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- [00:01]
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 this episode is powered by Fuse Energy.
- [00:15]
Rory Stewart
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Alastair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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Alastair Campbell
That's less time than it takes for a referee to give a dodgy penalty for Liverpool against Burnley and with a far better outcome.
- [00:44]
Rory Stewart
So add it to the back to school list. Do it before the heating goes on, before the Christmas bills arrive, and unlike most deadlines in politics, this one won't move.
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Alastair Campbell
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- [00:59]
Rory Stewart
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- [01:02]
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- [02:10]
Rory Stewart
Hi, it's Rory. Before we start the show, we just wanted to let you know that this is an episode which contains discussion of suicide, rape and sexual violence.
- [02:20]
Alastair Campbell
Welcome to the rescue. Apologies, Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.
- [02:23]
Rory Stewart
And with me Rory Stewart and Our first question is from Denise Williams. The UN's just confirmed that Israel's committing genocide in Gaza. Israel's already denied this, calling it distorted and false. What's the point of these UN inquiries? And how does this all work given that Israel has now just launched its major military operation into Gaza?
- [02:44]
Alastair Campbell
Well, there's a lot to unbundle in that. I mean, I think the un, I mean, you've said many times, Antonio Guterres, the head of the un, has been declared Persona non grata. The line now on any criticism of anything the Israeli government does, seems to me to be this is anti Semitic and you are all proxies for Hamas, no matter who or what is doing the saying. But I think, and ultimately the judgment as to whether it's genocide will be a matter for an international court further down the track. So I think this is probably the United nations putting down a marker. They, I think they had their top investigative team on it. Others are basically saying even if they don't go as far as genocide, they think that multiple war crimes have been and continue to be committed. And of course, as you say, it's happening on the day when you're seeing this. They've been talking about it for some time, but absolute move against Gaza City. Hundreds of thousands of people on the move again.
- [03:51]
Rory Stewart
And basically the biggest operation I think we've seen for a very long time now. I mean, this is now divisions of troops moving in. These are tens of thousands of Israeli troops moving in. This is potentially moving just under a million people out of Gaza City. So this is huge. This is probably the biggest operation they've put together in 18 months. This is since shortly after the October 7th attack. So this is a massive escalation. And of course, the Israeli chief of the army staff argued that it was a waste of time, it made no strategic sense. So the military is doing it basically reluctantly because they're under orders to do it without really believing they're going to be able to win the war in this way. And that this whole idea that Netanyahu keeps selling to the world and that he seems to have sold to Marco Rubio, who's just been in Israel, that they can win the war once and for all by continuing these operations. The army doubts, and I think most mainstream political opinion, security opinion in Israel now doubts that you can win a war, even if they're very supportive of Israel, very, very anti Hamas. This idea that there is a victory that you can get, that you can somehow eliminate every last person, end the thing. Very few People seem to believe outside Netanyahu's cabinet.
- [05:03]
Alastair Campbell
And there were people outside Netanyahu's house last night or where Netanyahu lives, protesting on behalf of the remaining living hostages, because they basically say that they are now really at risk. Because what's happened is that right through this thing, we've had the Israelis taking military action on this target, that target, this target, that target, and always saying that this was because there was a Hamas this or a Hamas that. What they've been doing in recent days is raising residential blocks to the ground and saying, this is where Hamas intelligence was run. This is where Hamas, this outfit was run. And the limited remaining number of journalists who are on the ground and who are not dead are interviewing people coming out of these buildings, some of them who've already moved several times. I mean, they could be Hamas, but they can't all be Hamas. And what they're doing. The trouble is, I think that they're radicalizing a new generation in a way that ultimately is going to damage Israel.
- [06:07]
Rory Stewart
I had a long conversation with an Israeli friend who came to see me very, very hurt, listening to the podcast, because he feels that we're not talking enough about how evil Hamas is. We're not talking enough about Hamas using civilians as human shields. He feels that we are not acknowledging the trauma of Israelis. And he was asking me, what can an Israeli government do to improve its reputation in the world? And I was saying what I increasingly feel, which is that it's so difficult now to defend. I mean, I said to him, you know, why are you not allowing international journalists in? And he said, well, because, frankly, we believe international journalists would just buy the Hamas lines. To which my response was, it cannot go any worse. Literally, can't go any worse. Because nobody now believes your spokesman, because you're saying this was a Hamas thing, and it turns out there's a shallow grave, and ambulance men have been killed and put in a shallow grave, and you're saying these are Hamas fighters, so you can't. And then he went on to say that the. To defend the attack on Qatar that we covered last week, saying, well, what do you expect? This is just the same as the Americans killing Osama bin Laden. And again, I said, it's nothing like the Americans killing Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden was the most famous terrorist in the world who they had been killed chasing for 15 years, and they'd been working with the Pakistan ISI in order to catch him. And in this case, who can even name who these Hamas leaders were that they were trying to kill. And what was the purpose? And again, he said, well, there were two reasons we did it. Number one, because we believe that negotiations are a complete waste of time. Hamas is not serious about peace deals and negotiations, so we might as well kill them anyway. And number two, it will encourage them to negotiate. And again, I was saying. But these two arguments don't hold together. And in the process, and my final point, they are alienating. Now, uae, for example, so the United Arab Emirates was the only Arab country that's been pretty supportive under the surface of what Israel's doing. It's signed the Abraham Accords with them, it's tried to make all these trade deals by attacking Qatar. You had an immediate, not just a statement, but you had Mohammed bin Zayed MBZ from UAE flying directly to Doha to embrace the Katari emir who had been his adversary not very long ago. The whole Gulf now thinking, whoa, who's next? We thought we were countries which were strong allies of the us we have had cordial relationships with the Israelis. We've been hosting negotiations between Israel and Hamas, and now you're firing missiles into our territory. Why can the Israeli government not see that this is so provocative, so unnecessary, achieves nothing tactically? I mean, what, I mean, how does Netanyahu even think about the cost benefit analysis of what they were doing in Canada? What do you hope to achieve given all that he loses in terms of international reputation, international support?
