← The Rest Is Politics
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- [00:01]
Alistair Campbell
Thanks for listening to the Rest is Politics. Sign up to the Rest is Politics plus to enjoy ad free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com the.
- [00:13]
Rory Stewart
Rest is politics is efficiently powered by our friends at Fuse Energy.
- [00:18]
Alistair Campbell
And something else we all know is that energy deals, they're about as stable, long term and reliable as a, I don't know, Donald Trump promise to a country, but not this one.
- [00:28]
Rory Stewart
Fuse Energy is offering cheap fixed tariffs for up to 18 months. No price hikes, no drama, just a rock solid rate you can count on. And with the July 1 price cap, now's the perfect time to lock in a better deal.
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Alistair Campbell
And the average home's gonna save about 100 pounds compared to the price cap. And that's not spin. That is real money back in your pocket. And here's the clincher. When you sign up, you get duh duh trip plus for free. And you know by now that means ad free listening. It means bonus content like our recent miniseries on JD Vance, early access to Question time and pre sell tickets for our sellout live shows powering your home and your brain at the same time.
- [01:11]
Rory Stewart
Head to fuseenergy.com politics Download the app and use the code Politics to get a free trip plus subscription, fixed tariffs, big savings, bonus content. What's not to love? This is the way it feels to.
- [01:27]
Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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- [01:59]
Alistair Campbell
Hello, welcome to the Rest of Politics Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell.
- [02:03]
Rory Stewart
And with me Rory Stewart.
- [02:04]
Alistair Campbell
And before we get going, Rory, just want to say a big thank you to all of our viewers and listeners who bought tickets for our live shows. Very excited to be going out again. We're going to London, Glasgow, Manchester and.
- [02:16]
Rory Stewart
Bournemouth and a little bit of music I think could be expected.
- [02:19]
Alistair Campbell
A little bit of music. Especially in Glasgow. Dropping a hint there. Yeah, I'm actually going to. Not that far actually. It's quite away from Glasgow. I'm going to Scotland next week to be photographed for the woodland truss with my favourite tree.
- [02:31]
Rory Stewart
That's wonderful. That's something I really wanted to do and I'm afraid I've ducked out of. So I'll try to do it next Year.
- [02:36]
Alistair Campbell
I assume your favourite tree is in Cumbria or Scotland?
- [02:39]
Rory Stewart
It's in Perthshire. Yeah.
- [02:40]
Alistair Campbell
Right.
- [02:40]
Rory Stewart
It's an oak up by Burnham Wood. I'm really looking forward to Glasgow and these live shows remind me what the theatres are in some of these places.
- [02:46]
Alistair Campbell
So we kick off November 9th in Bournemouth at the Bic, which is where lots of party conferences get held. It'll just be me and Rory. We're then 11th and 12th November at the Eventim Hammersmith Apollo in London, following the footsteps of my daughter grace. Saturday the 15th we're in Glasgow at the SEC Armadillo. And then on Sunday the 16th we finish up in Manchester at the O2 Apollo.
- [03:12]
Rory Stewart
So to go to your tickets, just go to aegp.uktrip25. That's Alphaecho golfpapa.uktrip25. Can't wait to see that.
- [03:25]
Alistair Campbell
Right, let's get going. Lots of new party talk in the air. Finley. Given the Green Party already provides a political home for many on the progressive left, doesn't Jeremy Corbyn's new party risk doing little more than split the left wing vote, inadvertently strengthen the electoral chance of the right?
- [03:41]
Rory Stewart
That's a good. It's a good loyalist argument. That's what they always said when I was trying to run as an independent. That's what my Tory colleagues. Oh, you're splitting the vote.
- [03:46]
Alistair Campbell
You're getting a chance. It's not wrong. And then we've also got questions about Musk. Francesca Vils, what do you think about Musk's New America party? Could it disrupt the Republicans 2026 election.
- [04:00]
Rory Stewart
Splitting the vote against Hollywood?
- [04:02]
Alistair Campbell
It sort of does.
- [04:03]
Rory Stewart
Well, look, I think I'd love to bring you in on this, but let me just begin. I think that our systems in Britain and America are really broken. I mean, I can't get back to it enough. I try to write this whole book about. I don't think I did it properly. I don't think I explained how. I think a lot of our problem in democracy is these systems. You talk a lot about polarization, post truth, populism and now this is superpowered, I think by these first past the post systems. The Republican Party being dragged off by Trump, the Democratic Party totally lost and I think there is so much room to try to rebuild a sensible, exciting, good humored, active, socially media savvy centre ground. We need independent parties.
- [04:53]
Alistair Campbell
And do you think in the UK that would somebody who has beautiful ears.
- [04:56]
Rory Stewart
To refer back to your book, obviously I'm trying to hold off saying that Jeremy Corbyn or Elon Musk is the answer to anything. But I think the only point that Musk has got, because I think he's got no political judgment. I think this idea maybe like Dominic Cummings New Party, something that spats out on social media and disappears the next minute while presumably thousands of American political consultant mercenaries are writing little packs for them and slide presentations to try to convince them that they're the people who can do it.
- [05:25]
Alistair Campbell
I suspect not just American boring. I think the thing with Musk, look, I don't think this is, you know, there's that old joke, how do you make. How do you make a small fortune?
- [05:36]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [05:36]
Alistair Campbell
In America.
- [05:37]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [05:37]
Alistair Campbell
You start with a huge fortune and you found a political party. Right. And a lot of people have done that.
- [05:42]
Rory Stewart
Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Ross Perot.
- [05:45]
Alistair Campbell
Actually Teddy Roosevelt went off to for a new party for a while some.
