494. Carney’s Trump Fightback and the Starmer-Burnham Fallout

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Politics, Episode 494

Title: Carney’s Trump Fightback and the Starmer-Burnham Fallout
Hosts: Alastair Campbell & Rory Stewart
Date: January 28, 2026

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Overview

In this episode of The Rest Is Politics, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart offer a deep-dive into the shifting dynamics of global power following Donald Trump’s recent confrontation over Greenland and Mark Carney's much-discussed Davos speech. The discussion explores the implications for the UK and Europe as traditional dependencies on the United States are challenged, and what the rise of so-called “middle powers” could mean for the future international order. The latter portion of the episode pivots to Labour Party turbulence, particularly focusing on the public fallout between Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham.

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1. The Davos Aftershock: Trump, Greenland & Mark Carney’s Gambit

The Davos “Rupture”

• The hosts agree Davos 2026 marked a “world-shifting moment,” catalyzed by Trump’s aggressive demands over Greenland and Mark Carney’s authoritative response.
• Carney, now Canadian PM, issued a call for “middle powers” to assert greater influence and chart a path beyond heavy U.S. reliance, describing the present as “a rupture, not a transition” [03:06-03:44, 05:36-06:06].
• Campbell stresses that Carney’s phrase “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu”—already familiar to listeners from previous interviews—has become central to the emerging political lexicon [05:36-06:06].

Key Quote:

“This is a rupture, not a transition. If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
— Alastair Campbell, quoting Mark Carney [06:00]

The “Middle Power” Moment

• The hosts debate what it would actually mean for the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia etc. to behave as true “middle powers.”
• Campbell offers wind farm cooperation as an example, referencing Ed Miliband’s recent multilateral deal in Hamburg, despite Trump’s disparagement of renewables at Davos [07:35-08:07].
• Both note that European leaders are quietly but firmly beginning to coordinate joint projects and lessening their defense reliance on the U.S.

Notable Moment:
Trump’s tirade against wind energy at Davos—15 minutes of “droning, dishonest riffing” that prompted laughter from supporters but frustration among allies [07:35-08:07].

Key Quote:

“Europe is the only one that can remotely embrace that [middle power] mantle, and from the UK’s point of view we have to get closer and undo the damage of Brexit as fast as we can.”
— Alastair Campbell [14:00-15:05]

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2. Rethinking Dependencies: UK & Europe’s Strategic Dilemma

Can the UK “De-risk” from the U.S.?

• Rory Stewart role-plays a UK National Security Council (NSC) debate, highlighting anxieties and institutional inertia—generations of foreign policy elites are wedded to U.S. alignment since Suez [09:11-11:44].
• He outlines typical establishment objections: Europe is “fractured and pathetic,” China is untrustworthy, and Trump’s volatility is just temporary [09:11-11:44].
• Campbell rebuts that “appeasement” has emboldened Trump and driven deep vulnerabilities, as evidenced by the Greenland standoff and lack of movement on Ukraine [12:02-13:31].

Key Quote:

“We cannot stop pretending there is any way we’re going back to the status quo ante... this is a rupture, not a transition.”
— Alastair Campbell [12:02-13:30]

Appeasement’s Failure

• Stewart insists the British “optimism bias” and head-in-the-sand approach is dangerously outdated, noting that Canadian and European leaders are already planning for a world where America is not reliable [13:31-15:05].
• The hosts agree that post-Trumpism in the U.S.—even among Democrats—signals enduring retreat from global responsibility.

Key Quote:

“The world is fundamentally changed and it’s not just about Trump... that world’s gone.”
— Rory Stewart [15:05]

Spheres of Influence and Limits to Power

• Rory makes the case that technical survival without the U.S. is plausible—Britain and Europe have real assets and resilience—but disentangling is expensive and complex [29:23-30:14, 31:48-32:03].

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3. Building a “Middle Power” Order: Opportunities & Obstacles

New Alliances?

• Both hosts muse on the need for a new, explicit “Board of Middle Power Prosperity,” noting the G20 and BRICS as precedents [24:18-26:31].
• France’s and Germany’s difficulties in past alliances are noted as cautionary tales, but ad hoc, issue-specific “G-x” groupings may be more successful [26:06-26:31].
• Campbell floats the idea of sub-national actors (e.g., California) joining such mid-tier groupings [26:31-26:39].

Key Quote:

“Imagine if they actually created a new grouping which was explicit: this is what they’re about... We’re going to have global summits about the environment and America and China won’t be there.”
— Alastair Campbell [24:18-26:06]

Trump's “Board of Peace” Flops

• Stewart outlines the debacle of Trump’s attempt to set up a rival to the United Nations—now left with only minor states and autocracies, as major European and middle powers rebuff participation after the Greenland crisis [26:39-27:45].

Memorable Moment:

“The chairman who decides everything is not the President of the United States, it is Donald Trump for life... Basically the whole thing has turned out to be a joke, a very, very, very expensive joke.”
— Rory Stewart [27:08-27:45]

Concrete Challenges: Money, Scale, and Priorities

• Stewart identifies three major hurdles: middle powers’ relative smallness; the need to shore up existing international institutions (UN, etc.); and the budgetary sacrifices required to develop independence in key areas like nuclear, cyber, and AI [20:42-23:34, 30:17-32:03].
• He insists on honesty with the public: “This is going to cost some money”—possibly £10–20 billion per year for the UK [30:17-32:03].

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4. China, Starmer, and Divided Loyalties

Starmer’s Dilemma on China

• Campbell notes Starmer’s trip to China (first UK PM visit in 8 years), but argues engagement is necessary despite domestic and U.S.-led fears about Chinese intentions [32:03-33:17].
• Both hosts agree Britain is caught between U.S. security demands and economic opportunities with Beijing; Stewart argues Starmer must “pick a side” or risk being “pushed around by everybody” [34:00-36:03].
• The hosts touch on spying allegations around the new Chinese Embassy in London and note the difficulty of balancing security with diplomatic reality.

Key Quote:

“If he allows himself... to be stuck between Europe and the U.S. on all these issues, he’s not going to get the kind of deals Carney got out of China. He’ll end up in a muddle in the middle...”
— Rory Stewart [35:44-36:03]

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5. The Starmer-Burnham Labour Fallout

Andy Burnham’s Blocked Candidacy

• Stewart prompts Campbell to explain the NEC’s decision to block Andy Burnham from a by-election candidacy in Manchester. Campbell admits fault on both sides: Burnham for openly maneuvering to challenge Starmer; Starmer’s team for failing to maintain a working relationship [41:30-43:39].
• Both hosts compare the situation to Boris Johnson’s return to Parliament while still Mayor of London. Stewart characterizes Labour's move as “control freakery,” while Campbell points to the risk of damaging Manchester loyalty and the “optics” for Starmer [43:39-45:55].

Key Quote:

“I think Andy’s weakened himself... if I was a voter in Manchester now, I’m sort of thinking this guy doesn’t actually want this job as much as he wanted another job.”
— Alastair Campbell [47:04-48:42]

• The discussion includes polling on whether Burnham should be allowed to stand, risks of a Reform or Green win in the by-election, and the wider sense of dysfunction in Labour ranks [48:42-56:11].
• Rory questions whether Starmer will actually lead Labour into the next election, noting an atmosphere of plotting likened to Theresa May’s final months as PM [56:11-57:37].