- [09:07]
Alastair Campbell
I mean, look, I think he went well past worrying about that some time ago, other than as it relates to the United States. And of course, what you saw with the Marco Rubio visit was almost like a kind of. I mean, at time it looked like the two of them were on holiday together. They're going to visit this and visit that, and all very friendly and so forth. And of course, he thinks that. He basically thinks that Trump is never going to haul him in, which is.
- [09:35]
Rory Stewart
Correct, and that's true. Which is what Putin thinks, too. I mean, the two countries that seem to have complete immunity at the moment are Russia and Israel. As far as the US is concerned, they are their two unbreakable allies. Anyone else? Canada, Mexico, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia.
- [09:54]
Alastair Campbell
Poor old Albo Albanese can't even get in to see Trump, whereas Netanyahu, seven.
- [09:59]
Rory Stewart
Months in, still hasn't had a meeting.
- [10:02]
Alastair Campbell
And then the other thing we had James Elder from UNICEF on leading recently. And I had a series of meetings this week with people in the United nations, the World Food Program, and they were echoing what James said that they have never, ever, ever seen anything quite as bad and quite as difficult as Gaza. When there was the ceasefire, they were able to get, I mean, the stat, we'll put the stats in the newsletter, but they were able to get a lot of people fed. But since then, it is being made more and more difficult, verging on impossible. Added to which, when they do get stuff in, unsurprisingly, their lorries, their trucks are being attacked, and essentially it's young men now are about the only people who are fit enough, healthy enough to get in there and actually take this stuff off. And I thought the other really interesting thing in the United nations report was that to their eyes, they've decided in the terms of the 1948 genocide conviction. Genocide is being committed in Gaza, other war crimes are being committed. And they basically say they, the rest of the international community, they were pointing out this clause that is about other countries being complicit if they do not do everything they can to prevent a genocide. And so this is something that's going to play out in the history of the Middle east probably for decades to come now. So your friend who's saying, what can they do to get a better standing in the world, to stop themselves being seen, frankly, as a pariah state now by quite a lot of people and quite a lot of other governments, they've got to change the way they're operating. But of course, Netanyahu, politically, I don't think feels he can because he's got these two monsters, Ben, Galileo.
- [11:48]
Rory Stewart
And it's not enough, I'm afraid, to change the way they're operating. A new prime minister coming in would also have to have a reckoning with what they've done wrong. And one of the things that you get a sense of in Israeli politics is nobody would be prepared to step up and say, we got this wrong, we apologize for what we've done, we acknowledge that we committed crimes. All they're offering is, well, we might stop doing it in the future, but if there's no real internal reckoning with what's happened, it's going to be very difficult to move on.
- [12:14]
Alastair Campbell
So just to go back to the point I made there during the pause in the fighting, the World Food Program and others, they got in 70,000 metric tons of aid, fed 1.3 million people, helped bakeries produce 3 million loads of bread every day, and distributed 12.5 million hot meals across 60 community kitchens. That's what they can do when they are able to operate properly. And so since the blockade between March May 2025. That is what has led to the malnutrition. And as we said before, when we're talking to James and before that, once you're into that process of malnutrition, then even getting the food in does not necessarily prevent you from dying.
- [12:58]
Rory Stewart
Okay, now we've had a lot of questions about what I think is probably the biggest news story almost of the last few months, which is Nepal, where there has been basically a revolution. So, Abe Ridle, can you cover what's happened in Nepal? Aksh explainer please, on what's happening in Nepal with these Gen Z protests. Will Hooky, can you talk about the Gen Z or Gen Z revolution in Nepal? So Nepal, Himalayan country, 30 million people, predominantly Hindus, stuck there between India and Chinese Tibet. And it's a country which I know reasonably well. I walked across Nepal in 2000, 2001 and what I saw then was a Maoist insurgency. I was being stopped all the time by often 12, 13 year old boys with automatic weapons at checkpoints. I was on my way to visit another man who'd been at school with me called Prince Dipendra of Nepal. And I was going to go and stay with him and before I turned up, he tied a bandana around his head and shot his father, his mother, his brother, and then himself was briefly crowned king while he lay in a coma for a few hours before he died.
