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The Rest Is Politics
554. Burnham’s Worldview, Trump's Ceasefire Collapse, and Advising Count Binface
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- [00:01]
Rory Stewart
On Monday, Andy Burnham is going to walk into Downing street as our new prime minister. And all the questions initially are going to be about getting growth going and applying what Andy Burnham calls the make a field test to foreign policy. How is what Britain's doing in the world going to make difference to people on the ground? How's power going to be redistributed? But that doesn't get rid of the fundamental question, which is what is Britain's place in the world? What is our new prime minister going to make of Trump, of China, of AI, of Russia, of Defense? And the honest answer is, I think we barely know. We might even ask whether British politics, domestic politics, actually allows us to have a serious conversation about the really big issues that are going to define our lives abroad and at home. We've had a lot of questions about Andy Burnham's worldview, and we're going to get into some of them now in question time. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy.
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
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- [01:54]
Rory Stewart
That's right, it's heating up everyone. The rest is Football is on Netflix for the world's biggest tournament and we're officially in the business end. The knockouts are here. And don't worry, myself, Allan and Micah are still here every day from New York City, all the debates from the biggest games and a special guest or two for good measure. What a time we're having. Don't miss it.
- [02:17]
Arch Manning
I'm Arch Manning.
- [02:18]
Madison Skinner
I'm Madison Skinner.
- [02:19]
Alistair Campbell
I'm Eva Jovic. I'm Decoria Moore.
- [02:21]
Rory Stewart
Want to train like a Red Bull athlete?
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Madison Skinner
Tell us your fitness goals this summer to enter the Red Bull Athlete Challenge. You'll get to try each of our workouts for a chance to win an
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Rory Stewart
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- [02:31]
Arch Manning
Think you have what it takes.
- [02:42]
Alistair Campbell
Welcome to the rest of Politics. Question time with me, Alistair Campbell.
- [02:44]
Rory Stewart
And with me, Rory Stewart. So, question time. Well, we have had questions on Andy Burnham about to take over as our Prime Minister, and what on earth it means to try to create a foreign policy when you're coming from being mayor of Manchester. We've had questions, a lot of them, on what's happening in Iran, how did this peace fire collapse and what does it mean for the world? We'll be talking about climate emergency, and we'll be talking particularly there about a lot of questions that have come in about whether we're underestimating the national security implications of climate. We will be talking about Count Bin face, the amazing candidate who's running against Nigel Farage. And we might, if we have time, get onto the question of this meditation retreat from which I've just emerged. Anyway, where do you want to start, Alastair?
- [03:32]
Alistair Campbell
So, Rory, Olivia, recognizing that Andy Burnham is about to become our Prime Minister, wants to know how difficult is it to get the balance right between domestic and foreign policy? Very, very hard, is the answer. Very, very hard. You want to have a go at that?
- [03:47]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. Well, it's a hell of a question, isn't it? Because Andy Burnham is in some ways, I think, a bit of a mystery on this. It's very difficult. I mean, you've known him forever, since he was in his early 20s. And yet almost nobody I know who knows him well is really able to tell me what his foreign policy vision is or what his views on artificial intelligence are? So there's that one question. What does he think? Second question, which I'd love to get into with you, is what's the team that he's going to build? So if he's not an expert on this stuff, how much is Jonathan Powell going to be at the center of defining what UK foreign policy is, the national security adviser who he's retained, and what is Jonathan Powell's worldview going to be going forward? And then thirdly, how is domestic politics and his experience in Makefield going to play into the kind of choices he has? Big example there that he was running in a constituency which voted two thirds for Brexit. So that, of course, immediately constrained the freedom that he might have on getting much closer to Europe. So a lot of things to get into. Where do you want to start us? Do you want to start us on his foreign policy machine? And people like Jonathan Powell or start us on Burnham's own views?
- [04:58]
Alistair Campbell
Well, let's do a bit of both. I mean, I think the balance question is really important because one of the arguments that Keir Starmer has been trying to make is actually you can't separate them. Today there is such a thing as the world economy and you have to be engaged in it, and that requires you and your chancellor and your business people to be making connections all around the world all the time. Keir Starmer, they applied the label Kier never here because he was constantly abroad. Well, if you're dealing with the war in Ukraine, you're dealing with the war in Iran. As you say, you're trying to rebuild relations with Europe. It'd be very odd if you weren't traveling a lot. Andy Burnham has definitely been projecting himself both to the public and, I would say, to the plp. He had his first meeting with the people PLP last night and he was at Paines. The readout I got, he was at Paines to pay a really warm tribute to Keir Starmer on foreign policy and in particular in relation to the relationship he developed with Zelenskyy and the support for Ukraine. So that says to me, continuity there. One of the social media posts he's published in recent days was very much distancing himself from the Starmer government positioning in relation to Israel and Gaza, much more sympathetic to the Palestinians. So we'll see how that works in practice on Europe. Andy is somebody who is, I would instinctively say, very, very pro European. Very, very pro. The idea of Britain being a big leading player in Europe. But as you say, politics will have a role to play there as well. And I think also historically, he's got to remember Andy because he still looks quite young and because he's been off the main scene for quite a while, people do underestimate just how experienced he is in government and politics. I mean, he had a lot of experience in different government positions. He's had experience of the treasury as Chief Secretary, he's had experience of public service departments, but he hasn't had that much experience of foreign policy. But interestingly, I was very interested when it sort of first emerged, and it's really been, as you say, I've known him for such a long time. I picked up Der Spiegel this morning and there's a big profile of Andy Burnham. I was reading the Straits Times in Singapore and there's a big profile of Andy Burnham. And what was interesting is how many in some of these profiles in the international space for example, how many golf leaders have actually said, oh, we got to know Andy Burnham when he was doing this deal, getting us involved in this. So I think he's got the experience. What I don't think we have yet is the worldview. Now, that, in a way, though, is a big, big opportunity because he's coming in with. And I think I said to you the other day, it's an amazing. It's an amazing thing to have pulled off, to be seen as the much nicer guy than the one that you're replacing. Have absolutely been as ruthless as you could imagine a politician to be. But he's now got quite a lot of blank canvases. So Jonathan Powell, you asked what's Jonathan Powell's worldview? Jonathan Powell is in the best tradition of public service. He will be guided. He will be guided. What Jonathan has, though, is the really amazing network of relationships around the world, and of course, he's developed those with Kir. I think Jonathan will be very, very important to Andy's sort of introduction to all this stuff. Who he appoints as Foreign Secretary is going to be. I'll tell you the other thing that's absolutely fascinating. I've been talking to all the people you'd expect to me in recent days. I don't think a single one of them knows exactly what, if any, position they're going to get in the Cabinet. I don't think any of them know.
