449. Starmer Loses Control: Will Andy Burnham Challenge the PM?

Summary

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The Rest Is Politics Episode 449: Starmer Loses Control—Will Andy Burnham Challenge the PM?

Date: September 16, 2025
Hosts: Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart
Main Theme:
A no-holds-barred dissection of Keir Starmer’s leadership crisis amidst scandal, the challenges posed by the Trump visit, cabinet reshuffles, infighting within Labour, the rise of right-wing populism, and questions swirling about Andy Burnham’s leadership ambitions. Campbell and Stewart blend insider analysis with sharp disagreement, tracing the current turbulence in UK politics and its links to broader global shifts.

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Main Sections

1. State of Starmer’s Leadership and Trump’s UK Visit

(02:14 – 05:31)

• Backdrop:

  • Donald Trump arrives for a UK state visit as Keir Starmer faces mounting criticism and plummeting poll ratings.
  • Angela Rayner’s resignation and a cabinet reshuffle create a “very, very negative” mood around Downing Street.

• Diplomatic Dilemma:

  • Starmer sought to leverage Trump’s visit for tech and investment announcements (e.g., a £5 billion Google deal), but optics are complicated by scandals and negative public mood.
  • Alastair Campbell (02:26): “The mood around Keir Starmer at the moment is just very, very negative...”

• Scandals and Fallout:

  • A Labour advisor's WhatsApp controversy forces another resignation.
  • Campbell raises the challenge of planning a state visit with such political baggage: “Keir Starmer as the Prime Minister... at a time when the mood... is just very, very negative.” (04:41)

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2. Handling Scandal: Mandelson, Epstein, and Team Starmer’s Response

(05:31 – 12:16)

• Mismanagement of Information:

  • Discussion on Labour’s failure to pre-empt the Mandelson-Epstein fallout.
  • Rory Stewart (06:52): “If you just play it through... What are all the press conferences? It’s the BBC political correspondent saying to Trump, who’s already embarrassed about the Epstein stuff, what’s all this about Mandelson and the Epstein letters?”

• Failures in Crisis Preparation:

  • Detailed examination of the PMQ (Prime Minister's Questions) debacle: conflicting timelines, lack of full briefing, and the team’s lack of alignment.
  • Campbell (07:42): “I find it unfathomable that anyone can be sent into the House of Commons without at least having all relevant information..."

• Team Dynamics and Blame:

  • McSweeney (Starmer’s chief of staff) both defended and criticized—question of whether he’s too influential or simply trying to implement a coherent agenda.

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3. Who’s Really In Charge? McSweeney, Starmer, and the Perils of ‘Shadow Leadership’

(12:16 – 19:01)

• “Power Behind the Throne”:

  • Debate over whether Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief strategist, wields too much control—parallels to Cummings/Johnson and Bannon/Trump.
  • Campbell (13:32): "I think it’s a consequence of there being too much focus on Morgan McSweeney’s role..."

• Campaign vs. Governance:

  • Campbell: “Government is very, very different to campaigning… Unless there is alignment with the team and in particular the leader is driving that, nobody can do a really, really good job.” (17:03)

• Media Perspectives:

  • Reference to New Statesman and broader Westminster class fascination with McSweeney as the “intellectual backbone” of Starmerism.
  • Stewart (18:02): “Tom McTague... is trying to work out what Starmerism is... and the closest they can get often comes back to Morgan McSweeney.”

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4. Leadership Threats: Andy Burnham and Party Restlessness

(19:16 – 24:44)

• Quiet Rumblings of a Challenge:

  • Open speculation about Andy Burnham’s return to Westminster; Peter Kyle gently urging Burnham to stay in Manchester.
  • Campbell (21:28): “These conversations are happening. You can’t ignore them… Andy Burnham is, you know, he’s a national figure... even though he’s now best known for being mayor of Manchester.”

• Starmer’s Weakness, Conference Stakes:

  • The proximity of internal leadership talk; much riding on Starmer’s upcoming conference speech.
  • Stewart (22:57): “There is absolutely no way that I can imagine some kind of Churchillian speech which is going to restore it… He’s incapable of doing this.”

• Memorable Moment:

  • Campbell (23:52): “Sometimes when your back is against the wall… that can produce something that is unexpected.”

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5. Cabinet Reshuffle and Rising Stars: Shabana Mahmoud’s Test

(25:01 – 27:39)

• Changing of the Guard:

  • Mahmoud promoted as Home Secretary; Cooper demoted to Foreign Secretary; high pressure on new faces to deliver, especially on immigration.
  • Stewart (25:01): “A lot is resting on her [Shabana Mahmoud] because, boy oh boy, they're not going to get the communication out of Starmer... It's basically Wesley Singh, maybe Peter Kyle. And a lot of it is going to be Shabana Mahmoud, isn't it?"

• Strategic Dilemmas:

  • Debate over Labour’s strategy of “tough on immigration” and whether it’s too close to Reform’s talking points.
  • Campbell (27:03): “I just think that the political strategy around this, to my mind, has not been effective because it sounds too much like Reform.”
  • Stewart (27:10): "One story is that what’s missing... is that Starmer is hitting the kind of right wing talking points, but he’s not good enough about articulating the progressive message.”

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6. Party Discipline and the Speed of Crisis

(27:46 – 32:41)

• Internal Dissent, Weakening Authority:

  • Early, public Labour backbench dissent (Richard Burgon, Rhys Cadbury) signals unprecedented fragility for a government barely a year old.
  • Stewart (27:46): “It’s a very, very strange moment when openly backbench MPs this soon into a government start talking in the way that Richard Bergen or Rhys Cadbury have been...”

• Goodwill and “Reputational Bank”:

  • Campbell on how the loss of momentum invites disloyalty: if a government is seen as successful, MPs support it even when disagreeing; when not, disloyalty spreads.

• Scandal Management in the Modern Age:

  • Explosion of “bad news days,” the Bannon “flooding the zone with shit” strategy, and how the rapid news cycle both amplifies and potentially erases scandals before the public can keep up.
  • Campbell (30:57): “That’s a very difficult landscape in which to operate. Trump operates in it by flooding the zone with shit, to quote Steve Bannon.”

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7. Tommy Robinson’s Trafalgar Square Rally & The Far Right Wave

(36:45 – 48:18)

• Scale and Symbolism:

  • Tommy Robinson organizes a rally of 100,000+ in Trafalgar Square—biggest far-right gathering in years, with international speakers (Eric Zemmour) and direct involvement from Elon Musk.
  • Stewart (37:00): “Tommy Robinson managed to get 100, 130,000 people… Even Nigel Farage is distancing himself.”

• Elon Musk’s Role:

  • Musk projects a fiery video to the crowd: “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. Fight back or die.” (37:52)
  • Campbell (38:01): “I found that part of it absolutely repellent…”

• Far Right Funding and Globalization:

  • US billionaire Robert Shillman’s role in funding Robinson and far right activity internationally.
  • Jewish/Israeli “defense” think-tanks funding anti-immigrant UK activism; the paradox of pro-Israel groups backing UK populists.

• Crowd Analysis:

  • Some participants frame it as a “pride march for guys”—football culture, alcohol, nostalgia, adding to the populist energy.
  • Campbell (46:45): "If you saw the stuff with the police, it was absolutely classic... you're trying to get to the other side, your opponents. This is the anti-fascist demonstration..."

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8. Social Media & Algorithmic Radicalization

(48:18 – 53:30)

• The TikTok Effect:

  • Will Davies’ research on right-wing social media, TikTok’s role in amplifying despair, outrage, and far-right talking points.
  • Stewart (48:18): "What you see... is a sense of somebody sitting in their car, looking at their phone, saying, why is this country such an effing joke?... It’s a sense of despair..."

• Algorithmic Bias and Political Manipulation:

  • Example from Germany: TikTok accounts tailored to mainstream parties still receive 75% content from the far-right AfD.
  • Stewart (52:03): “Even they [academics] can’t really understand how these algorithms work... But whatever the cause of it is, there's no doubt that the far right... is getting far more visibility than anyone else on social media.”

