448. Question Time: Mandelson’s Epstein Disgrace, Kirk’s Assassination, and Trump’s Illegal Boat Strike

Why did Peter Mandelson become so mesmerised by the rich and famous? What does Charlie Kirk’s assassination mean for the future of American politics? Is Trump trying to start a fake war with Venezuela? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus: Start your FREE TRIAL at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, an exclusive members’ newsletter, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Fuse are giving away FREE TRIP+ membership for all of 2025 to new sign ups 🎉 TRIP+ gets you ad-free listening, discounts, and early access to episodes and pre-sale tickets for live shows! To sign up and for terms and conditions, visit ⁠https://www.fuseenergy.com/politics⁠ ⚡ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ For The Rest Is Politics listeners, there’s free access to the Wordsmith Academy - plus their report on the future of legal skills. Visit wordsmith.ai/politics. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Adam Thornton Assistant Producer: Evan Green Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producers: Tony Pastor, Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:00Alastair Campbell?

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  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creve and of course the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN and it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 1:45Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:51Rory Stewart?

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• 2:44Rory Stewart?

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

• 2:48Alastair Campbell?

  And with me Alastair Campbell. And this is going to be a particularly long question time. And there'll be a clothing change and a studio setting change halfway through because we recorded the actual question time yesterday or the day before. We'd already been delayed by having to do the emergency episode on Qatar. We almost did one on Poland. And then meanwhile, as if this sort of news stuff doesn't just keep coming and coming and coming, we've had the assassination of the right wing MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk in the United States. And also in the United States, just an hour or so ago, the forced resignation of Peter

• 3:32Alastair Campbell?

  Mandelson as ambassador in the US. So while I was busy recording with Michael Wolff, our mini series on Rupert Murdoch, I got a message from Rory saying, I think we should do something on Charlie Kirk and Peter Mandelson. Where do you want to start Rory?

• 3:47Rory Stewart?

  You're very, very long suffering. So very, very quickly, just to frame the Peter Mandelson thing. And it's, it's, it's quite the moment because Peter Mandelson, who's 71 years old, somebody we've talked about a great deal on the podcast, and we'll get a little bit into who he was and how he got there, was sent off to be ambassador of Washington not very long ago with the job of becoming close to Trump, made a lot of statements about being friendly to Trump. Some of us thought they were a little bit embarrassing and over the top. And has now been pulled into the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Because as you're aware, there is now a huge fight to do with releasing Epstein files,

• 4:28Rory Stewart?

  to do with the way in which Democrats in the House and the Senate are pushing to get more and more of this stuff released. There is a birthday book, which was the 50th birthday book of Jeffrey Epstein, in which people posted messages. And so in the background, there's a huge controversy about whether or not Donald Trump drew a picture of a woman and wrote in some very suggestive language about secrets that he shared with Jeffrey Epstein. And amongst this is a letter which Madison has not denied, full of references to the mysterious man and a sense of sort of mysterious things they share together. And Mandelson, standing in his swimming trunks, was back to the camera. And then a series of emails that have been released.

• 5:12Rory Stewart?

  And it's really the emails that have brought him down because the emails showed just what a depth of relationship there was. Financial relationship, the number of times he was staying in Epstein's house after Epstein had been convicted for child trafficking. But the thing that has really finally appeared in the statement where Keir Starmer has fired him is the fact that he sent an email to Epstein saying, this is a completely unfair conviction and I'm going to campaign with you to get it overturned. Just to pause for a second, not to be unfair to you too much, but what's your sense just of the kind of brutal politics of this? Should Keir Starmer have seen this coming earlier, let him go earlier?

• 5:53Rory Stewart?

  He defended him very vigorously at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday and has now had to fire him. What's the general theory around how you deal with these kinds of scandals with Peter Mandelson? You've been through a couple yourself.

• 6:05Alastair Campbell?

  Indeed. I mean, this is Peter's third resignation from senior positions in public life. He'd resigned from the Tony Blair cabinet twice. The first was over a controversy over a loan that he took from a colleague, a very wealthy Labour colleague, Jeffrey Robertson, gave Peter a loan with which he bought a house.

• 6:30Rory Stewart?

  And which he didn't declare in the Register of Members' Interests.

• 6:33Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it wasn't the Register of Members' Interests. He didn't declare, as I understand, the offence really was he didn't declare to his senior civil servants when he took the job as Secretary for Business at a time when Jeffrey Robertson was under investigation by them in relation to unrelated issues.

• 6:49Alastair Campbell?

  And then the second time, when he was Northern Ireland Secretary, when the issue related to him allegedly helping another wealthy Indian family this time, the Hinduja's, to with their passport applications. Now, on that one, I think the, it was partly Peter's, the kind of baggage he was already carrying that led him maybe to being fired, possibly prematurely, but and to this day, less so Peter, but Peter's partner, Ronaldo, has always believed that I was behind that, completely wrong, but I mean, it sort of

• 7:27Alastair Campbell?

  did affect our relationship and I've still stayed friendly with Peter, but not with, I don't remember the last time I saw Ronaldo. He kind of avoids me. But and then when it came up to the ambassadorship, we talked about this on the podcast at the time. You know, Keir clearly wanted somebody who was a big hitter, a lot of experience with trade, a lot of experience with politics and would be able to to get into that circle. I felt on this one that this was always going to be a risk. I had no idea that Peter was quite as close to Epstein as these emails suggest that he that he was. But I think once you see them in black and white,

• 8:09Alastair Campbell?

  I think it's particularly the the two points. One is sort of having this arrangement after it's known that he's a convicted sex offender. But also, I think the thing that really will have tipped it over when you think about some of the issues to do with some of the sex offenders that have been exposed in Britain. This this notion that it wouldn't have happened in Britain, I don't quite get what that was about. Now, it's one thing to be friendly and supportive, but I think if you're a public figure, then you've got to be very, very careful around people like that. I mean, and I've said to you before, we talked about this, I've only met Jeffrey Epstein once, but I did have a sense very, very quickly. This isn't hindsight because I I said it at the time. I just had a very bad sense around that guy. I've always been very resistant.

• 8:54Alastair Campbell?

  To the idea that just because somebody's very, very wealthy, somehow they're extra special or extra clever or whatever, I'm always very suspicious of that.

• 9:01Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 9:01Alastair Campbell?

  And I think Peter's just got, you know, he's got, in a sense, got too close to the same sort of person.

• 9:06Rory Stewart?

  Well, it it does sound like it, doesn't it? Because all the three stories are stories about um being either close to very wealthy people or uh in one case, taking money from very wealthy people. Case of Epstein, um it's pretty uh disturbing because one of the things that seems to happen with Peter Mandelson is, and I'd love to get into this, is how he keeps coming back again, that none of these resignations are ever permanent. He he resigned about the Geoffrey Robinson thing, having only, I think, been the Secretary of State from July to December ninety eight. And then you, um Tony Blair's government brought him back in again as a Cabinet Minister in October ninety nine, so he was only left out for nine months before he was brought back again.

• 9:48Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 9:49Rory Stewart?

  Then he resigns again, then he goes to the European Commission, then he becomes um effectively Gordon Brown's almost Deputy Prime Minister, this very powerful First Secretary of State, Business Secretary, and it's during that period that we see not just him appearing at sort of birthday parties in Paris, but in two thousand nine, when he is Brown's defected Deputy Prime Minister, he's staying in Epstein's apartment in New York when Epstein is actually at that point in prison. So it's very, very odd for a a very senior Cabinet Minister to think that it's appropriate to stay in the apartment of a multimillionaire in New York who's in prison

• 10:28Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 10:29Rory Stewart?

  for child sex offences. And then by twenty ten, twenty eleven, he's getting into very complicated conversations about business appointments, JP Morgan, China, Congo, um two thousand eight, there are emails about him checking in, or maybe a bit later, checking in with Ehud Barak. I mean, this is all about, as you say, Epstein being a collector of people. Epstein was a friend, you know, he introduced famously to JP Morgan, introduced Sergey Brin to JP Morgan and from Google, introduced Benjamin Netanyahu to Google, was friend of Ehud Barak's. And what's going on with Mandelson as Mandelson is obviously looking for a job after he's left government.