- [05:49]
Rory Stewart
Time ago, over 100 years ago.
- [05:50]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, 1912 or something, I don't know, a long time ago. But it's never worked. And I think one of the reasons it never worked is the tribalism, the two party system in America, it's never worked as well because of the money. And of course Musk has got the money. What I don't think Musk does have is either the political judgment or the.
- [06:09]
Rory Stewart
Political appeal or indeed the ideas. What on earth are his ideas? I mean, sorry, we know his central idea, which is government needs to be run more like one of his Silicon Valley companies.
- [06:20]
Alistair Campbell
Run by him and his mates.
- [06:21]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, yeah, run by him and his mates. Sack all the civil servants, become more productive, become more efficient. But I don't think he's got an answer at all to the fundamental problems that affect America. What is he really saying about people on low incomes? What's he saying about welfare? What's he saying about defence? What's he saying about immigration? We don't know the answer to any of that stuff. Right.
- [06:42]
Alistair Campbell
He polls very badly and I think, let's just be frank about this. Look, he's obviously got something about him to become, quote, the richest man in the world. However that's defined. He's very clever in lots of different ways, but he's hopeless at politics. I think he was very good at throwing money at Trump. Why? Because Trump is actually quite good at politics and Trump needed money and he found a guy who would give him limitless quantities of money. He's loathed by people on the progressive side because he helped Trump and he's now loathed by the Trump people because he's gone against Trump So I don't think he's the vehicle at all. So let's come closer to home. So Czar Sultana elected as Labour MP suspended for defying a whip over what.
- [07:22]
Rory Stewart
Tichel benefit of some benefit Very, very.
- [07:24]
Alistair Campbell
Strong against Israel pro Gaza. And she shot the bolt to some extent by announcing that she and Jeremy Corbyn would be co leading a party of the left. Jeremy. Then we were back, do you remember when every night in the news we had cameras outside Jeremy's house and he would trot out, not say anything. I was admired him for that, the fact that he just got into the cab and went off. But we had a bit of that and he came out and said, yeah, there is going to be something happening because he's now not in the Labour Party because he's been expelled. What they're saying is the polls would say they could take 10%. My answer to that is, well, maybe I think this is all much more just symptomatic of this sense that we talked about last week of the left of politics not feeling at one with.
- [08:11]
Rory Stewart
Itself part of the problem that Keir Sama's dealing with because of course that 10% is driven by people who feel that Starmer particularly has let down labor voters on social justice. So there's a report that just came out this morning as we're speaking about explosions in child poverty, which is putting a huge emphasis on the fact that the cap that you can only get benefits up to two children and you don't get it beyond that is a real contributor to increase in what the report describes almost Dickensian levels of poverty. People living in houses today in Britain with no running water, eating mouldy gone off food, rats running around their apartments. And so that I think is core, but there's also a sense of moral outrage and where is the courage of the Labour Party around international law and around Donald Trump? And I think that nobody should underestimate Jeremy Corbyn's appeal. I mean, in 2017 he got far more votes than Ed Miliband had managed to do. In fact, far more votes than any Labour leader had got for some time.
- [09:23]
Alistair Campbell
And more than Keir Starmer got in getting his landslide. It's just the way the votes fell. This takes onto the next question then, and this is from Sen Network. They are right at the heart of this debate. The recent news that education, healthcare plans for children and young people with Sen might be under threat without any clarification from Bridget Phillipson about what could replace these legally binding documents in is causing Great concern for families and educators alike. Can Alastair and Rory please discuss.
- [09:49]
Rory Stewart
I mean, it's very strange. I mean, at the moment there's a legally binding commitment on schools to develop a personalized plan for a child. And why? Well, imagine that you are like many, many people In Britain, maybe 20% of children in Britain, and you have dyslexia and you could be very, very bright at verbal reasoning and equally have very significant memory problems on numbers or significant memory problems on certain types of words. And you can deal with this. A good school can deal with this and give somebody with dyslexia fantastic opportunities through simple things. Could be making sure that they know what the work is going to be in the week ahead and give them the chance to prepare. Could be a little bit of revision at the end of the week, maybe watching a little BBC film on history to embed the knowledge they've developed that week. And teachers doing this well, have completely transformed the opportunities of children who frequently are incredibly talented and creative, but who, if you just put them in the conventional system, would be exhausting themselves trying to work in a way that doesn't work for them and end up feeling stupid and excluded when they're not. So even the Conservative Party at its very worst was not trying to get rid of these personalised plans. I cannot imagine what Bridget Phillipson is talking about.
- [11:17]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I don't think she is talking about getting rid of them, but they are talking about reform and the reason why. And by the way, Kimmy Badenoch seems to be against them and thinks that we're over medicalizing mental health and all that sort of stuff. So there's an argument coming on the Tory side on this as well. But I know somebody called Sam Carlisle who campaigns on these issues a lot, and their worry is that labor are looking at everything through the prism of the cost, because why wouldn't they? Because money is so tight. But the worry is that on this one they look at it from the cost perspective as opposed to genuine analysis of the need.
- [11:55]
Rory Stewart
And also potentially because of Rachel Reeves, which we'll get onto, and this moment where she broke down in the House of Commons and the pound collapsed temporarily and the bond price went up, and the fact that they're now really trying to get behind her and prove that they're tough, they're really pushing down on this. But the point isn't cost, it's short term cost against long term benefit. If you think about 20% of the children in Britain not getting the support they need now, you might save Some money now, but the long term consequences for the economy of producing children who are not as able creative skilled as they could be in 10 years time, that is devastating for our productivity, our businesses, our industry and indeed for their well being and fulfillment.