• Broader Implications:

  • Technology, politics, and the pace of news are outpacing “the old political class.” Social media creates an overwhelming, dystopic sense of national decline, fueling discontent.

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9. Reform, Defections, and the “Authenticity” Trap on the Right: Danny Kruger & Farage

(53:30 – 58:05)

• Danny Kruger Defects to Reform:

  • Kruger, seen by some as an “authentic” intellectual, defects to Farage’s Reform party, underlining a migration of the Conservative right.
  • Stewart (53:53): “He’s a really interesting figure... but... along with all these positive qualities... there is something very, very disturbing for me...”

• Elite Drift Toward Populism:

  • Kruger’s journey mirrors that of some Tories: from Cameron’s “compassionate conservatism” to hard Brexit, to Farage.
  • The paradoxical embrace of Christianity as a far-right identity badge, contrasted with their real-world alliances.

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10. The Weaponization of Tragedy and US-UK Political Symmetry

(58:05 – 63:20)

• Moral Panics and “Us vs. Them”:

  • After the Charlie Kirk assassination, US right uses the tragedy as a rallying point for crackdowns; fears of similar tactics crossing the Atlantic.
  • Campbell (59:28): "The metamorphosis of Jesus Christ from humble servant... to a symbol that stands for gun rights, prosperity theology, anti science... is truly the strangest transformation in human history."

• Widening Orwellian Rhetoric:

  • Stephen Miller (Trump aide) calls for “unleashing the organs of the state” on an ill-defined “far left terrorist conspiracy.”
  • Stewart (61:10): “Once you have a completely ill-defined conspiracy and a moment like that, that is often where the fascists take all their strength.”

• British Dilemmas:

  • Debate around the appropriateness of Trump’s UK visit, anti-Trump protests, and Starmer’s navigation of these treacherous waters.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Leadership Chaos and Feeling “Old”:
  Campbell (19:16): “We’re now being talked about as a government that’s kind of been there forever. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been there for a year with a huge majority.”

• Questioning Starmer’s Oratory:
  Stewart (22:57): “There is absolutely no way that I can imagine some kind of Churchillian speech which is going to restore it... he’s incapable of doing this.”

• On Populist Rallies and the Far Right:
  Campbell (41:30): “To turn out to a march, a rally that, you know, is being headed by a many times convicted far right thug, you're making a statement, I think, just by being there.”

• Algorithmic Danger:
  Stewart (52:03): “There’s no doubt that the far right... is getting far more visibility than anyone else on social media.”

• On US-UK Parallels:
  Stewart (62:34): “It is really, really interesting how pretty well informed people suddenly have to talk as though they’ve always known who Charlie Kirk was... It’s the Americanization of British politics.”

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Key Timestamps

• 02:14 – Trump visit, state of Labour, context of negative mood
• 05:31 – Scandal preparation breakdown, PMQs, Mandelson-Epstein timeline
• 12:16 – Morgan McSweeney debate: shadow strategist or scapegoat?
• 19:16 – Leadership whisperings, Andy Burnham’s potential return
• 25:01 – Cabinet reshuffle fallout, Shabana Mahmoud in the spotlight
• 27:46 – Labour dissent, loss of party discipline
• 36:45 – Tommy Robinson’s rally, Musk’s involvement, far right funding
• 48:18 – Social media and right-wing radicalization
• 53:30 – Danny Kruger defects to Reform, failings of “compassionate conservatism”
• 58:05 – Death of Charlie Kirk weaponized by US right, Christianity and politics
• 61:10 – Miller’s conspiratorial rhetoric; implications for democracy
• 62:34 – Americanization of British politics, Charlie Kirk’s sudden notoriety

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Tone & Atmosphere

• Frank, often pessimistic, but with flashes of humour and wit.
• Campbell is more indignant and urgent, while Stewart uses wry, sometimes sardonic, commentary.
• There’s camaraderie, but genuine disagreement—especially around Starmer’s abilities and party strategy, as well as differing views on the best response to populism’s rise.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a deep and at times bleak exploration of Labour’s crises, the risks posed by resurgent far right populism, and the global interplay of scandal, technology, and leadership style. Looming in the background: the possibility of a Starmer implosion and the uncertainty of who might step into the breach, as personalities like Andy Burnham hover and new political strategies are urgently needed.

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Transcript

[Alastair 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 There.

[Rory Stewart]

Is absolutely no way that this can continue into the week of the Trumps visit.

[Alastair Campbell]

The minute Trump gets a question about Epstein, anything could happen. The mood around Keir Starmer at the moment is just very, very negative.

[Rory Stewart]

This question of the leadership now is of course really, really interesting.

[Alastair Campbell]

When you back is against the wall, sometimes that can produce something that is unexpected.

[Rory Stewart]

And has he ever done that? I mean the idea that he can. The idea that he can. How can he turn it around? He's incapable of doing this.

[Alastair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

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[Alastair Campbell]

Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell. So Donald Trump is about to arrive in our country for a state visit at a time when Keir Starmer is not really having a very good time of it.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, let's just for a second on this, just to frame it Ide. I guess Starmer would have been Hoping that Trump arrives, he gets to make some announcements on tech and investment.

[Alastair Campbell]

It's happening.

[Rory Stewart]

He has done a reshuffle where he's got the team in place. Whether he intended to do this reshuffle before the Trump visit, I'm not sure at all, because it may well simply be that it was triggered by trying to cover up for Angela Rayner's resignation and that that would then team up for future relations. But the background story is that the whole visit, presumably, is something that, in an ideal world, Starmer wouldn't have been doing. It was really part of this funny. Let's cozy up to him, let's get a good trade deal for Britain, let's get his support on Ukraine. Early in the day, West Starmer produced the letter from his pocket, but presumably if you sat him with a light in his eyes, he would say it's not ideal to have Trump visiting the United Kingdom.

[Alastair Campbell]

So, I mean, I think the problem with the current situation is the context. So if you go back to the Oval Office, when he pulled the letter from the King and Trump was clearly sort of, you know, oh, that's nice. I like that. The context, then I think there was a general understanding that even if people can't stand Trump, which a lot of British people can't, they kind of get why he had to do that. And the visit, it was described as couldn't have gone better. And of course, there in the background, helping to plan it, was Peter Mandelson appointed as ambassador. The context now, now is very, very different. The context is of, as you've been saying, poll ratings and ratings for StarMidde are very, very low. We're going to be talking later in the podcast about this Tommy Robinson rally at the weekend, which was again, part of the context now for this visit. State visits are when you, you tend to see lots of flags around the place. Well, we, we had a lot of flags at the weekend and Keir Starmer had to come out and say, you know, they do not own the flag, we all own the flag.

[Rory Stewart]

Just sorry for internationalists. The flags over loss of UK flags and St George's crosses in a far right demonstration organized by Tommy Robinson, former football hooligan leader of this far right group. And the flags you're referring to now, presumably, is the question around US flags for the President's visit.

[Alastair Campbell]

And, you know, uk, US flags will be around. It's a big state event. So you've got the Mandelson context, you've got the, the general political context, you've got Then this other story that emerged overnight that in a normal times would have just sort of not been. I don't know how seriously would have been taken about this official who this advisor who works for Keir Starmer, who sent some ridiculous WhatsApp messages about Diane Abbott, Labour left wing MP a decade or so ago, but in this atmosphere, he's had to go as well. And so you've got a sense of Keir Starmer being there as the Prime Minister, doing part of the job which is getting on with the American President. But time when the mood around Keir Starmer at the moment is just very, very negative and the mood around the Downing street operation is very, very negative.

[Rory Stewart]

Can I be a bit provocative and do a bit of disagreeable agreement or whatever it is, agreeing disagreeably, you're going.

[Alastair Campbell]

To say that the atmosphere around Keir Starmer wonderful, and the Downing street operation is the best it's ever been.

