440. Question Time: How To Start A Centrist Party

Why do the Lib Dems still fly under the radar? Is Trump quietly setting the stage for an authoritarian takeover? And, why does Alastair swear so much? 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 more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: India Dunkley, Evan Green 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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• 0:12Rory Stewart?

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• 1:02Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:16Rory Stewart?

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• 1:18Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 1:31Rory Stewart?

  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.

• 1:54Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think you're not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this, or should I say Fiona managed to do this?

• 2:01Rory Stewart?

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• 2:18Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks. Made with whole fruit and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks. Now made with no artificial dyes.

• 2:53Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to the Rest is Part of This Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 2:57Rory Stewart?

  With me Rory Stewart.

• 2:58Alastair Campbell?

  Now Rory, it's fair to say that our young friend Jacob Stokes, who sent us a voice note about which we talked last week. We had a massive response, not least from Liberal Democrats. I'll give you a flavour of some of their questions. Alison McIntosh, Trip Plus member from Edinburgh. You played and discussed a voice note from a young man who said he was a centrist and was in despair as he couldn't see who he could vote for. When discussing this, neither you nor he mentioned the Liberal Democrats. Why? Now Rory, this totally plays to your... Do you remember the contempt you had for the Liberal Democrats during the election campaign? Because poor old Ed Davey was, you know, doing bungee jumps and jumping out of helicopters

• 3:43Alastair Campbell?

  and going swimming and all that sort of stunt stuff. But this is the problem, they don't get enough coverage. So even you and I, I mean, I've got a good excuse actually Rory, because Jacob told me that he didn't think about the Lib Dems because they were kind of irrelevant where he grew up politically, okay? But what's your excuse?

• 4:00Rory Stewart?

  I mean, you're completely right. And I actually, I've got an email which I shared with you from a Lib Dem MP. Rory, I really enjoyed the piece about the voice note from a young man wanting the centre ground to step up. I can forgive him for not mentioning the Lib Dems, but not you and Alistair. Why the blind spot?

• 4:18Alastair Campbell?

  He's got a point. This goes to the heart of what is a really big problem for the Lib Dems. So if you look at the proportion of coverage that Nigel Farage with his four or five, whatever it is, MPs gets in the national debate. And then you look at the Lib Dems who've got almost 100,000 members. They've got 72 seats. They're around about, you know, mid teens in the polls.

• 4:47Alastair Campbell?

  And yet, during the twenty four election, Reform, Farage's mob, got more press coverage than the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP implied combined. That's wrong.

• 4:57Rory Stewart?

  It's wrong, but it's also partly a deliberate choice made by Ed Davey and his team. And we talked about this during the election, because when we were really trying to say, why are the Lib Dems not taking big national positions? I mean, honestly, in the election, we didn't know really what their position was on Europe. They were barely talking about it. We didn't really know what their position was on basic questions of tax and spend. The answer from the team is, we're going to run local campaigns. The way we're going to win is we're going to win constituency by constituency. And they seem completely vindicated. So they will have come out of that saying, our two-pronged strategy, which is put Ed Davey in a comical

• 5:38Rory Stewart?

  position to get a photograph and run really tight local campaigns, have ended up with more seats than we've ever had. But the downside of it is that they're not part of the national debate. And if I was going to be unfair, I'd start questioning you about the Lib Dems' national policy positions.

• 5:55Alastair Campbell?

  Let me give you one. I think you are being unfair, because Ed Davey has been very, very, very critical, in Parliament and outside Parliament, of Donald Trump and of the UK's positioning vis-à-vis Donald Trump. Very critical. But he barely gets any coverage for it. On Europe, I mean, you know, I'm pretty obsessed about this. I follow it very, very closely. I think he has made stronger positioning statements on that, but he doesn't get the cut through. And maybe this is then paying a little bit of a price for the sort of politics that you objected to during the campaign, that the media's now minded only to be interested in Ed Davey as a character. But I think that the MP who complained to

• 6:40Alastair Campbell?

  you and the many listeners who did, I think they do have a point about this. It's a blind spot, because I guess the other thing is that... There's a risk that we're playing into the sort of politics that we're complaining about. Farage is a big character. Corbyn is a kind of interesting political phenomenon. And therefore, we automatically have them in our mind space when we're talking about the future of the country. I think in a serious, healthy media democracy, there would be more coverage for the Lib Dems.