- [08:27]
Rory Stewart
And that's really interesting. And that's partly because he didn't need to do what usually leadership candidates have to do, which is to make implicit promises.
- [08:37]
Alistair Campbell
Well, he may have made implicit. He may have made them, but I
- [08:41]
Rory Stewart
remember this wonderful moment when Boris Johnson was running and he tried to get me to back him, and he said to me, he said, a. Rory, Rory. What I'm about to say, ignore entirely, because I'm almost certainly not going to do what I say. But, but, but I can imagine you in my Cabinet, flying around Europe, sprinkling a little bit of British eau de cologne on foreign policy, which was the most elegant way of promising and not promising. But a lot of them, of course, went a long way beyond that. I mean, most of them come in because they have to, because they need the MPs votes, having pretty much got their Chancellor in place, got their Foreign Secretary in place, probably got their Defence Secretary in place in order to get some military type. So he's coming in in a very, very unusually strong position, isn't he? And I wonder whether he. I mean, how strong is the position could he put Yvette Cooperation on the backbenches? Could he put Shabana Mahmoud on the backbenches? How much risk can he take with big beasts in the party? Because sometimes people are able to do it. I mean, actually Johnson did it and it had surprisingly little impact, at least in the short term. I mean, it left a lot of us grumpy and grumbling and we were like, ah, you know, you fired Winston Churchill's grandson and got rid of Ken Clark and you've thrown out all these members of the Cabinet. But actually he. It didn't really matter. It turned out we weren't as big beasts as we believed. How much freedom you've got.
- [10:06]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I've got to say, the feedback from the PLP was pretty positive. There was one. The peers were pissed off because normally the peers go to the PLP as well, but they weren't. He wanted to see the elected members, he wanted to pay tribute, as he did to Keir. But I think he also wanted to tell them, and more importantly, show them that he gets the fact that a lot of them been really, really pissed off about the way the PLP has been managed. He made all sorts of commitments the. That he's going to see regularly to the meetings he's going to attend. So that's all fine and dandy. He will get to a point. The one thing he may be, look, he's been a senior Cabinet minister, but. And he's been the Mayor of Manchester. The one thing he. I don't think anybody really gets until they're there is the sheer volume of pressure on the diary.
- [10:52]
Rory Stewart
You're saying he's going to start regretting the fact that he's promised to do about seven meetings a week.
- [10:56]
Alistair Campbell
He's going to. He's going to start saying to the diary secretary, can you phone such and such an MP to say, can we put it off for a couple of weeks because the President of Poland has just arrived. Okay, so there's going to be a lot of that. But then the other thing he did was to, I think, genuinely say, I want to be very focused on here. He's already announced that he's not going to have a summer holiday, he's going to tour Britain during the summer. He might regret that by the time he's absolutely knackered at the end of it. But this thing about the Cabinet is fascinating. Now, it may be. It may be he has said to all of these people, right, this is what I want you to do, but you better not tell anybody because I want this to be announced when I announce it. But I know some of these people well enough to know that they would have said to me, listen, please don't tell anybody. But, right, none of them have said that. Not one. So that says to me, he's keeping them all on their toes. The truth is, he does have a lot of strength at the moment. He does have a lot of power, but he'll be wary of making too many enemies right at the start. Somebody, an MP who did not go to the PLP last night said to me, I just couldn't face it because it's just going to be a gizzard job plea. True enough. Lots of people sort of talked about how hopeful and optimistic and how marvelous he was and blah, blah, blah, blah. But I think you'll be able to get rid of a few, but not that many.
- [12:21]
Rory Stewart
And how much, how much. Can you just explain? How much of a risk is it? I mean, let's say it was bloodbath and he got rid of, I don't know, more than half of Keir Sama's cabinet, and they all end up on the back benches. How much trouble really can they cause? Because it sort of depends on the Prime Minister, doesn't it? I mean, you can end up with a situation where, you know, Ted Heath's on the backbench, he's grumbling, and everyone just thinks they're a bitter old person. It doesn't make much difference to you.
- [12:44]
Alistair Campbell
I mean, he's got very.
- [12:45]
Rory Stewart
How much damage? I mean, let's say Yvette Cooper's on the backbenches. Can she really damage him? I mean, she can make grumbly and disobliging comments. The House of Commons. But in modern politics, does that really affect your standing?
- [12:57]
Alistair Campbell
Well, look at. Look at what happened recently with, you know, John Healey resigned, very respected Defense Secretary, I suspect will be back in the Cabinet doing that, possibly even being Foreign Secretary, don't know, but a serious person. But when he was out. Now he's out at the moment, you know, when Dan Jarvis pops up on the television surrounded by tanks and soldiers, and he's. He looks the part, he sounds the part. So I think. I wouldn't overestimate the power that they have. I think where they have power when they leave is if they continue to organize on a different political agenda. The one thing that Andy keeps saying, I think this is the most interesting thing. In the speech he made, when he made that sort of speech in Manchester, setting everything out, he basically was saying, I'm going to be collaborative, I'm going to be consultative, but there will be no argument about the political direction. So I think what he'll do very, very early on is try to set out a very clear political direction. At some point there will have to be a major foreign policy speech where we do get to hear about this stuff. But I think he will relate it. He's got this. The reason he's saying this Makerfield test, I think he's basically saying that he's going to try to persuade people that part of the job of leadership in this very difficult geopolitical, geostrategic age is the foreign policy side of it, but try to link it to their lives. Now, that is not an easy trick to pull off.