[Rory Stewart]

No, you're right. You're completely right. I'm not going to say that. So maybe it isn't really a full disagreement, but when we discussed this last week, we kind of came round to the view that Starmer had to defend him in Primus's questions because you're in a difficult position. But it now looks as though that was very, very strange. It seems clear now that Bloomberg had on Tuesday 9th September, so the day before PM Q on a Wednesday, had already sent the FCDO the details of what was in those emails. And on the Tuesday, Ollie Robbins, who was the Brexit negotiator, who's now the top of the top civil seven, the Foreign Office had asked whether they were authentic from Peter Mandelson. And on Wednesday the 10th, quite a long way into this, we have Starmer standing up saying, I knew there had been meter inquiries, I didn't know the content, I knew questions had been put. Now, that seems to me to be bizarre. If on the Tuesday night you've already been told and Ollie Robbins is all over it and he's contacting the ambassador, there's a trove of emails and already Mandelson has given an interview to the sun online, basically saying there's more to come out, you, I think in that job would have been saying, calling Peter yourself and saying, do we know everything? What more is coming? Because you would have been aware that there is absolutely no way that this can continue into the week of the Trump's visit. If you just play it through, you defend him on Wednesday, the questions come Thursday, Friday, Sunday, newspapers, Trump arrives. What are all the press conferences, it's the BBC political correspondent saying to Trump, who's already embarrassed about the Epstein stuff, what's all this about Madison and the Epstein letters? So what on earth convinced Starmer to defend him on Wednesday if basically the details are coming on Tuesday?

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, the question is whether they had the details or whether he just had a general sense that this was going on, which we knew anyway. But I do find it unfathomable that given how high profile this story had become, given the extent to which there is this baggage around Peter that is part of that particular context, I find it unfathomable that anyone can be sent into the House of Commons without at least having all relevant information and having asked all relevant questions.

[Rory Stewart]

So just to dig into this, the way in which you would imagine it is somebody, Morgan McSweeney or the director of Communications, somebody should have been on the phone to Mandelson, who's of course on an earlier time zone right the way through Tuesday, saying what can come out, what's in his emails. So the Prime Minister can't go in.

[Alastair Campbell]

I always say about Prime Minister's questions is, and this was Tony's absolute obsession, we can work out how we handle it and what we say, but only based on having absolutely every relevant piece of information. And we used to drive departments mad on a Wednesday morning when we'd say we need the stats on this and we need the stats on that, and they send over a kind of, you know, some cut and paste thing from a previous briefing document. And Tony would say, no, I want more than that. I want to know this, this, this, this, this. So I don't know what happened. And then when you read some of the stuff that's, that's come out there since. So I read a piece, I think it was on Politico, and it looked to me like it was very heavily briefed from Morgan McSweeney's perspective, that he wasn't watching Prime Minister's questions, wasn't aware of what was going on. Now, again, I just find that kind of hard to compute because, okay, a week earlier, as we said on the podcast, when we recorded the other day, Kemi Badenoch had not gone for Angela Rainer when most people thought she should. That made it even more obvious to me that she's going to go on this Peter Mandelson thing and if she doesn't, somebody else is. But she's got six questions. So if you send the Prime Minister into that situation, and I, when I watched it, remember, I said what I Said to Fiona, I watched and I thought, well, he must feel really, really confident. And I also said to Fiona, one more thing on this and I think Peter's in real difficulty. Well, what's now clear is the one more thing was already there.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, because Bloomberg had warned them on the Tuesday and all you had to do is get on the phone to Mandelson and really hammer him until he got all the information.

[Alastair Campbell]

But to be fair to Peter, he's the one who alerted them to it. So I don't understand how that hasn't led to. Now, did they get into a mindset that said, oh God, we don't want to lose another one. So therefore you go into that mindset that says, our goal now is to make sure we don't have to sack him before the, he doesn't have to go before the Trump state visit.

[Rory Stewart]

But that can't make sense when the thing is, I agree, done for is Epstein and Trump is connected to Epstein. And that's the big issue with maga. I mean, it's almost the worst possible issue if it had been that he'd fiddled his mortgage or something. But the actual issue he was being done for is the one issue that would really upset Trump and talk about.

[Alastair Campbell]

No. And also, you see, the other thing is that, you know, I think you and I both feel that even though Trump is there undermining the rule of law, attacking the media left, right and center, now apparently he's going to sue the New York Times because they backed Kamala Harris. And God knows how that plays out. You know, that we, we the UK should not remotely play that game. So there's Trump who's been backing the news with Epstein over the, the drawing that he says is fake and the signature that apparently somebody faked his signature decades ago, knowing clearly that he'd become president again, all this nonsense. So we don't want a government and a prime minister that operates like that. But in Trump's mind, if he does get a question at the press conference, just to go through the state visit, he arrives Tuesday, arrives tonight, tomorrow's all the sort of royal stuff at Windsor Castle, Thursday, Chequers. And presumably they're going to do a joint press conference together. Now, they can have lots of things to announce about tech. And Google have announced this 5 billion thing for the UK today and they will try to frame it as part of that sort of positive stuff. But you know full well that the minute Trump gets a question about Epstein, anything could happen. Anything. So I just feel that the, my Sense is here's the Prime Minister, he's going to prime minister question. It's his responsibility to make sure that he's confident and comfortable about everything he's going to say. But it's his team's responsibility, given all the stuff he's having to deal with, to make sure he knows everything that is relevant to the question.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, let me make the case for Morgan McSweeney then. Yep, right at the heart of this is Morgan McSweeney, who People like you and me and the Westminster class talk about all the time. But maybe not all listeners are focused on who is effectively the great chief of staff, power behind the throne for Keir Starmer. He's a man who cut his teeth in Labour politics in local councils in London and who led, at least in the narrative of his supporters, Starmer's takeover of the Labour Party and the fight back against Jeremy Corbyn. Okay, so the case for Morgan Mats Sweeney is here is this morally serious man who thinks deeply, who has a clear vision of the country. He's somebody who speaks emotionally and powerfully about the grooming gangs and how much he feels responsibility and how heads should have rolled, who really believes in trying to bring control over immigration, who feels that he's got a mission to transform the economy of Britain. So he would say, what is this, this trip really about? It's about me, Morgan McSweeney, thinking about, as you say, about Google investment, US tech partnerships with Europe on agriculture and industry, small modular nuclear reactors which Morgan McSweeney cares about.

[Alastair Campbell]

Hold on, Rory, you've fallen into a trap here. I think of assuming that the chief of staff person or the main advisor should be somebody with their own agenda. The Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson situation, that is not good for a government, it's not good for a Prime Minister. If people think that there is somebody that. This is not the Prime Minister's agenda, it's somebody else's agenda. So I think even you thinking and talking in those terms, I thought you were going to come and come at it from a different perspective, but you're basically saying, well, poor old Morgan can't be dealing with everything because he's having to sort out deals on nuclear reactors and so forth. That's not really his job.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, the defence, the defense of Morgan McSweeney, I think, is that he's the grown up that he's crippled by having this Prime Minister who isn't really able to articulate Morgan McSweeney's vision properly and.

[Alastair Campbell]

Who, Sorry, I'm not buying this at all. No, I'm not. No.

[Rory Stewart]

The story is supposed to be that here is this amazingly serious, impressive chief of staff, and unfortunately, every time he sends Starmer out to communicate his message, Starmer somehow doesn't quite have the language.

[Alastair Campbell]

To express that I can't work out.

[Rory Stewart]

And that McSweeney keeps getting let down. McSweeney really would want to stop the boats, he'd really want to control immigration, but unfortunately, Yvette Cooper didn't deliver for him. So he's bringing Shabana Mahmoud to try to sort it out.

[Alastair Campbell]

I can't believe whether you actually believe this or you're responding to all those friends of yours in Tory circles who tell you that we don't fall out enough and disagree.

[Rory Stewart]

No, I'm getting this, obviously from Labour people who are on the McSweeney end. So I suppose these are people who see themselves as more Shabana Mahmoud, more Conservative Labour, who believe that what the Labour Party needs to do is really connect with working class voters, needs to have a coherent vision. And they seem to think that the one person in the middle of all of this is Morgan McSweeney. And if it's not working for him, it's not McSweeney's fault.