• 7:11Rory Stewart?

  Here, I'm going to disagree agreeably. The Lib Dems proved with Nick Clegg during that 2010 campaign against Cameron and Brown, you remember the famous debates, we all agree with Nick, that they really could. When they had a leader who was able to sound very serious, focused on national and international policy issues, they got enormous coverage and focus. Now, they damaged themselves in many, many ways, tuition fees famously, but I think in Ed Davey, they seem to have somebody who's a great communicator on his personal story, very, very moving about his own family and his own life.

• 7:53Rory Stewart?

  But I'm afraid, and disagree with me, but I just wouldn't rate him at being at Nick Clegg's quality in terms of communicating about national and international policy.

• 8:03Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. We both read a lot. I can, I can recommend both of their books.

• 8:08Rory Stewart?

  Wait, wait, wait, you're avoiding the question here.

• 8:10Alastair Campbell?

  No, I'm not. This is partly my way of illustrating the question. Nick Clegg has written a very interesting book, I'm not sure if it's out yet, but his publisher very kindly sent it to me, about AI. And I strongly recommend it. And Ed Davey has written a book about care and the care system, and not least through his, through his own experience. If you watch Prime Minister's Questions, and I don't, I can't pretend that I watch it religiously, but I watch it if I'm around and have a spare half hour on a Wednesday afternoon. I think fairly regularly, Ed Davey asks questions and makes points.

• 8:45Alastair Campbell?

  That in a different media era, twenty, thirty years ago, say when David Steele was leading the Liberal Democrat, or David Holmes round as a big SDP figure, they would have been part of the national conversation. I think we have a real problem that, and I'm afraid the BBC, I think, is a big part of this, they're obsessed with Nigel Farage, the newspapers are obsessed with Nigel Farage, and the opposition is now so weak, the Tory opposition, that Farage is the kind of go-to other voice. And I actually think if you read, here's a challenge for you, Rory, maybe we should come back to this next week. I know that Ed Davies' team listen religiously to this podcast because every time you slag

• 9:30Alastair Campbell?

  them off, I don't know why, but they send me a message, rather than you. Why don't I say to the Lib Dem, send me two or three of Ed Davies' recent speeches, say one about foreign policy to do with Trump, say one about Europe, say one about the economy. If they haven't done them, and if he hasn't made those speeches, then that's a big mistake. But I know the last time I raised this, they said the problem is, we can work away for days and days about a really important speech, we make it very hard to get the media interested.

• 10:03Rory Stewart?

  So I do talk to them, and I get a contradictory story. So I'd be very interested. Let's see what those speeches are. Let's see what those big speeches are.

• 10:11Alastair Campbell?

  Okay.

• 10:12Rory Stewart?

  But often what I hear them saying is, is the reverse, which is, there's no point really, because nobody's going to cover us anyway. You get a bit of that from Kemmy Badenoch too, there's no point my saying, I think nobody covers me. I think these people are being very, very defeatist. I think there is a massive space in the centre ground for a charismatic communicator who's significantly articulate. I think Labour is actually in trouble. Keir Starmer's net popularity rating is poor. They're pursuing a mini austerity policy which is massively unpopular with a lot of people. There is a huge space for somebody really who was charismatic and could communicate.

• 10:49Rory Stewart?