Labour’s Turbulent State

• Campbell admits to being “pretty down” about the government’s performance and Labour’s communications, even as he acknowledges there have been some foreign policy successes [58:09-58:26].
• The two agree public dissatisfaction is (dangerously) high, and internal unrest within Labour is growing.

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6. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Global Order and Leadership

• “The world is fundamentally changed. The US is becoming almost as much of a threat to the west as China.”
  — Rory Stewart [00:14]
• “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
  — Mark Carney, quoted by Campbell [06:00]
• “Appeasement has emboldened Trump and driven deep vulnerabilities.”
  — Alastair Campbell [12:02-13:30]

On Labour’s Internal Turmoil

• “What on earth does he think he’s doing? Endlessly undermining the Prime Minister.”
  — Rory Stewart on Andy Burnham [49:21-50:18]
• “Abraham Lincoln famously brought in his opponents to build his team...I had no right to deprive the country of their services.”
  — Alastair Campbell, quoting Lincoln [54:00]

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7. Timestamps for Key Segments

• Davos Fallout & Carney’s Speech: 03:04–07:35
• Wind Farms, Trump, and U.S./Europe Friction: 07:35–09:11
• UK Dependence on America—NSC Roleplay: 09:11–15:05
• Middle Power Strategies & Trump’s “Board of Peace”: 24:18–27:45
• China Dilemmas and Starmer’s Balancing Act: 32:03–36:35
• Andy Burnham & Labour Party Drama: 40:53–56:11
• Labour’s Prospects and Public Mood: 56:11–end

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8. Tone and Style

The tone throughout is lively, sometimes biting, but always rooted in personal insight and mutual respect. Both hosts seamlessly blend policy wonkery with frank personal judgment, and sprinkle in vivid comparisons (Lincoln, Afghanistan, etc.) and inside-Baseball anecdotes from Westminster and world capitals.

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Conclusion

This episode captures a turning point in world politics, with the hosts dissecting the fragile state of the transatlantic alliance and the UK’s scramble for agency. The conversation draws a vivid picture of a world where “middle powers” must step up, and where leaders like Carney and, potentially, Starmer, are tested by events. Labour’s own turmoil at home is painted with honesty, frustration, and, as always, the hosts’ trademark sharp wit.

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Transcript

[Alastair Campbell]

Thanks for listening to the Rest is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts, and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com this is a rupture, not a transition.

[Rory Stewart]

The world is fundamentally changed. The US is becoming almost as much of a threat to the west as China.

[Alastair Campbell]

This foreign policy stuff matters more than it's ever done because of the United States behaving the way that it's done.

[Rory Stewart]

The idea that Europe can't survive without the U.S. or even that Britain can't survive that in the U.S. it's just technically not true.

[Alastair Campbell]

There are limits to American power.

[Rory Stewart]

We saw that those people who've been appeasing him over the last year hasn't worked. We can see with Greenland that when you appease him, he actually escalates. This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy.

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[Rory Stewart]

Welcome to the Restless Politics with me.

[Alastair Campbell]

Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell.

[Rory Stewart]

Alastair Here we are recovering from Davos. Davos was one of those extraordinary moments. I think it all it's not quite Munich, but it's one of those things that really feels as though the world has changed because Trump's threats against Greenland were followed by an unbelievable coordinated response, at the centre of which was this amazing speech by Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, saying we're going to have to move away from a US Order to a new order of middle powers. And everything now is about how do we define these institutions which are going to somehow try to do some of the things that the US led international system has done for 80 years in the absence of the United States.

[Alastair Campbell]

The big unanswered question out of Davos was when Mark Carney talks about middle powers maybe embracing their power more, what might that actually mean in practice?

[Rory Stewart]

And let's just take it back one step. So Davos was pretty extraordinary. It was very, very rare in world events that you get a moment that seems to shift the world. So we've spent more than a year now talking about whether Trump has fundamentally upended the global order. And we've talked about whether you're beginning to get a situation where in some areas US is becoming almost as much of a threat to the west as China. Not in the sense that it's a state like China, of course, a much friendlier, more democratic state. But the vulnerabilities we have to the US Means it could do this. And I guess what Davos represented is the moment where that Greenland threat threat from the US changed something very, very fundamentally. So we had Mark Carney's speech, which we were very focused on, which was the moment at which he tried to sketch an alternative post Trump world. We had Alexander Stubb, the Finnish president, laying out his visions for multilateralism. We had a moment where even heads of smaller states, the Belgian leader coming out and saying we've now become vassals. And a moment at which Greenland threat happened. Europe then began to signal that they might look at anti extortion tariffs, which would have tens of billions of tariffs back towards the United States. The markets dropped. Mark Rutter did one of his normal creepy moments as the head of NATO being polite to Trump. And some combination of unknown factors, whether it was Rutter's politeness, Europe's decisive sanctions response, or the drop in the markets, led Trump to apparently back off. But despite him backing off, the world isn't returning to normal.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah, because he backs off and then it's like we're going to talk in question time about Minnesota and last night, for example, the whole media was about is Donald Trump softening his approach? And we sort of, we pass and analyze these sort of movements that he makes. But I think the thread that goes through all this is still very much on we're the only power that matters in the world. You law weak, you lot are becoming irrelevant. And what he did in Davos was he reminded, he made that blatantly clear. There was no even an attempt to sort of say, this is a partnership. It was brutal, hard politics. And I think the reason why Mark Carney's speech was so significant and of course, whether it genuinely goes down in history, which it might, depends on how long he survives and it depends on what this new world order becomes. But I think that's what was really interesting about the whole thing, is people were that phrase that he used, this is a rupture, not a transition. And also, I don't know if you remember this when we interviewed him for the first time, I think, or it might have been the second time. He's one of the few people we've interviewed twice. But that phrase that went down as a big part of the speech, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. He said that in those terms when we interviewed him. And I think what you saw in that speech was him bringing together a thinking that he's been developing ever since he ran for office. But I think what's fascinating is whether the middle powers, as they're called, which includes us, which includes France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, some of the Latin American countries as well, is whether they respond to that and if so, how. And there's a very interesting example this week, I thought not necessarily as eye catching as stuff on defense or cyber or misinformation or whatever, but this agreement that the UK has made with eight other European countries about energy, they're all doing these giant wind farm, giant wind farms. And of course, one of Trump's great shticks at Davos was constantly on about wind farms.

[Rory Stewart]

Went on for about 15 minutes.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah, I mean, just in this droning on about and this lie, one of his many lies. China manufactures them, but doesn't use themselves.

[Rory Stewart]

Just to remind people. I mean, it was completely dishonest, but it was also, you could see for his audience, quite a kind of funny riff. The riff was China's running a long con on the world. They don't actually use these things themselves and they might have one or two just to pretend.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah, yeah. And it costs you a thousand pounds every time.

[Rory Stewart]

But basically wind turbines thinks the Chinese are too smart to use themselves, but they flogged the rest of this place, had to generate 16% of China's energy, etc. Etc.

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, yes, you said they sell them to the stupid countries. Britain, France, Germany. So there's yet another insult. So that was an example that Ed Miliband was in Hamburg, I think it was signed this deal with Germany, Holland, Netherlands, Norway, others. And so they're going to share the production and then share the use of electricity produced by wind. But then I think if you look at stuff like defense, I mean, we were talking to some people out there who were making the point that we talk about our independent nuclear deterrent. Now France has a genuinely independent nuclear deterrent. We don't. We are reliant on America for firing these missiles, for servicing these missiles, for.

