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- [00:01]
Alistair Campbell
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- [00:13]
Rory Stewart
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- [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.
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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- [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?
- [01:28]
Alistair Campbell
This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
- [01:31]
Rory Stewart
Well, what used to be a complex civil liberties issue is now just standard user agreement.
- [01:37]
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.
- [01:47]
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.
- [02:00]
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.
- [02:08]
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 hotel subscriptions are less likely to spike. And the Threat Protection Pro blocks malicious ads, scans downloads before they reach your device.
- [02:25]
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.
- [02:47]
Rory Stewart
Welcome to the restless Politics Question time.
- [02:50]
Alistair Campbell
With me, Rory Stewart and with me Alistair Campbell.
- [02:53]
Rory Stewart
So, Alistair, most of our listeners I think will have picked up on the fact that last week we did a very, very big focus on Israel, Gaza in which you came out and said that after a lot of very difficult thought, you had concluded that what Israel was doing in Gaza was genocide. And as you can imagine, that has provoked a huge range of responses from people saying, congratulations Alastair, well done, that took courage, that was the right thing to do. To people saying why are you so late on the bandwagon? You should have said that two years ago. To people saying this is outrageous. How dare you say that it is genocide. So I just want to begin with that because I think it is the big, I guess, question of our time and I wonder what sort of response you'd got over the last week.
- [03:43]
Alistair Campbell
A lot of it for sure. Both on social media, people get in contact directly with the podcast. Also in the numbers. I mean it was a very widely shared episode and also just going around the place and even though I will not give any indication of this woman's identity because she said I really don't want to be identified, but including out walking the dog one day, meeting somebody who lives near us who is Jewish, works in an, without giving it away, a kind of Israeli context as it were. And who said that she felt that the debate generally about Israel Gaza had made her very anxious, very scared at times that anti Semitism was becoming a real thing. But she felt that what we had said was true and she said that I just think it is indefensible. What is going on is indefensible. I cannot find a way to defend it. She went on to say, the reason why I don't want to be remotely identified is because she said, I haven't yet reached that point where I feel I can say that because of the world that she's in. So, and, and, and just from a personal perspective, I did feel, I do feel that we've been sort of, I think those who said, you know, what's kept you have kind of got a point. I do feel I've been holding back out of desire to be fair, but I think it's very hard. I've written a huge piece in the New World this week explaining why eventually I felt pushed towards it and I think actually it's this thing, I feel it's impossible to be fair to an organization or in this case a government that is being so blatantly unfair to the other side that we were trying to be. Trying to be fair to. And then the other thing that was really interesting was how many of the. One of them came through you actually. But how many of the sort of organizations directly involved in this got involved to say. I had two. One was Medicine Sans Frontier who wrote to me directly, and another wrote to you pointing out that, yes, we had focused on Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, but Article 1 is very, very relevant to other countries, including Britain. And I'll just read it. The contracting parties, that's basically anybody who signs up to the Genocide Convention confirmed that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law, which they undertake to prevent and to punish. Now, the point that your friend was making is that the courts exists to punish genocide, but that the duty to prevent it is the duty that's on all states, not just any states that may be involved, that comes first. And that's why, you know, it's important to see genocide not as a kind of. As a single event, but as a process and alongside that. So Medecin Sans Frontiere, they sent me a letter that they sent to Keir Starmer and to David Lammy and it begins, genocide is being committed in Gaza and the UK government is complicit and it goes on in those terms. So, you know, look, it provoked a very, very big response. I'm glad that I said it. I'm glad that we had the debate that we did. But I accept that there are some people who are very upset by it and other people who basically were saying, what kept you?
- [07:15]
Rory Stewart
There's an email that you shared with me which was sent to you and then forwarded onto me. So I'm a reasonably middle of the road Jewish Londoner. And then he goes on essentially to make the arguments against what we said in our position. So let me just put the case which this man who describes himself as a reasonably middle of the road Jewish Londoner says so he says that he doesn't in any way support Bengaveer and Smotridge. He, he says these people, this is the Finance Minister and Security Minister, don't and never will dictate Israeli policy or the government, otherwise it might have been a genocide. Then he says, if Israel wanted to ethnically cleanse Gaza, this would have been done. It doesn't and never would you actually know that. Then he says, we didn't mention the hostages. Then he says, this is a war of self defense. Innocents are dying because we're trying to neutralize assailants and they're hiding within the midst of their own civilian population. Then he says, and this is I think quite central to the whole thing, Israel is the only insurance policy me and my family and friends have ahead of the inevitable knock on my door to remind me there is no place for Jews anymore in Britain. It's coming. And the oxygen that you give to this Jew hatred brings that moment even closer. And then he finishes by saying, final thing. I'm described all the way through this as the Arabist. Here is the question, what would you have done? What would you do? Now all you have is irony, sneering and attempts at spin. Be constructive, suggest way forward. You never have since October 10th, and I venture to say you never will. And then he says, let's hope no one's removed from Gaza unless they choose to leave. Let's just hope the disinterested nations region help out. But when you too glibly talk of a prospect for a two state solution, you have to ask yourself, would any population, government or nation want to give statehood to a people sworn to your destruction and intent at every opportunity to act on that oath? Would you? So essentially what he's saying, this is just before you answer, this is the criticism that I've received, for example, from the head rabbi of the biggest synagogue in Sydney who delivered an entire speech accusing me of antisemitism, which was then reprinted in the Australian edition of the Financial Times. And essentially what he's saying to me is I'm anti Semitic because I'm holding Israel to higher standards than I would hold anyone else to. I'm expecting them to show restraint, turn the other cheek. Whereas we all know that if we'd been in the same situation, we would have killed far more people. And that my anti Semitism is to demand that Israel behaves better than it would be reasonable to demand anyone else behave.