- [14:15]
Rory Stewart
No, it's not an easy trick to pull off. And let me just finish on that before we move on to next question, because that was Jake Sullivan's idea. As Biden's national security adviser after the Trump defeat, he went away into the wilderness for four years and he came up with this idea called foreign policy for the middle class, which is basically the Makerfield test. The idea was that in future, all of US foreign policy worldwide would be relevant to a blue collar worker in, in a mill town somewhere in Ohio. And there's a real attraction to it, but there's a real limit to it because so much of what you're actually doing in foreign policy isn't directly relevant. And if you try to make it all directly relevant, you end up pretty quickly in a pretty isolationist position. And that's one of the reasons, I'm afraid, why the international aid budgets have collapsed and why I fear Andy Burnham's not going to restore British international aid spending, which is at the lowest level since the 1970s, because the maker field test will tend to bring us inwards. Now the problem is what we actually have to be doing to survive economically, politically, as a country over the next 20, 30 years is this middle power move, which is this very, very difficult, brave attempt to try to work out how you put Europe, Britain, Canada, South Korea, Japan, who knows, India together and really develop significant sovereign capacity in all these different areas so that we're not over a barrel with the US and China. Otherwise we're screwed. Our economies are screwed, our policies, we're really screwed. I mean, we can really see now how these things get weaponized. So that's something which is going to take real leadership. And, and as you say, Jonathan Powell is an extraordinary civil servant, but a lot of what he's been Very, very good at is conflict resolution, relationships, unwinding, knotty problems. Northern Ireland, he was doing stuff with Ukraine, Iran. But the big structural. This is the vision for where Britain's going to be in 15, 20 years. That's a different story and that's what I hope we're going to get to. And I'm worried about.
- [16:28]
Alistair Campbell
I would very, very strongly advise him that one of his early speeches should be answering that very, very question and doing it in a way that makes people around the world who at the moment, this is what happens in politics, leaders around the world. I've been getting people saying, oh, what is this guy Andy Burnham like? You know, will I get on with Burnham? And that's. It's inevitable. You see that with all the summits you ever go to. I even saw the NATO summit last week when it came to one of the family photos. Keir Starmer was literally on the edge of right, sort of right out. And it's like, that's what happens. It's just like, you know, power moves and it's brutal. But there we are. Anyway, he's going to be our Prime Minister, seventh in a decade, and he's got a very, very, very large intro and will doubtless be coming back to it many, many weeks to come.
- [17:13]
Rory Stewart
Moving on then, to probably internationally, the biggest story of the week and the thing that again, is really defining global economy, global politics. We got a question from Amy Dixon. What do the latest ceasefire developments mean for the US and Iran? Things change so quickly, it's hard to keep up. But does this mean that the war is ongoing? How will this affect Trump and the GOP in the midterms? So just brief, explain it before I come back to you on the details. Everybody will remember, I think, that a ceasefire agreement was put in place and there was a 60 day pause. And during the 60 day pause, vessels were going to travel through the Straits of Hormuz, tolls weren't going to be charged, mines were going to be cleared, and then in 60 days time, who knows? But the hope was that at least this sort of temporary ceasefire would see us through. And it hasn't held. It hasn't held because Oman and the US started moving vessels out of Iranian territorial waters through the south of the Strait. And Iran said, hold on a second, this is in violation of our understanding of what the 60 day freeze was supposed to be. We thought that we were meant to be demining and they were meant to be going through our territorial waters. And above all, we wanted to retain the leverage of being able to control control vessels going through the straits. So no, we do not agree with this idea that you're trying to set up some independent corridors through the Strait. They attacked a vessel. The US Responded with hundreds of strikes against Iran. Iran then responded with strikes against the Gulf countries. And we're right back to the fundamentals. The whole thing again, which is Iran has a lot of cards which haven't gone away. It can still prove again and again that it can stop ships going through Australia, Hormuz and therefore affect 20% of all the oil of the world and everything else. It's proved again again that it can still strike Gulf countries and cause chaos in those Gulf countries. And the US has proved again and again that when it wants, it can strike Iran. And we haven't got really beyond any of those things. Over to you.
- [19:06]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Well, Roy, when you were in your retreat, I did a solo leading interview with the author of the book that we've been talking about, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. And, and it was a really interesting interview. I really enjoyed it. But I read to them a passage from their own book and I want to read it to you because it just speaks absolutely to what you just said. This is an account of Bibi Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, going to Washington to persuade Trump to take out to take on Iran. Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near certain victory. Iran's ballistic missile program could be destroyed within a few weeks. Iran would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz. The likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was minimal. Besides Mossad, intelligence indicated that protests inside Iran would begin. And with Mossad helping to foment riots and rebellion, an intense bombing campaign would create the conditions for the Iranian opposition to overthrow the regime. Netanyahu delivered his presentation in a confident monotone. It sounded compelling and well prepared. Sounds good to me, the President told the Prime Minister. To Netanyahu, this signaled a likely green light for a joint operation. Now, I pointed out to Maggie and Jonathan, every single line went wrong, every single one. And then they have the Memorandum of Understanding. But the Memorandum of Understanding feels to me like a rerun of the great Gaza peace plan. It's unraveled.
- [20:40]
Rory Stewart
Listen, can we just hold for a second on what you've just read me? Because that is so, so interesting because it's right at the heart of everything. So firstly, it's right at the heart of all these interventions and wars that we've had for decades.
- [20:52]
Alistair Campbell
Which we talked to Ben Rhodes about, didn't we?
- [20:53]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. Which is the moment when the military or the intelligence people or an ally come in and say, we've got it all sorted out. You know, we can answer every question or anxiety you can have. You think there are these risks, but, you know, we've got this. We've got the greatest intelligence agency in the world. We've penetrated the Iranians from one end to the other. We understand the regime like you can't believe. We will be able to take out all the ballistic missiles. Well, as you point out, between 70 and 80% of the entire Iranian ballistic missile stock is completely unharmed. Turns out they can continue to fire these rockets almost indefinitely. We can guarantee that with our amazing Mossad agents on the ground, we'll ferment revolution. No, we can guarantee they're not going to be able to use this to close the straits. No, they can close. They won't attack neighboring countries. No, they are attacking neighboring countries. They will run absolutely everything. But this then leads us. And the problem, I'm in the States at the moment and I was talking to somebody yesterday who said to me, do you think Trump's going to be able to win in Iran? Is he going to be able to guarantee the opening Strait of Hormuz? And I said, and I don't know whether you agree, I said, no, look, it seems inconceivable. It seems the only actual end to this is accepting that Iran de facto can shut the Strait of Hormuz when it wants and therefore controls it, and that Iran can de facto firing neighboring countries when it wants, and that therefore the only real option for the US is to back off and hope somehow that the leverage of the Gulf countries and the self interest of the Iranians allows traffic to pass through the States. It's what would have seemed four months ago a completely intolerable, inconceivable, mad situation in which you've just handed the Iranian regime control of 20% of the transit of the world's oil. But I can't see what the other option is now.
