409. Question Time: Trump's Golden Dome, Gaza's Global Outcry and Starmer's Prison Gamble

How should global leaders deal with Trump? Why have the UK, France and Canada chosen now to speak out against Israel? Are young women being taken for granted, politically? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. See Rory and Alastair Live on Tour Sunday, 9 Nov 2025: Bournemouth International Centre Tuesday, 11 Nov 2025: Eventim Apollo, London Wednesday, 12 Nov 2025: Eventim Apollo, London Saturday, 15 Nov 2025: SEC Armadillo, Glasgow Sunday, 16 Nov 2025: O2 Apollo Manchester Get your tickers here: https://aegp.uk/trip25 The Rest Is Politics Plus: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to Question Time episodes to live show tickets, ad-free listening for both TRIP and Leading, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to ⁠⁠therestispolitics.com⁠⁠ to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠apple.co/therestispolitics⁠⁠. 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 ⁠⁠GetFuse.com/Politics⁠⁠ ⚡ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ ⁠⁠nordvpn.com/restispolitics⁠⁠ It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to ⁠⁠www.goalhanger.com⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠@restispolitics⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠@RestIsPolitics⁠⁠ Email: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ Assistant Producers: India Dunkley, Evan Green Video Editor: Josh Smith Producers: Nicole Maslen, Fiona Douglas Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter 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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• 1:40Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:47Rory Stewart?

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• 2:41Alastair Campbell?

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

• 2:44Rory Stewart?

  And with me Rory Stewart.

• 2:45Alastair Campbell?

  And before we start today's episode, we want to say a big thank you to all of you who bought tickets for our November live tour. Fortunately, for those of you who haven't got round to buying yours yet, there are some left.

• 2:56Rory Stewart?

  And I'm very excited that we're going to be on the road again. Back on the tour bus, amazing tour bus, travelling to London, Glasgow, Manchester, Bournemouth. You excited to play Bournemouth for the first time, Alistair? Bring back memories of Labour Party Conference 1999?

• 3:09Alastair Campbell?

  1999, no, my big memory of Bournemouth is Neil Kinnock's speech when he took on the militant tendency. That was, that was one of those genuinely historic moments. So, yeah, I think, look, party conferences do tend to sort of meld into one, but yeah, I've had some good times in Bournemouth. And I suspect that it won't be the last time that we see big political dramas in Bournemouth. But hopefully ours will be nice, calm, agreeable disagreement from time to time. Lots of people, lots of interaction with questions. To get your tickets, just go to AEGP, that's aegp.uk/trip25. Okay Rory, let's get going with questions.

• 3:54Alastair Campbell?

  Ruby Blanch, what would be your best advice for how global leaders deal with Trump? And how do you rate King Charles' attempt? Well, listen, I discussed this with Anthony Scaramucci at Hay. And he said that he thought the best thus far dealer with Trump was Mark Carney. And he made the point that Mark Carney, when he won, he was absolutely clear about Trump during the election, that this is a threat to Canada and he's going to fight it. When he won, he did not pick up the phone to Trump. He left Trump to sort of hang around thinking, why isn't Carney phoning me? And eventually there were sort of talks between officials and the talks fixed up. But Mark Carney was clear, if you do all that fifty one first state stuff, or you don't show me the respect that Canada deserves,

• 4:39Alastair Campbell?

  then this call's not going to happen. Now, easier said than done, I would argue. I suspect that for lots of leaders, Trump would actually say, well, you know, unless you deal with me the way I want to deal with you, then no play. But fair play to Carney, he did that. And now King Charles, of course, is there doing the speech for the throne from the throne. That's like the Queen's speech, King's speech in our parliament. The Queen did it in nineteen fifty seven, and which is the year I was born, that's sixty eight years ago. And also, I think nineteen seventy seven. So it's the first time in a long time, and it's very, very clear. King Charles is is helping the Canadian and the Canadian government to push back on this American stuff at the same time as trying to keep good US UK relations.

