okay, we will take our share of your genuine asylum seekers. And in return, any single person who lands on British stores, we're pushing back to France.

[Alistair Campbell]

The other thing that Gevette Cooper could do, and I don't know if this is on the agenda at all, but is to revisit the idea of identity guards.

[Rory Stewart]

Of course we should have identity guards. Yeah. Now, that's going to involve a big, big fight, unfortunately, with actually international law and unhcr, because UNHCR inherited a system set up after the Second World War where people were horrified by the fact that Jews crossing from Germany into Switzerland were pushed back by the Swiss into Germany and then killed. So the system basically is set up to say if you can land in someone else's country, you claim asylum there. Right. And UNHCR has a lot of people in it who talk as though they believe in open borders. And, you know, when I'm teasing you about your T shirt, I think that's part of the problem. People shouldn't be wearing T shirts saying open borders. You obviously don't believe in open borders, and it's a real gift to you.

[Alistair Campbell]

Sure. He said open borders.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, it said open minds, open borders. Yeah. So the second thing, though, that we need to talk about is legal migration, because it would be a big mistake for any government today, anywhere in Europe or the west, to go into an election thinking that it's enough just to have an answer to illegal migrants or asylum seekers. If you don't have an answer to the much bigger numbers which is coming to Britain in a single year, 750,000 people coming in, hundreds of thousands of them on student visas, hundreds of thousands on family visas, and a few hundred thousand coming into work.

[Alistair Campbell]

But the reason why I talk about the way the debate is conducted, so I don't have the data in front of me, but the numbers involved in the small boats, Tiny, tiny.

[Rory Stewart]

Tens of thousands. Yeah, yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

What you're talking about, you mentioned they're the universities. One of the outcomes, I fear, of the spending review is that a lot of universities are going to really, really struggle. One of the reasons. Now we could argue, well, you got into the mess because of fees, and then you need to get more money from overseas students, etc. But the debate about immigration means that I think at a Time when our top universities should be doing everything to get the brightest and the best from around the world to come and study here. We're putting up barriers instead.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, but now let me again disagree. I think we're confusing two different things. There was, I think quite a smart policy which was put in place by Rishi Sunak to say the very top students in the world should be fast tracked. So it's very easy to get a visa to come to the United Kingdom or was under him. If you've been to Harvard, whatever. That isn't quite the same as what I see, unfortunately, when I go often to graduation ceremonies for some British universities that are not in the top tier, often they are actually universities that have been really struggling in terms of student numbers, financial viability, and are bringing in a very, very large number of not particularly top notch students from China. No, no. I mean an enormous number. Last graduation I went to had actually come from Nigeria and as far as I could tell, they actually only did a few weeks of study in the United Kingdom. They were an incredibly important revenue stream. They got to go back and say that they had a degree from this university. I was not certain that they were top flight students. I was not certain they were making a huge contribution to the British economy. And I was a bit worried that actually what we've got here is a system where we're not funding our universities properly, so we are forcing to bring in people who may not actually be making huge contributions.

[Alistair Campbell]

I've said a few weeks ago, and we said yesterday on the main episode that, you know, we thought there wasn't this sort of national story. Part of the national story for Britain, I think, is that this is a place to welcome the brightest and the best brains around the world. And at a time, for example, when Donald Trump is whacking the intellectual elite and the arts and humanities and top universities and undermining their reputation, we should be trying to get those people to come here.

[Rory Stewart]

But how do we do it? And labor's not really helping itself. One way in which you'd help it is if you produce tax breaks for them. So traditionally the way in which people did it is they got a lot of foreign capital into the country, a lot of investment to the country by providing tax breaks for non doms. That's been taken away. I mean, the question, if you are a very talented person who's very business oriented and really wants to make money, does the UK strike you as a place where you're going to want to come in and invest? Where you're going to be able to make money which is going to be low tax competitive, good capital markets, innovative. Probably not. The reality is at the moment that all the signals come from the Labour government. Don't really feel as though Britain is welcoming in money.

[Alistair Campbell]

But I think, I think you're confusing their wealth with talent. I'm not talking about getting people in because they've got loads of money, I'm talking about people getting because they've got really good brains.

[Rory Stewart]

But the two things are connected. So if you're, if you're a really ambitious software engineer and you could be coming from Kenya, you could be coming from China, you could be coming from India, you're coming in to live the dream of creating your amazing tech startup in AI or quantum. And you're models are the great heroes of Silicon Valley. You go to Silicon Valley in the us, there's incredible amount of venture funds that will put money into your startup business. There's a culture that celebrates hard work, there's an incredible ecosystem of other people working in software. Come to the United Kingdom, you could be just a very bright Estonian coder, you set up your fintech business, pretty soon you're moving to relist in the United States. And part of the problem is that there's a connection between being the great innovator in the most productive part of the economy, which is tech, and then what happens in terms of your taxes and money at the end of it.

[Alistair Campbell]

My final point on this, it actually restates what I said earlier about the tone and nature of the debate. While the debate is dominated by this sense of nationalism, screaming front pages day after day in the Express and the Mail and the Sun, BBC tending to follow that agenda on the debate, government tending to follow that side of the debate. Rather than sort of stand up for why we need, in a vibrant, dynamic modern economy, we need to keep our eye on the people that we need to come in and we need to go out and get the best. Until we change that frame, I don't think we're going to crack this problem. So although Adam calls it being an armchair critic, what I think I'm trying to do is to say to people that we have got ourselves into a place where we seem to define anyone who is not of us, not British coming into this country somehow burdened, we're not going to be able to run hospitals and care homes and schools and prisons and all the other public services unless we understand we've got to go.

[Rory Stewart]

And get people from outside 100%. But if you look at the numbers of the hundreds of thousands who are coming in. Only a couple hundred thousand of them are coming in to do those jobs. The majority are coming on very different types of visas, as I say, student visas, which are not often for great universities, family reunification visas. And the talent bit, you know, really getting that talent bit right is about more than immigration.

