Alastair Campbell vs. TRIGGERnometry: Grooming Gangs, Immigration and Iraq

Summary

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TRIGGERnometry Podcast Summary

Episode: Alastair Campbell vs. TRIGGERnometry: Grooming Gangs, Immigration and Iraq

Date: July 15, 2026
Hosts: Konstantin Kisin, Francis Foster
Guest: Alastair Campbell (former Director of Communications and Strategy for Tony Blair)

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Main Theme

This episode features a wide-ranging, sometimes heated discussion between Alastair Campbell and the hosts about the rise of populism, immigration (both legal and illegal), the handling and politicization of the grooming gangs scandal, multiculturalism, race, and the legacy of the Blair government. Other topics include the role of the media (especially right-wing and populist outlets), public faith in politics, and the climate agenda.

Campbell takes a staunch anti-populist stance, warning against the exploitation of policy failures by political figures like Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, while the hosts repeatedly stress the need for honest engagement with public concerns about immigration and social cohesion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. The Age of Populism: Definition & Causes

• Campbell's Definition:
  Campbell describes populism as “a form of politics that seeks to exploit rather than solve” ([04:07]).

  "Populism, to me, is a form of politics that is not about solving problems. It's exploiting them. Not about meeting challenges together; it's about driving people apart." — Alastair Campbell ([04:07])

• Causes Identified:

  • Economic shocks, particularly the 2008 financial crash ("socialism for the banks and austerity for the people" [08:46])
  • Failure of political leadership and loss of public trust
  • Globalization (loss of manufacturing, role of China’s WTO admission)
  • Perceptions that politicians let down the public in favor of elites

• Exploitation by Populists:
  Campbell argues figures like Trump and Farage successfully exploited these issues while not caring for the people they claim to represent ([10:45]).

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2. Immigration and Its Political Fallout

• Rising Numbers & Policy Failure:
  The hosts chart the increase in both legal and illegal immigration since the late 1990s, noting broken government promises to reduce it ([19:05]).

  • “Now we are at a point where even illegal immigration is at the point where legal immigration was in 1996...about a million illegal immigrants in Britain” — Robbie Travers ([19:05])

• National Debate & Public Anger:

  • Campbell acknowledges the public’s sense of being ignored: “I can hold to the view that I think some of the anger is justified, but a lot of it is exaggerated and exploited.” ([32:19])
  • Hosts insist the suppression of debate around these issues created resentment that fueled Brexit and populist politics.

• Labour’s Underestimation:

  • Campbell accepts Labour severely underestimated the numbers who would immigrate post-2004 EU enlargement ([22:14]).
  • “They said 13,000 would come, a million came.” — Robbie Travers ([22:17])

• Policy Solutions & Realities:
  Extended discussion on the challenges of addressing illegal migration, comparisons with tough Australian and US approaches, and the difficulty of crafting humane policy that also acts as a deterrent ([40:03]).

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3. Grooming Gangs & Suppression of Debate

• Media and Political Handling:

  • The hosts argue debate on grooming gangs was actively suppressed, fueling further distrust ([24:30]).
  • Campbell reluctantly agrees there was a “fear of the consequence of ventilating the debate,” particularly when race was involved ([25:11]).

• Radicalization:

  • "That's why you get radicalization...when people aren't allowed to speak and they're suppressed..." — Robbie Travers ([25:45])
  • Both sides agree the general toxicity of debate and fear of accusations (e.g., racism) made honest discussion difficult.

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4. “Woke” Culture, Race, and Two-Tier Policies

• Definitions & Disagreements:

  • Campbell sees “woke” as promoting social justice; hosts define it as a hierarchy of oppression — assigning status/oppression based on group identity ([57:03]).
  • “Woke has become a catch-all term of abuse” — Alastair Campbell ([56:59])

• Policing & Equity:

  • Long debate over whether police guidance and broader DEI initiatives foster unequal (two-tier) treatment of different groups ([57:24]–[62:47]).
  • “Police are told not to treat people equally...that's what people mean by woke.” — Robbie Travers ([57:24])
  • Campbell: “If there is a race issue within policing, it is not directed against white people.” ([59:07])
  • Hosts: The issue should be equal treatment for all, irrespective of which group may benefit or suffer.

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5. Multiculturalism vs. Integration

• What is Multiculturalism?

  • Campbell describes the UK’s relative success with multiculturalism and “blindness to color” in some London schools ([81:20]).
  • Hosts counter that “integration” — not multiculturalism — is the model that works, arguing you must teach children to be “British first” ([83:16]).

• Identity Debate:

  • Both sides ultimately agree that heritage and background matter, but the country’s primary culture should be shared.

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6. Alienation of Working-Class White Voters

• Feeling Left Behind:
  • Hosts argue Labour and the left as a whole lost touch with working-class voters, especially around issues like immigration and national identity ([52:52], [55:39]).
  • Campbell acknowledges a disconnect, citing examples of working class disillusionment and the need to better engage these communities ([54:05], [85:44]).

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7. The Legacy of Blair-era Decisions

• Globalization/Miscalculations:
  • Admits Labour both benefited from and underestimated downsides of globalization, e.g., job losses, not just political framing ([11:23]–[14:44]).
  • “I sometimes worried...I’m not sure we [were] educating people enough about the potential downside of globalization” — Alastair Campbell ([11:23])

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8. Economic and Political Honesty

• Political Cynicism:
  • Hosts and Campbell agree public faith in politics is at a low due to lack of honesty and clarity from leaders ([73:51], [88:57]).
  • Campbell: “...one of the roles of the political leader is to educate the public about the reasons why decisions are being made” ([89:51])

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9. Climate, Net Zero, and Policy Realism

• Campbell's Position:

  • Advocates for a transition to renewables, but admits the challenge of balancing economic imperatives ([95:02]).
  • “Our economy has to become a modern renewables-based energy-driven economy...” ([98:10])

• Public Pushback:

  • Hosts argue net zero as implemented is economically damaging and politically toxic ([97:41]).
  • “We have the highest industrial electricity in the developed world” — Robbie Travers ([97:14])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Populism means, to me, a form of politics that is not about solving problems. It’s exploiting them.” — Alastair Campbell ([04:07])

• “Socialism for the banks, austerity for the people.” — Alastair Campbell ([08:46])

• “If we didn't have the suppression of the debate...populism is not going away because populism is not actually being driven by the evil right wing. It’s being driven by reality.” — Robbie Travers ([48:57])

• “Woke has become a catch-all term of abuse.” — Alastair Campbell ([56:59])

• “The standard should be that we're all equal under the law.” — Robbie Travers ([59:45])

• “Let’s agree that the debate has become more toxic...because we have a branch of politician that...thinks: what can I do to exploit that?” — Alastair Campbell ([26:29])

• “Most of the people who are voting Reform...very substantial majority have never voted Labour and say they never would.” — Alastair Campbell ([85:44])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Populism: Definition & Causes: [04:07]–[10:45]
• Globalization, China, Blair Legacy: [13:19]–[16:29]
• Immigration & Political Consequences: [19:05]–[35:25]
• Grooming Gangs, Race, Suppression of Debate: [24:30]–[26:29]
• Woke, Policing, DEI Debate: [56:29]–[67:27]
• Working Class Alienation: [52:52]–[54:05], [54:20]–[56:29], [73:24]–[76:13]
• Multiculturalism vs. Monoculturalism: [81:20]–[84:26]
• Economic Honesty & Political Cynicism: [88:57]–[92:51]
• Climate & Net Zero Discussion: [94:17]–[101:47]

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Tone and Language

• Spirited, often adversarial but broadly respectful
• Campbell is frequently exasperated by the hosts’ insistence on direct/simple questions; hosts press for admissions of political mistakes and clarity on difficult topics
• Robust exchange on definitions (populism, woke, multiculturalism) and willingness (on both sides) to challenge prevailing media and political narratives

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Conclusion

This episode provides a no-holds-barred look at the challenges facing British politics: the rise of populism, the toxic suppression (and exploitation) of debate, unresolved grievances over immigration and integration, and the erosion of trust in both left and right. Alastair Campbell is introspective about the Blair years but remains critical of both left- and right-wing populisms, while the hosts press the importance of honesty and government responsiveness to real public anxieties. The episode does not shy from conflict, making for a rich and provocative exploration of the big issues shaping the UK's political and cultural future.

Transcript

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[Alistair Campbell]

They call you woke if you sort of campaign for gay rights.

[Robbie Travers]

Not at all.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yes, they do.

[Robbie Travers]

There's loads of gay people who use this phrase.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, they may.

[Robbie Travers]

Right. Come back.

[Alistair Campbell]

Come back to the police. I'll come back to the police.

[Robbie Travers]

Right. The instructions police officers get, they're explicitly told not to treat people equally. Explicitly.

[Alistair Campbell]

Honestly, this stuff, it's just. It's dementing. It's absolutely dementing. That's the quote from the Police May be. And it may be because you found one document where some guy who's writing some guidance for police is the idea.

[Robbie Travers]

College of Police Guidance.

[Alistair Campbell]

Wait a minute.

[Robbie Travers]

This is how police officers are trained.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

Have you looked into this?

[Alistair Campbell]

Not as deeply as you.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, I think you should.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, maybe I should.

[Robbie Travers]

There's a double standard is what I'm getting at.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay,

[Robbie Travers]

see, What? If I make a good point, you just got to kill. Well, I haven't read the guidance.

[Alistair Campbell]

What the. The weaponizers have done is.

[Robbie Travers]

Come on.

[Alistair Campbell]

But this is what they do.

[Robbie Travers]

This is the real issue. And you just go, no, this is a terrible problem. And the reason it's a terrible problem is it gives Nigel Farage an excuse to weaponize it. Alistair Campbell, long time coming. Welcome to Trigonometry.

[Alistair Campbell]

Nice to be here.

[Robbie Travers]

It's great to have you.

[Alistair Campbell]

Thank you.

[Rory Stewart]

So, Alistair, let's kick it off. You have always been fiercely critical of populism. Why is that? What will. Because we're living in the populist age now. What's the problem with it?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, it depends what you define populism as. I define populism as a form of politics that seeks to exploit rather than solve. That's my view of populism. I know that the sort of traditional view of populism is, well, it's kind of, you know, the people against the elite. Okay. I think that's a post facto rationalization to make the populists feel better about the way they do politics. But at heart, populism means, to me a form of politics that is not about solving problems. It's exploiting them. And that's not about meeting challenges together. It's about driving people apart. That's my take on populism. That's why I don't like it.

[Rory Stewart]

And why do you think we've got to this place where we're living in the age of populism?

[Alistair Campbell]

There's so many reasons. I think, look, I think people, there are some very effective political operators who have worked out that their route to power with the views that they hold and the characters that they have, is this form of populism that I've defined. Okay, Trump, most obviously, Nigel Farage here, we know who they are, and they're all over the world. I think they're much better organized than the center left. I mean, one of the things I find is comical about the populist right, where nationalism is so much what they're for is actually they fight it on a global level. They're a globalist organization fighting against globalism. But I think you've got to go back probably as far as definitely the crash. I think the crash was 2008, et cetera, was a massive driver of populism. And I'll come back to that. But I think you probably even go back further than that. And I can remember me thinking, do you remember the Seattle protests when China came into the World Trade Organization? Massive, massive protest. And it was the trade unions, it was ordinary people, it was workers, and they were massively protesting against the Americans letting China into the wto. And I remember we were thinking, because we thought at the time, globalization was going to be part of our economic success story as well. But I think that was a big driver within the American populism because that was what then opened the door to Trump to say, these people have given your jobs away to China. Okay? So I think that followed by the crash, followed by, I think, a sense in politics, democratic politics, that it wasn't producing the kind of leaders that made people feel, that's my leader, I can follow that person. I think Tony probably was the last one in the UK context, Cameron a bit, but not really. Not really. So I think Tony was probably the last one here. You look at the French context, I actually thought, I think Macron is an exceptional political figure in all sorts of ways, but for some reason, and I think a lot of it driven by populism, the French have rejected him big style. You probably got to go back to. Back to Chirac, really, for a French president that the French thought like him or dislike him. I feel like he's our leader. So I think then that opened that. So once you've got a sense of, of leaders that the public don't respect, because the great thing that somebody I mean I couldn't stand most of what Thatcher stood for, most of what she did. But when Thatcher was Prime Minister, I didn't think it's ridiculous that she's the Prime Minister. I think our politics has suffered massively from having, you know, we know who they are. Certainly Johnson, certainly truss Prime Ministers thinking, you know, it is ridiculous that they're our Prime Minister. Okay. And Johnson of course, classic populist. Absolutely. When I said, you know, see a problem, how do I exploit it, not solve it, I mean that guy did not believe in Brexit and yet he was one of the prime deliverers of it because he saw a challenge, a problem for others. How do I exploit it? Because what was his big motivation? It was to become Prime Minister. And then what happened after that? He didn't really care.