- [22:48]
Alistair Campbell
No. Well, the other thing, of course, this worth thinking about. I mentioned when I was sort of debriefing you when you came out of your, of your meditation about these attacks, including upon the president and upon the foreign minister and upon serious people in the regime who were being attacked at the funeral of the ayatollah as appeasers. They were saying, you know, the Americans have just killed this guy, our leader. They've killed him. And now you're sitting down to make peace with them. And it was interesting. It was after that that the IRGC fired on these three ships, including one that's linked to Qatar.
- [23:20]
Rory Stewart
Right, right. And that's. Sorry, because you've put your finger on something that we don't talk about enough. I mean, the way in which domestic politics plays and the way in which the Iranians aren't actually as free as you think because they've got their hardliners. Trump isn't as free as he thinks because he's got his hardliners to deal with. And also the regime may not control or its own people. I mean, to what extent is this IGC strike what the President of Iran wants to happen? Or is it something the hardliners are doing to derail the.
- [23:44]
Alistair Campbell
Exactly. And just to sort of get a sense of where they were. So Trump, who recently was saying, we've done it, let the oil flow in the last week while you were away, he declared the ceasefire is over. He said that all of the leaders in Iran were scum and there were sick people and yet again threatened to destroy their desalination plants. Meanwhile, there were these really blood loud calls for vengeance over the death of the Supreme Leader. We've still not seen his son, the current leader. Then we had the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. I think they got 14 ships through on Sunday, which was a collapse from what had been happening. And then these attacks.
- [24:22]
Rory Stewart
150.
- [24:23]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. And then now these attacks on the infrastructure of other Gulf countries as well. So it's very, very hard to see where this goes.
- [24:29]
Rory Stewart
And now we've had this announcement from Trump that he's going to charge 20% tariffs for vessels coming through, which is staggering because if you go back four weeks, Rubio's argument against Iran is they can't charge tariffs because this is an international waterway. Nobody should charge tariffs. Now the U.S. is proposing to charge 20% tariffs. And that's a little finger showing you a whole new world where these choke points are not just used to deny regimes access to things. These American choke points, points on their control of finance straits were used in the past to deny people getting money. Now it's use as a financial extraction mechanism. And when that happens and there's no American guarantor anymore of free movement, America itself becomes a rent seeker for its security profession. A lot of other weird things are going to happen anyway.
- [25:19]
Alistair Campbell
We shouldn't worry too much because J.D. vance says we have all the cards. They do love talking about cards over there. They have all the cards. There we are. Rory. Caroline Lucas is making a series for us on climate and national security, and she's obviously listened to recent episodes. Rory. And she's got a little question for us.
- [25:40]
Caroline Lucas
Hi, Alistair. Hi, Rory. This is Caroline Lucas here with a question for you. I wanted to say that I found your recent energy and climate change question time with Dan Jurgensen really, really compelling. And I thought he made some good, great arguments about the need for an urgent green transition. He talked very compellingly about the need for cheaper energy, for greater energy independence. But what really struck me was his admission that politicians, including himself, have focused too much on arguments about things like price mechanisms and not enough on the reality of climate breakdown and what that really means in terms of its possible impact on national security. He made the case that climate change is the biggest threat multiplier on the planet and that it could lead to wars and insecurity. So, Rory, I know that slightly, oddly, in my view, you still weren't convinced by some of Dan's arguments by the end of the episode, but I wonder whether you would at least agree with him on this one, that climate and nature do pose a very real security threat.
- [26:43]
Rory Stewart
Where I think Caroline is absolutely right is that the argument has to be in the end about the horrors and the impacts of climate change, not about cost. Where I think I get wound up by Dan and by the European debate is by this endless insistence that clean energy is cheap energy. It's a very dangerous thing to say because all you've got to do is produce energy that is cheaper and isn't cleaner, and the whole argument collapses. And I think it's a really difficult argument to hold that net zero is cheaper when our energy prices are four times that of the US and twice that of Europe. So I think the argument has to be it is the right thing to do, and it's the right thing to do, because climate change itself is horrifying. And this is where the national security picture comes in. It's not just the fact that there are going to be hundreds of people dying from heat waves in our own country. It's that we will end up by 2030, 2050, with massive food insecurity, with collapse of forest systems, water systems all around the world, huge force migration. We have to keep the emphasis on that. But that also means another thing. What you can't have as a result is the cutting of British International Development assistance. The thing that actually I was thinking about is driving me nuts is one of the stupidest things Starmer and his team did is try to stop ed Miliband spending £150 million on rainforest stuff outside the United Kingdom. Bang for buck. You're probably likely to make much more impact on global climate change spending money in poorer countries protecting rainforests, stopping them building coal fired plants than putting all the money into Britain. And if the reason why you're spending all the money in Britain is to show a good example to the world, in other words, what you're trying to do, because we're only 2% of global emissions, is shape the world, then there has to be a lot of international work and international expenditure. Nothing would be madder than bankrupting our own economy without taking cheaper opportunities to shape the climate debate and get the moral argument out there globally.
