429. Question Time: Gaza, Genocide, and Global Hypocrisy

Has the West lost its moral voice on Gaza? Can Britain and France rebuild trust on migration after Brexit? And, where are today’s Bob Geldofs — and why won’t they speak up? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. The Rest Is Politics Plus: Join with a FREE TRIAL at therestispolitics.com, for exclusive bonus content including Rory and Alastair’s first ever miniseries The Real JD Vance, early access to Question Time episodes and 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. 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 Social Producer: Celine Charles 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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• 1:53Alastair Campbell?

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• 2:23Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to the Restless Politics Question Time with me Rory Stewart.

• 2:27Alastair Campbell?

  And with me Alastair Campbell.

• 2:29Rory Stewart?

  So Alistair, most of our listeners, I think, will have picked up on the fact that last week we did a very, very big focus on Israel Gaza, in which you came out and said that after a lot of very difficult thought, you had concluded that what Israel was doing in Gaza was genocide. And as you can imagine, that has provoked a huge range of responses from people saying, congratulations, Alistair, well done, that took courage, that was the right thing to do, to people saying, why are you so late on the bandwagon, you should have said that two years ago, to people saying, this is outrageous, how dare you say that it is genocide. So I just want to begin with that, because I think it's a, it is the big,

• 3:14Rory Stewart?

  I guess, question of our time. And I wonder what sort of response you'd got over the last week.

• 3:19Alastair Campbell?

  A lot of it, for sure. Both on social media, people getting in contact directly with the podcast, also in the numbers, I mean, it was a very widely shared episode, and also just going around the place. And even though I will not give any indication of this woman's identity, because she said, I really don't want to be identified, but including out walking the dog one day, beating somebody who lives near us, who is Jewish, works in an, without giving it away, a kind of Israeli context, as it were, and who said

• 3:57Alastair Campbell?

  that she felt that the debate generally about Israel Gaza had been made her very anxious, very scared at times, that antisemitism was becoming a real thing. But she felt that what we had said was true. And she said that, I just think it is indefensible, what is going on is indefensible, I cannot find a way to defend it. She went on to say, the reason why I don't want to be remotely identified is because, she said, I haven't yet reached that point where I feel I can say that, because of the world that she's in. So, and, and, and just from a personal perspective, I did feel, I do feel that we've been sort of...

• 4:40Alastair Campbell?

  I think those who said, you know, what's kept you have kind of got a point. I do feel I've been holding back out of a desire to be fair. But I think it's very hard. I've written a huge piece in The New World this week explaining why eventually I felt pushed towards it. And I think actually it's this thing, it's, I feel it's impossible to be fair to an organisation, or in this case, a government, that is being so blatantly unfair to the other side that we're trying to be, trying to be fair to. And then the other thing that was really interesting was how many of the, one of them came through you actually, but how many of the sort of organisations directly involved in this, um, got involved to say, I had two, one was Métales Sans Frontières,

• 5:25Alastair Campbell?

  who wrote to me directly, and another wrote to you, pointing out that, yes, we had focused on Article Two of the Genocide Convention, but Article One is very, very relevant to other countries, including Britain. And I'll just read it. The contracting parties, that's basically anybody who signs up to the Genocide Convention, confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish. Now, the point that your friend was making is that the courts exist to punish genocide, but that the duty to prevent it is the duty

• 6:06Alastair Campbell?

  that's on all states, not just any states that may be involved, that comes first. And that's why, um, you know, it's important to see genocide not as a kind of, as a single event, but as a, as a process. And, and alongside that, so Métales Sans Frontières, they sent me a letter that they sent to Keir Starmer and to David Lammy, and it begins, genocide is being committed in Gaza and the UK government is complicit. And it goes on in those terms. So, you know, look, it provoked a very, very big response. I'm glad that I said it. I'm glad that we had the debate that we did. Um, but I accept that there are some people who are very upset by it and other people who, who, who basically were saying, what kept you?

• 6:51Rory Stewart?

  There's an email that you shared with me, um, which was sent, sent to, uh, you and then forwarded on to me. So I'm a reasonably middle of the road Jewish Londoner. And then he goes on essentially to make the arguments against what we said in our position. So let me just put the case which this man who describes himself as a reasonably middle of the road Jewish Londoner says. So he says that he doesn't in any way support Ben Gavir and Smotrich. He says, uh, these people, this is the finance minister and security minister, don't, never will dictate Israeli policy or the government. Otherwise it might have been a genocide.