[Rory Stewart]

Do you think part of the problem as well is that when we saw the banks being bailed out.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, Pete.

[Rory Stewart]

A lot of people thought, well hang on, they've made all these mistakes in there and they're getting away with it scot free.

[Alistair Campbell]

And that's what I meant by the crash.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

What you had was socialism for the banks.

[Robbie Travers]

Yes.

[Alistair Campbell]

And austerity for the people. The banks who, the banks who caused it and then the people who didn't. And you know how many people have gone to jail through the global financial crisis. Right. And then, whereas the people have played, paid a massive price now and then what happened is because this is just the way politics works, politicians got blamed for not holding the banker's property to account. Politicians got blamed because whenever any there's an economic hit, it's politicians who tend to cop it. But I completely agree with you people, even if they didn't ident, you know, you didn't have people sitting around saying, well this is terrible, you know, this is socialism for the banks and austerity for us. But they did think, well hold on a minute, these guys have completely it up, they're getting bailed out with our money. And even though, and I remember Alistair Darling, Chancellor at the time and you know, I mean that was a very, very stressful time for those guys. But I remember talking to him about, it's a very, a very hard thing to have to explain that this is going to be bad but if we don't do this it's going to be even worse. But there's no doubt that was a driver, I think that was a driver of a lot of the polarization that we feel now as well. Because that is the thing that allowed the populists to say the reason they're helping out the banks is because these are the elitists and you, the people, are paying the price. But who were they? The leaders, bankers, traders, business people, people like Trump, people like Farage. They're the people. This is why it's such a con that people like them have managed to portray themselves as being on the side of ordinary people. I think the reason Farage is in trouble at the moment and the reason Trump's actually politically in quite a lot of trouble, even though he doesn't care because he's going to go anyway, and it's just about getting rich, is because people have, I think, working out. They're not motivated by you, the people's interest, they're motivated by their own.

[Robbie Travers]

We'll come back to those two. But do you not think, I mean, you say it was the bankers and it was the bankers, absolutely. But it was democratic politicians in America, Bill Clinton in particular, who repealed Glass Steagall, which was put in place to prevent another great financial crisis. And the same thing happened here under the Blair government, I think it's fair to say. Right. So the politicians opened the door to allow these people to act in ways that were damaging. And then you had this great collapse, which, as you rightly say, we ended up paying. And neither the politicians who opened the door to. Nor the bankers who took advantage of it suffered at all.

[Alistair Campbell]

I think quite a lot of the politicians did suffer. It turns out you define suffering, but,

[Robbie Travers]

you know, they didn't suffer like the people suffer.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, no, but, no, but they, they, they paid a price. They paid a price. A lot of the politicians did. You know, I would, I would argue, for example, that, you know, I think the Labour government accepted that. I kind of felt this at the time in the whole globalization thing. I can remember, actually, Tony and I didn't argue about that much because I broadly agreed with most of the things that he was doing. But I was worried at one point. I only know this because it's in my diaries. I can't remember the conversation, but saying that this globalization thing. Fine. And if you just track back a bit, one of the things we had to do as an incoming Labour government was to dispel, as best we could, this idea that labor can't run the economy. And Gordon, first step bank of England independence. We did pretty well in the economy for quite a long time. And so as that was happening, part of what we were showing was an understanding of the way that the global economy was changing, adapting, and we have to adapt to that as well. And I sometimes worried, and I said this at the time, I'm not sure we're educating people enough about the potential downside of globalization alongside the evident upside from which we're benefiting right now. And I think that was a problem. I think. I mean, I cannot pretend to be an expert in financial services regulation, but I know that. I think there are people who were expert at that time and who were doing the policy at the time who think that maybe we didn't regulate carefully enough. But again, you've got to understand that we, as a leftist center government, a labor government, we were kind of always conscious of the fact that we're going to get accused of being over regulatory. And so maybe we didn't regulate enough on that. But I agree with you. I'm agreeing with the premise. I think the crash was the big driver. But I think in the American context, you go back even further. I think you go back to American Chinese relationship.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, very much on that point, it's interesting. I completely agree with an economic analysis. And we, and I have been one of the people who's been saying for a long time that people don't realize we are poorer today than we were before the crash on a per capita basis. Most people don't know this, but they feel poorer. And one of the reasons there is rising tension, rising disquiet, discontent, et cetera. But it's interesting how sometimes people, I think on the left of center frame this issue because you said, well, allowing China into the World Trade Organization, which, by the way, the idea was the Chinese are gonna join hold hands in Kumbaya. We're all gonna trade for. Well, that's not what happened. They stole all Western technology and they screwed everybody over. And you say, well, it gave Trump the opportunity to say you shipped off the job to China. But they did ship the jobs off to China. Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, that's what happened. They were definitely. I don't think we're disagreeing that much. I mean, I think that what I'm trying to do is to give you an understanding of the motivations for the policies they were pursuing at the time.

[Robbie Travers]

No, no.

[Alistair Campbell]

And agreeing that there were consequences.

[Robbie Travers]

My point is something else, Alistair. My point is the framing is this was a mistake because it allowed Trump to say this. And I'm saying it was a mistake because it was a mistake.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. Okay, but you have to then at the same time enunciate what the policy otherwise would have, should have protected key industries. Yeah, possibly. But what does that mean in the modern industrial age, it means that you

[Robbie Travers]

would have been slightly less prosperous or you would have had a slightly lower gdp, which was a hard sell, but you would have not had whole regions of America and the north of England, effectively losing the entire.

[Alistair Campbell]

And then. And what would have happened on the bigger picture in the terms of the relationship between China and the rest of the world. So if you look at the kind of example. I'll give another example just to show you the kind of real politic of this where, again, I think I'll acknowledge that we were. Well, I. I don't know whether the word is naive or we made mistakes or whatever. You take our relationship with Russia, okay, so we met Putin before he became president. And based partly on advice, but also based on seeing the guy's eyeballs and talking to him, I think Tony reached a judgment that this could be okay. This could work. Okay. We were very right at the forefront, for example, of trying to persuade the rest to make them G7 into G8. Okay. Back then that felt like the right decision, and it felt like that was taking us and them in a better direction. You look at that decision today, or you look at the German relationship in relation to the energy markets today, and you think, what are you guys doing? So when on our podcast we interviewed the widows, both of Litvinenko and of Navalny, we've talked to them both. They both said, we think you were naive.

[Robbie Travers]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, now, and that's perfectly good judgment. They both lost their husbands because these guys killed them. And yet there we were, toasting each other with vodka, and Tony was playing this silly snooker game with him and, you know, all sorts of stuff. We got closer. So all I'm saying is that you make the decision, you take the strategic choice at the time, and then the consequences are.

[Robbie Travers]

Alison, we haven't brought you here to write you about the faults of the Blair government. No, but I'm saying you don't have enough time. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Honestly, I'm kidding. I'm just talking about the framing because populism is a really important issue. I agree with you that a lot of the populism. By the way, we haven't talked about left wing populism. There's a lot of that going on at the moment that doesn't offer any practical solutions either, as far as I'm concerned. It's a really important issue. I'm just. The issue I'm honing in on is how we talk about it. Because what I'm hearing a lot from you and other people in your space is the problem is not the problem. The problem is it allowed Trump to say it's a problem. The problem is it allowed Farage to say it's a problem?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I'm saying both things, really. I think I'm saying both things, but I think you have to see, in a way, you do have to make judgments like that in politics, because nothing that a politician does at any moment of time stays in that time.

[Robbie Travers]

Of course.

[Alistair Campbell]

I mean, the truth is that Trump is in part a consequence of. I think it's a consequence of the fact that America had a black president. In part. I think one of the reasons that Hillary got rejected was because people thought, jesus, they gave us a black guy. I'm not taking a woman as well. Some people, okay, so you have consequences. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm happy to defend the stuff that we did, but I'm also happy to admit that in, in some of these situations, and a lot of this goes to the, the conflict and the tension you sometimes get between the promises you make and the nature of the promise in which the public expect you to make them.

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

And the reality of the complicate complex.

[Robbie Travers]

I totally get it. I'm making a slightly different point, though.

[Alistair Campbell]

I've got your point.

[Robbie Travers]

You've got my point.

[Alistair Campbell]

I've got your point.

[Robbie Travers]

The reason it's important is the issue I'm about to bring up, which I think is another huge Dr. Populism, which is the scale and pace and type and quantity of mass immigration into Britain, into America, into many European countries, and the scale of illegal immigration that we've had. So I came to Britain from Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, in 1996. When I came, net immigration into Britain was about 55,000 a year. And at the time, 3% of the British public thought immigration was a major issue. It wasn't an issue. Basically, in 1990, no one cared about. And then we had both, under the labor and the Conservative governments, a huge increase in mass immigration. And now we are at a point where even illegal immigration is now basically at the point where legal immigration was in 1996. We have tens of thousands of people coming here every year. We're not removing them. So we've got about a million illegal immigrants in Britain. We're removing about 10,000. So even if we never let another one in, it would take us a century to address that problem. On current trends, we can talk about economics. And it's massively important. But I think we all have to accept that those policies and the fact that that has happened must be inevitably a huge driver of resentment, distaste, distrust. And people like Nigel Farage may, you may say they're exploiting it. Other people would say they are reacting to the public.

[Alistair Campbell]

They get it. Yeah.

[Robbie Travers]

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[Alistair Campbell]

well, you can have a debate about the, what the country has become and what the country is becoming. So, you know, for example, I'll give you. I was in France last week in the French World cup team. Now, France has got its own populist politicians left and right. Mellonstrom on the left in particular, and Le Pen and Bardella on the right. I would argue that racial integration has been less successful in France than it has here. And yet they have the team that. When's this going out? Before the final or not before?

[Robbie Travers]

After. After.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, so then the final of the

[Robbie Travers]

World cup, not before, before. Okay, yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

The football team that may, by the time this goes out, be on its way to winning the World Cup. What. How many players did they have the other day in the, in the lineup? One white player in the starting lineup. The last game they played. That is, I, I look at that and I think front should be really proud of that. A lot of people I know in France look at that and think, that's not France. Okay, so you can have different debate about what you think your country represents. What, again, what I'll accept is, and I can remember having massive arguments at the time when we, we were talked about, you know, we wanted to get Putin into the G8. We wanted enlargement in the European Union. We were a big supporter of enlargement. I think enlargement was a good thing to do. Now, unintended consequences. We. I can remember having huge fights in briefings that I did. I Can remember one in particular almost came to blows because we were relying, as you do in government, on an assessment of how many our experts. And, you know, and they're clever people and they study data and all that sort of stuff. And they were, they were suggesting that. I can't remember what the numbers were, but X number of polls, X number of this. X number of that would come to work in Britain. Massively underestimated.

