465. Andrew’s Disgrace, Newsnight, and a Centrist Win in the Netherlands (Question Time)

Summary

The Rest Is Politics – Question Time: Andrew’s Disgrace, Newsnight, and a Centrist Win in the Netherlands

Podcast: The Rest Is Politics
Episode: 465
Hosts: Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart
Date: November 6, 2025

---

Overview

In this lively Question Time edition, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart tackle topical questions from listeners, dissecting the media storm around Prince Andrew and the monarchy, the Dutch election’s rejection of far-right populism, Trump’s meeting with President Xi, campaign strategies, and more. The hosts highlight cultural blind spots, interrogate the British media’s obsessions, and bring their trademark blend of candor, disagreement, and wit.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

---

1. The Fallout of Prince Andrew & the Monarchy

• The Newsnight Interview & Media Focus

  • Rory recounts his frustration with being invited to discuss his book on Newsnight, only to be ambushed with Prince Andrew questions. He describes the experience:

    “I developed a very, very strong frustration. Now, on the record, it is horrifying what happened to Virginia Giuffre and others... But... I’m very conscious. There is Trump, there is Xi, there is the British economy, there’s the debt getting out of control. And I sort of felt... we were back in a kind of world of British newspapers wanting for their entire headlines for two weeks to talk about what happened 25 years ago.” — Rory Stewart [03:38–05:06]

  • Alastair empathizes with Rory’s irritation, noting he himself advised Rory not to go on the show under manipulated pretenses. [06:31–06:44]

• Elite Accountability & Public Avoidance

  • Rory suggests the British public and media use figures like Prince Andrew as lightning rods to avoid confronting larger, structural failings:

    “We like a villain, going after a particular individual rather than looking at the big, knotty, deep issues... The British press loves the idea we’re holding powerful people to account—but we’re not really.” — Rory Stewart [05:23–06:13]

  • Both hosts agree, however, there’s a broader issue of the elite being seen as “above public scrutiny.” [08:08]

• Double Standards & Cultural Comparisons

  • Rory invokes Senator George Mitchell, noting he was accused by the same victim but not hounded by the media:

    “Why is the British media not talking about this?” — Rory Stewart [09:17]

  • Alastair speculates on cultural factors:

    “The three people most identified with Epstein are Ghislaine Maxwell, Peter Mandelson, and former Prince Andrew—all Brits. Is there something about American culture that says we care less about this?” — Alastair Campbell [10:41]

• Broader Abuse and Hypocrisy

  • Rory calls out societal hypocrisy and the prevalence of abuse beyond elites:

    “Hundreds of thousands of men in this country who pay for sex... are absolutely embroiled in... vulnerable, trafficked women, who get to feel good about themselves getting cross with somebody else.” — Rory Stewart [09:58–10:39]

---

2. Dutch Election: Centrist Resurgence and Fragmented Politics

• Results & Context

  • Rory summarizes the complex Dutch parliamentary results and fragmentation:

    “D66, equivalent to Lib Dems, got 26 seats; PVV (Wilders’ far right) 26; VVD (right-wing liberals/Tories) 22; Green Labour (Timmermans) 20…” — Rory Stewart [13:23]

  • Alastair and Rory agree the result is a fracturing of both left and right, making coalition-building difficult, but with a centrist victory from Rob Jetten.

• Analysis of Far-Right and New Leadership

  • Alastair notes:

    “Historically, what happens with the far right is that when they get anywhere near power, they tend to fail with power.” [14:09]

  • Rory highlights the effect:

    “...If you combine, compared to 2023, the far right got 41 seats. This time they've got 42.” [13:58]

  • The new centrist face, Rob Jetten, is discussed as youthful, charismatic, and proposing bold policies like “building 10 new cities.” [16:34–17:00]

• Broader Implications for Democracy

  • The hosts relate Dutch fragmentation to the UK:

    “Tories might literally disappear as a party... The right is now fractured, the left is fractured, and we still have a voting system... for the big two.” — Alastair Campbell [17:07] “What was a two-party system is now a five-party system, at least.” — Rory Stewart [17:43]

---

3. Trump, Xi, and Geopolitics

• Trump’s ‘12 out of 10’ Meeting

  • The hosts lampoon Trump’s penchant for exaggeration:

    “Part of Trump's inability to say anything without it being untruthful, exaggerated and hyperbolic.” — Alastair Campbell [22:16]

• Tariffs, Trade, and China’s Strategy

  • Rory deciphers tariff-speak:

    “He just cut the fentanyl tariff from 20% to 10%... the average tariff on China has gone down from 57% to 47%.” [22:45]

  • Discussion of China's dominance in rare earths:

    “They control 85, 90% of the world's processing of copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt and the rare earths. By cutting them off...he essentially shuts the world down.” — Rory Stewart [24:12]

• Shifting Alliances & The US as a Threat

  • Rory relays remarks from a Dutch official:

    “The country that’s done the most damage to the European Union... is not actually China or Russia, it's the United States.” [25:36]

• Survey of America vs. China

  • Alastair brings up a Dublin anecdote:

    “The numbers on which is the greatest threat to global stability were quite extraordinary. 80% said America.” — Alastair Campbell [26:52]

  • Rory notes Trump targeted Canada with punitive tariffs over an ad aired in Ontario, impacting the entire Canadian economy. [27:18]

---

4. Campaigning: Door Knocking vs. Social Media

• Effectiveness of Door Knocking

  • Rory’s reflection:

    “You’re knocking on 40,000 doors... team of eight people…80% nobody’s in…the ones who answer say, ‘I’m never voting Tory in my life.’” [28:35]

  • Modern data-driven tactics—like flagging “edamame bean buyers” as Lib Dems—didn’t prove effective. [28:56]
  • Both hosts remain skeptical of the old school campaign but admire grassroots, village-hall style politics working for anti-Orbán forces in Hungary. [29:40]

• Peter Hyman’s Social Media Advice for Keir Starmer

  • Alastair highlights Hyman’s ideas: “Keir Unfiltered,” a Keir Starmer podcast, PMQ-prep behind the scenes, etc. [32:10–33:06]
  • Rory doubts if Starmer can convincingly pull off ‘fireside chat’ style content:

    “He doesn’t really Kick back, does he? He’d be like, ‘I had fish fingers for dinner tonight.’” — Rory Stewart [33:21]

  • Both endorse multiple campaign methods—a blend is needed.