• 7:35Rory Stewart?

  Then he says, if Israel wanted to ethnically cleanse Gaza, this would have been done. It doesn't and never would. You actually know that. Then he says, we didn't mention the hostages. Then he says, this is a war of self-defense. Innocents are dying because we're trying to neutralize assailants and they're hiding within the midst of their own civilian population. Then he says, and this is, I think, quite central to the whole thing. Israel is the only insurance policy me and my family and friends have ahead of the inevitable knock on my door to remind me there is no place for Jews anymore in Britain. It's coming.

• 8:18Rory Stewart?

  And the oxygen that you give to this Jew hatred brings that moment even closer. And then he finishes by saying, a final thing, I'm described all the way through this as the Arabist. Here is the question, what would you have done? What would you do now? All you have is irony, sneering and attempts at spin. Be constructive, suggest way forward. You never have since October the fence, and I venture to say you never will.

• 8:47Rory Stewart?

  And then he says, let's hope no one's removed from Gaza unless they choose to leave. Let's us hope the disinterested nations of the region help out. But when you two glibly talk of a prospect for a two-state solution, you have to ask yourself, would any population, government or nation, want to give statehood to a people sworn to your destruction? And intended every opportunity to act on that oath. Would you? So essentially what he's saying, this is, I just before you answer, this is the criticism that I've received, for example, from the head rabbi of the biggest synagogue in Sydney, who delivered an entire speech accusing me of antisemitism, which was then reprinted in the Australian edition of the Financial Times.

• 9:28Rory Stewart?

  And essentially what he's saying to me is I'm antisemitic because I'm holding Israel to higher standards than I would hold anyone else to. I'm expecting them to show restraint, turn the other cheek. Whereas we all know that if we'd been in the same situation, we would have killed far more people. And that my antisemitism is to demand that Israel behaves better than it would be reasonable to demand anyone else behave. Over to you.

• 9:55Alastair Campbell?

  How did the guy describe himself, a reasonable?

• 9:57Rory Stewart?

  Middle of the road Jewish London.

• 9:58Alastair Campbell?

  Middle of the road, yeah. I sent you that one, but I could have sent you the many others that he has sent me in the past. He's very angry about, you know, the way that

• 10:08Rory Stewart?

  And he's not without naming him. He's somebody who was a friend of yours or just a colleague of yours, right?

• 10:13Alastair Campbell?

  No, not a friend and not anybody that I know terribly well, but but somebody that I think is probably a regular listener who quite likes the way we talk about most things and would probably in most circumstances find us pretty bearable. But on this finds us increasingly unbearable. But I don't, I'm afraid I think this comes from the perspective. So just to give you one example there. He talks about how, you know, how could you possibly want to deal with this? Essentially saying they all want to wipe us out. Well, look, yes, Hamas do. But that again, that takes me to a point that's been made the whole way through. This is the point that Ben Gavir and Smotrich made. And by the way, how can you say that these guys don't have an influence upon the government direction?

• 10:57Alastair Campbell?

  When they are the government direction. These are the two people who have most driven Netanyahu to the place where maybe it's where Netanyahu has wanted to be. But the political position he finds himself in has been driven by them. But the fact is that, you know, there are a lot of people in Gaza who hate Hamas. My point is that they've been dehumanized. And I'm afraid I think his letter dehumanizes them as well. To the point was they're as seen as this homogenous whole.

• 11:26Rory Stewart?

  And let me try to answer him. He says, what would you have done differently? Well, You do not do what Israel has done in Gaza. It is ethically abhorrent. It has involved destroying every hospital in the place, killing enormous numbers of doctors and healthcare workers and doctors are protected in international law. And it has not achieved anything sensible. It hasn't got the hostages home. It hasn't eliminated the Hamas leadership, so it's a military catastrophe as well as a moral catastrophe. And what would you do differently? Well, you would act with much more restraint, much more proportionality, you would target much more carefully.

• 12:12Rory Stewart?

  You cannot possibly consider killing what it is fifty, fifty-eight thousand people as being a reasonable response to this horrible terrorist attack which was experienced on October seven. It isn't, it is not proportional, it's not reasonable. And this question of what would you have done differently? Not that. Look at how Britain responded to seven-seven. And I would go further. I do not think that the American response to nine eleven was reasonable or proportionate either. In the end, that was madness. What unfilled in Afghanistan and Iraq, this didn't work out.

• 12:50Alastair Campbell?