• 11:10Rory Stewart?

  I remember that moment in Mandelson's life, I remember seeing him in 2010 after he'd left government, going around with his business cards, introducing to people. It's clearly at that moment that he's reaching out to Epstein and trying to get these rather complicated conversations going. But the core thing I wanted to come back to is his positive qualities. What is it that means despite all of this, he keeps bouncing back, that nobody's like, oh, for goodness sake, this is, you know, it's a bit much. But there's sort of four rebirths and who knows? I mean, he tried just recently to be Chancellor of Oxford and who knows whether he won't have another reinvention in two years' time.

• 11:47Alastair Campbell?

  Well, not only that, he tried to be Chancellor of Oxford and said that he'd be able to do that whilst being US Ambassador at the same time, because neither of them at the time were sorted. And of course, William Hague won that election, so it didn't arise. Look, he's got a very good brain. He can be very, very, he's very clever. He's, he can be very charming. He's, one of the things that he and I share in common is that we, we think things through when we're addressing a problem by endlessly writing and talking and sometimes going around in circles till we get to the point that we think we should be at. He is, he's, he's somebody who's quite bold.

• 12:31Alastair Campbell?

  He will, you know, when any of these jobs that he was given, whether it was in the cabinet, whether it was back in the day when the Labour Party first made him Director for Communications, whether it was his ministerial appointments, whether it was European Commission, Gordon Brown bringing him back as a way of, I think, showing that he wanted to be inclusive and stop the sort of Blair Brown divisions that had been going on. Very capable of taking on big jobs, but I think if there is a flaw, I think it is this this sense of really being impressed by, drawn to, attracted by people who are inordinately successful in in financial and cultural terms, if you like.

• 13:13Alastair Campbell?

  Um, and but, you know, I look, I think it's going to be very, very hard. He'll be absolutely devastated by this. I mean, I've got no doubt at all about that. I mean, I was with him in the room after the second resignation. Well, I was with him in the first one, but the second one, when he was, you know, he was in tears and felt his life was over. Because the thing about Peter is he he's somebody who he's a very, very, very political animal. I mean, he needs, he needs to be in politics. He needs to be in public life and doing big things and addressing big challenges. So this will be absolutely devastating for him. And it's so public and it's so, it's not just about this. This is a story that won't just be in. I mean, it's I actually, I had an exchange with him yesterday and, you know, just sort of how's it going kind of thing and how's it feel.

• 13:58Alastair Campbell?

  And I said to him, is this the biggest story in in the States as it is in in the UK? And he said, no, because Trump's at the center of everything and and so forth. But I think he must have known that this was going to end up badly. And he and he did say the same thing as he said to Harry Cole, that there is going to be worse to come. And but, you know, he he that he he said that the mistake that he made was to rely on, to believe Ghislaine and Epstein's lawyers, that is it were being hard done by. Well, you know, I think we can.

• 14:30Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 14:31Alastair Campbell?

  We can all have our views on that.

• 14:32Rory Stewart?

  Final thing before we before we move on, we we've talked about this in the past, but there is a very strong culture, which certainly existed when I was in Parliament, and I imagine when you were around, which is when a colleague or a friend or someone is suddenly accused of something in the media, there is a big, big rush to immediately send supportive text letters saying, I'm on your side. Mandelson sending to Epstein, your friends stick with you and love you, you know, we're going to fight this every day. And it's part of a culture, I think, which assumes amongst people in prominent positions that they're being hard done by, they're being stitched up, that the press is always unfair,

• 15:17Rory Stewart?

  and that a true friend comes to you in a time of need and says, I'm on your side, this is outrageous, you're completely innocent.

• 15:23Alastair Campbell?

  There is something in that, in terms of, I mean, look, you know, and you've written a book about this, but politics is a pretty brutal place. And friendship, genuine friendships, can be quite hard to make and to keep and to develop. And so, for example, just to give you an example, when, so Peter and I did, we were very, very close for a long time. In fact, Fiona, my partner, she was a friend of Peter's before I'd even met Peter, from the sort of London Labour scene. But Peter and I were very, very close, worked together closely, socialised, holidays, all that stuff. The second resignation definitely changed the relationship in a pretty fundamental way. However, when I was in deep trouble

• 16:08Alastair Campbell?

  with the media, with politics, when I was on the point, for example, of leaving the government, Peter was very, very supportive. He would phone, he would check how I was and what have you. Now, on the one hand, I think he has moved away a fair bit from his original friendship circle in the Labour Party to a much grander scale of friendships that he would define as friendships. And clearly Epstein was one of those. But on the other hand, he was kind of, he was there when things were really, really tough. But at the same time, I think he didn't have, and maybe this is just my kind of chippy, northern, anti-Oxbridge kind of characteristic. But Fiona said to me yesterday, she said,

• 16:53Alastair Campbell?

  I don't have any, she didn't have any worries about me getting into this sort of situation because I am instinctively quite suspicious of very, very wealthy people who display their wealth and display their power and their influence. And I think that's something we should all hold on to in such a febrile political environment. You made the point there about he's effectively Deputy Prime Minister and he's staying in Epstein's flat. And also the other thing I think is important to. To maybe register on this, I thought Clive Lewis, the Labour MP, he wrote a really interesting piece on the back of the Angela Rayner resignation recently. I don't know if you read it, it was just a long

• 17:31Rory Stewart?

  Yes, I did.

• 17:32Alastair Campbell?

  A long thread on on social media. But he was basically making the the case that he felt that right across politics, there was almost a sense that it's so tough to do politics that actually, once you're out, if you are making loads of money and if you are doing well and if everybody's sort of, you know, being looked after by their friends and so over, that's almost like an entitlement. Whereas he was making the point that in a way, it's like Bill Clinton used to say, people shouldn't expect a blue ribbon. Doing the job is the blue ribbon. If you're in public service, that is the blue ribbon. And and of course, the the other, you know, terrible thing, and I unders- I sort of, I watched Prime Minister's Questions yesterday. And in part, part of the reason was I was, I assumed

• 18:14Alastair Campbell?

  that the Tories would go heavy on Peter and I wanted to sort of watch and see how it went. I actually thought Kemi Badenoch had her strongest day as opposition leader.

• 18:23Rory Stewart?

  Oh, that's interesting. Can I just, can I just stop that for a second?

• 18:26Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 18:26Rory Stewart?

  Because it's, I've I've never heard you praise her. Could you just, just tell us, just give us one sense of why you thought it was strong? What did she do well?

• 18:33Alastair Campbell?