  To be more nimble footed than Rachel Reeves, to call out Starmer on international policy, wouldn't be very difficult to point out some of the hypocrisy and problems around issues like Gaza. Certainly wouldn't be difficult to point out how completely incoherent Labour's position is on investment to child benefit. And I don't think they're doing it. And the reason I think they're not doing it is that actually the whole leadership team is still too wedded to this local stuff. Where is that? I mean, look, I'm a natural ally of theirs. I mean, maybe that's why I'm being so chippy about this. I'm a natural ally of this. But I don't feel this is a team trying to bring in talent, trying to reach

• 11:30Rory Stewart?

  out to other people in the centre, laying out bold international policy positions. I think that they're underplaying with with a huge card. I mean, they've got so many seats in the House of Commons. They they could dominate much more than they are. I don't think they should give up.

• 11:44Alastair Campbell?

  They should definitely shouldn't give up. And it's interesting. I mean, I suspect that you and I and quite a lot of our listeners and viewers would be able to name all of those five Reform MPs. I'd struggle to name most of the Lib Dems. Now, that is, I agree with where I agree with you, they have to address that. They can't just blame the media. But I do think they have a point that our media in the main is right wing, covers right wing voices, and especially those right wing voices that are being very critical of a of a government that they've decided is unpopular. Anyway, there's a challenge for the Lib Dems. To to make them even more miserable, there I was with Fiona in Freiburg having

• 12:24Alastair Campbell?

  lunch yesterday, and I was sitting reading a German newspaper, and I was reading the front page, which was all about the Trump stuff. And Fiona said, Oh, have you seen the back page? I turned to the back page, and the headline was Corbyn's Comeback.

• 12:43Alastair Campbell?

  So there's this big sort of half page. I can't remember the last time Ed Davey got a half page in a German newspaper, but there was this half page about Jeremy Corbyn and making a pretty serious fist of analyzing what the impact might be. And Rory, before I before I leave this, Harry, another Trip Plus member, this one's from London, I'm a centre-left voter in my late twenties. I was struck by your comments last week that you couldn't choose between Corbyn and Farage. Well, we did choose. I said I'd voted for Corbyn before. Rory's maybe a bit more sort of circumspect. Farage has always represented divisive, nasty brand of politics, while Corbyn's policies do seem rooted in fairness and social justice. So why do you see them, Rory, as equally bad? I accept that some

• 13:28Alastair Campbell?

  of Corbyn's policies may be wishful thinking, that he mishandles certain issues, but he still appears guided by the right intentions, surely not remotely comparable to Farage. Take that, Stuart.

• 13:39Rory Stewart?

  Take that, Stuart. Well, listen, I said I'd probably choose Corbyn narrowly. But no, Jeremy Corbyn is, for all his good qualities, is an extremely flawed person who would be a very, very deeply unfortunate prime minister. He is indecisive, insecure, the way in which he handled the antisemitism crisis in Labour was a classic example of that. I mean, whatever the rights and wrongs of it were, he was unbelievably slow to get out, clarify, take action, credibly prickly and defensive at every stage of it. His views on the world are basically those of the hard left of the 1980s. He is instinctively anti-Western.

• 14:21Rory Stewart?

  He had very odd views on Russia, very odd views on Syria, and the people that surround him are very, very troubling ideologues. And I'm very close to a lot of the new Labour MPs who put their careers on the line to try to stop that man becoming prime minister. So, look, I've got a romantic, idealistic enthusiasm for people like Corbyn in the same way as people might want to chant from Glastonbury. But if you ask me seriously, should this guy be running the country? Absolutely not. I mean, I'm, for all his Qualities and I I like him very much as a person. Every time I see him, I warmed him. I sympathise with him. But I'm not sure that even he is certain that he would make a great minister or prime minister.

• 15:02Alastair Campbell?

  I think I I think that's right. You know, Roy, that Neil Kinnock is a regular, regular listener. He sends me his his judgment of our podcast every single week. I suspect he was nodding vigorously throughout much of that. So basically, we both, we think that neither of them is really fit to be Prime Minister Farage or Corbyn.

• 15:20Rory Stewart?