[Robbie Travers]

They said 13,000 and then a million came.

[Alistair Campbell]

Wow. Is that right?

[Robbie Travers]

Yes.

[Alistair Campbell]

Which. Which. Well, I might have seen.

[Robbie Travers]

They said that if you. So what happened was just for people who don't remember, the UK and Ireland, I think, were the only two countries in the EU at the time that didn't introduce transition controls.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah.

[Robbie Travers]

And the advice was 13,000 people a year would come and a million came.

[Alistair Campbell]

Do we have a million polls, A

[Robbie Travers]

million people from the countries that joined us?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, look, I can't remember the name.

[Robbie Travers]

We can fact check it, but it was that order of difference.

[Alistair Campbell]

But I'm talking about the advice that we were getting. Okay, Was that underestimated? 100%. Absolutely accept that. Did that lead to problems related to community cohesion? Yeah, it did in some places. In other places it didn't. But did it lead to. I know you're going to disagree with this because you're going to say I'm doing the same thing as saying the problem isn't the problem, it's the consequences. But did the immigration debate within our politics become swamped with exaggerated figures, exaggerated consequences? I think it did. It's that, I think, as much as the numbers that fueled the problems we have now. So, for example, you take an issue like, you know, live very, very recently, the whole, you know, the grooming gangs issue, terrible, terrible, terrible problem. Lots of mistakes made along the way, but the way that it's now become identified, purely, virtually, purely within our debate, is an issue of Muslims as opposed to some of the worst grooming gangs being, you know, white people in white communities. I think that is a problem. And of course, it's very, very hard. You know, well, who's the worst grooming gang? You know, you just want, you want. I want to have a debate where we can actually say these are real problems. Once you've got a politics that's been defined through a certain prism, and the prism at the moment, because of our media, because of people like Farage and so forth, is defined in a certain way. I think that's what I mean about the problem becomes worse, but it's actually

[Robbie Travers]

something different that I disagree with you on there. My reading of it. And we've covered the grooming gangs issue from 2019, because when we first discovered what was going on, I was horrified. And I remember writing, I think it was to Sarah Champion, inviting her on the show. And she had had so much hate and for even raising this issue, she said, I just don't want to talk about it anymore. Because I get that.

[Alistair Campbell]

I get that.

[Robbie Travers]

And so the reason that people are talking about it with the level of anger and resentment is not just what happened. It's also the fact that actually when people tried to have a very reasonable

[Alistair Campbell]

debate, they were suppressed.

[Robbie Travers]

That's what happened. They were suppressed.

[Alistair Campbell]

Robbie, you used the phrase there, reasonable debate.

[Robbie Travers]

Sarah Champion was a Labour MP trying to address this issue in her local community.

[Alistair Campbell]

I know who Sarah Champion is and I know what she was trying to do. And I also accept, I do agree with you, that there have been times, probably, particularly when it's related, being related to race. But also, I think we're seeing it in other issues. I think we're seeing it in relation to the trans debate. I think we're seeing it in relation to maybe less the kind of gay rights debate. But I think, particularly if you're talking about race, I think there have been times when the fear of the consequence of ventilating the debate stops you having the debate in the first place. And I agree. And I think that's wrong.

[Robbie Travers]

And that's why you get the radicalization is my point. Because when people aren't allowed to speak and they're suppressed and they're prevented, I

[Alistair Campbell]

never buy this idea that they're not allowed to speak.

[Robbie Travers]

Sarah Champion, when you're hounded out of public life or out of speaking in public about a really important issue to the point you don't ever want to talk about it again.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. I'm not defending it.

[Robbie Travers]

Then your other people who are more extreme are gonna come along.

[Alistair Campbell]

I agree. Yeah, but that's what happened. Right. What I'm saying is that if your political debate generally has become more toxic and we can blame whoever we want. Right. And you probably might think it's more people on the left.

[Robbie Travers]

No, I think it's technology, actually.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, maybe, but that's another issue. We haven't really.

[Robbie Travers]

But let's focus on this.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, so focus on this. I would say that because the debate generally has become more toxic because we do have a branch of politician that when something really bad happens, doesn't think that's really bad. What can I do to help Actually thinks, what can I do to exploit that? Is why. Partly, I think, why we got into the mess recently, the Southampton and Belfast stuff, where technology played a big part, but that was a classic example where politicians and political figures who knew absolutely nothing about beyond a small set of facts, but they just wanted the one or two facts within that cohort of facts, then to go out and create riots. Okay. That is a creature, to my mind, of the toxicity of populism. And so that we don't. And this is. Look, we've all got to own up to our responsibility in this. Social media has played a massive part. The way we do. Our politics has played a massive part.

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

And the way, you know, one of the things I've thought about a lot since doing this podcast with Rory Stewart, because, you know, most of my life I spent trying to destroy Tories. That's what motivated me. You know, how do we get the Tories out of power and keep them out of power? And that attitude, which is still very strong within me to some extent, but what the podcast has taught me, I think, is that it's really not a good way to address problems. So. And that's why I'm. I really, really hope Andy Burnham is able to stick to this style that he's got. I think it's gonna be hard, very hard, because he's talking about more collaborative, more respect for each other.

[Robbie Travers]

So they all say that and then they come.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, I don't think. I don't think they say it.

[Robbie Travers]

What about David Cameron? He came in and we're gonna wear it.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, no. It's so hard to do. But my point is, I think Andy's. I think, put it this way, I think it's become an ingrained part of Andy's politics. So. Because he's done a different job as being a mayor, it's a different sort of job you've got to do. But. So I think the. And I accept because I'm, you know, I'm very labor and I do feel that the country's been dragged way too far to the right. I know that there's. There's this problem on the left as well. I do accept that. But I think in terms of. And I don't want to play the blame game, but if you say. Let's say that it's. Let's say those people who say they think it's a good thing that we're now in the era of populism, that we got this populist debate. Right. The ones that I think have been most successful at changing the nature of that political debate. I think they are on the right and I think in our country, a lot of them is to do with the media, I think. Who was I with the other day? I was talking to about, about Murdoch. God, who was it? Malcolm Turnbull, former Australian Prime Minister? And he said you wouldn't have had Brexit without Murdoch and you wouldn't have had Trump without Murdoch. Now, I don't know if that's true or not and none of us know, but there's a guy who's been Prime Minister of Australia. He's quite a bright guy. Very bright guy. And it's a fair point.

[Robbie Travers]

It may be. It may be, it may be a fact.

[Alistair Campbell]

But it's a.

[Robbie Travers]

It may be. But the issue I'm trying to raise with you, and by the way, look, we don't come at it from a right or left perspective. The issue I'm trying to hone in is something that really bothers me as someone who had dissident family in the Soviet Union who were prevented from saying their opinion in public. The reason the show really started with us is we really don't like the culture of not allowing people to express their concerns. And I think it's important. Right. I would put it to you. You don't get Brexit if people's concerns about mass immigration in the 2000s and if people's concerns about things like the grooming gangs and other things are not deliberately suppressed. People are not smeared as being racist for their opinions about not wanting illegal immigration. All of these things, in my opinion, whether you like them or not, are acceptable, reasonable positions, which, by the way, as you well know, left wing politicians here and in the United States used to express. I mean, the idea that you can't have an open border has been universally accepted across the political spectrum. And then suddenly we're supposed to pretend that it's normal, that we've got tens of thousands of people coming illegally. I'm a legal immigrant to this country. I don't understand why we have more than one illegal immigrant coming into this, more than zero, like it shouldn't be happening. So my point to you is if we didn't have the suppression of the debate and if we had, as you say, politicians who said, you know what, these grooming gangs that Sarah Champen is raising, this really is terrible, we're going to get into, we're going to get stuck in, we're going to deal with it, we're going to stop this ever happening again. It's a travesty.

[Alistair Campbell]

And I don't disagree with you.

[Robbie Travers]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

I don't disagree with you.

[Robbie Travers]

Then you wouldn't get so much populism is my point. If we didn't have mass immigration, you didn't have grooming gangs and you didn't have them being covered up, is that fair?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, the honest choice. I don't know. I don't know because. Let me, let me just go back. You said something interesting there. You said that we were coming exactly how you described it. But Brexit happened because we allowed mass immigration and people. Oh, we didn't allow people to be angry about that. Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

It's not that we didn't allow people to be angry. It's that when I Remember in the 2000s under the Blair government, I remember Greg Clark being on Question Time saying, you know, I realize people have these concerns, but there's also, you know, and all of this stuff, it was talked about like people have concerns, but action wasn't taken. It wasn't taken. We were promised, the people of this country were promised immigration down to the tens of thousands. They were promised it by labor politicians, Conservative politicians. They voted against it in 2010, 2015, Brexit, 2017, 2019, over and over. And it just kept going up and up and up. And you can understand why people get angry, can't you, in that situation?

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, I can. But at the same time, I can hold to the view that I think some of the anger is justified, but a lot of it is exaggerated and exploited.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, those are both true, inevitably.

[Alistair Campbell]

And let me just make the other point I was going to make. So I think it was the 2001 campaign. So we win the election, 97 massive majority. And part of the debate on immigration was. I'll go back to my point about, you know, we needed immigration for the economy at that time. That's the message we were getting from business the whole time. And we were trying to be the party, the business friendly Labour government. But I can remember, and this isn't just the diaries, I remember this Margaret McDonough, who was general secretary of the Labour Party, sadly died since I remember her coming in. And Margaret was one of those people who, even when we were in government, she was out canvassing every single weekend. Right. She was, she was an on the ground labor person. I mean, I'll be honest, once we got into, once Tony Blair got into government, you know, he didn't do that many constituency surgeries. You know, he was busy. He did loads of stuff. I, I was you know, you do.

[Rory Stewart]

You.

[Alistair Campbell]

You have to force yourself not to be attached to some extent. And Margaret was out every single weekend. And I can remember she came back from one weekend, she'd been in Kent, and she was like, you know, this debate on immigration is becoming a real problem. We have got to do something about this. Now, I think our response to that at that time was political as opposed to policy.

[Robbie Travers]

That's what I'm saying.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. And I think that is true. I think that is true because I think. I think it was. So I think from memory, I can't remember what the policy was at the time, but I can remember going through the 2001 campaign, we had a very, very bespoke messaging campaign for some of these areas where it was a problem. Now, did we deal with the fundamentals? We tried. We tried. And even now, even now, today, you know, I follow German politics very, very closely. And the debate that's happening, and, okay, there's Merkel via Schaffendas, A million Syrians are going to come in. There are going to be consequences, and there have been consequences. But even today, the German debate, in terms of one of the reasons why the German government is not doing well is because the economy's not doing very well, or one of the reasons why the economy's not doing very well is because they're not getting the right balances in the labor market. So the politics are saying, push them all out. And the economics is saying, hold on a minute, we're an aging population. We're going to need more people coming in, working, paying taxes, et cetera. So the realities of these debates are not going to go away. No, my. And so when, and you said that when you first came here in 1996, immigration was not up here in terms 55,000 a year. Yeah, no, but I'm timing in terms of where it was in political.

[Robbie Travers]

Oh, yeah, 3%.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right. Okay. And now it's. It's right up there. Now it's up there in part because of facts, but it's where. I think it's where the populist bit I find offensive is the way it's then been exploited.

[Robbie Travers]

Fine.

[Alistair Campbell]

And that's why we, you know, but is so.

[Robbie Travers]

But isn't the issue is that if, if you guys on the conservatives and everybody, if you'd fix the facts, there'd be nothing to exploit.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'm not even sure that's right. You know, if you fix, why not?

[Rory Stewart]

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[Robbie Travers]

If you'd fix the facts, there'd be nothing to exploit.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'm not even sure that's right. You know, if you'd fix.

[Robbie Travers]

Why not?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, because. So if you'd. Your judgment depends what your judgment of what you want the facts to be.

