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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 the restispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com the rest is politics is powered by Fuse Energy and Fuse are now offering £20 credit and free trip plus membership if you switch to a fixed tariff before the end of August.
- [00:26]
Rory Stewart
They've listened carefully to their customers and the number one request was gas tariffs. So now at last, you can switch both your gas and electricity to Fuse. One supplier, one bill, one less quagmire to navigate.
- [00:39]
Alistair Campbell
It's also cheaper. Fuse gas and electricity customers typically save £150 versus the price cap.
- [00:46]
Rory Stewart
Today's political climate is full of talk about control and clarity. Well, Fuse have quietly exercised some, at least when it comes to your energy.
- [00:53]
Alistair Campbell
Bill, and they began with a mission, which was to make electricity cheaper, cleaner, simpler. And Fuse now supplies over 50,000 homes across the UK, all done quietly, efficiently and without a single campaign bus tour.
- [01:08]
Rory Stewart
Fuse's support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with real people replying in under two minutes.
- [01:16]
Alistair Campbell
So go to fuseenergy.com forward/politics to switch your gas and electricity to Fuse and get your £20 credit and free trip membership. Welcome to the Rest of Politics. Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell, and.
- [01:37]
Rory Stewart
With me, Rory Stewart.
- [01:38]
Alistair Campbell
Now, Rory, it's fair to say that our young friend Jacob Stokes, who sent us a voice note about which we talked last week, we had a massive response, not least from Liberal Democrats. I'll give you a flavor of some of their questions. Alison McIntosh, trip plus member from Edinburgh. You played and discussed a voice note from a young man who said he was a centrist and was in despair as he couldn't see who he could vote for. When discussing this, neither you nor he mentioned the Liberal Democrats. Why? Now, Rory, this totally plays to your do you remember the contempt you had for the Liberal Democrats during the election campaign because poor old Ed Davy was, you know, doing bungee jumps and jumping out of helicopters and going swimming and all that sort of stunt stuff. But this is the problem. They don't get enough coverage. So even you and I I mean, I've got a good excuse actually, Roy, because Jacob told me that he didn't think about the Lib Dems because they were kind of irrelevant where he grew up politically. Okay, but what's your excuse?
- [02:40]
Rory Stewart
I mean, you're completely right, and I actually I've got an email which I shared with you from a LibDem MP, Rory. I really enjoyed the piece about the voice note from a young man wanting the center ground to step up. I can forgive him for not mentioning the Lib Dems, but not you and Alastair. Why the blind spot?
- [02:58]
Alistair Campbell
He's got a point. This goes to the heart of what is a really big problem for the Lib Dems. So if you look at the proportion of coverage that Nigel Farage with his four or five, whatever it is, MPs gets in the national debate, and then you look at the Lib Dems who've got almost 100,000 members, they've got 72 seats, they're around about mid teens in the polls, and yet during the 24 election reform, Faraj's mob got more press coverage than the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP implied, combined. That's wrong.
- [03:37]
Rory Stewart
It's wrong, but it's also partly a deliberate choice made by Ed Davey and his team. And we talked about this during the election because when we were really trying to say, why are the Lib Dems not taking big national positions? I mean, honestly, in the election, we didn't know really what their position was on Europe. They were barely talking about it. We didn't really know what their position was on basic questions of tax and spend. The answer from the team is we're going to run local campaigns. The way we're going to win is we're going to win constituency by constituency. And they seem completely vindicated. So they will have come out of that saying, our two pronged strategy, which is put Ed Davey in a comical position to get a photograph and run really tight local campaigns, have ended up with more seats than we've ever had. But the downside of it is that they're not part of the national debate. And if I was going to be unfair, I'd start questioning you about the Lib Dems national policy positions.