- [12:41]
Alistair Campbell
Sorry to do the opposite, what I said they should do, but just let's look at the cost. So the number of young people with an education and healthcare plan, these ECHPs, this used to be called a statement and the last government changed it is more than doubled. Okay. And you talk there about dyslexia, the main area where the cost of gone up has been autism, then what's called BESD behaviour, emotional and social difficulties in speech and communication. Okay. There've been some rise in physical disabilities and severe learning disabilities. But these accounts you have much less of the rise. But the reason why this is such a massive problem for the government is because as I say, the numbers have doubled. The costs have trebled to 12 billion a year since 2015. And you talk to people in local authorities? I do. They are so struggling for cash and they've been given this thing called statutory override. They can actually, it's complicated this, but they can park the costs so it doesn't go on the spending that is set out in all the kind of, you know, the red books and the green books and all the rest of it. And that if they were actually to confront the real costs, you're talking about a lot of councils that frankly are bankrupt already. Now then go on to the point about why has this rise happened and where is the argument coming from? One of the things that some of the people on the right say, oh well, this is all because parents who, if their children aren't geniuses, they want to think that they're special and they need special support. Right. Most of the demand for these extra ECHPs is coming from the teachers and the schools because they're finding that. So this is what I said about the head teacher, I talked to you last week. So much of their resources and their time and their work is going on children who clearly need to have extra support. So I think what Bridget Phillipson is looking at is how do we continue to give proper support to children who need it and keep them in mainstream education and at the same time get a proper understanding of why these numbers are going so high. I think a lot of it, we think a lot of it's to do with COVID We don't know that. And then bring in some sort of reform that allows the system to work better but it is. Politically, this is a nightmare, absolute nightmare.
- [15:00]
Rory Stewart
It's a complete nightmare. And Bridget Phillips also, in a Sunday interview, strongly implied that Labour would not now have the money to revise the 2 child benefit cap. And all this is. I mean, let's take it back to the basics and sound more like a Tory for a second country basically has been stagnant since 2008. GDP per capita grew 2.5% from 1989 to 2008. It's growing by about 0.7% now. We're about 33% poorer than we would have been if we'd been on the previous trend rate. And one of the interesting things that the government is struggling with, which nobody really talks about, is nobody really knows why. It's really strange. There's a very, very good article written in the FT by Martin Wolf on this where he says the problem is productivity, but actually nobody really knows how to sort it out. And that there's a massive need for really rigorous, serious intellectual work, understanding what on earth is wrong with our economy. And if we can't fix that, labor is in the most terrible situation, which is our public services get more and more expensive. We have a more richer and richer understanding of people's needs and their real needs. As you pointed out, these children genuinely need support. Their lives will be much better if they get support. And the stuff that we can offer in the National Health Service is better than it was 30 years ago, but we simply don't have the economic growth and the tax revenue to pay for it. Meaning that there are basically two ideas out there and labor can't decide what it's doing. One idea is the very old idea, which is austerity. We can't afford this. We're going to cut services, we're going to cut quality and children will suffer in it. And the other one is to go Jeremy Corbyn on this, which is that we need to tax people more, we need to spend more and we need to become more like a kind of classic 1980s social democratic Scandinavian country.
- [16:56]
Alistair Campbell
And there's a danger, that's where they get driven and it's better to get there by your own volition rather than constantly being driven there. But I also think, I think, I do think Kemi Badenoch and the Tories that are going for Labour on this have got a lot to answer. This was definitely in that basket marked. Let's leave it for the next lot to sort out.
- [17:13]
Rory Stewart
I don't understand Ken Vader. Maybe we can get onto this in a second. It strikes me that her most silly tactical error was actually she should have supported Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves on their welfare reforms last week and given Keir Starmer a very difficult choice, which is she could have said, I'm providing 120 MPs, I can get your bill through for you. And that would have put Starmer in a very difficult position because then he would have had an option of passing his bill but doing it with Tory support. I can't understand why she didn't do that. It was very.
- [17:43]
Alistair Campbell
Well, you would know better than I, I'd say there's a piece we should put in the newsletter. Sam Friedman, who was a special advisor.
- [17:48]
Rory Stewart
On the go in education and who writes really well.
- [17:51]
Alistair Campbell
He does. Yeah. But he's written a very long piece about. About special educational needs and starts actually with this sense of Farage and Badenoch basically coming at it from a we've got to cut the money, we've got to get the money down without actually analysing the issue.
- [18:04]
Rory Stewart
Sorry, I might keep interrupting you, but it just made me think about another thing. One of the things that we've learned about Farage and reform voters is that they're disproportionately. Often people whose children have special education needs, who are benefiting from sen, they're disproportionately elderly, they're disproportionately receiving welfare payments. So one of the odd things is that Farage can't really go full musk because his voter base actually really depends on the welfare state.
- [18:30]
Alistair Campbell
Well, he'll go wherever the wind takes him at a particular time, won't he? That's what he does. But anyway, I think it's a story we're gonna have to come. We'll come back to. And the other big difference this time, I think you've got, amongst the new cohort of Labour MPs, you've got quite a few who either from teaching backgrounds or actually have kids with special educational needs as well. Roy, before we go to a break, can I pin you on another educational matter? Did you vote in the Oxford Chancellorship?
- [18:55]
Rory Stewart
I was the supporter of William Hake.
- [18:56]
Alistair Campbell
Oh, you didn't vote for my friend Peter Mandelson?
- [18:58]
Rory Stewart
No. William Hake.