- [14:20]
Alastair Campbell
He was at school with you? Yeah, and Danny Kruger.
- [14:23]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, he was in the karate team with me. Yeah, that was how I knew him. Yeah. He was quite violent, I felt, when we were in the karate team together, but I had no idea that he was actually going to turn into a. It was very strange. So this basically this semi absolute monarchy in Nepal, bit variation, it got a bit more constitutional towards the end, was brought down essentially in a mass shooting by the Crown Prince who and what.
- [14:45]
Alastair Campbell
Was his political motivation?
- [14:46]
Rory Stewart
He seems to have been affronted by his father getting involved in who he could marry and who he couldn't marry.
- [14:51]
Alastair Campbell
So it wasn't a desire to bring down the constitution, I guess. You don't know.
- [14:56]
Rory Stewart
It seems to have been a. Seems to have been completely losing his temple with his own family and just killing his whole family and then trying to kill himself at the end of it.
- [15:05]
Alastair Campbell
And how long before the, when did the transition to some sort of democracy take place? Right.
- [15:10]
Rory Stewart
So very not long after his uncle then took over, his uncle was then toppled and then by the time I was a minister, I was visiting in Nepal that had had a series of governments, some of Them from the Maoist Party, some of them from Congress, some of them from the Communist Party. And I went to see, for example, Prachandra, who'd been one of the great Maoist leaders who'd become the Prime Minister. And since then, these prime ministers cycled in and out. They've often done three in one case, four terms for a year or so at a time. And this began to develop a very strong idea in Nepal that the whole country, despite these elections, despite getting rid of the king, was run by this completely out of touch political elite which then started this Gen Z, Gen Z protest. So this for people who aren't following their generations, I think is people born after 1997. So these are people in their teens or late 20s, up to their late 20s, got out on the streets. And they originally started with a campaign against what they called Nepo babies or Nepo kids. And they particularly images all over social media of children of the ruling elite, particularly the foreign minister's daughter's wedding and standing with Mercedes and things. And it's a very poor country still a very, very poor country. GDP per capita, maybe $1,400 a year. Most of the money coming to the country. 30% of the GDP is remittances. People leaving Nepal. 750,000 people left Nepal last year to go work.
- [16:44]
Alastair Campbell
Which presumably is why when what Robert Generic ludicrously calls the tinderbox here, the tinderbox there in part was fired because they, the government, the government stopped Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and presumably this, the remittance people, that is the way that they keep in contact with their families.
- [17:06]
Rory Stewart
That's a very big thing. Exactly. There were two problems. One of them was, was the government shut down these social media platforms because they wouldn't pay digital tax, they wouldn't register with the government. So they were trying to show control over these global media platforms. But the pushback didn't come from the global media platforms, but for ordinary people for two reasons. One of them is, as you say, WhatsApp is the way you communicate with your relatives. Secondly, also because people felt freedom of speech was being stopped. So then the next stage, and this is when we were beginning to record last week. So on Monday, last week, you began the 8th of September, you began to see crowds of young, quite idealistic demonstrators getting into the street arguing for freedom of speech and human rights. That then rapidly got out of control. And this is something that I think you will be aware of. I remember very much being with demonstrations in the streets in indonesia back in the 90s, how quickly. What starts as idealistic student demonstrations, suddenly people with masks on, motorbikes start ramming police bricks barricades. And they began breaking through the barricades and they set fire to an astonishing range of things. They set fire to the Prime Minister's house, to the parliament, to the Supreme Court, to hotels with people in them, with people in. To banks. They attacked cars and torched the cars. They, they beat up ministers at which point the police deploy and the police then start with tear gas and then with plastic bullets and then start firing live rounds. And so more than a dozen people are killed. And now the demonstration becomes we're fighting for our martyrs against the killing. And within 48 hours, the prime Minister, who'd initially said these are young Gen Z people who don't know what they're talking about, had resigned.
- [18:43]
Alastair Campbell
And the Gen Z protesters, they were part of the discussion that then led to the appointment of a new prime minister for now, with their approval. So they absolutely went then as part of the decision making process. So that's why when you say it's a revolution, that's kind of. That is the wheel turning.
- [19:03]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. And it's a revolution. A very Gen Z revolution. So they've chosen Sushilo Kharki, who's the ex Supreme Court justice, who comes from a very political family. Her husband famously hijacked a Nepali plane in 1973 to steal the money that was on it. And she was chosen through, partly through the Discord app that we use with members. So it's this extraordinary sort of digital engagement platform led to the selection of her. The other thing that.
- [19:36]
Alastair Campbell
Can't believe you didn't, didn't weave in a plug of the Tim Berners Lee episode. I mean, it was absolutely wide open for it, Rory. And you just, you know, and I.
