462. Starmer Hits Rock Bottom: Will He Break His Manifesto to Survive?

Summary

The Rest Is Politics, Ep. 462

"Starmer Hits Rock Bottom: Will He Break His Manifesto to Survive?"
Release Date: October 29, 2025
Hosts: Alastair Campbell & Rory Stewart

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart zero in on the turmoil facing the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister Keir Starmer's crumbling popularity. With Labour's support collapsing in recent by-elections and talk of broken manifesto promises, they assess the state of British politics in a fragmented party landscape. The discussion then shifts to global affairs, focusing on Poland’s shifting politics, Russia’s disruptive tactics, and the ongoing risk landscape for Europe. The episode is rich in introspective analysis, disagreement-without-disdain, and behind-the-scenes Westminster wisdom.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Labour’s By-Election Collapse and Starmer’s Popularity Crisis

• Electoral Shocks: Labour’s vote “absolutely collapsed” in a recent by-election in Wales, with Plaid Cymru winning and Reform making strong gains ([04:50]).
• Starmer’s Unpopularity: Keir Starmer has a net popularity rating of -51%. Over 70% of the public view him unfavourably ([03:30]).
• Fragmented System: The UK is increasingly a five-party system rather than the traditional two-party contest ([03:35]).

“He may not be the greatest Prime Minister who's ever walked the earth, but the collapse of his ratings is unpleasant, unprecedented and totally disproportionate.” – Alastair Campbell [00:25]

2. Populism and the 'Ming Vase' Strategy

• Populist Risks: Leaders like Trump, Farage, and Argentina's Milei embrace offence and risk, whereas incumbents fear negative publicity ([07:23]).
• Stale Strategies: Starmer and Labour continue to employ a cautious "Ming vase" approach, more suited to pre-social-media times ([09:01], [17:23]).
• Comparison to France: Campbell raises the spectre of dominant parties collapsing as in France, replaced by new formations ([04:50]).

3. Communication Failures and Solutions

• Discussion of Chris Clark’s analysis, proposing that Labour should:
  • Admit mistakes and show working (“Show your workings” with clear explanations of policy) ([11:58]).
  • Allow MPs to speak authentically, abandoning robotic lines.
  • Avoid blaming predecessors and focusing on positive agendas.
  • Retire empty rhetoric (e.g., the term “working people”) ([11:58]-[15:05]).

“A line to take for me was an argument…Communicate the same message. It’s not say the same—literally say the same words.” – Alastair Campbell [17:23]

4. Tax, Economic Choices, and the Manifesto Dilemma

• Labour faces a critical choice: broad-based tax rises (income tax, national insurance) vs. targeted wealth/land taxes ([23:01]-[24:39]).
• The risk of breaking manifesto pledges is acknowledged as necessary, given fiscal realities ([23:16]-[25:56]).
• Realism urged: any tax plans must clearly connect to funding positive, visible national initiatives ([24:39], [28:12]).

“Don’t obsess over the manifesto…Instead of just saying we’re doing this because the Tories have left us a black hole…focus on the cost of living, housing crisis, economy for the people.” – Alastair Campbell [24:39]

5. Industrial Policy and Devolution

• Debate over whether industrial strategy should be dictated from Whitehall or devolved to local authorities ([26:42]-[28:12]).
• Agreement that empowerment at the local level delivers better, locally tailored outcomes.

6. Climate & Migration Policy

• Division on Labour's green strategy: Stewart calls for pragmatism to avoid alienating voters through cost increases ([30:20]-[32:21]).
• Both agree the left has lost confidence in big debates like climate, but Campbell insists the party should fight for progressive policies ([31:00]).

“Progressives have lost their confidence on some of these big debates, and one of them is on climate. And I think we’ve got to win it.” – Alastair Campbell [31:00]

7. Party Politics and Emotional Connection

• Emphasis on the need for emotional connection and a compelling national narrative, moving away from targeted, mechanical campaigning ([33:31]).
• The new deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell’s low-turnout win underscores the volatility and disaffection in the party base ([33:31]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the Five-Party System:
  “We ended up with something that now looks like a five party system and a two party system.” – Rory Stewart [00:35]
• On Starmer’s Authenticity:
  “Keir sort of stands in front of the camera and says 'this is good for the economy…' and immediately goes into a way that he doesn't really speak, like when he’s being himself.” – Alastair Campbell [11:58]
• On Old Political Tactics:
  “I actually think that one of the things that's turning people right off politics is this robotic lines-to-take thing.” – Alastair Campbell [17:23]
• On Wealth Taxes:
  “If we go with his stuff, which is land tax, wealth tax, you are absolutely signaling this is a party going after the rich and you won’t raise much money.” – Rory Stewart [24:39]

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Section 2: International Update – Focus on Poland, Russia & Ukraine

1. Poland’s Political Upheaval

• Poland, a post-1989 EU success, surprised by a decade of populist governance (Law & Justice) now complicated by a divided executive—pro-EU Donald Tusk as prime minister vs. a populist president ([40:50]-[42:14]).
• Tusk is reframing politics as “a fight between good and evil” and warning of Russian interference in UK politics ([42:14]).

“To have a situation where your Prime Minister is under what amounts to an attack…from Russian intelligence. And to have your media basically cover this like it was a football match…was very, very strange.” – Alastair Campbell [44:34]

2. Russian Hybrid Tactics

• Discussion of Russian hybrid warfare, deniable attacks (e.g., firebombing Starmer's house), and Western media/government hesitancy to address the issue publicly ([44:34]-[46:54]).
• Poland’s deep anxiety over security, increased defence spending, and Western complacency ([48:52]).

3. EU and the UK Post-Brexit

• EU nations, including Poland, still miss the UK’s presence and leadership in Europe ([50:58]).
• Donald Tusk reflects on Cameron’s gamble with the Brexit referendum, echoing lines that highlight how drastically UK-EU relations have shifted ([50:58]-[52:22]).

4. Historical Context Shaping Today’s Politics

• Poland’s memory of domination and upheaval shapes its approach to Russia, European security, and rapid societal progress ([54:02]-[54:35]).