- [18:59]
Alistair Campbell
Okay. And tell me who. There are lots of people going for the Cambridge one and apparently I get a vote in that. Who should I vote for? Between the ones that I know are Chris Smith, former Cabinet minister under us, Gina Miller, anti Brexit campaigner Sandy Toxvik, John Brown, former chairman of BP and.
- [19:16]
Rory Stewart
My candidate, Mohamed El Erian, who is the President of Queens College, Cambridge.
- [19:20]
Alistair Campbell
And you would vote for him?
- [19:21]
Rory Stewart
I'd vote for him. And of course, my candidate in Oxford, William Haig, won. So I wonder whether this is going.
- [19:26]
Alistair Campbell
To help and why would you vote for him?
- [19:27]
Rory Stewart
So, firstly, I think it's great that somebody who has a real deep love of Britain, but also has an international background, is a really serious international player. Loved running Queen's College, Cambridge. He's somebody who was a great Master of the college. Has incredible affection for the university.
- [19:49]
Alistair Campbell
They've all got that, surely?
- [19:51]
Rory Stewart
Well, I'm still really struck by Mohammed, because a lot of people, you will know, people who run these colleges who often get a little bit thrown off balance by having to manage academics. I've had to manage academics, but I was difficult to do. Right. They're extremely intelligent, independent people with tenure.
- [20:06]
Alistair Campbell
They don't want to be full of themselves.
- [20:09]
Rory Stewart
So I think he would be really good and I think it'd be very exciting to have Mohamed El Arian as the. As the Chancellor. Kempsh, who are you going for?
- [20:15]
Alistair Campbell
I think John Brown.
- [20:16]
Rory Stewart
John Brown?
- [20:16]
Alistair Campbell
I think so, because I think he's got. Listen, I think these jobs are all about fundraising, actually. I don't know if you've spoken to William Hague, but I'm sure he loves all the sort of blah and the blah and the blah, but ultimately, I think these are people who've got to get around the world with education in such a parlor state. And why are you not raise loads.
- [20:34]
Rory Stewart
And loads of money? Why are you not running Cambridge? Cambridge, yeah. Oh, you really hedged it, didn't you?
- [20:38]
Alistair Campbell
I didn't like it. And also, do you know what? I'm going to throw that one back at you. Why do people want these jobs, these positions?
- [20:46]
Rory Stewart
Well, I. I didn't run to be Chancellor of Oxford.
- [20:48]
Alistair Campbell
No.
- [20:48]
Rory Stewart
No.
- [20:48]
Alistair Campbell
But would you mind your next time.
- [20:49]
Rory Stewart
I don't know, William Hagel. Be there for 10, 15 years.
- [20:52]
Alistair Campbell
Well, you'll still be a young.
- [20:53]
Rory Stewart
By that time, I'll be completely forgotten about. I'll be on the dustbin of history. I'll never be relevant to anyone.
- [20:57]
Alistair Campbell
You'd have written another 30 books. But no, I think ultimately it is about fundraising. I think. I think that you need somebody properly networked, can do lots of leadership stuff. Does genuinely think about education, which is, you know, I'll be getting lots of Chris Smith. I like. I like lots.
- [21:11]
Rory Stewart
They're all your mates, aren't they? Most of those people, my mates.
- [21:14]
Alistair Campbell
But I'm quite Friendly with a lot of them.
- [21:15]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [21:15]
Alistair Campbell
Which is why it's difficult.
- [21:16]
Rory Stewart
Maybe pretty difficult. Were you going to go for Mandelson and Oxford if you'd had a vote?
- [21:19]
Alistair Campbell
I would have done, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then would have. I love to see whether you could have been ambassador and Chancellor and had all those titles. Okay, well, should we take a break and then come back and talk about your old party in Israel? We've got quite a few questions on that.
- [21:32]
Rory Stewart
Very good. See you after the break.
- [21:39]
Alistair Campbell
This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
- [21:41]
Rory Stewart
Well, what used to be a complex civil liberties issue is now just standard user agreement.
- [21:47]
Alistair Campbell
So think about this. Most of us would not share our location, search history and passwords with strangers, but that's effectively what we do if we're on unsecured WI fi.
- [21:58]
Rory Stewart
And that's one of the many reasons I am a great NORDVPN fan. Because what it does is it encrypts your Internet, it hides your IP address and it blocks trackers, all the while just running quietly in the background.
- [22:10]
Alistair Campbell
So you should make it part of your routine. You get fewer ads, smoother browsing, and the quiet confidence that your data isn't up for grabs.
- [22:18]
Rory Stewart
And it even is a little hack trick for you. It can even help actually with dynamic pricing. So if you're browsing from a hidden location, the flights, hotels, subscriptions are less likely to spike. And the Threat Protection Pro blocks malicious ads, scans, downloads before they reach your device.
- [22:36]
Alistair Campbell
So there you go, what's not to love? To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com restispolitics the link will give you four extra months on the two year plan. There is a 30 day money back guarantee and the link is in the description.
- [22:54]
Rory Stewart
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- [24:09]
C
Hi everyone, Millie Bright and Rachel Daly here from the Rest Is Football Daily Brightness. With the women's Euros underway, we want to tell you how we'll be covering the Euros and all the games this summer, and also what it means to have a little bit of daily Brightness in your life. For those of you that don't know, myself and Millie were part of the English England team that lifted the Oros in 2022 and will be giving all insights and detailed information about what life is like in camp and what the girls may be experiencing this summer. We will be discussing all the big stories that come out of this summer's tournament and we'll be cheering on England as they look to defend their title. We'll also talk about our lives outside of the game and what we get up to, whether it's DIY time on the golf course, highs and lows of football and the challenges that we face and things that we are eternally grateful for. It's going to be an incredibly exciting summer and we'd love you to join us and come along the journey with us. Just search the Rest Is Football Daily Brightness. Wherever you get your podcast, don't forget to subscribe and also follow us on Instagram and TikTok.