[Alistair Campbell]

It's about much more than immigration. That is where the national story comes in anyway. I don't know if we disagreed or agreed there in the end, but thank you, Adam, for calling us armchair critics.

[Rory Stewart]

Now, here is a question Hannah Collies asked whether I'm as outraged as I'm sure Alastair is by the BBC's obsessive coverage of reform. It completely outweighs coverage of any other party. Please talk to us about the knock on effectors. Well, first, Alistair, over to you. Tell us about BBC's coverage, reform and what you actually thought about it and why you were cross.

[Alistair Campbell]

I don't know whether it's cross. I just think that the. I mean, they've got, what, five MPs.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. This is something you've teased me about in the past, which is that, to be honest, I'd struggle often to name the chairman of any of the political parties, including Labour and Conservative, but the one chairman of political party I really can name is Zia Yusuf.

[Alistair Campbell]

Labour. Ellie Reeves. Conservative. Nigel Huddleston.

[Rory Stewart]

Good man. Nigel Huddleston.

[Alistair Campbell]

Greens. John Knott.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Lib Dem's Baroness Caroline Pidgeon. Now, why can you name Zia Youssef? Because I know that the BBC and all the other media outlets, they have to compete, they have to try and get our attention, but honestly, to get a breaking news alert, Zia Youssef has resigned as Chairman of Reform. And then Chris Mason writing this essay like it was the biggest thing in the world. Why this matters, why you should think this matters. And then two days later, Zia Youssef unresigns and it leads the news at a time when Gaza is kicking off. LA is kicking off, it leaves the news and the reason why.

[Rory Stewart]

It was a great story, though. It's a bit like Trump musk, wasn't it?

[Alistair Campbell]

No. Fuck.

[Rory Stewart]

It was kind of weird, wasn't it? Zeyusuf comes. Attacks. Excuse me, attacks Raj. And then suddenly he's back again. What's he doing going back again? I mean, it's fascinating, isn't it?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, hold on, hold on. Yeah. And I did actually have some spirited, polite, but spirited exchanges with Nick Robinson at the BBC Today program, because they did Zia Youssef at the start of the week, as the main. And as you know from your politics day, 810 is the big interview. That's where the BBC says, this is the most important thing happening in the world.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, I remember. I think I only got about four of those interviews and it was a big deal in my political career.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right, okay.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

So 810 is sort of got this mythical stuff, status. And there's Nick Robinson. Now, I'm not saying it wouldn't get listened to. And because, you know, people are thinking, well, who is this guy? Because he's just been leading the news for the last three days.

[Rory Stewart]

Not who is this guy, we all know who he is. He's the chairman of Reform.

[Alistair Campbell]

So the questions were all about, so why did you leave? And he sort of said, well, I felt a bit tired. I found it very exhausting. I hadn't had a holiday. And this was not. And then Nick Robinson.

[Rory Stewart]

And clearly that wasn't the reason he left. Right. He must have left with a massive pulling out.

[Alistair Campbell]

Part of the reason he left was because one of the new MP had this thing, stood up at Prime Minister's questions and said, would Keir Starmer agree with me that we should ban the burqa? And Keir Starmer said, no. And then Zia Youssef put out a statement saying that it was a really dumb question because that's not even our party policy, which suggested things were already frayed.

[Rory Stewart]

Zeyusuf as a Muslim who's trying to.

[Alistair Campbell]

Wait a minute, wait a minute. He may be Muslim.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

They've got five MPs. One of them has already. Groupalo's already legged it. Okay. They've got the woman who came in at the Biola.

[Rory Stewart]

We've all heard of him, too. I mean, Rupert.

[Alistair Campbell]

Exactly.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

We've all heard of Sarah Potcher. We've all heard of Lee Anderson. The only one we forget from time to time is the guy who beats women up. Right? So my point is the Lib Dems and Nick Robinson, to be fair, he said in his response to me, where I think you've got a point is we don't maybe give space to the Lib Dems and the Greens. Right. But you can do that. Right? So I just think that this is. And I heard, right, somebody very. How can I say this without dropping a friend in it? Somebody very, very, very, very, very, very senior in the BBC management structure. Very, very, very, very, very, very, very.

[Rory Stewart]

Not dropping a minute.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, you could almost say right at the top.

[Rory Stewart]

Almost. Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Of the organization goes around saying to people that the BBC has to get in touch with this angry zeitgeist and this populist anger, and we've got to shed our woke image. The woke image of the BBC has been created by the people they're pandering to the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, and now reform.

[Rory Stewart]

Where Nick Robinson's got a point is that it would be completely mad for the BBC to ignore the rise of reform. I think there is a decent chance now that something that hasn't happened in a hundred years will happen in British politics, which is that reform will replace the Conservatives as the major party. I think populism is the big story of our decade. From Trump to Milei to Polonios, I.

[Alistair Campbell]

Think the media is. The question is whether they're covering it or driving it. And I fear at the moment that, look, it's my old point I make all the time. Too many people within the broadcasting organizations, not just the BBC, but the BBC is more important than the others. That's the fact. Too many of them, they decide their agenda for the day by taking in the papers to the morning meetings and sitting around saying, oh, well, the Mail has splashed on it. We've got to cover it. Oh, the Times have read on this today. Oh, the Telegraph's got this piece by Robert Jenrick talking about his latest sort of stunt. We've got to cover it. Whereas actually, I think their job is to stand back and say what is actually happening. Now, the other point, nickname made to me, and it's a fair point, he said, look, if Keir Starmer's making a speech saying reform is now the threat.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, that's a very good point. Right. The premise himself is saying, reform is the big story.

[Alistair Campbell]

That is a fair point. However, that doesn't mean to me that you then say when some guy that most of your viewers and listeners have literally never heard of, we all heard.