[Rory Stewart]

Navigating our submarines depend on US equipment fire from submarines. So that's why I'm mentioning submarines.

[Alastair Campbell]

The tribe comes off of submarines. Would we in part of this Mark Carney middle power actually think about, does France become European nuclear defense? Does Britain kind of straddle between Europe and the U.S. and if so, how does that make it mean changes that have to be made to our systems?

[Rory Stewart]

I think let's just come back to the fundamental. Because this will be what's happening, I suspect, in the National Security Council in the UK and probably this conversation in the UK versions of it will be happening elsewhere. So the first thing to begin with is the idea of the UK National Security Council. Seriously looking at the question of how to de risk and deleverage away from the U.S. in other words, see the U.S. as a potential threat to the UK and begin to develop national security strategies about insuring yourself against the US is very difficult because basically since 1945, and particularly since famously the Suez catastrophe where Britain tried to go it alone in 56 and then discovered that actually the US could cut the legs out from under us and did. And did. We've been in this world, which I keep joking about that when I joined the Foreign Office, the senior Mandarin, when I asked him a policy on a particular issue, he said, find out what the US Is doing and do a little bit less. Right. This is the sort of general, general story. So there will be many, many people around the national security table who have spent their entire professional careers completely embedded in the US system, and therefore it's going to be incredibly uncomfortable for them. And just to illustrate why it's so uncomfortable, if you go to GCHQ at Cheltenham, it is swarming with Americans. You know, our entire signals intelligence is completely backhauled into the American nsa. You've talked about nuclear. So the story that they will tell, I think, and this is what I want you to challeng. We're going to play this game, okay? So you're going to be the skeptic around the table trying to say maybe that we need to think again. If you're the old establishment Mandarin in the British National Security Council, you'd say, come off it, we can't really diversify away from the U.S. we're too weak. Europe is kind of divided, fractured and pathetic. It's not a genuine alternative. China is a much more risky, nasty player than the U.S. trump's not that bad. Yeah, he's made these demands, but we can generally really handle him and he's not going to be there forever. And in the end, the US is this kind of deep, liberal, democratic state that's been our best ally for 100 years. So let's do what we can not to annoy them. And basically it's better to flatter him. This is the Mark Rutter view. Appease him a little bit, give him a little bit what he wants, and we'll be okay because the alternatives are unimaginable.

[Alastair Campbell]

Okay, and how well is that going? How well is that strategy going?

[Rory Stewart]

Well, it's a really good question. Okay. But of course, if you're really stuck in the optimism bias, you can tell yourself stories. You can say, well, you know, we didn't threaten him with tariffs on green, then Europe did, but Britain didn't and he backed off.

[Alastair Campbell]

Look, if you look at the Ukraine war and how that has been handled, and I think what's happening at the moment is the European leaders who recognize that they alone cannot necessarily, particularly given their economic and political circumstances, run the whole fight, so they need America to be part of it, particularly in relation to intelligence and the stuff that Ukraine cannot do on its own. And cannot do without. So what the European leaders have been doing, they've been doing a little bit of the rudder strategy to keep them on board, but at the same time building up their own defenses and then saying, we're only doing that because Trump bullied us into doing it. Okay, I think they've all worked out they actually need to do it. What Mark Carney, I think, has done, and this is what leadership is about, in my view, he has signaled, he used the phrase this is a rupture, not a transition. Now, it may be that the rupture post Trump, or if Trump, you know, departs the mortal coil, it may be that the rupture is not permanent. But I think the mindset that Carney's trying to give these other leaders is that we cannot stop pretending there is any way we're going back to the status quo ante. And I think he's right about that. So they do have to build up defence and they do have to improve their relations. You say Europe's a basket case. Europe is not as strong and as powerful as maybe it could be. It's not as economically powerful as it could be. Its defence and security isn't as powerful as it could be. But they could still get there. And they're only going to get there, in my view, if they actually do have the mindset that says this is a rupture, not a transition.

[Rory Stewart]

I agree with you.

[Alastair Campbell]

So I've won you around already if.

[Rory Stewart]

I join you in this. And the reason I'm doing the national security thing is I was very struck. I saw some senior UK officials at Davos, and it was amazing how quickly they wanted to reassure themselves it was all going to be okay.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah, for sure.

[Rory Stewart]

And the difference with the Europeans was fascinating. So I'd see senior people from the Commission, senior Europeans, who were like, the world has changed. We need to move. And the Brits were all like, oh, no, no, no, don't get too excited by it. It's just a little, you know, thing.

[Alastair Campbell]

What they were saying. I'll tell you the thing that I kept hearing is, look, let's stop pretending that China can remotely fill the gap that we've had in America. Nobody's saying that. Mark Carney didn't say that. Keir Starmer's not saying that. He's off to China today. And at a time when I think it's the Telegraph is reporting this story that the Chinese spy on number 10 and blah, blah, blah, what's new? So I just think that we're not Saying that what we are saying, I'm saying two things. One, the only other body in the world right now that might get even remotely close to American power and Chinese power is European. That's the European Union. Plus, and I think part of this Mark Carney post Trump world, we should be thinking about accelerating enlargement rather than slowing it down. We should maybe be thinking about having different sorts of associations with the European Union for those countries that aren't fully ready. But Europe is the only one that can remotely embrace that power. And from the United Kingdom's point of view, that means we have to get, get closer and we have to undo the damage of Brexit as fast as we can.

[Rory Stewart]

Very good. Just to lean into this one more time, what we're saying to the National Security Council in the UK and other countries is, I'm sorry, you want to put your head in the sand and pretend it's all going to be all right, but it's not. The world is fundamentally changed and it's not just about Trump, because if Trump was replaced by JD Vance, a lot of this would continue. But actually, to be honest, if Trump were replaced even by a Democratic president, there is not much appetite amongst general American voters for continuing to be the kind of global financing policeman that America was in the past. That world's gone. Secondly, we can already see that the strategy that people have pursued, those people who've been appeasing him over the last year, hasn't worked. It hasn't actually delivered what we wanted in Ukraine. It's bought a little bit of time, but my goodness, he keeps consistently, he's on Russia's side. Secondly, we can see with Greenland that when you appease him, he actually escalates. Being nice to him put him in a position that he thought that he could just turn around and say, give me Greenland, and nobody was going to do anything about it. Why does he do it? Because actually, over 12 months, we basically signaled weakness to him. We signaled to him that there's nothing Europe can do, there's nothing he can do to defend it. He can have whatever he wants. And sure as eggs is eggs, if we continued to indulge the U.S. and maybe this is worth explaining to the public, the other sorts of things that the US would begin to demand from countries like the UK that we haven't seen yet. So, number one, unrestricted access for US tech companies, very quickly, they would say it's completely unfair. These absurd regulations are stopping American companies operating. So we are going to impose tariffs and sanctions until we can get the American companies we want and they do this. I mean, the reason we know this is they do this with weaker countries. We want preferential access to US firms in procurement. Right. They didn't phrase it quite like that.

[Alastair Campbell]

But they kind of do defense. They do.

[Rory Stewart]

We want you to get rid of certain ministers who's been offensive to us. You can see that, you know, can see that particularly in Latin America, they actually pinpoint this person's got to go stop trading with China or else.