• 5:22Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think the the key thing is that Canada obviously went fully independent from the UK a very long time ago, eighteen sixties. But King Charles remains the head of state in Canada, as he is in Australia and New Zealand. And what he's reminding Donald Trump, Donald Trump is very, very fond of the British monarchy. It's a sort of, I was talking to someone who knew Trump well and said that one of the stories that he was loved to share is is the moment that he and the Melania walked down the steps of Buckingham Palace and said to Melania, I can't believe I'm here. So I think King Charles is is reminding Donald Trump that he's the head of state of Canada. And that when he starts talking about the fifty first state,

• 6:06Rory Stewart?

  he's also directly challenging this monarchy that he claims to respect.

• 6:10Alastair Campbell?

  I suspect Melania also said, I can't believe I'm here either alongside you. But, you know, we've got a good deal, so let's just smile and pretend. I watched King Charles and Camilla's arrival in Ottawa last night. It was quite amazing to see, I mean, Mark Carney, who we've interviewed twice on the podcast, and both of us know well. It was quite amazing to sort of see him there, just his incredible story, the Mark Carney story, and he's gone from being this sort of, you know, seen as this dry bank governor, and there he was, sort of alongside the king, you know, shaking hands with the crowds, standing and listening to the indigenous music as they were being welcomed. But this is a big deal. This is a big deal for King Charles to do this. And

• 6:55Alastair Campbell?

  when they announced he was doing it, if you remember, I said that one of the things it will do, it will mean that this visit, the King's speech, the speech from the throne of the Canadian legislative programme, it will get so much more attention. And he knows that's what he's doing, and fair play to him.

• 7:11Rory Stewart?

  And a lovely thing, just to finish, I think with both the King and Mark Carney, are examples of people who've really stepped into their roles, seem to have really grown into those roles, with people maybe, you know, being sceptical beforehand, whether they were suitable for them. I think it's, I'm obviously extremely biased, because I'm an unapologetic monarchist, but I think King Charles had, to put it mildly, a pretty difficult act to follow with the Queen, and I think he's done it pretty amazingly well. I think it has given, you know, continued life to the monarchy. And I think it's lovely to see him and Mark Carney, because they were very close, because they did an enormous amount on climate and trying to get the private sector involved in addressing climate change together, through his Sustainable Markets Initiative. So that's a lovely partnership

• 7:56Rory Stewart?

  that's gone on for a long time.

• 7:57Alastair Campbell?

  Well, while we're speaking as a non-monarchist, I also think he has stepped into the role extraordinarily well. So there you go. Right, Matthew, if Trump's golden dome does happen, and the golden dome is a defence shield, it's not a, it's not a new sort of lottery that Trump is launching. If it does happen, and if it works, what does this mean for the concept of mutually assured destruction, if it is no longer mutual? Also, if everyone gets one, what does it mean for the future of nuclear weapons? Do they become obsolete? Do you think this will actually happen, this thing? I have my doubts.

• 8:30Rory Stewart?

  Well, I mean, the first thing is, it's incredibly expensive and incredibly complicated. Trump's talking about 175 billion, 175,000 million dollars. The Congressional Budget Office is talking about 570 billion. And this is about intercepting missiles before they hit. And of course, it's called the Golden Dome because it's builds on the idea of the Iron Dome in Israel. But the difference is that Israel's about the size of New Jersey and it largely has to deal with this pretty slow moving stuff coming from over Iran, which come not quite flapping slowly over the border, but quite different to the kind of stuff that the US would have to deal with from Russia, which are hypersonic missiles travelling at five times the speed of sound. So if you can imagine what you'd have to do to make this thing, which is weave

• 9:14Rory Stewart?

  together hundreds of different interceptor systems, some on the ground, some in space, incredibly complicated command and control done by the US military. This is of course what Reagan tried to do when he began this, his missile defence shield, and it had to be abandoned because it got too expensive and too complicated.

• 9:32Alastair Campbell?

  This is the so-called Star Wars programme, the Strategic Defence Initiative. Very, very similar. In fact, Reagan called it a suicide pact, which I don't think was very good marketing. Presumably now the technology is developed to such a extent that this will bear little relation to it, but it's a very, very similar principle.

• 9:51Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. And one of the problems is that if you are dealing, as Israel is, with ballistic missiles fired from Iran and drones from Iran, at the moment, Iran has not yet developed a nuclear programme. So some of those missiles get through, very few of them. But if one or two get through, what you end up with is a huge crater next to the Mossad headquarters, which was the attack a few months ago. But of course, a nuclear missile getting through to the United States, one or two getting through is a very, very different proposition.