  No, it's not that I've never praised her. I mean, look, to become leader of the Conservative Party, you've got to have something, okay? But but I've I've just felt since she took that job, that she hasn't been clear about how she's trying to use it. But I thought she missed, she, a week earlier, she should have really gone for Keir over Angela Rayner and didn't. Yesterday, I think she just had a very clear line of attack, you know, these, what we know already says you should fire him. The fact that you haven't, she took it to his weakness on on that. So I just thought she had, she was, but Keir Starmer, by this stage, had decided he was going to stand by Peter. It's a horrible position to be in that. He may have instinctively have

• 19:13Alastair Campbell?

  felt this does not look good. But the minute you start sort of equivocating, then it accelerates the process by which somebody is undermined and damaged. And so I, but but I felt that, I I said to Fiona afterwards, I said, look, yeah, I I think one, one more, one more thing is going to take this over the edge. And and that's exactly what's, what's happened. So. But there we are. I, I, I think, and look, and we've got the, we've got Trump coming to Britain for this really strange state visit where it's not going to be a, a real state visit because they can't bring him to Buckingham Palace and they don't want him in Parliament. But you do need to have ambassadors kind of doing the grunt work on this stuff. My recommendation, I don't know what Keir and Yvette Cooper, the new Foreign Secretary,

• 19:59Alastair Campbell?

  of course, she's had a baptism as well, hasn't she, what they, what they're going to do. But I, I mentioned when I was in Bosnia that people were absolutely singing the praises of Karen Pearce, who was the, the ambassador before, and maybe they should, they should just sort of get her off the bench.

• 20:14Rory Stewart?

  I'm deeply, deeply tempted by that. Karen Pearce is this incredible person who was also the UK ambassador in Afghanistan, as well as the UK ambassador in Washington. She's a very, very lovable, unconventional, bright, energetic figure. But, but I'm also aware that all the people who joined the Foreign Office with me are now hoping for that job and are going to be pretty cross at the idea of Karen Pearce getting a second bite at the cherry. So they're all, they're all sitting there hoping that finally they've got rid of the political appointment and a, and a career diplomat can, can take over.

• 20:45Alastair Campbell?

  Peter, without all the baggage, was a very good fit and, and was clearly doing well. I mean, the fact that, you know, apparently he was in seeing Trump again this week, you know, it's like he, he's clearly got it, managed to get himself a bit like David Lammy did with J D Vance, he's managed to get himself in there, which is what he's good at. But now he's gone.

• 21:05Rory Stewart?

  Now he's gone. Well, the, the other story that we've had is the tragic killing of Charlie Kirk, who is an online right wing MAGA influencer who was in a debate at a university in Utah when he was shot, fatally shot and killed. And many, many things to be, to be said about that. Firstly, obviously, to unreservedly condemn political assassination. It's a horrible thing to be in a situation, whatever your views are, that somebody's assassinating you. Secondly, to point out that he's a very major figure and that people who haven't paid attention to him should be paying attention. In a recent poll of people under 30 who voted for Trump, he was by far their most trusted figure.

• 21:50Rory Stewart?

  Literally billions of views on social media. He had a three hour daily talk radio show. I mean, can you imagine it be the equivalent of your eye just sort of banging on for three hours every day? Well, we sort of do. In recent, in recent days, Rory, we have been. That's why I'm so exhausted. Well, Charlie Kirk was, was unlike the rest of us. He was only thirty one years old. He dropped out of college and he took a very, very strong right wing position. And just, it's worth looking at a little bit because he tells you a lot about the voter base of Trump. And maybe has some suggestions about how this voter base is or is not like the voter base behind populist parties in Europe.

• 22:32Rory Stewart?

  So the American edge of it is obviously he's somebody who is very much in favor of guns against, against birth control pills and stuff. So that socially conservative stuff maybe has less relevance in Europe, not quite the same relevance. But right in the center of it is an attack on Islam. He keeps coming back to, for example, when Zorin Mamdani, the, the man who's now the front runner to be the mayor of New York, was, came through the primary, he immediately said, in nine eleven Muslims blew up the twin towers. And now we have a Muslim about to be mayor of New York. And, and that very much gets to the core of Charlie Kirk's profoundly Islamophobic worldview.

• 23:16Rory Stewart?

  The second thing that relates to this, which is not unusual now in people on the far right, a very, very strong supporter of Israel. And remarkably, if you look at Jerusalem Post, almost every single figure in the Israeli cabinet, and a lot of people in the Israeli opposition immediately came out to pay tribute to Charlie Kirk. Benjamin Netanyahu himself said that Charlie Kirk recognized that our shared Judeo-Christian heritage was under threat.

• 23:43Rory Stewart?

  And this again is is the anti Muslim thing is playing into that, but you've also got statements in his favour from Benny Gantz, from Isaac Herzog, the president, and right the way through to on the right, Ben Gavir. Final thing for me, he was of course very much somebody who was a spreading Covid vaccine scepticism, very much argued that voter fraud had led to Trump being denied the election which which Biden won. But no doubt at all, very, very powerful and a huge indicator of of the mindset that's right at the heart of a lot of Trump politics. Over to you.

• 24:18Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And also, as you say, I mean, he's he's the same age as my youngest child. So, you know, he's young, thirty one, and it is awful, no matter, you know, no matter what anybody's politics, it is awful that you can't go out. And and I actually respect him for what he the way that he did these debates. I mean, I I abhor a lot of what his views are and what he stands for. But I actually think the the idea of going out, getting big audiences, and he did this thing where he literally debated people one on one on stage in front of the audience and.

• 24:51Rory Stewart?

  It's called prove me prove me wrong.

• 24:52Alastair Campbell?

  Prove me wrong, yeah.

• 24:53Rory Stewart?

  Prove me wrong, yeah.

• 24:54Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, and and and so that that is that is awful. But I think also the the the way that almost immediately it's been weaponised against the Democrats. I mean, I posted a thing earlier, and it was it was all of the kind of big MAGA influencers tweets and reactions, and all basically pointing at the Democrats. Trump, whose first reaction was actually fairly human, but then when he did the thing, the more considered thing behind the Resolute Desk, piece to camera, it was basically he's been killed by left wing rhetoric. And that is so dangerous because, you know, two things. First of all, there have been assassinations and attempted assassinations of people on the left and on the right. They should all be condemned in exactly the same terms, no matter who we're talking about. But there

• 25:39Alastair Campbell?

  have been assassinations of of left leaning politicians that.

• 25:44Alastair Campbell?

  This next to no reaction and likewise with with the Nancy Pelosi's husband when he was attacked. You had people on the right out celebrating and saying it would serve them right. And of course, the big one, um, January the sixth. I mean, let's, let's, I think the weaponization of his death against the Democrats is abhorrent. I thought if you want to look at a properly presidential response to this, have a look at the way that Barack Obama expressed it, essentially said that, you know, you've got to be an absolute tragedy, unacceptable in any circumstances or political violence. Says thoughts with wife and two young children who who will no longer have a father, you know, and also just

• 26:24Alastair Campbell?

  the guy's died and it's tragic, but the views, it's important that we don't lose sight of some of the views that he expressed because they were horrific. His views on Israel were really, really extreme. And and also the, you know, and he's also, there's, there's film of him circulating, saying that he's such a strong supporter of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which has been misinterpreted as anybody should be allowed to carry any guns they want. That, you know, you have to, if you have to pay a price for that, if some people get assassinated, which in the current context is really chilling as a thought. And so he clearly had unbelievably charismatic character, really could inspire

• 27:08Alastair Campbell?

  young people, particularly on the right, but, you know, as you say, in relation to COVID, he was, he was not averse to using that platform to spread conspiracy theories, to polarize, to divide. And if ever there is a moment where we need a leadership that will try to unite rather than divide, it's now. And I'm afraid we did not get that from Donald Trump and many of the MAGA people today.

• 27:30Rory Stewart?

  No, no, and I'm afraid Charlie Kirk will rapidly become a very powerful martyr for that movement. He will become a symbol for all those Trump voters under thirty who saw him as their most trusted figure has just been killed. It will play very, very directly into a lot of the conspiracy theories at the heart of the MAGA movement and therefore it will make American politics that much more dangerous, that much more polarized as we head towards the midterms.