- [10:18]
Alistair Campbell
Over to you, how did the guy describe himself?
- [10:20]
Rory Stewart
A reasonable middle of the road Jewish lantern.
- [10:22]
Alistair Campbell
Middle of the road, Yeah, I sent you that one. But I could have sent you the many others that he has sent me in the past. He's very angry about, you know, the way that.
- [10:32]
Rory Stewart
And he's not without naming him, he's somebody who was a friend of yours or just a colleague of yours.
- [10:37]
Alistair Campbell
No, not a friend and not anybody that I know terribly well, but. But somebody that I think is probably a regular listener who quite likes the way we talk about most things and would probably in most circumstances find us pretty bearable, but on this finds us increasingly unbearable. But I don't, I'm afraid I think this comes from the perspective. So just to give you one example, there's. He talks about how, you know, how could you possibly want to deal with this, essentially saying they all want to wipe us out. Well, look, yes, Hamas do, but that again, that takes me to a point that's been made the whole way through. This is the point that Ben GVIR and Smotoric make. And by the way, how can you say that these guys don't have an influence upon the government direction, when they are the government direction? These are the two people who have most driven Netanyahu to the place where maybe it's where Netanyahu wanted to be, but the political position he finds himself in has been driven by them. But the fact is that, you know, there are a lot of people in Gaza who hate Hamas. My point is that they've been dehumanized. And I'm afraid, I think his letter dehumanizes them as well. To the point was they're as seen as this homogenous whole.
- [11:50]
Rory Stewart
And let me try to answer him. He says, what would you have done differently? Well, you do not do what Israel has done in Gaza. It is ethically abhorrent. It has involved destroying every hospital in the place, killing enormous numbers of doctors and healthcare workers, and doctors are protected in international law. And it has not achieved anything sensible. It hasn't got the hostages home. It hasn't eliminated the Hamas leadership. So it's a military catastrophe as well as a moral catastrophe. And what would you do differently? Well, you would act with much more restraint, much more proportionality. You would target much more carefully. You cannot possibly consider killing what it is, 50, 58,000 people as being a reasonable response to this horrible terrorist attack which was experienced on October 7th. It isn't. It is not proportional. It's not reasonable. And this question of what would you have done differently? Not that. Look at how Britain responded to 7 7. And I would go further. I do not think that the American response to 911 was reasonable or proportionate either. In the end, that was madness. What unfurled in Afghanistan and Iraq, this didn't work out.
- [13:14]
Alistair Campbell
Or look at how India and Pakistan conducted their negotiations and their diplomacy with military activity recent weeks as well. No, I think the other thing, where I've come from, and I think it's difficult to get this is where I think people who have always loathed Netanyahu, and I've never been a fan of Netanyahu, but I've always sort of tried to give him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt because he's such a consequential politician in one of the most important regions in the world. But where I think it becomes intolerable is that I think a lot of these decisions are made in the context of politics and political survival. So what would I have done? And I think we did say this at the time, said, look, there is going to have to be some sort of response. No doubt about that. They will make a response. They will feel, not least for their own public opinion. They have to show, one, they're going to do everything to get the hostages back, and two, they're going to strike against the people that they see as being responsible for this. But they've gone way, way, way beyond that. The other thing I would have done would have been to understand that soft power means something. And it means something even when, and maybe even, especially when you're in the exercise of hard power, by which I mean Netanyahu and the Israeli government, by the strategy they pursued, they've done enormous damage to their standing reputation around the world. And I would say you say that we make Jews lives more dangerous. Have a look. We'll put it in the newsletter. But this incredible. I don't even know where it was, but it's the American Jewish actor Mandy Patinkin, who he's so angry. I mean, he's so angry. And his main point is that Netanyahu is endangering Israel, including, he thinks even its survival, and endangering Jews all around the world because his actions are creating this sort of horrible sense of anger. And I still, look, I mean, I still will try to always speak up against Hamas, always speak up for the hostages, always speak up. And of course, this guy says, we don't mention the hostages. I mean, there is something formulaic, I think, about sometimes, about the way people go back and say, of course I have to say this, and of course I have to, to say that we know that the hostage taking is horrible and abhorrent. But the fact is that some of them who are now dead could have been kept alive if at various points down the track, Netanyahu had actually tried to get them out at a time when deals could have been done, which I suspect he didn't want to do because the military strategy took precedence.