- [04:35]
Alistair Campbell
Let me give you one. I think you are being unfair because Ed Davy has been very, very, very critical in Parliament and outside Parliament of Donald Trump and of the UK's positioning vis a vis Donald Trump. Very critical, but he barely gets any coverage for it on Europe. I mean, you know, I'm pretty obsessed about this. I follow it very, very closely. I think he has made stronger positioning statements on that, but he doesn't get the, the cut through. And maybe this is them paying a little bit of a price for the sort of politics that you objected to during the campaign. That they're sort of. The media is now minded only to be interested in Ed Davy as a character. But I think that the MP who could complain to you and the many listeners who did, I think they do have a point about us. It's a blind spot because I guess the other thing is that there's a risk that we're playing into the sort of politics that we're complaining about. Farage is a big character. Corbyn is a kind of interesting political phenomenon and therefore we automatically have them in our mind space when we're talking about the future of the country. I think in a serious, healthy media democracy there would be more coverage for the Lib Dems here.
- [05:51]
Rory Stewart
I'm going to disagree agreeably. The Lib Dems proved with Nick Clegg during that 2010 campaign against Cameron and Brown. You remember the famous debates. We all agree with Nick that they really could when they had a leader who was able to sound very serious, focused on national and international policy issues, they got enormous coverage and focus now they damaged themselves in many, many ways. Tuition fees, famously. But I think in Edavi they seem to have somebody who's a great communicator on his personal story, very, very moving about his own family and his own life. But I'm afraid and disagree with me, but I just wouldn't rate him at being at Nick Clegg's quality in terms of communicating about national and international policy.
- [06:44]
Alistair Campbell
We both read a lot. I can recommend both of their books.
- [06:47]
Rory Stewart
Wait, wait, wait, you're avoiding the question here.
- [06:50]
Alistair Campbell
No, I'm not. This is partly my way of illustrating the question. Nick Clegg has written a very interesting book. I'm not sure if it's out yet, but his publisher very kindly sent it to me about AI and I strongly recommend it. And Ed Davey has written a book about care and the care system and not least through his. Through his own experience. If you watch Prime Minister's questions and I don't, I can't pretend that I watch it religiously, but I watch it if I'm around and have a spare half hour on a Wednesday afternoon, I think fairly regularly Ed Davey asks questions and makes points that in a different media era, 20, 30 years ago, say, when David Steele was leading the Liberal Democrat or David Owens round as a big STP figure, they would have been part of the national conversation. I think we have a real problem that, I'm afraid the BBC, I think, is a big part of this. They're obsessed with Nigel Farage, the newspapers are obsessed with Nigel Farage. And the opposition is now so weak, the Tory opposition, that Farage is the kind of go to other voice. And I actually think if you read Here's a challenge for me, maybe we should come back to this next week. I know that Ed Davies team listen religiously to this podcast because every time you slag them off, I don't know why, but they send me a message rather than you. Why don't I say to the Lib Dem, send me two or three of Ed Davies recent speeches. Say one about foreign policy to do with Trump, say one about Europe, say one about the economy. If they haven't done them and if he hasn't made those speeches, then that's a big mistake. But I know the last time I raised this they said the problem is we can work away for days and days about a really important speech. We make it very hard to get the media interested.
- [08:43]
Rory Stewart
So I do talk them and I get a contradictory story. So I'd be very interested. Let's see what those speeches are. Let's see what those big speeches are. But often what I hear them saying is the reverse, which is there's no point really, because nobody's going to cover us anyway. You get a bit of that from Kemi Badenok too. There's no point my saying, I think nobody covers me. I think these people are being very, very defeatist. I think there is a massive space in the center ground for a charismatic communicator who's significantly articulate. I think Labour is actually in trouble. Keir Starmer's net popularity rating is poor. They're pursuing a mini austerity policy which is massively unpopular with a lot of people. There is a huge space for somebody really who was charismatic and could communicate. To be more nimble footed than Rachel Reeves to call out Starmer on international policy wouldn't be very difficult to point out some of the hypocrisy and problems around issues like Gaza. Certainly wouldn't be difficult to point out how completely incoherent Labour's position is on investment to child benefit. And I don't think they're doing it. And the reason I think they're not doing it is that actually the whole leadership team is still too wedded to this local stuff. Where is them? I mean, look, I'm a natural ally of theirs. I mean, maybe that's why I'm being so chippy about this. I'm a natural ally of this, but I don't feel this is a team trying to bring in talent, trying to reach out to other people in the center laying out bold international policy positions. I think that they're underplaying with a huge card. I mean, they've got so many seats in the House of Commons, they could dominate much more than they are. I don't think they should give up.