“We have 500 years of history that tells us when the Russians threaten you, you listen.” – Alastair Campbell (quoting Radek Sikorski) [54:35]

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Important Timestamps

• Labour’s Collapse & Starmer’s Ratings: [00:16]–[04:50]
• Rise of the Five-Party System: [03:30]–[03:39]
• Chris Clark's Proposals & Political Messaging: [07:23]-[17:23]
• Debate on Tax Strategy: [23:01]–[26:42]
• Industrial Policy Discussion: [26:42]–[28:12]
• Climate & Migration Policy: [30:20]–[32:21]
• Party Emotional Connection Post-By-Election, Lucy Powell Election: [33:31]–[35:22]
• Poland’s Political Landscape & Russian Tactics: [40:50]–[46:54]
• Poland as New EU Pillar, UK’s Absence: [52:22]–[54:02]

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Memorable Moments

• Alastair’s frankness on Starmer's public-vs-private persona ([11:58], [21:09])
• Cheeky comparison of political communication to advertising messaging, agreeing both must be re-invented ([17:23])
• Candid concern over Labour’s overreliance on grid/playlist tactics vs. dynamic response ([17:23])
• Anecdotes from Poland illustrating continental anxiety about UK drift and Russian interference ([42:14], [50:58] onward)
• Reflection on Poland surpassing the UK in standards of living – “Poland is the new Europe” ([52:22])

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Closing Reflection

Campbell and Stewart conclude that Labour's cautious and negative messaging cannot survive in a fragmented, populist-energized landscape. Both hosts urge Labour and centrist parties to articulate positive visions, pursue bolder policies—even at the cost of breaking manifesto promises—and to confront challenges like climate, migration, and international meddling head-on. On the world stage, Poland is held up as a country on the rise, both a warning and inspiration to British political leaders.

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For related readings and references mentioned, see the hosts' newsletter at therestispolitics.com.

Transcript

[Alistair Campbell]

Thanks for listening to the Rest is Politics. Sign up to the Rest is Politics plus to enjoy ad free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com it seems to me there's a real risk for Labour here on the back of.

[Rory Stewart]

This by election, Labour's vote absolutely collapsed. Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister now finds himself with net popularity ratings of -51%.

[Alistair Campbell]

He may not be the greatest Prime Minister who's ever walked the earth, but the collapse of his ratings is unpleasant, unprecedented and totally disproportionate.

[Rory Stewart]

We ended up with something that now looks like a five party system and a two party system.

[Alistair Campbell]

The government needs to understand you cannot take the left of you for granted.

[Rory Stewart]

They have to be big, they have to break the manifesto and they have to have a positive story.

[Alistair Campbell]

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[Alistair Campbell]

And me, Alistair Campbell and Rory. We had a lot of overseas policy stuff in recent weeks and months. Let's really try to stick to British politics for the first half of the main episode and in particular the travails of the Labour Party and the Labour government. Second half. As you know, I was in Poland over the weekend and we did an interview with the Deputy Prime Minister, but it was a really, really fascinating few days. So let's talk about Poland and Russia and Ukraine and if we've got time, we'll squeeze in a bit of a new very interesting Irish president. So where do you want to start? With Labour?

[Rory Stewart]

Let's start just to bring listeners into the story. Quick, quick reminder. So there was an election, 2024, and it was the most incredible election that's ever happened in British politics. These two main parties, Labour and Conservative, that historically sometimes got 90% of the vote, ended up with their lowest vote share since the Second World War. Labour got this very big majority on a very, very low vote share. And for the first time, these other parties performed brilliantly. The Lib Dems outperformed, the Greens outperformed, Reform, outperformed on the percentage of the vote, ended up with something that now looks much more like a five party system than a two party system. And Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister now finds himself with net popularity ratings in the latest YouGov poll of minus 51%, which means that over 70% of the British public view him unfavourably and only 20% of the British public view him favourably. And this then took us to the thing that we discussed last week, which was a by election in what was once one of the safest Labour seats in Britain, in Wales, real traditional, proper Welsh Labour seat where Reform and Plyde Cymru were leading in the polls. The result was that Plaid Cymru won, but Reform did well and Labour's vote absolutely collapsed. Overdue.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. And plyde won by 11.4% and that majority was bigger than the entire Labour vote. So it was an absolute collapse. Very high turnout for a Senate, that's the Welsh Parliament by election. Even the national elections have never passed 50% and this one was above that. The thing is, and look, I do think it's Potentially seminal. I've been saying for some time that, you know, none of the main parties in Britain have a divine right to exist. We talk about the Conservative Party as this party that's dominated British government and British politics for well over a century. Labour, the other strong party. But part of me keeps thinking about France, where the main parties have effectively gone and new parties have had to emerge or the extremes have come in. And Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, was referring to this as the Hartlepool moment. This is a previous by election when Keir Starmer was leader of the Opposition, where he actually came close to quitting because Labour did so badly in a by election there. So it has to lead, I think, to some sort of change. You see, I think what's been happening through the last few years is that elections, it seems to me, and campaigns are being fought according to what somebody is not. So Labour won the election, frankly, by not being the Tories. Keir Starmer became leader, in a way, and then strengthened his leadership by being against Jeremy Corbyn. By not being Jeremy Corbyn. Both of the main parties have sort of defined themselves overly, in my view, as not revisiting Brexit. Okay? So it's all this kind of negative stuff. And it seems to me there's a real risk for Labour here on the back of this by election, which is that they think that, okay, tactical voting came in because there was a lot of tactical voting in Wales, people who did not want Farage and did not want reform. They voted tactically and they thought Plyde is the one that looks like most likely to win. We'll vote for them. There's a real risk that that leads Labour to think, it says against reform and we can organize forces. So there's lots and lots of tactical voting. They've got to have a positive, powerful, strong, passionate, big policy agenda that they start to deliver through the first term and then they put to the country for the second term. And I think that the time of sort of not being something is over.