- [16:03]
Rory Stewart
And there's another fundamental problem in this negotiation, which is that I was speaking to somebody who's very, very senior in Israeli national security, very close to Netanyahu, who said to me, of course, when the hostages are returned, we will then have no reason not to wipe Gaza off the face of the earth. So how are you supposed to get a deal together when Hamas feels the hostages are. Are there one guarantee on some form of restraint by the Israelis that it's the only thing that's holding the Israelis back from going even further? Why would they honestly return the remaining hostages if the sense they get is that when they return those remaining hostages, Netanyahu will just radically increase and redouble his efforts to wipe them all out? Why would they do that? Now, the only reason they would do that, presumably is is if there was a ceasefire deal where the US was making it so clear in its pressure on Netanyahu that they really trusted that Netanyahu would agree not to redouble assaults. But he's not going to do that. So I'd like, actually, it'd be interesting if your friend can write back. What does he think is going to happen here? Why does he think that what Netanyahu is doing is going to increase the chance of the hostages coming back rather than just almost guaranteeing that the final hostages won't be returned?
- [17:30]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, or increase the long term reputation and strength of Israel. And I suspect he can also say, by the way, if he wants us to say who he is, I don't mind if he doesn't. And listen, we welcome people saying the things they say.
- [17:48]
Rory Stewart
Not to be too defensive, but I've just sort of been reflecting on this, having been attacked in this way by the senior rabbi in Australia, who I don't know, but also how incredibly outspoken the Chief Rabbi in Britain has also been and how open he's been about the fact that his own son is serving in the IDF in Gaza. And I suppose this is always the question, isn't it, where the line is between religion and politics, where the line is between your Jewish identity and your support for the Israeli government.
- [18:21]
Alistair Campbell
But listen, Rory, we talked last week about this hideous plan to put 600,000 Palestinians in a so called humanitarian city. Now, if you read, if you follow, the Israeli media and the IDF are opposed to this plan. There are reservists out saying this is inhumane and illegal and we want nothing to do with it. The Lieutenant General who's in, sort of the Chief of Defence Staff, part of the Chief of Defense Staff team, he was interviewed and he said this is not Part of our military plan, which I think is a sort of military way of saying, we're not very happy about this. And, you know, while we're on, on the sort of documents and, you know, the reason you argued on the main podcast against Trump and his Nobel Peace Prize is because by undermining institutions and statutes and conventions, he's making the world less safe. Let me just give you Article 7 of the Rome Statute on crimes against humanity. Now, it sets out there are 11 crimes against humanity quotes when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population with knowledge of the attack. And number four is the most relevant to this plan, which Ehud Allmert, former Prime Minister, who we interviewed a leading a few months ago, he has said equates to a concentration gap. And number four is deportation or forcible transfer of population. And when you go down into what that means, they say it means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present without grounds permitted under international law. Well, you don't. I mean, they're even, you know, the Bengavirs and Smotrich, they're saying, well, this is the plan. And it's sort of to get them in there and then sort of somehow shovel them off into Egypt. So I think that, you know, I just don't see how you can defend that on any level.
- [20:30]
Rory Stewart
Can I come in? Just before we go to the break, a couple of quite uncomfortable questions. So Sarah L. Who's a TRIP member from Essex, Israel, continues to make tragic errors in the prosecution of its war in Gaza. This latest attack on children queuing for water should surely elicit a stronger response from the UK government. I feel helpless in the face of this injustice. What can members of the public do in response to our government's apparent acquiescence and its subservience to the U.S. do you want to have a go at that? Then? I've got another one.
- [21:00]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. So let's just take this plan. So Hamish Faulkner, who's the Foreign Office Minister for the Middle east, he has actually come out very strongly against it. But in that letter that I received from the Medicine Sans Frontiere, sent to Keir Starmer and David Lammy, at several points in this letter where they point out where they've been asking for the British government to call out certain activities over the whole period of this thing, they keep saying, we did not get a reply. That's just not on Maison Sans Frontiere. Whatever you think about it, it is a really serious, radio, reputable humanitarian organization whose voice I think should be heard when you're talking about something like what's going on here. And I do feel that the, I think you said, I think you said last week, David Lammy made a, you know, blistering speech, and we've had two or three blistering speeches. But ultimately, I think this is one of those situations where people are turning away from it at a time when actually we should be turning into it much, much more. So I think that when the government speak, they sometimes say what I would say say the right things, but not necessarily in a way that is going to get noticed by Trump, by Netanyahu, and by Israeli public opinion.