[Rory Stewart]

See, Yusuf, that's the point.

[Alistair Campbell]

Most of the viewers and listeners had not heard of him until the BBC actually started to think, this guy's a story. Now, where, again, I'm trying to be fair and reasonable here.

[Rory Stewart]

That what?

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. So when I had a long chat with Farage in the Green Room in wherever it was where we did Question Time, he actually, I remember it's the first time I really clocked onto this. He said, oh, we've got this guy, you know, Zia Youssef, who's our.

[Rory Stewart]

He's shit in the absolute palace for truth. Alistair was there not a microsecond of a moment after Zia Youssef's resignation where you thought, let's get him on the rest of this politics. Leading an interview emergency.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'd still like to do that. I would still like to do that because we're a different sort of medium. I'm talking about the news, the news media. Okay. So I, I think they, it's fair. They're a story. They're doing well in the polls. But let's, let's talk about the Scottish byelection.

[Rory Stewart]

Tell us about the Scottish by election.

[Alistair Campbell]

So the Scottish by election up in Hamilton last week. Okay. So the whole build up was part of this, as you say, the rise and rise of reform. Now it is newsworthy. I accept that reform did better in that byelection than they normally do in Scotland.

[Rory Stewart]

And the Conservatives basically completely disappeared. It was unbelievable.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right, Correct. That's part of the story on the morning. Let me tell you this, Rory, this, this, this will interest. Let me just get you the betting odds on the day. So, Rory, the by election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.

[Rory Stewart]

Yes.

[Alistair Campbell]

Now, normally a Scottish Parliament election.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Would not be that big a story across the entire news.

[Rory Stewart]

No, Correct. We barely know what's going on.

[Alistair Campbell]

The reason why there was such a build up to it.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

And why on when the day happened, it was live coverage, was because they thought reform might win.

[Rory Stewart]

And is that because Farage was selling that story to them?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, Farage actually was saying if we won this, it would be an absolute miracle.

[Rory Stewart]

He's trying to downplay.

[Alistair Campbell]

He was downplaying.

[Rory Stewart]

He was doing the famous Ken Baker Westminster strategy.

[Alistair Campbell]

He knew that he was doing quite well. He was trying to downplay. Let me tell you, what the odds at the bookmakers were the day before the by election.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. These bookies, they're always right. Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

SNP 20 to one on.

[Rory Stewart]

So if you bet £20, you'd make £1.

[Alistair Campbell]

Correct.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, that's rubbish.

[Alistair Campbell]

Exactly. So in other words, we, the bookies, think it's all over. The S and P have won. Reform nine to one. Second favourite, good bet.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

Labour 12 to one.

[Rory Stewart]

So if you bet pounds, you get £12.

[Alistair Campbell]

Why were the bookies saying that? Because the media was building up the story that Reform might win this. And that's a better story.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, wait, wait a sec. The bookies were saying S and P were going to win.

[Alistair Campbell]

The bookies were saying the S and P because they couldn't believe that reform could do it.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

Nobody saw Labour coming. If they're the odds and that's the conventional wisdom. Why is the story not. Labour have done rather well here taking a seat.

[Rory Stewart]

That's the story you'd do, wouldn't it?

[Alistair Campbell]

What was the BBC headline? Is reform the real winner when the.

[Rory Stewart]

Story should have been miraculous Labour victory?

[Alistair Campbell]

I don't care what the headlines are or even I don't care about headlines. I care about deep arguments. But I just think it was a very interesting example of where the whole thing was framed within this context of the rise and rise of reform. Now it was a good result for reform.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

To get 7,000 in a Scottish by election was a good result and a.

[Rory Stewart]

Terrible result for the Tories. What did they get?

[Alistair Campbell]

Unbelievable. Wiped out.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

So that's the story.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Don't make the story about reform. Could Nigel Farage be the next Prime Minister? The story is, is reform destroying the Conservative party who got tanked at the last election? Oh, actually there's one other point I've got to make.

[Rory Stewart]

What? Go on then.

[Alistair Campbell]

My highlight of the by election campaign. I've got to say to your story.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Now this is going to be a no answer. Do you know who Graham Sooners is?

[Rory Stewart]

Yes.

[Alistair Campbell]

Who's Graham Sooner?

[Rory Stewart]

The footballer.

[Alistair Campbell]

Ex footballer.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

And Scottish manager. And football manager. Yeah. So Graham Sooners who I know a bit and I've always, I've never really discussed politics with him because I always, he always gave me the vibe of being a bit of a Tory. Oh, okay.

[Rory Stewart]

Wow. Okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

But it's never bothered with it and, and I thought, you know, unless you're going to volunteer your politics, don't push too much. Anyway, he came out for the Labour candidate and I think that might have had a bit of an impact because I don't think people knew had a political view. But you know what his big argument was the reason why he said he wanted to get involved. He said that Nigel Farage, I've seen people like him through my life, is a total chancer. Good word.

[Rory Stewart]

Chance. Good word.

[Alistair Campbell]

I think that had a bit of an impact.

[Rory Stewart]

Very good. Well, let's take take a break and back for questions.

[Gordon Carrera]

Hello, I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.

[David McCloskey]

And I'm David McCloskey, CIA analyst turned spy novelist.

[Gordon Carrera]

Together we're the co hosts of another goal hanger show called the Rest is Classified where we bring you the best stories from the world of secrets and spies.

[David McCloskey]

We have just released a series on the decades long battle between the CIA and Osama Bin Laden. And this week we are stepping into the devastation of the 911 terror attacks. To understand how Osama Bin Laden was able to carry out such a plot right under the nose of the CIA.

[Gordon Carrera]

It was a moment that changed global politics forever, shifting the focus of spy agencies away from nation states towards hunting for terrorists and understanding the extremist ideology that drove them.