[Rory Stewart]

Part of this. And there's a great article by Chris Clark that you shared with me, which I thought did this very, very well. But he begins with the big story, which I suppose is the story around populism. And what is this populist moment, whether you're talking about Trump or Europe or Britain, and he defines it as populists being willing to offend people, take negative publicity, preach the converted have hostages to fortune. And he says that mainstream politicians absolutely hate this new political environment. It makes them freeze Partly because as parties of government, they can't really afford, they feel, to alienate people caught negative publicity. So he gives examples. You know, you can't, as an incumbent government, set about deliberately alienating business. You can't set about, you know, making these huge promises you can't deliver. And the result is that they get into a defensive crouch. And the defensive crouch, broadly speaking, is the one that we've seen Starmer take from the beginning, which Chris Clark says getting in behind what you were saying for the election is a kind of exaggerated version of the Ming vase strategy. Your Ming vase strategy was be very cautious before the election to get across the election. But he's pointed out they've kept behaving since the election as though they've got a Mingvas, and they think that they're going to be able to get by by saying, we're professional, we're grown up, we do delivery, we're grown up. And that this just isn't enough. In an age of charismatic populist politicians, whether actually it's Nigel Farage or in fact Zach Polanski, who were about to interview the leader of the Green Party.

[Alistair Campbell]

And also, of course, Trump and now Milei, who has had this spectacular success in the midterms in Argentina, they show that on the populist side, they believe they can carry on being populist and doing all these things and offending people and taking difficult positions and so forth. Just before we go on, I mean, I'm glad you liked the piece by Chris Clark. It was actually his dad who said it to me with Charles Clark, the former cabinet minister, and Chris, who I've known literally since he was a very small child. He is a researcher, he's a writer, but he's done hundreds of focus groups for and on the Labour Party. So he kind of knows what he's talking about with Labour and public opinion. But I don't know if you're struck by that graph, Rory. I'll just hold it up and we'll put this all in the newsletter for people as well. This is a graph that averages out the satisfaction, dissatisfaction ratings of all the party leaders and combines them. So it points out that, for example, when John Major was unpopular, Tony Blair was popular. So the average was kept floating, you know, along a sort of a fairly straight line. And what you've seen, and I think the break in this is possibly MP's expenses, and I think it might be a bit of Brexit as well, but basically the line is fairly static. Tony Blair kind of outperforms it for most of the time that he's in there, but since then, it's just steadily gone down and down and down and down and down. Which basically says, because I find the thing with Keir Starmer, he may not be the greatest prime minister who's ever walked the earth, but Chris points out that the collapse of his ratings is what he calls unprecedented and totally disproportionate. And it is. And so there's something deeper going on that is anti politics.

[Rory Stewart]

I think a lot of this is social media, but if we just dig into those figures for a second, I thought it was a great graph, but Satcher, when she was unpopular, when she came in, was at about minus 2. Net popularity got up to plus 8 in 1984. And when she got to minus 15 was the moment she left major plus 12 and leaves on about minus 10. Blair gets up to plus 22, leaves on about minus 8. Cameron leaves on about minus 20. Rishi about the same. Starmer goes from minus 25 down to, as I say today, minus 52. And I absolutely agree with you. I got a bit of pushback, actually, recently from some very, very senior figures who've known all these prime ministers when I was, I'm afraid, doing a slightly cheap jibe at Starmer, kind of lacking charisma, lacking drive. And one of them said to me, rory, don't be unfair. This guy is a really decent guy. He's highly professional, he's highly serious. And said to me, you know, be careful what you wish for. It's all very well, you sitting there being cynical and grumbly. Let me assure you, almost all the other candidates are going to be much, much worse for the country than Keir Starmer.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, you say that you. The word serious. There's a big profile. In the spirit of the times. I don't know if you've seen. Today's New York Times has a big profile of Nigel Farage, and the headline is something like, is this deeply unserious man seriously going to be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? And the thing about Kier that I find really interesting, I think partly at my instigation, because I did that Radio 3 program, Private Passions, which is like sort of classical music, desert island discs. I did it a while back, and talking to Michael Berkeley, the interviewer, I said, you know, Keir Starmer's really into classical music and plays lots of different instruments and so forth. You should try and get him on. Anyway, they got him on and it was on at the weekend and people should listen to it because the thing about it is you feel like Kier is just being himself. And I think a lot of what people feel when they see Keir's timer in public is they're not sure that he is being himself, because he does have that slightly stilted. Even yesterday doing this huge deal with Turkey on Typhoon, a massive deal. And yet, you know, you can imagine Donald Trump projecting that, saying, this is one of the biggest deals we've ever done and I love me. And, er, weren't there, he'd do it in a kind of Trumpian way. Keir sort of stands in front of the camera and he says, this is good for the economy and it's good for jobs and this is going to be da, da. And he immediately goes into a way that he doesn't really speak, like when he's being himself. And you're right, that politicians freeze. But what I liked about Chris Clark's piece, and I think it was originally a substack, but we'll put it in the newsletter, what I liked about it was that he was trying to come up with ideas for improvement. And I've got to say, let's just go through the four areas that he chose, because the first one, communications, I agree with them all. Number one, admit what we don't know or can't do. And the example he gives, which you and I said at the time, when they did the U turn on the winter fuel payment, they kind of tried to pretend that that was what they planned all along. Instead of which, far better to say, you know, we balls this up. Shouldn't it be in our first big fight? But we're going to put it right. Okay, the next one, show I like this, show your workings. And he says, for example, Rachel Reeves, instead of sort of being out on the defensive, saying this, that and the other, do really interesting video explainers. What is the fiscal rule? What are these fiscal rules? What will actually happen if I break them? Third point was about authenticity of MPs and ministers, not talking like robots. Number four, stop blaming the mess we inherited. I'm a bit 5050 on that one. Number five, this is really interesting. End the search for a killer attack on reform. The only way to beat them is by building up sufficient clarity and momentum. Back to my point about the positive agenda, that they can be brushed aside as armchair critics. And I think that's powerful. Minimize growth in the messaging. Acknowledge as often as possible that Brexit failed and could never have worked. I totally agree with that. I've been saying that for months. Make fairness the governing principle. And I like this one, retire the term working people, you know, constructive ideas in there.