- [10:23]
Alistair Campbell
They definitely shouldn't give up. And it's interesting, I mean, I suspect that you and I and quite a lot of our listeners and viewers would be able to name all of those five Reform MPs. I'd struggle to name most of the Lib Dems. Now that is I agree where I agree with you, they have to address that. They can't just blame the media. But I do think they have a point that our media in the main is right wing covers, right wing voices, and especially those right wing voices that being very critical of a government that they've decided is unpopular. Anyway, there's a challenge for the Lib Dems to make them even more miserable. There I was with Fiona in Freiburg having lunch yesterday and I was sitting, reading a German newspaper and I was reading the front page, which was all about the Trump stuff, and Fiona said, oh, have you seen the back page? I turned to the back page and the headline was Corbyn's Comeback. So there's this big sort of half page. I can't remember the last time Ed Davy got a half page in a German newspaper, but there was this half page about German Jeremy Corbyn and making a pretty serious fist of an analyzing what the impact might be. And Rory before I, before I leave this, Harry, another trip. Plus member this one from London. I'm a center left voter in my late 20s. I was struck by your comments last week that you couldn't choose between Corbyn and Farage. Well, we did choose. I said I voted from Corbyn before Rory's, maybe a bit more sort of circumspect. Farage has always represented a divisive, nasty brand of politics, while Corbyn's politics do seem rooted in fairness and social justice. So why do you see them, Rory, as equally bad? I accept that some of Corbyn's policies may have been wishful thinking, that he mishandled certain issues, but he still appears guided by the right intentions. Surely not remotely comparable to Farage. Take that, Stuart.
- [12:19]
Rory Stewart
Take that, Stuart. Well, listen, I said I'd probably choose Corbyn narrowly, but Jeremy Corbyn is, for all his good qualities, is an extremely flawed person who would be a very, very deeply unfortunate Prime Minister. He is indecisive insecure. The way in which he handled the anti Semitism crisis in Labour was a classic example of that. I mean, whatever the rights and wrongs of it were, he was unbelievably slow to get out, clarify, take action. Incredibly prickly and defensive at every stage of it. His views on the world are basically those of the hard left of the 1980s. He is instinctively anti Western. He had very odd views on Russia, very odd views on Syria. And the people that surround him are very, very troubling ideologues. And I'm very close to a lot of the new Labour MPs who put their careers on the line to try to stop that man becoming Prime Minister. So, look, I've got a romantic, idealistic enthusiasm for people like Corbyn, in the same way as people might want to chant from Glastonbury, but if you ask me seriously, should this guy be running the country? Absolutely not. I mean, for all his qualities, and I like him very much as a person, every time I see him, I warm to him, I sympathize with him, but I'm not sure that even he is certain that he would make a great minister or Prime Minister.
- [13:42]
Alistair Campbell
I think that's right. You know, Roy, that Neil Kindlick is a regular, regular listener. He sends me his judgment of our podcast every single week. I suspect he was nodding vigorously throughout much of that. So basically we both, we think that neither of them is really fit to be Prime Minister, Farage or Corby.
- [14:00]
Rory Stewart
If the Lib Dems produced a leader who really seemed to have the ambition to be a national leader and to chart an international cause as the Conservative Party collapses. And I think it is collapsing, and I think Genrick will take them closer and closer to reform. There is a huge space for retaking the centre right there. I'd just like to see them have the ambition and the energy to do that.
- [14:21]
Alistair Campbell
Now, Rory, you mentioned Genrick there, and I have to tell you, another of our closest listeners is Ms. Fiona Miller, mother of my three children. She said, Roy seems very reluctant to say anything negative about Jenrick Generic. Did you see what he's up to this week? Parading outside asylum hotels?