  If the Lib Dems produced a leader who really seemed to have the ambition to be a national leader and to chart an international course. As the Conservative Party collapses, and I think it is collapsing, and I think Jenrick will take them closer and closer to reform. There is a huge space for retaking the centre right there. I'd I'd just like to see them have the ambition and the energy to do that.

• 15:42Alastair Campbell?

  Now, Roy, you mentioned Jenrick there, and and I have to tell you, one of our, another of our closest listeners is is Ms Fiona Miller, mother of my my three children. She said Roy seems very reluctant to say anything negative about about Jenrick. Jenries, did you see what he's up to this week? Parading outside asylum hotels.

• 16:02Rory Stewart?

  It's a little bit akin to your your silence around Jeremy Corbyn, where where we haven't got the full on the full on alist of you on Jeremy Corbyn either. Um, uh, listen, on on Jenrick, I I'm I'm very, very opposed to his rhetoric. Uh, and the stance he's taking on particularly on immigration. I think that it's not the Conservative Party that I recognise. It's not actually the Robert Jenrick that I can recognise. I mean, the Robert Jenrick that I knew uh, ten years ago was a very thoughtful, apparently moderate pro Cameroon figure who was doing interesting things around international cultural heritage, and he has now become.

• 16:44Rory Stewart?

  On so many issues, from Gaza to immigration and asylum in Britain, somebody who seems to be trying to outcompete the far right. And my vision of the Conservative Party is firmly, firmly in the centre. And I'm very, very troubled by the direction he's going. And it's very sad that he seems to be getting the entire central gravity, that it feels like he's almost the inevitable successor to Kemba Bate, not partly because she has seems to have been so unable to communicate or capture media attention. I mean, he shows you can capture media attention. There's something about the modern world that shows you can. And Zoran Mamdani, the Candace Mayor of New York, shows you can do it. And Corbyn shows you can do it. I'm heartbroken and I think there will be a massive rebuilding job

• 17:28Rory Stewart?

  of the centre right if Jenrick takes the Tories off chasing reform.

• 17:33Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, Fiona, there you are, answers for you. Now, here's a wonderful name, Gunter van de Vila. Sounds like a sort of Dutch footballer, but he's actually a trip plus member from Belgium. Dear Rory and Alistair, thank you so much for doing the podcast. Am I being paranoid in thinking that taking over policing in Washington DC is the perfect preparation for countering the uprising that will happen if the results of the midterm elections in the US are rejected by the White House? No, Gunter, I don't think you are.

• 18:01Rory Stewart?

  Quick explainer. Famously, DC is not a normal, District Columbia, where Washington is based, is not a normal state. And Congress has futaled around for years and years and years, failing to give it a proper federal status, which is why you can see all these bumper stickers saying, no taxation without representation in DC itself. And the result is that unlike in other states, there isn't a proper control of the National Guard by governor. And Trump was able to use emergency powers to effectively take over the police force all the way around the capital city as the president, something he couldn't really do anywhere else in the country. And his excuse for doing it is he claims that there is a crime wave,

• 18:45Rory Stewart?

  whereas in fact, crime is coming down. But it's part of a pattern. You know, this returns to my current obsession, which is the idea that actually Trump is much more consistent than people think. I think he's consistent on tariffs, on immigration, on Putin, and in his authoritarian tendencies in the US. Over to you.

• 19:00Alastair Campbell?