- [28:54]
Alistair Campbell
No. Well, we're all now agreeing. We're all now agreeing. I agree with everything you said there, Rory. Well, we're definitely agreeing about the big point somebody sent me this morning is absolutely quite beautiful, but incredibly sad. It was in the Guardian a few weeks ago and it's a thing where you can listen year by year to birdsong since 1976. And the scale of bird loss in the UK is honestly terrifying. And if you remember, Dan Jorgensen said that the only podcast he listens to, apart from ours, would but one about birds. So the reason I think Caroline is contributing a question is because she's been spending a lot of time, a lot of time in our studios because she's making a miniseries about climate and security and she's Part One is out on Friday. And I've listened to it. It is, honestly, I think it's one of the best things we've done. Okay with me. She's preaching to the converted. But she's interviewing in this one a general, an army general who is basically saying this is a huge national security issue and we've got to wake up. She's interviewing somebody who has worked in the development world. The interviews are really, really powerful. And this briefly. So the government commissioned under the Conservatives carried through with this government, they commissioned this report by our intelligence agencies about the security threats of climate change. Honestly, Rory, it is absolutely terrifying. It is absolutely terrifying. We are close to tipping point on virtually all of them. And this is why I get so angry with these sort of rich and stupid tice and Trump saying that none of this matters. You know, just look around, just look out the window. We've had these. We've had forest fires in Derbyshire, we've had fires in Spain where British tourists were killed. Okay, we're just sort of letting this stuff happen. And okay, we all contribute. And every time I talk about this, people say, well, don't go in an airplane and you know, stop using this and stop the. And I know we can all do our bit, but I just think that the debate has got to get back to a place of saying if we don't address this, this is where you and I agree. I saw some polling last week. People hate the phrase net zero. They hate it because it's been weaponized. But they still support, in exactly the same numbers as five years ago, the proposition that climate change is real and that it's damaging our lives. Okay, so that's where you've got to win the argument. And just this so far this year. And okay, the Richard Stupid Ties people say, oh, it's the establishment figures, right? But the UK Health Security Agency thinks there were 1500 heat related deaths last summer, 800 million pound in crop losses for British farming, and that so far this year, 2,700 people in England and Wales have been killed by the previous heat wave. Okay, so that's 440 deaths a day at its peak. Which obviously these may be mainly elderly people who will be dying anyway, but they're people who would not have died were it not for the pressure that the heat was putting on their bodies and their underlying conditions. So anyway, Caroline's series is going to be great. Let's just listen to a little trailer now. But I strongly recommend everybody listens to Caroline on climate and national security.
- [32:16]
Rory Stewart
Drill, baby, drill.
- [32:18]
Caroline Lucas
What if the biggest threat to UK security isn't conventional warfare, but the collapse of the natural world itself?
- [32:25]
Rory Stewart
In the last seven years, it's changed. There has never been a June day as hot as today.
- [32:31]
Alistair Campbell
The impacts of this destabilization will profoundly impact every country on earth because it's
- [32:37]
Caroline Lucas
been revealed that ministers have tried to suppress the publication of a report commissioned from their own intelligence community. Threats to the UK economy, to our food systems, to our geopolitical stability. The conclusions are frankly chilling. I'm Caroline Lucas and for the past four decades I've been doing literally everything I can to try to persuade successive governments that they need to go further and faster to address the accelerating climate and nature crises. And now I'm making this series. Why? Because in all of those 40 years of environmental activism, I have never read an official report that has alarmed me as much as this one. Join me for When Nature Becomes a Security Threat, a new series from the Rest is Politics.
- [33:21]
Alistair Campbell
So there we are. That's a clip from Caroline Lucas, part one of the series. It's out on Friday 17th July for members and then new episodes every Friday for several weeks thereafter. At the end of it, Rory, don't know if I've told you this yet. You and I are going to sit down with Caroline to do a Question Time special on that and well in advance of the Question time that we're doing with Caroline Lucas, if you want to send us in your questions anytime between now and then, just go to theresetasapologist.com now let's take a break. So good, so good, so good.
- [33:56]
Madison Skinner
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Madison Skinner
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- [35:54]
Rory Stewart
Welcome back to the RESTLESS Politics Question
- [35:56]
Alistair Campbell
time with me, Rory Stewart and with me Alistair Campbell.
- [35:58]
Rory Stewart
Now here's a question, Alistair, from Ben Would Alastair help with Count Bin Face's campaign and when is he coming on the now? Alistair, before you answer, just to explain for listeners who haven't been following the ins and outs of all of this, as you explained in the main episode yesterday, Nigel Farage, facing these incredible problems and challenges about these millions of pounds of funding and these strange connections to Montenegrin based gamblers, has decided to resign from his seat, trigger a by election in the hope of proving that the British public still backs him by standing against in his own seat. And he was hoping he would be running against all the major parties and he'd be able to prove that in the end the president, people of clacks and preferred reform to conservative labor, et cetera, they all decided that they weren't going to run. And so the only people running are a very strange British tradition which exists, I think, more in Britain than in most other countries of comedy candidates of whom the leading one is a man called Count Binface. And I know Count Benface very, very well because when I was running for the leadership and again when I was running be mayor of London, I was on the stage with Count Ben Face a great deal. We did a lot together on social media. We did a lot in studios together. Count Ben Face is a relatively tall man who wears a dustbin on his head and has a black cloak. So he looks a little bit like Darth Vader with a dustbin on his head. And he is capable sometimes of being quite funny. When he ran against Andy Burnham, his policy was he was going to build one affordable house in the constituency, which is good. It's a good joke at the expense of politicians who never build any. And he was going to rename HS2 as FFS2. Anyway, over to you, Alistair, on advice for Count Binface's communication strategy.
- [37:53]
Alistair Campbell
Okay. Well, my favorite Binface policy is that he will force all water company chief executives to swim in the rivers for which they're responsible. That is a policy that I would wholeheartedly support. So would I help him? I am helping him whether he likes it or not. I'm constantly publishing things. I'm producing a pledge card based on our 1997 pledge card. He doesn't know that I'm doing this, but he's more than welcome to have it because I don't want him to get in trouble with financing. And of course, you know, my going rate, as you know, Rory, for a campaign is probably about $3 million a minute. So the pledge card. And this is my pledge card for Camp Benface. One, I will hold weekly constituency surgeries unspoken because Nigel Farage never does. Two, I will answer all letters and emails within three days. Three, for every day I spend overseas, I will spend 10 days in Clacton. Four, any outside earnings that I make will be donated to charities in Clacton. Five, on a postcode lottery basis, I will help one family per week put their bins out. Now, I think that is a great local campaign. When Kat Nealon did the series on funding of reform, she said, the thing that the people in Clacton most complained about with Farage is that he's never there.