[Alastair Campbell]

You either are the strategist and you take ownership of the whole strategy, in which case it's a bit much for these friends to say, well, it's all Keir Starmer's fault, or you make sure, because this is part of what strategy is that the whole team and most importantly the leader of the team are completely aligned. I think this is a consequence. I think the way that you're even talking about this is a consequence of there being too much focus on Morgan McSweeney's role as there was. And listen, by the way, I had exactly this situation.

[Rory Stewart]

Were you accused, though, of the strategy or were you accused more of the management of the communications?

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, I was a lightning conductor when anything went wrong.

[Rory Stewart]

And did people sort of try to suggest that in the same way that I'm suggesting with Keir, that really it's Alastair's government and Tony's?

[Alastair Campbell]

No, the thing with me used to be, you know, he's the real deputy Prime Minister. So it was a way of undermining.

[Rory Stewart]

John Prescott, but not that you're the real prime minister?

[Alastair Campbell]

No, what there was, though. What there was for a time, I mean, I think the reason the Conservatives got into such a mess with us was because they couldn't work out how to handle Tony Blair. So part of the, A, part of the. Their attack was that Tony Blair's just this sort of flim flam PR guy and the real engine is me and Peter Mandelson, these dark, sinister people. So that was their kind of line of attack. There's a bit of that with Morgan. But I think the other thing is, like when that book came out, the Patrick McGuire book about sort of the rise of Keir Starmer came in called get in, and you know, it was. It wasn't really about Keir Starmer. Now, I think that's bad for him and it's bad for the government. So that is something which has developed. I think that's the wrong way to read this, and I think there's far too much focus on. I'm not, by the way, saying that Morgan didn't fight a very, very effective, put together a very effective election strategy. What I do think is that government is very, very different to campaigning. And I also think that the thing about personnel, now, to be fair, Keir's gone out and got Jonathan Powell and now Tim Allen's come in. And I know these people, I think, well, they're, you know, I think they can do a good job. But ultimately, I would argue that nobody in those positions can do a really, really good job unless there is alignment with the team. And in particular the leader is driving that. That's the most important thing. So it's actually weakening of care for somebody like you who follows this closely and talks to people even to think in these terms.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, but the reason they're thinking this terms, of course, is that people like Tom McTague, who's, I think, a very, very wonderful, thoughtful journalist who now edits the New Statesman, is partly trying to make the intellectual case for this government, is trying to work out what Starmerism is and what the vision is. And the closest they can get often comes Back to Morgan McSweeney because he's the one person who really seems to be able to talk in this serious, passionate, thoughtful, emotional.

[Alastair Campbell]

Where have you seen that, though?

[Rory Stewart]

Oh, a lot. New Statesman articles, particularly.

[Alastair Campbell]

Exactly. This is why I think you've sort of slightly bought an image that to my perspective, is not helpful to the government. It never is helpful. If there's a. This is why, in the end, Steve Bannon was a massive problem for Trump ultimately, in the first term, you can't have a sense of the leader not being the leader and as it were, having to subcontract, which was the Dominic Cummings problem. Right, Totally.

[Rory Stewart]

And I remember that totally. Because he was perpetually saying, oh, yeah. The problem is Boris. He's not very good at delivering my message. I've got this incredibly deep, profound thing that combines Thucydides and Oppenheimer and Dr. Strangelove. And this is going to make Britain into a particular thing. And unfortunately, Boris is useless.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah, yeah. You can't operate out of that and see what's happened now. Is that so? You know, somebody said at the. Was doing an interview, I think it was Richard Bergen. Now, Richard Bergen, left wing Labour MP Corbyn Easter doesn't like, care. And it's no surprise that he's saying he's not up to the job. But he did make an observation which is worth listening to. He said that we're now being talked about as a government that's kind of been there forever. It doesn't feel like we've been there for a year with a huge majority. And I think that. And so I was getting calls over the weekend from, including from people that I really wasn't expecting. You know, I got one call, it was a guy just said, you know, if there was a. If there was a leadership relationship, if, say he was streaking against Bernard, we'd rating you back. And this was somebody who, I would reckon a year ago was absolutely nailed on Keir Starmer supporters. So those conversations are happening. You can't ignore that.

[Rory Stewart]

Before we get into the general question of discipline, Labour Party, this question of the leadership now is, of course, really, really interesting. Andy Burnham and a big plug for leading people who aren't subscribing to our separate channel. Leading should do so, because we got a great interview on that with Andy Burnham and I think it's one of the things that you and I probably most proud of these interviews. This is, I believe, episode 36, Andy.

[Alastair Campbell]

Burnham alongside Andy Street.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alastair Campbell]

Former mayor of the Westminster.

[Rory Stewart]

We liked him, didn't we? And it was quite interesting. He was very much talking about how he'd refound himself as mayor of Manchester, how pleased he was to get out of Westminster. But now the story is that he's looking to pick up a seat, that maybe Andrew Gwynne is going to step down. That's going to be interesting. Although Gwynne's got a 13,000 majority, reform is number two there. So by election. And he's going to try to run. And then you've got Peter Kyle again leading a debut, politely saying, Burnham should stay in Manchester. He's doing a good job. Manchester not come home to cause trouble. How seriously should number 10 be taking this talk. I mean, imagine you were Morgan McSweeney or your friend from Portland. Are you now beginning to think about Andy Burnham? Is it worth thinking about Andy Burnham if you're thinking defensively in number 10?

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, I mean, as you say, these conversations are happening. You can't ignore them. There's something that. I mean, Andy Burnham's an interesting guy. He's a. I like Andy. He was. I've known him for a long, long time. He started out. I think I first knew him when he was working in Tessa Jowl's team. Way, way, way, way back, you know, good minister at the time. I think I said this when we interviewed him at the time, you wouldn't have said was going to be seen in the. In the sort of top level. But I think he has grown. There's no doubt about that. He's grown in that job. He's got a real, you know, of all the mayors, obviously Sadiq Khan's a very, very well known figure nationally, but I think Andy Burnham is, you know, he's a national figure, even though he's now best known for being mayor of Manchester. I think you've always got to be wary of the old, you know, he. Who. What's the thing. He wields the sword. Doesn't always get the crown, which was the Hasseltine problem, which. Michael Hasseltine. Yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

But because Boris is the big exception who was perpetually wielding.

[Alastair Campbell]

He was willing all over the place. Eventually got the crown. Yeah. But then it became so tarnished and he's now sort of, you know, he's now history. But I. I think that the Andy you see, if you look through. I mean, it's. It's crazy in a way that we're even talking in these terms, but they are going to be doing this at the party conference. Keir is absolutely going to have to produce a speech and a week that really connects with the party and the public and makes people think. Yeah, well, he's had a rough ride. But you know what? He's still got it. It's so difficult.

[Rory Stewart]

I don't want to be boring. But your friend Tom Baldwin keeps saying, you know, he's always been underestimated. I can completely understand why he's always been underestimated. I mean, when I hear that, I'm afraid he just doesn't have a voice. He doesn't know how to publicly speak. It's so dreary and kind of banal. I mean, I can almost hear in my head what this conference speech is going to be like, no, no, no, I don't want to do a horrible imitation of Keir Starmer, but there is absolutely no way that I can imagine some kind of Churchillian speech which is going to restore it. He's going to drone on about, you know, seriousness and his values and all this sort of thing, and it's going to sound like some sort of.

[Alastair Campbell]

I thought you weren't going to do an impersonation of Keir Starva. No, but so.

[Rory Stewart]

But I mean, the idea that he could. How can he turn it around? He's incapable of doing this. This is what I completely can't understand about Tom Bin this. He's always been underestimated. I mean, for good reason. Right.

[Alastair Campbell]

He. What I said, Rory, what I said is his conference speech and the week as a whole is really gonna have to be good. Okay. Some. If. Sometimes when your back is against the wall and, you know, you've really got your inner fight, sometimes that can. That can produce something that is unexpected.

[Rory Stewart]

And has he ever done that? I can't really think of him ever making a great speech.