- [22:22]
Rory Stewart
Okay, well, here's the last question then. Nasser and Amin. And this is even more uncomfortable. Well, thank you both for finding the right words to describe the horrors of what's going on in Gaza. But I can't help feeling that you are both less than frank when discussing the UK's government's reluctance to go harder on Israel. You claim you don't understand why the UK is continuing to support Israel militarily, but surely from both your positions, you know a bit more than that. Can you please talk a bit about the role of the lobbying Israel does in the uk, how it functions and why so many in power gets sucked into it. Now, this is really awkward because this touches on a big anti Semitic trope, which is the idea that Jewish money is somehow controlling politics. And it's actually interesting. I mean, I was very struck. I was talking to some of my Conservative friends who are beginning to speak out powerfully against what's happening in Gaza. But again, whenever I said to them, why do you think the Conservative Party continues to support Israel so strongly? They keep saying, I don't know. And I made the same challenge that Nasrin made, which is, well, what do you mean you don't know? You know, you've been in politics all your life. Surely you can have an educated guess on why they keep doing it. What is your reason on why you think the government keeps supporting Israel?
- [23:34]
Alistair Campbell
Well, just give you a couple of people. I hope they don't mind me doing this, but two of the people who sent me very, very nice messages of support and very broad agreement were Michael Levy, who was the Jewish chief fundraiser for labor under Tony Blair, and his son Daniel, who's I think, amazing young guy who has actually been an Israeli peace negotiator in different times, who I think have both gone from positions of being broadly supportive of Israel in the broadest possible context, but to a place where they cannot support the current actions of the current Israeli government. So I think that from the government's perspective, I suspect a lot, I think a lot of it is probably about Trump. I think it's just sort of, you know, they're feeling that maybe they don't quite have the influence that they would like to have directly with Netanyahu. Now, that's been a deliberate thing because Netanyahu cuts them out and Trump cuts them out in terms of saying, you know, we're the big strongmen leaders, we're going to sort this out. And I guess the other thing is it's because they've had. They're under so many assault on so many other fronts. But I think that, like I said earlier, I think they say the right things from time to time, but it's the calling out that I think is needed more. And I thought today, you know, we're recording this on Monday. So we've got this report today from the BBC about the previous documentary, the one where it turned out to be fronted by somebody who was a child of somebody who was fairly senior in Hamas. And that was known to the documentary, documentary makers, but it wasn't made clear to the public. And fair enough, Lisa Nandi, as the Culture Secretary, has called out that out and the reporters said it was mistaken. Da, da, da, da. But I'm not aware of similar complaints which I of what I think was the far more egregious position in relation to the documentary that the BBC wouldn't even show. Look, I noticed the questioner there said, you know, of course, you must have an educated guess. That's the best I can do because deep down, I don't really know. I don't really know. Where I agree with you is I don't buy this idea that it's because, you know, rich Jewish donors give lots of money to political parties. I just don't buy that at all. One of the richest who's given money for many, many years to the Labour Party, as I say, was one of the first people on the phone saying, you know, well done for speaking up about it.
- [26:04]
Rory Stewart
Alistair, just on this BBC report, a couple of quick things. Number one, they are pushing for an impartiality clause. So they're saying that all narrators have to be shown to be completely impartial in their social media. But it clearly is applied to Palestinians, but not to people who are very pro the Israeli government, the bureau on the ground in Israel, the Middle east, online Editor. Their social media accounts are frequently full, are very proud Israeli government statements, but that isn't taken into account. They're allowed absolutely to report. It appears to be the other side is being held to a different set of standards. The second thing is around the linguistic point. Palestinians, when they refer to Israelis, use the word yehudi, which originally means Jew. And there is a big push now, which the BBC has now accepted, to translate this word as Jew rather than Israeli. Now, this really matters because what it means is that when Palestinians are making comments that are criticisms of Israelis in the context of Israel and Palestine, it can be portrayed as criticisms of Jews in general and anti Semitism. And this is completely failing to understand the cultural and linguistic context in which people are using those words. Now, these seem like small things, but this is basically part of a prolonged campaign against the BBC by various very aggressive pro Israeli lobby groups which have frightened the BBC into taking a position where they're being much less brave in defending their journalists and their objectivity on this issue than they are on almost anything else. Another big point which I think you've made in the past, but I want to sort of emphasize is this fight against anti Semitism, the Labour Party and trying to distance themselves from Jeremy Corbyn. I mean, I felt that in our interview on Leading with Gabrielle Attal, the former prime minister of France, who didn't really want to be drawn in criticism of Israel, very much said why I don't really have a view on that, but kept coming back to anti Semitism in France. And so domestic politics seems to drive people who were on the left, in the case of Attal or Samma, to feel that the main thing they need to be talking about is domestic anti Semitism, not the actions of Israel.
- [28:18]
Alistair Campbell
I think there is definitely that is an element within this. And I think that was particularly relevant in the early days post October 7th, when Israel, you know, we said on the very first podcast, you know, Israel's response is, you know, I really fear for what they're going to do to the people in Gaza. I mean, it's been way worse than anything I expected. But I think at that point, Labor's messaging was driven partly by a genuine sense of solidarity. You know, a country that's under such attacks, right to exist, Israel's right to exist, which they keep emphasizing, which is fair enough, hostages. But I think a part of it was that they were just slightly in a defensive crowd because they're thinking people are going to be looking for the slightest sign that labor is quotes anti Semitic because of all the rows that we'd had under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. And meanwhile, I think Israel has deliberately, as part of its strategy, got to a place where it feels comfortable in making the allegation of anti Semitism against anybody who criticizes the Israeli government. And that's, I think, part of the badness that we're now, that we're now dealing with. Anyway, thank you to everybody who took the trouble to listen. Shall we take a break?