• 27:58Alastair Campbell?

  I also, one of the point I made and it's our old friend. Slash brackets, not Boris Johnson, his almost immediate response was to play into this game of this is down to the Democrat, this is on the Democrats kind of thing.

• 28:13Rory Stewart?

  Oh, it's extraordinary statement by Johnson. He basically turned the whole thing into a defence of Charlie Kirk's ideas.

• 28:18Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 28:19Rory Stewart?

  Rather than focusing, as you say, as Obama did, on the horror of the assassination.

• 28:24Alastair Campbell?

  And Sarah Vine as well, saying that, you know, they can't, they can't beat us on ideas, so they go around killing us. I mean, it's just absolute nonsense. And also, this is where they know literally nothing about the person who did it, because they haven't found him yet. So they know nothing. Um, you know, and, and all that does, of course, is all the sort of conspiracy theories that fly around. I mean, I have to say, having watched the pretty chilling video of it, to shoot somebody that accurately from 200 yards, I mean, that is, that is somebody who knows how to use a, whatever gun they were using. And so whether it was a sort of professional hitman, but for senior politicians on the back of it immediately to say, this is down

• 29:07Alastair Campbell?

  to the Democrats, this is down to the anti-left rhetoric, when the really violent rhetoric in American politics has been coming for a long time from the right. And whether this will, will they ever, ever face up to the reality of the consequences of the gun culture that they've developed, heaven knows, but I don't know. It's a very sad day.

• 29:30Rory Stewart?

  Well, Alistair, thank you. That, that's all for now. And now for the question time, which we recorded earlier this week.

• 29:43Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 29:46Rory Stewart?

  And with me, Rory Stewart. And Alistair, we can't get through a week, obviously, of the rest of politics without extraordinary stuff going on in the US and, and to our fury, that's partly because that's how Trump lives. And there's many, many different things going on. But I wondered, out of the renaming of the Department of Defence as the Department of War, the decision to launch a, a strike against a ship off the coast of Venezuela, and new developments in terms of his appointments, the Epstein files and his deployment of troops into Chicago, where would you like to go on Trump?

• 30:22Alastair Campbell?

  Well, actually, Nigel McPhee, Trip Plus member from Bedfordshire. This is a comment, I think, more than a question. By how much do you think Trump accelerated his chances of landing the Nobel Peace Prize when he signed an executive order renaming the Department of Defence as the Department of War? Very good point. Possibly related question, was Trump's Venezuelan drug boat strike illegal? Now, you've got strong views on this one, I know, so far away.

• 30:49Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so it is entirely illegal and completely shocking, and it's an extraordinary sign of how far we've fallen away in the world, that anyone would think that the United States, in international waters, with no congressional authorisation, with no legal argument, instead of attempting to apprehend the vessel and arrest the people and put them on trial, just kills them. And kills them without telling us who they are, what evidence they have, even where the boat was sailing. I mean, Marco Rubio suggests initially it was sailing towards Venezuela, then he changed his mind and said it was sailing towards the US. And when J D Vance was challenged on social media, and you know, really lean into this, because we haven't maybe done enough on him recently after our Members series

• 31:33Rory Stewart?

  on him, and J D Vance, the Yale Law School graduate, was challenged on social media about the fact this was entirely illegal, to which he responded, I don't give an F. So there's this President, Vice President of the United States, basically saying he doesn't care whether what they're doing is legal or not legal. But to go back to the story, if you went back to 2001, 2002, 9/11, it was already very controversial, the congressional authorisations for drone strikes in general, because they're basically targeted assassination hits, right? There's no innocent until proven guilty. Somebody just announces that somebody is a terrorist, and then you get to shoot them out of the sky. But the arguments for

• 32:15Rory Stewart?

  that, dubious though they were, were all around things like imminent danger, imminent existential threat to the US. None of that's going on in these strikes. The most that's being claimed about these strikes is this is a boat which may have been carrying drugs, and apparently that then gives authorisation to the US military to just kill everybody on board the boat with no questions asked.

• 32:36Alastair Campbell?

  If you go further back, I can't remember the exact year, but I was a journalist when... At the time of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace ship sunk by France out of their own waters. And as a sort of global political event, the legal ramifications of which were discussed, that went on for years. This one, it's like, well, it's happened and Trump's not going to explain. And Vance, as you say, is going to tell everybody who questions it to F off. Hexeth is going to go out and say he's got any power he wants to deal with this because we've designated this as a terrorist threat, the whole drugs trade. We're in this, this new world of impunity that we've talked about so much.

• 33:20Rory Stewart?

  And If you think about the controversy around what happened in Gibraltar, the assassination of suspected IRA members by an SAS team in Gibraltar.

• 33:29Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 33:30Rory Stewart?

  And how long that went on and how, you know, much that went to the heart of the British legal system compared to this. I mean, there's even a suggestion that the reason why Trump did it is that he's been illegally detaining Venezuelans in the US and evicting them. And a court ruled that he can't do that under the Enemy Aliens Act because he's not actually at war with Venezuela. So it's a suggestion that he's actually deliberately blown up this Venezuelan ship in order to prove that he's at war with Venezuela, in order to justify rounding up Venezuelan citizens and throwing them out of the US.

• 34:04Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Ezra Klein, New York Times, who interviewed and leading a while back, he wrote a brilliant piece this week. Just when you see the list, he listed all the utterly abnormal things that have happened in Trump term two. I won't, we'll put it in the newsletter. I won't list them all here because there are dozens and dozens and dozens. And this goes back to the point I made from Vlad Wexler yesterday on the main episode is that we haven't worked to work, worked out a way to, to talk about and to discuss and to report this stuff because so much of it is so abnormal. I'll give you on a completely different sort of scale.

• 34:42Alastair Campbell?

  This is abnormal that Donald Trump decides to go to the tennis final, the US Open. Thousands and thousands of people are delayed. The game is delayed because of all the extra security measures put in place. I actually made a point of speaking to somebody I knew was there, okay? After the event, because I saw some reports saying that he was roundly booed. I saw other reports saying that he was cheered as he entered the stadium. And you think, well, what do you believe? And of course, the person I spoke to said, well, there was some cheering, but it was completely drowned out by very loud booing. When his face came on the big thing above the thing. The next day, this goes back to day one of term one, when he claimed that there were more people at his inauguration than Obama's.

• 35:26Alastair Campbell?

  The White House press office just bombarding people with saying this is fake news to say that he was booed. And this is what I mean about the utter abnormality of everything that surrounds him. So whether it's, you know, life and death stuff, like, you know, they're killing people on boats and because they say it's a war on drugs. Or it's really trivial stuff. They just are commanding the conversation in a way that's sort of, I think it's unfathomable. It's people just turn away because it's unfathomable.

• 35:57Rory Stewart?

  Um, Alice, we, we have a question that came in, and this is genuinely true. I'm not, I'm not kidding you from my mother saying, when are you going to cover? She is a Trip Plus member. When are you going to cover what's happening in Haiti? And by coincidence, you really want to do something on Haiti. So there we are, my mother and you are having some kind of mind meld. Can I just bring you into Haiti? Here's, here's the sort of an interesting connection also that struck me with what we were just talking about, which is in Haiti now. Eric Prince, who is a US security contractor, is supplying drones to what remains of the Haitian police. And they've killed about 300 people with these drones over the last few months, including recently two completely innocent women. One of them was a street vendor on the street who was just taken out by this drone when they were attempting to get a gang.

• 36:42Rory Stewart?