---

5. Rest Is Politics Listener Demographics

• The hosts speculate on the age, gender, and nationality of their listeners:

  “We’re very, very heavily slanted...towards people under 30.” — Rory Stewart [34:44] “I’d say probably more male than female…quite a lot of youngish men, 30s.” — Alastair Campbell [35:03] “Just over half of our listeners are British…large number now in Ireland, Australia, quite a lot in the US, Germany, France, New Zealand, Netherlands.” — Rory Stewart [35:40]

---

6. Book Recommendations & Personal Moments

• Alastair recommends “The Bagpipes: A Cultural History,” while Rory mentions “Notebooks of a Wandering Monk” by Matthieu Ricard and “Finest Hotel in Kabul” by Andrew North.
• The segment closes with a lighter exchange about bagpipes in history and Rory’s appreciation for Alastair reading from his late father’s will in the previous episode.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On cultural scapegoating:

  “It’s more convenient to find somebody who is…eighth in line to the throne, hasn’t had a public office for 15 years…This whole thing takes all the oxygen.” — Rory Stewart [05:49]

• On campaign grunt work:

  “I found even 2010, 2015, 2017…when I was running, that door knocking, leafletting was a very, very strange activity.” — Rory Stewart [28:33]

• On young, centrist leaders:

  “Rob Jetten…very young, very charismatic, very handsome young guy. So people are looking for something different.” — Alastair Campbell [16:34]

• On Western dependence on China:

  “We’ve lost the technological capacity to do this because we’ve had China doing it for us for the last 10, 20 years.” — Rory Stewart [25:07]

• On survey results about global stability:

  "80% said America [is a greater threat than China].” — Alastair Campbell [26:52]

• On ‘banging on’:

  “What would Keir bang on about?” — Rory Stewart [34:09]
  “He bangs on about his dad’s job—Toolmaker.” — Alastair Campbell [34:15]

---

Key Timestamps

• 03:38 — Rory explains his frustration with Newsnight and the Prince Andrew controversy
• 08:08 — Alastair discusses power, transparency, and the lasting damage to the monarchy
• 13:23–17:00 — Detailed breakdown of Dutch election results and implications
• 22:02–24:12 — Trump’s Xi meeting, tariffs, and global trade maneuvering
• 28:33–34:27 — Campaign methods: door knocking, social media, and Hyman’s strategy suggestions
• 34:44–35:56 — Listener demographic discussion and international audience
• 36:07–37:44 — Book recommendations and personal/friendly banter

---

Concluding Tone

Throughout, Campbell and Stewart play off one another’s perspectives with self-deprecating humour and intellectual honesty, never shying from disagreement but always returning to substance and the bigger picture.

---

This summary captures the episode’s major themes, key arguments, and memorable exchanges, giving listeners an engaging snapshot of UK and world affairs, media culture, and the evolving landscape of politics—delivered with intelligence, wit, and a dose of scepticism.

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 this episode is powered by Fuse Energy, and.

[Rory Stewart]

There'S a slight tendency to governments to talk about the future of energy as though it's some distant concept awaiting its next committee report. But in reality, of course, it's already being built, fuel by fuel, turbine by.

[Ad Voice / Advertiser]

Turbine, by companies like Fuse Energy.

[Alistair Campbell]

And Fuse is now the fastest growing renewable energy supplier in the uk, putting sustainability at the heart of everything they do. Their new solar and wind farm projects are helping to build a cleaner, more resilient national grid, proving that renewable energy can be both affordable and scalable.

[Rory Stewart]

Every home that they power brings that future close to the present, whether it's panels catching light or turbines turning across the country. And this is progress, which isn't measured just in targets and slogans, but in sunlight, in wind, in electricity, and a bit of British persistence.

[Alistair Campbell]

And progress is not always about shouting the loudest. It's about keeping the lights on intelligently and making clean energy something that everyone can afford.

[Ad Voice / Advertiser]

The energy transition isn't tomorrow's problem, it's today. And Fuse Energy is actually doing something to address it.

[Alistair Campbell]

So switch to Fuse Energy today, using the code politics to save on your energy bills and help power a cleaner, more sustainable future.

[Ad Voice / Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by Spotify Portal for Backstage. But you're wondering what's Portal? Well, it's an internal developer portal built to improve developer experience and boost productivity. All software components are centralized, documentation is automated and easy to maintain. New products and components just a few clicks. With your best practices already built in, think less friction, more innovation. Ready to double your productivity? Try Spotify [e-mail] this podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Carvana makes car selling fast and easy from start to finish. Enter your license plate or VIN and get a real offer in seconds, down to the penny. If you accept, Carvana will come pick up your car from your driveway. Or you can drop it off at one of our car vending machines. Either way, you get paid instantly. It's fast, transparent and 100% online car selling that saves your time. That's Carvana. Carvana Pickup fees may apply.

[Rory Stewart]

Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart and me.