- [19:45]
Rory Stewart
Missed, I missed the thing. Well, the, the other thing that you'll be very, very aware of is of course they were, they were. The Gen Z protesters were carrying pirate flags, Jolly Roger flags from the Japanese anime series One Piece, which you'll be very familiar with, the great best selling on. Now, I'm making a joke there, but this is quite serious because in fact it shows how protest is becoming globalized amongst young people. People say, you know, what on earth binds together? Indonesia, where we've had these protests with a big Muslim country in Southeast Asia, with Nepal, this Himalayan Hindu state. Well, it's one piece. In both cases you have Gen Z protesters carrying Jolly Roger signs, pirates against a corrupt government.
- [20:28]
Alastair Campbell
I read an amazing piece in One of the American papers about the burns. I mean, burning is quite a big theme in this and I think historically through protests has been setting fire to houses, setting fire to people, and they're really, really short on burn specialists. And there was this piece inside this burns unit which was absolutely horrible reading what had happened to some of the people who were burned. And there's an account in one of the. I read an account of, I think it was one of the former prime ministers or former ministers whose house was set on fire and if his family just tried to get ever higher within the building and I think one of them ended up with life threatening burns. What do you think the broader implications are? You said it's the most significant thing to have happened in the last few days. What's the, what's the India, China context and how does that play out? Are they trying to calm things down? What's their role?
- [21:17]
Rory Stewart
They'll be very worried. I mean, usually when something like this happens, driven by social media, conspiracy theories develop and people ask, is this in China's interest? It's definitely not in China's interest. China and India had come to understandings with these governments and the last thing they want is complete chaos. Unknown. So student protests, toppling, releasing 12,500 prisoners who've now escaped. But the reason I really thought it was significant is that it's a pattern with Bangladesh, which we covered almost exactly a year ago, and Sri Lanka, which we covered just over two years ago in each case. And these are all South Asian countries around the edge of India. These are the only examples I can think of in the last 15 years where you've had these sort of street demonstrations, toppling governments on allegations of corruption, the leaders fleeing their houses being ransacked. This is quite unlike what's happening in Europe or Latin America or Africa. Right. Africa, there's been military coups, Latin America governments have come down, but we've never seen anything like this. And it's that funny moment that we talked about with Bangladesh a year ago, where the security services initially protect the government, stop people from looting, and then when they flip, and particularly when the army flips and says we can't support you anymore, the army then creates these caretaker governments that come in. And I suppose this is something interesting about democracy. These are all theoretically democracies. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Sri Lanka much more than the others, very deep democracy. All of them have actually been growing reasonably strongly. You know, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, doing better economically obviously than Nepal. And all of them a sense of this fragility of countries from lower income to almost, you know, upper middle income countries, which haven't quite got to that stage of wealthy, mature democracies aren't in the state of, you know, poor autocracies, but where social media has become a tinderbox, which is why people are talking about, you know, a South Asian spring, a little bit like an Arab Spring. So it's a phenomenon, it's a thing.
- [23:26]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. And I think, I think, you know, one of the, this relates to what we're talking about yesterday with the uk. The social media, there's no doubt, is making government within democracies a lot harder possibly than it, than it used to be. My, I don't, I've never been to Nepal. And my only real link with it, a friend of mine, Peter Chittick, who's a Canadian entrepreneur and he founded this charity called Stay at School in Nepal, which Fiona and I have supported in the past. And it's, it's a wonderful charity. They go right out to the most remote areas in Nepal and they're trying to keep children in school. So, anyway, check that out. Good people. Right. We got a lot of questions about Russia. Kate is a Trip plus member from Poland. Considering that the Polish government sees the recent drone attack as intentional and several figures have called it an act of war, what action would Russia have to undertake for NATO to consider itself at war with Moscow? And how can the alliance ensure that one day Russia will not be a threat? And this is something we've talked about before, this line that, you know, we don't know if Donald Trump is a Russian asset, but if he was, it's hard to see what different he would have done. I mean, Trump's response to this was just extraordinary. It was like, I'm not happy with it, but it was probably a mistake. When you look at the map of where these drones were going and the extent to which the Poles, with the help of the Dutch and others, were sort of bringing them down, very, very hard to see that it's, that it's a mistake. And then you had the same in Romania. And I think the obvious thing is that this is Putin testing NATO and he'll be looking at this and thinking, well, they didn't pass that test very well.
- [25:06]
Rory Stewart
This is a return to the conversation around Qatar. So if you're one of America's allies and somebody does something to you, Trump's tendency is to say, well, I'm not very happy with this, but he never follows through. So if you're Qatar, you're Sitting there.
- [25:21]
Alastair Campbell
Well, hold on a minute. What do you mean by allies? I mean, like, do you include, Is Canada an ally? Is Denmark an ally?
- [25:26]
Rory Stewart
Right, right, right, right.
- [25:27]
Alastair Campbell
So you mean the new allies. You mean the Russia, Israel.