[David McCloskey]

We will then go into the decade long manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, which culminated in a dramatic raid at his compound in Pakistan in 2011 which killed the world's most wanted terror.

[Gordon Carrera]

So if all of this sounds good, we've got a clip waiting for you at the end of the episode.

[Rory Stewart]

Welcome back to the Rest of Politics. Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.

[Alistair Campbell]

And with me Alistair Campbell.

[Rory Stewart]

And slight irony alert, which is that of course, having said that, we should have been concentrating on what was happening in Gaza and the BBC kept talking about reform. We've just spent the last 15 minutes talking about reform. So let's get onto what you said we should have been talking about. Brian Gorch. Surely you have to agree. The picture of Greta Thunberg smiling sheepishly as the IDF offers her a sandwich exposes the hollowness of lefty activism. What was the real point of this stunt? Who did it help? And similar question from Charlotte Lees and Madeleine. What do you think of Greta being captured? So what did you make of that moment? And just explain her. As far as I remember, this story of flotilla's goes back a long way. 2010, when I was newly elected as an MP, one of the first big issues that it was, the first issue I think that David Cameron answered in his very first prime minister's questions was about the fact that the Israelis had boarded a flotilla on its way to Gaza from Turkey. Nine people had been killed because the Israelis had rappelled onto the ship and then they'd shot people who they said had been threatening them. And it was one of those moments 2010 where David Cameron said, you know, as a friend of Israel, and I've always called myself a friend of Israel. And then the but comes right there was another flotilla that was coming to pick up Greta Thunberg, I think from Cyprus or Malta, which mysteriously exploded or had some malfunction on its way. This one she boarded, she boarded with a member of the European Parliament. They were carrying nappies, baby milk, food, small amounts to relieve the Gaza blockade, definitely not carrying weapons, I mean genuinely was carrying humanitarian supplies into Gaza. And Katz, the Israeli security minister, authorized the arrest and the stopping the boat, calling Greta Thunberg a pro hamus anti Semite and saying Israel would not accept this form of interference. What do you make of it all?

[Alistair Campbell]

And they're being deported.

[Rory Stewart]

And they're being deported.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, look, I am unashamed fan of Greta Thunberg and I know that's a very unusual position for a middle aged, aging white man who writes books about.

[Rory Stewart]

How young people can change the world.

[Alistair Campbell]

Correct. And actually who in that book. But what can I do? Had a profile of Greta Thunberg is a very good example of somebody who decided as a teenager I am going to make a difference. And I think she's made a massive difference in the, the environmental debate, albeit that it's going backwards. But I think she's a big part.

[Rory Stewart]

Of that still, is she not? I don't know how old she is now, but early 20s. Is it not quite a sort of, in a sense a slightly tragic story that she was an icon of a moment where we really thought that people like she were the future and now she feels oddly kind of outdated, like a kind of boy band that faded.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I'm not sure about that because it was interesting to me at the swimming this morning, a couple of the kind of my generation, bit younger, saying that their kids had raised her one in the context of why has nobody been talking about this flotilla until the Israelis got arrested her. But also, I think you underestimate how she still does have a very powerful in with a lot of people around the world. I mean, certainly for somebody of her age and her background, it's pretty extraordinary. And I think that there is something really weird when you get Piers Morgan, for example, saying, showing this shows that she's a sort of, you know, entitled self obsessed narcissist. I mean, look in the mirror, mate. Why does she wind them up so much?

[Rory Stewart]

It's interesting, isn't it?

[Alistair Campbell]

She's an activist. She's trying to make a. The thing about Gaza, Rory, is why are the Israeli. We talked about this last week. Why have the Israelis been so adamant that journalists can't go into Gaza? Because they understand that in war the battle of the narrative is hugely important. I think the reason why they were so angry with her in this boat is that just for a day or two, she sort of punctured the narrative.

[Rory Stewart]

And the purpose of it was to say, here we are obviously not bringing weapons, bringing humanitarian assistance, and they don't want it. Why can't we bring it in?

[Alistair Campbell]

And the reason they don't want it is because they actually don't want to give this stuff to the people of Gaza. They've got this humanitarian fund going and they're pretending that this is not a kind of, you know. And here's.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, the whole story is they are blocking UN aid and relief and humanitarian operations because they want to control who gets the aid, where they get the aid. There's been a massive uptick though, I've noticed on social media a very, very strong Israeli narrative reemerging. Again. This is all about anti Semitism, this is all about pro Hamas. There was the post yesterday that I was reading about saying that many Jews in Britain are fleeing Britain to move to Israel because they can't bear the environment that's been created here. I've noticed actually there was quite an interesting article which people might enjoy reading by Hadley Freeman, talking about how conflicted it feels to be Jewish in Britain at the moment. And it's an article which basically says on the one hand, on the other. So on the one hand, Hamas wants to kill all Jews. On the other hand, tens of thousands of people are being killed in Gaza. On the one hand, these stories are coming from the Hamas health Authority, on the other hand, et cetera. But what was interesting about it as a revelation of the fact that there still isn't a completely open debate on this is that the fundamental question that isn't asked in that whole article is why is the killing still going on? You can see a year ago that there was a story about Hamas, Hamas wanting to kill Jews, Israel's right of self defense, going after Hamas. But now as we're moving up towards the two year anniversary, the question of why it's still going on, what the strategic objective is, whether any of this stuff around humanitarian aid could be justified. Why is that not being asked?

[Alistair Campbell]

We partly discussed this answer last week. You know that it is ultimately there's a lot of, a lot of this is bound up with Netanyahu's survival, is bound up with the hard right and the Kabana who are open about wanting to sort of drive Gazans and drive Palestinians out of the west bank as well.