• 10:21Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Let's start with Israel Palestine then. Jasmine, what do you think the implications will be of the response of Netanyahu to blame Western leaders for the horrific murders of two diplomats in the US? Feels like Netanyahu is deliberately seeking to connect a line between criticism of his government with antisemitism, which I find very worrying. Harry, who's a Trip Plus member from London, why have the UK, France and Canada chosen now to speak out against Israel? The hunger and aid crisis has been going on for months. What's triggered them finally to take a stronger position? What more should they be doing? And also Monday Chancellor Merz in Germany, he also joined in the chorus of criticism of Netanyahu, said what they're doing in Gaza can no longer be justified.

• 11:03Rory Stewart?

  There's been a very significant shift, hasn't there? Which, as you say, has really only just been over the last couple of weeks. And somehow, I think something changed. So I think the peace deal and then the imposition of the food blockade and the fact that it's now a long time since October the 7th, you know, well over a year and a half, has got to a stage where mainstream European leaders are now much clearer in saying that this is cannot be justified, that it's gone beyond what they thought was, you know, the initial narrative was very clear, Israel has a right to defend itself, this is the response to October the 7th.

• 11:47Rory Stewart?

  Since the beginning of the year, I think that's faded away, and in particular since the the food blockade has really faded away. It's interesting, though, that at the same time as that happened, there was this really disturbing, horrifying murder of two Israeli diplomats. And obviously, you know, as a former diplomat, I feel very strongly that diplomats are civilians, they're not military personnel, a young couple killed just on the on the way to an event in Washington DC. And Netanyahu, very, very strongly focusing on this as a way of almost implying that the comments of Macron, Starmer encourage this. And Jonathan Friedland, I think, has written a really good piece in The Guardian on this,

• 12:31Rory Stewart?

  where he says Netanyahu's got to stop this. At some point, he's got to recognize it's true that anger against his government is not driven by what foreign leaders say, it's driven by what he's doing, that the objective facts of of that blockade and that killing in Gaza is fundamentally driving this, and that he cannot keep saying that this is just an invented narrative from Israel's enemies.

• 12:59Alastair Campbell?

  I think a narrative from Israeli's enemies that has really taken hold and is is the idea that Netanyahu is doing a lot of what he's doing. To hang on to his own political survival because he worries that if he's falls and if these hard right figures, Ben Gavir and Smotrich pull the plug, that he's going to end his days in prison. And I think that's a narrative that that holds some some water. I think the answer to the question, why have they chosen now to speak out against Israel is because they've been trying for a long time to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. But I think they've realised that saying Israel has the right to defend itself does not mean Israel

• 13:42Alastair Campbell?

  has the right to do whatever the hell it wants. And I mentioned in the main podcast, this interview with this young girl who lost several brothers and sisters and a parent, probably her other parent was dead as well. They hadn't found him. And she was being looked after by her uncle. And it was just the most moving thing because, I mean, she was only five or six, but speaking and describing what had happened and how her feet were burning as she walked out of the fire and how she wanted her mother and she and that you could literally see rivers of tears coming down her face as she spoke. And I think that allied to these pictures of people fighting to get a bowl of soup, the food spilling as it goes

• 14:25Alastair Campbell?

  into their, the just absolute desperation. There was a very moving interview last night with a British doctor, Victoria Rose, who who was just sort of giving the facts of what it's like to be a doctor, looking after these people when their supplies are running out. So I think it's that that has turned. I also think that the way that the Israelis communicate over time has done them damage. And the other thing, yesterday, it was Jerusalem Day. So there was coverage of this event where lots of kind of, you know, Ben Gavir, Smotrich supporters kind of going around the place, literally chanting death to the

• 15:05Alastair Campbell?

  Arabs. Now, when you think about what the the opprobrium that was that was extended to people. You know, singing that chant, um, from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free. And yet I think there's just such a double standard that is being seen again and again and again. And I know I'll get criticised for that. We'll get the usual onslaught from the Israeli supporters, the government supporters, and from the government itself. But honestly, that is the answer to the question. Leaders like Starmer, Macron, Carney, Merz are looking at this night after night and saying, sorry, you have got to slow down here. And, and, and I actually think the pressure will grow on the, on these governments to do more and get into the area of, of armed cells and so forth.