  And so there's a developing world around drones. You've talked about with Ukraine, there's a developing world around the idea that governments now can with impunity kill. Civilians not explain themselves, claim that they're going after some initially terrorist and then drug runner and now apparently any criminal gang member can just be killed from the air with no form of arrest or trial. But over to you on Haiti.

• 37:06Alastair Campbell?

  I'm glad your mother was wanted to and heaven knows where she's been reading about it because there's been so little about Haiti in in our media in recent weeks. Look, there's been violence in Haiti for quite a long time, these powerful, very powerful armed groups, often linked to political groups and business leaders. So they've been sort of fighting for influence and territory for a long time. And then about five years ago now, in fact, it's almost exactly five years, I think. Um, the then president Jovenel Moise got assassinated. And he's not been replaced. So unsurprisingly, with that kind of power vacuum, these existing gangs have developed and so forth. Now, there is, to be fair to the American ambassador there, a woman called Dorothy Shea.

• 37:52Alastair Campbell?

  She is trying to get United Nations authorization um for what she calls a gang suppression force. And I haven't knows what Trump would make of that and what he would do with that would be horrific. But if the international community doesn't step up on this, it's it's impossible to imagine what's going to happen. You remember in last year, I think, no, twenty twenty four, yeah, twenty twenty four. Kenya agreed to supply a military force to try to keep the peace. And they reckon that they would need at least two and a half thousand troops to do that. The current strength is well below a thousand. Um, so they're not able to to keep control. And the other thing I just want to briefly touch on, Rory, and I don't know whether your mother is aware of this, but the levels of

• 38:34Alastair Campbell?

  sexual violence are on a scale that is just utterly horrific. So Haiti is a complete mess and it feels to me like with a few exceptions in the world, it's yet another shock and yawn. We know it's terrible, but there's nothing we can do, so let's not look.

• 38:49Rory Stewart?

  We discussed Haiti, uh, you remember about, I guess, uh, just every year ago. And it's so striking how, as you say, we we raise these issues, we discuss them on the podcast. And when we were discussing it a year ago, we were talking about the fact that about eighty percent of Port-au-Prince, which is the capital, was under the control of the gangs. And about, I think, at that stage, about one hundred and fifty thousand people had been internally displaced. It's now closer to ninety percent of the capital under the control and well over a million. Have been displaced, it's been getting significantly worse. Haiti, just again, just to remind people, it's a country that matters. I mean, it's a, it's very close to the US.

• 39:31Rory Stewart?

  Of course, it's one half of an island with the Dominican Republic. Uh, which is a sort of so close to the US, it's, it's quite difficult to work out its constitutional position. And it's a place with a population comparable, I suppose, to Jordan or, or Sweden. Uh, or Israel, around the sort of ten, twelve million range. Was famous because it was the first country to have a slave revolution, which in the early nineteenth century, uh, totally kicked out the French and declared full independence. The slaves, uh, uh, mostly the African population and mulatto population of Haiti,

• 40:14Rory Stewart?

  found independence and kept independence. Uh, and, and then it was occupied by the US in the interwar period. And then came under Papa Doc Duvalier, Baby Doc Duralier, this horrifying, um, world described by Graham Greene, the Tonton Makou, and these incredible worlds, where Haiti in the seventies became almost a sort of byword for all the kind of weirdest fantasies of the world in terms of criminality and voodoo. And then there was a brief moment of optimism in the late eighties, early nineties. A man called Aristide, who'd been a, a, a very courageous priest, came in.

• 40:56Rory Stewart?

  And he went in and out of office through the nineties and early two thousands. There was the horrible earthquake in, in twenty ten. But now Haiti is in a world in which healthcare infrastructures vanished. The USAID funding that used to keep things like the HIV AIDS work alive has disappeared. Uh, there has been this strange temporary presidency and many things that you'd be familiar with from other parts of the world. So for example, there was a Kind of UN technocratic prime minister who never really seemed to get it, who went at the beginning of the year, then replaced by a man who's meant to be kind of more of an operator with more sort of political fingers on the levers. Sounds a bit like,

• 41:37Rory Stewart?

  you know, Afghanistan, where we went from kind of UN technocrats to kind of political activists. But a real sense of institutions collapsed, the police that barely exists now, a civil service that barely exists, no money in the government coffers. And now Trump doing something, and I'd love to know your responses. One senses that Trump oddly has now turned around and is looking at this and is trying to pressure other countries to engage. So I'm getting stories coming out of Canada that as part of the negotiations between the US and Canada, Trump is trying to say, why don't you, Canada, take over Haiti? By the way, we, the US, are not going to put boots on the ground. We may not even

• 42:18Rory Stewart?

  provide any money, but we'll provide coordination and planning for you. And dear Canadians, maybe you can step in and sort this out. And there are even people in the Canadian government who seem to be interested.

• 42:29Alastair Campbell?

  That's interesting, because one of the things that's sort of doing the rounds is that this ambassador, the acting ambassador, Dorothy Shea, is that she and Panama are trying to put together a plan for the United Nations Security Council, who find it difficult to agree about much, but they might agree on this, to actually authorize a force up to five and a half thousand to try and go in there and sort this out. So that's interesting. That's very interesting. I hadn't heard that at all.

• 42:58Rory Stewart?

  Just on this, if you were advising Carney, this is a bit unfair to you to put you on the spot, but would you be saying that, and this would have to be if Canada really leant into Haiti and Ukraine, that would consume most of their foreign policy energy? I mean, that would really be diverting them away from the other possibility. There are kind of two paths for Canada.

• 43:15Alastair Campbell?

  If you've got a United Nations Security Council resolution. Then that would be another coalition of the willing. So that, you know, could the United Nations between them put together five and a half thousand troops that have got vast experience in peacekeeping and, you know, limited missions and so forth? They could. So, yeah, my, look, one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this is I actually think this is, dare I say it, from the United States, a good idea. Heaven knows how he would implement it. But so I think a multinational force to go in there and try to get some sort of control. And Rory, we interviewed this week on leading James Elder from UNICEF, who was talking about Gaza. And honestly, it's, somebody in the

• 43:58Alastair Campbell?

  swimming pool this morning said that they thought it was the most important interview we've ever done, because they'd never heard somebody speak quite so clearly and quite so graphically about what's going on. But UNICEF, last week, the head of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, she put out a report that around half of the membership of these gangs in Haiti are children. They're children who are being forced to join these gangs to operate as, including as soldiers, including as, you know, armed fighters, as well as doing all the other stuff with couriers and lookouts and porters and all that stuff. I just don't understand why this, I guess it is because there's so much bad stuff in the world.

• 44:39Rory Stewart?

  If I can do a bit of agreeable disagreement, I mean, I think it's a hell of a cheek of the US. I think there's something so disturbing about this, because the the the undercurrent is Trump gets to behave as he wants. He gets to say, we're not going to put any US money in, we're not going to put any troops on the ground. And by the way, we're going to probably leverage our trade negotiation, our 25% tariffs against Canada into forcing Canada to go into what is one of the most difficult situations in the world. I mean, you know, there have been, remember, the US in the early 90s went into Haiti with 20,000 people. I mean, it's one of these, Haiti's become almost short of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's difficult to think of a place where the UN and the international

• 45:21Rory Stewart?

  community has failed more and more successfully over time. My instinct with Canada would be. For goodness sake, do not get sucked into saying we're going to take the lead in Haiti.