- [29:33]
Rory Stewart
Let's take a quick break and we'll come back after the break.
- [29:37]
C
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- [30:11]
Alistair Campbell
Welcome back to the Reciprocal. It's question time with me, Alistair Campbell.
- [30:13]
Rory Stewart
And with me, Rory Stewart. So a question from Fatima Shah. Will Starmer and Macron's migrant deal actually provide a serious solution to what is now a big problem in Europe, or is this just another Rwanda deal? Remix so, just to explain, this is something which is the first step towards something that I've been a real believer in and I wished we'd been doing it from the past. And in fact, you got across me, understandably, because I kept interrupting the unfortunate Gabrielle Attal, the French Prime Minister, by trying to push him on this issue. But it seems to me ridiculous that people are able to leave France, which is a safe country, on very dangerous rubber boats, often actually drowning in the Channel, in order to claim asylum in the United Kingdom. It should stop and everybody who comes over should be sent back to France. And obviously the reason I was pressing Gabrielle et al, is that he sees that as being an obvious position for France to take to North Africa, but seems to find it a bit more difficult to see it as a position that Britain could take towards France. Anyway, Macron and Starmer seem to have agreed this, although sadly still in pretty limited terms, because they're only talking about being able to do it to 50 a week and people who haven't tried to cross before, and I'm not quite sure why they're limiting the numbers in that way. Anyway, over to you.
- [31:31]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I think they're limiting the numbers in that way because they're going to see whether it works as a pilot, as a pilot scheme.
- [31:38]
Rory Stewart
Can I just interrupt there for a second? I don't think it will work unless it's 100% of people. I think the whole point of it, unfortunately, is a deterrent. The whole point has to be to see whether it'll work. What you, I think, would find, and this is the risk Macron would have to take, is that in the first few weeks you would be returning thousands of people, but thereafter you wouldn't have to return anybody because nobody would go to the trouble and the expense. You're paying €10,000 to get on a boat, you're taking the risk of drowning. If in 100% of cases you're just going to be returned to France, you'd never do it. So the numbers would drop literally to zero from however many thousands. But doing it with 50 a week destroys the whole thing from the beginning.
- [32:18]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, I'll just point out to all those right wing newspapers who've already decided this is an absolute disaster and to Nigel Farage, who was busy floating around the Channel on the day that this deal was announced that we did, under the Dublin Convention, have an agreement that we could send asylum seekers back to the first port of entry into the European Union. So that is. This is a consequence of Brexit. And I shall keep pointing that out. I thought, I mean, the state visit generally I thought was pretty good. And I thought there was. And actually I thought one of the. We talked about defense on the main podcast, I thought there was. I actually thought the nuclear deal that they did was pretty amazing. To think that this was sort of Anglo France, European nuclear protection thing. I also thought that your friend the King came out and did his bit. So I think as an event, I thought it was very, very good.
- [33:12]
Rory Stewart
Can I just stop on that for a second? I mean, obviously I'm fishing for compliments the King, but I do think there's a sense in which these state banquets since the King's taken over. We saw it with France, we saw it with Qatar, we saw it with his opening of Parliament in Canada. There is a real sense in which quite a lot of British soft power foreign policy is partly played out through the mechanism of these royal events being tied in with what the Prime Minister's doing. Or am I missing something?
- [33:41]
Alistair Campbell
No, I think you're right. And he's going to have to rely on all of his diplomatic experience and skills mid September when the President Orange arrives to go and be put up at. At Windsor but the thing is that on this one in, one out thing, the only thing I felt was that I think they've got to be very, very careful on this. About the oversell, by the way, in answer to question, Fatima, I don't see it as another Rwanda deal remix, because the Rwanda deal, I think was just this massively expensive, constantly being ramped up nonsense. It was never, ever going to work. But I think the way to sell, to project this idea is not to say this is going to solve everything. It is an idea to see whether they can make a difference and hope that if they do, they can then ramp it up and ramp it up and ramp it up. I think there will be difficulties within the European Union on this because, you know, we interviewed the President of Cyprus a few weeks ago and if you're Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, you may be thinking, well, hold on a minute, what's all this about the Brits kind of, you know, be able to send people back to France because once they're in France, they're not going to stay there. They might want to, you know, travel around all over the place. So I think it's, it's fraught, but I think where it, where it played to Keir Starmer's strengths and I think the, you know, the work that went into this was, I think, quite impressive. It's not going to change overnight. I think we should be honest about that. But it could make a difference provided this scheme starts to work.