  Or look at how India and Pakistan conducted their, their negotiations and their diplomacy with military activity recent weeks as well. No, I think the other thing, where, where I've come from, and, and I think it's difficult to get, this is where I think people who have always loathed Netanyahu, and I've never been a fan of Netanyahu, but I've always sort of tried to give him a little bit the benefit of the doubt because he's, he's such a consequential politician in, in, in one of the most important regions in the world. But where I think it becomes intolerable is that I think a lot of these decisions are made in the context of politics and political survival. So what would I have done? And I think we did say this at the time. Said, look, there is going to have to be some sort of response, there's no doubt about

• 13:35Alastair Campbell?

  that, they will make a response, they will feel, not least for their own public opinion, they have to show, one, they're gonna do, they do everything to get the hostages back, and two, they're going to strike against the people that they see as being responsible for this. But they've gone way, way, way beyond that. The other thing I would have done would have been to understand that soft power means something, and it means something even when, and maybe even especially when, you're in the exercise of hard power. By which I mean, Netanyahu and the Israeli government, by the strategy they pursued, they've done enormous damage to their standing and reputation around the world. And I would

• 14:20Alastair Campbell?

  say, you, you say that we make Jews' lives more, uh, more dangerous. Have a look, we'll put it in the newsletter, but there's this incredible, I don't even know where it was, but it's the American Jewish actor, Mandy Patinkin, who, he's so angry, I mean, he's, you know, he's so angry. And his main point is that Netanyahu is endangering Israel, including, he thinks, even its survival, and endangering Jews all around the world, because his actions are creating this sort of horrible sense of anger. And, and I, and I still, I mean, I, I still will try to always speak up against Hamas, always speak up for the hostages, always

• 15:05Alastair Campbell?

  speak up. And, and of course, this guy says we don't mention the hostages. I mean, there is something formulaic, I think, about sometimes, about the way people go back and say, of course, I have to say this, of course, I have to say that. We know that the hostage-taking is horrible and abhorrent. But the fact is that some of them, who are now dead, could have been kept alive if, at various points down the track, Netanyahu had actually tried to get them out at a time when deals could have been done, which I suspect he didn't want to do because the military strategy took precedence.

• 15:38Rory Stewart?

  And there's another, um, fundamental problem in this negotiation, um, which is that I was speaking to somebody who's very, very senior in Israeli national security, very close to Netanyahu, who said to me, of course, when the hostages are returned, we will then have no reason not to wipe Gaza off the face of the earth. So.

• 16:00Rory Stewart?

  How are you supposed to get a deal together? When Hamas feels the hostages are their one guarantee on some form of restraint by the Israelis, that it's the only thing that's holding the Israelis back from going even further? Why would they honestly return the remaining hostages if the sense they get is that when they return those remaining hostages Netanyahu will just radically increase and redouble his efforts to wipe them all out? Why would they do that? Now, the only reason they would do that presumably is if there was a ceasefire deal where the US was making it so clear in its pressure on Netanyahu

• 16:42Rory Stewart?

  that they really trusted that Netanyahu would agree not to redouble assaults, but he's not going to do that. So I'd like, actually, it would be interesting if your friend can write back. Why, what does he think's going to happen here? I mean, why does he think that what Netanyahu is doing is going to increase the chance of hostages coming back, rather than just almost guaranteeing that the final hostages won't be returned?

• 17:06Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, or increase the long-term reputation and strength of Israel. And I suspect, you can also say, by the way, if he wants us to say who he is, I don't mind if he doesn't, but, and listen, we welcome people saying the things they say.

• 17:24Rory Stewart?

  Not to be too defensive, but I've just sort of been reflecting on this, having been attacked in this way by the senior rabbi in Australia, who I don't know. But also how incredibly outspoken the chief rabbi in Britain has also been, and how open he's been about the fact that his own son is serving in the IDF in Gaza.

• 17:44Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 17:44Rory Stewart?

  And I suppose this is always the question, isn't it? Where the line is between religion and politics? Where the line is between your Jewish identity? And your support for the Israeli government.

• 17:57Alastair Campbell?