[Alastair Campbell]

He's done speeches that you've liked more than others. I mean, he's never going to be Barack Obama.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alastair Campbell]

On a. On a conference floor. But if he goes out, look, I. What I. If I were him.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alastair Campbell]

I would be sitting down, and he won't have much time at the moment because there's the other thing about the. This sort of pace at which things move, and the sense of. You say that he doesn't have a voice. He's not in the. In the conversation. In our apologies, in the way you say Trump is in his.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alastair Campbell]

Or Macron is in his. The Macron's also struggling, and that's not his style. But I think this conference and the budget that follows, they have got to go beyond. Well, otherwise, these conversations are going to take on a life of their own. And once they take on a life of their own, then, you know, you're on the back.

[Rory Stewart]

A lot of this now is resting, I think, on Shabana Mahmoud. They're putting a lot of emphasis on this. I mean, this is the person that they're now hoping is going to be right at the heart of things as Home Secretary. They've essentially using the Foreign Secretary role, I'm afraid, as a kind of demotion for Yvette Cooper, which implies that they. I guess they think Sarma can do the foreign policy stuff. So the question is, is she going to step up and we should get her on leading as soon as possible. Is she going to be the big, charming, intelligent, informed, provocative, get things done voice? Is she going to fulfill the roles that your best secretaries of state fulfill? Whether it was different tones, whether it was the kind of thing John Prescott did or the kind of thing David Blunkett did for you, or, in a different way, Jack Straw, I mean, but a lot is resting on her because, boy, oh boy, they're not going to get the communication out of Starmer, they're not getting the communication out of Rachel Reeves, they're not getting the communication out of Bridget Phillipson. It's basically Wesley Singh, maybe Peter Karl. And a lot of it is going to be Shyvana Mahmoud, isn't it?

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, she's certainly taken, you know, because of the nature of the reshuffle, the way it came about. She's, you know, she's into a big role and. And they've got to make it work. I mean, the boats issue, rightly or wrongly, has been elevated to a point at which it has to be sorted, it has to be cracked. Now, I worry that the. The kind of the populist agenda is, as you know, I've always disagreed with the sense of thinking that you fight reform by sort of making people think you're a bit like reform. I just don't think that is the right strategy. However, the policy now has got to deal with that. And whether she can step up into the sort of communications role you're talking about, I don't know, because she's never really done that.

[Rory Stewart]

And the hope would be, presumably, and you're absolutely right, you disagree with the strategy, but that clearly is the strategy. Morgan McSweeney's clearly decided he wants to go for the classic working class red wall vot, and he's going to do it by being tough on immigration, demonstrating control of borders. He cares about that and that's the policy. And I think Sam is behind that. Right. And Shabana Mahmoud's about that.

[Alastair Campbell]

By the way, I absolutely support controlling the borders. I just think that the political strategy around this, to my mind, has not.

[Rory Stewart]

Been effective because it sounds too much like reform. And also the other thing we sometimes hear is that you guys would have done it by sounding tough on asylum and immigration, but balancing it with progressive language to make sure that you reassured Labour MPs who care about equality and diversity that you're on their side and you're making progress for them. So one story is that what's missing in the chemistry is that Starmer is hitting the kind of right wing Talking points, but he's not good enough about articulating the progressive message.

[Alastair Campbell]

And that goes back to the point I made the whole time, which is about having this bigger narrative for the country and the type of country we're trying to create.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, so let's now get back into this question of party discipline, which is really beginning to shock me. For listeners who aren't right in the political swim, it's a very, very strange moment when openly backbench MPs this soon into a government start talking in the way that Richard Bergen or Rhys Cadbury have been out on the Today program talking. And the number of people now producing off the record briefing, the developing view that if things go badly in the May elections with Wales, Scotland, local councils, Starmer will go, then the increasing conventional wisdom that he can't lead the party into the next election. This is very, very weird. I mean, if I think back to my time in office, the response of the whips and the prime minister if a year in to Cameron's government, senior backbenchers were going out on the Today program saying, well, you know, we'll have to see how he's doing when he comes to me, it's kind of unimaginable. In fact, I remember the first people breaking cover and they were well out on the far Brexit wing of the party about to defect, reform erg types. And they were totally shunned. Everybody turned against them, you know, in the tea rooms, you know, this person's unbelievably disloyal. What a wanker. How dare they do this? And that was a long way into these governments. And the thing we kept hearing again and again, and I guess you would have reinforced this is the way that governments lose is when the public starts seeing infighting. The public hates infighting. It hates dissension. So we would have had monthly meetings with the Prime Minister, with the chief whips, and often with people like Lyndon Crosby, who was then doing the election thing, just hammering home anybody who steps out and who dares to appear on the Today program saying the Prime Minister has.

[Alastair Campbell]

But this is where the goodwill bank comes in and the reputational bank comes in. I said last week that if a government is kind of doing well, then mps who might not like some of the things that are being done, they'll go along with it. Okay, if the government is thought not to be doing well, even by its own judgment. Now, there's lots of things the government things the government point to say that they're doing well. This 5 billion pound today with Google, somebody's worked very, very hard on that and so forth.

[Rory Stewart]

And was a surprise because I remember hearing Ed Ball saying last week he didn't think any tech deals would be in place and he knows, I mean, his wife life, you know, was the home sector and it's just become a foreign sector. Even surprised him that it got done.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah. So. So, you know, and, and likewise, there's stuff in relation to the health service is improving and there's lots of things they can point to, but they cannot get away from the fact that as you go around the country and you talk to people and they know this because they talk to lots of people, the general sense is not a positive one right now. Now, to turn that around is going to be very, very hard. And I think that the point you're making, I think there's another point here that's worth making, which is about the speed now, the speed with which news moves. The kind of sense of every day something big and bad happens and we don't rest on it, so it's just onto the next disaster. And that's a very difficult landscape in which to operate. Trump operates in it by flooding the zone with shit, to quote Steve Bannon.

[Rory Stewart]

And Johnson did it too. I mean, there were times with both Boris Johnson and Trump where actually you feel it advantages the incumbent that. But because there's so much of this stuff that the public can barely remember the scandal of last week. And so it can cut both ways. It can create for Starmer a sense of, oh my goodness, this is total chaos. Or it could create the sense of public. After a couple of years of this, oh my God, I can't even remember, he was this guy Mandelson, where there was something about Angela Rayner and I don't know, and somebody resided.

[Alastair Campbell]

That's kind of what happens. But that's not a strategy. Hoping that people forget all this stuff is not a strategy. Where he is now is obviously not where he wanted to be when he started out. And there has to be. And you mentioned on the, the emergency episode we did the other day that after the reshuffle, the, the whips office. You mentioned the whips office. The whips office now is seen very much as a Starmer kind of operation. You mentioned Morgan Sweeney's wife is now Freestyle. She's an MP up in Scotland. And the thing is, again, that I think only works if there is that sense of reputation and goodwill out there. So. So one of the worries I have out of that approach is if you think about the criticisms that are leveled at number 10. And this comes from, we would call control freaks the whole time. Right. But what you get from MPs is actually this really is a sense of you're either with us or against us. Well, the natural sort of conclusion of that is that once people find reasons to be against, they might stay there. So, like, wasn't remotely surprised to hear Richard Bergen, but I wonder whether part of the consequence of the expulsion of Jeremy Corbyn was there a way back then of actually keeping him in, which you did.

[Rory Stewart]

I mean, this is something, unfortunately, that all the Labour MPs I talk to keep referring back to your time in office and saying, well, you know, they didn't sack Jeremy Corbyn. They have a sort of.

[Alastair Campbell]

Morgan's approach was very much for reasons I completely understand, because of what the damage the hard left has done to the Low Party party through history was basically the Labour Party almost came an existential cropper with Jeremy Corbyn, even though he had strengths and he brought young people into the party and so forth. Therefore, that is the fight we now have to engage in and that is a fight to the death that we have to win. That's the kind of thinking now, once you're into government, the fights are different. And the point, I would say, about our politics at the moment, and listen, don't get me wrong, this is a really hard landscape and in which to battle. So we've grown up, you and I have kind of grown up in a country and in a politics where basically you've got Labour's the main party on the left and the Tories are the main party on the right. You've now got, on the left, the Labour Party fighting for the same support with the Greens now with Corbyn in Wales, with Plyde in Scotland with the snp and on the right, Lib Dems, I'll say, and the Liberal Democrats. Sorry, we. Sorry. Yes, you're absolutely right. Rory, please. Ed Davey note it was Rory who got the little demons in this time. And then on the right, this battle between reform and the Tories, which right now the momentum seems to be with reform against the Tories, not least with this. This Danny Kruger defection. Let's just. Should we talk a little bit about. About them?