[Alastair Campbell]

Right.

[Rory Stewart]

You can see they did this in uae. They basically forced UAE to strip all Chinese products and their entire tech stack.

[Alastair Campbell]

They've threatened Mark Carney over the trade deal he did with China.

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely support us in the UN Security Council. Regardless, we don't care what your view is on this. You're going to support us. This is just the beginning. You cannot be in that position. Why can't you be in that position? Well, you can't be in that position, firstly because increasingly it will push against your own national interest. To take a small example, whether or not you agree with the US pressure on stripping Huawei out of this Chinese tech company out of the British economy probably costs us about £2 billion to do that. There will be other examples. But perhaps more fundamentally, Britain needs to think and Kiyosama needs to think about our long term reputation as a country if we actually want to continue to be even an upper middle power taken seriously in the world. We cannot allow the world to think. Imagine you're Saudi or UAE or India or I don't know, whoever, dealing with Britain. If they begin to say actually Britain doesn't have an independent foreign policy anymore, there's no point talking to them. They simply do absolutely everything that the US says because they think they have no other options. So that means, I think that the strategy needs to be a 10 year plan for how we reduce our dependency on the us. But that requires very tough conversations, the nsc, about how much that costs, what the timelines are, what types of dependencies you're trying to reduce, who you create new dependencies with, et cetera.

[Alastair Campbell]

You see, I would argue that the coalition of the willing, so called in relation to Ukraine, which Keir Starmer has played a pretty leading role in, that is a form of the new sort of politics that Carney's talking about. I think middle powers could do something very interesting and very soft power focused in replacing and undoing the damage that Trump has done by scrapping usaid. Now, we're not in a strong position on that because we've cut aid as well. But if you think about some of those middle powers I mentioned, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Australia, Canada, UK coming together and saying, we are going to try to fix the damage that has been done by the USAID vacating the field. What I thought was really clever about the way that Carney handled himself last week. And in China, they didn't even talk about Trump. He just talked about this is a new world and we have to address it. We know what the context is. But I think there's lots of ways. I think in energy, I think in cyber, I think in misinformation and disinformation, these right wing autocratic networks of which Trump is now the sort of head, they operate together, they operate as a team, they pump out the same message in the same way, they use the technology in the same way. The progressive side of life, they've got to form alliances to do that as well as the right do it and what it means. By the way, another story to keep going about Carney, but I really did think he was impressive. Last week somebody pointed out to him that since he'd become prime minister, he'd spent 60% of his time traveling. Okay, now here we have never hear Kir, right? That's what they call it. Mark Carney was challenged about that and he said, you know what, I should probably be traveling even more because this is where leadership lies now. This is where countries have to engage with each other and Keir should do the same. This foreign policy stuff matters more than it's ever done because of the United States behaving the way that it's done.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, let's imagine we agree that in 10 years time we've got to have less dependency on the US We've got to create more of a carny, multilateral world, more of a world where we have a network of connections with lots of other middle powers. We then have to be serious about what the problems would be, achieving it otherwise. All those grumpy old buggers in the NSC saying it's all impossible. We'll just say you're being naive. So I think the first thing we'd have to be realistic about, what are the major obstacles? Obstacle number one, the middle powers are much smaller than we like to acknowledge. So the UK economy was bigger than the Chinese economy as recently as 2004. It's now about a seventh the size of the Chinese economy in certain types of measurement. And one way to maybe illustrate it for the audience is let's think of other collective active problems. So you mentioned climate. It's probably the biggest, simplest way of explaining what the problem is. China and the US are the problem. China and the US omit it all. And the biggest solution to climate change is for China and the US to stop doing it. All the middle powers, you know, Britain emits, I don't know what is 1% of this stuff. Getting together, making little climate agreements without China and the US doesn't really fix the big global problem because China and US just so big, make the same argument around nuclear, the nuclear arsenals of China, the US and Russia, is that bigger than all of US AI? All the AI is in China and the us all the tech, the next generation of cloud, the next generation of chips basically in the US with China trying to catch up. So that's the first problem. Second problem is, and I don't want to keep listing problems because we got to fix these problems. We need to see the problems before we fix them. Second one is, you're completely right. Obviously the first move we should be doing is trying to reinforce some of the basic systems that have been set up since the Second World War rather than reinventing the wheel. We've got a U.N. the U.S. has removed I think 2 billion at least from U.N. peacekeeping. Has anyone stepped in to fill the gap? No. The US has removed almost 10 billion from the international system. Has anyone else stepped up to fill the gap? No. So the first litmus test has to be if we're serious about rules based international systems, multilateral systems, et cetera, there are ready made bodies there that we could be pumping money into. And that requires Keir Starmer and the Canadians and the French and the Germans to say, okay, we're going to increase our international developments. Then we're going to show the US that we can replace. We got stuck in this world in which the US has been paying for our defense. They're stepping away, we're going to pay for defense. But probably more important for actually peace, security, pandemics, climate, et cetera, is us stepping into the non defence, the more civilian systems, which we're not stepping into.

[Alastair Campbell]

That's what I was saying. I think that if you put all these countries together, if Mark Carney wants to take what he said in Davos to the next level, it requires him, I think, to get three or four of the others to agree with his analysis and to agree with his conclusion and then to say so. For example, one of the other big moments in Davos was Donald Trump launching his Board of Peace. And if you look at it it was basically Trump plus quite a lot of Stans and quite a lot of people with very, very profound oligarchical tendencies. Okay? You didn't see many of the big democracies.

[Rory Stewart]

This is a polite way of saying his early signups were places like Saudi, Azerbaijan and then rather disappointingly, your friend Eddie Rama signed up.

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, this is a very interesting point. I had an exchange with Eddie about that and he said, we are not France or Canada. He said, so they're a small power, okay? You've got big powers too. You've got the middle powers of which we're one and you've got the smaller powers. Albania is one of those. And he said part of it was also he has to stay close to some of those Gulf countries and the Muslim side of life, as it were. And I said to him, yeah, but you're also European. So he's got a very, very tricky balancing act. He, in a way has been a victim of his own side success. He's become a much bigger figure in the world than the leader of most countries of 3 and 4 million people. And therefore that's why Trump invited him. Now he's not becoming one of the billion pound permanent members. He just said he's going to support it. But the point I was going to make is that what the Canada, uk, Germany, France is. Imagine if they developed a board of middle power prosperity. Imagine if they actually created a new, a new grouping which was explicit. This is what they're about. And this happens all the time. The G20 didn't exist until the crash and that Gordon Brown, I think, led the creation of that brics, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. That was a new formation which is now developing. So I think actually they should use this to say there are going to be. We're going to have global summits about the environment and America and China won't be there. We're going to have a global summit about the effect of AI and America and China won't be there. You make it specific. We are middle powers in this new hegemonic world that he described. And we are going to have structures that come together on a regular basis and you can have people who don't necessarily share all your values. You would maybe have the Emiratis and the Saudis there. But you're discussing common challenges in a new forum. And I just think that's not a bad way to go.

[Rory Stewart]

I think it's a very, very good idea. And maybe you're right that something which is this funny GX Formula where you set up a new body for a USU may often be more practical than trying to set up what the French tried to do in 2019, which was a multilateral alliance of 40 countries trying to replace the U.S. which never really worked because they could never work out whether they were actually inviting people who weren't from the west in and whether they were inviting non democracies in or not.