[Alistair Campbell]

Alistair Campbell and Rory by popular demand, it is imperative that you give us your considered views on the former Prince Andrew and the implications for the monarchy? We had a lot of feedback on your Newsnight interview, both ways. But fair to say you struck a controversial note in seeming to defend the establishment very, very closely. So, Leslie B. What does Alastair think about Rory saying on Newsnight that there are more important things to focus on than Prince Andrew's activities? Does Alastair agree that there should be more transparency in the financial arrangements of the Royal family, given that they're taxpayer funded? Well, of course, the Royal Family's finances are very, very complicated. They're not quite straightforward. They do get money from the, from the sovereign grant and that's us taxpayers, the government paying that. But they pretty vast personal wealth and they have lots of investments and the crown estates run all that. Your Newsnight interview, Rory. I don't know. I got the feeling you were in a really bad mood.

[Rory Stewart]

I was in a bad mood.

[Alistair Campbell]

Why were you in such a bad mood?

[Rory Stewart]

Because they'd invited me on to talk about my book. So I was supposed to be talking about Middleland and local democracy and citizens assemblies, and I turn up and it turns out that what they wanted to do was talk to me about Prince Andrew and I developed a very, very strong frustration. Now, on the record, it is horrifying what happened to Virginia Jeffrey and others and many, many others. And I think the more we learn about what Jeffrey Epstein was doing and people who associated with him, the more horrifying it is. And these are vulnerable women who are horribly abused, trafficked from very vulnerable backgrounds. And Virginia Jeffrey's just killed herself. So it's a horrible story and it is unbelievable that Prince Andrew would continue to associate himself. It's unbelievable that Peter Mandelson continued to stay with him after he'd been convicted. I agree with all of that. But I suppose I also sit there thinking, okay, I'm on Newsnight and firstly I'm irritated about my book. But there's a bigger point, which is the world's blowing up and I'm very conscious. There is Trump, there is sea, there is the British economy, there's the debt getting out of control. And I sort of felt that I'd been taken back 25 years, that we were back in a kind of world of British newspapers wanting for their entire headlines for two weeks to talk about what happened 25 years ago. And I wanted to say it was awful. It's terrible. I guess it's. But surely, and this is maybe where I'm getting too wound up and too kind of psychological about it. I genuinely worry it's avoidance, that we don't want to think about the really big, difficult issues. We don't actually want to hold really powerful people accountable. We don't want to hold them accountable for really big things they do. It's more convenient to find somebody who is. I don't know what he is eighth in line to the throne, hasn't had a public office for 15 years, isn't received to public money for something he did 25 years ago and which he hasn't been convicted of. And this whole thing takes all the oxygen that could be taught. And I think it's repeated. I felt actually it's a very different thing because she's not accused of doing anything remotely similar. But I also was frustrated by how much time was spent on Rachel Reeves and her licensing. I was frustrated by how much time was spent on Angela Rayner and stuff. I just think the British press loved the idea. We're holding powerful people to account and this becomes the big story for weeks and weeks, and we're not really holding really powerful people to account for the really big things that matter to us today.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, I mean, I can see where you're coming from. I didn't watch it live, but I got so many messages from people saying, what's your mate Rory up to on Tuesday? That I had a look and I could tell you were absolutely frustrated and pissed off to be there, and I.

[Rory Stewart]

Didn'T actually want to talk about it. I was sitting there and she dragged me in. I was trying to sit on my toe, as probably I should be there.

[Alistair Campbell]

We'll be in those situations where we've got in a sort of thought, what the am I doing here?

[Rory Stewart]

But anyway, you actually told me not to go on the show.

[Alistair Campbell]

I did.

[Rory Stewart]

Your advice was don't talk about Prince Andrew. Now you're making me talk about Prince Andrew.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, my advice was don't go on to it because you'd been asked on one basis and they then were going to spin you into another one and you were uncomfortable.

[Rory Stewart]

Would your professional advice be that I should be talking about Prince Andrew?

[Alistair Campbell]

Look, I've been reluctant to talk about. Because in general, I think one of our problems culturally is we focus far too much on things that don't matter and not enough on things that really do. That's why we want to talk about the climate and Sudan yesterday, because I feel that very, very strongly on this. However, I think that we're not just talking about something that happened a long time ago. We're talking about the conduct of people, powerful people in public life ever since. So I think the reason this Prince Andrew Story, former Prince Andrew Story, has just refused to go away is because at so many different stages, he and others have completely mishandled it. And even though I thought King Charles got very fulsome praise for the statement where he finally stripped her of the titles and said that the thoughts should be with the victims and the palace brief, that Camilla was appalled because of the work she does protecting young women and violence against women and girls and so forth, I think that right along the way they've just not handled it well. And I think this feeds into this idea that there is a sort of. For those who already have power, you can get away with a lot more than those who don't. So when the dam burst, you were there on the day that the dam around Andrew was bursting. And I think that therefore it is important. I think it's about the establishment. It's about. And the transparency point is interesting. They know, used to be they're way more transparent than they were, but there still is a feeling that they are very much above proper public scrutiny.

[Rory Stewart]

I agree with you that there is a really strong sense in Britain that there is a powerful elite who gets away with things and ordinary people are abused. And I can see completely why Prince Andrew became a kind of big symbol for that idea. But I also think that it tells us something about our culture, that this is a very fundamental trope that we focus on. And we often don't focus enough on structural issues. We like a villain, we like going after a particular individual rather than looking at the kind of big, knotty, deep issues that really exist, the big structure issues, the monarchy. And we're also really hypocritical. So you and I interviewed George Mitchell. George Mitchell is accused by Virginia Jeffrey of doing exactly the same thing. Senator George Mitchell. Senator George Mitchell is right there with Prince Andrew accused of doing exactly the same thing by the same woman as part of the Epstein thing. Why didn't we discuss that? Why is the British media not talking about this?

[Alistair Campbell]

I didn't know that.

[Rory Stewart]

But nobody talks about this.

[Ad Voice / Advertiser]

He gets an honorary degree.