- [14:42]
Rory Stewart
It's a little bit akin to your silence around Jeremy Corbyn, where we haven't got the full on Alastair View on Jeremy Corbyn either. Listen, on Generic, I'm very, very opposed to his rhetoric and the stance he's taking, particularly on immigration. I think that it's not the Conservative Party that I recognize. It's not actually the Robert Jenrick that I can recognize. I mean, the Robert Jenrick that I knew 10 years ago was a very thoughtful, apparently moderate pro Cameroon figure who was doing interesting things around international cultural heritage. And he has now become, on so many issues from Gaza to immigration and asylum in Britain, somebody who seems to be trying to out compete the far right. And my vision of the Conservative Party is firmly, firmly in the center. And I'm very, very troubled by the direction he's going. And it's very sad that he seems to be getting the entire central gravity that it feels like he's almost the inevitable successor to Kemi Badenoch, partly because she has seems to have been so unable to communicate or capture media attention. I mean, he shows you can capture media attention. There's nothing about the modern world that shows you can. As Zoran Mamdani, the Countess mayor of New York, shows you can do it. And Corbyn shows you can do it. I'm heartbroken and I think there will be a massive rebuilding job at the Centre right if Jenrick takes the Tories off chasing reform.
- [16:13]
Alistair Campbell
Okay, Fiona, there you are. Answers for you. Now, here's a wonderful name. Gunter van der Wiler. Sounds like a sort of Dutch footballer, but he's actually a trip member from Belgium. Dear Rory and Alastair, thank you so much for doing the podcast. Am I being paranoid in thinking that taking over policing in Washington D.C. is the perfect preparation for countering the uprising that will happen if the results of the midterm elections in the US are rejected by the White House? No, Gunter, I don't think you are.
- [16:41]
Rory Stewart
Quick explainer. Famously, D.C. is not a normal District of Columbia, where Washington is based, is not a normal state. And Congress has footled around for years and years and years failing to give it a proper federal status. Which is why you can see all these bumper stickers saying no taxation without representation in D.C. itself. And the result is that unlike in other states, there isn't a proper control of the National Guard by governor. And Trump was able to use emergency powers to effectively take over the police force all the way around the capital city as the president, something he couldn't really do anywhere else in the country. And his excuse for doing it is he claims that there is a crime wave, whereas in fact crime is coming down, but it's part of a pattern. This returns to my current obsession, which is the idea that actually Trump is much more consistent than people think. I think he's consistent on tariffs, on immigration, on Putin, and in his authoritarian tendencies in The US over to you.
- [17:40]
Alistair Campbell
And of course, the other big thing that's going on in this same area is the whole thing of redistricting, where Texas is kind of Republican state, is sort of redrawing the maps so that there will be five more seats in Congress. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, is responding by saying that if they do that, we're going to do the same thing, even though he agrees it's kind of in principle the wrong thing to do, but they will do it to get five more seats in California. By the way, Gavin Newsom, I mean, whoever is doing his social media, he really deserves a pay rise. He sort of tweets about Trump, but in the style of Trump, you know, thank you for your attention to this matter. And some of them are very, very, very, very funny. I also listened to Gavin Newsom talking about this on Pod Save America. And, you know, we've talked ever since the election about where the Democrats need to go. The one thing I think they've got to show is real passion and real fight. He's basically saying, we are in a fight for the future of our democracy. This is where I think, Gunter, you are not being paranoid. And there was a moment. One of the things that Trump has always been very good at doing is making you laugh about really dangerous points that he makes that are actually very, very serious. So in the White House, when Zelenskyy was there, we talked about this lots of the main podcast. But one point we didn't talk about was where Zelenskyy said he couldn't have an election. He was asked by one of the stooges. It was either the FOX stooge or the MTG stooge. He was asked whether he would hold an election. He said, yes, I'd hold an election. But our Constitution says we can't hold an election when we're at war. So Trump immediately jumps in saying, oh, oh. So if in America, if in three and a half years, America was at war, and of course there's titter, titter, titter around the room, but we have to look at the form book. You talk about consistency. This is a guy who motivated and inspired the January 6th insurrection. So why wouldn't he do things to try and overturn an election that he loses?