- [25:12]
Rory Stewart
Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question.
- [25:14]
Alistair Campbell
Time with me, Rory Stewart and me Alistair Campbell. Roy, Ollie Glover wants to know, given there's been so much coverage and focus on Labour's position on Gaza and a lot of criticism. All well and good, but what are the Tories doing about it?
- [25:30]
Rory Stewart
Well, I think the first thing is that the Conservatives and right wing parties in general, for reasons that are a little bit mysterious, have always traditionally been very, very pro Israel. But part of the story, I think in the case of the Conservative Party, in my experience when I came in in 2010 as an MP, is that Linton Crosby, the Australian strategist, had very much decided that one of the dividing lines they could provide with Labour is by trying to make Labour seem as though it was obsessed with Palestine kind of Corbynista anti Semitic and that they could mobilize a right wing vote that was basically anti Muslim and use it to seem pro Israeli and challenge Labour.
- [26:14]
Alistair Campbell
But the Conservatives pro Israel position goes way back beyond that.
- [26:18]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, it goes all the way back to Balfour, doesn't it? Yeah, it's a very long standing position. There is a Labour equivalent of it. I mean, of course Tony Blair was striking because he came in and I remember this because we sat down, didn't we, with David Mentzer, who's now the spokesman for Netanyahu, who was leading Labour fronts of Israel in those days. Yeah. So there's also very complicated questions about who the senior figures in the party are, where support's coming in from. And that again becomes very sensitive because there's anti Semitic tropes which are deeply disturbing and misleading around the question of funding of parties. But there is obviously a question around funding and incentives. Let me though say that the Conservative Party quite interestingly is beginning to change and one of the big figures in this change is somebody called Kip Malthouse, who you might have heard of. So Kip was sexually state for education. He was close to Boris Johnson. He's somebody who pretty much you would have thought was on the right of the Conservative Party. He'd been in charge of policing, he'd done big job in London. He'd been a big champion of challenging anti Semitism supporting Jewish community in North London. And now he's come out incredibly strongly on Gaza. He raised in the House of Commons, for example, this a Conservative mp. He challenged the Labour Minister and said why is the Labour Home Office refusing to give visas to injured guards and children? This organization called Project Pure Hope has raised all the money to pay for disfigured children from guards that had come be treated in Britain.
- [27:48]
Alistair Campbell
The government's given two visas, only allowed.
- [27:50]
Rory Stewart
Two in and Italy has taken well over 100. In fact, Italy is taking people who are all lined up to come to Britain because the Home Office won't give visas and the Home Office won't explain so won't explain why they won't give visas for injured children. You wouldn't have thought there was any controls about injured children. Right, so that's Kemp Malthouse, but he's got quite an interesting group of people coming behind him. So some of them are the kind of old and bold Conservatives people you'll remember, like Sir Edward Lee, people like Martin Vickers who came into the House of Commons with me, but I think he was probably 60 when he came into the House of Commons, Mark Pritchard, who made this big speech, saying he changed his mind. Jeremy Wright has now former Attorney General, Solicitor General, Attorney General, Attorney General, proposed recognition of Palestine. He was quite a senior figure. And then against them is a different bit of the Tory right. Suella Braverman, Oliver Dowden, Nick Timothy, Priti Patel. Yeah. Priti Patel, though quite interesting, having been challenged hard by Lammy, slightly softened down her position. But Kemi Badenoch is right out there on the Michael Gove Spectator. Israel, always right. Never criticize a position. I think just, finally, just to think a little bit about this, I think Kemi Badenoch is getting politics wrong every week at the moment. She should have, as I said just before the break, come strongly out in support of Labour's welfare cuts last week. That would have been consistent with Tory policy and put Keir Starmer in a difficult position because she would have been agreeing with Keir Starmer against his rebels. And this week I think she should have come out in favor of special educational needs, because that's something that Gillian Keegan, who we interviewed, the former Educational Secretary, actually, as a conservative, invested more in special educational needs and schools. And if Cammy Badenoch had done that, she would have again put Labour in a very uncomfortable position. Instead of which, she took the wrong position on both and keeps giving Keir Starmer a free pass. Interesting question here. Alistair from Willow D. Please discuss the devastation of the Texas floods. Trump's role in the disaster. It's impossible to deny that his scaling back of climate regulations has essentially eliminated climate progress. Do you share my fear that these floods will simply lead to further conspiracy? Texas floods?
- [30:00]
Alistair Campbell
Well, Lolly, if this had been Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, I don't think there's any doubt whatsoever that within 48 hours they would have been there. A lot of people died, a lot of children died. But I think Trump is so locked into this idea that the climate crisis is overblown, that it's not real, that it's not man made, that he can't quite bring himself to show even the most basic empathy.
- [30:25]
Rory Stewart
And what happened was unbelievable, wasn't it? I think the water rose from something like 3 foot to 35ft high in an hour and a half. And essentially, as the climate warms, there's more and more saturation of water in the sky. And the amount of rainfall and flooding in Texas is up, I think, by 10% this year. So essentially, as the planet gets warmer, Texas will experience more and more of these kinds of events. More and more flooding.
- [30:52]
Alistair Campbell
There's an amazing shot on one of the channels I saw of the. It was an aerial shot from a drone of the sight of this water chasing people down a street. And it was uphill as well. It was going uphill and these people running away from it. But he can't bring himself to say that this is climate change. He was then asked whether he thought that the sacking by Doge Elon Musk's outfit, they sacked lots of the weather forecasters and whether that might have contributed to this. And he said, no, I don't think so, we won't be rehiring them. This is just a one in a. This is like a one in a million thing. Nobody could do anything.