[Rory Stewart]

But I was with a very senior, very, very, to take your words, very, very, very senior Israeli opposition finger 10 days ago. And they were saying in a speech, this is very polarized. And they said, on the one hand you have Hamas and people talking about from the river to the sea. And I was expecting them to say, on the other hand you have Smotrich and Ben Gavir talking about Greater Israel and expelling all Palestinians. That second bit never came. This was an opposition figure who's absolutely not part of that coalition. Still not quite prepared to call out Smotrich and Benavir. And I thought that was very straight.

[Alistair Campbell]

A lot of people are. There was a big march again yesterday. But this thing about if you are remotely critical of anything that the Israelis do, you are pro Hamas and anti Semitic, I mean, it's so offensive. But they know that that's the narrative that they're trying to shape because they want to stop people criticizing them, stop people calling this stuff out. That's why they hate the Gretchenberg stuff, because for a day or two, it did get an awful lot of traction. We talked about it last week, and, you know, I got a. Literally within half an hour of the podcast being out, I was getting messages from people in Netanyahu's office. One of them just said, I'm very disappointed in you. Well, I'm very disappointed in you because you're justifying. You're now justifying things that cannot be justified. And I keep going back to the point they keep saying that, you know, when you see these kids who are starving, you see, you know, civilians being killed. You see, you know, there's barely a hospital left. And they always say, we were targeting a Hamas cell, a Hamas this, a Hamas that. You know, sorry, but give us the names. Who have you killed? Who have you killed to justify all of the people who are not terrorists, who are not Hamas, or are you now saying, Because I'm sure this is what some of them, some of the people in that Louis Theroux settlers film think they're all terrorists because they're Gazans. That's the sort of mindset that some of them have now got. Okay, this one for you, because you really want to talk about this? Jacob Donnelly, how could a global trade war affect our access to hardware and software needed to secure organizations from cyber threats? How is policy evolving within the UK and EU to help us defend ourselves? Well, that's one for you, because you. All I've got to go on here is this brilliant article by Misha Gledy in the Financial Times, which was pretty scary.

[Rory Stewart]

Tell us a bit about that.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, he starts off with this thing about, you know, there's lots of focus on the fact that Marks and Spencer got hit and it led to empty shelves and this. And it's going to cost them, like, hundreds of millions. But he starts off the piece with one about a company called Synovis, which provides blood testing and transfusions to the nhs. And I wonder whether this is related, even though it wasn't said but a lot of our papers the other day were leading on the story that there's a shortage of blood. But basically he said that two patients suffered serious long term harm. And this was deemed to be a 2 on the matrix of 6 for cyber incidents. And he says we're not far off from having a one.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

I don't, I think, I think Martin Spencer may be in a two as well. I don't know.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, let's, let's get back to the whole story. So the normal story that we celebrate is a story where we all seem to like the 90s and the early 2000s as being an age of new labor. New labor and optimism. What I want to call the rules. Rules based international order, effective government. Yeah. But the weird exception to this story is in the world of the Internet and cyber. So whereas in much of the rest of the world, those eras, the 1990s, early 2000s was about creating international agreements, International Criminal Court, for example, World Trade Organizations, Single Market, NAFTA. There was a deliberate decision basically to leave the Internet as a kind of wild west. And I don't know whether you were conscious this at the time. Were you sort of conscious of the fact that there wasn't actually much effort made to do international regulation on cyber security, cyber threats, cyber attacks?

[Alistair Campbell]

I'll be honest, I don't think we, I don't know what we thought. I think we, I think we, we saw it as being bound up in the whole excitement about globalization and, you know, prosperity. I can remember, I think I may have told you before that once when I, I was doing a briefing and it was about the genome project, which I knew next to nothing. Yeah. And I was asked a question and instead of saying, I know I should know about this, but I don't, I'm a bit thick when it comes to sort of, you know, science and technology. I said what I thought was a completely bland, neutral parking. The question. By the time I got back to Dowdy street, shares were plunging of all these sort of biotech companies because I'd said something that I think Bill Clinton phoned. Tony Blair said, well, going on. So. So I don't think we were. And I can remember Liz Lloyd, who's now back in government working for Keir Starmer, who was then working for us. And she was very much on the kind of environmental. So I remember her sometimes talking about, you know, this tech stuff's gonna be so important. We did, you know, I've said before, we did get onto the old information superhighway, but I'd be lying if I said that we thought this was going to become quite the phenomenon as Tony Blair is catching up now, by the way, he's utterly obsessed with it.

[Rory Stewart]

He's talking about one thing.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yes.

[Rory Stewart]

Anyway, one of the reasons why the US and the UK didn't police it is that it suited us because five eyes. And this has become, you know, I'm not revealing secrets here because unfortunately it's become clear through WikiLeaks. And Edward Snowden basically thought it rather suited us not to regulate it because we were from the National Security Agency, gchq, hacking into absolutely everything. And we thought in a slightly smug way in those days that the us, the UK and others had such a massive superiority over Russia, China or any adversary when it came to penetrating this stuff, getting into this stuff, Manning attacks, that it wasn't in our interests to regulate it or control it. Things then began to change because from two big changes, thing one of them is more and more of the world went online. So from 2005 onwards, you begin to see, suddenly Gmail puts all your emails and data out there. Online shopping becomes absolutely enormous, so huge opportunities for criminals. And the second thing is then states beginning to do it. So Russia mounts a big attack on Estonia in 2008. And then you get the fake news stuff happening, so you get the Syrian cyber army putting out a fake tweet from the Associated Press saying the White House is on fire, which tumbles the US stock market back in 2014. And then you get this agreement between the criminal gangs and the governments which you see particularly in Russia. Essentially, Putin lets the hackers get on with it. A lot of them are mafia groups, provided when he rings them up and says, could you help me out here on a cyberattack, they get him behind him. There was a big attack against Ukraine, which wasn't actually as effective as it might have been if it had been mounted against the UK or the us, because a lot of Ukraine wasn't connected as much as would be the case the uk.

[Alistair Campbell]

Where are you getting all this from?