[Rory Stewart]

Yes, well, let's. Let's do that. Let's take a break and then I'd love us, after the break to come back to talk about reform and maybe also talk about the Tommy Robinson demonstrations. What's going on on the right in Britain. If that's okay. Let's take a quick break and come back.

[Alastair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

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[Alastair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

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[Alastair Campbell]

Welcome back to Rest Apologists from here.

[Rory Stewart]

Alistair Campbell and with me, Rory Stewart. Now, Alistair, the other thing that's been very central in the news in Britain over the last week has been this big demonstration in Trafalgar Square where Tommy Robinson managed to get 100, 130,000 people. And there's some very dramatic images of people all over Nelson's column and the lions and crowds up and down Whitehall. I think firstly, it's a lot of people and it's a lot of people behind somebody who is considered so right wing that Nigel Farage is distancing himself from it. He stood up there with Eric Zemour, who we've talked about, who's this far right French politician who really is well beyond the French. Again, he's sort of beyond Le Pen and he was talking about the great replacement by Muslims that we're being colonized by our former colonies. And then in the center of it all is Elon Musk is projecting on an enormous screen in Trafalgar Square. He's clearly increasingly close politically to Tommy Robinson. And he produced this extraordinary statement to this crowd of right wing, predominantly male, predominantly white British, working class people. Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. Fight back or die. What was your sense of what was.

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, I found that part of it absolutely repellent. And of course, Musk is a classic example of one of these super wealthy people who now has the platform X and has the politics to be very well placed to help somebody like Tommy Robinson exploit what Tommy Robinson is trying to achieve. And from. I think they've actually got different objectives. I think Musk's objective is to have chaos wherever it can be, to weaken democratic government so that he can absolutely be above any kind of of democratic or political control. And that's part of what he's about. The event itself was there's clearly a lot of money behind Robinson. And I shared with you a piece that I think was from the observer about this very, very wealthy American guy, shill man, who has partly been a funder of Robinson. They're tied in real name Stephen Yaxley. Lennon, just to remind people, never trust somebody who changes their name unless they're spies.

[Rory Stewart]

Even then maybe don't trust them.

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, it depends who they're working for. Rory. I was just on that. I once had a relationship with this guy who worked for one of the better known security services in the world. And he kept getting his business cards bottled up. He had about 11 different business cards in his wallet.

[Rory Stewart]

Anyway, just quickly on that, two quick things and then we'll go back to the more serious thing. One thing is again, I'm overly pluggin leading because I'm so proud of it. But one of the things that Sir Alex Younger points out, the former head of MI6, is how much that world has changed how technology and iris scanning and new digital records has completely changed that world. That there is no longer a world of traveling under false identities. All those things that you read about in the standard spy novel of somebody reaching in and having seven passports and doesn't work right. If I travel, some of it still goes on. If I try to travel now anywhere in the world with another passport and I land at their immigration and they do their iris scanning and their facial recognition suddenly alarms, I'm arrested. Right? So that's a big old change. The other thing.

[Alastair Campbell]

Oh, spine's not what it used to be. Make spying great again.

[Rory Stewart]

I say the other thing about this thing about names is very interesting because you have to train very, very hard to remember what your new name is. And one of the ways, famously, and I think people remember this from war films, that people get caught traditionally was with their signatures, particularly when you had to sign credit cards or when you sign, when you book into a hotel, because it's very difficult if you've signed your name 7,000 times remembering that today, you know, you're called Bob, Bob Wentworth instead of Alastair Campbell.

[Alastair Campbell]

Right, well, back to. Back to Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who now signs his name as Tommy Robinson.

[Rory Stewart]

Or does he?

[Alastair Campbell]

And, well, who knows? And there was also. There was a. You mentioned Zamor. There was a very far right Dutch guy there who was. Was up there and said, said, we're all Tommy Robinson now. There was a New Zealand guy there, far right guy, who basically said that burqa should be banned in the uk, mosques should all be shut down. So this was really heavily extreme stuff, just on the, on the sense of it, because I think the other thing that's going on, look, when we did the people's vote marches, we had up about a million. So that's a perspective. The biggest march against us in when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, there were two that spring to mind. One was the Iraq War and the other was the Countryside Alliance. If you're well organized, particularly in the modern age with social media and stuff, you know, it's not that hard to get big crowds together. However, I think people were genuinely taken aback that on a Saturday afternoon when there are five huge football derbies going on in London and that over 100,000 people turned out for that. Now, what we've seen since is a lot of commentary on the crowd, inevitably a lot of media focus on the violence, which was pretty horrible. There was a lot of policemen being attacked, police officers being attacked, quite a few ending up in hospital. Not that many arrests. I imagine that was a police strategy. Let's just get through the day. And then lots of journalists sort of going around saying, oh, well, they all had this to say and that to say they weren't all Tommy Robinson fans, they weren't all Nigel Farage fans. They just sort of feel that the country's being lost, I think, to turn out to a march, a rally that, you know, is being headed by a many times convicted far right thug. You're making a statement, I think, just by being there. So I don't think we should kind of, we should, we should forget that, however, that there are issues that are driving people to feel exasperated about the state of the country. That is also true in terms of.

[Rory Stewart]

Journalists and how we understand these issues. So Peter Carl had this phrase, you know, this is a klaxon call to wake up and focus on what that crowd was saying. Trevor Phillips in the Times said this was a crowd. And he walked around interviewing them, which was about three things. Stopping immigration, defending free speech, and reviving Christianity. And I just felt reading this, Come on, Trevor, let's go a level deeper and ask, what do you mean, what do you mean by reviving Christianity? It's not a hundred thousand theologians on the street.

[Alastair Campbell]

I'd love to know how many of them went to church on Sunday.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alastair Campbell]

Only with that many.

[Rory Stewart]

So what is happening when journalists are doing this? Is Trevor prepared to go the next line and say, okay, he said, this is a crown that's demonstrating to revive Christianity. What do we really mean here? And I guess what we mean is we don't like Muslims. It's not that these are religious believers.

[Alastair Campbell]

Correct, correct. And I think going back to this guy, this billionaire American, Robert Shulman, who funds a lot of this stuff and funds it around the world. He funded Charlie Kirk. He funded, at one point Katie Hopkins, who also spoke.

[Rory Stewart]

He funds Laura Loomer, Candace Owens, until she came out and said Israel was committing a genocide because there's a very, very strong country connection. And this was a great article, actually, I thought from the observer by John Simpson. Great piece of reporting. But what he points out is that there is this connection between Robert Shulman, something called the David Horowitz Freedom center.

[Alastair Campbell]

Pro Israel think tank type thing.

[Rory Stewart]

Exactly.

[Alastair Campbell]

Horowitz is now dead, I think, and.

[Rory Stewart]

Their story is that what they're fighting against. And this becomes more and more relevant when we talk about Charlie Kirk and the fight back around Charlie Kirk. They are fighting radical left and Islamists. And of course, that has a big application. Israel Gaza, where the radical left and the Islamists are considered to be the people who are making anti Semitic criticisms of Israel. But it also really spills into this story about the UK spelt Y double O K Y, which is now a big meme, which is in the vision of people on the west coast taken over by Islamists, where you're sent to jail if you criticize Sharia law. I had a friend over from Singapore yesterday who was saying to me, me, while my friends said, do be careful when you're in London, because all the social media stuff is giving this impression. It's gonna literally, you can't step out of your door without being rugged on my ed. So all of this stuff is driven, a lot of it, as you say, by international funding.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah. If you look at some of the people in the Trump circle. So this guy Shulman, according to John Simpson's piece. This is not John Simpson the BBC, by the way. This is John Simpson the Observer. Laura Loomer is another one. Well, she's now this kind of, you know, Trump whisperer. Inside the.