- [25:29]
Rory Stewart
No, no, no. I meant it the other way around. I meant if you're, if you're Europe, old Europe, or you're Qatar and you get attacked by Russia or Israel and you think because you're Europe or Qatar, you're an American ally, what happens as Trump will say, well, I'm not very happy with this. Qatar would have been expecting much more. Right. They would have been expecting Rubio to demonstrate in his trip to Israel the anger. Poland would have been expecting Trump to really speak out. And then that flips it around to your point, which is what is it that then leads Netanyahu or Putin to really push the envelope to do increasingly provocative things? You would have thought if you were Putin that there's not much to be gained. I mean, he's got Trump where he wants him. Why poke the bear? Why take the risk? They all want to prove now they can do anything. They want to prove they have total immunity and there's nothing that can stop them doing it.
- [26:17]
Alastair Campbell
And the other thing related to the drones is that some of them came from Belarus. And what did he do last week in relation to Belarus? Lifted sanctions on the Belarus airline Belavia.
- [26:29]
Rory Stewart
This is also the extraordinary media manipulation that Trump brings in to bear. Now, he's now running a story which is being loyally reported by some of the British press, as though it makes sense that he's done enough on Putin and Russia and sanctions, and it's time for Europe to step up. You know, we now need to impose 100% tariffs against China, incidentally, which would shatter the European economies. Right. The European economies are exposed to China in a way the US Is not remotely. He. Trump hasn't done it. Right. He, Trump backed down. You remember, he blinked on China, dropped the tariffs down, but he's telling US to put 100% tariffs on China.
- [27:09]
Alastair Campbell
He's cut knowing that we won't.
- [27:11]
Rory Stewart
He's cut the funding for the Baltic. He's signaled that he's cutting all support for Ukraine funding, he's cutting support for NATO. He's making us spend 5% of GDP. He's making a step up in all these ways. And then his story, which is being reported in British newspaper, is, I, Trump, have done enough. It's time for Europe to step up and do 100% sanctions.
- [27:34]
Alastair Campbell
We talked last week about the way that Some of this is framed by our media. So the truth post social that you're referring to, essentially the headline in most of our media was Trump threatens Putin with sanctions. Read on. As you say. And the big if is provided that Europe puts these 50 to 100% sanctions on China, which, as you say, is not going to happen. Where he's got a point, by the way, is I think that Europe has talked a better game than it's delivered in, maybe weaning itself off all of the Russian energy stuff. Yep, he's got a point on that. Where he doesn't have a point, frankly, is in saying that he has ever really pushed the envelope back. You talk about how far can Putin pushed the envelope. He's never really pushed it back. And all of the big threats that he made at the Alaska summit, the trilateral, that was going to happen, this is my warning to Putin. He's got 50 days and then it was 12 days and so forth. I think if you step back from.
- [28:34]
Rory Stewart
His rhetoric and look at his actions since he's taken office, every single month he has done something which has strengthened Putin and weakened Ukraine and weakened NATO. Every action he's taken, and forget his words, every action he's taken has cut American funding, cut American support, cut American deterrence for Europe and Ukraine and strengthened Putin and Belarus. And then he's saying, I've done enough. I mean, it's completely mad. I mean, it would be like I do less and less and less and less and less and less and then say, I'm doing so much. It's time you stepped up.
- [29:10]
Alastair Campbell
But this is kind of industrial scale gaslighting. We're seeing the same on the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination, where, you know, this violence is all on the left, when if you just look at all of the data that is not true. What do you think, just finally before we go to the break, what do you think of Channel 4? Channel 4 are doing this program while Donald Trump is here on his state visit. They're going to be broadcasting this program debunking over what they call 100 lies from Trump.
- [29:41]
Rory Stewart
It's so great. And look, I wish any of us had a brain big enough to be able to remember all the things that Trump's done off the top of my head. Betrayed Ukraine, completely failed in Gaza, interfered in Brazilian politics by trying to put 50% tariffs to get his mate Bolsonaro out of jail, destroying the world trading system with completely unequal tariffs, weakening his closest allies, cutting usaid, sending the National Guard into Los Angeles, hitting the American universities, arresting his political opponents.
- [30:17]
Alastair Campbell
Absolute clampdown on free speech. That's the other thing, the great irony. They are absolutely clamped down on speech, whether it's the people in the restaurant who should be in jail, he says, or it's the newspapers that shouldn't exist because, because he doesn't like them.
- [30:28]
Rory Stewart
And that's before we get onto RFK vaccine denial, shutting down all the data that seems to suggest there's anything wrong with the American economy. Meanwhile, employment figures are dropping off in the US People are very uncertain about where this is going. And the story that we keep hearing from businesses is, oh, he's a good guy, really. You know, his, his, you know, his bark's worse than his bite. We can be confident stock market's doing.
- [30:52]
Alastair Campbell
Well, bond markets, although I see, I see that Sadiq Khan has put out a thing today about the, the continuing record rise in Americans applying to live in London.