• 15:47Alastair Campbell?

  What's happening is intolerable. It is, it cannot be justified. And by the way, Roy, they, they keep saying every time they do one of these attacks, and children die and mothers die and fathers die. And they say they were taking out a Hamas command centre. When are we going to see the names of the Hamas people that they've killed in these attacks? If they're so sure that that's what they've done, why are we not able to see who it is that they've killed, who was in their eyes a Hamas commander?

• 16:14Rory Stewart?

  We saw this, didn't we, with the attack on the ambulance where they claimed individuals driving those ambulances were connected to Hamas? And the question of who is Hamas, who isn't, what type of Hamas you are, um, is right at the heart of this whole controversy. But from the point of view of Smotrich and Ben Gavir, it seems that everyone in Gaza is either Hamas, a Hamas supporter, or family member of a Hamas activist. We'll keep coming back to this.

• 16:41Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, Rory, quick break and then back for more questions.

• 16:44Speaker 03

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• 17:48Rory Stewart?

  The Rest Is Politics is, as ever, efficiently powered by our friends at Fuse Energy. And on the subject of energy, a question from Kate Sawyer, who asks, "Why isn't the government fighting back more strongly against Reform UK? Turning net zero into a dirty word. What have they got to lose?" So that links, I guess, Alastair, to the Ed Miliband double part we've just done. What have they got to lose by pushing back more strongly against reform on net zero?

• 18:16Alastair Campbell?

  Well, if you listen to Ed, and I strongly recommend that the people do listen to, especially part two of the interview, because a lot of it is about this very subject. We asked him whether he felt that they were on the back foot in relation to net zero, and he said absolutely not. And I think if you listen to him, talking the way he does, with real sort of passion and vigor, about the financial benefits of net zero, about the obvious economic, environmental benefits, then I think you have a sense of somebody who really feels that he's on the, he's got the right arguments, he knows how to play them. I guess where Kate's question is coming from is that, and I think this relates a lot to our media, about the way that they project this debate, that she's probably hearing more about the anti-net zero arguments

• 19:00Alastair Campbell?

  than she is about the arguments that Ed Miliband was putting. And of course, you know, we talked about housing on the main podcast the other day. I think that this is, you know, this is another area that is unbelievably complicated. But there was a wonderful thing recently with Anushka Astana on The Peston Show on ITV, where she played a graphic, she described a graphic to Kemi Badenoch, which just explained, look, the net zero stuff is not adding that much to your bill, here's where the real bill's coming from.

• 19:27Rory Stewart?

  And a lot of it's, a lot of it's coming from gas prices, isn't it? Wholesale gas prices. The

• 19:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Rory Stewart?

  Small thing, final thing for me on this question is this question of where you follow the polls and where you change them. And I felt one of the problems with Boris Johnson was very much that he was a follow the polls man. My sense, and I'd love to see what you thought of this, in British politics, there are probably two issues where it's very difficult to change people's minds and where I think you have to respond to public opinion. One of those is around public ownership, the NHS, which I don't think is up for grabs. And the second is around immigration. I don't think there's any doubt that the majority of people in Britain want illegal migration brought down and they want the number of legal migrants reduced. But in almost every other issue, I think you can lead the national conversation.

• 20:15Rory Stewart?

  And, and one of the problems, I think, in politics, there aren't enough people in government saying, okay, this may not be a priority for the public, may not even be very popular with the public, but we're going to persuade people, we're going to change their minds. And I guess net zero is a classic example of that.

• 20:29Alastair Campbell?

  I, I would even argue that NHS and immigration, that there is, I agree with you that the debates are real and the, the kind of love for the NHS is, is enduring. But it doesn't mean you can't have a debate about the future of the National Health Service. And likewise in immigration, I think there should be more debate about the benefits of immigration as well as all the sort of the, the negative stuff. I think in relation to net zero though, I really do strongly recommend people listen to it because I think what's happened is the right wing and the fossil fuel industries have done a very, very, very, very good job of weaponising net zero. And if, if your opponents weaponise something this way, you have to fight back against it. So I think, I think the question is a, is a sensible one because she's picking up on the fact that the debate has moved to a different place.

• 21:13Alastair Campbell?