- [31:30]
Rory Stewart
So not to be depressing, but in the United Kingdom, in Humber, how There are nearly 100,000 people basically below sea level and a chance of, I don't know, maybe one in 30 year event of people being hit by water. When that last happened, after the Second World War, thousands of people were killed. And one of the things that we're going to have to do in Britain, it'd be another problem for the government is put more and more money into flood defences, modeling as we deal with surface water flooding, sea flooding, river flooding from rainwater.
- [32:05]
Alistair Campbell
There was the non profit Mercy Corps, do you know that?
- [32:07]
Rory Stewart
Yep, yeah, very well. Yeah.
- [32:08]
Alistair Campbell
They did a report this week saying that Kabul, which is now home to 6 million people, not least because lots of people have come in from all around Afghanistan. They're predicting they may become the first modern city to run out of water in the next five years. Yeah, because climate governance.
- [32:23]
Rory Stewart
So Shoshana's in Kabul at the moment as we're speaking, and one of the problems is that the main aquifer, I mean, Afghanistan is actually quite a dry country anyway, and the population, Kabul, when I first saw it just after 9 11, was down at about 600,000. And as you say, now it's pushing towards 8 million. They've built all over the aquifer that's supplying the city. And it's almost impossible to understand how you're going to continue to be able to supply people in Kabul with drinking water.
- [32:50]
Alistair Campbell
So that's why this water thing is going to lead to more migration and. And anyway, until we get a grip on the politics of the climate, I think this is going to get worse and worse and worse. So, yes, it will. I do share your flair that these floods will simply lead to further conspiracy. Roy, Rachel Reeves, Gordon Larcore wants to know if you Ever cried in the Commons. And if you did, do you think you'd have got the same reaction that Rachel Reeves did?
- [33:13]
Rory Stewart
I didn't cry in the House of Commons. I mean, I thought that was a very, I mean that was a really, really disturbing the way that people were so cruel and unpleasant on social media. Sajid Javid came out very strongly in support of Rachel Reeves.
- [33:28]
Alistair Campbell
Stephen Flynn, the SMP guy. Did you talk about Cammy Badenock, by the way?
- [33:32]
Rory Stewart
Well, that was again, that again. I mean, look, I think it was cruel, but it's also massive political misjudgment. To basically mock and bully Rachel Reese in that situation was just such a stupid thing for Cami Badenock to do. She had an incredible opportunity to be gracious and she missed it.
- [33:47]
Alistair Campbell
It's tricky, isn't it, because the House of Commons, the whole thing is set up on the basis of conflict and debate and division and so forth. So there's. Rachel Reeves is sitting there. Funny enough, I was watching, I don't normally watch PMQs, but I was watching it live and I actually took a picture of the television and I sent it to Fiona. I said, is that Rachel? Because it didn't even look like her, these huge bags under her eyes, she slumped.
- [34:10]
Rory Stewart
And the history just quickly to explain to international listeners is that what had happened is that the Chancellor, our Finance Minister, had just been through a bruising incident the day before where Labour rebels had essentially destroyed her fiscal plan, almost certainly going to have to force her to raise taxes, frighten the markets. And she basically lost this battle of will because Starmer gave in to not going ahead with his welfare reforms in the context of that. She came into the House of Commons, sat down next to him. Starmer was extremely sort of a Bullian, cheerful, optimistic and, and appeared to be paying absolutely no attention to her. There was no attempt to put her arm on her. She chose to turn up rather than what I would have done in that situation, which is simply not turn up on the benches at all. And so this whole thing was played through and the markets concluded that she'd been fired. So there was this drop in the pound, there was a drop in the bond markets. Starmer, again, very flat footed, didn't manage to defend her. When Badenoch said, are you going to fire her? He didn't say, no, I'm not. He said it afterwards, which then restored faith in the markets. But it was a very, very odd limit, wasn't it?
- [35:17]
Alistair Campbell
What's really interesting about that though, if you think about it, when the Markets thought Liz Truss was going to stay. They crashed and they picked up again when she went. So it's actually bizarrely with the markets, has strengthened Rachel Reeve's position. They didn't want her to go. The point about. So people talk about, you said flat footed and somebody said he lacks emotional intelligence. What he said the next day was that when you're in P cues, you are absolutely focused and you have to be absolutely focused. He's getting up and down, sitting down. So he wasn't aware of what was going on. I think the thing that should have maybe triggered him to be aware was when Badenoch did what she did, which was say, look at the Chancellor, she's absolutely miserable. Look at her, she's miserable. Which was, as you say, I think, a sort of a mistake. But I think that what I really like about what's happened since then. So they came out and said it was nothing to do with politics, it was a personal matter. Right. And we still don't know what that means. So I think that's quite good. I like a bit of sort of, you know, hardball. You get the line, you don't move off the line and what have you. But I think what we're. We talked about send earlier, special educational needs. You look at all the big challenges in the health service, in schools, in crime and policing and transport. They are facing a level of challenge that is beyond a lot of governments. I think at some point they're going to have to be much, much more up up front with just how bad this situation is. And I know that people get sick to death of saying we inherited a mess, but I actually think Labour have underdone the mess that they've inherited because they're over all the problems.