- [31:02]
Rory Stewart
Oh, that's good. Well, final one for me is a little shout out to a sort of unusual figure, Max Hastings, who's very much kind of a figure of the right and editor of right wing newspapers, who wrote an article explaining why he in his rather tweedy way is joining the anti Trump protests, saying he's a bit embarrassed because he's going to be there with Diane Abbott and the rest. But his basic point is that he understands why the government is hosting. But what he cannot believe is that we are hosting somebody not out of, in the way that we would have done with US presence in the past, out of some lingering affection or trust, but simply out of fear for the consequences if we don't. What's he going to do to us on tariffs? What's he going to do to us on Ukraine? What Ursula van der Leyen calls his weaponizing of dependencies.
- [31:48]
Alastair Campbell
Very good. Take a break. This episode is brought to you by the Week magazine.
- [31:56]
Rory Stewart
And I think all of us get a bit of a sense nowadays that we are just completely saturated in news and knee jerk headlines and click bait and generally you end up going down horrible rabbit holes with much more heat than light. So the 10 minutes and you're kind of wound up, but not much wiser.
- [32:14]
Alastair Campbell
The Week helps you change all that. Award winning editors cutting through the clamor of noise, competing to be loudest. What's left is a weekly digest that's been balanced, curated, genuinely useful and it's great.
- [32:26]
Rory Stewart
They're bringing together excerpts from the very smartest reporting and analysis from left, right and centre, different perspectives. One thoughtful conversation turns down the volume without dimming the light. No sermons, no spin leaves you with.
- [32:40]
Alastair Campbell
Context, clarity and a sharper idea of what's happening. And unlike most headlines, the insight lasts a little bit longer than the outrage.
- [32:47]
Rory Stewart
So I love the week as I think you do too, because it gives you the stories that matter. And as a magazine with your morning coffee or the app, as you move through the day, enjoy getting the time back and going a little less loopy on social media and focus on the things you genuinely value.
- [33:02]
Alastair Campbell
Visit theweek.com Tripp and enter the code politics to claim your six week free trial. Then keep saving 10% on all subscriptions.
- [33:12]
Rory Stewart
That's the week.com Tripp Codepolitics Olivia loves a challenge. It's why she lifts heavy weights and likes complicated recipes. But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way. With Expedia, she bundled her flight with a hotel to save more. Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower. You were made to take the easy route. We were made to easily package your trip. Expedia made to travel flight inclusive packages are ator protected. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info and if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year@lifelock.com terms apply. Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.
- [34:24]
Alastair Campbell
And me, Alistair Campbell. Carmen Flint. My daughter is starting university this week and having read just how high sexual violence rates are during the first few months at university, I'm understandably concerned. We like to think so much has changed, but has it really given so many women and girls feel so vulnerable? Awareness is a positive step. If you want to end rape, we need actionable solutions. What should the government be doing? We talked about this a few weeks ago in relation to rape crisis centers and the need for more investment in those, but I hadn't realized. This is like a horrible thing to say, but a kind of peak week for rape and sexual violence. Freshers week. Lots of drink, lots of drugs, lots of and lots of people away from.
- [35:14]
Rory Stewart
Home for the first time settling in new.
- [35:16]
Alastair Campbell
So the numbers are pretty horrific. I've been talking to people who are running this campaign called Enough and it's partly awareness, but it's also, they have this thing where they give out on university campuses and not all of them, because they, you know, they're a small charity, but they, they did one in Bristol, for example, where they're giving out these DNA kits. So if you are sexually assaulted, you can take a swab and you then got it, you've got that. What often happens is when somebody is subject to rape or sexual violence, they don't want to go to the police for reasons which we talked about last time. But then they might go to the police later, by which time no evidence. And then it's kind of he said, she said. So this is part of a campaign to try to raise awareness. But, you know, when you read the numbers, a woman today is twice as likely to be raped to get cancer. Okay? And survivors are not reporting. So five in six women don't report it. Four in five men and 90% of students do not report rape and sexual assault. So, and this, what the other, what this campaign also does is it allows people to report it. They can report it as it were online. They give an account of it straight away, and then they may or may not at a later date take that to the police.
- [36:40]
Rory Stewart
And is, I mean, this is a really troubling story. Is the sense that this has always been a problem, but people didn't talk about it. Is there a sense that it's getting worse, it's getting better? Is this about. And a lot of this presumably is about education of young men. These numbers are crazy. But presumably I thought, because the story five, 10 years ago was that young men were now very, very aware of these issues. And I was talking to young teenagers who were saying, you know, they, they felt very nervous. They weren't really sure how to approach women because they felt that they would get in trouble. But that doesn't seem to be the story at all. Seems to be completely the opposite. It seems to be as though young men are being incredibly aggressive and, and things haven't changed very much. I mean, I don't know.