  And of course, the other big thing that's going on in this same area is the whole thing of redistricting, where Texas is kind of Republican state, is sort of redrawing the maps so that there will be five more seats in Congress. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, is responding by saying that if they do that, we're going to do the same thing, even though he agrees it's kind of, in principle, the wrong thing to do, but they will do it to get five more seats in California. By the way, Gavin Newsom, I mean, whoever is doing his social media, he really deserves a pay rise. He sort of tweets about Trump, but in the style of Trump, you know, "Thank you for your attention to this matter", and some of them are very, very, very, very funny. I also listened to Gavin Newsom talking

• 19:44Alastair Campbell?

  about this on Pod Save America, and, you know, we've talked ever since the election about where the Democrats need to go. The one thing I think they've got to show is real passion and real fight. He's basically saying, "We are in a fight for the future of our democracy." This is where I think, Gunter, you are not being paranoid. And there was a moment, one of the things that Trump has always been very good at doing, is making you laugh about really dangerous points that he makes that are actually very, very serious. So in the White House, when Zelensky was there, we talked about this lots on the main podcast, but one point we didn't talk about was where Zelensky said he couldn't have

• 20:23Alastair Campbell?

  an election. He was asked by one of the stooges, it was either the Fox stooge or the MTG stooge, he was asked whether he would hold an election. He said, "Yes, I'd hold an election, but our constitution says we can't hold an election when we're at war." So Trump immediately jumps in saying, "Oh, oh, so if in America, if in three and a half years, America was at war." And of course, there's tit, tit, tit, tit around the room. But we have to look at the form book. You talk about consistency. This is a guy who motivated and inspired the January the 6th insurrection. So why wouldn't he do things to try and overturn an election that he loses?

• 21:03Rory Stewart?

  Final thing before the break, just on the redistricting. So what happens with this redistricting is that it creates more and more safe Republican, more and more safe Democrat seats. And the result of that? Is that the general elections don't matter as much as the primaries. I mean, this was true even, you know, when I had a safe seat in Penrith and the border. If you've got a very safe seat, what matters is who's selected as the Republican or Democrat candidate. And so that is all about the primaries. And that, again, tends to favor extremists because the party members who vote in the primaries tend to be more extreme. So you then end up with more and more polarized Congress.

• 21:44Rory Stewart?

  Add to that the fact that we're going from a world in which many of these states, that the norm was that Senate seats were often split from a state. The state would send a Republican and Democrat. And that was quite good because it would mean that the state could get access to both sides. It would give them incentives to cooperate and work together. Over the last 30 years, more and more of the states in the US only send senators from one party. So there's all that incentive has gone out the window. So put those two things together. This redistricting encourages polarization, to return to your Moses Naim stuff, and also encourages the primaries replacing the general election.

• 22:25Rory Stewart?

  It's very, very bad for democracy, very bad for negotiation, for parties, for all the processes, and it's just accelerating in the US. And, look, Trump is making it worse, but in this, he's following a pattern that both parties have been grossly irresponsible about for decades.

• 22:41Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And of course, the other thing that happened with Zelensky was he sat there while Trump went on one of his rants about mail-in voting and as though it didn't already exist and as though this was some kind of Democrat conspiracy to stop him winning. Listen, Gunter, he is on the march. This is the point Gavin Newsom is making. This is a guy who is increasingly authoritarian and who cannot abide the notion that he might lose power, because if you lose the midterms, you lose power. You don't lose all power, but you lose some power. And so I think we should be very, very, very, very wary.

• 23:18Rory Stewart?

  Little sort of short thing, because I didn't tell you that I'd seen Gavin Newsom recently, interacted with him a bit over a couple of days. And he's a very striking character. I mean, as you know, he's kind of... Big, good looking, he's got, almost got longer hair than me at the moment, which is something to be, something to be said.

• 23:35Alastair Campbell?

  Better combed as well.

• 23:36Rory Stewart?

  Certainly better combed, but he didn't strike me, he, he's very, very different to the sort of earnest Obama or even Pete Buttigieg or Cory Booker type. My goodness, he's a sort of, he's almost too glamorous, too good looking, too cool for school. I mean, I, I was really intrigued by him and we, we should try to get him on the podcast. In fact, I'll, I'll try to follow up on that meeting.

• 24:01Alastair Campbell?