- [19:43]
Rory Stewart
Final thing before the break, just on the redistricting. So what happens with this redistricting is that it creates more and more safe Republican, more and more safe Democrat seats. And the result of that is that the general elections don't matter as much as the primaries. I mean, this was true even, you know, when I had a safe seat in Penrith and the border. If you've got a very safe seat, what matters is who's selected as the Republican or Democrat candidate. And so that is all about the primaries. And that again, tends to favor extremists because the party members who vote in the primaries tend to be more extreme. So you then end up with more and more polarized Congress. Add to that the fact that we're going from a world in which many of these states, the norm was that Senate seats were often split from a state. State would send a Republican and Democrat. And that was quite good because it would mean that the state could get access to both sides. It would give them incentives to cooperate and work together. Over the last 30 years, more and more of the states in the US only send senators from one party. So there's all that incentive has gone out the window. So put those two things together. This redistricting encourages polarization, to return to your Moses Naim stuff, and also encourages the primaries replacing the general election. It's very, very bad for democracy, very bad for negotiation, for parties, for all the processes, and it's just accelerating in the US and look, Trump is making it worse, but in this, he's following a pattern that both parties have been grossly irresponsible about for decades.
- [21:21]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, and of course, the other thing that happened with Zelenskyy was he sat there while Trump went on one of his rants about mail in voting as though it didn't already exist, and as though this was some kind of Democrat conspiracy to stop him winning. Listen, Gunther, he is on the march. This is the point Gavin Newsom's making. This is a guy who is increasingly authoritarian and who cannot abide the notion that he might lose power. Because if you lose the midterms, you lose power. You don't lose all power, but you lose some power. And so I think we should be very, very, very, very wary.
- [21:58]
Rory Stewart
Little sort of short thing, because I didn't tell you that I'd seen Gavin Newsom recently, interacted him with a bit over a couple of days. And he's a very striking character. I mean, as you know, he's kind of big, good looking. He's got almost got longer hair than me at the moment, which is something to be, something to be said.
- [22:15]
Alistair Campbell
Better combed as well.
- [22:16]
Rory Stewart
Certainly better combed. But he didn't strike me. He's very, very different to the sort of earnest Obama or even Pete Buttigieg or Cory Booker type. My Goodness. He's a sort of. He's almost too glamorous, too good looking, too cool for school. I mean, I was really intrigued by him and we should try to get him on the podcast. I'll try to follow up on that meeting.
- [22:41]
Alistair Campbell
I think we've been talking to his office. I think it'd be great. Yeah, listen, I've been impressed by his recent. There's a big debate going on in the Democrats of whether Gavin's pushing it too far and whether some of this social media stuff is a bit. A bit childish and what have you. But, you know, back to Trump psychology. Getting under Trump's skin is not a bad thing to do. But his big point, democracy is under threat, I think we should take seriously. Let's take a break and come back and talk about education in prisons.
- [23:09]
Gordon Carrera
Hello, I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.
- [23:12]
David McCloskey
And I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst turned novelist.
- [23:15]
Gordon Carrera
And together we're the co hosts of another Goal Hanger show, the Rest Is Classified, where we bring you the best stories from the world of spies and secrets.
- [23:25]
David McCloskey
We have just released an absolutely cracking new series on the infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. How the US Spent decades fighting a war on drugs to bring his cocaine empire to justice.
- [23:38]
Gordon Carrera
By 1989, Escobar was the seventh richest man in the world, wealthier than the entire state of Colombia. He was a husband, a father, and the most feared narco terrorist in the world.
- [23:51]
David McCloskey
But to the poor in his hometown of Medellin, he was kind of a hero. He built roads, houses, soccer fields, became almost a Colombian Robin Hood to a nation weary with a very unequal and violent political and legal system.