• 45:34Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but this could only be done through the United Nations Security Council. If the idea that Trump can sort of order other governments to go and sort out trouble spots around the world is the sort of world that he's trying to create. So I'm with you on that. But assuming and that this acting ambassador is acting actually because she's there and can see how bad it is. And she's trying to get the United Nations to face up to this, then I think that I think we should welcome that. By the way, we did have quite a lot of these questions recently saying, can you, can you guys try and lighten up sometimes? So it is so heavy, this stuff, but it's like, I do think that part of what we can, you know, the message to media. I know it's difficult. I know there's a lot going on in the world, but there should be more coverage of Haiti. That's my, that's my last point.

• 46:18Rory Stewart?

  A cultural change. I mean, it is incredible. Some of the journalism that was once written about Haiti. People like Mark Dana from, from The New Yorker or, or Amy Wilentz, who's written this incredible book called Farewell Fred Voodoo. A Letter From Haiti. The, the title Fred Voodoo is, is an ironic title. She's somebody who really loves Haiti, been there sort of forty, forty five times. And talking about the way in which people stereotype Haitians, how much she just loves the country. And, and this is a, a journalist who knows everybody, can go from the kind of air conditioned houses in the hills of Porto Praz to people living in tents and develop relationships thirty years.

• 46:58Rory Stewart?

  But my goodness, it's getting access to this stuff, reminding people of this stuff. Podcasts, I think. I mean, just, just on this, we, we talk a lot about how the media hasn't been covering it. And you're absolutely right. When I said to my mother, can you send me an article on Haiti? She said, I don't have any article on Haiti. Nobody's been covering it. So she agrees with you. But it is interesting how some of these, this podcast world, particularly some of the American think tanks. Are still producing really interesting, geeky, detailed, one, one and a half hour stuff on Colombia or on Haiti, coming out of CSIS, coming out of Carnegie, coming out of foreign policy podcast, et cetera. So people who want to really geek out, there is some of that stuff there. But even on Haiti, a lot of it is from last year. It's

• 47:43Rory Stewart?

  quite difficult finding good stuff that's been done in the last eight months.

• 47:46Alastair Campbell?

  Right, Rory, Albie Smith, who's a Trip Plus man from Bristol, wants to know what we think about Zach Palansky, the new leader of the Green Party, eco-populist, he describes himself, he won eighty-five percent of the vote. Will adopting a Farage-esque method of communicating on the other side of the spectrum draw in new voters or smother momentum they may have had from rural, traditionally Tory-voting constituencies. He's an interesting guy.

• 48:12Rory Stewart?

  Well, he first came to my attention, as he may have done to you, for this amazing article in The Sun, where the Sun correspondent went to see him when he was a hypnotherapist. And he taught her how, through visualization, she could make her breasts larger. And you read through the article, and genuinely, at the end of his sessions with her, where she imagines her breasts being larger, her breasts get, I think, two sizes larger. Zach Palansky has since apologized for this, although actually the journalist seemed very convinced by his approach. This magic that he's able to bring to people's bosoms, he's now bringing to the Green Party. What do you make of it?

• 48:50Alastair Campbell?

  I've got to say, the point about his communication, I saw, because I knew that we'd, I'd seen these questions, and we had loads last week when he was first elected. So I sort of had a little look at some of the stuff he did. And he did a film yesterday where he went, he went walkabout in Clacton. He went to Farage's constituency, and he talked to lots of Farage's constituents. And just as, you know, when the BBC tend to go and talk to Farage supporters, they all say how marvelous it is, Zach Palansky managed to find a lot of people who really, really don't like Nigel Farage. And then then he did that thing of, sort of a bit like Mamdani, then said, well, what would you think if, what would you think of a party that put forward this or put forward that? And this would be sort of a Green Party policy, wealth tax, taking on the banks,

• 49:35Alastair Campbell?

  you know, water companies, et cetera. He's a very effective communicator, no doubt about that at all. He gets the social media stuff. I think the interesting question... Is where he is aiming to try to get support. He's clearly way, this relates to Albie's question. He's way to the left of the, the, the kind of, the people who maybe were drawn to the Greens purely in relation to, please, somebody fight to save the planet, please fight for the environment, et cetera. He's, he, he, he's very aligned with Jeremy Corbyn. I wonder actually whether Jeremy Corbyn has as much to worry from Zach Polanski as the Labour Party. Um, but that depends, you know, there is some talk already about whether they might actually form a sort of electoral pact of some sort.

• 50:18Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I mean, Corbyn's been praising him, hasn't he? Um, no, Polanski is interesting. He, he, I mean, even his name's interesting. He was, he, he was, until he was 18, he was called David Paldon. And he took on the name Zach Polanski as a way of embracing his Jewish heritage and emphasizing his identity. He, he was then, I think, an actor for a bit. Um, I, I, I, it's very interesting.

• 50:44Alastair Campbell?

  He was a Lib Dem, he was a Lib Dem, wasn't he?

• 50:46Rory Stewart?

  He was a Lib Dem for a bit. Yep, that's right. He, he, he, he made a name for himself, I think, in a Lib Dem conference, doing some big challenges around Brexit. Um, we should, we should get him on the podcast. I mean, I, I, yeah, because I'm being a bit unfair. Because I'm banging on about his, um, his hypnotherapy and his name changes. Let's try to get a bit more of the sense of substance to him.

• 51:05Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm reading lots about Rupert Murdoch at the moment because Michael Wolf and I are going to be doing this mini series quite soon. And it's really interesting. He, the, the, you get the feeling of Murdoch, that he was quite scared of strong women. And he had a mother that was clearly quite tough with him. And the reason why, I get the very strong sense that the reason why they didn't have Page Three girls in his Australian newspapers was because his mother would see them and she didn't like the lewdness that was associated with them. So there we are. That's, that, that, you, you prompted me to talk about the Sun and Rupert Murdoch. On the Sun and Rupert Murdoch and Zach Polanski, final point on Zach Polanski, I didn't know he'd changed his name. I'm always very suspicious of people who. Change their name.

• 51:50Rory Stewart?

  Hmm.

• 51:51Alastair Campbell?

  Stephen Yaxley Lennon becomes Tommy Robinson.

• 51:54Rory Stewart?

  Hmm.

• 51:54Alastair Campbell?

  Zach Polanski wasn't really Zach Polanski. Are you not a bit worried about that?

• 51:58Rory Stewart?

  Well, it's it's it's interesting, isn't it? And we'll get into that when we, I'm sure he'll come on.

• 52:02Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 52:02Rory Stewart?

  He he's happy to communicate. So let's let's get him on and talk to him. Well, let's take a break and then we're going to come back to talk about AI. We're going to talk about the question of Carlo Akutis, the new British-born saint.

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• 54:05Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question Time with me Rory Stewart. Me, Alastair Campbell. And this question is brought to you by Wordsmith AI, which have fortunately, apart from sponsoring our programme, have got on to one of my very favourite subjects in the world, which of course is artificial intelligence and government. So Wordsmith AI work to deal with paperwork to try to make sure that you make things more efficient. But the question is from Oliver Bennett, is bureaucracy the biggest brake on Britain's progress? Could AI release it? I'm mesmerised by this because the potential is absolutely unbelievable. Listen, AI could completely transform productivity in public services. As everybody knows, every bit of

• 54:50Rory Stewart?

  government is drowning under paperwork. Doesn't matter whether you're talking to a government lawyer, or a doctor, or a teacher, people just feel far too much of their time is taken up with bureaucracy and paperwork. In fact, there are stats on this. Seventy-five per cent of teachers say they're spending too much time on admin tasks. Sixty-one per cent of UK doctors, GPs currently spend around six of their time just on documentation. So you could literally be seeing probably another two or three patients a day if you weren't having to do so much documentation. Of course, AI can take the burden of most of that away. I mean, to take another example, it's dear to my heart, from when I was the Justice Minister, courts have an incredible backlog, something like seventy-one thousand cases currently

• 55:35Rory Stewart?

  in backlog. And the courts, this is stuff covered by the secret barrister, our courts are completely creaking. And again, AI and the kind of stuff that Wordsmith AI does in terms of supporting legal teams, could do a huge amount to turn this around. So that's just the thin end of the wedge. You know, I imagine that over the next few years, we will see incredible applications of this. And Wordsmith AI is a very interesting, although not the only example, of how this can be transformative. My mother, for example, I don't know why I keep coming back to my mother in this episode, maybe it's like Rupert Murdoch, we all talk about our mothers all the time, was talking about that she was trying to work out how to celebrate the 150th anniversary of her local Parish church, went into Grok and Chat GPT. My mother's just turning ninety to get a sense of the uptake here.