  I think we've been talking to his office. I think it'd be great. Yeah. I, listen, I've been impressed by his, his recent, there's a big debate going on in the Democrats of whether Gavin's pushing it too far and whether some of this social media stuff is a bit, a bit childish and what have you. But you know, back to Trump psychology, getting under Trump's skin is not a bad thing to do, but his big point, democracy is under, is under threat, I think we should take seriously. Let's take a break and come back and talk about education in prisons.

• 24:30Speaker 02

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• 26:29Rory Stewart?

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

• 26:33Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Asda Campbell. Rory, you had, why don't you read out the message you got from the head of education at a prison?

• 26:39Rory Stewart?

  Dear Rory, I'm the head of education at a UK prison. I'm getting in touch in confidence with an urgent issue. Prison education across the country is seeing cuts of up to forty percent. At our prison, a twenty-five percent cut in October means that in six months, the provision has been cut by thirty-six percent. I see this as a surefire route to ruin the lives of more people in prisons and increase reoffending rates at a time when prisons are never far from full capacity. Quite apart from the fact that education has intrinsic value, its key extrinsic value is identity change, clearly linked to reducing reoffending. I would be very appreciative of your thoughts. Well, look, I mean, this is really troubling

• 27:22Rory Stewart?

  and, and will presumably be something that will be worrying James Timson, the prisons minister, a lot. I mean, we know prisons are in crisis. We know that they're short of money. But the education provision was always very poorly funded. I mean, it was terrifying. I remember going, just to sort of visualize that, I remember going to a London prison. And even if you can unlock the prisoners on time, so they can even get to this classroom, they turn up, they're at very different levels of education. Some of them are trying hard, some of them are not learning. You've got people with English as a second language, you've got a teacher in a very hot room, very, very poorly equipped, trying to teach.

• 28:03Rory Stewart?

  So it was about the worst, I mean, something you would never accept in a school, ever. It was so, so poorly funded, so bad, the conditions were so bad. If they've then cut that even more, you know, and these are staggering cuts, thirty-six percent, forty percent, I, I don't know what we're thinking about, because our prisons were already very, very unpleasant, unsafe, dangerous places. And one of the few things, at least that's true in the US, is that for all the other problems in the American prison system, you can get an education. In fact, they'll pay for you to get a university degree, which isn't the case in, in Britain.

• 28:40Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, no, I was really shocked by that figure. And, you know, as you know, I go into prisons and was in Brixton recently. And one of the points that the guys that were interviewing me, I was being interviewed for National Prison Radio. And one of the points that this guy called Ake made, he said that you sometimes get the feeling that you're in prison to be punished, but then when you're here, you feel like, it's almost like if you worked out, how can I not just punish them but ruin their lives? That is what sort of happens. And, and, you know, the thing about education, and, and I know that this is all part, I think, of this sort of decades-long drip, drip, drip about, you know, prison's all about punishment. Prison isn't all about punishment.

• 29:24Alastair Campbell?

  Prison is about trying to, try, you know, if we're serious about rehabilitation, then we have to take it seriously. You cannot take it seriously if you're talking about cuts of this scale. And there was a guy there who presented, he actually presents the morning programme now. Guy called Ali and he's a former prisoner. So what what did he get educated to do while he was in prison? He got educated to do radio and he's now he's now a presenter on the radio show. I would rather hear that sort of story than what we do hear about is that people leave prison, no more qualifications, no home to go to, no family, they've lost a family and all that stuff. And you can say he serves them right. But the more you do that, the more you end up with what we call the revolving door and it just doesn't

• 30:07Alastair Campbell?

  work. And, you know, we had two leadings out, one on Monday, this Monday with Nicola Sturgeon, and one on Friday, last Friday with the president of Guyana, Ifan Ali. And one of the things that we didn't talk about in the podcast with him was actually they have had a major rehabilitative program going on and they have reduced reoffending.

• 30:28Rory Stewart?

  Little plug for that because it's it's a wonderful interview, which I'm actually, Alastair did, you did alone, and I'm sorry I missed. Ifan Ali is an incredibly charming, charismatic leader of this tiny country on the South American Caribbean coast, which has gone almost overnight to becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the world. You had these staggering 35, 40

• 30:52Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, the fastest growing, yeah.