[Rory Stewart]

We all celebrate him on leading. And for some reason in America, they don't talk about this. Prince Andrew is one of a category of people, along with a Harvard lawyer, former prime ministers and others who have been accused by Virginia Jeffrey of exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.

[Alistair Campbell]

But Rory, I say on that that the Americans are wr.

[Rory Stewart]

We should emphasise that, of course, Prince Andrew and George Mitchell categorically deny these allegations. But that obviously isn't the general tenor of the public. I just want us to say, yes, absolutely, that whole thing is horrible. The abuse of vulnerable women by men is horrible. But let me take it to another stage. I suspect that a very large number of not elite people, ordinary people using or abusing women in the sex industry in Britain are abusing women who are vulnerable, trafficked, and we never hear about them. This is not just something which we can project and we all feel good about ourselves. And here's this evil prince and it's only the elite that does it and they're not accountable. How about the. Presumably hundreds of thousands of men in this country who pay for sex, who I'm sure are absolutely embroiled in. In vulnerable, trafficked women who get to feel good about themselves getting cross with somebody else.

[Alistair Campbell]

I said the other week that there is something very interesting about the fact that the three people who, it seems to me are most identified with the kind of the public ritual punishment in relation to Epstein are Ghislaine Maxwell, Peter Mandelson and former Prince Andrew. All Brits. So is there something about American culture that says we care less about this? I don't know. I think the fact that Trump is going to such extraordinary lengths, it seems to me, to keep this thing under wraps. Maybe there is more to come out. And I also don't think we yet know the full story about Epstein and how he got his money. I don't know whether I can bear to read Virginia Fit Frey's book, because I read a review of it in a German newspaper when I was in Germany last week, which was truly horrific. And I think, to be honest, Rory, I think we did underplay it a bit. And I think that the monarchy has been hit, damaged by it because it's just not being gripped from the word go. And I think too many of them. This is what happens when scandal hits, is that too many people have been willing to believe somebody who I think we have to accept now has told a lot of lies over a long period of time, which is true.

[Rory Stewart]

An exact description of Peter Mandelson. When scandal hit, too many people were prepared to believe a lot of lies from Peter Mandelson.

[Alistair Campbell]

Hold on. Peter got sacked twice.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, three times, actually.

[Alistair Campbell]

I sensed you were looking at me there, Peter.

[Rory Stewart]

No, I wasn't looking at you. No, I was looking at Kid Summer. It's the same thing. He assured them of stuff that turned out not to be true. And too many people are prepared to believe It. But I also think there's another interesting question which we could get onto on another occasion, which is a very, very difficult thing, which is when we judge public figures of any sort, which is why I actually don't like going after public figures in general. Do we look at ourselves enough? Do we ask ourselves, would I have been tempted to get round my stamp duty on my house? We're very, very quick to condemn and we're a culture that is ferocious about condemnation. And I don't know, I don't like it. I mean, I'm more comfortable speaking about what's happening at a geopolitical level than I am.

[Alistair Campbell]

I completely agree with you about the Rachel Reeves thing. I think that's just a classic example of, you know, trying to create a scandal where there isn't really one. But I think on the, on the Andrew Mountbatten Windsor situation, I think it's been a pretty, a pretty run do for a long time. Right, Roy, let's move off the British Royal family to the Dutch elections. John, Mark Van Damme from Gloucestershire. Do Rory and Alastair take solace from the Dutch election results? Does it show a possible approach to counter the rise of right wing populists?

[Rory Stewart]

Well, go on, tell us a little bit about what, what you felt about the Dutch. Should I give you the rough.

[Alistair Campbell]

I was happy. I was quite happy.

[Rory Stewart]

Rough figures, as I see it. So D66, which is the equivalent to the Lib Dem, has got 26 seats. PVV, which is Hert Wildes's far right party, 26 seats. VVD, which is the sort of right wins. Liberals, yeah. Tories got 22, Green Labour, which is Franz Timmons, who we interviewed on leading, who I really liked, got 20 seats. And now Tim Munz has resigned. Christian Democrats 18. And then these two other far right parties, one run by Joost Edemans, nine. And this particularly sinister party run by Thierry Bode, seven seats. So there's an interesting question which is actually, if you combine compared to 20, 23, when we covered this last, the far right got 41 seats. This time they've got 42. But what's happened is there's been a big drop in head builders and there's been a rise in the other far right parties.

[Alistair Campbell]

Look, what often happens with the. Historically, what has often happened with the far right is that when they get anywhere near power, they tend to fail with power. And we're seeing that actually with some of the reform councils here. Some of these councils the reform are running are just, they're becoming A bit of a national joke. But I think what's really interesting about this when he says to give us Solace, the guy who'1 he's kind of come out of nowhere. He's 38, he's called Rob Yetton. He's been around for a while. He's been actually a deputy Prime Minister before, but he's sort of come from nowhere. I think they were fifth last time around. And it's going to be very, very hard though, to build a coalition. So this is. And this is. We're back to this point about the. So he is on record as saying, I think it's the first time he thinks, where you'll be expected to put together a government when you are the leader of a party with fewer than 30 seats. So you've got several parties now that are around the same space.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, I just named seven parties. Yeah, I mean, what a weird system that is.

[Alistair Campbell]

So he. And he came straight out and said, you know, that probably the most obvious party to start to build a coalition with was the Timmerman's. Timmermans who stepped down, but the Labour Green Alliance. But then he's going to have to go maybe further left or maybe a bit further right. He might actually end up having to deal with the Conservatives, the Mark Rutter party that has been absolutely hopeless and.

[Rory Stewart]

Has gone further to the right and.

[Alistair Campbell]

Has moved the right to sort of play around with Wilders and has refused.

[Rory Stewart]

To work with the Green Labour Party and Wilders himself.