  It's in the end, it is up to political leadership to, to shift the dial on that. So there we are. Fuse are giving new customers a free trip plus membership for the whole of 2022. Twenty five, that means ad free listening, early access to episodes. Just download the Fuse app, sign up with the code politics. For all the details and full terms, head to getfuse.com/politics.

• 21:33Rory Stewart?

  We got a lot of questions this week on young women and particularly Catherine Dunn. Are young women being politically taken for granted? I wonder whether you thought why we're getting so many questions on this and what your answer to that would be.

• 21:45Alastair Campbell?

  I suspect we're getting a lot of questions because there is so much focus in the political debate on young men. We keep talking about, you know, disengagement of young men, angry young men who feel that they don't know what their role in life is. And, and I think young women maybe feel that it's becoming a given that because young women and women more generally are supposed now to have greater equality, more power, et cetera, that this is being done at the expense of, of young men. In fact, one of the other events I did in Leeds last week, there was an event at the civic chambers organised by a wonderful school teacher called Zara Dixon, and, and it was a mix of adults and, and, and school kids. And there was a question actually from, I remember from a sixteen year old from

• 22:30Alastair Campbell?

  Harrogate who'd come to the event. And she was coming at this from the perspective of, you know, do young men understand what the experience of a young woman is these days? She was talking about, you know, sexual assault, about domestic violence, about particularly online, about, you know, I know I talked to my daughter Grace about this. He said, you know, young women pretty much on a consistent, persistent basis are getting kind of harassed and so forth. So whether it's partly that, that their issues are not listened to.

• 23:01Rory Stewart?

  I think there's also an opportunity here, which is that if you focus, and I, I'm partly to blame this, I keep telling you to focus on why young men disproportionately vote for far right parties. But actually, there's a huge opportunity in the fact that young women are much more progressive, much more in favour, for example, of welfare state, much more interested in climate. Quarter of women aged eighteen to twenty four voted green, which is twice the number of, percentage wise, of young men who voted for reform. So you could really imagine a progressive politics that addressed young women. Focused on getting young women out to vote, which was actually a big problem in the in the US election, where young men who traditionally didn't vote came out to vote. And young women didn't play the role that people were hoping.

• 23:45Rory Stewart?

  Anyway, so that's an opportunity. Back over to you.

• 23:47Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that speaks exactly to what I've been saying about my worries about Labour's strategy being very, very focused in a certain direction. One of the events I did at Hay, and people go on about young kids not being interested in politics. So you know, the big stage at Hay, I did an event on my kids' books, seventeen hundred state school kids from Wales, who'd been, you know, brought in for the day. It was, it used to be funded by the Welsh Government and now that's been cut. So they got sponsors to bring these kids in and it was absolutely brilliant. And I had them up on stage debating issues like devolution, whether to ban social media, whether Welsh should be taught in schools. And at one point I just said, right, is there anybody who actually just wants to come up and make a speech about something they care about?

• 24:30Alastair Campbell?

  And it was like, the one I picked in the end was because all around her, all her school friends were going, Brooke, Brooke, Brooke, get Brooke, she's amazing, right? So this girl came up and she just made a speech about inequality. And it was absolutely brilliant. She slightly lost me when she said that the bourgeoisie are to blame and the proletariat need to unite and rise up against them and so forth. But it was honestly that I had several kids came up and made really, really good speeches. And the thing is, when I taught, I talked in my speech about Gina Martin, the woman who got the law changed on upskirting, that she drove the upskirting bill.

• 25:11Alastair Campbell?

  And you, you know, when you're talking to kids and there were fifty fifty, boys and girls. So when I was talking about it and there wasn't a single snigger. When I tell that story to adults, you often get a snigger when they're talking about young guys going around, they were taking pictures of women in skirts, et cetera. And this audience, honestly, I was, I actually said at the end of it, Rory, never mind lowering the voting age to sixteen, we should do it to fourteen. Because these kids were switched on, they were passionate, they were boisterous and they believed stuff. So that doesn't really answer the question. I'd love, maybe we should ask some young women, because we do have a lot of young listeners, maybe they can tell us and write to us about why, whether they think young women are being ignored, why and what more we should be doing.

• 25:56Alastair Campbell?