[Rory Stewart]

The Vilas and the Netherlands paid his legal fees. Middle east forum, again largely focused on Israel, paid for Tommy Robinson's stage outside the Old Bailey. So what is it that's making a fundamentally pro Israel movement fun? Tommy Robinson stage outside the Old Bailey.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah. And then you can also some of the. There's a lot of sort of football style chanting going on on the march. A lot of it about Keir Starmer, but also quite a lot of it about Israel, Palestine.

[Rory Stewart]

Can I ask you about the football stuff? I had a friend who was watching this and he said basically it reminded him of 1980s football matches and that it felt like it was fun for a lot of people. People were having a great day out. A lot of them were drunk. A lot of them were shouting stuff that they felt they're not allowed to shout in the football stands anymore. And they were having fun shouting this stuff. It seemed, the way he described it, it almost sounded like a pride march. Not in this case a gay pride march, but a kind of pride march for guys. Many of them probably not from very diverse mixed communities, many of them actually, paradoxically, from quite white communities coming in to demonstrate against multicultural. Did it have a feeling for you of a sort of 1980s football match?

[Alastair Campbell]

Oh, yeah. I think if you saw. If you saw the stuff with the police, it was absolutely classic. You're trying to get to the other side, your opponents. This is the anti fascist demonstration that was in Whitehall and the police are Stopping you and therefore the police become your enemy and you have a fight.

[Rory Stewart]

The other side traditionally was the other football team supporters.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah. And the police's job is to try and keep you apart. And that, that still goes on. I also think the other thing, a lot of, a lot of, you know, the, the old style football hooligans say that football has become much more sanitized. You can't get into a ruckus as you used to be able to. And the other thing which feeds into this sense of inequality in the world. We mentioned Clive Lewis last week, the Labour MP who wrote a very thoughtful piece about Angela Rayner's resignation. He had another one, I don't know if you saw. He wrote a piece on social media this week where he said that a friend of his that he went to school with who'd been on the march was telling him why. And I think he mentioned football, that football is now a game. Four billionaires played by millionaires. And so there's that sense of, you know, we've lost football now. I think it's, it's nonsense and it's overstated. You can still enjoy football, although not when Liverpool get a penalty against you in the 94th minute. Roy. That was pretty not enjoyable. Although I've got to say by the way, that this going into. I went to Burnley on, on Sunday and going through those. I got picked up at Preston with a friend and was driving through flags everywhere, flags everywhere and driving into Burnley there was a union flag on half mast on every single lamppost going down.

[Rory Stewart]

And apparently half mast because they can't climb to the top of the mast. It's not a, it's not designed as a half mast thing.

[Alastair Campbell]

Oh, I thought, I thought it was half mast as in we've lost our country.

[Rory Stewart]

There's this amazing, amazing conversations going on about. I mean as you say, it's a very interesting combination of spontaneous and non spontaneous article by Will Davis and I actually spoke to him at some point length yesterday is an amazing analyst of TikTok in particular who now teaches at Goldsmith and wrote a great article in the lrb. But he made a particular project of focusing on pro farage right wing TikTok media in Britain. And what he found is firstly TikTok as you know, is quite unlike other media because people don't use it. It's much more about video content creation. Something like 80% of people who like TikTok posts have created five or more videos themselves compared to 20% on other media. So it's very Easy to create video and people like it. So what you see if you end up getting yourself into these algorithms, it's very easy to get into these algorithms, is a sense of somebody sitting in their car, looking at their phone, saying, why is this country such an effing joke? And then somebody else walking through a wood, have you had enough? And someone else standing with their Greg's coffee, saying, guess how much I paid for this coffee? And someone else saying, why are we not in civil war? And it's a sense of despair, a sense that everything's too late, that Britain's gone to totally ruined, there's nothing to be done, cost of living's out of control, everything's a scam. And how come the government keeps saying there's no money when they're wasting all this money on asylum hotels and they're spending all this money on Ukraine and. And this matters. And this is quite sort of a long way round. But this feeds the Tommy Robinson thing, because it feeds this sense that you then get Tommy Robinson saying, a civil war is coming, or Robert Jenricks saying, Britain is like a tinderbox, or Nigel Farage saying, if you want to know how bad Britain is, have a look at your phone. And I'm intrigued by how social media is generating this image, both for the visitor from Singapore, for the person going on the demonstration.

[Alastair Campbell]

But it's all wrapped up, isn't it? Because the same people. And even though Trump is very nice to and about Keir Starmer, I mean, this is a guy who, ever since he became president first time round, has spread messages about crime in London and Sadiq Khan, that is all feeds into the same thing. And I think what you've got to be very careful here is understanding that your phone is not the real world. I mean, I'm very conscious of this. So that, you know, what does the algorithm send me the whole time? Lots of politics, lots of right wing stuff, lots of left wing stuff and lots of football. So we're all being fed this stuff. Musk knows that. Musk controls that. The thing that really leapt out at me from that article in the observer was the Israel stuff. And by the way, we should say to listeners, we'll talk about what's happening today, Tuesday in Gaza. We'll talk about that in Question Time, because it's pretty horrific. But so I think what we're seeing here is the consequence playing out of stuff that has been developing technologically, politically, socially, economically over the last sort of couple of decades. And what you've got is A political process and a political class that is still moving at the old pace. Trump is an exception. And the news and the endless kind of sense of being overwhelmed by bad stuff in the world is moving very, very quickly and leading to this. People being able to see in what is a great country. And this was the irony of the March Unite the Kingdom. Why can't you just be proud of your country whilst all the time saying how terrible everything is? There's a massive irony at the heart of it. But they.

[Rory Stewart]

And proud of the police while attacking them.

[Alastair Campbell]

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

Just on your point about social media, because it is politics is more and more about this. One problem that people like Will Davis who study this stuff have is that even they can't really understand how these algorithms work because TikTok won't release the nuts and bolts of it. But what they see is pretty disturbing. So an experiment was just done recently in Germany where people registered five new TikTok accounts and they followed each one of the major political parties and they watched five videos from those political parties and then just stepped back and let the for your feed generate content for them. 75% of the content they saw came from the AfD, the far right German party, despite the fact that four of them were supposed to be registering to support other parties. We still don't know why. Is it that AFD supporters generate more content, share more content, like more content? Or is the algorithm driving people towards far right content? But whatever the cause of it is, there's no doubt that the far right in that case is getting far more visibility than anyone else on social media.

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, I think it's both of those things. It's the content and the algorithm. This is not just uk. I'm reading this book. I think even you can work out.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, yeah, it's let's chance.

[Alastair Campbell]

Right. The last chance and the. The new Chancellor and the fight for democracy. And there's a picture of Merz and Trump and Vidal, the leader of the AfD. And this is a guy, Robin Alexander, who's a really well known kind of political journalist and thinker. So this is not just the uk.

[Rory Stewart]

Now, can I do a transition from this to Danny Kruger, which is just to finish off this episode. So Danny Kruger is a Conservative MP who has now he was defected to Reform, saying Farage is the best hope, the last hope of conservatism. Now I'm really intrigued by this. I've known Danny Kruger, he was at school with me, so I've known him.

[Alastair Campbell]

Eton, another bloody old Etonian. Enters our political landscape and known him.

[Rory Stewart]

Since he was 13. And he's a really interesting figure, a little bit like Jacob Rees Mogg, because he's very, very courteous, very polite. Makes a great deal of the fact that he's very serious about religion. He spent years volun volunteering and supporting prisons, charities. And he gets a very easy ride, actually, from left wing journalists.