[Alistair Campbell]

It was a big blow to them because I think they felt if they could win as they did last time, become part of the government even though he wasn't in the government, and then the other parties be seen to try to make it not work, that that would benefit them politically. What seems to have happened is that people have thought, hold on a minute, this Wilder's guy, is he really the real deal? Is he actually ever going to be able to do anything? So I think he paid the biggest price and Rob Yetton has been the beneficiary.

[Rory Stewart]

Just finally on this, Timmermans is quite interesting. So we both liked him very much and he was somebody who was, I think, quite popular and celebrated when he was at the European Union. And despite being a sort of seen in Dutch politics initially as a kind of very mature, grown up, highly experienced politician, it didn't quite work. You get the impression the Dutch didn't really take to him.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, and maybe we're back to this thing about, you know, needing new approach, new style, the sort of whole Mandani thing. Rob Yetton, very young, very charismatic, very handsome young guy. So people are looking for something different. I'll tell you one thing on the policy front that's really interesting. I think I read this right, he's talking about building 10 new cities. Well, so I think Labor's talking about what, four new towns.

[Rory Stewart]

Wow.

[Alistair Campbell]

And he's talking about 10 new cities, which would be.

[Rory Stewart]

Wow. And it's already, I think, the most densely populated country on earth.

[Alistair Campbell]

So if I'm wrong on that, if any sort of Netherlands listeners who think I'm wrong on that, I'd love it if they could, could let me know. But I think this point about the fragmentation of political systems, of what's happening in our politics, because, you know, we're seeing a little bit of that here, you know, the Tories. I was actually of an event the other day where it's a very strong view that the Tories might literally disappear as a party. No, I don't think they will. But that sense that the right is now fractured, the left is fractured, and yet we still have a voting system that is founded on the idea that one of the big two will always win.

[Rory Stewart]

As I think you've pointed out in the past, we've gone from what was for a couple of hundred years a two party system, even though there was a kind of the Tories remain and then there was a slip from Liberal to Labour as the second party to what's effectively now a five party system at least, isn't it?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, if you're in Scotland and Wales, it's even more. Yeah. Right. Should we take a break?

[Rory Stewart]

Very good. Then back from the break, we'll talk a little bit about Trump and Sea and then maybe some more cheerful questions.

[Alistair Campbell]

Why not?

[David Ulisoga]

Hello, I'm David Ulushogger.

[Sarah Churchwell]

And I'm Sarah Churchwell.

[David Ulisoga]

This week on Journey Through Time, we are exploring the story of the gunpowder plot of 1605. The story of how a small group of Catholics engaged in what would have been the most devastating terrorist attack in all of British history.

[Sarah Churchwell]

The plan was ruthless blow up Parliament, King James I and most of his family, all in a single blow.

[David Ulisoga]

The series will tell the story of treason and traitors of a group of men led by the charismatic Robert Catesby, who believed that the only option left to them to win their rights as Catholics was the violent destruction of the Stuart state.

[Sarah Churchwell]

We look at the story of Guy Fawkes, the nation's most famous traitor, from his recruitment to becoming the plot's fall guy. And ultimately being tortured and killed.

[David Ulisoga]

Finally, we find out why this plot is still remembered now, 400 years later. This Listen to Journey Through Time wherever you get your podcasts. And as a special treat for listeners, we've got an extract from that series at the end of this episode.

[Rory Stewart]

This episode is brought to you by.

[Ad Voice / Advertiser]

Revolut Business the All in one account to manage your finances now.

[Alistair Campbell]

Politics has its share of bad deals, trade summits, late night negotiations. Often somebody walks away with the short straw.

[Ad Voice / Advertiser]

And we've seen enough botch negotiations in Westminster to know what happens when numbers don't add up. Business is no different. Nothing empties your pockets faster than hidden exchange rates.

[Alistair Campbell]

Revolut business changes that over 25 currencies exchange at the same interbank rates that banks use during market hours within plan allowance with automatic orders and price alerts. The guesswork disappears.

[Ad Voice / Advertiser]

Breaking into new markets feels possible, not perilous. Whether you're paying salaries in Dublin or suppliers in Sydney, your Money reaches over 150 global destinations fast without the fine print.

[Alistair Campbell]

Hangover Business across borders kept simple for.

[Ad Voice / Advertiser]

All the entrepreneurs and business owners out there. If you're ready to simplify your business, finances and exchange like an expert, now's the time to open a Revolut business account. Plus you'll unlock a £200 welcome bonus or the equivalent of in your local currency if you sign up and add money to your account by the end of 2025. Just use the link in the description. Fees and terms and conditions apply. This is an ad by BetterHelp. November can feel quite tough, the light fading earlier, the days closing in, and it's easy, almost natural, to retreat into ourselves. But at this time of year, as at any time of year, it's not solitude but connection that helps. Reaching out doesn't have to mean grand gestures. It can be a thank you message to someone you've not spoken to in months, or a walk with a friend who's been on your mind. And often, after you do it, you wonder why you waited so long to give or receive gratitude. BetterHelp has spent more than a decade helping people start those conversations, connecting more than 5 million people to 30,000 qualified professionals and refining an industry leading system for finding the right match. You can switch easily if the first fit isn't quite right. Don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com restpolitics that's betterhelp.com restpolitics.

[Alistair Campbell]

Welcome back to the Rest Politics Question time with me, Alistair Campbell.

[Rory Stewart]

And with me, Rory Stewart.

[Alistair Campbell]

Katie, what did you make of Trump calling his meeting with President Xi amazing and rating it at 12 out of 10?

[Rory Stewart]

Well, this guy shows that he watches Spinal Tap. Do you remember they've got a volume 11 on their speakers when they're playing. I think that's where he got it from.

[Alistair Campbell]

What? But he said 12.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, but it's the same joke, isn't it?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, I don't think one of them is a joke, and I think it's funny. I just think it's part of Trump's inability to say anything without it being untruthful, exaggerated and hyperbolic.