  Little shout out to Mr Anthony Albanese, the new Prime Minister, well, the re-elected Prime Minister of Australia. First time in history, there are now going to be more women than men in his cabinet, and there are now going to be more women in the House and in the Senate. You know, people going about Australia being a sexist country, that is quite a pretty positive, good story to tell. Shushua, your hero, your hero, you have many heroes, they tend to change week by week, but one consistent hero, Katrina, I regularly listen to your podcast and wondered if you had a view on David Gork's proposal to chemically castrate those accused of sexual offences. Is this vengeance, not justice? Should the state be given this irreversible power over the bodies of its citizens? What

• 26:38Alastair Campbell?

  if a mistake is made, et cetera? Are we abandoning our principles, our belief in justice, for populist, quick fixes? We should also point out that the other big thing in David Gork's review was really, it's something you and he tried to do in government, cutting down on shorter sentences and giving people greater opportunity to get out early, subject to the way they conduct themselves in prison.

• 27:01Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's interesting, and the focus has been on that. I mean, Oliver, who's a Trip Plus member from Leicester, asked more generally about sentencing review, and I think dealing with the fact that Britain locks up many more people for non-violent crimes than any of their European equivalents. I mean, it's a staggering number of people. Almost half, sometimes more of people in prison are in for non-violent crimes, which wouldn't be true in Europe, where prison is largely reserved for people who are in there for violent crimes. One of the things that is right at the heart of this, as you say, is short sentences. I talked to you about the fact that I'd met someone in Bedford Prison who'd been in nine times in a year. There are people who've been in prison dozens

• 27:43Rory Stewart?

  of times, they're in for a few weeks, it massively disrupts their lives because they lose their housing, they lose their job, they have a very high suicide risk, they massively destabilize the prison estate. Now, the problem then is if they're not sent to prison, so this might be people who do regular shoplifting, they could be drug addicts, for example, who are shoplifting in order to The habit are the good community sentences as an alternative. And one of the great things about Gork's proposals is the idea that hundreds of millions of pounds more will go into probation. And really sorting out community sentences. That is where all the evidence points going to prison fat increases your chance of re offending more than having a community sentence. Cause all the ways it disrupts your life.

• 28:26Rory Stewart?

  So the public is safer if you don't go to prison, paradoxically. But we really need to make that investment. And what do you think about the chemical castration stuff?

• 28:34Alastair Campbell?

  Uh, well, there's, there's an experiment going on with it now. I, I love the way that I asked you the question, or in your, your way of dealing with it was to ask me the question. Um, I suspect that's because we were both slightly avoiding it. I, I, I think it makes me feel slightly queasy and I, I go to the point there about what if there's a mistake? And, you know, the, so I, I think where people are saying, I am incorrigible. I cannot help myself, et cetera. And this is the only way that can happen that I can see why that might be. My, my, might be the way forward, but um, I, I can't pretend not to be a little bit queasy about it. On the big stuff, despite all the sort of screaming headlines of, you know, prisoners and murderers and murderers and rapists to be let out early.

• 29:15Alastair Campbell?

  And I, I hope that they do actually, because, you know, you and I both know from our work in prisons that the, the, the prisons are an absolute disgrace in this country. And I think David's come up with some, on the big picture, some pretty sensible stuff.

• 29:28Rory Stewart?

  Alasdair, Hilary Greenwood, what do you think of Alan Yentob being described in his obituary as the BBC? Perhaps in both his success and controversies, there's some truth in this.

• 29:39Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I, look, I think Alan Yentob, he was a friend of mine and a great guy. And yeah, he was, he, there was something very, very BBC about him. He genuinely, genuinely, genuinely believed in public service and broadcasting as public service. He was a brilliant filmmaker. He became an executive, you know, director of BBC one and BBC two at different points. But I think actually was at his best when he was doing. His own films, arts and culture, and some of them have been kind of seminal. You know, his documentary on David Bowie was seen as one of the greatest documentaries ever made. I got to know him especially well through, we had a mutual friend, Ed Victor, who was my literary agent, and Ed had leukemia and survived.

• 30:24Alastair Campbell?