• 56:19Rory Stewart?

  The most extraordinary, both very, very detailed, thoughtful, imaginative calendar of events, which you could do to celebrate the anniversary of a small parish church. A theologically literate, full of fun ideas, full of ideas on how to work with different things, all produced in a lovely calendar.

• 56:36Alastair Campbell?

  I was at the cricket the other day and I was sitting next to Peter Franco Pan, the historian. And we were musing away in between watching the cricket. Anyway, he then gets on his phone. I'm sitting there, he goes on to Chat GPT and he said, if Alastair Campbell wanted to invent something.

• 56:53Alastair Campbell?

  So that he could had invention to some to his to his long list of bloody, bloody, blah, blah. What might he invent? Give me five political and five non-political. And I can't remember what they were, but they came up in like two seconds. And two or three of them, I thought, yeah, that's really interesting. I could maybe try and do that. One was a global referendum on climate, climate change. To invent the concept of a global referendum. Um. So it had loads of democratic dashboards and there was something to do with stuff you could do in schools and what have you. Um. And let me tell you, Roy, I I was reading a thing on Politico. You know, my friend Eddie Rama, I've not talked to him about this. I don't know this is true. But Politico tend not to make loads of stuff up. The headline is Albania turns to AI to beat corruption and join EU.

• 57:38Alastair Campbell?

  And Eddie Rama is musing about the idea of a ministry that is run by AI. Saying that it could, the technology could become the most efficient member of the Albanian government and you it would help cut out corruption. I don't know how it'd work, but that's all I'm saying. That's all I know.

• 57:54Rory Stewart?

  Well, listen, I mean, we we have to keep coming back to this because a lot of what's going on, not not just in reality, but in the US markets, global markets is all about everybody getting excited by AI. Lot of the assumptions about how public services can be turned around, is Oliver's question, is about using AI. In the health service, for radiology, for diagnosis. Um. And at the heart of it, my my biggest anxiety, which remains that if these large language models. The kind of thing that you were playing. With Peter Frankopan with become ever more powerful and we reach superintelligence relatively soon and these things become right at the very centre of our economy, our government and our national security.

• 58:38Rory Stewart?

  We have a big problem if these things are only owned by the Americans and the Chinese and Britain and Europe doesn't have one of its own. I mean, it would be like us being at the beginning of the nuclear age without our own nuclear bomb, but worse, because this isn't just defence, this is everything.

• 58:53Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that question was brought to you by Wordsmith AI. The rest is politics, listeners get free access to the Wordsmith Academy and the report on the future of legal skills, because that's one of the the big things that they're helping with and reforming and modernising the legal system. Go to wordsmith.ai/politics.

• 59:11Rory Stewart?

  And here's a great question from Jonathan from Sheffield. And the question is, is the Vladimir Putin today the same Vladimir Putin that Bill Clinton was dealing with?

• 59:22Alastair Campbell?

  I imagine that Jonathan has seen and read the same stuff that I have seen and read. I was alerted to it at the cricket by the historian Peter Frankopan, who said to me very excitedly, have you seen these new newly declassified papers detailing Clinton's first meetings with Putin? The answer to which was, no, I haven't. So I looked them up. I thought I'd send them to you. They're absolutely fascinating. And what they say, what they would reveal, if you're taking the Putin of then at face value is the answer to the question is, no, he is not. There's even this extraordinary discussion they have, prompted, provoked by Putin about

• 1:00:04Alastair Campbell?

  whether there might be a way of getting Russia to be a part of NATO. And that, by the way, I remember we had discussions like that, and that was one of the reasons why Tony Blair was very keen to push for Russia to become part of the of the G7 and make it the G8. But the whole nature of this is what happened was Stro Toulbert, who was one of Clinton's main advisers, he took a really detailed note. And of course, when they go in through interpreters, you make better notes anyway, because you can, you've got your own, you've got your own language, which you understood, and you've got the interpreter telling you the other guy. And they're fascinating about all sorts of things. Putin, for example, saying how much he admires Bill Clinton's capacity for friendship, because

• 1:00:49Alastair Campbell?

  he says, I don't, I find it impossible to have any friends. If you're the president, it's very, it's very hard to get somebody who will even do judo with you. He talks about his children and how worried he is about their, their security and this sort of thing. And then on the bigger picture, you really get the sense of somebody who's trying to lean towards the West. And Peter, when Peter and I discussed it, Peter was saying, well, look, maybe you guys and Clinton and us, the rest, maybe we missed a moment there. Maybe he was actually trying to signal, I'm coming to the West.

• 1:01:20Rory Stewart?

  Well, this is the big, big question, isn't it? And it depends how you read him, because people who are sympathetic towards him say exactly that. They would say that when Tony Blair famously said to you, I think this is someone we can do business with. At that stage, maybe you could, and the argument there from, from this pro-Russian camp is that if the West had really reached out to him and reassured him, instead of undermining him and cheating him in different ways, he would have remained on site. And they would point, for example, to

• 1:01:52Rory Stewart?

  breaking what he thought were our undertakings on NATO accession for Ukraine. What we seem to do in Georgia and the support for the colour revolutions, the early 2000s, all of which threatened him. They'd also would say that what David Cameron did over the Libya vote in 2011, where Russia had quite reluctantly agreed not to veto the intervention against Gaddafi, but believed it was going to be limited to airstrikes and suddenly it became full intervention. These were things that convinced Putin that actually it's impossible ever to trust the West and that the US and its allies were dedicated to undermining the USSR. And that in the end, the only possible solution was to build up, defend yourself, protect yourself.

• 1:02:37Rory Stewart?

  Otherwise you'd end up with all this regime change. So I, I don't know, I don't know how you'd ever resolve it. I don't know, because the other view is, no, no, no, this guy's been a KGB Russian nationalist from the very beginning, obsessed with recreating a Russian empire.

• 1:02:49Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I, I actually, I discussed it with somebody who works in the American. Foreign policy area now. And so we got to think of this as well. You've got to remember the guy was playing a game the whole time. Their view is that Clinton was being played. We were being played that that actually he is the same person. And I think Fiona Hill, that was, that was her view to some extent when, when we, we interviewed her that, you know, the, the basic sort of political geostrategic DNA in, in Putin hadn't changed. But they're a fascinating read. They really are. And some of it's like verbatim, you know, and there's bits where you see the, you very much see the Putin of today. Clinton's talking about Chechnya. He's worried about the war spreading to Georgia and Putin just says,

• 1:03:32Alastair Campbell?

  Chechnya is part of Russia. We have to fight terrorism and banditism. Our Georgian friends are idiots and chickens. That's much more like how he now talks about Ukraine. Other bits, he's absolutely flattering Clinton. He's saying how much he admires America. He's saying Russians could never imagine living in China, but they could really imagine wanting to live in, in America or Western Europe. Anyway, I'll send them to you. They're very, very interesting. We should put an account of them in the, in the newsletter as well.