[Robbie Travers]

I don't want 50 times 50,000 people coming into this country illegally every year and I don't want them to be allowed to stay here once they come.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right. Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

Is that a fair position?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, no, it. Well it might be a fair position depending on where you put it in a bigger context, so.

[Robbie Travers]

But what's the benefit of illegal immigration? We can separate mass immigration and maybe it's good for the economy. Yeah, okay, but illegal immigration, why is it happening? And why is no one stopping it.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, it's happening because of all the different, very, very difficult cultural economic flows right around the world and we can go and, you know, wars and famines and climate's going to make it worse, by the way. So that's happening. I actually, my. If I were still involved today, I honestly don't think we're going to address this stuff country by country. I think there is going at some point have to be a kind of, some kind of. Whether it's a European level or some kind of even broader international level. We're not going to be able to deal with this in the way that we think we can. But so I think you say so, for example, let's take a hard line Brexit position or even a restore position where they're basically saying, okay, somebody turns up in Calais and some smuggler gets hold of them and they put them on a boat. Okay. Now should they be coming into this country? No. Okay. Should we as a country have legal, decent, humane roots for people who.

[Robbie Travers]

Like we did for Ukrainians. Yes.

[Alistair Campbell]

Or like we've done through time. Like we've done through time for people genuinely fleeing persecution? There should be. Okay. Would you be happy with a judgment that said, because we don't think any of them should come, that we as a government should be able to do anything to stop them.

[Robbie Travers]

Yes, it's our country.

[Alistair Campbell]

Sink them.

[Robbie Travers]

I don't think it needs to come to that.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, it doesn't need to. But if that is.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, hold on. You're using an extreme example.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I'm using an extreme example because that's what extremists say.

[Robbie Travers]

But no one here is extremist. We're having a debate on that.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, no, but you say you're. Basically, what I think you're doing is saying this is. We can agree that they shouldn't be coming. Okay, where I think. But you're making that sound as quite a simple thing to bring out.

[Robbie Travers]

Which it is, which I believe it is, for reasons I can explain. So the Australians fixed this problem. They had tens of thousands of people coming. Then Tony Abbott came in and he fixed it. Very, very little damage was done in the process. I think they had to turn some boats around. Some of the people, smugglers capsized a few, but they rescued most of the people. There was some unpleasantness about holding some people on the island and blah, blah, blah. But overall they dealt with the illegal immigration problem. I know you don't like Trump. There's lots of things to dislike about President Trump. The One thing they've been able to do is close the border. It's doable if you have people in charge of your country who say, this is our country, we are gonna police its borders like we've done for thousands of years.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, Come on.

[Robbie Travers]

That's a reasonable position.

[Alistair Campbell]

It's a very reasonable position. And I'll tell you how I would today. So I've been talking to the very good guy called Gerald Knauss, who's a German and really studies this stuff in detail, and he's got a proposal which I think has a lot of merit, which essentially is if you're going to start from a position of they cannot come. Okay. Then there has to be. This is why, I'm afraid, I think Brexit has been such a disaster. Lots of reasons I think it's been disaster, but one of them is you should be able to have sufficiently good relations with some of the countries within the European Union that anybody who come go straight back. Okay. That is the only way you can fix this right now. And so I think. Is that doable? I think it is probably doable. It's not doable in the context of this toxic political environment that we've got.

[Robbie Travers]

But it hasn't been done before either. Right. It wasn't being done before directly because we were.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'm being very frank about this. We wanted immigration, but what about illegal immigration?

[Robbie Travers]

But it was fairly low, actually, under your government, to be fair.

[Alistair Campbell]

Illegal.

[Robbie Travers]

Illegal immigration. Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

And you were deporting people and this government is deporting more than the last lot.

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

So. But. And I think that the. What I'm. I guess the bigger point I'm trying to mate you is that you have to put this in the context of the kind of country that you're trying to create.

[Robbie Travers]

Sure.

[Alistair Campbell]

And what I worry about you, and you're right about the Australians, but Australia is a. It's a different geography, it's a different geopolitics. And there was. He took a lot of flack for doing what he did. Fine. I think within the. Where we are right now, let's agree on the premise that none of them need to come.

[Robbie Travers]

Okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay. And that the people who come to this country should be the people that we want to come. Okay, let's agree on that. And then let's, then, I think, try to build the relations with other European countries that essentially say, this is a problem we've got to crack together. Because what you've got to do is you've got to stop giving the motivation for coming. So then. So the stuff that Shabana Mahmood is doing where she's trying to send a message, okay, look at the reality of the political problems that she's facing because of that. So that's what I'm trying to say to you is it is not as easy as it sounds.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, it depends. If you're a Labour Home Secretary, it's difficult because there's a lot of people on your side who are actually quite happy with illegal immigration.

[Alistair Campbell]

I don't think they're happy with legal immigration.

[Robbie Travers]

Okay. They will tolerate it because of other beliefs that they have about the importance of care and compassion, et cetera. Is that accurate?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I don't think many people on the left are happy.

[Robbie Travers]

So what are the political problems that she has? Why are they happening?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, because the political problems that she's having are happening because of a lot of MPs thinking that there's a real danger, that we are being driven here by an unfair politics of the right. And that actually within this, you're going to get. You're going to project a very bad image of the United Kingdom. And there are people that we should be coming in who won't want to come. There's partly it.

[Robbie Travers]

Illegal immigrants who should come but won't want to come.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, no, no, I'm not.

[Robbie Travers]

Oh, you mean other people.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or just about the sense. Yeah. In other words, she's trying to say it should be harder for you to come here and stay here. Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

And she's bringing forward policy proposal on that. And I think the politics of that are proving difficult because of people's fears about us actually saying we're putting up the barriers to the lot of you,

[Robbie Travers]

but we should be putting up barriers to illegal immigration, except where we choose to let people in.

[Alistair Campbell]

That's kind of what. That's what she's saying.

[Robbie Travers]

But why is she facing problems from the Labour Party for saying this reasonable thing?

[Alistair Campbell]

The point you've made, because there is their fear that this is then actually sending a broader message about what sort of people we are, what sort of country we want to be in relation to legal immigration.

[Robbie Travers]

But isn't the message we're sending is we're sensible people who will protect their country while choosing the people who come here based on what we want. So why is the Labour Party not willing to accept it? Doesn't make any sense. Does it make sense to you?

[Alistair Campbell]

It makes sense.

[Robbie Travers]

These are all, like. I feel like we're having some, like I'm saying, like, Very reasonable things, aren't I?

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, but you're saying them. You're saying moderately reasonable things in an unreasonable way. No, not even in unreasonable way, but in a way that I think sometimes underestimates the difficulty or the challenge and the political consequences.

[Robbie Travers]

But what I'm saying is, why are there political consequences in a Labour Party for doing a moderately reasonable, sensible thing?

[Alistair Campbell]

Because some of them don't think it's moderate and reasonable. They will say it's moderate and reasonable to do everything you can to stop illegal immigration, but they don't want to do it. But they don't think it's moderate or reasonable for Britain to put up the barriers on people that we do want here, that we deter from coming here by putting them in the same boat.

[Robbie Travers]

But why would. Why would stopping illegal immigration.

[Alistair Campbell]

Are we going around in circles? Yeah, we are.

[Robbie Travers]

Because what I'm trying to say is very simple. Why would.

[Alistair Campbell]

You're asking me to speak for the entire the parliamentary Labour Party.

[Robbie Travers]

I'm asking you to confront a reality which I think exists on the left of British politics, which is there are a lot of people who are very comfortable with illegal immigration because it makes them feel like they're good people. It makes them feel like they're not those evil Faragian right wingers. They're good, moral people and therefore they're prepared for our country to have an open border.

[Alistair Campbell]

But I think that most of the Labour MPs who were elected at the last election, I don't put them in that camp at all. So I think that. Because the other thing that's going on with Shibana Mahmoud is it's happening in the context of this churn and change within the Labour Party. So you've got Keir Starmer going, Andy Burnham's coming in and people are maneuvering and people are trying to play their role in shaping the future of the Labour Party. I'm not fundamentally disagreeing with you, I

[Robbie Travers]

don't think you are. But I think you're covering for these people and the extreme.

[Alistair Campbell]

Maybe that's because. I mean, I'm covering for them.

[Robbie Travers]

But if you said there's racist within the right of British politics who want to deport everyone, I'd say, yeah, clearly. Right. But when we talk about the far left in this country, people want to pretend it doesn't exist and they don't have this radical agenda when it comes to immigration.

[Alistair Campbell]

So, for example, for me, when you talk about the radical agenda on the left, I'd be far more. More upset. For example, about the way that the, the way that antisemitism, anti Semitism developed on the parts of the far left. I think some of the way that, I mean, I, I abhor so much of what, for example, the Israeli government has done and is doing. But at the same time, I, I, I really worry about the extent in some parts of the left that has turned into a little bit of a resurgence of the anti Semitism that we saw during the, during the Corbyn.

[Robbie Travers]

Alison, I've been hogging the mic for ages and I don't want to go around in circles, but the reason I'm.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I know the reason. I know the reason.

[Robbie Travers]

I'm not sure you do. Let me just lay it out. Right. My point through the populism conversation is very important. I am not a fan of populism because I agree with you that populism very often is about not solutions, but signaling in order to get elected to then not be able to actually do the things you claim or even not

[Alistair Campbell]

to get elected just to make money.

[Robbie Travers]

Fine. Actually, we'll talk about the money part in a bit, but whatever. It's not actually likely to solve the problems this country faces. And I want to solve the problem this country faces as you do. Right. But the point I'm trying to make to you is Shabana Mahmood is trying to deal with the issue of illegal immigration. Other people pretend or try to deal with the issue of illegal immigration. And until they do, populism is not going away because populism is not actually being driven by the evil right wing. It's being driven by the reality of that we have tens of thousands of people coming in, we're paying billions of pounds just for hotels and now HMOs and all these other things. You have people committing crimes, heinous crimes that are, yes, they're amplified by the media, but we'd want the media to cover what's happening. Right. Until you fix that, this isn't going away.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. I'm not disagreeing with you, but let me say as well, just on the PLP, I don't talk to as many MPs as I used to. Okay. Right. Now, if I was an mp, would I be broadly backing Shabana Mahmoud and what she's trying to do? Yes. Do I think that the people who are trying to block her from doing that are doing so for sort of ideological reasons? No, I don't think it's ideological. I think you, I think you're saying it's more sort of virtue signaling and and trying to say that's a divide that we, that we want to have with the right. I don't know. That's a good divide to have with the right.

[Robbie Travers]

No, I think they believe in compassion and they think a good person doesn't deny anyone entry into this country.

[Alistair Campbell]

I don't think that.

[Robbie Travers]

So what do they think?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, you'd have to get them on. I mean, what I feel you're doing is you're, you're asking me to.

[Robbie Travers]

I'm, I'm, I'm seeing if you're willing to acknowledge that on the left there exists an ideological extremism about these issues that I think exist. You don't think it exists? That's fine.

[Alistair Campbell]

I don't think many of those labor mps are ideologically extreme on this issue. I think there are. I think there is ideological extremism. I relate it more to other issues. But I think what Shabana Mahmood is trying to do is address the issue, address it in a fair, reasonable, legal way. I would like there to be much more of an international and particularly European approach to this, which I think we could do, which would be based upon the idea, actually, nobody needs to come here. Okay. And I think you do that by. And this is part of what she's trying to do on the policy front is signs of deterrence. Okay. There's no point coming here. But the. Really, you'll only get that message through eventually if people actually think, if I go there, I'm going to go to Denmark, I'm going to go to Germany, I'm not going to Rwanda, I'm going to go back where I came from in the European Union. And I think that is. But, you know, we lost the Dublin convention and that's gone. And I think that the. Anyway, I think we're going around in circles on this, but you can't expect me to defend positions of. You got to talk to them.