- [36:55]
Rory Stewart
Part of the reason that Rachel Reeves is under enormous strain is that they set themselves up for failure. I mean, we did an interview with her before the election when it was already incredibly obvious that they would be taking over without any money and that the promises they were making were completely undeliverable unless they raised taxes. Totally obvious. And I remember challenging Rachel Reeves about this. I said, how on earth are you going to pay for the NHS without raising taxes? How on earth are you going to do any of the things you want to do without raising taxes? Right. You can't sign up to saying, we're going to stay within the Tory spending plans, effectively keep austerity in place and also suggest to your Labour voters that you're going to improve public services. Not possible. And she totally refused to acknowledge it. Because somewhere in their heads was this naive idea that the only reason things weren't working is because the Tories weren't doing it right. That's why you get Keir Starmer saying, fundamentally, the system's fine, Britain's not broken, all we need is a little bit better management. No, the choice is this. Do you go tight on public spending, keep taxes down, run down public services, or do you tax more and spend more? And Rachel Rees has never got to grips with the one central question in her chancellorship. She should have done it before the election, she should have done it after the election. She should have done it when Trump gave an opportunity. They're just ducking the leadership in this country and we're a year on, and I think we're giving them too easy a ride.
- [38:19]
Alistair Campbell
Right. Melinda Gould, 30 years on from the Bosnian war. Wow, 30 years. The country is more divided, politically volatile than ever. Not sure it's quite as politically volatile and divided as then, but. Okay, what are the chances of emerging as a functioning state eligible for EU membership? They've certainly got big challenges right now.
- [38:36]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, big challenges. I'm going to make an optimistic case. So there was a very gloomy article in the FT on Dodic, who is the leader of Republic of Srpska. So, just to remind people, at the end of The Bosnian war 30 years ago, Bosnia was effectively a double state. There's Republika Srpska, which was the Serb bit, and then the. The other bits of Bosnia that integrates the Bosnian and Croat populations. Dodik has pushed things hard, but ultimately, if you look at the really big picture, over 100,000 people were killed. War criminals were on the loose, checkpoints everywhere. The war criminals were arrested, the killings stopped, and despite all the problems in Bosnia, the institutions are still functioning. Dodek agreed to go to the courts to answer charges. There isn't any violence. And if you go to central Bosnia, I had a friend who was in central Bosnia just last week. You can go back to those areas where horrible fighting was happening, and you can see mosques have been rebuilt, churches have rebuilt, communities are living together again. And actually, I think the European Union needs to make much more of the running and return to the idea of bringing them into the single market, offering other forms of membership for all those countries in the western Balkans, rather than panicking now. Now, here's a question for you. In George Eaton's article on Morgan McSweeney. In last week's New Statesman, a number 10 source stated that Campbell wouldn't last two minutes in Morgan's job and was utterly clueless about the sentiment and state of the country. Any response?
- [40:08]
Alistair Campbell
Bit nasty, isn't it?
- [40:11]
Rory Stewart
And who's the source? Do you think it's Morgan, Mas Sweeney himself, isn't it?
- [40:15]
Alistair Campbell
There is a lot of briefing goes on in there. I mean, I was with. I had lunch yesterday with Godrick Smith, who was my deputy in Downing street, and he said, God, a lot of them seem to talk to the press quite a lot. And he. He did say those words that I promised never to say didn't happen in our day, did it? There was always a pretty clear line.
- [40:36]
Rory Stewart
Why are they so cross with you at the moment?
- [40:39]
Alistair Campbell
I don't. I don't think. Georgin doesn't make stuff up, does he? I don't. I don't know that well, but it didn't strike me as a sort of Daily Mail type person. Daily Express, sun, you know, all those sort of, you know, insignia source. I've always longed for somebody to say a junior source who doesn't have access to any real information. Said, because there's a lot of people just hang around pubs and talk to journalists. I guess if any of them do have infamy, it might be because I don't see my role as being a cheerleader. I actually get quite a lot of flack from people who think I'm too soft. If you just said you think we're a bit soft. I'm a bit soft on labor. On labor, yeah. Fiona constantly says I'm being too soft.
- [41:21]
Rory Stewart
You're stuck between a rock and a hard.
- [41:22]
Alistair Campbell
It's hard, yeah, but. But then. And even. And Tom Baldwin, my mate Tom Baldwin, who's Keir's biographer, who regularly gets told, you know, you're just a propagandist, you're just a cheerleader, they were briefing against him last week. So I don't know. I don't know.
- [41:37]
Rory Stewart
But you don't accept with them that you wouldn't last two minutes in the job and you're utterly clueless about the sentiment and state of the country.
- [41:43]
Alistair Campbell
I don't think I'm clueless about the sentiment and state of the country. And I did survive about a decade in, you know, circumstances that weren't necessarily quite as challenging economically, but we had quite a lot of really difficult things and people to deal with. But I would say. And by the way, I should just say for the record, Morgan was. Sweeney did send me a message saying that was not his view. So there we are. But I. I think somebody probably did say that. And I think it's probably because they think, and they're right to think this, that once you've been in those jobs and you're outside, it's easy to sort of castigate and say they're not doing well enough and what have you. But I am determined not to be Roy Keane. I'm never going to be that person who.
- [42:26]
Rory Stewart
You're not going to be Roy King.
- [42:27]
Alistair Campbell
It's. Well, it was a lot better in our day.
- [42:29]
Rory Stewart
We had quite an interesting example of this just as we come to the end, which is that the most senior former ambassadors in the Foreign Office wrote a letter saying that we should recognize Britain, should recognize Palestine. And it was an interesting example. It's Lord Hannay, it's Jeremy Greenstock, it's William Patey. I mean, I don't. People seriously won't know all these names, but these were people right at the, the very, very top of the Foreign Office saying that we should recognize Palestine. These are people who know the Middle east unbelievably well. And I suppose one of the questions there is what is it that happens when you leave? That suddenly when you're a former ambassador, you can see things much more clearly.