[Rory Stewart]

Really lovely. A couple of things. One is that, and I'd love to get into this a little bit with you, because of course he's trying to say that we've got to move off a particular version of political communication which you've been blamed for. I mean, a sort of version of this was what Cameron did and Lynton Crosby, the Australian strategist, tried his drivers to do, which was all about lines to take. I mean, my most painful examples of this were people like Priti Patel and Liz Truss, who would just go out on television and repeat again and again and again lines like the long term economic plan is working. And regardless of what the question was, I mean, I think there's one clip where I think Priti Patel does that sort of 15 times or something. So the journalist is kind of weeping and Linton Crosby is saying, ah, this is terrific. It's only when it's actually making you physically sick that you know that the message is really getting through. So there was this sort of idea, and there's another thing that he refers to in this, and I'm now on the. On the. More of the sort of mechanics of this is he's very interested in your friend Peter Hyman's piece which says the grid doesn't work anymore. So that was quite an interesting substack again, which we can share. And of course, the grid. Very much associated with you was the idea that you would decide what the big story of the week is. And this week would be about our new investment in cutting waiting lists. And next week would be about starts for children in schools, et cetera. And Hyman's saying, no, no, we need to go away from a grid to more of a kind of playlist agenda, where each department knows what its big themes are, but is given the freedom to return to it week in, week out, because you can no longer rely on what you had, which was a relatively hierarchical media environment. You were still operating in a world in which many, many people read the newspaper, many people watched the evening news. Social media hadn't really got off the ground and therefore you could to some extent land the big story. Every week now, we've gone from a world in which I think in 10 years, the figure is something like we've gone from 11% of people not accessing any conventional media to nearly 33% of people not touching it ever in their lives anyway, just on Those two things, this movement away from the sort of lines to take and a movement away from the grid. And what do you think about how you'd articulate that?

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, one of the things I've been saying for years is I think that a lot of modern politics is trapped because we were deemed to be successful. I think a lot of politics is trapped in that old way of thinking. I've been arguing for, you know, on the similar lines to Peter Hyman for Yonks about we need to change and adapt to this new media landscape. So for, you know, on the grid. The grid, by the way, I completely agree with him. You need to know far important now, of course, you have to have a diary. You have to know what's coming when. But you need to know, as an individual minister or as a member of the government or as a backbench mp, what am I meant to be communicating in the most general sense about this particular policy, this particular argument? And then you have to do it in your own way. I actually think that one of the things that's turning people right off politics is this robotic lines to take thing. A line to take for me was an argument. It wasn't. I think I told you before about. I once castigated a minister because I phoned her up after she'd done an interview because she literally said the same thing in every answer. And she said, but you told us to say the same thing. So. No, communicate the same message. It's not say the same. Literally say the same words. So that sense of authenticity. And by the way, I was with a guy yesterday who works in kind of strategy and advertising and messaging and that sort of thing, and he was really interesting because he listens to a lot of people. He actually was talking about an interview he'd heard with Steve Reed, the housing guy, yesterday, and he said, I've got to say, when you listen to them, he mentioned Steve Reed, Wes Streeting, Peter Kyle, Douglas Alexander, Lisa Nandi. He went through a whole load of them. He said, they're actually. They're good to listen to. I enjoy listening to them. And it was interesting. I think he was picking on the ones who don't sound quite. So they're delivering the line. So I completely agree with that change. I also think this is something you alluded to earlier. When Chris Clark's paper goes on to electoral strategy, the first point he makes is be willing to challenge public opinion. And again, this is something that Trump does well.

[Rory Stewart]

I'm always kind of obsessed with this, me being very pretentious that Aristotle has this great distinction between a communication morality and the kind of policy content which he calls pathos, ethos, logos. The interesting thing is that what he's talking about, I think, and what you're talking about in communications is also partly about ethics because if you're admitting your screw ups, admitting what you don't know, explaining the context, it's actually about honesty. There's actually something that is appealing to the public about it because it's the sense that you're taking responsibility and you're being a more honest person. Now, one of the challenges, though, and I think I'm perhaps more extreme than you in getting irritated by this, listeners will listen to our interview with Michael Gove and people, you know, often say, you know, I got irritated with Rachel Reeves and Bridget Phillips and I got irritated with Michael Gove for the same reason. There's nothing I hate more than when you're talking to someone and they seem to be doing a sort of party political broadcast at you. And that's what I felt. You know, Gove suddenly slotted into talking on his talking points on Israel. I thought, I'm going to. Here we go again. We're not really.

[Alistair Campbell]

I don't. I see. I don't agree with you there. I actually think you were being quite harsh there because he's. I think it's more that you were irritated by what his views are. I'm irritated by his views and I don't agree with them. But I thought it was fascinating because you were irritated by the fact that you said to him, michael, but you've been saying this for the last 20 years. And I was thinking, well, that's the point. He really, really believes this. Well, so I think that's a bad example.

[Rory Stewart]

Rachel Reeves, maybe it's a bad example, but essentially I think I'm not a million miles away from a lot of the public by getting very, very wound up by the sense that the politician isn't really engaging with the nub of the conversation, but is trying to land a slightly tired line in a slightly defensive or aggressive fashion. I agree with you. I think Lisa Nandi does it well. I think Wes3 team does it well and the others you've mentioned. But I think there is a challenge for some of the Labour front bench in learning how to do this in a really natural, engaged way. And some of them, you often say to me that they're much better in private than they are in public. I definitely feel that with Keir Starmer, every time I lucky enough to Catch him one on one. I'm sort of suddenly really struck by how confident he can be, how funny he can be, how relaxed he seems despite the kind of catastrophe surrounding him and that somehow isn't projected. Let's use this though maybe to do one more move on Chris Clark's piece before we get on to Bridget Phillipson against Lucy Powell which was the deputy leadership race. So he moves on from the comms to policy and it's here that I get a little bit more anxious. So he. And this is where maybe you and I can disagree agreeably because maybe this is my toriness coming. He basically says that labor needs to tax more. I agree but I think the tax they need to do is the big broad based traditional taxes they need to put up income tax or national insurance or corporation tax. I think Dan, neither would agree with me. I think most of the economists would agree that the stupid thing is that they ruled out the most broad based reliable revenue sources and I think it would be a real mistake to start going for endless little gimmicky windfall taxes, wealth taxes, when they could be hitting the basic tax. Tell me about your instincts on wealth taxes against going back to income tax.