[Alastair Campbell]

You could also, by the way, you could invite states, you could invite California.

[Rory Stewart]

Ah, that's very interesting to be part.

[Alastair Campbell]

Of the middle power.

[Rory Stewart]

You're facing a very interesting question there. And one of the amazing things that is a story that hasn't been reported enough, I think, is that there is, I believe now strong evidence that Trump's Board of Peace is going to completely fail, that it's gone wrong. So his idea was he was going to set this thing up and just remind people it is a bizarre organization, it is the head of it with an absolute veto. And the chairman who decides everything is not the President of the United States, it is Donald Trump for life. So he tried.

[Alastair Campbell]

There is a line that says if he's incapacitated, the board can vote him off. I don't know who snuck that one. He clearly didn't read it himself.

[Rory Stewart]

Anyway, the idea was going to be essentially it would replace the United nations because he was going to not just have all the European countries involved, he was going to have Belarus, Russia, etc. And what's been really interesting is Greenland absolutely screwed it for him because now every major European country has said they won't join. Canada signaled it wouldn't join. So he's told Canada they're not welcome and they can't join anyway, even if they want to. Right? So basically the whole thing has turned out to be a joke, a very, very, very expensive joke.

[Alastair Campbell]

He doesn't give up though, does he?

[Rory Stewart]

And a bunch of very eccentric countries. I mean, this is not what he was hoping for, right? He was not hoping to be the head of an organization that consisted of almost exclusively either of tiny European satellite states, Kosovo, Albania, Middle Eastern monarchies or oil rich autocracies. That was not the idea. So I think it's failed. The question is, is anything else going to work? So trying to set up a new alliance that doesn't have the US And China, how does that work? Because of course, and this is maybe where you're right, you go ad hoc, because anything else, you have to accept that France and Germany can barely agree within the eu if you start getting the question of how India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Saudi, uae, Britain start agreeing.

[Alastair Campbell]

I just think there'd be something very invigorating and exciting about a body that basically said, this is a body for the middle powers. So part of the challenge they're all dealing with all the time, without being very open about it, is how do you deal with the United States and the China in their current form? Have a discussion about that. And I just think that Carney's really onto something with this and we've got to grow up and stop. Because the truth is, look, America is incredibly powerful, but I think the other thing that you sensed at Davos was that if those other countries did actually sort of find a way of coming together, America becomes a bit of a show, as opposed to what Trump projected at, which is all powerful. It's not all powerful. There are limits to American power. We saw that.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, to be really extreme about this, I mean, don't want to hammer us home too much, but the idea that Europe can't survive without the US or even that Britain can't survive without the US is just technically not true. Shashan and I work in Afghanistan. Afghanistan survives without the U.S. afghanistan, actually, the Taliban spent 20 years fighting the most powerful military on Earth. The U.S. spent $1.5 trillion, and the result is the U.S. have left it. Now, you don't want to be Afghanistan, but they're surviving. To put it in the most extreme case now, Europe and the UK is not Afghanistan. Right. We have some of the most advanced life science in the world. We have some of the most advanced tech in the world. We have some of the leading universities in the world. We have an enormous economy. We have 450 million people. Right. The idea that we cannot survive, I mean, technically cannot survive without the US GI simply isn't true, frankly.

[Alastair Campbell]

Or win a war against Russia, providing he doesn't unleash all the nukes.

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely. What we then have to talk about, though, is that someone in the NSC needs to define what dependencies on the US are real and extreme, which we can get away from in five years, which we can get away from in 10 years, which are ones where it's almost technically inconceivable at the moment for us to advance, and where in some cases, it's technically conceivable, but it's expensive. So in a nuclear, for example, there's an option doing more with the French AI. We don't really know what that option is, and there's some very difficult bets. We could get to a stage, for example, on Semiconductors, if Europe and the UK were serious about it, where we could have resilience for our critical infrastructure with semiconductors, but we would probably never have the type of advanced chips which Nvidia are currently driving. And then you put a price tag on. So this is my final point. We have to be honest with the public now. And this is a problem because the country's bust, demography's going the wrong direction, our welfare bills expanding, we're spending that. This is going to cost some money. If we're going to develop, with the French more independence on nuclear, it will cost 25 billion over 10 years. If we're going to develop our own satellite capacity and our ammunition stockpiles, 25 billion over 10 years. If we're going to invest properly in rebuilding the UN system, climate development, et cetera, similar amounts. So you're probably talking about the UK finding an additional 10 to 20 billion pounds a year in order to do this. Seriously.

[Alastair Campbell]

War bonds.

[Rory Stewart]

War bonds. But you could totally do it, right? If I had you selling the stuff, explaining to people why they needed to do it. We've done this in the past. I mean, that's the problem. If you already work backwards from it's got to happen, and you sat down with the NSC, say, how do we do this over five, 10 years? Of course you can do it.

[Alastair Campbell]

So listen, as I said earlier, Rory, we're talking on the day that Keir Starmer's heading off to China, first British Prime Minister to go in eight years. He actually made quite an interesting speech about China, which didn't get much attention at the time. His Lord Mayor's banquet speech, or Lady Mayor, as she knows, a lot of it was about China and essentially saying that we've sort of gone from this hot world where Cameron Osborne said China's where we sort of, you know, bank the future. And then we've had eight years since Theresa May was Prime minister where literally nobody's gone to China. And whilst Macron's been there three or four times, Merz, I think, is going next month. I mean, it is pretty dumb not to engage with China. What do you make of our relationship with China and the extent to which that plays into this world that we're talking, We've just been talking about.

[Rory Stewart]

I think Stalmit's in a real problem, real, real problem, because there is a bipartisan consensus in the United States, which includes the Democratic Party, that China is the number one adversary. Everything that the DoD is doing about reducing the American Department of Defense or Department of War now is doing. And reducing its commitments to Ukraine is about challenging China.

[Alastair Campbell]

Hold on. Do you know the new defence strategy? They published the new defence strategy. It doesn't even mention Taiwan. China is just a sort of economic competitor as much as anything.

[Rory Stewart]

You're quite right. There seems to be a tension because we don't even know what's going on in the American head. But certainly the Deputy Secretary is obsessed with China. Quite a lot of the Republicans are obsessed with China and a lot of the Democrats are obsessed with China. So I think the risk that Starmer's going to face is if he goes full carney. And as we pointed out last week, what is that? That's going to China and saying we'll drop all your tariffs on your electric cars, we'll sell you a lot of our canola oil and we'll have a jolly ratio, which the Chinese are really looking forward to. And they keep producing sort of fortune cookie proverbs about how you never need to do anything when your enemy's falling on its face or whatever, but very, very rapidly. You saw it around the debate around the Chinese embassy in London, this new Chinese embassy in London where the press have been full of. We're selling out to the Chinese, Chinese spies all over us.

[Alastair Campbell]

Hold on a minute, let's just on that for a bit. Are they saying the Chinese shouldn't have an embassy here or it's just a question of scale. So on the one hand we're saying that China is now this massive power on a power of America and on the other hand we're saying they shouldn't have an embassy. I don't quite get this to be.