[Rory Stewart]

Let's talk about underwear. Nobody wants to. Nobody thinks about it. Everybody just wears whatever turned up in the multi pack and calls it a day. Which is a shame because there are solutions. That's why I want to talk about sheath. S H E a t h sheath.com, it's underwear built around a dual pouch system. What that means in plain English, everything stays where it should be. No sticking, no chafing, no shifting around mid sentence whilst trying to maintain air of gravitas. The fabric breathes, the design separates. There is apparently a technical term for what this creates, and that term is Zen, like separation, which Sounds ridiculous, but is also completely accurate. It was developed by a veteran on his second tour, which means it was designed under conditions where comfort was not a luxury. Over 10,000 5 star reviews from people who aren't messing about. I've been wearing them for a few months and the difference to my day to day comfort is bigger than I'm comfortable telling you about. On a politics podcast, if you know, you know, go to sheath.com that's S-H-E-A-T-.com use code TRIGONOMETRY at checkout for 20% off. First pair comes with a full money back guarantee, so there's no reason not to try them. Sheath.com Once you go sheath, you won't go back. Chief.com. a lot of people in this country, particularly working class people, feel that the left have abandoned them. They look at the Labour Party, particularly under Corbyn, and they go, not only do you not represent me, I think you actually hold me in contempt because I've got a lot of mates who feel that way and they're the people who flock to reform, they're the people who flocking to restore.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, you hear people saying that for sure. For sure. So the question then is, does Jeremy Corbyn, did Jeremy Corbyn have contempt for those sorts of people? I don't think he does. I don't think he does. I'll tell you where what I think people felt. I can remember this. Look, I. You probably know I support Burnley Football Club. I go to Burnley a lot, mate.

[Rory Stewart]

I'm West Ham. We've got the same colors. We're both first.

[Alistair Campbell]

First game of the season. Hey, the. But I can remember going to Bernie a lot during that Corbyn period. And I mean it's, you know, even to somebody like me who is. Has been right in the center of the establishment. There's some, there's certain things you've got to do, okay. If you're a leader of the Labour Party, I don't care what your views are. If you're an official government function and the national anthem is being sung, you sing it, okay. Unless you want to come out and say as part of your politics, if I become Prime Minister, I'm absolutely determined to get rid of the monarchy. And you know, so I'm not, you know, but so that. I think that first go people were thinking, this guy is not serious. That was a big. And I don't think he understood why that was such a big thing at the time. Remember that church.

[Rory Stewart]

Yes.

[Alistair Campbell]

Service he went to and then I think there's a thing about military that I think people like the military, respect the military, want the military to be properly supported by their politicians, which it

[Rory Stewart]

needs to be for our national security.

[Alistair Campbell]

Totally. And if they felt that, I guess I think there was a feeling, I don't think this was just in working class people, by the way, but a feeling of, well, who's, you know, you saw some of this stuff with. Was it the Salisbury attack? Was he leader of the Labour Party then? When it was like, you know, well, we've got to get, we've got to get this properly investigated. And it's like, hold on a minute, you've got the intelligence, our intelligence services saying this, Russians are saying this. And you say, well, you know, could be one, could be the other. I think that sort of stuff got through, but I don't think, look, I know a lot of working class people who really, really like Jeremy Corbett because they felt he's for us, he stands for us, he's not. You know, they look at people like me, some of them, or certainly Tony, and the thing you lot left us, they do say that. Okay, now I don't think we did, but I understand why. Because of what their lives have become. I think, I think for a lot of those people, we made their lives. The policies that we pursued made their lives a lot better. Okay? And I can point to tons of stuff that we did but did within what they saw of us. Did they think there was a sort of disconnect? I think that disconnect was there and then I think it grew. And I don't think. I wouldn't just put it on Jeremy Corbyn. Far from it.

[Rory Stewart]

No, I'm not putting it on Jeremy Corbyn. I'm putting it on the left in general. For instance, we can talk about progressive progressivism, wokeism, for example, terms like white privilege. Like a lot of my mates and people that I know and people who listen to this podcast. I remember I was walking down the street in North London. There was a guy, this is a number of years ago, came up to me and was, you know, laborer. And he was talking about growing up on a council estate in Middlesbrough, single mom, and he wanted to talk to me about white privilege. And at one point I thought, mate, I'm not the one saying these views. He was like, why am I privileged Because I'm white. When I grew up in poverty, real poverty, and I looked around and most of the people I knew came from poverty. We had no privilege. And yet people within the Labor Party, people, within the intelligentsia, the modern left, are pointing the finger at me and telling me I'm privileged. And that really angered people.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, I get that. But were they really pointing the finger at me?

[Rory Stewart]

Yes, yes.

[Robbie Travers]

Yes, they were. Yes, they were.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'm not sure.

[Robbie Travers]

Oh, come on. Come on.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'm really not sure. This is where I think. Look. Is it? Come on. No, I think this whole woke debate, okay, is. I find it. And what does it even mean? Woke is about believing in playing a role, in trying to deliver some kind of social justice. That is what woke is meant to mean. Woke has become a catch all term of abuse.

[Robbie Travers]

Not really. Yes, it has. I can define it for you if you like.

[Alistair Campbell]

Go on, then, define it.

[Robbie Travers]

It's a hierarchy of oppression. It says different groups are oppressed at different levels. And I can look at your skin color and immediately tell whether you are an oppressor or you're oppressed. You happen to be a straight white man, therefore you are the oppressor.

[Rory Stewart]

And you.

[Robbie Travers]

I happen to be a black trans lesbian, therefore I'm oppressed. Right. And that's the way this debate is being done.

[Alistair Campbell]

And by the way, that's the way the debate is being done. Hold on, Alistair, hold on. The debate.

[Robbie Travers]

Alistair, chill out. Not only is it the way the debate is being done, we see it in policing. Not only in the way the policing is being practiced, but in the instructions police officers get. They're explicitly told not to treat people equally. Explicitly.

[Alistair Campbell]

Honestly, this stuff is just. It's dementing. It's absolutely amazing.

[Robbie Travers]

That's the quote from the instruction.

[Alistair Campbell]

And it may be because you found one document where some guy who's writing some guidance for police. The idea.

[Robbie Travers]

It's the College of police.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, wait a minute.

[Robbie Travers]

This is how police officers are trained.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, okay.

[Robbie Travers]

Why are you saying okay like I'm saying I'm making something up?

[Alistair Campbell]

Because I think, you know, I'm not saying.

[Robbie Travers]

Have you looked into it?

[Alistair Campbell]

Not as deeply as you.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, I think you should.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, maybe I should, but I.

[Robbie Travers]

Because then you wouldn't dismiss the factual things I'm saying out of hand.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'm not sure.

[Robbie Travers]

Let me just.

[Alistair Campbell]

Let me dismiss it in my own way, okay? Right. Okay. He's gonna hog the microphone.

[Robbie Travers]

This is outrageous to me. You haven't looked into it.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, because.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I'm aware of the issue.

[Robbie Travers]

So why are you dismissing it?

[Alistair Campbell]

Because I think two things. First of all, that's what people mean

[Robbie Travers]

when they say woke. It's not a catch all phrase. They mean.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, they don't. They call you woke if you sort of campaign for gay rights. Not at all. Yes, they do.

[Robbie Travers]

There's loads of gay people who use this phrase.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay. They may.

[Robbie Travers]

All right. Come back to the police. Definitely come back to the place.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'll come back to the police. Right. So two big points I would make about the police, and they may sound quite slightly contradictory. The first is I think the police get a very, very hard time in our country.

[Robbie Travers]

I agree.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay. And I am broadly supportive of most police officers. But like any organization, there are some really bad people in there and they've got to be reaching.

[Robbie Travers]

Absolutely.

[Alistair Campbell]

That's the first thing.

[Robbie Travers]

Agreed.

[Alistair Campbell]

The second thing I would say is that if there is a race issue within policing in this country, it is not directed against white people.

[Robbie Travers]

It's directed against both people, both groups.

[Alistair Campbell]

But if you have to make a judgment as to who comes off worse in our policing and criminal justice system, it is not in the.

[Robbie Travers]

Why do you have to make that judgment?

[Alistair Campbell]

I'm making that judgment because you've just made a judgment.

[Robbie Travers]

Wait, what?

[Alistair Campbell]

You've just made the judgment based upon.

[Robbie Travers]

Let me add two words to my sentence. Let me add two words to my sentence. Why do you have to make a judgment about which race should get preferential treatment when the standard should be.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'm not. I'm saying that's what happens.

[Robbie Travers]

The standard should be that we're all equal under the law.

[Alistair Campbell]

Correct.

[Robbie Travers]

But the guidance currently is to many police forces in this country that we're not all equal under the law.

[Alistair Campbell]

They're saying you treat people differently in the way that you handle them.

[Robbie Travers]

That is people not being equal.

[Alistair Campbell]

You have to be conscious. You have to be conscious of certain things. You have to be conscious of how you deal with them. Look, I've not got into as deeply as you because when that was happening, I can't remember whether it was around Southampton or it was around. I can't remember what the. Even when that came to. Came to light. Right. But as that was happening, I thought, here we go again. We are going to get something taken out of context, twisted into debate that says the police are all anti white.

[Robbie Travers]

But no one is saying that.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yes, that's exactly what was being said.

[Robbie Travers]

No, let me correct myself. No one in this room is saying that.

[Alistair Campbell]

But that's why we're having this debate.

[Robbie Travers]

That's not why we're having this debate. We're having this debate because the police guidance in this country is to treat people differently.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, the police. The police all Operate and should operate under the law, treating everybody equally. Okay, but I could say this. Does that mean, does that mean that, for example, policemen aren't told that. So let's just give you an example. When the, the Henry Novak situation, okay, now they all get trained and they all get guidance. And what it seems to me, I don't know because I wasn't there and I didn't follow the court case and I haven't read the transcripts, but from what I have gathered from that, the policemen trained arrive at a scene, they have, they have been conditioned to expect something by what they think has been happening, and they then go and deal with it in the way they deal with it quite quickly, it seems to me, realize they made a mistake and then try to, you know, get back and get back in a decent place as a result of which, not just they, but police officers who were not even there, including one that was, has actually retired from the police force, is then being hounded.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, that's obviously wrong.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yes, of course he's wrong. But my point is that I think that if I'm, if I. That's why I think these debates, you've got to be really careful about how you conduct them.

[Robbie Travers]

And we are very careful. That's why I'm talking about specific guidance. And let me make out one other point. We. This show has a lot of police officers who listen to us. I had a guy come up to me, actually used to do personal. He used to do closed protection for prime ministers. I think he did. Keir Starmer, the police officers who listen to us and who write into us and who come up to us in the street, they all say that the college of Policing and the guidance police officers received is absolutely rife with this.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay?

[Robbie Travers]

The idea that different groups of people should be treated differently. And I really hope people like you should take it more seriously. I really think you should, because again, I'm making very reasonable points. This is not, I'm not having a go at you. I'm not saying you're woke or anything like that, but I think sometimes people dismiss these things out of hand when there's quite a lot of evidence now that in hiring in quotas in policing in many different areas now, we do not have equal treatment for different groups.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, I would argue, I would argue that you could find cases where you mentioned the DEI thing. I think the extent to which Trump in particular, but it's happening here as well, has weaponized this DEI debate not to create equality, but actually to create division, to create Hate to spread hate. I absolutely despise the way that they do it. So I guess that pushes me into a place where I'm gonna be more sympathetic towards somebody who comes along to me and says, you know what? I'm a young black woman and actually I feel I don't get treated well by the police. But it shouldn't do. I know, it shouldn't. It shouldn't do. And it's stupid because this is the problem. Closer.