- [39:10]
Rory Stewart
I think it's brilliant. But in the next iteration as you develop this, I think one of the things that was so brilliant about his campaign where he says, I'm going to build one affordable house in the consensus constituency, is the use of satire to point out the massive failures of the other side. And so if you can begin to develop a few more lines which are, I think the stuff about foreign travel is good, but things that are simultaneously very funny but are also a beautiful way of satirizing exposing the problem with Farage. So something maybe which you could do around Montenegro and casinos and gambling. And I actually did a little bit of a plug here for Al Murray this week. Al Murray, who's the co host of our sister show we have Ways of Making youg Talk, will be writing in our newsletter about the time that like Bin face, he took on Nigel Farage. And we'll be sharing some of his advice that counts. So be interested and also what you make of Al Murray's views because I think a comedian could be really good on this. To receive that piece, sign up to our newsletter. The link is in the episode description. The reason I'm interested in this is I think it's something that stand up comedians can be really, really good at. Because what you want ideally is to find something that is both really funny but also is making a killing point that actually totally attacks the other side. We have one in Cumbria. Willie Whitelaw, when he first ran, ran against a man called Mr. Brownrigg who was in favor of home rule for Cumberland and fair wages for mole catchers was his big deal. But the key thing here is to go beyond fair wages mole catchers and find Three or four things which really embarrass Farage and the more ludicrous they are and the more they can be making in jokes about a very successful aristocrat or jokes about security.
- [41:02]
Alistair Campbell
You should just do one because what's happening is people are just doing stuff and pumping it out there. So somebody's done an absolutely brilliant Count Ben Face version of the Obama Hope poster. It's absolutely beautiful. And so that's doing the nice. Somebody has made a really, really professional, powerful party election broadcast for Camp Bin Face. Camp Bin Face doesn't know about any of this stuff happening. It's just all happening before. I've seen Count Bin Face this week already on Australian television, American television, German television. The guy's got momentum.
- [41:32]
Rory Stewart
And how well is he doing? Listen, so just quickly on television, is he as funny as he could be? I mean, or is it a little bit plodding? Is it basically just one joke that he hasn't been on his head?
- [41:42]
Alistair Campbell
No, he's quite good. He's quite good.
- [41:44]
Rory Stewart
Oh, good. Because a few years ago it wasn't. It wasn't that brilliant.
- [41:47]
Alistair Campbell
Well, he didn't. He did an interview. I was on his podcast a few months ago, so people can look at that as well. Where. And he's clever, he knows about politics, he's understands politics. And it's so interesting how when you're doing an interview with him, I had a 45 minute interview with him. Once you get through the joke at the start you're talking to a dustbin, but it feels perfectly natural when he asks you a serious question, you give a serious answer, then you remember, oh, I'm talking to a dustbin. And but don't forget, Roy, that other people who have started out as these so called novelty candidates, they've gone on to win. We had the monkey in Hartlepool who became the mayor. He was the football team mascot. We had the form, Alan Howling Lord Hope, who was the leader of the official Monster Raving Loony Party after the great Lord Such, who sadly ended his own life at the end of last century. But he was the real kind of star novelty candidate of all time. Alan Hope became the deputy mayor and then the mayor of Ashburton. And then we had Stuart Basil Fawlty Hughes. He was the first loony member of the official Monster Raving Loony Party to win a contested election and he went on to become the Devon Highways Chief. So stuff can happen, Bin Face and. But the great, listen, let's be honest, really, the great thing is that Nigel Farage who set this contest up as him against the establishment. It is him against a dustbin and hopefully it will be his route towards it.
- [43:10]
Rory Stewart
Well, nothing can possibly go right for him, can it? Because if he beats the dustbin, nobody's that impressed that he's won against the dustbin. If he loses against the dustbin, well, we're in a different world.
- [43:23]
Alistair Campbell
I'm going to make a little risky prediction.
- [43:25]
Rory Stewart
Go on then.
- [43:26]
Alistair Campbell
He won't stand.
- [43:27]
Rory Stewart
Farage may not stand.
- [43:29]
Alistair Campbell
That's my prediction. I've got no evidence. I'm just saying I'm doing what Farage is. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if that's the case. Know. I'm just saying maybe.
- [43:37]
Rory Stewart
Wait, so. So Ben Face may actually walk it?
- [43:41]
Alistair Campbell
Well, no, because then you might have Piers Corbin, Piers Corbyn might then win it. He's done a very. He sent me his. I don't know why, but Piers Corbyn sent me his video this morning of him trolling along the beach in Clacton reading a poem about himself. It's all going to be mad, it's all going to be completely crazy. And meanwhile Andy Burnham can get in and be serious and what have you. Right, Rory. Dan Needle versus Gabriel Zookman. Jen says thank you so much for the very thought provoking interview with Gabriel Zucman. This is the Mr. Wealth Tax from France. I'm minded to agree with Rory that the solutions offered by Zucman wouldn't be a panacea for all of our current problems. I do think Zucman has a point though. If you do interview Dan Needle, could you ask him about policies that would address the sense of unfairness in the current system and what could be done to address it? And this debate has really taken off at the moment because Gary Stevenson, while you're away, did a tv, TV documentary. How do you get filthy rich? Dan Needle had a real go at him about. I haven't seen the film, I've read a lot about it. I suppose I should watch it, but I've been busy. And then we are getting lots of requests for people to say we should get Dan Needle and Zucman together. So I, I listened back this morning to the interview with Gabriel Zookman. I've got two observations, Rory. One is I thought he was more impressive listening back than I thought at the time. And secondly, I felt real anger in you that I didn't necessarily feel at the time. I felt you were really getting angry.
- [45:08]
Rory Stewart
That's Interesting, isn't it? And it'd be interesting psychologically why I get wound up. I suppose there's a tendency to sort of celebrate people with what seem to be wonderfully kind of idealistic, transformatory ideas, and to suggest that centrists like me, who are trying to run things in the way that things were traditionally run are somehow unimaginative, corrupt, I don't know, whatever. And I feel a kind of passionate desire to try to not allow this idea to get out there. So I would hate to sit through an interview. I mean, look, I had a lot of sympathy with Gabriel, but I would hate to sit through something like that, just sort of indulging the idea that these taxes are going to work, make the British economy grow or help people. And I get so frustrated because something about politics has to be. I don't know. I suppose I get really wound up by very, very idealistic, hyper progressive politics. Because you. You always, if you're like me, coming from the center. Right. End up being the bad guy, having to try to explain why it's not working and that. That. Yes, you're right. It seems to generate. Generate rage. Yeah.