[Alistair Campbell]

This isn't like a manifesto, it's like a fairly long thoughtful paper. He's not sort of, he's not, he's not, he's not a one man think tank but I think he's got some really interesting ideas not least by the way, let's Labour should move towards an alternative vote system. That would be a big bold thing.

[Rory Stewart]

Strong agreement on that.

[Alistair Campbell]

I know you agree on that. So basically he says on tax, the temptation for the Exchequer may be to opt for small stealth taxes to get it across the line. In the current context this will create pockets of uproar as happened with Winterfuel for minimal revenue the Exchequer should instead focus on large wealth taxes on land, property, top layer of inheritance, capital gains, etc. Which raised significant money beyond that needed for the black hole. Now he then talks about you then have to hypothecate and make it absolutely clear all that's money going. Now I don't know if I agree on that totally but I'll tell you what I do agree is where he says the idea that tax rises or welfare cuts are happening to satisfy an accounting shortfall is as uninspiring as it gets. And he also says don't obsess over the manifesto. And what I think he means by that is don't worry in the current populist context about breaking promises. So I think Labour will break a promise on one of the three big taxes. But his point, the bigger point for me there is, instead of just saying we're doing this because the Tories have left us a black hole, he's basically saying, you've got to say, stop talking about growth. He's saying, focus on cost of living. We want to build more houses because there's a housing crisis. We want to get the economy growing because cost of living crisis is real for millions of people. In other words, root it in that. So I'm not sure I agree with every point, but I agree with the way that he's framed it.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. It is, however, going to be a really big division and I think it will determine whether the Labour Party stays in the center or migrates to the left and will have a huge impact on Labour's ability to win over centrist former Tory voters. The decision that they make on this, if they do what he said, which, wait, wait, this is the big distinction, right? If he does, I agree with you on the fact they have to be big, they have to break the manifesto and they have to have a positive story, but the type of tax they do really matters. If we go with his stuff, which is land tax, wealth tax, you are absolutely signaling this is a party going after the rich and you won't raise much money. I mean, that's another problem. He hasn't looked at the maths on this. You will massively alienate wealth and you won't raise much money if you go for the broader base taxes, income tax, corporation tax, national insurance. And if you do something really bold, which needs to be done, which is bringing national insurance and income tax together, you could do some really interesting things. Then I think you can raise the revenue you need for the big stuff. You can hypothecate it. You can say, this is for defence, this is for housing, this is for whatever. And do it without actually alienating people who are pro business.

[Alistair Campbell]

Look, and there's no doubt, I mean, I've done a few business type events in the last few weeks and you know, there's a lot of, kind of, there's a grungy mood, there's no doubt about that. I'll tell you the other thing. This may surprise you to hear that I've sort of moved to the view on the whole non dom thing. Even though I don't buy the idea that everybody sort of, you know, has fled to Dubai and fled to Milan. Some people have. And what I think they should think about is doing a kind of flat tax deal, because that's what the Italians have done. They're basically saying, look, you come here, you pay €300,000 a year and you can keep the rest, as it were, because we want you to be here. I think Labour could get away with saying to them like, you know, half a million and that's all that you're paying and then you can. So they can do something, you know, quite clever on that.

[Rory Stewart]

They need courage to do that because that's, that's. I mean, I couldn't agree with you more, but they've got to take a deep breath before this budget. And you're absolutely right. You can say we're getting each one of these people to give us half a million pounds to stay and describe what all that money will do and what it'll. And. But it will still involve a bit of a fight with the left of the Labour Party. And this is where the question has to be is Kira and Rachel Reeves, are they going to be able to do two things. Number one, be willing to break their manifesto commitments, which they have to do, and number two, do it in a way that reassures more pro market, pro business people. Second thing, he talks about industrial strategy and here again I'd be interested in your view. He says there must be flagship industrial strategies for each of the following four types of town. Each could be assigned an industry of the future, like software design or green power. Now, I agree with him on industrial policy, but it's completely the wrong way to do industrial policy. It shouldn't be some genius in Whitehall assigning, you know, you're now doing green power, you're now doing software. It's gotta be about devolution. And that's what we found with the anti Burnham interview that they're doing so well emerged is what I felt in Cumbria, that actually the problem is that London doesn't instinctively understand how these economies work. And it's much more likely to get a good industrial strategy if you give the budget and the power down to the local area and let them drive it, rather than some wise person say, here are four industries. You get this one.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, I liked his stuff about, you know, we need to develop a vision for the future of high streets. I actually do believe he's right to say that we need to continue to be progressive on clean energy. And that is another big political fight. Engage in that big political fight. Stop being defensive about it. To be fair to Ed Miliband, I don't think he is defensive about it. And the other thing you said earlier about you've got to be careful not to alienate the centrists, the market people, the business community, et cetera, but I've been saying for so long now, and this I think is what's borne out by what happened in Caerphilly, by the general sense of where Labour right now is that, yes, there is a real issue with immigration. We'll come on to talk about that. Yes, small boats drive people crazy. Yes, the asylum hotels drive people crazy and you've got to fix those. But what you cannot do is allow your entire government to give the sense that that is what you're about. Because they are losing way more support to the left of centre than they are to the right of centre. And that is what has helped Clyde win that. And the thing is, if you're doing something say big on tax, this budget is going to be so important. If it just feels like, as Chris Clark says, that they're making a few small changes here and small changes there to fill this black hole, that is not a vision for the country and what the country needs right now. They've got the political fight in place and Keir Starmer set that at the party conference. Reform is now the main political enemy and that is the fight that goes on politically, economically. I think it's got to be related to that. Big, bold, really big stuff for the future. I love this thing about, you know, the institutions, the big new labor institutions, GB Energy, you know, he put them all the sort of, you know, some of these mental health hubs, they come developing these things and then he said, you know, wraparound mental health care, social care stuff that is going to cost money. If you're going to do big tax raising stuff in a budget, you've got to say, and this is what we're going to do with it and it's got to really kind of fire people up.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, I think it's so good that he's written this because he's in just the right territory in asking just the right questions. If I had one more anxiety, I think Labour's going to have to be realistic about its green policy. I think there may need to be a bit more pragmatism. I think that Ed Miliband may be leading them in a direction that's going too far and they may need to get some compromises going there. Not give up on their belief in addressing climate, not give up on their push on renewable energy. But there's a loss of the way in which it's being done, which really risks alienating people and driving up cost of living. So I think they've got to look at that.