- [43:09]
Alistair Campbell
Than you can when things say you often make the point, including about people that we've interviewed, that there's something that gives you a broader perspective when you're not in it at the centre 24 hours a day, having to defend the line, having to be bound by collective responsibility, and you've just got more time to think. Most of my family, I have to tell you, would say all of the time to me, I have got a unique position and I should be far more robust about calling them out on A, B, C. Most of them say that to me all the time. I think you've got to be careful with that. I've never hidden the fact that I want this Labour government to succeed. I want them to win again. When we go back to the new party thing, I do think that's a bit of left wing self indulgence. That does help the other side. But, but equally, I want to try to be helpful and constructive about what I think they could do better. I think you're in a slightly different place with the Conservatives. I think you basically think they're no longer your party.
- [44:06]
Rory Stewart
Correct?
- [44:06]
Alistair Campbell
Right. So that's, that's, that's different. But at the same time, I don't want them to think that I'm sort of going around the place saying they're all shit. And, you know, it was much better in our day.
- [44:14]
Rory Stewart
Well, you're good at keeping you cool on this one. Now, final one for me, Hamish. You often give out book and film recommendations, but I'd love to know your anti recommendations. Have you ever been lulled by hype into going to see something you wouldn't usually see? Give us an unpopular opinion? Oh, that's more chastening.
- [44:33]
Alistair Campbell
Well, too. I've got absolutely made for this because it happened this weekend. Right. So I'm not a big fan of reviewers because I think in the end, it's a bit like we'll just be talking about, you know, they're spectators pretending to be players. Right. But I am often. I think the FT review pages are really, really good, both on books and on film. It's very rare that if I read the FT and they give a film four or five stars, it's not good. And likewise, Matthew Dankona, who's my fellow editor at large at the New World. He does a brilliant culture column and he regularly points me towards films that I wouldn't otherwise go to see. So this weekend, Fiona and I, based upon a very good review in the ft, and Matthew Dankone is saying, I don't like Formula One, but this film is amazing. Fiona and I went to see F1, Brad Pitt.
- [45:22]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [45:23]
Alistair Campbell
I thought it was absolute shite, and I'm sorry to say that. And I have to say, Richard Curtis, one of the greatest filmmaker, British filmmakers, he was actually in the same cinema. And I saw him afterwards and I said, what do you think of that? He said, I thought it was really good. Then I felt terrible because, well, he knows about films.
- [45:39]
Rory Stewart
So all these people who know about films think it's brilliant and you think it's rubbish. Why do you think it's rubbish?
- [45:43]
Alistair Campbell
Because two things. The story was ridiculous, and a lot of the story was told through a race commentator giving a commentary that he would never give because he was talking endlessly about the two cars at the back rather than the cars at the front. And the thing that drove me almost to leave the cinema early, I know Formula One is a big industry, and I know this film is part of the development of that industry. The marketing, the product placement, the advertising within the film was hideous. I'll tell you what. However much Heineken paid, however much Qatar Airways and Etihad, however much Rolex paid, dhl, Pirelli, however much you paid, you've got your money's worth. You have got your money's worth.
- [46:25]
Rory Stewart
Advertising the brands on the show to finish it.
- [46:27]
Alistair Campbell
Okay, you're welcome. To sponsor the rest.
- [46:30]
Rory Stewart
Let me finish. Let me finish with a. With a positive one. Drops of God. Really fun. It's about a young French woman and a young Japanese man who are given a challenge for 160 million euro to taste wine. And it's a story about parents and it's about taste buds and it's about French culture and it's feel good and funny and intriguing. It's in Japanese, French and English with subtitles.
- [46:58]
Alistair Campbell
Right.
- [46:59]
Rory Stewart
You have all three languages. I saw it on Apple tv, but.
- [47:02]
Alistair Campbell
So you weren't. But sorry, Rory, the question was about whether you were lulled into hype. I've not seen any hype for that film until now.
- [47:09]
Rory Stewart
Well, I'm hyping up Drops of God and if you want me to be anti hype. Blue Eyed Samurai on Netflix.
- [47:16]
Alistair Campbell
You're only. Very Japanese week.
- [47:17]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, very Japanese week. Blue Eyes Hammer on Netflix. I was sold it as being a wonderful example of using comic book manga imagery to tell a moving story. I find it horrifying. Like a lot of stuff like that. There is extreme violence, spattering blood, soft porn, totally unnecessarily. And I don't know why we inflict this stuff on ourselves. And I slightly feel that was Game of Thrones as well.
- [47:44]
Alistair Campbell
Okay, Right. I've never seen Game of Thrones. I wasn't lolled on anyone that one. I should just say for the record, as well, I do think Brad Pitt is a good actor and I think he's very, very good looking. And I think if you'd like to.
- [47:54]
Rory Stewart
If you'd like to come on the show, we'd be.
- [47:57]
Alistair Campbell
That'd be great. But no, that film really was not for me. And so, well, there's your.
- [48:02]
Rory Stewart
There's your Formula one invitation gone out the window.
- [48:04]
Alistair Campbell
Well, that's fine because I. I have been to a Formula one race a few times, and that's just not for me. All right, and thank you all for listening or watching. And Friday, J.D. vance, part four.
- [48:17]
Rory Stewart
Much more exciting than Formula One. Listen to our miniseries on J.D. vance by going to therestispolitics.com and signing up to become a member.
- [48:34]
Alistair Campbell
Right, well done, everybody who's still listening, because that means you've listened right to the end of the episode. Thank you. Very 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.
- [48:55]
Rory Stewart
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 are Goal Hanger? 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.