- [46:29]
Alistair Campbell
Because you, you know, you were quite enraged with Gabriela Tal, although he wasn't really. Maybe it's the name Gabriel and. But no, because you're also. Maybe it's names beginning with G, because you're also enraged with Gary Stevenson.
- [46:39]
Rory Stewart
Jamie Rubin. Wound me up.
- [46:41]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah.
- [46:41]
Rory Stewart
Jonathan Powell.
- [46:42]
Alistair Campbell
But I wonder whether it's. I get quite excited by big ideas and idealism, somebody saying, look, we can save the planet, we can address issues of inequality. I wonder if it's. When it's something that's so fundamental a challenge that you sort of feel your inner conservatism just kind of under attack. Because I thought he had a lot of really good points.
- [47:07]
Rory Stewart
Well, I also wonder whether it isn't that I get a bit irritated that you get to play the good guy. You get to be down with the kids and be the progressive and be like, oh, yeah, man, I'm really. And I know perfectly well that if, God forbid, you actually became our chancellor, you wouldn't sign up to any of this stuff.
- [47:23]
Alistair Campbell
Rory, hold on, hold on. I. I said to him that I really struggle to see how this works in practice. Okay, but I think the other thing you do when we're interviewing people like this is that you're treating them like politicians when actually they're campaigners. He's an academic and a campaigner. Gary Stevens is a campaigner. That's a very different thing, and I think there is a place for that. I also think this was listening back to it rather than being in the room. If you remember, we were both in quite a bad mood in the room because it was so bloody hot. Climate change. But I think that listening back, I found it unbelievably impressive that he was so fluent in English around very quite complicated issues and quite complicated historical stuff as well. He really, really knew his stuff, I thought.
- [48:07]
Rory Stewart
He is a brilliant French professor from the Ecole Normale Superieure, which is one of the greatest French elite schools in the world that produce Michel Foucault and Conguillem and all these guys. So it's not surprising. The guys. This is Raymond Aaron, Jean Paul Sartre. I mean, he's from the absolute elite of the French intellectual establishment. So you'd expect him to have an unbelievable memory and a quick brain. And he taught in University of California for years. But here, for example, let me, in a calmer voice, read you a response I got from a French businessman. The disconnect with people like Zucman is that they've never actually built a company from the ground up. At my company, the fiscal reality is immediate. He's running a company in the UK, this furniture businessman. We have to collect 20% VAT on our services before we see a profit. Once we start running operations, we pay a 45% effective tax rate on employees, including national insurance contributions. Profits are taxed 19%. He talks about personal holding companies, but they defer, not abolish, dividend taxes. In other words, you still have to pay the dividend tax in the end. The real issue with the likes of Zucman is the moral framing. They make entrepreneurs feel as though the act of creating value is suspect. Regardless of whether the entrepreneur takes a single dividend, the company is acting as the tax collector. Zucman's politics is the politics of envy, pure and simple. So there we are. There was a calm French businessman who actually runs the company.
- [49:35]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, but Rory, you're doing what people do when they're under attack. You're finding the voice. I'm looking at a whole host of emails that we've received saying, why did Rory give that nice Gabriel Zucman such a hard time? And why is he so threatened by the idea of addressing inequality?
- [49:51]
Rory Stewart
I'm going to give anyone a hard time who comes in as an idealistic campaigner and expects to just get deferential treatment because they're progressive and good. I think it's our obligation intellectually to be tough on people.
- [50:05]
Alistair Campbell
We have to disagree agreeably, don't we? We have to do that.
- [50:07]
Rory Stewart
And we're going to get Dan Needle on. Right.
- [50:09]
Alistair Campbell
Well, do you want to get them together? We should get. Why don't we get them together? Get them together.
- [50:12]
Rory Stewart
I don't know whether they'll do that, but I definitely think we should get Dan Needle on because I think it's exactly what I'd love, because it's much less exciting for progressive listeners. But it's a man who really understands tax, really understands the real world and can actually make more moderate, centrist policies. So if people are really interested in this, rather than just getting it, then they should listen to Nido.
- [50:34]
Katie K
Yeah.
- [50:34]
Alistair Campbell
My final point in this room before we go to the last question, but it's interesting how you didn't feel this about Yanis Varoufakis. And I wonder if that's because Yanis is much less playing the game of I know I'm right about this. Whereas what I find with Gary Stevenson and Dan Needle, they both do the kind of I know I'm right about this. Whereas I thought what Yanis does, he kind of. He explains things from all angles and then says why? You know, on balance, I'm with that one. You didn't get irritated by him?
- [51:03]
Rory Stewart
No, I think. Exactly. I think. I think. And I just think Yanis is. I think that's a communication style that probably in the end is really powerful, which is accepting that things are complicated, that there are different views, and that imbalance you've come down on on one side, rather than, I've got a magic bullet that's going to fix everything.
- [51:21]
Alistair Campbell
Now, Rory, the biggest question, obviously, of the entire week is from Simon. Did you find the meaning of life on your medicine retreat?
- [51:31]
Rory Stewart
It's an incredible thing, these silent retreats. So this was effectively, I guess it was 11 nights, so almost 12 days, and of which the silent bed is core 10. It's a really amazing thing to do. I mean, we talk about travel, but it's probably the most extraordinary thing that you can do to yourself over 10 days, which is to not speak and meditate almost continuously from 4 in the morning until 9, 9:30 at night, and what that does to your mind and what you think about death, what you think about aging, change, meaning, purpose. And I've now. This is the fourth, so I guess I've now done my 40 days and 40 nights. One of the awful things about it is that you're talking to me two days later, and I can already feel how much of it is Getting lost. How much you revert. I mean, you pointed out when we started this thing that I was much calmer two days ago than I am now, that already the world is intruding again. But, yes, there is real meaning. I mean, there's real, real meaning. And here we are. This is my pitch. The purpose of the whole thing is to try to make you a better person, try to make you act more, morally, have what they would call a purer mind, maybe a calmer mind. And I'm sure that that's probably, for my money, as close as I can get to the Meaning of Life. It's about daily improvements around the margins. Maybe a way of thinking about it would be if you previously got angry 10 times, now you're only going to get angry nine times. Or if you brooded about something for five hours, now you're only going to breed about it for four hours. But just how you make those endless daily marginal improvements to try to be a little bit more loving, compassionate, and maybe for the podcast, focus on Reality more, you know, what actually is the reality of the atoms that make up our body? About our deaths, about time. About just how things are, not how we want them to be, how they are. Wow.