[Rory Stewart]

Well, so I've read a couple of books, read a couple of great books. Scott Shapiro, Fancy Bear Goes fishing with a pH. There's another book which I like less, actually, but Nicole Polloz, because it's slightly sensational, called this Is How They Tell Me the World Ends. Fancy Goes Fishing is actually written by a colleague of mine at Yale Law School. Really good at explaining clearly the computer science behind the attacks. Anyway, the reason why I want to raise it, though, just to finish, is that your old friend Donald Trump is now Featuring in this because the Biden administration tried at the end to pass emergency legislation to make sure that the future generation of the Internet had built into it from the beginning, proper protection against cyberattacks and particularly quantum attacks. And Donald Trump announced two days ago, and again, this is probably one of the biggest things he's done that nobody's noticed, that he's dismantling all of Biden's protections in the name of deregulation, free trade, and essentially allowing a free for all. And so things that people were less worried about. I did a big cyber conference, one of these big events at the Excel Center 10 days ago. And what was clear there is that people were beginning to worry about how AI can mount attacks, but they were less worried about quantum computing. They thought they were ready to deal with the quantum threats. Now I'm getting messages from those same people saying, oh, my goodness, what Trump's done has suddenly made all of that much, much more dangerous.

[Alistair Campbell]

He's also gone on a bit of a similar journey on Bitcoin, hasn't he? Was always. You had a sense he was sort of alarmed and worried about that, but now, now that it's sort of, you know, flowing into his coffers, he's.

[Rory Stewart]

And the two things connect because, of course, cryptocurrency is the main way that cybercriminals make money. That's the great untraceable way that when they attack your company and say, you know, give us $50 million or we're going to dismantle your entire system, that's how they collect their money.

[Alistair Campbell]

So why are governments not more worked up about that?

[Rory Stewart]

Why are they the story used?

[Alistair Campbell]

I get the Russian point, but why?

[Rory Stewart]

The Americans story used to be that it rather suited our agencies and the five eyes to be able to stick our fingers into this. The second part of the story is a lot of these companies are secretive about it, so well done mishugani for getting stories out. But a lot of these companies are being attacked with cyber attacks and are paying the ransom and are not revealing it because they don't want to admit paying the ransom. Our banks are losing incredible amounts of money. I don't know whether you've ever been the victim of a bank fraud, but the fact that our banks are able to cover these frauds shows how much they must be ripping us off as customers if they're absorbed.

[Alistair Campbell]

Insurance policies are, I guess. Well, Misha Glenny's book is called Dark How Hackers Became the New Mafia. Yeah, I find this stuff a bit Scary, I've got to be honest. And let's go on to the related question from Dawn Reiff. I've just watched Sam Coates Sky News get gaslit by ChatGPT. I'm now more terrified of AI than ever. Please convince me not to be. Or at the very least explain that what happens in the video shouldn't be a surprise. Did you see it? You did?

[Rory Stewart]

I did. I did see it. I did see it. I did see it, yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

So you thought he was a bit silly?

[Rory Stewart]

I thought it was weird, actually, because. Because I thought Sam should have known this. It was as though he didn't really understand what an AI system is. So the story, how did the story strike you? Because you sent me the tweet. What was it for you, as a kind of non massive AI person watching it? What was the story you took from that?

[Alistair Campbell]

The story I took from it was that he discovered that if somebody asked AI to tell him what he had just recorded, even though the podcast he'd recorded had not been uploaded, that it gave him the answer.

[Rory Stewart]

And it made it up, didn't it?

[Alistair Campbell]

And it made it up. And then when he said, hold on.

[Rory Stewart]

A minute, it invented a Sam Coates podcast, complete with jokes and exchanges, which hadn't happened yet.

[Alistair Campbell]

And then when he said, hold on a minute, I didn't actually say that. And he said, have you just made this up? No.

[Rory Stewart]

It said, no, no, no, I didn't make it. Is that right? That's exactly right. You're completely right. So this is actually the reason why I was a bit surprised that Sam Coates made such a big deal with it. And he dragged it out over a lot of minutes.

[Alistair Campbell]

This is a 24 news channel, Rory. They've got a lot. They're not like us, with very, very limited time. If you drone on for the second hour.

[Rory Stewart]

No, is that is the AI's been doing this since the very beginning. I mean, this is the story of hallucination goes back to the very early ChatGPT, and actually it changes over time as they begin to. As the models retrain and retrain on their own stuff, the amount they hallucinate go up and down. Which is why I would encourage you if you're doing this. I at the moment run four models at one time on my phone. So I'm running ChatGPT and I'm using the O3 model, but I'm also running DeepSeek, which is the Chinese model. I'm running Grok, which is Elon Musk's model. And I'M running Claude, which is.

[Alistair Campbell]

What do you mean by rerunning them?

[Rory Stewart]

Oh, well, they're apps on my phone.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay. Okay. So if you see my phone, you still write things.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, but there's Claude, There's Grok, there's Deepseek, there's ChatGPT.

[Alistair Campbell]

Do you use them different things for different things?

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely, yeah. Grok's very good on things like clean economic analysis. ChatGPT03 was pretty good until something's going a bit weird with it over the last week. I mean, they aren't very odd. Well, over the last week, it's begun to produce less and less detailed answers. And when you challenge it, fewer and fewer detail doesn't. And when you challenge it in the way. And this is, I think, what Sam was experiencing. You know, for example, I said to it, what was the date when Henry VIII abolished the laws of the forest in Britain and it produced.

[Alistair Campbell]

Why did you want to know that at that time?

[Rory Stewart]

Because I've been writing about Cumbria and the abolition of forest laws in Cumbria.