[Rory Stewart]

I don't get it either because listen, the fact is China currently has seven or eight facilities in the uk. Most of its spying is not actually being done at the moment out of its diplomats, it's being done from other people. Actually it's going to be much easier to monitor them when the diplomats are mostly in one building. Yes, there's a fiber optic cable that runs past the building. Correct. But given that we know that that that stretch of fiber optic cable is only a few hundred meters long, is right next to the Chinese embassy, there are things that we could do to try to avoid. They don't get on the fiber optic cable. So I completely agree with the intelligence and security chiefs that this stuff, this fear mongering is not actually being driven by analysis in the NSC about the actual threat that this building poses. But the reason it's important is this is what's going to hit Starmer from the. And this is driven from the US all driven from the US this stuff. So the closer the UK gets to China, the more exposed it will become. And this is why Starmer has to decide what he's doing. Is he prepared to take cost and pain or not? And the big example of where he's still getting it wrong is when Europe said Greenland will not be taken, Denmark's sovereignty will not be taken over these. We are preparing anti extortion tariffs. Yes, Starmer said, I agree with Europe on sovereignty, but he refused to get behind them on the tariffs. He's got to be able to act in. He's got to be able to act jointly with Canada and the EU Joint statements, joint positions. If he allows himself, as I suspect he will be, to be stuck between Europe and the US on all these issues, he's not going to get the kind of deals that Carney got out of China. He'll end up up in a muddle in the middle being pushed around by everybody without much economic benefit and without getting any credit from his potential allies.

[Alastair Campbell]

I think you're a bit harsh on that. Listen, we're going to talk about Keir and Andy Burnham in the second half, but I actually think on the. So let's just say last week you and I, and particularly I were absolutely spitting blood, feathers, the lot about what he said about NATO troops pulling back from the front line. Keir Starmer did eventually go out and called it out for what it was and may or may not pay a price for that. Likewise, I think you're being harsh. I think he did stick with the Europeans on tariffs.

[Rory Stewart]

His whole speech, I mean, we can debate he may have said differently. So the main speech was one where he kept saying, I don't think tariffs are the way to go. We don't want to get into tariff war, it'd be too costly for the British economy, et cetera. And it's one way of looking at it. We just step back. Did anyone in the world notice Keir Starmer's comments last week? They're all talking about Mark Carney's speech, right? They're all talking about what Stub from Finland is saying.

[Alastair Campbell]

Multilateralism against polarity.

[Rory Stewart]

The New York Times is covering the Belgians. People are talking about Macron. Starmer.

[Alastair Campbell]

No.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, Starmer, where is he? Where is he?

[Alastair Campbell]

In China.

[Rory Stewart]

And the reason, the reason he's not in this conversation, I'm afraid, goes back to the beginning of our conversation, which he's still sitting in National Security meetings, where the British are going. It's all too difficult. This is all too dangerous. This is not realistic. We can't get really bad in benchmark. We can't imagine getting away from the US. The idea that we've even begun to do the planning the Canadians have done. The Canadians are already planning on fighting a counterinsurgency warfare against the Americans that's developed by their military. Their NSC leaked to the Globe and Mail. The idea that anyone in the British National Security Council is actually fully beginning to do what we need to do. Five year planning, ten year planning. What are the dependencies, how much it will cost, where we're going to spend the money. If they were doing that, Starmer would be speaking in a different way.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, listen, we'll talk about Keir Starmer again after the break and I suspect you'll be even less flattering. See you then.

[Rory Stewart]

Look forward to you after the break. Bye. Bye.

[Alastair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

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[Alastair Campbell]

Based on what? Based on data.

[Rory Stewart]

It already knows data it picks up from your heart. So it picks up what your heart rate is. It can pick up other stuff, actually, there's other settings where you can get into blood pressure, you can get into heart rate variability. It's very good at picking up what activity you're doing. So I was doing cross country skiing. It could pick up from that for the movement, I think for my hand. And I think it's the beginning of this amazing revolution in wearables which would allow you, if you were interested, to know how far to push yourself. But if you really are interested in sports activity data, I've just bought one for Shoshana for Christmas because for somebody who's obsessed with fitness, I think you'd find it pretty useful.

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[Alastair Campbell]

Welcome back to the Rest is Polities.

[Rory Stewart]

With me, Alastair Campbell and with me Rory Stewart. Now. Alastair. Yes, Rory, this is a moment where I'm going to stop talking and start asking you questions because it's something you understand much more than me. My first question obviously is what the hell is going on with the fact that the Labour Party has decided not to allow Andy Burnham, the extremely well known, extremely successful mayor of Greater Manchester who now wants to enter Parliament. He's incredibly amazing, high profile Labour talent. They're not even allowing him to get on the long list to apply for a parliamentary seat. What's going on?

[Alastair Campbell]

Hold on. Before we get into this, you're sort of describing Andy Bernardo as though we're talking about about kind of Nelson Mandela or Abraham Lincoln or Matt Hancock. Not that bad. So I imagine that a lot of our British listeners will know what's been going on with Starmer and Burnham. Some of our international listeners may not Andy Burnham, former cabinet minister under the last Labour government, Manchester mayor, pretty popular figure up there, but has made no secret of his desire to get back into to Parliament. So he put his name forward for the long list of candidates for a by election that's just come up in Manchester. And the National Executive, the ruling National Executive had a committee hearing over the weekend and voted by 8 to 1 for him not to be allowed to put his name forward. They say he should stay and deliver on his mandate for four years as Manchester Mayor. This is a tricky one for me. I think they're both wrong. I think they've both been in the wrong.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, but both Burnham and Starmer. Yeah, that's a popular position to take in the Labour Party.

[Alastair Campbell]

So you're alienating everybody now, I'll tell you why. Because, look, part of the job of political leadership is to have and make sure you have good relations with all the people who might become a threat. And I'm not sure. Look, I know Andy Burnham well and I talk to him from time to time. I think he has felt that the number 10 operation has sort of been suspicious of him, pushed him away, kept him at a distance. He's a Labor politician, okay? And he's the Mayor of Manchester, and he's been elected to serve several years as mayor of Manchester. And in a way, he signaled too overtly, in my view, that the reason he wants to get into Parliament is to mount a challenge against Keir Starmer. Now, if you're Keir Starmer, it's not your responsibility as leader of the Labour Party to say, bring it on. I think Andy Burnham must have known, should have known, that the National Executive was likely to block him from doing this because that was the state, that was the purpose.

[Rory Stewart]

Such a weird thing, though, just quickly to try to understand this, because I don't think something similar would happen within the Tory Party if I suddenly decided that I want to run in a by election. I mean, I'm not a Tory at the moment, so maybe that would be a problem. But I think it would be very, very unlikely that the Conservative machine would prevent it. So Boris Johnson is the classic analogy. Boris was Mayor of London, quite clearly wanted to be Prime Minister, decided he was going to stand for election in 2015. It's inconceivable that David Cameron would have said, despite all that stuff, if you're not entitled to run. I mean, we generally rest on the assumption that somebody in good standing who's been an MP and therefore has passed the candidate selection list and who isn't actually in jail, should be able to go to a constituency and say, I would like to be your mp, and the constituency decides whether or not to take them. This added layer of saying, we're going to veto people. And the grounds they gave, I mean, clearly the reason they did it, it is they don't want Starmer challenging. Doesn't want Burnham challenging Starmer to be Prime Minister. But they just lied. I mean, this idea that the reason they're doing it is too expensive because it's going to cost a million pounds to run a match. It's not the real reason, is it? Obviously, it's not the real reason, but.