[Alistair Campbell]

But also, Roy, we are recording this with virtually every news bulletin around the world reporting breathlessly on this Hurricane Melissa that is about to take out part of Jamaica. What's happened? The progressives have lost their confidence on some of these big debates and one of them is on climate. And I think we've got to win it. And what Chris Clark's basically saying on these four areas, on communication, he says the Ming vase has got to be dropped because we've now got to go for a warts and orb approach, levelling with voters on the electoral strategy. It's got to be about a positive sense of what you stand for rather than just how bad the others are. On policy, it's putting down. He says putting down the vase means going beyond current choices. And on migration policy, again, I thought there was something very clever, he said, and sensible. He said there somebody who is angered about small boats and asylum hotels is not going to be impressed because you say that you're going to cut down on the number of family members coming with university professors. The numbers game is making no difference. Net migration has fallen. The debate has not changed. You've got to fix the things that are problems, but then don't ruin the future of the economy by saying, and we're going to cut here and cut there and cut there.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, okay. I mean, you slightly provoked me there into something that's going to be a longer conversation, which is on the climate stuff, I think there is a problem here. And the problem is that the British voter knows that in the end, addressing global climate change is about global issues, that Britain on its own is a pretty small contributor. And if the cost of living goes up and the cost of our energy goes up very significantly for us, chasing reducing our emissions when other people in the world isn't, that's going to be not just a political problem. It's going to be a very practical problem for people. And they're going to say, what the hell do you think you're doing?

[Alistair Campbell]

Right? We're going to be talking about Putin in the second half. And you also know that these are not just domestic issues, but they're international issues that have a domestic effect. Anyway, I think it's a. I'm glad you enjoyed that paper. I did as well. And I think we need more of that kind of thinking as well.

[Rory Stewart]

The big thing that I love most, I really love the high street stuff. Regenerate High Street. Really loved the focus on adult social care. But of course, to get it done, it's going to have to be cross party. Not just a labourer's view, but the thing I liked most of all was his absolute insistence that labor should be proud of remaining part of the ECHR and should not, not remotely be tempted to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

[Alistair Campbell]

Now, Lucy Powell, new deputy leader of the Labour Party, very low turnout. Fewer than one in five actually voted. I actually thought, if I'm being absolutely frank, I thought she was going to win by more, because I think that just as the public has been wanting to give a bit of a kicking to the Labour leadership and the establishment, I thought the party was as well. Just on the turnout, by the way, you've got to understand, on the way the Labour Party works, a lot of people get a vote through association membership of organizations may not even know that they had a vote. And also, usually a deputy leadership contest will take place alongside a leadership contest where the voting is likely to be higher. But again, I think it's just another sign that the government needs to understand you cannot take the left of you for granted. You've got to be just sort of, you know, you've got to be focused on governing well, campaigning well. But ultimately, I think what both of these things are saying, both the Caerphilly and the Lucy Powell thing, they're basically saying we want more emotional connection, we want more of a sense of what the national narrative, what the national story is. And I think that the Morgan McSweeney strategy for the. For the election was very, very effective. It was all about, you know, where you're targeting the votes and so forth. That's not going to work second time around. You need this big, bold, positive agenda. And, you know, and I said, I thought Keir Starmer's party conference speech, he started to get the framing for it, but then, you know, I mentioned, I keep mentioning this thing about apprenticeships I've still heard next to nothing about. This was the big thing in the speech. This is the point about, you know, that's not a grid point. That's like, this is meant to be one of our big thieves. Announced in the leader's speech at the party conference. Why are we not hearing about it all the time?

[Rory Stewart]

I think that was a great first half. We really got into some stuff there. I think we'll take a break and then we'll come back and I want to hear about Poland, where you've just been. So see you after the break.

[Alistair Campbell]

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[Alistair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

Now.

[Alistair Campbell]

Welcome back to the Restless Politics.

[Rory Stewart]

With me, Alistair Campbell and with me, Rory Stewart.

[Alistair Campbell]

Now, Rory, we did a lot of references to things that we're going to put in the newsletter. So to those who don't get the newsletter, we should tell them you get it by going to therestepolitics.com and that's where you also, if you're interested, can subscribe to be a member and listen to things like the series that we're almost through. I think we're up to part four on the series of Rupert Murdoch. You can also get early access to the part two of our interview with Michael Gove that you referenced in the earlier discussion, which is it is a fascinating list of. But my friend Jim in the swimming pool said this morning, said, what a clever guy, what a tragic waste of talent. And then the final thing you can do, check out on therestispolitics.com is the very, very small numbers now. And we're almost sold out all the venues, I think, but there are a few tickets left for our tour going to Manchester, Glasgow, Bournemouth and London. Very briefly, Rory, before we get on to Poland, maybe just worth clocking the new president of Ireland, Catherine Connolly. And I think this speaks to what we're speaking in the first half, independent left wing got the backing of Sinn Fein, the Labour Party, the left leaning parties, very kind of authentic form of communication, running around playing basketball with kids. Very, very, very outspoken on Gaza and what she calls the genocide in Gaza. Again, reasonably low turnout. It's a ceremonial position, but it's an important one because, you know, the Irish presidency can, can, can shape something. So but I think it's part of that. But listen, should we talk about Poland?