[Alastair Campbell]

I was very struck because he doesn't fit the caricature.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, I was very struck, for example, that journalists who would have a real go at people like you and me, kind of centrists, are extremely deferential towards him because he's considered to be sort of authentic, not hypocritical. And they get very impressed by the fact that a bit like Jacob Rees Mogg, he can use long words, he, you know, know, quotes Roger scruton and Alasdair MacIntyre and talks about Greek gods and things. So you can see these actually surprisingly sort of positive profiles being written. And they seem. As a great intellectual leader, I though have always been very aware that along with all these positive qualities, and this is true of Jacob Rees Mogg too, there is something very, very disturbing for me, which is firstly, the right wing views and secondly, the way that those right wing views then drag them away from stuff which, which if you say it quickly, I sort of sympathise with tradition, conservatism, the church, the countryside quite quickly becomes, oh, and by the way, I'm going to be Boris Johnson's parliamentary secretary. Yeah, parliamentary secretary. I'm going to support Nigel Farage, which is the journey that Kruger has been on. And I saw it first myself with him 2019, when I was running for the leadership, we were having these conversations about community, society, communitarianism. And next thing I noticed, he's picking up the phone to me saying, I'm very sorry, Rory, but because you have voted against Boris Johnson's hard Brexit deal, we are expelling you from the party. Stripping away. And we're very sorry about it because we thought you would be a great, you know, intellectual leader of communist.

[Alastair Campbell]

Tony, you were fired by Danny Kruger?

[Rory Stewart]

Pretty much, yeah. Boris Johnson did not call me. It was Danny Krueger.

[Alastair Campbell]

Danny Krueger fired you?

[Rory Stewart]

I mean, it's a pretty humiliating.

[Alastair Campbell]

I think we need to get a new podcast party here. This is, is. This is so low rent.

[Rory Stewart]

It's so low rent. And, and when I tried to talk to him, I mean, maybe I'm making too much this, but when I tried to talk to him about what he was saying, what he's essentially saying was that he was going to work to turn the local party against me. He'd been calling my party chairman in Penrith and the Border to tell him. And my party chairman, to be fair, very bravely stood up for me and said, bog off. You know, we like Rory Stewart, we're sticking with. At which point some very complicated shenanigans went on to try to find other people in my local committee to de slight me. And that was run by Danny Kruger. So my sense was, Danny, what happened to all this sort of noble, high minded friendship, loyalty, belief? Now you are conspiring with Boris Johnson in a pretty peculiar way to do all this.

[Alastair Campbell]

And that was already a journey, wasn't it? Because he started out as a sort of cameroon, didn't he?

[Rory Stewart]

Started out as Cameron's speechwriter. He. Yep.

[Alastair Campbell]

Then he goes to. What was he under Theresa May?

[Rory Stewart]

Well, he wasn't really going anywhere in Charleston.

[Alastair Campbell]

And then Johnson is BPS and then.

[Rory Stewart]

Becomes very close to Johnson. And again I couldn't understand it because how do you. It's again the question with the Christian right and Trump, how on earth do you make this whole deal out of honor, rectitude, social morality and all this stuff and get behind Boris Johnson and say he's the guy that's going to lead the country in turning things around and now behind Farage. So, so I'll finish this just by saying this is the thing that is so disturbing and troubling about the right. And I'm afraid it's true of political commentators too. You know, Douglas Murray would be a big example. Sometimes I worry about this with David Goodhart, that they get on a journey where they begin by saying perfectly reasonable things which are wrong with Britain and modern society and end up being pulled into a whole universe of stuff, stuff which is anti democratic. You know, Farage, let's be honest, Farage has now announced that he is going to deport 600,000 people out of the United Kingdom in complete contravention of UK law, international law, any kind of treaty. And Danny Kruger's just endorsed him.

[Alastair Campbell]

And this Christianity thing is fascinating because, I mean, I don't know whether Danny Krueger is one of those people who went to church on Sunday. And of course Christianity isn't just defined by going to church. Somebody sent me this. I don't know who this guy is. He's called Rain Wilson. I think he's American. He did a very interesting post, the Metamorphosis of Jesus Christ from Humble Servant of the abject poor to a symbol that stands for gun rights, prosperity, theology, anti science, limited government that neglects the destitute. And fierce nationalism is truly the strangest transformation in human history. And of course, we've seen this on the back of the, of the Charlie Kirk assassination, which is horrible on so many levels, but the way that it's now been weaponized so that unless you're out saying it is absolutely right that we bow down before everything Charlie Kirk ever said and did and we lower the flags, then somehow you're just a really, really bad person. And, you know, Trump was asked yesterday about the Democrat politician who was, who was shot and why weren't the flags lowered for her. He didn't know what the person was talking about. So who are you talking about? He gave him the name and he said, oh, the governor never asked for that. It's like, all left is bad, all right is good, all right is Christian, all left is somehow heathen.

[Rory Stewart]

We should return to this and maybe finish with this. But Stephen Miller, who is Trump's real dark art specialist, his real ideologue, his deputy chief staff of policy, has now gone on what used to be Charlie Kirk's podcast and said, this is the moment where we will unleash against this far left terrorist conspiracy in the United States and they better be ready. We're going to deploy the entire organs of the state to go after these people. Now, why have we got to return to this? What is this? What is this far left terrorist conspiracy? Right. We don't know very much about him yet. He might well be an extremely disturbed young man.

[Alastair Campbell]

On the killer.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, the killer. The killer might well be an extremely disturbed young man who's been on far right websites before he went to the far left, might have been the kind of person who in another context could have done school shootings and who's now been his ego and his brain has got involved in making this sort of public political assassination. But the idea that that means that suddenly the entire forces of the state are going to be unleashed on this completely undefined, vague, far left terrorist conspiracy. And what does that mean when someone goes to the United States and gets arrested at the airport, is that part of going after the terrorist conspiracy? When you shut down demonstrations at university, is that also about protecting the Charlie Kirks of the future? When you go after Democratic Party politicians, is that when you shut down newspapers? Because once you have a completely ill defined conspiracy and a moment like, like that, that is often where the fascists take all their strength. That's what the 1930s was all about. You find a moment. The Reichstag's being burnt down. Now we have to go after this huge conspiracy that's behind the burning of the Reichstag.

[Alastair Campbell]

And if you saw Stephen Miller the other day on the back of the Charlie Kirk thing, for example, saying his last message talked to me was, we've got to take on these evil forces of the left. Well, yeah, was it really? And then you have Trump yesterday saying he's suing the New York Times because they were against. Against him in the election. You have him making increasingly authoritarian statements. You have somebody, a group of people the other day getting up a restaurant, start shouting at Trump. They say, free DC Free Palestine. Trump is the Nazi of our Hitler of our time. He says yesterday they should be in jail. I'm talking to Pam Bondi about it. So it's shutting down any force of criticism. And of course, what's so difficult to come back to the main the statistics of the podcast for Keir Starmer right now. I mean, there's going to be a demonstration tomorrow, Wednesday, I think it is, because a lot of British people feel deeply uneasy at the fact that Trump is here and the king is being wheeled out. You know, show him how seriously we take him, et cetera. Now, on the one hand we have to do that, but on the other hand, it doesn't mean that he's not deeply unpopular. Final thing, Rory, which we should put in the newsletter. Very interesting piece in positive news. We're always getting told we don't have enough positive views, but it was an interview with a guy who was in the far right for a couple of decades, Combat 18 and who's now come out and is sort of going around the place trying to sort of de radicalize. But, you know, so there is. It is possible to get into the rabbit hole. This is a guy who's managed to get out.

[Rory Stewart]

Very, very final point for me. Then also the Americanization of British politics. Somebody pointed out to me that actually half my friends at the BBC hadn't even heard of Charlie Kirk last week. And suddenly now he. He's absolutely the center of the news. Everybody's carrying big signs. It's true that many people under 30 knew about Charlie Kirk because he didn't count him on TikTok. But it is really, really interesting how pretty well informed people suddenly have to talk as though they've always known who Charlie Kirk was when in fact, half my friends at the BBC were calling me up saying, can you tell me who he is? Had you ever heard of him?

[Alastair Campbell]

So question time tomorrow we're going to talk about Gaza, about Nepal, if we've got time, we'll talk about Russia, Poland. And we're also going to come back, as we said we would, to the subject of rape, because this week is freshers week at universities and we've had a lot of questions about it.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, thank you, Anastasia. Look forward to speaking to you very soon.