[Rory Stewart]

Completely mad.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, yeah. And Also, it wasn't 12 out of 10. I think sometimes with Trump, the more he overstates, there's some little whirring thing inside him saying that didn't go very well. And my sense of watching the meeting between Trump and Xi, that Xi went home happier.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, I mean, it's still staggering. I mean, what you in the headlines, people are like, Trump cut the tariff from 20% to 10%. And everyone might think on the basis of that, that China now faces tariffs like the UK, which has got a 10% tariff for the US what actually he did was just cut the fentanyl tariff from 20 to 10%, which means the average tariff on China has gone down from 57% to 47%. So basically, if you buy a hundred dollar good from China, you're spending $50 tariff on top of that. I mean, it's unbelievable given that most of the clothing, toys, et cetera, and US Supermarkets, Walmart, whatever is coming in from China and the effect on the cost of living, particularly on people on lower incomes who are buying Chinese goods, is staggering.

[Alistair Campbell]

And what do you make of the way that Xi used the whole rare earth debate? Because it seemed to me that he played that card very, very hard. I'm not really clear what Xi Jinping gave up.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, he didn't. He, in a sense, won. But I think it's important. I think that unlike Europe, who didn't really see Trump coming, China saw this from 2016 onwards. So they spent 10 years preparing a playbook to be ready for what happens when America puts up tariffs against them. Because there was all this talk, even under Biden, of de risking, de leveraging. So they had a whole playbook ready. And right at the heart of it is that they took control of between 85 and 90% of all the critical minerals and rare earths required for technology and the green revolution. They control 85, 90% of the world's processing of copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt and the rare earths. And the result is that by cutting them off, which is what he did, he essentially shuts the world down. Now Scott Besant is saying that was very stupid of him. He played his ham and now we know. And so we're going to process our own critical minerals and rare earths and they won't get us again next time in three, four years time. And they're saying the same thing about semiconductor chips. But actually, the reason why China processes all this stuff is even with the latest technology, it is unbelievably polluting, environment and landscape destroying. And nobody in the United States and Europe wants to process these things from large scale. And we've lost the technological capacity to do this because we've had China doing it for us for the last 10, 20 years.

[Alistair Campbell]

I was really interested by that Scott Besson thing because, I don't know, I got the feeling he kind of phoned up the Financial Times. Did you read any?

[Rory Stewart]

Yes, I did.

[Alistair Campbell]

I read the ft and I think if the FT had got a big interview with Scott Besant, they'd kind of project in a quite a big way. It'd be kind of lunch with the FT or it'd be front of Life and Arts or whatever. It was quite a small story that I just got the sense that I got. Scott Besson, if anybody FT is listening, please let us know. But I got the feeling Scott Besson's people phoning up saying, we'd like to drop a story about what we think about the Chinese rare earth strategy.

[Rory Stewart]

You're completely right. Because what was weird about it is on that page you were essentially reading that China had overplayed its hands and screwed up. And then the next page with two stories saying how brilliantly China had handled the negotiations and see it emerged as Victor Xi Jinping, still holding his cards quite close to his chest. I was talking to a Dutch official recently and they're right at the heart of the European Union now, trying to think about the threats posed, particularly by Russia and China. So looking at Chinese intelligence, that Chinese balloon that flew across the us, the Russian drones, and I slightly cheekily was saying, well, when are you going to acknowledge that the country that's done the most damage to the European Union over the last nine months is not actually China or Russia, it's the United States? You Actually, look on the impact on European economies, sense of European security and defense. It's the US that's the major challenge, and it's the US that's much more likely to take Greenland off Denmark than anyone else.

[Alistair Campbell]

You know, I mentioned in the main episode that I've been speaking at this dinner in Dublin, and it is the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, about 1200 people there. So it was a nice large sample for me to do my current survey obsession, which is America v China Power. The numbers on which is the greatest threat to global stability were quite extraordinary. 80% said America.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, it's absolutely unbelievable because this is the week where Ontario put up an ad with Reagan talking about how tariffs and protectionism were bad for the economy. And Trump was so angry about a single advertisement in Canada that he's just put the tariffs in Canada up by a further 10%.

[Alistair Campbell]

It's called a tantrum.

[Rory Stewart]

This is now existential for the Canadian economy. I mean, the Canadian economy, much more than the British, European or Chinese economy, is basically a North American economy. Eighty percent, I think, of Canadian exports go into the U.S. so that our friend Mark Carney is now dealing with tariff levels in Canada, which are almost identical to the tariff levels in China. So I think 37% at the moment. And he was, of course, elected to stand up to Trump, but also to get a deal. And this sense that Trump is punishing what should be his closest allies in the world.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. And it's also why at the asean, Mark Carney was being very, very warm, positive about some of the Southeast Asian leaders that he was. He was meeting there. Let's bring it back home, Rory. DOOR KNOCKING this is from Kat. Jade. Are door knocking and leafleting still an effective campaign strategy? Is social media more effective?

[Rory Stewart]

Well, look, I'd love to hear your take on this. I found even 2010, 2015, 2017 elections, when I was running that door knocking, leafletting was a very, very strange activity because in the Conservative Party, certainly where I was, the number of volunteers who actually knocked and leafleted with you would end up being 10 or 15 of your association members for the whole constituency. So you've got, let's say you're knocking on 40,000 doors and you've got a team of eight people. So even when you've got five weeks of campaigning, you're walking slowly down the street. And of course, 80% of the doors you knock on, nobody's in the next door you knock on, they say, I'm never voting Tory in my life. There was a really depressing moment where I realized things had gone wrong in the 2015 election where I realized that this in the Lake District, any window I look through where there were lots of books in the library, were definitely not going to be voting Conservatives, they were going to be voting Lib Dem. Then you had this amazing attempt to use data. So the Tory party had bought very complicated data, I think from supermarkets, which told you something like if you bought edamame beans, you were more likely to vote Lib Dem. I mean, I could have told them that. And on the basis of this, we were told this was going to be a. A Tory door, a Labor door. But half the Tory doors on my sheet would have a big labor poster on their window. So anyway, so I began to think, how much difference does this really make? But equally right, I saw Mike Lignartieff, who we interviewed on link, former leader of the Liberal Party in Canada, and he said that what's working in Hungary for Magyar, who's the guy that may take down Orban the populist, is that he's out there leafleting and he's doing little village halls. Started with village halls of 20, 30 people relentlessly talking to crowds of 10. And that that's what politics is about.