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. On Saturday we were interviewing Radek Sikorski, the Polish deputy prime minister, foreign minister, and you were in Poland and you're in Poland for a few days, I was. And let me sort of begin with the sort of big thing that sort of interests me about Poland. So if you go back to 1989 and you were trying to choose which countries in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, would start flirting with populism, you probably wouldn't have selected Poland, because Poland, in many ways is the real big success story of the post 89 period. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Poland actually sorted out its economy surprisingly quickly. Currency stabilised, debt came down, growth took off. It went from being one of the poorest countries in Europe to rapidly on its path to becoming one of the wealthiest. And it did so with a pretty pro Western Catholic population that was never very into communism or anything it represented. So I would have bet if I was just sort of looking at it, that it wouldn't be Poland. It would be instead somewhere like Romania or somewhere like Bulgaria or Slovakia or even Croatia or Latvia, that would have found themselves going down the populist route. Instead of which, it was the great European success story, Poland, that in 2015 embarked with the Law and Justice Party on 10 years of populism and has just brought up the president back in, despite the victory of Donald Tusk on the less popular side. Over to you.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. And of course, that. That definitely complicates politics. And, you know, when we were talking to Radek Sikorsky, we were asking about, you know, how difficult this is, the fact that Donald Trump invited their opponent for the presidential election, who eventually won and fairly narrowly. So, you know, did Trump kind of push the votes over? I don't know. It's hard to tell. But it was a fascinating time to be there. I was speaking at the same conference as Sikorsky and a man who was getting bigger crowds than the pair of us put together, George Cluley, who was rather randomly there as well. But what was. Two really interesting things. The first is that simultaneously, Donald Tusk was heading a party convention where they were changing the name of his party because their coalition had lost one member and they were bringing two new ones in. And he spoke in really stark terms about. He talked about politics being a fight between good and evil, quoted the Pope in those terms, referred to Brexit as an example of where, you know, saying the Russian bots were involved, Russian money was involved. It was the Russians who were celebrating. He said in an interview over the weekend that he referred to the suggestions, which I think are more than suggestions, that these attacks on Keir Starmer's house, the firebomb and attacks on his cars that he'd own and that this was the work of Russian intelligence. Now, I imagine that Donald Tusk either knows that or has been told that probably by some of the same people that have mentioned that to me. And I think the British government, I don't know, but my sense is they maybe took a, a decision not to go too public on that. I'm not sure that was the right decision. I actually think the public need to know this sort of stuff's going on. Of course there is a court case that I think has been ongoing involving some of the people involved. But Tusk basically said to have a situation where your Prime Minister is under what amounts to an attack because that's where members of his family were living from Russian intelligence. And to have your media basically cover this like it was a football match between Liverpool and Arsenal, you know, oh, well, they did this and they did that and he says this and he says that it was very, very strange.

[Rory Stewart]

I think one of the problems we'll keep facing is, and it's particularly true in this new environment of fake news and crazy TikTok videos, is that the reason, of course, the media is cautious about covering it is it sounds like mad conspiracy theory, you know, what is Russian intelligence doing setting fire to Keir Starmer's house? So I guess part of the government's problem is how do you mount the evidence? I mean, I think the British press would go bananas. I mean, I think Tusk is wrong about this if the British press didn't think this was sort of conspiracy theory, fake news, but that there was genuine evidence that the svr, the Foreign Intelligence Service, had attacked Keir Starmer's own house, we would be hearing about nothing else. I think the problem is that we don't really know in this world of fake news whether this is true, how true it is and what evidence to put forward.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, the only thing I think there's also a sense this goes back to what we talked about earlier is that there's such a sort of media driven mood of negativity about Keir Starwell that maybe they don't like things that make people feel, might feel sympathetic towards him. But by the way, Rory, just last week in a British court, five men were sentenced for an arson attack in Britain that authorities say was masterminded by Russian intelligence. So what we know, and this is what the polls were saying, what Sikorsky was saying, what Tusk was saying, what everybody in Poland was saying to me is that this disruption, sabotage, they were talking for example, about they are prepared any moment for their transport systems and health systems to be brought down, and they can do the same to us. And they're also. Tusk was talking about these hypersonic missiles that can, you know, that can now kind of, you know, land in Britain. I don't want to kind of overstate it, but they are shocked by how. How underpowered this debate is in the uk.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, I suppose that we're violently agreeing, but the point that I'm making is that one of the tricks of Russian intelligence is the deliberate use of hybrid, ambiguous, deniable attacks. What the SVR is very, very clearly doing all the way back to the little green men who popped up in Crimea in 2014. And true of the way they do cyber attacks, which is to contract it to private companies to do it, is they want continually to leave everybody in an ambiguous world guessing. So they're never, obviously, in a world in which you can fully say 100% for sure, this is an officer in the KGB who just set fire to the house.

[Alistair Campbell]

No. And also I was talking to somebody in this world recently who said that, you know, they. They spend some of their time just sort of, you know, wandering around our lower. The lower end of our court system, you know, finding a few thugs or crooks will do things for them for which they'll get paid a bit of cash, and then they're utterly deniable. The big point they were making, Sikorsky said this in the interview, is they are now planning on a strategy that this war in Ukraine is going to go on for at least another two or three years. And they think Putin can be worn down during that time, that his economy can be targeted, et cetera. But at the same time, I think one of their worries is that the rest of the west, as it were, America, the Western Europe, Europe, just lose interest and lose the will. So they, I think, are deliberately trying to fire us up to say, hey, guys, you need to take this more seriously than you are. I think they think the government is taking it seriously, but they're not convinced that our public opinion is. So I think it was those two things, the political changes that he's having to make to adapt to this sort of struggle. And it will be interesting to see how things play out, because the prime minister has a lot of power, the president has a lot of power to kind of make life difficult for the president, for the prime minister. And that's kind of what I think we've got to watch there. And the other thing, Rory, you talked about the success. It was just really interesting to be in a country that maybe because they do feel this. It felt very. Because only there a few days, but it felt like a country quite at ease with itself. It feels a lot more modern. That it did. The transport is good. It was really clean. There was a sense of kind of energy about the place that I hadn't maybe expected. So. And when we said to Sikorsky, do you have any political trouble in telling people they're going to have to cut some things because you're putting 5% into your GDP into defense? He said, the trouble we would get is if we weren't doing that.