- [35:17]
Rory Stewart
Well, the next stage, I think, is to integrate, and this is where I give credit to atal, is to integrate it into a broader European position on returns from Europe to safe third countries like the EU Turkey deal. So not returns to Rwanda, but returns to North Africa or Turkey. And if it was integrated into that, you could have a system where Europe was deciding how many genuine asylum seekers it would take every year shouldn't be heading for zero, how many genuine asylum seekers Britain would be taking every year. But also not accepting the idea that just any young man who gets on a boat across the Mediterranean or the Channel is almost automatically accepted because that is just. Well, partly it's driving extreme right wing populist parties that will destabilize all of our governments. And partly it just doesn't make sense in terms of natural justice compared to the other people who are more deserving of asylum.
- [36:10]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Can I make one final point on Macron's visit at the press conference? I don't know if you saw the press conference that he did, Keir Starmer and at the speech that he did at the state banquet, and another couple of times, he sort of did call out Brexit and did say, look, Brexit's been bad for us, but it's been very, very bad for you. And da, da, da, da. And the more I think about it, I am absolutely convinced now this may be me falling into the trap of the. The labor source who thinks that I'm not in touch with the. The sentiment of the country. But I honestly believe that one of the best attack lines against Nigel Farage is, is along these line. I could see that Keir was a bit comfortable saying, oh, Emmanuel, don't God about Brexit too much. I don't want to talk about that, but I actually think it would have been really powerful to come in and said, you know, and while I'm sorting this out, there's Nigel Farage out on a boat as we speak with his friends from GB News, because he's trying to exploit the problem rather than address the problem. And this is the line I would use. The line of attack. I would use this guy's one achievement in his entire career is Brexit, and it has done the country a lot of harm, which we're now trying to fix. But for heaven's sake, do not give the whole country to a guy who's one big achievement has been such a disaster. I actually think that is a better line of attack than, you know, he's going to privatize the health service, and he's a bit of a pal of Putin, do that all as well. But anyway, that's my. What do I know?
- [37:40]
Rory Stewart
Rory, what do you know? Right, well, onto Spain. Livia Rayya. Given Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's initial ascent to power on a promise to clean up Spanish politics, how do the ongoing corruption allegations involving his party and family, coupled with his claims of an orchestrated campaign, affect his political credibility and stability of his government? So we've covered Spain a bit, we've covered Portugal a bit, and of course, we talked about the Iberian exception, the sense that Spain and Portugal traditionally were supposed to be the. The countries that didn't have these great populist parties. But populism is now on the rise in Portugal and Spain, as are these corruption allegations. And this one, just for international listeners, essentially three of the Prime Minister's very, very closest advisors, allies, strategists. I mean, this would almost be like for Britishness. Tony Blair's relationship, I don't know, with you, with Jonathan Powell, with Angie Hunter, with Peter Mandelson and It's them, and they're called, I think, the Peugeot gang because they were the people that traveled around with him in his car have now been caught up in these unbelievable corruption scandals which have included the Civil Guard basically taping the guy that Sanchez has been defending to the hilt, saying that he's going to be taking money from government construction contracts over to you.
- [39:06]
Alistair Campbell
And then in the middle of all this, in a debate in Parliament, the opposition leader stands up and says that Sanchez's father in law, father of his wife, and therefore part of the wealth that, you know, he enjoys, made all his money from running gay brothels.
- [39:28]
Rory Stewart
I've missed that one.
- [39:30]
Alistair Campbell
Now, this is, this, this actually has given Sanchez the ability to go out and say, this is now just a complete. You do the Trump, you think it's a witch hunt. They just had to get me. They're going for my family and da, da, da, da, da, da. But it's a bit of a mess and, and at a time when economically, largely thanks to migration, they say Spain has been doing reasonably well. I said, I said in the main podcast, I was at Wimbledon also the same day was Nick Clegg and Miriam Clegg. And Miriam Clegg, who we talked to about, you know, her campaign to sort of get sensible centrist politics in Spain. But this, this has the feel of a, not, not necessarily, I don't know anything about the, the gay brothel stuff, but the, the other thing feels very, particularly as he made such a big thing about corruption. Corruption feels pretty ropey and we're gonna have to see how he gets through it. And also right in the middle of this, I mean, this is how politics goes. Right in the middle of this, they've had these terrible floods suddenly, another sort of climate crisis disaster, but terrible floods. He's having to deal with that.
- [40:35]
Rory Stewart
And he's also being threatened. Let me just sort of sidebar to relate to the podcast we did yesterday. He's being threatened by Trump because he's also said that he won't increased defense spending up to the NATO 5% from 2%. He says frankly, Spain can't afford it and he doesn't think it's the right thing to do. And we're now getting Trump suggesting he may take economic sanction action against Spain.
- [41:01]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Where the opposition are trying to push this is to try to force him to have another election, which he's currently resisting. But I think it's one where we, we may be coming back to that one now. Rory. Talia Jolie wants to know we're really asking us about the PKK's disarmament. And I find this incredible. I agree. It's just an extraordinary story that nobody seems to be talking about.