[Alistair Campbell]

He's probably putting out some really sassy, well produced social media content alongside it. I can't pretend I'm the greatest door knocker in the world, but I'd say I've done my share of it. It's always struck me as it's not a very effective use of time. The trouble is you sometimes end up spending. Well, I do half an hour standing there arguing with something that you know is never going to vote Labour, whereas you've got, what you've got to be good at is straight away working out, is it worth your time? And then I think it's a good.

[Rory Stewart]

Sign for you though, because actually somebody said this to me about Margaret Thatcher, that she would always spend half an hour arguing on the doorstep with a single Labour voter. And the canvassers kept saying, come on, move on, move on, move on. But I think both with you and Thatcher, that's quite a good sign because it shows you're actually up for the persuasion and the argument. And it's really soul destroying to just see yourself as a postman, where you literally don't waste your time discussing at all. If you're literally just like someone putting through a pizza, one of those shiny pizza leaflets through a door, you really wonder, particularly when I was the cabinet minister, I was like, really Theresa May.

[Alistair Campbell]

Love the thing about Theresa May, who always struck me as somebody who wasn't really a people person on one level, but she loves going around knocking on doors at the weekend.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, well, she'd done it all her life, didn't she? But also how the world's changed. When my mother was a member of the Conservative Party, there were, I think 2 million members of the Tory party when she first joined and she was a teenager and there were so many that you were given a street. So she had a street in Wimbledon as I think a 15 year old. But every other street in London was covered, so it was incredibly easy to get the leaflets out. All you had to do was make sure your central party office had the leaflets.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, I think you have to do all. I don't know if you had. Ton rude. I sent you Peter Hyman's letter.

[Rory Stewart]

Oh, he's brilliant. He's suddenly really come into his own, hasn't he?

[Alistair Campbell]

How to make Keir Starmer a social media star.

[Rory Stewart]

And he had this lovely vision of him saying, doing a fireside check where he's like, you'll never believe what I just heard from Trump on the phone. But can you see, can you see Starmer doing that?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, let's go through. He's got five ideas. One surrounded Keir Starmer against 25 Reform leaning voters. That's what we used to call the masochism strategy. And I would definitely do that. Okay. And he's got it. He shows a video of Pete Buttigieg doing it.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, I absolutely loved it. And it' slightly what I did in a minor way, both with the leadership and London. Merrill, get out, do the town halls. Kemi Bednock should have been doing it too.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

They should all be taking the risk.

[Alistair Campbell]

His second idea was Kia Unfiltered. My day. This is where he gets back you gets back, kicks his shoes off and says in the camera, you'll never believe what Donald Trump told me today. Or you know what? I've had to go to the Home Office myself, sit down with the team and demand better answers on boats. Number three. The Keir Starmer podcast.

[Rory Stewart]

The second one doesn't sound completely convincing.

[Alistair Campbell]

I don't know. I think you just go in at the end of the day, 30 seconds, two minutes on the phone, you just say something. I think that could work.

[Rory Stewart]

But how would Starmer do it? I mean, I can agree someone could do it. I just can't quite see Starmer doing it.

[Alistair Campbell]

Depends what he says.

[Rory Stewart]

He doesn't really Kick back, does he? He wouldn't actually be like, you'll never guess what Donald Trump said to me on the Stone. He'd be like, I had fish fingers for dinner tonight.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, he won't say that. He won't. You'd be far too negative about the Prime Minister's communication skills. Keir Starmer podcast. Well, I've been banging on about it for a while behind the speaker's chair. Show the preparation for PMQs. Would you go for that?

[Rory Stewart]

Nah. Come on. It will reveal that PMQS is people like you spending six hours prepping them. So all their great off the cuff one liners, you'll discover by watching this, maybe have been written by their team.

[Alistair Campbell]

Maybe. And then he's got this one, Kier. Bang. Banging on. So you do the things where you're banging on about something. I like. I mean, I'm a banging on.

[Rory Stewart]

You like banging on, don't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Banging on about brakes.

[Rory Stewart]

What would Kieran bang on about?

[Alistair Campbell]

What do you bang on about?

[Rory Stewart]

I mean, he bangs on about his dad's job.

[Alistair Campbell]

Toolmaker. Yeah, yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

What else does he bang?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I think he bangs on. He bangs on about. I think he could bang on about enemies. Bang on about. You could bang on about Farage, you could bang on about civil Service. You could bang on about, I don't know, bang on about Arsenal.

[Rory Stewart]

Bang on about us. I could do that. Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Burnley at the weekend or you probably saw that anyway. I thought that was very, very interesting. Right, last question. Roy. Nick Fennec. Yeah, this is one. I don't know if I know the answer to this. What do you think the voter demographic of Triple plus subscribers is? Can you run a sample poll to see how accurate your guesses are? We should do that.

[Rory Stewart]

We should indeed do that. Look, we do know one thing, which is that we're very, very heavily slanted in general Trip listeners towards people under 30.

[Alistair Campbell]

Really?

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. And actually a surprising number.