[Rory Stewart]

Can I just make my point? Because those people who were the traditional labor voters, like people I grew up with, like the bloke that I'm talking about grew up in Middlesbrough, who just go, labour don't represent me.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, but hold on, hold on. We'll all have met people who tell us all sorts of things when they stop us in the street. Okay, I'll give you another one. You talk about the white working class. I go to loads of football matches, okay? And you'll hear lots and lots of white working class people say they don't like the way that they're treated by the police when they're just trying to have a day out at the football. Okay, My point is that the way you were framing this for me is how I was taking this. Is that because of dei, the policing in this country has become two tier phrase you used, by which we need to say two tier. Oh, sorry, I thought you did. Well, maybe you were quoting. So, but okay, two tier policing, two tier care, all this stuff, it rhymes.

[Robbie Travers]

So that's why it took off, I think.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, yeah, for sure. And that's how, that's how populist communication works. Exactly, exactly. Okay, but, so, and I would argue that the, the real. If there is two tier policing. Okay. And let's agree that there is.

[Robbie Travers]

Okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

And let's agree that it's all bad, of course. Okay, Right.

[Robbie Travers]

It's bad when black people are not treated fairly. Right?

[Alistair Campbell]

Correct.

[Robbie Travers]

So it's also bad when other groups of people are treated fairly. Correct. That's all I'm saying.

[Alistair Campbell]

What is not bad is if, when the police are out doing a pride march, that they're basically told just, you know, you have to understand what they're protesting for. You have to understand that they're doing something a bit different to that march you did last week, which was Tommy Robinson's mob. But so that. I think that's what that guidance is about.

[Robbie Travers]

That's not what that guy.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, okay, well, I, I'll go away and read it. How about that?

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah, that's great.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'LL also. I have, I have a lot. I've worked, I've worked with the police, of course, and I've worked with the Police Federation. And one of the reasons I do work with the police is because I think they get treated really badly by the media.

[Robbie Travers]

I couldn't agree more.

[Rory Stewart]

By the public.

[Robbie Travers]

Couldn't agree more.

[Alistair Campbell]

I was talking to. I was, you saw me, I was talking to the. I was talking to a police guy the other day who is not even in, he's not even in a big city. Okay. He's in a quite a small town. And he told me that in the last week he'd been spat at eight times.

[Rory Stewart]

Nobody here thinks that. That's obviously disgusting, right?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, so, but my, and, and, and I didn't ask him, I didn't ask him what was the color of the people who speak.

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah, okay, well, obviously, why would you ask that?

[Alistair Campbell]

But he told me.

[Robbie Travers]

Okay, okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

And he said there were all but one were white.

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah, okay. It's a majority white country, of course.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, okay. But my point is I could take that if I wanted to and I could build a debate about that.

[Robbie Travers]

But that's not what, that's not what I'm not doing.

[Alistair Campbell]

It's not what you're doing. I know it's not what you're doing. But I'm saying the people that we were talking about earlier, that is what they do. That is what's happened in the United States. And that's why you then end up with our souls like Pete Hexeth, removing the pictures of people like, you know,

[Robbie Travers]

why have we brought Pete? Say we're talking about Britain then. Yeah, we're talking about ourselves.

[Alistair Campbell]

We're talking about DEI in this country. Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

We're talking about this country, right? We're talking about populism in this country. We're talking about this country.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right?

[Robbie Travers]

Can I not talk about Britain? And the only point I made to

[Alistair Campbell]

you, you didn't stop me talking about Germany.

[Robbie Travers]

I just don't. The issue is that people always go to Trump or other people.

[Alistair Campbell]

That's because they're so powerful in our debate.

[Robbie Travers]

We're just talking about policing in this country and other areas where there hasn't, you know, the BBC has internships for only non white people, et cetera. Like this has been going on. We started with woke, remember? This is how this bit of the conversation started. It's not, look, there's probably some people who use it as a catch all phrase in the same way, by the way, that people on the Left use the word racist as a catch all phrase to describe people who are actually racist and also people who oppose mass immigration. There are some people who do that. Right. Just because some people use a word inappropriately doesn't mean that that word is wrong. Okay, Right, so I gave you a definition.

[Alistair Campbell]

Let's jump in there though. Okay, go ahead. You do say it's left and right. It's sort of both sides, isn't it? Is. I don't think you have that. So let's say there is a media of the left. Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

A media of the left.

[Alistair Campbell]

A meter of the left. Say Guardian Mirror. Yeah, they don't do that. What they. I don't need to do that. Was the media of the right do that in relation to. Woke up Alistair.

[Robbie Travers]

The media of the left and the people on the left and the influencers and the political figures and commentators, including people like David Lammy called conservatives who were pro Brexit. Now France and I both voted remain. Okay. They called them worse than Nazis. Do you remember David Lammy said the ERG are worse than Nazis?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I don't remember that.

[Robbie Travers]

He did that on the Andrew Marshall. We'll put a clip in here.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

By implication you're comparing the ERG to the Nazi party or at least to the South African racists.

[Rory Stewart]

Now, whatever you think about the erg,

[Alistair Campbell]

that was an unacceptable comparison, wasn't it, Andrew? I would say that that wasn't strong enough. In 1938 there were allies who hatched a plan for Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia. And Churchill said no. And he stood alone. He did. We must not appease. We're in a situation now and let me just be clear. I'm an ethnic minority. We have in the ERG in Jacobs Rees Mogg, someone who is happy to put onto his web pages the horrible racist AfD party, a party that's Islamophobic. And on the far right of the German system, they're happy to use the phrase Grand Wizard. KKK is what it evokes to me when I think of that phrase and the Deep South. I'm sorry, but very, very seriously, of course we should not appease that. Of course we should not appease that.

[Robbie Travers]

People on the left and people on the right use these terms in order to smear their opponents and to misrepresent the debate. That's what they do. That's what everyone does.

[Alistair Campbell]

So what we're saying, what you're saying, essentially something else. No, what you're saying is they're both as bad as Each other.

[Robbie Travers]

That's not what I'm saying.

[Alistair Campbell]

What I'm saying, I think is that these people have more power in this debate than these people. That's what I'm saying.

[Robbie Travers]

The right wing media has more power than left wing media.

[Alistair Campbell]

The right wing weaponization of their definition of woke has had way more cultural influence than anything these people have said.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, some people might argue that's because it's accurate to what's happening on the ground. When institutions are invested with dei, when British history is being denigrated, when you know we're recording this before the Norway game, right? England playing Norway. The Norwegians walk around, around in helmets, right? With the horns.

[Alistair Campbell]

Let's walk around in kilts.

[Robbie Travers]

Right? But hold on a second. The Norwegians are walking around in helmets, which is a throwback to the Viking age. Vikings, as you well know, were ping pillaging. Including this country, Right. No one's asking them for reparations. British people are being told they need to pay reparations all day, every day. Right?

[Alistair Campbell]

How many British people.

[Robbie Travers]

All British people are being told that we need to pay.

[Alistair Campbell]

How many British people are demanding that

[Robbie Travers]

labor mps, like what's her name, something Bell Ribeiro. What's her name? She's saying that we need to pay reparations. It's an ongoing life debate.

[Alistair Campbell]

It's not that big. It's not that big a deal if you don't even know the name of the MP who's calling for it.

[Robbie Travers]

She's just not very important to me. But I remember the Labor MP is calling for this country to pay reparations.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, yes, reparations will involve some form

[Rory Stewart]

of money, but it's got to involve complete system change.

[Alistair Campbell]

We cannot be content with people handing

[Rory Stewart]

us essentially scraps off their table.

[Alistair Campbell]

When you look at what they're sending and say that we are okay and let people bypass us. The community people. And I think the community is so important.

[Rory Stewart]

I want you to all know that

[Alistair Campbell]

it was the community that came to me to set up the all party

[Rory Stewart]

parliamentary group for African reparations.

[Robbie Travers]

People go on the BBC and explain why it's important. It's been a life debate. You can't deny that.

[Alistair Campbell]

No. I would argue no one's asking Norwegians

[Robbie Travers]

for reparations or the Italians for the Roman invasion. Right? So you put all this together, people get a picture, don't you think?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, you get whatever picture you want out of a very complicated landscape. History's a very complicated.

[Robbie Travers]

What's wrong with the picture?

[Alistair Campbell]

History? Because I think it. Well, One. I think it trivializes history. I think there is. I think, look, history is very, very important within current politics.

[Robbie Travers]

Totally agree.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay. And history, ultimately, is about judgment, of course. Is our history a sort of, you know, wonderful, perfect story of the greatest country in the world? No. No more. Any more than the Americans is, of course, the debate around the 250th anniversary of America. This is why I worry. You say, don't go on about Hexagon Trump, but the picture of America that Trump is trying to. We are talking, in his case, about the erasion of history, the erasure of history.

[Robbie Travers]

But why are we talking about another country? We're talking about this country.

[Alistair Campbell]

We just talked about Norway, you know,

[Robbie Travers]

comparing it to England. I'm saying other countries are not forced to apologize for the history. And the way the British people.

[Alistair Campbell]

Some do. The Australians are just. The Australians did a massive apology recently for their history.

[Robbie Travers]

Fine. Australia. But Australia is part of the Anglosphere. This is happening everywhere in the Anglosphere.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, There's a.

[Robbie Travers]

There's a double standard is what I'm getting at.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay. I don't know.

[Robbie Travers]

See, what if I make a good point, you just go, okay, well, I haven't read the guidance.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, Because, I mean, I don't know if this is what you do, but it's like you make the point, we have the debate about the point, and then you make the point again.

[Robbie Travers]

And I'm just asking you concede that I'm right on this. That's all I'm. That's all I want.

[Alistair Campbell]

I think a lot of things that you say, you may have some right on your side, but I think you way oversimplify quite a lot of these issues to make it feel.

[Robbie Travers]

I'm happy for you to explain why it's more complicated, but you don't. You just say, okay, no, because I've

[Alistair Campbell]

read the guidance, because history is complicated.

[Robbie Travers]

Of course, we have loads of historians on the show for that reason.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So anyway, talk to them about it. It's better. You're the one who keeps saying you don't want to honk the bike, but then you.

[Robbie Travers]

No, no, I'm worried about this. I'm worried about you.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, so the point that I was gonna talk about, and you were like, okay, it's anecdotal evidence. All right, fair enough. But you cannot deny that a large part of why populism has flourished is because the working class feel angry and alienated, in particular, because they feel that the Labour Party no longer represent them. We have to Accept that that is a mainstream position.

[Robbie Travers]

And the Conservative Party.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, exactly.

[Rory Stewart]

But it's a lot of people.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, it is.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, we have to. So what I would. What I would say, we have to accept that large swathes of the British public and the European public and the American public are losing faith in the ability of politics to deliver the improvements in their lives that politicians keep promising. And we had a long period of Labour government, we had a long period of Tory government. We've now had a Labour government again, and they both have been caught up in that. Alongside that, we have a less tribal population that just as it shops around for which TV programs to watch and who to date and all this other stuff that technology has brought, we've also. We're seeing an erosion or certainly a slow but accelerating breakdown in political tribalism as well. So that people no longer think, I am Labor, I am Tory, I am Lib Dem. They think, well, I'm going to just, you know, take a look. We also have, I think as a consequence of the nature of our, the media in this country, I think we have a. A really well developed cynicism. And I think it's gone from skepticism to cynicism about the ability of anybody to do anything good for them. The political parties have got to address that. They've got to deal with that. My point is, populism is not the answer. Right wing populism is not the answer. Left wing populism is not the answer.

[Rory Stewart]

Look, I agree with you. You don't need to explain to me why right or left wing populism is not the answer. Everyone can drink now. My mother's Venezuelan. I've seen left wing populism in action. I know where it leads. It's nowhere good, which is why I'm terrified of Polanski. And again, people drink again. I used to be a teacher. I taught for 12 years in deprived communities from places like Newham and Lambeth, really poor places. The thing is, and when I talk to people in those communities, particularly white working class people, there was an anger. So I'll give you an example. This is a stat. The people, the cohort that do the worst in schools in this country.