• 1:04:02Rory Stewart?

  Oh, that sounds brilliant. Now, here's, here's an interesting question from James. Why is there not more speaking out from the media about the hundreds of arrests yet again in London this weekend? Does it require big name celebrities to be arrested for it to really break through into the mainstream news? So what happened is that about 1,500 people gathered in Parliament Square supporting Palestine Action, which is a group that's now been prescribed as a terrorist group. They're a direct action group that, that broke into an RAF base and spray painted planes and things. And the aim, I think, was to get almost 1,000 people arrested. And I think 857 were arrested and there were vicars and priests and war veterans and descendants of Holocaust survivors. And this was very

• 1:04:42Rory Stewart?

  much organised in solidarity with Palestine Action to overwhelm the justice system and demonstrate, I think, that the government had gone too far. But it hasn't really taken off. Is James right that they needed some more big name arrests? Did they need? Alastair Campbell being arrested for this to work?

• 1:05:01Alastair Campbell?

  I don't, well, I hope not. But I thought there was a lot of coverage of it, maybe, maybe less so in the papers, but certainly on television, there was loads of it. And it, and it wasn't good for the, I mean, I felt sorry for the police. They really, and they, I think the, I saw, I heard somebody yesterday in the Police Federation saying that the police are in an impossible position. Yes, they're breaking the law, but nothing is, I don't think anything's going to happen to these people unless they, you know, I talked to somebody who was, said that you get processed, and they just say, look, don't do it again. And if you do it again, well, I'll have to work out what happens then. They still, to my mind, the government has not yet won the case for why this was done in the first place. And they say it's because of these court cases that are still outstanding. But they, this is going to, the longer this goes on, the more ridiculous

• 1:05:45Alastair Campbell?

  it's going to look. But I, I don't think you could say it wasn't well covered. And of course, you talk about big name celebrities, Banksy, the famous mural artist, he has done this

• 1:05:58Alastair Campbell?

  painting on the wall of the Royal Courts of Justice. I mean, that's, that's had cut through. And they've now, you know, they've surrounded it by a sort of big, it looks like a crime scene now. I wonder if they should have just left it, because it's, Banksy's stuff gets seen all over the world. So just sort of, you know, leave it. But look, he's a big name celebrity, and that cut through. I guess that makes, maybe makes James's point.

• 1:06:20Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, just sort of, final thing on this. This idea that the police are obliged always to follow through and do stuff, was at the heart of, of this arrest of Graham Linehan, who was arrested by fine armed officers. And you, you shared this letter written to the police by Emma Nicholson, who you'll remember from Iraq, did a lot with the Marsh Arabs and this member of the House of Lords. And she writes-

• 1:06:47Alastair Campbell?

  It was a very funny letter.

• 1:06:48Rory Stewart?

  There's a sort of wonderful disparity between this, this member of the House of Lords in her eighties, and the tone of the letter, which goes, "One of the cited tweets ended with, 'Punch him in the balls.' Another ended with, 'Fem.' Is this to be taken literally as an incitement to violence? Do you or your officers sincerely contend?" That FM might be meant to cause anyone to engage in sexual intercourse, whether or not consensually. Do your colleagues require Parliament to legislate on the meaning of FM? And then she goes on to say that actually the police, I would hope your answer is obviously not, but I cannot be confident. If your officers can identify one phrase as not meant literally, surely they ought to be able to do that with the other and discuss the complaint. Anyway.

• 1:07:33Alastair Campbell?

  Which is a fair point, which is a fair point.

• 1:07:34Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Alastair Campbell?

  I I knew Emma Nicholson very well when I was a journalist. She was one of those sort of, she was a Tory back then, in Torridge and West Devon, which was, of which Tavistock is part. And of course, that's where I train as a journalist. I always got on very well with Emma Nicholson. I I say that letter because I thought it was very, very well written and very, very funny. But I should point out, Rory, she is eighty three.

• 1:07:58Rory Stewart?

  Oh, I'm so sorry.

• 1:07:59Alastair Campbell?

  And and I and I think she's looking very, very well for eighty three. And she's clearly still got her wit and her wits about her. Final question, Rory, is about this young London born guy, um, who's it had raised in Italy and who's become a saint. And Charlie Russell said, we've just seen this extraordinary story of Carlo Acutis. Fifteen year old is now being canonized. If you could nominate anyone, someone you've known, admired, or been moved by to become a saint, who would it be and why? I'm afraid I can only think of Fiona because so many people in my lifetime have said to me, she must be so, she must be such a saint to put up with you.

• 1:08:42Rory Stewart?

  That's right.

• 1:08:43Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, you say it all the time. So I'm going to go with Fiona, I'm afraid.

• 1:08:47Rory Stewart?

  Goodness, a saint.

• 1:08:48Alastair Campbell?

  You go with your mum?

• 1:08:49Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, I definitely anyone who puts up with either of us, I think. No, but it's it is really interesting that the Catholic Church is still creating saints. And of course, they need a certain number of miracles and they need to be approved by. A bureaucratic procedure.

• 1:09:03Alastair Campbell?

  I've, I've, I've got to say Rory, I, I, I don't want to upset, I, I like the new Pope. Uh, although this, this, this happened under the old Pope, but the process was taken forward. I, I read a really long read about this in The Economist.

• 1:09:16Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:17Alastair Campbell?

  And it felt a bit flimsy to me.

• 1:09:20Rory Stewart?

  Would you like to go on the miracles committee and maybe, you know, be, be a bit of a challenging voice?

• 1:09:25Alastair Campbell?

  I just didn't send, I didn't see, look, he, he, he, he created a website about miracles. Fair enough, that's an interesting thing to do. But I read that he wasn't particularly devout. What has struck me as what made him a saint was the fact that his mother fought an amazing campaign. Maybe Trump should hire her for the Nobel Peace Prize. He, she fought this public campaign, go around the world, trying to persuade people that her son should be a saint because somebody got very well on the day that he died or his funeral or something. I'm not convinced. I don't want to offend anybody with this, but I'm, I'm not convinced.

• 1:09:58Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, but a part of it is, am I right that it's part of it to do with the fact that, um, he, he inter, did an intercession and somebody survived a brain hemorrhage because of it?

• 1:10:09Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:10Rory Stewart?

  Do miracles, um, after your death counts? I, I, somebody needs to inform us a little bit about the details of how you, how you technically become a saint. But, but, but if I'm serious for a second, just to sort of finish on a bit of good news. Um, he certainly seems to have been an incredibly remarkable young man, died of leukemia tragically at fifteen. Um, somebody a bit like Simone Vey, who clearly had incredible compassion for people in difficult situations from a very early childhood. I mean, he's clearly a very, very beautiful, kind soul, a very wonderful young man.

• 1:10:44Alastair Campbell?

  I just get the feeling the Catholic Church thought, you know, we're looking a bit old and fuddy duddy. Can't we get a teenage saint? I'm sorry, I just think it feels like a bit too Piari for me, said the spin doctor.

• 1:10:56Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm not a Catholic and I'm not, I'm not really into creating modern saints, but I do love the idea that having people to look up to is a good idea. So maybe the word isn't saint, but maybe the word is hero. We, we need some heroes around.

• 1:11:09Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. And Rory Stewart, by the way, if you haven't listened to it, has done a BBC Radio Four series on heroes. From Alexander Tuzelinski, Veer, Carlo Acutis and Fiona Miller, the saint, the saint in my life.

• 1:11:26Rory Stewart?

  All right, Alistair, have a great, great afternoon. Bye bye.

• 1:11:28Alastair Campbell?

  See you soon. Bye bye.

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