- [37:32]
Alastair Campbell
I think in answer to the question of things getting better or worse, it may be that there is more reporting of it within women's groups, people going to rape crisis center and so forth. But, you know, if you're a woman and you're raped and you kind of go online and look at some of this stuff, the figures for punishment conviction are very, very low, under a percent, 1%. The feeling of all of these organizations is that it's getting much worse. I was Talking to Katie White, who runs this Enough campaign, she was saying that one of the most common things is that young men, sex education, a lot of it is actually coming through pornography. And therefore they're seeing things in pornography that they think are normal, acceptable. She told me this story about a woman who'd been subject to pretty vicious sexual assault. And the young guy's defense was that he didn't realize that you shouldn't be doing that. And this is where he was pulling her hair and throttling her, because that's what he sees a lot when he's watching, watching pornography. So I think this is partly about education. I think the other thing and the reason why we should maybe talk about it, even though sometimes it's difficult to kind of white, middle aged. My case, old men talking about this stuff is actually, they do. One of the best things they've seen at the universities where they've done these pilots and they've taken out and got the funding to go and engage is actually a lot of it is about the conversations they're having with men, presumably.
- [39:02]
Rory Stewart
I mean, maybe this is too unrealistic, but it is partly about modeling behavior, isn't it? It's about almost, I don't know whether you could almost role play to get young teenagers to begin to feel their way towards how you flirt with someone, what consent is how you make a move in a way that leaves someone comfortable and gives them the opportunity to say, no, I'm not interested.
- [39:26]
Alastair Campbell
So 320,000 women start university this year, and the best estimate is that around 8% will be raped whilst at university and 62% are going to experience some form of sexual violence. The other question is whether the universities, I'm sure some of them do take it seriously, but whether a bit like the Catholic Church in the old days or, you know, whether you prefer to believe it's not quite as bad as these figures might suggest. So you don't necessarily create that culture where people feel that they can be, can report. And then of course, I think the, you know, the police, clearly women. And of course we shouldn't forget, you know, men get raped as well. But women in particular feel that they. They really feel they can't go to the police.
- [40:11]
Rory Stewart
But just as we leave this subject, I think it's also important to be clear about what's going on so that it doesn't get pulled into sort of manosphere debate. I mean, remember, there's another current. And this does connect to what we were seeing with the Tommy Robinson demonstrations of men Feeling marginalized, feeling that they're an increasingly feminized society, feeling that women are taking all the professional jobs, that there's no role for men anymore. And that narrative means that there are people out there saying, well, this stuff about rape is not really rape. It's not really sexual assaults. The whole world's gone sort of crazy about this stuff. So I think being clear, no, this is rape. Listen, let me describe what this man has done. You know, this is not an example of somebody who slightly got a signal wrong. This is horrible. And will traumatize a woman for the rest of her life and will have been, you know, the worst experience of her entire existence.
- [41:06]
Alastair Campbell
Well, I think education is absolute key to this. And just to tell people that Enough at the moment, a small charity, so it's called enough. And these, the only way to get these DNA swab things, you probably have to be attached to one of the universities of running a pilot. You can get them online. My enough.com kit. And by the way, you mentioned the hard right stuff there, the other rape issue, rape situation that I want to mention as well, because I think you said yesterday that a lot of what Tommy Robinson does is to try to sort of promulgate this idea that immigrants and Muslims are sort of committing sexual offenses left, right and center. There was a truly horrific rape in the West Midlands last week of a Sikh woman early in the morning, 8:30 in the morning in a public place. And the police are now looking for two white male suspects. They're saying it was, judging by the way it was done and what was said, that this was racially motivated. And I just. Can you imagine in the context of that march that happened at the weekend, if this had been the other way around and what politicians would be saying, what the generics would be saying and.
- [42:15]
Rory Stewart
How much the TikTok narrative we talked about yesterday, which is the idea that a lot of people are angry with Britain because costs are living inflation, but that other narrative, which is about protecting our women, protecting our daughters, and this incredible thing that the BBC said to Keir Starmer, would you feel safe with your daughter walking past an asylum hostel, which, you know, two years ago even GB News wouldn't ask a Prime minister, I mean, it's a completely insane question, has become sort of normalized. So, yeah, I mean, this isn't just intense personal trauma. It's now incredibly political.
- [42:54]
Alastair Campbell
No, it's been weaponized. Like every other issue, it's been weaponized anyway. And of course, the other thing that they're emphasizing is that There can and should. It's shown that there is a deterrence effect. If on a university campus people know that these kits are around and that a lot of them been given out, students have got them. And that a bit like the old days when you knew that the breathalyzer existed, you thought, oh I better not drink just in case. So maybe that deterrence will be effective as well.
- [43:23]
Rory Stewart
I wonder. This is a very sensitive subject, but I don't think it's like breathalyzers, Breathalyzer. The point is that everybody understands that if you have a drink and drive it's against the law. The problem here is that for whatever reasons, poor education, poor socialization, the kind of stuff that people watch, many of the men committing these things do not think they're raping someone and therefore the fact that someone has a rape test kit I don't think is going to make, I'm afraid, as much difference as the campaigners believe because the men believe that what they're doing is consensual and enjoyable when it isn't. It's traumatic and it's horrible and it's rape. But that's the problem.