[Alistair Campbell]

It's part of the Merrill bit.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, it was part of my non Merrill bit for Cumbria. Yep. And then it. It gave me three paragraphs on Henry the eighth, abolishing the laws without a date. So I said, now what's the date? And it did again the three paragraphs. And then I said date, exclamation mark. And it just did the three paragraphs again. So there's something going wrong that wouldn't have been true 10 days ago. 10 days ago, 03 had a good logical method for checking itself and it would have got its way to the date. So it's getting itself into a muddle.

[Alistair Campbell]

What's the best. I use ChatGPT very, very, very rarely.

[Rory Stewart]

So for simple economic analysis, Grok for general stuff, until this week, 03 for political analysis. Except when you're talking about China, Deep seq. And for literary writing. For literary writing, Claude, seriously, for.

[Alistair Campbell]

For deep sea, you would go. For America, you'd go to deep sea.

[Rory Stewart]

Really good.

[Alistair Campbell]

If you're just as biased against America as they are for China, it's.

[Rory Stewart]

No, no, it's not. Deep seq isn't biased. What it does is when you ask it a question that triggers some alert put up by the Chinese Communist Party, it just shuts down and won't answer. It says, I'm sorry, I can't help you with that answer. It doesn't produce, like if you said.

[Alistair Campbell]

Being corrupt, what would happen?

[Rory Stewart]

It'll be say, I'm sorry, I can't help you with that? Please ask me another question. Right, but if you said to.

[Alistair Campbell]

But if you said, is Donald Trump corrupt?

[Rory Stewart]

I don't really ask it that kind of question. I mean, that's the other point.

[Alistair Campbell]

If you did.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what happens here. Let's do it. Let's do it, because it'll do it immediately. The other thing about deep seats is very, very quick. Okay, so is Donald Trump corrupt? Now, thinking the user is asking whether Donald Trump is corrupt. This is a complex question that requires careful analysis based on the search results. Let me review the key evidence. Extensive allegations. Footnote 2 and 10. Lavish gifts, like a $400 million gift from Katas 3, 4, 11 executive orders boosting their value. Footnote 10. Based on comprehensive review of the provided courses, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Donald Trump has engaged in systematic corruption during his presidency, particularly since resuming office in January 2025. Below is a detailed analysis of the key findings. Now, the reason I'm reading it to you like that is it's quite possible before it gets to the end of its answer, this Chinese model will say something that suddenly triggers an alert and it will wipe everything. So I'm still wondering whether it's going to end the answer. Often it's halfway through its answer where it suddenly says, sorry, I can't answer that question. Please go. And I'm screenshotting its partial answers.

[Alistair Campbell]

So put in. Is Xi Jinping correct?

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, very good. Is Xi Jinping corrupt? Server busy. Please try again later.

[Alistair Campbell]

Excellent, Excellent. So, listen to my A.I. you know Rankin, the photographer? Yeah, very fine man. Big fan of the podcast. Anyway, I saw him yesterday about something completely different, but he gave me this book, and I've got one for you as well. So this is a. It's called fake play on words. Fake. F, A K, E F A I.

[Rory Stewart]

K. Oh, AI Oh, I see.

[Alistair Campbell]

The AI because the whole thing, apart from one interview with him.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Has been done by a. Oh, I see.

[Rory Stewart]

And part of his point, presumably, is that as an incredible photographer, it's really disturbing that AI is generating incredibly high quality photographs by photographs.

[Alistair Campbell]

They really are. They're amazing, and I don't think you can tell.

[Rory Stewart]

And part of the problem, presumably, then, is what happens to that industry? There was something sort of. I don't want to be cheeky, but one question around Sam when he was showing this. What exactly was he doing asking ChatGPT to write a podcast for him that he'd recorded? Well, it sort of slightly. He might be trying to show something. No, it slightly sounded as though every week he was actually using ChatGPT to help compose his podcast. But maybe I'm. This is a bit dangerous because the answer is you can already. Gemini does this. You can already. Gemini's actually getting better and better. I'm sorry I didn't praise them. That's the fifth model that's getting better and better. But Gemini is the Google product. The people who have really been slow were Google and now Apple, which just don't know what they're doing when it comes to AI.

[Alistair Campbell]

Look at this. Right, so this is a whole section here about Glasgow.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. And it's called Rayner's Glasgow Poverty in.

[Alistair Campbell]

The Old days, as it were. And I mean, so these are entirely fake.

[Rory Stewart]

Figure looks a bit like I do when I wake up in the morning.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, there's lots of politics in here as well. But it just sort of makes you wonder, well, why are photographers going to exist? Why are designers going to exist? Why are.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, well, more than that. I was talking to the head of one of the biggest telecoms company in the world. It's laid off 85% of its people in its call centers and it's closing its stores using AI to do this from, I think, 15,000 down to 6,000. They're the first to move. But as that's the model, you're looking at major companies laying off the majority of their staff. And this is the big story, because within five years, we could end up with 40% of the jobs in the United Kingdom disappearing. But the main thing to take away from the sound thing before we move on, final question is you've got to use these things all the time and learn their personalities. They're like bright graduate students who make mistakes, make stuff up, bluff. But you have to learn what they're likely to bluff on, what they're not likely to bluff on, how to check them. And what you must never do is what Sam's doing, which is check them against themselves. If you say to them, you lied, didn't you? They either sometimes say, oh, so sorry, and then make up another lie, or they say, no, I didn't lie. Right, so you really have to check it against an external source. Right, here's a question that's coming. Quite, quite good timing coming from Jason, which is, what on earth has happened to the New European and why has it changed its name? And are you suddenly ashamed of Europe?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, the New European was started as an emotional spasm. Something must be done. I think what it does, it accepts that Brexit's happened. We will continue as the New World to be very anti Brexit, calling out the lies, calling out the.

[Rory Stewart]

You've accepted it. It's no more rage. Rage against the dying of the light.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, we are raging as the dying light. But it's a fact. Brexit has happened.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

And added to which, I think we've discovered that quite a lot of people who like the look of the new European don't pick it up on the newsstands because they think it's just about Europe. And in fact, it's about. We've got. You know, we write a lot about China, about. We cover the world.