- [41:31]
Rory Stewart
Just quickly, as an explainer for listeners, this is Turkey. This is the Kurdish movement in Turkey. So people remember the Kurds are a completely separate ethnic and linguistic group that are located in the east of Turkey, the northwest of Iraq, the west of Iran, the east of Syria. In fact, they almost got their own independent state after the First World War, but ended up being divided amongst four countries and have been conducting a long, ongoing insurgency against the Turkish government and the Turkish military. Great book about it by Christopher Lake that I need to plug. He actually spent serious time out in very dangerous parts of eastern Turkey living with Kurdish separatists. Living. And then, as you say, suddenly, astonishingly, after decades of conflict, this announcement of peace and disarmament. Back over to you.
- [42:23]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. And, you know, so when I. When I heard it, and this came from the PKK leader, Abdullah Okchalan, who's been in jail for. For decades, but, you know, is obviously, I think he's been in prison all of this century and maybe a bit more. And they. They're basically saying they'd like him to be released. Well, you know, who doesn't want to get released from prison, but in order that he can maybe lead the process of disarmament. So they're essentially. So it felt to me a little bit like I thought, well, this is going to be like the Good Friday Agreement all over again. This can be like a massive sort of, you know, but it sort of came and went. It was hardly. I bet most of our listeners aren't even aware of this, that this has happened. I think it's an extraordinary thing.
- [43:07]
Rory Stewart
It tells you a lot, doesn't it, about how weirdly the world has changed. Because my guess is, if this had happened in the 90s, this would, like South Africa and Ireland be seen as one of the great peace deals. People be talking about Nobel Prizes, instead of which now the whole world is all about conflicts, authoritarianism. So if we think about Turkey at all, we think about it in terms of, you know, what's Turkey doing with Europe and Russia? What does Trump think of Erdogan? How is Erdoan stealing elections?
- [43:42]
Alistair Campbell
Here's a thought. What about if. Let's just say this thing holds and it sort of all works. What about Erdogan gets the Peace Prize? I mean, Trump could hardly complain about one of his fellow strongmen leaders getting the Peace Prize, actually. Your point, Rory and maybe this could be the final question. It relates to this. L. Cowley, Is it just me who was depressed by the 40th anniversary of live Aid? I loved the nostalgia, but it was proof of how we've lost our soft power and also how disengaged artists are. We need more Bob Geldofs. Will we ever see a return to this kind of movement? Now, I've got a lot to say about this because I was at Live Aid as a Daily Mirror journalist 40 years ago this week, age 28. It was an incredible event, absolutely unbelievable. And I looked up all my old cuttings the other day, but it really was amazing.
- [44:35]
Rory Stewart
Just for international listeners, younger listeners, just to remind us there had been a horrible civil war and conflict in Ethiopia which ended up with millions of people starving. BBC Michael Burke did a report on the horror that then led to this massive movement to try to raise money, I suppose, food, shelter, support for people dying in Ethiopia, which led to this incredible musical event and maybe sort of contributed towards other things, which is make Poverty History, Sustainable Development Goals, Millennium Development Goals, and this was the first real visible attempt at that. Over to you.
- [45:13]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, there was the Bangladesh concert that George Harrison started. That was a pretty amazing thing. But I think this was an extraordinary event. The day itself was just amazing. I mean, you know, every major singer and band that you can think of as. I know you're not big into music, but even you will have heard of, you know, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger and David Bowie and Freddie Mercury and Adamant and Spandau Ballet, and I could go on and on and on. It was just incredible. And so last night I was at the. The gala performance of the Live Aid musical which John o' Farrell has written. And it is absolutely brilliant. Honestly, for people who haven't seen it is unbelievable, partly because of the music, but also the way he tells the story, because the story essentially is Bob Geldorf watching that report and just basically saying, in typical Bob Keldoff way, you know, fuck it, we've got to do something about this. Michael Burt was there last night, went up on stage at the end with Bob Geldoff and Harvey Goldsmith, the promoter and John Kennedy, the lawyer, who's been the lawyer for band aid for 40 years unpaid. It's just amazing group of people. Michael Grade, who BBC gave time for the single when how the story started. They first ordered the song Do They Know It's Christmas? Then they. The Americans did a song. Then they decided to do this Wembley concert and then they had it on the simultaneously one going on In Philadelphia. And famously Phil Collins performed in Wembley, then got on Concord and performed in Philadelphia, at Philadelphia, before it had finished. So it was just an amazing day. But the question is actually a brilliant question and Bob Geldof kind of answered it. And mid your. Who was the other founder? Bob Geldoff. And mid you already. They wrote the song that started the whole thing. And I saw mid you last night and had a chat with him. He listens to the podcast, by the way, Rory. And so does his wife.
- [47:02]
Rory Stewart
I think even. Even Bob Geldof does occasionally. Although as you can imagine, he's occasionally quite rude about it.