- [24:03]
Gordon Carrera
Over the next few weeks, we'll take you deep inside the murky world of the hunt for Escobar. Using accounts from members of the secret military units deployed to find him, we'll reveal how Colombian and American forces work together to track down the man who controlled a global cocaine empire.
- [24:21]
David McCloskey
If this sounds good, we've left a clip for you at the end of this episode.
- [24:29]
Rory Stewart
Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.
- [24:33]
Alistair Campbell
And me, Alistair Campbell. And, Rory, you had. Why don't you read out the message you got from the head of education at a prison.
- [24:39]
Rory Stewart
Dear Rory, I'm the head of education at a UK prison. I'm getting in touch in confidence with an urgent issue. Prison education across the country is seeing cuts of up to 40% at our prison. A 25% cut in October means that in six months, the provision has been cut by 36%. I see this as a surefire route to ruin the lives of more people in prisons and increase reoffending rates at a time when prisons are never far from full capacity. Quite apart from the fact that education has intrinsic value, its key extrinsic value is identity change, clearly linked to reducing reoffending. I would be very appreciative of your thoughts. Well, look, I mean, this is really troubling and will presumably be something that will be worrying James Timpson, the prisons minister, a lot. I mean, we know prisons are in crisis, we know that they're short of money, but the education provision was always very poorly funded. I mean, it was terrifying. I remember going just to sort of visualize that. I remember going to a London prison and even if you can unlock the prisoners on time so they can even get to this classroom, they turn up. They're at very different levels of education. Some of them are trying hard, some of them are not learning. You've got people with English as a second language, you've got a teacher in a very hot room, very, very poorly equipped, trying to teach. So it was about the worst, I mean, something you would never accept in a school, ever. It was so, so poorly funded, so bad. The conditions were so bad. If they've then cut that even more, you know, and these are staggering cuts, 36%, 40%. I don't know what we're thinking about because our prisons were already very, very unpleasant, unsafe, dangerous places. And one of the few things, at least that's true in the US is that for all the other problems in the American prison system, you can get an education. In fact, they'll pay for you to get a university degree, which isn't the case in Britain.
- [26:40]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, no, I was really shocked by that figure. And you know, as you know, I go into prisons and was in Brixton recently and one of the points of the guys that were interviewing me, I was being interviewed for National Prison Radio and, and one of the points that this guy called Akeem made, he said that you sometimes get the feeling that you're in prison to be punished, but then when you're here, you feel like it's almost like if you worked out, how can I not just punish them, but ruin their lives? That is what sort of happens. And, and you know, the thing about education, and I know that this is all part, I think, of this sort of decades long drip, drip, drip about, you know, prison's all about punishment. Prison isn't all about punishment. Prison is about trying. If we're serious about rehabilitation, then we have to take it seriously. You cannot take it seriously if you're talking about cuts of this scale. And there was a guy there who present. He actually presents the morning program now, guy called Ali, and he's a former prisoner. So what did he get educated to do while he was in prison? He got educated to do radio and he's now a presenter of the radio show. I would rather hear that sort of story then. What we do hear about is that people leave prison, no more qualifications, no home to go to, no family. They've lost the family and all that stuff. And you can say it serves them right, but the more you do that, the more you end up with what we call the revolving door, and it just doesn't work. And you know, we had two leadings out, one on Monday, this Monday with Nicola Sturgeon, and one on Friday, last Friday with the President of Guyana, Yef and Ali. And one of the things that we didn't talk about in the broadcast with him, him was actually they have had a major rehabilitative program going on and they have reduced reoffending little plug for.
- [28:29]
Rory Stewart
That because it's a wonderful interview, which actually, Alistair, you did alone. And I'm sorry I missed. Ifean Ali is an incredibly charming, charismatic leader of this tiny country on the South American Caribbean coast, which has gone almost overnight to becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the world. You had these staggering 35 years.
- [28:52]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah.