[Alastair Campbell]

Hold on a minute. I think there is something big. I was really surprised over the weekend when this was going on, how many people, including big supporters, one in particular, big supporter of Andy Burns in Manchester, who said to me this. He said he was sickened by it because he said, Andy Byrne has been elected as mayor. Every recognizes he's doing a very good job. And he's basically saying to Manchester, you are a bit of a kind of stepping stone because I think I should be Prime Minister.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, it'd be true for Boris in London. True for any mayor running. I mean, it was.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah, but hold on.

[Rory Stewart]

That's a. I mean, it's a difficult thing. And it's the same if you're a U.S. senator or governor or mayor running for the presidency. I mean, yes, absolutely. You're saying, in the end, running the United Kingdom is more important than running Manchester, and that's offensive to Manchester. But it's true.

[Alastair Campbell]

Everybody's focusing on Keir Starmer's. And by the way, I think they're both to blame for the state of the mess that's been created. Okay.

[Rory Stewart]

Would you have blocked Burnham?

[Alastair Campbell]

If I'd have thought that he was doing this in order to get a seat, in order to mount a challenge against Keir Starmer? I think I probably would.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay. In which case, would it not be more honest to just say the number one thing we need at the moment is stability? We're not interested in changing a Prime minister.

[Alastair Campbell]

They're kind of saying that.

[Rory Stewart]

They are kind of saying that so much. Their argument yesterday was around the cost of running another election in Manchester.

[Alastair Campbell]

It's not just another election. It's the mayoralty election, which is like 20 odd by elections. You're talking millions. You are talking millions.

[Rory Stewart]

We're talking in a country which is currently spaffing hundreds of billions up. War. Okay, so listen, don't you think in communications terms, it would have been a little bit more honest to say, fundamentally, this guy has been incredibly disloyal. Document everything that he did to attack the Prime Minister during the last labor conference, say, transparently. He's made it clear the reason he's coming in is to mount a leadership challenge against Dharma. And we as the Labour Party do not want a leadership challenge against the Prime Minister. It's the last thing the country needs or wants at the moment. That's why we're not letting him.

[Alastair Campbell]

That is certainly the truth.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alastair Campbell]

And you know, I think in politics it's usually it's wise to get as close as possible to the truth. But the reason why I say that I think there's been a fault on both sides here is that there should have been a relationship and a series of conversations that prevented this from happening. I think Andy Burnham knew that when he put his name forward, he was going to be blocked. Now I actually think Andy's weakened himself because if you go around, if I was a voter in Manchester now, I'm sort of thinking this guy doesn't actually want this job as much as he wanted another job. And the other thing I think that's happened is that. So you've got to. This is happening because Andrew Gwynne, Labour mp, stepping down for a scandal, proper scandal scandal, calls it health reasons, stepping down by elections, happening in a seat that is pretty tricky for two reasons. Well, for one reason, this seat in Manchester is going to be. There's a part of it that is very, very susceptible to the Greens and there's a part of it that is very susceptible to reform. Now, where there is a case for Andy Burnham is that if you looked at the market and what they were saying about this seat, if Andy Burnham was the candidate, Labour was something like 38, 30 odd percent, 36, 38% on to win and reform and Greens were sort of twenties. That's been flipped.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, so let me comment on that for a second. Yeah, so if that's true, let's assume that's true, that Burnham would be much more likely to win that seat. My guess is that if Labour now loses that seat, it will look even worse for Starmer and probably better for Burnham.

[Alastair Campbell]

But my point is that Andy Burnham was partly created, that if Andy Burnham had thought this through and had honest conversations about what was going on, I think he might have reached the conclusion. That said, because in the end, yes, he's the mayor of Manchester, but he is also a Labour politician and he's a Labour politician who has, with mistakes on both sides, has created a total mess. He's actually made Labour's defeat more likely in a by election where he knows that at the end of that, that Keir Starmer Gets more of the blade.

[Rory Stewart]

It's so fascinating. The Labour Party's not my party, so I'm just looking at this as an anthropologist, but there's so many things going on here.

[Alastair Campbell]

Maybe we should get Robert Sapolsky.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Which resonates with me from the Tory party. So basically he's in the position that Boris Johnson was in when he was Mayor of London, wanted to be Prime Minister and actually ran for Parliament and actually under the Conservative laws, continued to be Mayor of London even while he was an mp. And like Burnham, he was an MP for something on the outskirts of London. So he could argue that he was representing London. But the reason it's so difficult to analyse is there's the first big question which you keep talking about, which is this question of loyalty. This guy is a Labour Party member. What on earth does he think he's doing? Endlessly undermining the Prime Minister. And then the second problem that Burnham's got, which is that another group of people want to topple Keir Starmer so they don't have much loyalty towards him. For example, it is almost certainly the case that the big article in the Sunday Times saying WES Streeting has 200 supporters in parliament probably came from Wes Streeting's camp. And that article was framed as we don't want Andy Burnham to come in because Wes doesn't particularly want a challenge from Andy Burnham. And you could develop this. Look, I personally, I think Wes treating would be a better Prime Minister than Keir Starmer. And I'm lining up to see if I can offer my services to him or indeed to many other people that I really admire.

[Alastair Campbell]

Is this because Keir Starmer hasn't given you a job?

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely. It's everything. And this is so you're just another.

[Alastair Campbell]

Self serving politician out for your own ambition.

[Rory Stewart]

Represent that middle part.

[Alastair Campbell]

I don't know whether we should get Ben Wallace or David Gort. I don't know who would do on.

[Rory Stewart]

The podcast middle part of the Labour Party that feels really resentful. They didn't get the job from Keir Starmer. I'm there with all the rest of the backbench that's just sort of sitting there.

[Alastair Campbell]

There is a lot of that. There's always.

[Rory Stewart]

So I'm thinking, okay, we're straiting. You know, obviously I, I, I like Peter Carr very much. I'm a great fan of Al Khan's that we haven't spoken up and haven't did. Incredible response to Trump. Trump. I mean literally the Trump. If you Compare his response to Trump to Keir Sama's response.

[Alastair Campbell]

Well, when he did the video.

[Rory Stewart]

Oh, sorry.

[Alok Sharma]

So tracking some comments made that NATO troops stayed a little off the front lines in Afghanistan and that the US has never necessarily needed us. Well, it's a real shame to hear that many courageous and honorable service personnel from many nations fought on the front line. Many fought way beyond it. I'd served five tours in Afghanistan, many alongside my American colleagues. We shed blood, sweat and tears together and not everybody came home. These are bonds, I think, forged in fire. Protecting U.S. or shared interests, but actually protecting democracy overall. There's only one worse thing than working with allies, that is working without them. And when you do, always remember, never above, never below, always side by side.

[Rory Stewart]

To say casually, as he's saying, I served five tours in Afghanistan. Right. And he's the one politician.

[Alastair Campbell]

Hold on a bit. Keir Starber can't say that because he hasn't.

[Rory Stewart]

He certainly can't. But he's the 1 politician in British politics who any American general, any American politician looking at Al Khan's cannot be.

[Alastair Campbell]

Did you see his video the next day?

[Rory Stewart]

No.

[Alastair Campbell]

So he did the one to Trump, basically saying, you know, I've served five tours in Afghanistan. Kindly, please don't insult our comrades who died serving in Afghanistan. The next day he did another video where he basically said, I've just been for a two hour run with a 15 kilogram backpack.