- [47:07]
Alistair Campbell
A bit grumpy about it. Yeah. And sort of disagrees. But he'll presumably say something unpleasant about this relentless plugging he of his brilliance and his genius.
- [47:14]
Rory Stewart
He has a great comment on that. He said, I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history. That's saying his other one was We Are the World.
- [47:25]
Alistair Campbell
No, listen, I'll tell you what, he's an amazing guy. I mean, if most politicians could think he has got a legacy. We talk about legacy in politics, right? He has got a legacy. Live Aid is a real thing. It's still going on, it's still giving money. And the fact that people are going to see musicals about it 40 years on. And I watched some of the. They showed the whole thing again on BBC2 the other day. It was amazing. But the point is, could it happen again? That's what El Cowley is asking. Could, you know, why aren't we doing this now? For climate or for Gaza or for Sudan or whatever it might be. And I think there's lots of reasons. One is I don't think we watch the same things in the same way anymore. So if the BBC did a report like that today, would we all be affected in the same way? Has social media made us a bit more uncaring about some of this stuff? Have the artists become less outspoken because they're constantly worried of being canceled? What Mid yours said when I was talking to him, by the way, he said that the problem is, I think that people are now so distracted in their lives, there's so many distractions and a lot of them are just on their phone the whole time anyways. It was. I would recommend it to anybody. I left the the place singing, whistling, springing my step, thinking, let's find a way of doing this kind of thing again.
- [48:44]
Rory Stewart
Let me just add a couple more thoughts on that. I think it's a hugely important thing because it goes to the heart of how have we managed to cut UK development aid from 0.7% of GDP. Boris Johnson got it down to 0.5. Keir Starm's now got it down to 0.3. So it's less than half of what it was when I was responsible for that budget. How have we done it? Well, partly this is the story of Live Aid and everything that's going on there, which is that we've become much more cynical, much more focused on corruption, much more doubt about whether charities do a good job, much more suspicion of celebrities, but also the falling away of other things. Not just the charisma of musicians, but also churches, which were very, very important right the way through the 90s and raising money for international development. The trade union movement, its sense of solidarity also crumbling away. It's civil society in general. I mean, once civic societies dismantled, then government doing things with public money becomes more difficult. I remember talking to Bob Geldof about this and actually I think he's great. And if, if I can, I'd like to twist your arm into getting him on leading because I think he is terrific on this stuff. But he sort of saw the high point of this being your G8 conference in Gleneagles. He saw that as sort of the end of it. And that I guess 2000 was the last moment where he really felt that musicians and celebrities were really able to move the dial on things. And this returns to the whole narrative we keep coming back to, which is this sort of strange moment of the late 80s, 90s, early 2000s, when this sort of idealism make poverty, history, international development, rules based order, all seem to be on the rise. Democracy on the rise compared to a world which seemed to turn quite suddenly about 20 years ago in the direction we're going today.
- [50:41]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, if you look at, in classic Bob style, he was told not to make. I think the theater said, look, don't, don't swear too much. Well, that's ridiculous, you know, but don't make, don't make it too political. And one of the first things he said was, you know, have we gone from that to this world where these thugs, these thugs, Trump and Musk and Vance are killing kindness in the world. I thought that was a great phrase, killing kindness in the world. And if you think about the whole celebrity thing, be interesting to know what Taylor Swift thinks about her experience of getting her head above the parapet in politics during the last campaign in America and whether she would want to put her voice to something political. Look at, you know, look at Glastonbury recently. You know, we had the whole debate about the rapper and the chance for the IDF and what have you. But that aside, there wasn't much politics in the. In that event this year. A bit of Rod Stewart and Nigel Farage and that was about it. So I think that I felt very nostalgic at this thing yesterday, but I also felt. I don't believe that there isn't still within us the energy and the passion and the politics to. You're never going to recreate the same thing. But I still think you could find a campaign issue that did generate that sense of energy around. Around culture and the arts. And I think if we. If it doesn't, then I don't think culture in the arts is as healthy as it was. And your point about cynicism, Roy? I mean, the headline of the week has got to be, needless to say, the Daily Telegraph, I just saw it on somebody's phone and it was How Live Aid Ruined Pop Music for Good. I don't know what the piece is about, but where the. The are they coming from? How Live Ed Ruined Pop Music for good. Anyway, it's a great. A great night out and. And I'll tell you, right, Sir Bob, I know he's already got his knighthood, but. And your friend Charles and Diana, they were both there at Live Ed as well. In fact, one of the. One of the pictures in my cuttings was. It was Charles looking a bit grumpy because Diana was. She looked like she might have had the eye for David Bowie a little bit. He was looking very fondly towards her there.
- [53:01]
Rory Stewart
We were finishing with a lovely sense of idealism and hope for music and culture. So let's get back to that and away from your dubious insinuations, back to. I love that point that we should find themes and stories that we can get behind, that we need modern heroes, that we need noble purpose. And let's aim towards that. Thank you, that was a lovely chat. See you soon.
- [53:26]
Alistair Campbell
See you soon. Bye bye.