• 30:53Rory Stewart?

  GDP growth, setting up its own sovereign wealth fund because it's found an incredible amount of oil, but also doing stuff for our nature, as you said, very, very complimentary about the King and the way in which our King, King Charles, has been leading on biodiversity and how much he respects and admires him, as well as some pretty uncomfortable conversations about race in Guyana, slavery in Guyana, history in Guyana. So really well done. And I thought wonderful and I wish I'd been part of it.

• 31:23Alastair Campbell?

  Rory, you mentioned last week Trump Somalia land. We've had a question from Abdi Ali. In recent days, we've seen renewed calls for Somalia land's recognition, led by Senator Ted Cruz in the States, Gavin Williamson in the UK. Bless from the past, even President Trump has said he's looking into the issue. Isn't it time for Britain to take the lead and be the first to act?

• 31:42Rory Stewart?

  Well, it's it's something actually we've talked about on the podcast before. And my goodness, there are some amazingly vigorous activists for Somaliland. So Somaliland has been with some problems, but has been by far the most peaceful part of Somalia. I mean, it's still legally recognised as part of Somalia, as the state of Somalia. But it has a very different history. It had a different colonial history and it's held a number of democratic elections. I've really enjoyed my visits to Somaliland over the years. Raghi Omar, for example, many people will be familiar with, BBC correspondent. He's a great advocate for Somaliland and they would say, why not give us independence?

• 32:24Rory Stewart?

  We're much more peaceful, much more democratic than other parts of Somalia and we'll do well. The other argument, of course, that's made by the cautious Foreign Office type is, oh dear, you know, where's this going to end if we start recognising breakaway bits of other people's countries? And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's exactly the kind of issue that Trump could absolutely turn around. And, and, and, you know, just in the way that he suddenly recognised Syria, he could suddenly wake up in the morning and recognise Somaliland.

• 32:51Alastair Campbell?

  Brief point, you're a butler, Rory, you're showing your age and class background there, saying that Raghi Omar's on the BBC, he was on the BBC, he's now ITV. That's the, that's the, that's the independent one with adverts, Rory.

• 33:04Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Okay, now Diana Harris, Trip Plus member, Todd Morton, not really a question, more an observation. Why has Alastair started using the word effing? I accept that it's become more common among our generation, same as Alastair's. And I'm not a prude, but I find it offensive. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Hey, listen, only that my only thought on that is that I do have some very, very keen young listeners who are sort of some listeners, 11 and 12, who came up to me recently. And it may be that their parents are not going to be that amused by that.

• 33:35Alastair Campbell?

  No, Diana, I'm with you on that. I, I think I said it twice last week, I was probably just in a grumpy mood. I said it about Jenrick. And I said something else. I guess partly, was it because we had a question about Malcolm Tucker? I don't know. I do. Look, I do in my private life, I do swear a lot and I I don't like it, I don't enjoy it, but I'm quite expressive in lots of different ways. So I do swear. Diana, I hope you've noticed I have not sworn so far today. And we're now on to our last question. So I get the point. Right. Final question here, from James Smith. I was in a bookshop at the weekend and came across a book called Travels in Arabia Desert.

• 34:16Alastair Campbell?

  Went on to the Wikipedia page, and this was in the first paragraph. Rory Stewart describes the book as a unique chronicle of a piece of history that's been lost. Can you explain how this works when you approached to endorse the book? Have you always read it? Have you ever declined to comment? Great question, James.

• 34:34Rory Stewart?

  Really good question. Well, I mean, the the basic answer is the whole thing is a racket and a disgrace. A little exception on Arabia Desert, because I actually did read that and wrote wrote a whole complicated introduction to which people can read if they want to read that edition. But no, generally, it's a real problem. And like you, Alistair, I receive probably at the moment, I don't know, four, five books a week.