[Alistair Campbell]

Oh, yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

Are white working class boys. I never once in my 12 years of education ever attended anything which dealt with that. Now, if that was any other cohort or part of the kids that we taught, that would have been spoken about honestly. But because where were you teaching? I was teaching in Newham and I was teaching.

[Alistair Campbell]

But the London Schools initiative that we did Was in part about addressing that. That was a very, very big part of that. And that was one of the big. One of the reasons why we got. We actually one of this sort of north south divide, so called is because actually standards in London went up a lot better. And that was because of the specific London strategy we brought forward, which was partly about that. So I think this is one of those. I think you'll be very. Look, I don't get me wrong, I think that there's no doubt I go into schools all the time, okay. And you hear it from head teachers everywhere. The where we're really, really struggling is with white working class kids. Okay, so we agree on that. And I would also agree, but I don't think it's because there's a kind of hierarchy necessarily. I think a lot of it is. I think, for example, they talk. A lot of them will tell you, you know, the, the, some of the Asian kids in particular got parents who are absolutely driven in a way that, you know, a lot of the white working class parents aren't in terms of,

[Rory Stewart]

you know, totally fair and immigrants, first generation immigrants in particular, you have got

[Alistair Campbell]

to get an education, this is your route to a better life, etc. Now when I was growing up and I mean both my parents are Scottish and I remember when they were obsessive about education and Scotland had this amazing reputation for education. That's gone. That's gone. So something. So I'm not disagreeing with you about that being a specific problem. And in terms of what government policy solutions should be right now, I don't think they're big enough and bold enough. I mean, I honestly do worry about the nature of the education that we're giving kids at the moment because I don't think it's remotely. It's so divorced from the pace at which the world is developing and changing. So, you know, anyway, we're violently agreeing.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, we are violently agreeing. But also, I'll be honest with you, I think a lot of these, should we just call them progressive strategies are actually deeply unhelpful. So for instance, this was about six, seven years ago, I attended a seminar, well, I didn't attend, I was forced to attend on how to teach black boys. And I got so angry because halfway through it was basically this woman at the front explaining to me why I needed lower educational standards to teach a black boys in my classroom. And I remember at the end putting my hand up and going, would you deliver this seminar at Eton College where I know black boys go to have you been asked? She was like, no. And that it was, it was like, oh, but you know, you, you know, you have to expect this. There needs to be different standards. And I'm like, no, the standards should be applicable. It shouldn't matter whether it's a black boy, an Asian boy, a white girl. Treat everybody exactly the same when you come through the doors of the classroom. There is no color. There is. I'm treating you fairly.

[Alistair Campbell]

That sounds Bonkersville to me.

[Robbie Travers]

Right, well, that's what people mean by two tier.

[Alistair Campbell]

That's what they mean. Okay, yeah. But you'd nonetheless agree that where the data is showing you in so many schools that white work, something is going wrong in the education of white working class kids. There have to be strategies to address that.

[Robbie Travers]

And that's what Francis is saying is there isn't. So when we talk about white working class boys underperforming, oh, it's the culture, it's the parents, it's the whatever. For every other group there's a government program that says this particular community is marginalized, we need to help them. And that's what people mean by two tier. That's what they mean.

[Alistair Campbell]

They might, they might. Some of them do. Yeah. We don't. Listen, we don't know. What I love about the way you speak. Right. None of us can speak for everybody. That's what they mean. Who are they?

[Robbie Travers]

A lot of the people who speak about these issues.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right. That's what they mean.

[Robbie Travers]

What they mean is there is different treatment of different groups and they connect it to woke. But remember, we started this with woke. Woke, in my definition that I gave you, is a hierarchy of who's more oppressed than whom and therefore different people get different treatment.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, well, what I'm saying and what

[Robbie Travers]

people are saying is the government policy in schools, in policing and everywhere else is a product of that worldview which is implemented in the school system, in policing, in government, in the BBC, et cetera, through DEI and other initiatives which are explicitly designed to do this.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, the school, the school I was in three days ago, the head was very, very clear with me. It was a very mixed, multiracial, multicultural school in London. He was very clear with me. He says that where we're putting most of our energy right now is with special educational needs and white working class kids. And, you know, and does that mean. But I also. The other thing I think you've got to understand or accept is I mentioned the difference with France. Okay, I did. I think we have developed multiculturalism in a, in a way that we should celebrate. And I think it is. I think it is an incredible success story of this country.

[Robbie Travers]

What do you mean by multiculturalism?

[Alistair Campbell]

What I mean by. The fact is. What I mean by multiculturalism. What I mean by multiculturalism. And maybe this is, this is particular because all my kids went to schools in, in London that you talked about. You both said, you know, you've got to be kind of blind to color. I think in the schools I'm talking about, there is a blindness to color.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, that's monoculturalism. That's whenever.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

Where everyone's British, right?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, they're all British. They're not all British. Let me give you a very example. I remember my mum, who's now dead, but she, my daughter Grace was still at school. She's in her 30s now. This is a long time ago, so it was already good by my perspective, right? And some of my daughter's best friends were from Kosovo because we had the war in Kosovo and lots of Kosovans came over, Dua Lipa being one of them. And they were at school together. And then you have the. And. And then. So my, my daughter's circle of friends. I remember she came around with her friends, four or five of them, and my mum was there, right, in her 70s or 80s, whatever it was. And Grace later, when they're all gone, my mum was asking them about them and she was saying, and Grace mentioned Lauren. And my mum said, which one was Lauren? And Grace then went through all these different descriptions and explanations. And the one who said this and the one who said, the one who stood there, what she didn't say was that she was black. She was the only black girl in that small group of kids, right? And that's what I meant by maybe that's mono, multi, racist.

[Robbie Travers]

But that's why I asked you the distinction between. Because the reason that Angela Merkel and David Cameron all came out and said multiculturalism has failed is what they were saying is in a multi ethnic society, which no one here has a problem with, right, it would be kind of silly.

[Alistair Campbell]

Some people do.

[Robbie Travers]

No one here, Here.

[Alistair Campbell]

Oh, here.

[Robbie Travers]

No one here has a problem with. The issue is do you encourage everybody to buy into a single culture or do you kind of say, well, you just get on with it and you know, you can stay whatever culture you came from three generations ago, integrate. You can't do both. No, you can't. I can tell you as an immigrant myself, you can't do both. You either integrate or you don't. Don't you either integrate or you don't. You either teach your children that they're British and to become more British or you don't. And that's where a lot of the community, like.

[Alistair Campbell]

I really don't agree with that.

[Robbie Travers]

What do you mean you don't agree with it?

[Alistair Campbell]

I think if. Well, I mentioned my parents are Scots.

[Robbie Travers]

Okay, okay, well, I can see you non integrated because you, you don't support England, mate.

[Alistair Campbell]

There you go.

[Rory Stewart]

There you go.

[Robbie Travers]

That's my point. You've retained your identity as Scottish and that's fine. Yeah, right.

[Alistair Campbell]

But what's wrong, what's wrong with retaining my identity as Scotland is part of

[Robbie Travers]

the British Isles and if you, if you were Russian. If I were Russian and I told my children that they're Russian and that's what they are and they didn't know

[Alistair Campbell]

you're teaching your British, but you teach them that they've got Russian heritage.

[Robbie Travers]

That's right. That's exactly what I'm. But they're British first. Yeah, and that's what, that's what I'm saying.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

Multiculturalism is when you really don't care so much about the British part and it's your ethnic identity, your religious identity that's most important.

[Alistair Campbell]

But I, but I don't, I don't. What, what you shouldn't do. Do is make people feel they either have to forget or minimize. No. Okay, well, let's, let's agree.

[Robbie Travers]

We're agreeing.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Robbie Travers]

You've been very generous with your time and they've been great sport. We appreciate you coming on. We'd love to have you back, back on again at some point. If you'll tolerate it before.

[Alistair Campbell]

Let him talk a bit more the next time.

[Rory Stewart]

Next time.

[Alistair Campbell]

The next time that.

[Robbie Travers]

Let them talk now.

[Rory Stewart]

So this is a question. If you were in charge of the Labour Party, I think the way to solve populism is to engage with the working class voters who feel left behind, who feel the left haven't represented them, have ignored them. Now you can make the arguments of whether they have, whether they haven't, but the reality is that's the way they feel. If you were the leader of the Labour Party, let's say you're Andy Burnham, you know, you're from Wigan, where my dad's from. How do you engage with those people? When we can look, and we can say this objectively, and I think it's fair. Keir Starmer certainly hasn't done that. Corbyn hasn't done that. Really? No Labour lever has done that since

[Alistair Campbell]

your Boss, a lot of MPs do it don't rule out the role of MPs because they're living in those instances. Agreed. And they're the ones who probably should be doing a better job of making sure the leadership gets exactly what's going on in these places. Look, I think you can see that Andy Burnham is to some extent doing that, already trying to do that as part of his messaging. You know, he's talking about the places that have been left behind. As easy said, what you'll find once he becomes prime minister is bloody hard to engage with a lot of people. You've got to be doing that in different ways. But I think that I, I, I wouldn't disagree. I wouldn't disagree. I think that the, if you think about why a lot of people have, I mean, let's be honest, most of the people, the, the, the support that's improved reforms reputation and standing up until the current day battle where I think they're in real trouble by the way. But part of that for now, there's actually, there's been Tories going to reform. Most of the people who are voting reform, most of them very substantial majority have never voted labor and say they never would. Okay. But some people have gone from labor to reform. So you've got to think about how do we get those people back, how do we maybe get some of these people to think about voting labor and how do we get people who just fed up with politics generally to be more inspired by what we're trying to do. So I think that's a big part of what Burnham has to do. What I wouldn't do is accept the narrative that we've, as it were, deliberately left you behind. What I think they should do, and I hope will do, is actually to focus far more so for example, in education. And to be fair to Bridget, I think she's tried to do this, but I don't think that she's really cut through on is actually to be saying, look, we really haven't, we've got to be open about the extent of the problem with white working class kids and this is how we're going to try to address it. So you do have to engage more with both of the kids and their parents on that. I think in relation to, you know, the community, we're all very kind of local in the way we live our lives. Most people are, this is about their communities. And I think you've really got to understand why people feel that when they see their dirty streets, when they are aware of low level crime when they're aware of a high shop, a high street that used to be kind of vibrant. But then what you can't do is say, that's because we've left you behind. I think you've also got to confront people with the reality of the choices that we all make. So, for example, the high street to me and the sort of mess that it's in, it's a consequence of all sorts of things. But one of them is the fact that we spend all our time on the bloody Internet buying on Amazon. Another one is that we've liberalized gambling to an extent that is off the scale. So there's these gambling shops everywhere. You got the vapes and then you've got the charity shops because charity has become such a fundamental part of delivering basic public services. So you've got to be addressing all of the issues that have led to something that everybody's sitting in their community thinking, I don't like the look of this, I don't like the feel of this. So we're agreeing as well.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, but I'm keeping silent.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, for now. For now, you'll come in. So.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, but the problem is, is. And no political party has done this because I feel that there is a problem in politics with honesty in that. And this is why. And that created a vacuum, which is what populism has filled, which is no political party has actually. Or very few people in politics have had the balls or the talent to go, this is why we are where we are. And these are the solutions. So that when people feel that things are going wrong, they don't understand why. They don't understand why there's more potholes in the road. They don't understand why they feel poorer, why they go to the supermarket and their money doesn't go as far as it can. But what they do get from that is a feeling that they're being screwed. So when a populist comes along, whether it's Zach or Nigel, whoever else, the feeling is ripe to be exploited. That's how you want to frame it.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, I think one of the. I think one of the really important roles of a political leader that's not been played very well for quite a long time is that. And this, this. I don't want this to sound patronizing. It's not meant to, but I think one of the roles of the political leader is to. Is to educate the public about the reasons why decisions are being made. I think we've got to. And Thatcher used to do that. Tony used to do that. Okay. Clinton used to do that, Reagan used to do that now in a very kind of folksy sort of way. But you set out big arguments about why things are as they are now. In the knowledge that you'll do that by possibly making a 60 minute speech, doing a 60 minute interview, writing a book, in the knowledge that that is going to get distilled into that on social media, that by one opponent, that by another. You've got to be bigger and better than all of that.