- [28:52]
Rory Stewart
The fastest growing GDP growth, setting up its own sovereign wealth fund because it's found an incredible amount of oil, but also doing stuff around nature, as you said. Very, very complimentary about the king and the way in which our king, King Charles, has been leading on biodiversity and how much he respects him and admires him, as well as some pretty uncomfortable conversations about race in Guyana, slavery in Guyana, history in Guyana. So really well done. And I thought, wonderful. And I wish I'd been part of it.
- [29:23]
Alistair Campbell
Rory, you mentioned last week, Trump, Somaliland, and we've had a question from Abdi Ali. In recent days, we've seen renewed calls for Somaliland recognition, led by Senator Ted Cruz in the States, Gavin Williamson in the uk blast from the past. Even President Trump has said he's looking into the issue. Isn't it time for Britain to take the lead and be the first to act?
- [29:42]
Rory Stewart
Well, it's something actually we've talked about on the podcast before, and my goodness, there are some amazingly vigorous activists for Somaliland. So Somaliland has been with some problems, but has been by far the most peaceful part of Somalia. I mean, it's still legally recognized as part of Somalia, as I say to Somalia, but it has a very different history. It had a different colonial history and it's held a number of democratic elections. I've really enjoyed my visits to Somaliland over the years. Ragi Omar, for example, many people will be familiar with BBC correspondent is a great advocate for Somaliland and they would say, why not give us independence? We're much more peaceful, much more democratic in other parts of Somalia, and we'll do well. The other argument, of course, that's made by the cautious foreign Office type is, oh, dear, where's this going to end if we start recognizing breakaway bits of other people, people's countries and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? It's exactly the kind of issue that Trump could absolutely turn around. And just in the way that he suddenly recognized Syria, he could suddenly wake up in the morning and recognize Somaliland.
- [30:51]
Alistair Campbell
Brief point to rebuttal, Roy. Just you're showing your age and class background there, saying that Ragioma is on the BBC. He was on the BBC. He's now itv. That's the independent one with adverts. Rory.
- [31:05]
Rory Stewart
Okay. Now, Diana Harris, Trip plus member Todd not really a question, more an observation. Why has Alastair started using the word effing? I accept that it's become more common among our generation, same as Alastair's, and I'm not a prude, but I find it offensive. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Hey, listen, only my only thought on that is that I do have some very, very keen young listeners who are sort of some listeners, 11 and 12 who came up to me recently and it may be that their parents are not going to be that amused by that.
- [31:35]
Alistair Campbell
No, Diana, I'm with you on that. I think I said it twice last. I was probably just in a grumpy mood. I said it about generic and I said something else. I guess partly was it because we had a question about Malcolm Tucker? I don't know. Look, I do in my private life, I do swear a lot and I don't like it. I don't enjoy it, but I'm quite expressive in lots of different ways. So I do swear, Diana, I hope you've noticed I have not sworn so far today. And we're now on to our last question. So I get the point. Right. Final question here from James Smith. I was in a bookshop at the weekend and came across a book called Travels in Arabia. Deserta went onto the Wikipedia page and this was in the first paragraph. Rory Stewart describes the book as a unique chronicle of a piece of history that's been lost. Can you explain how this works? When you approached Dawson book, Have you always read it? Have you ever declined to comment? Great question, James.
- [32:34]
Rory Stewart
It's really good question. Well, I mean, the basic answer is the whole thing is a racket and a disgrace. A little exception on Arabia Deserted, because I actually did read that and wrote a whole complicated introduction to which if they want to read that edition. But no, generally it's a real problem. And like you, Alistair, I receive probably at the moment, I don't know, four or five books a week to read and endorse. You get under a lot of pressure, particularly from friends or people who listen to get you to endorse the book. You can't possibly read completely four or five additional books a week in addition to what you're trying to read for your own thing. So I did have a policy of saying no endorsement at all, partly because I got really, really annoyed with a friend of mine whose book I read. I didn't really like it. I wrote a book saying. Wrote a little endorsement saying, interesting book. He got back to me saying, that's kind. But our publisher asked, would you mind saying this is the best book that you've read all year? And I was so embarrassed because I didn't know how to say, no, it wasn't the best book I've read all year. Could you. But somebody's just done it with my book. Incidentally, a good friend of mine called Isabella Tree very bravely read the book that I've just written on Cumbria and said she disagrees with me on rewilding. She's very much in favor of rewilding and she just doesn't feel that she can endorse my book because we disagree ideologically on it, but it's quite rare. Generally speaking, we don't get that gone. How about you be honest about endorsement?