• 34:59Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 35:00Rory Stewart?

  To read and endorse. You get under a lot of pressure, particularly from friends or people who listen to get you to endorse the book. You can't possibly read completely four or five additional books a week in addition to what you're trying to read for your own thing. So I did have a policy of saying no endorsement at all, partly because I got really, really annoyed with a friend of mine whose book I read, I didn't really like it. I wrote a book saying, wrote a little endorsement saying, interesting book. He got back to me saying, that's kind, but my publisher asked, would you mind saying this is the best book that you've read all year? And I was so embarrassed because I didn't know how to say, no, it wasn't the best book I read all year. Could you? But somebody's just done it with my book, incidentally. A good friend of mine called Isabella Tree,

• 35:42Rory Stewart?

  very bravely, read the book that I've just written on Cambria and said she disagrees with me on rewilding. She's very much in favour of rewilding and she just doesn't feel that she can endorse my book because we. Disagree ideologically on it, but it's quite rare. Generally speaking, we don't, we don't, we don't get that. Gone. How about you? Be honest about endorsement.

• 36:01Alastair Campbell?

  You're right that it's a racket because, and I'm not sure it sells many books. And I, I don't lie. I don't say I've read a book if I haven't, but I'll say, you know, an interesting author on an interesting theme or something like that, if I haven't read it. If I have read it, I will genuinely say what I think in the main. I remember when I wrote my first novel, All in the Mind, I was really excited about it. I thought it was going to be sort of, you know, the big breakthrough. Not necessarily Tolstoy, but I thought, you know, this is going to really go places. So I phoned up Ian McEwan, one of the greatest living novelists. And I said, Ian, if I send you my novel, will you read it? And he said, yes, happily. Oh, progress, I said it to him. And then he said, he read it and he said, I think it's very good. I think it's going to do very, very well. I said, that was nice.

• 36:45Alastair Campbell?

  Would you put that, could I put something on the cover? He said, listen, I have a policy. I don't endorse any books, probably because he thinks he knows it's a racket as well. So I sort of lost out there, but I ended up getting Stephen Fry instead, who said, everybody should read this book.

• 37:03Alastair Campbell?

  Which is, you know, pretty good.

• 37:05Rory Stewart?

  Very good, very good. Okay. Well, I think on that happy thing, we should return to it. It is a real racket. It's a disgrace. And if you look at, so for example, I don't know whether you noticed Gary Stevenson, who we interviewed on leading on the front cover of his book, is an endorsement from me. But I don't think you probably noticed that when you were reading it.

• 37:21Alastair Campbell?

  There's a guy on Instagram called Seriously Gripping. And the reason he's called Seriously Gripping is because that's what it says on the top of all my diaries.

• 37:31Alastair Campbell?

  I think it was Matthew Paris, Seriously Gripping. Roy, I'd love to talk to you.

• 37:36Rory Stewart?

  Okay, speak soon. Thanks again. Have a great day. Bye bye.

• 37:46Speaker 07

  There we are getting a statement from Number Ten on that flight with three hundred and fifty passengers on board.

• 37:55Speaker 08

  The Great Game: Strategic Struggle Between Britain and Russia.

• 38:03Speaker 09

  We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian.

• 38:09Speaker 08

  Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

• 38:11Speaker 10

  They took down a British passenger jet containing three hundred and fifty people.

• 38:14Speaker 08

  Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself, you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing!

• 38:27Speaker 11

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 38:29Speaker 08

  All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today, disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO.

• 38:38Speaker 12

  A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia.

• 38:43Speaker 11

  Yes.

• 38:45Speaker 13

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• 38:50Speaker 14

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• 38:54Speaker 13

  An audio drama journey like no other.

• 38:56Speaker 14

  Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons.

• 39:00Speaker 13

  Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller. Where Britain plays its strongest hand. He's the best. Against its strongest foe. Don't do it, Duffy! Bear Hunt. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.