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah, it's hard.

[Alistair Campbell]

You've got to. And, and even though Trump, Trump is a nightmare and I hate most of what he stands for, he has at least shown a way of how you can message. And it's easier if you're the American president and you don't care about telling the truth and all that. But I think our politicians in Europe underestimate the extent to which they still have the power to do that. I think they've all got too scared to challenge, too scared to tell the public sometimes. You've got to face up to this. I don't think we're remotely honest at the moment with the public about the nature of our security situation, both on defense, in relation to the Russian threat. I don't think we're, I think we're going to face some really, really difficult choices pretty soon.

[Rory Stewart]

And the economics of our country and

[Alistair Campbell]

the other one, and the other one that we haven't really talked about is I don't think we're being, I think we're walking away from the climate debate, which I think is as dangerous as anything we face. So I think there is, and I think the public, if you're, if you talk about being on. And of course, honestly there is, you know, in politics and that people say they're all liars, they're not all liars, but what they are in all the parties is part of a team, should be part of a team. So sometimes you, you can't necessarily always say what you totally think. You can't always give out every angle of every problem that you're trying to highlight. But you can do far more than we get in the debate now. So I would hope, if I really want Andy Burnham to be a bit like Mark Carney is being in Canada, Mark Carney in Canada is setting out some really big choices that Canada's facing. And he's saying where he wants to go and he's saying where he wants to lead. And I think we've got to get back to that kind of approach. In politics, he's still very good at the tweet and he's very good at the 32nd TikTok video. But this bigger stuff is where I think our politics have gone wrong, the lack of it.

[Rory Stewart]

And the real challenge labor are going to have is dealing with economics, because this country is on a precipice when it comes to economics. And to be fair, the Tories didn't want to talk about it either. But we're going to have to tackle it soon or we're in real danger of going bankrupt.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, look at that, man.

[Robbie Travers]

It's crazy.

[Alistair Campbell]

The debt is crazy. I agree with that. I agree with that. And he's. But, but that's another one. I mean, if I. It is an extraordinary thing that Keir Starman's gone from a landslide to leaving the door in two years. It's extraordinary. Right. I think if there was one. There's not one moment. There's this, you know, it's kind of whole catalog of stuff, good and bad, that you can point and say, well, that was important, but I think if I had to pick one, it probably was the moment at which he got defeated on welfare.

[Robbie Travers]

Yes.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah.

[Robbie Travers]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Because people thought, okay. And even though people might. Most reasonable fair people think that if you're really struggling, you should be entitled to get benefits. And if you're old and sick and all that stuff, they get that. But it just felt, well, hold on a minute. You've put our national insurance up because you said there was this black hole and now we've got this big problem with defense, which we understand, but we've got to pay for it like this. I don't. I don't really understand it. Yeah, I think that. I think that was so that's back to the point about the MPs. And that was back to the point about the MPs. It's these MPs you should be talking to.

[Robbie Travers]

Honestly, you've been very generous. Can we touch on one or two other things you mentioned? Just because I think they're really worth exploring.

[Alistair Campbell]

As long as it doesn't take 20 minutes going around in circles with your

[Robbie Travers]

view, then you're just going to have to admit when I'm right.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay. Okay, you're right.

[Robbie Travers]

Excellent. So you mentioned the climate. Obviously, a very big discussion is bloody hot at the moment. You say that we are kind of running away from what we should be doing. What do you think we should be doing? Well, your boss just, just to add this, your old boss, Tony Blair, come out recently and basically said the way net zero is being pursued is not going to work.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah.

[Robbie Travers]

You can't, you can't reduce consumption, you can't phase out fossil fuels quickly. These, these are all points that a lot of people actually agree with in the country now about net zero and stuff. You don't agree with with him?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I don't.

[Robbie Travers]

What do you think we should be doing?

[Alistair Campbell]

I do think the future is renewables and I think we've got a. There's all sorts of stuff we can do. I think that, you see, I think the net zero. It's really interesting this, because you're right, the debate feels like it's shifted. Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

It has shifted.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, the polling hasn't. The polling hasn't. I saw a massive global poll the other day about, you know, if you ask people, the general view about the level of concern about the climate has not shifted. What shifted? People hate the phrase net zero.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, they don't hate the phrase net zero. They hate the policies of net zero. They're concerned about the climate, but they don't want our economy to be destroyed. Net zero.

[Alistair Campbell]

Correct.

[Robbie Travers]

Which is a reasonable position.

[Alistair Campbell]

So you have to build a strategy around your. Well, I think it is about building your economy and your energy around renewable. And where Tony's right is it's. You can't do that overnight.

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

But you can't lose sight of the need for the transition. And so I think I was at this amazing. If I can use your podcast to ask people to listen to one of our episodes. We did an episode recently with the European Energy Commissioner, Dan Jurgensen. So this is a guy who sort of lives in the detail of this and he was just giving so many examples of where the transition has been done. Right.

[Robbie Travers]

Is it being done right in Britain?

[Alistair Campbell]

I think it's been done. I think. I think the overall goal is right. I think the strategy is right. But I think the politics are proving very, very difficult.

[Robbie Travers]

Well, the reason I ask, is Britain responsible? I mean, we produce 1% of global carbon emissions, we probably import another 1%. So let's say we're responsible for 2% when other countries, China, 30%, India is going to have to. To burn more fossil fuels to feed their people and to grow their economy to catch up to the rest of us. It sort of feels a little bit like we're tinkering at the edges and really making a huge negative impact on our economy to not make any impact on climate at all. And I think that's why net zero is becoming unpopular. Would you Agree.

[Alistair Campbell]

I'm not convinced Net zero is becoming unpopular in the way that you say that is I think some of the policies.

[Robbie Travers]

We have the highest industrial electricity in

[Alistair Campbell]

developed world but which is good. And that's why you should listen to the guy Jorgens because he gives a really. It's a very, very. The. The energy market is so complicated the way that it runs. So it's not, it's. That is not the biggest driver of it. But listen, listen to him. He knows more about it than I do. But what I. Sorry, I've got any question there.

[Robbie Travers]

Excellent. That's what we do. It was about the unpopularity of Net zero linked to its economic impact is what I was saying.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

People are upset about it because it's

[Alistair Campbell]

some people damaging some people. That's true. Well, I think anything that damaged the economy people get. You know why we do that.

[Robbie Travers]

Sure.

[Alistair Campbell]

But what the. The weaponizers have done is.

[Robbie Travers]

Come on.

[Alistair Campbell]

But this is what they do.

[Robbie Travers]

But you don't the real issue and you just go no, this is a terrible problem. And the reason it's a terrible problem is it gives Nigel Farage an excuse to. To weaponize it. The problem is a problem because it's damaging our economy.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, our economy has to become a modern renewables based energy driven economy. Your point was about the 1%. Okay.

[Robbie Travers]

We're small percent. Yeah.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right. And one of the things this guy Danny Organson said actually yes, China is emitting more but China is also driving the renewables agenda in a way that is off the scale. Good. We need to be part of that. India actually. Yes, you're right. There's going to be this. Other countries who have got far bigger energy needs than us are actually both creating more emissions and driving faster forward on renewables. And where I really did disagree with Tony in his essay was when he made the 1% point. And yet he's the guy who back in the day, rightly in my view was saying that just because we are only this in relation to the size of the global economy does not mean that we can't take a lead in the time on overseas aid and development, which we did. And I think that is the. We should still be using arguments like this. Just because we are no longer one of the biggest powers in the world does not mean we're not still seen as a leader. So do you think with whatever.

[Robbie Travers]

No, no. I'm going to ask you perfectly reasonable questions I have done throughout the interview. Do you think that.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, I mean you're hogging the microwave

[Robbie Travers]

oh yeah, yeah, that's true. Do you think that change, changing our energy policy in such a way that reduces our economic prosperity is an acceptable price to pay for this?

[Alistair Campbell]

No, but, but it's, but no, I don't, I don't. But it's, but I don't believe it's necessary.

[Robbie Travers]

Like you don't think it's had a negative economic impact so far?

[Alistair Campbell]

I think energy prices have.

[Robbie Travers]

Yeah, but they're not related to net zero.

[Alistair Campbell]

Not in. Is a very small part of the, the stuff that's driven up our energy prices. So no it's not. You've got to you, this is why I say these things are, you know, you've got to address this in the round and our economy, energy is going to become the big challenge for all of our countries and you know, so there's Trump saying drill baby drill. We don't have there even if we wanted to frack on the level that they do, we don't have the reserves.

[Robbie Travers]

We have oil in the North Sea.

[Alistair Campbell]

The oil in the North Sea which

[Robbie Travers]

had Milibanda shutting down production.

[Alistair Campbell]

Check out the oil in the North Sea is the one. It's not going to come if you wish to go and drill all this stuff away. This is a drill baby drill in the North Sea. It's going to be years before you get anything. It's not fine if you can do other stuff with the money you've got. Which is what? Which is renewables. But the problem, the North Sea is important to our energy because of the wind that blows there. Okay. We're going to have much that is going to be much more important to our long term energy needs than.

[Robbie Travers]

We just had an energy expert called Scott Tinker on the show. It's not out yet but if I may plug in which he talked about the fact there's no such thing as renewable energy because it takes so much raw material material to build the wind turbines which then have to be okay.

[Alistair Campbell]

But okay, honestly that's, that's like, that's like saying, look, it's a label. Like net zero is a label.

[Robbie Travers]

It's what the label.

[Alistair Campbell]

Let's just say oil, wind and solar every time. But the reason solar.

[Robbie Travers]

Alistair, you're being picky now. The reason it's important is that these things are not renewable. They cost energy to produce everything.

[Alistair Campbell]

It costs energy to turn the light, those lights on.

[Robbie Travers]

That's a very good point, Alistair.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, okay.

[Robbie Travers]

You know what? You know you've been a very good sport. We appreciate you coming on, Alistair. Thank you for being here. Last question is always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that you think we should be?

[Alistair Campbell]

Do you mean we today?

[Robbie Travers]

I mean we as a country, as a, as a nation, as a, as a body politic.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, weirdly, I'm going to say that I don't think we talk enough about politics. Politics in the context of why politics matters, why politics, for all its faults, is so necessary and important and why we need to encourage more and more people genuinely to be engaged in politics. I mean, really engaged in politics. Because I worry that the way our debate is going, the real, the, the thing that's underlying a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about isn't just laboratory or green or reform, whatever. It's actually whether democracy is going to survive and whether people are going to think, well, you know, say what you like about Putin, but say we like about G, but they've done stuff way better than we've done, etc. Etc. So I, I think that we, we don't talk enough about why democratic politics really matters and why we've got to fight for it harder than we do.

[Robbie Travers]

Alistair Campbell, thanks for coming on. I'm sorry we're not going to get to your questions because I hogged the mic.

[Rory Stewart]

It's my bad.

[Robbie Travers]

All the best.

[Alistair Campbell]

I would have done them, but he's.

[Robbie Travers]

Okay, let's do the matter. You're a man of your word. Okay, let's do the bonus questions. Bring us the funds. With hindsight on the Iraq dossiers in wmd, what would you now do differently on facts, risks and moral trade offs?