[Rory Stewart]

He's a bit like you.

[Alastair Campbell]

Yeah. And he looked, just wasn't even out of breath. So, no, listen, he's in a presence. This is where I will.

[Rory Stewart]

Sorry, I just want to develop, I mean, just to get the point. I don't think people fully understand this. So many veterans in British politics, their military records are good, strong. But his is different level. This is a different level.

[Alastair Campbell]

I mean, the guy, he's got a Military Cross.

[Rory Stewart]

The guy was literally in a helicopter with a weapon on the front line with the American Special Forces, again and again, literally looking out of the helicopter with a gun. So that was a really good response to him. And then. And something about Starmer's response. Yes. I was delighted that in the end he stood up, but his voice, his delivery, I mean, this could have been his great moment to turn around.

[Blinds.com Advertiser]

I will never forget their courage, their bravery and the sacrifice that they made for their country. And so I consider President Trump's remarks to be insulting and frankly, appalling.

[Alastair Campbell]

Where I'm going to side with you a bit. I'm going to give you a quote from Abraham Lincoln who, as you know, is one of my sort of political heroes you're always mentioning.

[Rory Stewart]

It's always, it's Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela and Matt Hancock.

[Alastair Campbell]

The Three Degrees. Yeah. God, yeah. Abraham Lincoln famously brought in his opponents to build his team, so called Team Arrival. And he explained it as, we needed the strongest men of the party in the Cabinet. We needed to hold our own people together. I had looked the party over and concluded these were the very strongest men. I had no right to deprive the country of their services. Right, brilliant. And that's the case for Keir Starmer saying, whatever the threat to me, Andy Burnham's pretty good. He's done a good job in Manchester, I'll get him in. And I would also argue, so Al Khan's, for example, is a very good example of where Keir Starmer did reach out beyond the Labour tribe. But I think it's possible to make the case that he maybe should have thought, can I get David Miliband to come back? Can I get Alan Milburn to come back?

[Rory Stewart]

Hypothetically speaking, my guess is very strong that if David Miliband had wanted to stand, he wouldn't have allowed him to stand either. You know, in other words, this control freakery is stopping talent. Not just Andy Burnham, but David Miliband and many other people who wanted to come in. What he wanted was young, pliable people.

[Alastair Campbell]

And there is something in that. And the control freakery is certainly sort of part of the kind of narrative against Keir Starmer. But I think on this one, I think it's much, much more complicated than the way that maybe it's been projected. And if you look at the polling, it says Andy Burnham should be allowed to stand. Well, fine. But then you also do have to at least weigh up in the judgment the idea of, let's just say Nigel Farage fielded a really strong candidate for Manchester mayor and let's just say they won. Okay, that's a disaster for the Labour Party and for the country. So you've got to weigh all of these things up. So what they've decided, I think, is that the considerable short term hit that they've suffered and the sort of the sense of Andy Burnham now being an even bigger figure as a sort of antidote and an opponent of Keir Starmer, they've decided that is better to live with is than the prospect one of a guy coming in and you just have endless, when's he going to make his move? When's he going to make his move? When's he going to make A move or a reform win in Manchester. They are considerable factors that I think they were right to weigh up.

[Rory Stewart]

I'm just trying to get a sense of whether Starmer is actually going to be running as the Labour leader in the next election. And what's your sense within the Labour Party? Are we now in a position which I fear would was probably true for Theresa May after she lost the 2017 election, which is my memories of it, is that every Tory MP in every coffee room was basically plotting and there were people these horrible comments about Dead Woman Walking. It's when, not if. And basically the sense that by the time I put my hat into the leadership race in May 2019, it was clear that Boris Johnson, Michael Gove had had campaigns running for about 12 months beforehand, had already raised the money, had already had their staff, already had Grant Shaps running. Is the general sense now and later that the majority of MPs would be surprised if Starm took them into the next election?

[Alastair Campbell]

Look, I think he's in a really, really tough place and to have gone so quickly from a three figure landslide majority to this sense of people are having those sorts of conversations. So I think he's in a really tough place and I think he knows that. And the question then, given that one of his big messages was country before party, where does that lead to? I think he's in a really difficult place.

[Rory Stewart]

So you're. I don't want to put you on the spot, but what I'm hearing from this, and I think the audience would hear, is is that the chances of him taking Lederer into the next elections is 10%.

[Alastair Campbell]

I don't know about a percentage, but I'm shocked by two things. One, in the public, because I don't think Keir Starmer's a hateful person at all, but a number of people say, I hate that guy, hate that guy. I really don't get that. But I think what you're hearing amongst a lot of the MPs is that this just isn't working. We are not a functional government.

[Rory Stewart]

So there's the comms point that you've made. Often they're not communicating. What are the other things they think are not working?

[Alastair Campbell]

Partly that they don't sort of feel that they're able to connect with the public on what. On the. On what they call the good things that they are doing, which I can list. And I think they are doing a lot of good stuff. I think Kier has been impressive, particularly on the foreign affairs.

[Rory Stewart]

Then there'll be doorstep stuff there'll be my constituents are annoyed, the party's annoyed. They will feel felt he took, he was too slow on Gaza. They won't be happy at all with what's happening with the budget. They won't be confident about the balance that's being struck on welfare. They will feel that a lot of the promises on immigration weren't delivered. The promises on growth weren't delivered.

[Alastair Campbell]

The big thing that ties that together is the fact that the slogan was change. And there are changes that you can point to. But do people feel that their lives are being transformed by a change of government? Certainly not yet. And then added to which, this is the thing that kind of pains me the most is that the thing that made the last lot so dysfunctional was this scent. You've seen this in the way it's operating now. You just saw some sort of pretty second rate people projecting themselves as though they were the center of the universe. And I think what you the reason why I think Keir Starmer is likely to be feeling incredibly frustrated right now is there he is trying to sort of, you know, get a new government in place, get the government going. And we're already talking about who's next. Now he either actually lays down, he says, you can do what you want, I'm not going. And then he's going to force the hand of people like waistreating if they are sort of pushing to get him out because Andy Burnham's not going to be there to do it for him now. But I think right now I'm pretty down about the way the government has developed and I'm pretty down about the way the public is seeing it. And that's got to be fixed because the Tories are not going to win the next election. The Tories are not going to win the next election. And therefore the choice that the country is facing is do you want a Labour or a Labour led government or do you want Nigel Farage in Downing Street? Now some people are still saying yes to the latter, but I think there is a real desire for that not to happen. And the only way it's going to be stopped is for Labour to get us out again.

[Rory Stewart]

Very good. Okay, well, end of this episode. Look forward to discussing this more in Question Time.

[Alastair Campbell]

We're going to talk about Minnesota. We're going to talk about Suella Braverman and her defection to reform and we're.

[Rory Stewart]

Going to talk about very exciting new development which is an attempt to build a center right movement. I know trying to, trying to get there in the center make the argument for the center ground.

[Alastair Campbell]

Exactly. And also, I've taken you up on your suggestion that we interview the people that we talked about last week who've been campaigning against and exposing the. This horrible new thing. Well, not new phenomenon. Massive phenomenon of child sex abuse online.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, well, talk then. Thank you again.

[Alastair Campbell]

Bye.

[Rory Stewart]

Bye.