[Alistair Campbell]

Is that why you've got so much blowback already? 1819, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

[Rory Stewart]

Could be. I don't know. That'd be interesting to see whether people under 30 feel differently to people over 60.

[Alistair Campbell]

I've heard a lot of people this week come up and say, trip plus subscriber, Trip plus member. What have they been? Mainly, I'd say. I don't know whether he's right. I'd say probably more male than female.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

Quite a lot of youngish men, 30s.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. We just interviewed Gareth Southgate. I was quite moved by the fact that he was listening so carefully to our analysis, the Czech elections. Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

I think that. I think the disagreeing agreeably thing fits with his character. Yeah. So we should do that, though. And maybe as we're going on tour, starting in Bournemouth on Sunday, we should maybe ask them and do surveys.

[Rory Stewart]

Here's a figure I thought was interesting. I believe only just over half of our listeners are British, but we have a very large number now in Ireland, Australia, quite a lot in the us.

[Alistair Campbell]

Germany, France, New Zealand. Yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

Netherlands. Surprising. I'm always surprised when I go to Netherlands. I said, when I did that event in the Netherlands, there were. Whatever it was. I can't remember 6, 700 people.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

Turning up. Most of them were listening, which is.

[Alistair Campbell]

Why the best feedback I had from last week's episode was me reading your dad's last will and testament from Middleland.

[Rory Stewart]

That was very kind of you. You were very. I also got some lovely feedback on how generous you were.

[Alistair Campbell]

Look, if we're going to plug. I plugged your book last week. Yeah. I. I got gifted this book.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right. It's called the Bagpipes A Cultural History.

[Rory Stewart]

Honestly.

[Alistair Campbell]

And it is absolutely brilliant. Honestly. I think any you don't. You have. You probably have to be interested in music.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

You might have to be interested a little bit in Scotland, but actually what you have to be interested in is the cultural significance of a musical instrument and how it develops over history. It's an absolutely brilliant book and it's one of the best research books.

[Rory Stewart]

I absolutely promised to read it. Two small clubs for me. Lisa. Finest hotel in Kabul.

[Alistair Campbell]

Oh, yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

Really cool. So she looks at the Intercontinental, which is this kind of 1970s legendary hotel on the hill above Kabul, and she just follows people connected with the hotel over time and tells the story of Afghanistan through, for example, a waiter. And another book that I really loved, which I'm not sure would appeal to you so much, but I'm going to sell for a certain demographic of our listener. Notebooks of a Wandering Monk by Matthieu Ricard, who becomes a Tibetan monk. He's a Frenchman.

[Alistair Campbell]

I like it. Is he in French or is he in English?

[Rory Stewart]

He wrote it in French and he's written in English, so you might enjoy it in French. But it is the most incredible portrait of a man who spent 50 years as a Tibetan monk and his love of his teachers and his three year retreats and his times in Bhutan. And I found it incredibly calming. And short chapters. Yeah, so lovely.

[Alistair Campbell]

Albrecht Durer's engraving of a peasant piper in 1514. One of the earliest representations of the bagpipes in a secular context.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, there we are. That is a bit of good news and optimism and something you would never hear on any other podcast in the United Kingdom. So thank you, Britain's most famous bagpiper, and see you next week.

[Alistair Campbell]

Bye bye. Hi there.

[David Ulisoga]

It's David or the Shogga from Journey Through Time. And here's that extract from our Gunpowder Plot series that I mentioned earlier. The person who's not rejoicing is Guy Fawkes in the Tower. King James himself came to the Tower to question Fawkes. That's quite an astonishing fact that Fawkes and the King looked into each other's eyes at that moment.

[Sarah Churchwell]

And of course, interrogations at this time. I mean, we say interrogations as if they're just being questioned, but interrogations are brutal, violent events.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah.

[David Ulisoga]

And it's gonna get much, much more violent. Fawkes stands up to the King in a way that actually even impresses the King. He's open that they plan to blow up Parliament. He said that the aim had been to blow King James and the other Scots back to their Scottish mountains. He says that to the King.

[Sarah Churchwell]

It takes guts, but it's also not the most diplomatic thing to say to the person you've just tried to murder and your fate is in his hands.

[David Ulisoga]

Yeah, well, I think Phawkes knows what's gonna happen. I mean, the King was impressed by his obstinacy, that he would not reveal the names of his co conspirators, that he was willing to insult the King to his face. And you have to say about Guy Fawkes, a man who'd been a soldier for 10 years, my God, he had guts. I mean, he is a bad man. He is a religious fanatic. He's not somebody I admire, but my.

[Alistair Campbell]

God, he was brave.

[David Ulisoga]

You know, you can be brave and wrong, you can be brave and involved in things that are evil at the same time. And he was, he was all of those things. But the. This willingness to stand up to the King, this is before the torture.

[Sarah Churchwell]

If you want to hear more about gunpowder, treason and plot, listen to Journey Through Time, wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Ulisoga]

Hello, I'm David Ulisoga.

[Sarah Churchwell]

And I'm Sarah Churchwell.

[David Ulisoga]

This week on Journey Through Time, we are exploring the story of the gunpowder plot of 1605. The story of how a small group of Catholics engaged in what would have been the most devastating terrorist attack in all of British history.

[Sarah Churchwell]

The plan was ruthless. Blow up Parliament, King James I and most of his family, all in a single blow.

[David Ulisoga]

The series will tell the story of treason and traitors of a group of men led by the charismatic Robert Catesby, who believed that the only option left to them to win their rights as Catholics was the violent destruction of the Stuart state.

[Sarah Churchwell]

We look at the story of Guy Fawkes, the nation's most famous traitor, from his recruitment to becoming the plot's fall guy and ultimately being tortured and killed.

[David Ulisoga]

Finally, we find out why this plot is still remembered now, 400 years later. Listen to Journey Through Time wherever you get your podcasts.