- [53:40]
Alistair Campbell
Well, while you were speaking, I reached to the bookshelf where my most important books sit. You need this one, Rory. My friend, Philip Gould. This is a book he wrote as he was dying, and he definitely, as he was dying, he knew he was going to die. We're all going to die, so we all know we're going to.
- [53:58]
Arch Manning
To die.
- [53:59]
Alistair Campbell
You don't need to get chronically ill, as he did, to think about your life in the context of how it ends. I'm nearly 70 now. I think about it quite a lot. So that sounds really interesting and meaningful, but when you say you've lost it just in two days, what was it when you came out and thought, I must phone Alistair and find out what's been happening in the world? I presume you phoned Shoshana first, did you?
- [54:22]
Rory Stewart
I saw Shoshana first, yes. Before you. Yes, I'm afraid. Yeah. Yeah.
- [54:26]
Alistair Campbell
Okay, Good, good, good. Excellent, excellent. I want that to be the case. So what's the difference between now and two days? Is it just that you're. When you're meditating for all that time, what are you actually thinking about? What's actually happening inside your head?
- [54:40]
Rory Stewart
In this tradition, you're trying to think about only one thing, which is impermanence, that things are changing. I mean, you're literally trying to drive all thoughts out of your mind, except as you scan your body, you're in the framework of your body, and you're following small sensations around your body. You're just thinking, this, too will pass, arising, passing away, arising, passing away, changing, changing, changing. And the point is that every atom and cell in your body is dying and being reborn, and you're aging and you're dying, and the world around you is changing, changing, changing. And that's all you're thinking.
- [55:20]
Alistair Campbell
And what happens if you suddenly have a thought that comes into your head saying, I wonder if England is still in the World cup, or, I wonder if the ceasefire is held. What do you do with that thought?
- [55:30]
Rory Stewart
So that happens a lot. And of course, when it happens, you often don't notice for a few seconds that your mind started doing that. So your mind starts saying, oh, I wonder what's happening in the World Cup. I wonder what Alistair's thinking is. English Some of the work covers. And then you catch it. Hopefully you catch it within 5, 10 seconds, but it could be 2, 3 minutes before you notice that your mind's wandered off down all these sort of funny parts. And then you just have to bring it back to whatever you're concentrating on, on the breath coming in and out of your nose or the sensation in your body, and try again just to sit with it very calmly, very patiently back with the thing. Because you're trying not to. Yeah. You're trying not to get agitated, either by pleasant sensations or unpleasant sensations. So let's say you felt anger and you became aware of the physical manifestations, a tight chest or hairs. You would just sit with it. You wouldn't try to control it or get rid of it. You just sit with it. You'd say, it's interesting. This is changing. It's changing. It's moving on. You're trying to develop. One of the problems is we don't really have words for these things. The word that this guy comes up with is equanimity, which I think is a very kind of pompous word and quite difficult to put a finger on. But essentially the idea is that you're not reacting to either your negative or positive emotions. You're letting them play out.
- [57:00]
Alistair Campbell
I don't think I could do it for an hour. I don't think I could do it. No. Does anybody ever leave?
- [57:10]
Rory Stewart
Yes, People. People leave. People leave. Yeah. That's suddenly vacant spaces because you can't talk to anyone. And I was doing it with. I was doing it. This was a Burmese course where it's Mostly being taught in Burmese with mostly blue collar Burmese immigrants to use U.S. security guards, furniture fixers. And suddenly you'd notice you couldn't speak to people, but you could see them and they would. Suddenly there wouldn't be someone there anymore. It's also true that different people react in different ways. I mean, you're supposed to sit with your eyes totally closed and not open them or move your legs or your arms for an hour. And some people find that difficult. They feel an itch suddenly developing on their cheek, can't resist kind of opening an eyelid.
- [57:45]
Alistair Campbell
Well, good to have you back, Rory.
- [57:48]
Rory Stewart
Lovely, lovely be back. I'll try to keep a bit of the calm. Maybe if I'd done this before, Zuckerman's sex would have been better. All right, thank you, Alistair. You're looking well. And look, listen. Pretty exciting. I know you're, you know, we're both Scotland fans, but pretty exciting about England, which is pretty exciting.
- [58:03]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, I think, I think we're recording this Tuesday morning. I mean, most people in football think that the finalist tonight, France against Spain, whoever wins that will win the World Cup. But I just don't think you can think like that because once it's down to one game, they're all, all four now, very, very good teams. And England have. And the one thing I will say, I'm not, you know, a flag waver, but I will say that this particular bunch, I like the German manager, Tuchel, but this particular bunch of players, particularly the really well known ones, they're bloody good role models. I mean, they are really, you know, positive project, a good sense of themselves and what they do. And I've actually really, really enjoyed the World cup, but I really enjoyed it much, much more than I thought I would.
- [58:49]
Rory Stewart
Fingers crossed. All right, Alison, lovely to see you. Speak soon. Next week.
- [58:52]
Alistair Campbell
Bye.
- [58:53]
Rory Stewart
Bye.
- [59:00]
Arch Manning
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- [59:30]
Katie K
Hello and welcome to Doing It Anyway, a brand new series from Goal Hanger. I'm Katie K. I've spent years studying the science and art of confidence, writing books about how we can close the confidence gap between men and women, and talking to experts and younger women about how to pass it on. Confidence means taking risks, acknowledging your fears, and, well, doing it anyway. In this series, I'll be talking to psychologists, entrepreneurs, and business leaders to unpack how you can rethink challenges and grow your own confidence. We'll talk about how to spot the difference between confidence and competence, how to deal with office politics and stolen credit, and, yes, handling rejection and, ultimately, how you can become a better leader, teammate, and, yes, a better person. Doing It Anyway with Katie K Every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.