[Rory Stewart]

There's still something though, which is a paradox, which is that we were all very relieved when the Law and Justice Party, which was a conspiratorial fake news populist party that was intimidating the universities, taking over the media, stacking the courts with political appointees, was finally defeated by Donald Tusk in the elections. And it seemed like a really good moment for a move against populism. But then, as you've just pointed out, they're totally paralyzed now because actually the president in Poland is pretty powerful and the populists have now got that presidency still. So Tusk isn't really able to drive through these reforms. And part of this seems to be a very fundamental division between the west of the country and the east of the country, with the west of the country being more pro west and more anti populist in the east of the country, much more into these conspiracy theories, populism, authoritarianism and a real sense for 5050 balance. And there's something else that maybe a listener can help me understand. The west of the country, places like Pomerania were of course before the Second World War, very much integrated into Germany. And in fact the story at the end of the Second World War is that effectively Russia helped itself to a lot of what used to be eastern Poland and Poland pushed further west and in the process did this basically ethnic cleansing. Five million Germans were pushed out of Poland. Ukrainians were pushed out of Poland. Earlier, of course, the very large Jewish community in Poland had been murdered through the Holocaust and then many people emigrated. So that many of the people living in western Poland are relatively recent migrants who came from what are now Russian territories. And so it's a totally different. This base that Tusk and Sikorsky are relying on is a very interesting area of former multi ethnic territories now dominated often by Poles whose grandparents weren't originally in those areas. And I'd be interested in whether this Question of what happens when millions of people move and settle a new land, how that affects your politics and whether it's just a coincidence that those are people who are voting anti populist.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, the other thing, because, you know, during the whole. The build up to Brexit, there were Polish builders and all that. We had so many polls. I think we've still got about 800,000 Poles in Britain, but a lot of polls have gone back and several people, including Sikorsky, were very keen to make sure that I left the place knowing that Poland is on track to surpass the UK in terms of. Of living standards. The other thing that's really interesting and, you know, we got this a little bit talking to people in Denmark, we got it in Cyprus, we've got it in other places. The. The extent to which countries inside the European Union really, really miss the uk. And Tusk did an interview in the Sunday Times where he said that he still likes and respects David Cameron, but he confirmed something that I've long suspected. Basically, it was a very kind of insightful, revealing interview, but he basically said that he thought Brexit was one of the biggest mistakes in our shared history. But he said that Cameron told him not to worry. If it happens, we'll win it because we'll have the economy on our side and in any event, I probably won't get a majority. I'll have to have another coalition with the Lib Dems and they'll block the referendum. And he said he couldn't understand how something as historic as could be kind of weighed up in that somewhat cavalier fashion. But they were all saying, God, you know, we do miss the uk.

[Rory Stewart]

It's becoming such a superpower, isn't it? Small reference, if we're doing stuff for the newsletter. Some great writing, obviously, in Britain about Poland. Norman Davis, Adam Zamoyski and my great favorite, Mark Mazowa's Dark Continent, which is the history of Europe in the. In the 20th century. But you're right, it's Poland we are looking to. Poland is the new Europe. Poland, of course, huge population, well over 30 million people, nearly 40. America's closest ally through all these administrations, massive defence spending and a very different vision of Europe. And the question is, can Poland fill the gap, which sadly seems to exist because of the fractures and fragilities in France, where he doesn't seem to be able to muster a Prime Minister who stays in for more than a few weeks. Germany, which seems to be very fractured electorally. Can Poland step up and provide the.

[Alistair Campbell]

Engine of Europe, well, they're stepping up. They're definitely stepping up on the defense front. I mean, I've got a briefing on some of the stuff that's going on close to the borders. I mean, they're putting a lot of money into it, putting big infrastructure into it, and they're saying they have to because they feel this. And the drones, one of them said to me, look, the drones is just kind of tip of the iceberg. That's just them testing and playing. And I think their plea, I think I. I suspect this is why Donald Tuscu doesn't do much foreign media. I suspect this is why he did that interview in the Sunday Times, is he wanted British policymakers to see that. They feel that, yes, the UK has been very, very both under the Tories, now under labor, very, very supportive in relation to Ukraine. But is the British population. Is the population in the west of Europe really across just how dangerous this situation is for Europe?

[Rory Stewart]

And my final thought, I guess, which relates to that is that what. In Britain, we find it very difficult to imagine what it's like to be conscious of your history. And of course, Poland, very, very aware of the fact that there have been very large periods of its history where it has been under domination from other countries. I mean, literally didn't exist as a state from 1874 to 1918, 1939-45, and actually at the end of the 18th century as well. So it's not a sort of theoretical thing for them. It's not sort of beyond the realm of. Of imagining that a state like Russia would want to help themselves to it, because, of course, they've done it before.

[Alistair Campbell]

Sikorsky said that, you know, we have 500 years of history that tells us when the Russians threaten you, you listen. So there we go. Anyway, there we. He'll be out after part two of Michael Gove. That'll be the next interview on Leading. So we'll see you tomorrow for Q and A. Rory, we're going to talk about America. And as Trump is off on one of his international tours, we're actually going to focus on some of the. Of the pretty crazy stuff happening more domestically. We're gonna talk about Milei's win in Argentina. We're gonna talk about a bit about mental health. And we're going to review your book.

[Rory Stewart]

Rory, which is called.

[Alistair Campbell]

It's called. Oh, my God, Middleland.

[Rory Stewart]

Middleland. There we are. Looking forward to it very much. Maybe that'll bring a bit of the positive news that our listeners are always looking for. I try to make a more positive book this time.

[Alistair Campbell]

See you there.

[Rory Stewart]

See you then. Bye.