[Rory Stewart]

So what's the new name of it?

[Alistair Campbell]

The New World.

[Rory Stewart]

The New World.

[Alistair Campbell]

And this is amazing. Do you know it's never ever been copyrighted.

[Rory Stewart]

The New World.

[Alistair Campbell]

The New World has never been copyrighted.

[Rory Stewart]

Novaya Zemlya. No.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. No. Le Monde die Welt.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay. I call this. But so, no, it's still going to be there.

[Rory Stewart]

Final question coming off Brave New World is why do politicians always have people standing behind them in important speeches? Is this a recent thing? Surely it's a pretty risky strategy. Tell us about what happened to Rachel Reeves. You were trying to act it out for me just before we came on.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, she had. She was making a speech in what I think was a factory. And there was. The backdrop was with these workers. They were all male.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

But the guy immediately behind her right shoulder sort of went viral because he was basically pulling his face a lot. Not in a kind of rude way.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

But just a sort of. No rolling his eyes and all this. And Keir Starmer, done one a week earlier. He did the defense in Glasgow with the defense workers.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

And there was one guy there, very tall, noticeably, when Kia took the stage, did not clap.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay. So I became rather obsessed with watching this non clapping guy. And then of course, when you saw the wider shot. The other thing is that if you're behind them, both of these speeches were delivered by autocue. Right. So the other thing that happens is the people behind can see the autocue.

[Rory Stewart]

Weird.

[Alistair Campbell]

So it sort of gets rid of the magic.

[Rory Stewart]

Wait, wait. Rachel Reeves's great oratory is actually written out in an auto cue. Wow.

[Alistair Campbell]

I assume Rory, when you say great.

[Rory Stewart]

Oratory, I assume she was just repeating lines she'd memorized six months ago. I don't know. It's actually. Somebody's written a speech that she's read. It's incredible.

[Alistair Campbell]

So in front of the Keir Starmer thing.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right. So you've got the people in the background and then when you had a shot from behind the whole thing, he was basically delivering the speech to like, Chris Mason, Beth Rigby.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

There were like three people, much of an audience there and. And I think that, look, the idea of having people behind you is to show you've got solidarity.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Northern Irish politicians always have a. Yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

But they're usually your party supporters. Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

You've got to be a bit careful.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, I remember Boris Johnson, you remember, he launched his 2019 election campaign at a police academy with police officers behind him. One of them fainted.

[Alistair Campbell]

Fainted.

[Rory Stewart]

I do remember that fainter behind him. So generally it doesn't go well.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I thought that was bad as well. Using a police academy as backdrop. Tony once did it. I remember once in Iraq, in fact, it was the day the Andrew Gilligan report on the BBC and Tony was making a speech in Basra and the troops were all around him, so they were behind him, in front of him, to the side and he. He did this sort of big speech thanking them and, you know, and it was quite, quite a good speech. And at the end of it, there was silence. We discovered later that they'd been told not to applaud.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

Not as an insult.

[Rory Stewart]

Right, right.

[Alistair Campbell]

But so is it not to be felt like when Trump does a speech to the troops and they're all throwing their hats in the air and all that?

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. You don't want to be political, you.

[Alistair Campbell]

Don'T get dragged into politics. So we sort of totally understood that. Yeah. I think maybe a real backdrop's better sometimes.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Than the ship workers.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

You should check out this guy, though. He had such a. The Rachel Reeves guy had a really expressive face. The. The non clapping guy in. In Govern had a very quizzical, not impressed kind of.

[Rory Stewart]

I guess the anxiety is that if you don't have the people behind you, you look like a bit like you've got no mates and that you don't have any supporters.

[Alistair Campbell]

If I, you know, I think if you'd have had a. If you'd have had a kind of. If it's a shipyard, you know, get the shipyard in the background. Get a ship in the background. Yeah, Backdrops do.

[Rory Stewart]

As long as it's not.

[Alistair Campbell]

Look at them. They do look beyond the politics.

[Rory Stewart]

Of course, it's not the Titanic, which is what the Tories tend to put behind them.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right. Well, on the Titanic, I think we should call it a day.

[Rory Stewart]

All right, bye bye. Thank you.

[Gordon Carrera]

I'M Gordon Carrera.

[David McCloskey]

And I'm David McCloskey.

[Gordon Carrera]

Together we're the co hosts of another Goal Hanger show called the Rest Is Classified.

[David McCloskey]

Here's that clip we mentioned earlier on.

[Gordon Carrera]

When I look back on it now, you still see that, you know, there's plans, there's memoranda, there's notifications, there's all these things, but they're never actually executed. They never actually kind of pull the trigger on anything, do they?

[David McCloskey]

I'm a little bit of two minds on this because I agree with you that the theme of this episode really is a series of missed opportunities to get Osama bin laden prior to 9 11. Yeah, but we should also note that once Tenet and the CIA understand that Osama bin Laden is coming for us, in particular after the East Africa bombings, there is a push to improve our collection and our understanding of Al Qaeda pretty significantly. I mean, there's a bunch of human sources who get recruited in this period. There's a lot more technical collection. Alex Station is beefed up to more than 40 people. There's a bunch of connections with foreign partners on Al Qaeda that hadn't existed before. I mean, Interestingly, there's a PDB President's Daily Brief in December, December 4th of 1998, which is titled, quote, Bin Laden preparing to hijack US aircraft and other attacks. And so there's a lot of strategic warning, I think you could say, about what Al Qaeda is up to. And yet there's an inability, I think, to translate that into practical efforts and operations to stop these attacks and just stop Al Qaeda from ultimately carrying out 9 11.

[Gordon Carrera]

If you want to hear the full episode, listen to the Rest is classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.