  He's dead now sadly. And we got Alan to, we basically raided Alan's contacts book and we did an annual event. The first one was with one of Alan's closest friends, who was Mel Brooks. And Alan was just such a giving guy. And he got a lot of grief over one of the charities he was involved in, which was completely unfair. It was a classic sort of British media hounding. So, no, I think he was a very, very, very exceptional broadcaster and exceptional human being.

• 30:51Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Sycamore Gap, this is more of an information than a question, but it's a jolly information. Mr Campbell, I listened to your trip episode discussing the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree. From one tree lover to another, it'll harden you to know the National Trust have grown saplings from the seeds of the original fell tree and are distributing the saplings this year to various charities and institutions throughout the UK. In the UK MOD, we are receiving one as part of our marking of the 25th anniversary of the ban being lifted on LGBTQ personnel serving in the military. The Sycamore Gap tree was a symbol of British strength, cut down in its prime, much like the British men and women dismissed in the midst of their careers while serving their country. The 49 Trees of Hope are a beautiful symbol of new beginnings from a census act. I hope this brings you some tree-based joy. Kind regards, G Thompson.

• 31:36Rory Stewart?

  And just to remind people, you don't focus on this, Sycamore, my goodness, it grows. I've got a couple of saplings I planted outside. They are now pushing 17 feet tall within three years, even here in my pretty cold part of Scotland.

• 31:50Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I'm imagining, and by the way, yes, thank you very much, G Thompson, from the MOD, that does bring me some tree-based joy. And I think I'm right that the reason why it's, there are 49, is because the Sycamore Gap was 49 feet tall. So that's brilliant. And actually, we should put in the, in the show notes, the link to the National Trust story about this, which is that the that explains where these forty nine saplings are going. And you'll then be able to follow their growth. So I have a great belief, always try and get good out of bad. It was horrible what happened to that tree. And it caused a real sort of uproar around the world. And we're now going to have forty nine versions of it.

• 32:31Alastair Campbell?

  Growing up in different parts of Britain. Final one for for you, Rory, from Pippa Mel. Have either of you been following the story of the genetically modified dire wolves? Could you give an explanation on the scientific success and the controversy? And Rory, this is going to have to be you because I haven't been following this story, I'm afraid, no's. But Rory said, can you please ask me about the dire wolf's DNA? So there I am, I'm asking you.

• 33:00Rory Stewart?

  The dire wolf was, if people know about from Game of Thrones, because these puppies of these enormous wolves are found by the heroic family. Who command the northern reaches of the of the kingdom and are given to the kids. But they are also an Ice Age giant wolf. And this company called Colossal announced that it had recreated the dire wolf. So there's been a lot of debate about what's been going on. But what they actually did was they edited fourteen key genes in grey wolf cells. To express twenty traits associated with dire wolves and they're raising these pups. In a secure undisclosed location of two thousand acres.

• 33:46Rory Stewart?

  And purists would say these aren't actually dire wolves. What they are is grey wolves, which have been edited. To become like dire wolves. But it's a big growing thing this. I mean, Viscount Ridley, who is the was the head of Northern Rock and is a prominent conservative peer. And scientist has also been really interested in the question of bringing back the great orc, but like the dodo. And a lot of interest, both in what you can do to manipulate the DNA and also take DNA. That you can find in lost specimens. And actually, there's a really fun novel by Sebastian Fuchs called The Seventh Son, where essentially a kind of tech bro billionaire.

• 34:32Rory Stewart?

  Gets into gene editing and recreates a Neanderthal human.

• 34:38Rory Stewart?

  And this unfortunate individual is born into the modern world and then finds that his perception of the world, his way in interacting with it is quite different from that of other humans. And that is an increasingly possible story. If you can gene edit a gray wolf, you can gene edit a lot of things.

• 34:57Alastair Campbell?

  Very good. Well, thank you for following that story and thank you for explaining. And I'll see you very soon.

• 35:02Rory Stewart?

  See you very soon. Hopefully not with a dire wolf. Have a great day. Bye bye.

• 35:06Alastair Campbell?

  Bye bye.

• 35:11Speaker 04

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.

• 35:14Speaker 05

  On October 2nd.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 35:20Speaker 05

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 35:28Speaker 06

  What would happen if I stopped growing? You starve, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 35:32Speaker 05

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 35:35Speaker 06

  I'm not the first then.

• 35:36Speaker 05

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17.9 a minute without parent.