- [44:04]
Alastair Campbell
So the drink driving issue is also cultural as well as political and it took time for attitudes to change. And I think what this is about is trying to change people's attitudes and also to involve men in that debate. And I saw really in fact people go on their website, it's a really interesting film that they did talking to some of the students. I think it was in Bristol and some of the blokes who were saying how they hadn't really thought about this in the way that maybe they should. Anyway, all part of their all. But not everybody in the, in the rape crisis world is happy. They think this is not as important as sort of getting the investment to the rape crisis centers. But I think it's a really good, it's a good thing to try to get as freshers week when you see the stats, just think get people talking about rape consent because these are issues that I think as you say, men maybe are in a not very good place on it.
- [44:53]
Rory Stewart
Okay, final question, which is from Dushebni who's a TRIP member on Discord, of course, the famous platform that just selected the new Nepali prime minister. There always seems to be some crisis at the moment. It's immigration. How does one decide there's a crisis? Is it because we constantly compare things to what they were meant to be? Like the way economists make the error of making assumptions on the rational economic man On a personal note, I get crisis fatigue. Constantly seeing that society is facing some kind of crisis is stressful and I switch out. And how do you analyze the spectrum of crises? From my phone is out of battery to Eden has invaded Suez. So I'm going to let you end on this, but let me just quickly just remind people the word crisis, originally an ancient Greek word and it originally for the Greeks made decision. So sort of decisive moment. What was. What's your definition of crisis?
- [45:43]
Alastair Campbell
My definition of crisis. This is a subject about which I've made many, many speeches and done seminars and what have you. My definition of crisis is an event, set of events or situation which threatens to overwhelm the organization unless the right decisions are made. So I always think you have to have a kind of. Because that's where you get the way out of the crisis and where the questioner is absolutely right. The word is one of the most overused in the English language because of the way our media operates. I would argue that in all of our time in Tony Blair's premiership, I reckon we had about half a dozen genuine, genuine full blown crises. Iraq, Kosovo, 911 foot and mouth fuel protests. I would argue that what Keir Starmer has at the moment is a, a potential crisis. But they can get through this. They can get through it. I don't think it's going to.
- [46:45]
Rory Stewart
How would you define his crisis?
- [46:47]
Alastair Campbell
I say that they're in a very, they're in a very difficult political situation governed by lots and lots of different factors, all of which have to be addressed.
- [46:55]
Rory Stewart
And the stress is that actually he would be toppled, he'd no longer be Prime Minister after the May elections or going to the next election.
- [47:01]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. So that's for him. And then I think you could argue that whether if, for example, the budget doesn't go well or if we don't get growth in the economy and the debt levels continue to rise. As to whether we have an economic crisis, even those economic crisis, you think about the sort of banking crisis, right. Which is massive. We kind of got through it, lots of consequences and lots of things that we're still having to deal with. So I think crisis is a word that we shouldn't overuse.
- [47:28]
Rory Stewart
I also. They like your bit where you say unless you make the right decisions.
- [47:31]
Alastair Campbell
Because that relates to your Greek.
- [47:32]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. And I also think that this is. If I was going to make a criticism of Keir Starmer, there's a slight tendency for his defenders to say, well, it's a really difficult economic situation. The British economy is in trouble. True. But he made decisions and he made two big mistakes. One was to rule out tax rises before the election, when it should have been incredibly clear to them that they needed to raise taxes.
- [47:55]
Alastair Campbell
They certainly might have to.
- [47:57]
Rory Stewart
And secondly, not using the opportunity of Trump and having to increase defense spending to 5% GDP to say, okay, the world's changed and we're going to raise taxes. And those things cripple them because it means that the type of tax rises they could have done, which were not as economically damaging, going for those main taxes that generate 75, 80% of our revenue and allow broad shoulders to hold them, have been ruled out. Instead of which they're basically punishing business and chasing away wealth.
- [48:24]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. So the way out of this crisis, I would argue, is for the Labour government to be a good, strong, solid Labour government.
- [48:32]
Rory Stewart
Very good. Well, strength that. And if only they'd followed your advice on appointing David Miliband as ambassador to the us which you did advise him, right?
- [48:40]
Alastair Campbell
Did I?
- [48:41]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, I think you did. I think we can reveal here on.
- [48:43]
Alastair Campbell
The podcast, did I mention that in the back of the car somewhere that.
- [48:47]
Rory Stewart
You told Keir Sama to make David Miliband the ambassador and he should have listened to you? Yes. Yes or no? Anastasia, come on, yes or no, should he have listened to you?
- [48:55]
Alastair Campbell
I think David would have been a very. I'm sure Peter has many, many strengths. I think David would have been a very good choice.
- [49:01]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. And for professional list, as that means, yes, he did advise him and yes, he feels he should take this advice. Right. Thank you very much.
- [49:07]
Alastair Campbell
Thank you, Rory, for breaking the confidences at the back of a car somewhere. All the best.
- [49:11]
Rory Stewart
All the best.
- [49:12]
Alastair Campbell
Bye.
- [49:12]
Rory Stewart
Bye.