- [34:01]
Alistair Campbell
You're right that it's a racket because, and I'm not sure it sells many books. And I, I don't lie. I don't say I've read a book if I haven't. But I'll say, you know, an interesting author on an interesting theme or something like that. If I haven't read it, if I have read it, I will genuinely say what I think in the main. I remember when I wrote my first novel, all in the Mind. I was really excited about it. I thought it was going to be sort of, you know, big break. Not necessarily Tolstoy, but I thought, you know, this is going to really go places. So I phoned up Ian McEwen, one of the greatest living novelists, and I said, if I send you my novel, will you read it? And he said, yes, happily. Oh, progress. I sent it to him and then he said, he read it and he said, I think it's very good. I think he's going to do very, very well. I said, that's nice. Would you put that. Could I put something on the COVID He said, listen, I have a policy. I don't endorse any books. Probably because he thinks he knows it's a racket as well. So I sort of lost out there, but I ended up getting Stephen Fry instead, who said, everybody should read this book, which is, you know, pretty good.
- [35:05]
Rory Stewart
Very good, Very good. Okay, well, I think on that, happy we should return to it. It is a real racket. It's a disgrace. And if you look at. So, for example, I don't know whether you notice Gary Stevenson, who we interview some leading on the front cover of his book is an endorsement from me, but I don't think you probably noticed that when you were reading it.
- [35:21]
Alistair Campbell
There's a guy on Instagram called Seriously Gripping. And the reason he's called Seriously Gripping is because that's what it says on the top of all my diaries. I think it was Matthew Paris. Seriously Gripping. Roy, love to talk to you.
- [35:36]
Rory Stewart
Okay, speak soon. Thanks again. Have a great day. Bye. Bye.
- [35:47]
David McCloskey
Hi again, it's David from the Rest is classified. Here's that clip we mentioned earlier.
- [35:51]
Rory Stewart
Victory over drugs is our cause, a just cause, and with your help, we are going to win.
- [35:59]
Alistair Campbell
Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellin drug cartel.
- [36:03]
Rory Stewart
The world's 14th richest man.
- [36:05]
Gordon Carrera
He was in many ways a terrorist.
- [36:08]
David McCloskey
This is an economic power concentrated in a few hands and in criminal minds. What they cannot obtain by blackmail, they get by murder.
- [36:17]
Alistair Campbell
And I don't think he expressed any regret at all.
- [36:21]
David McCloskey
He tries to portray himself as a man of the people, this kind of like, leftist revolutionary outlaw.
- [36:27]
Alistair Campbell
Nearly everyone in Medellin supports the traffickers. Those who don't are either dead or targets.
- [36:33]
Gordon Carrera
If you declare war, you've got to expect the state to respond.
- [36:37]
David McCloskey
This is the moment where he goes too far. 13 bombs have gone off in Medellin since the weekend. By the end of 87, Bogota is essentially a war zone. US spending for international anti drug efforts is going to grow from less than $300 million in 1989. To more than 700 million by 1991.
- [36:57]
Alistair Campbell
It is the certain knowledge that no one is really safe in Colombia from drug cartel assassins.
- [37:02]
David McCloskey
It's a conflict where the goal wasn't even to stop the flow of cocaine. It was to bring down this narco terrorist.
- [37:09]
Gordon Carrera
Everything is turned against him after this point. The whole thing he was building, building is collapsing. To hear the full episode, listen to the rest is classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.