  But listen, Rory, we talked last week about this hideous plan to put 600,000 Palestinians in a so-called humanitarian city. Now, if you read, if you follow the Israeli media, and the IDF are opposed to this plan, there are reservists out saying, this is inhumane and illegal, and we want nothing to do with it. The Lieutenant General, who's in sort of the Chief of Defence Staff, part of the Chief of Defence Staff team, he was interviewed and he said, this is not part of our military plan, which I think is a sort of military way of saying, we're not very happy about this. And, you know, while we're on, on the

• 18:38Alastair Campbell?

  sort of documents, and, you know, the reason you argued on the main podcast against Trump and his Nobel Peace Prize is because by undermining institutions and statutes and conventions, he's making the world less safe. Let me just give you Article 7 of the Rome Statute on Crimes Against Humanity. Now, it sets out there are 11 crimes against humanity, quotes, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population with knowledge of the attack. And number four is the most relevant to this plan, which Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister, who we interviewed or leading a few months

• 19:18Alastair Campbell?

  ago, he has said, equates to a concentration cover. Number four is deportation or forcible transfer of population. And when you go down into what that means, they say it means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present without grounds permitted under international law. Well. You don't, I mean, they're even, you know, the Bengavirs and Smotrich, they're saying, well, this, that, this is the plan. And it's sort of to get them in there and then sort of somehow shovel them off into, into Egypt. So I, I think that, you know, I just, I just

• 20:03Alastair Campbell?

  don't see how you can defend that on any level.

• 20:06Rory Stewart?

  Can I come in just before we go to the break? Couple of quite uncomfortable questions. So Sarah L, who's a Trip Plus member from Essex, Israel continues to make tragic errors in the prosecution of its war in Gaza. This latest attack on children queuing for water should surely elicit a stronger response from the UK government. I feel helpless in the face of this injustice. What can members of the public do in response to our government's apparent acquiescence and its subservience to the US? Do you want to have a go at that? Then I've got another one.

• 20:36Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, so just, let's just take this plan. So Hamish Faulkner, who's the Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East, he has actually come out very strongly against it. But in that letter that I received from the Médecins Sans Frontières, sent to Keir Starmer and David Lammy, several points in this letter where they point out where they've been asking for the British government to call out certain activities over the whole period of this thing, they keep saying, we did not get a reply. That's just not on. Médecins Sans Frontières, whatever you think about it, it is a really serious, reputable humanitarian organisation, whose voice I think should be heard when you're talking about something

• 21:19Alastair Campbell?

  like what's going on here. And I, I do feel that the, that the, I think you said, I think you said last week, David Lammy made a, you know, blistering speech and we've had two or three blistering speeches. But ultimately, I think this is one of those situations where people are turning away from it at a time when actually we should be turning into it much, much more. So I think that when the governments speak, they, they sometimes say what I would say, say the right things, but not necessarily in a way that is going to get noticed by Trump, by Netanyahu and by Israeli public opinion.

• 21:58Rory Stewart?

  Okay. Well, here's the last question then, Nasrin Amin, and this is even more uncomfortable. Well, thank you both for finding the right words to describe the horrors of what's going on in Gaza. But I can't help feeling that you are both less than frank when discussing the UK's government's reluctance to go harder on Israel. You claim you don't understand why the UK is continuing to support Israel militarily, but surely from both your positions, you know a bit more than that. Can you please talk a bit about the role of the lobbying Israel does in the UK, how it functions and why so many in power get sucked into it? Now, this is really awkward because this touches on a big antisemitic trope, which is the idea that Jewish money is somehow controlling politics.

• 22:43Rory Stewart?

  And it's actually interesting, I mean, I'm very struck, I was talking to some of my Conservative friends who are beginning to speak out powerfully against what's happening in Gaza. But again, whenever I said to them, why do you think the Conservative Party continues to support Israel so strongly? They keep saying, I don't know. And I made the same challenge that Nestorin made, which is, well, what do you mean you don't know? You know, you've been in politics all your life, surely you can have an educated guess on why they keep doing it. What is your reason on why you think the government keeps supporting Israel?

• 23:10Alastair Campbell?

  Well, for the love, just give you a couple of people, I hope they don't mind me doing this, but two of the people who sent me very, very nice messages of support and very broad agreement were Michael Levy, who was the Jewish chief fundraiser for Labour under Tony Blair, and his son Daniel, who's, I think, an amazing young guy, who has actually been an Israeli peace negotiator in different times, who I think have both gone from positions of being broadly supportive of Israel in the broadest possible context, but to a place where they cannot support the current actions of the current Israeli government. So I think that from the government's perspective,

• 23:55Alastair Campbell?

  I suspect a lot, I think a lot of it is probably about Trump. I think it's just sort of, you know, they're feeling that maybe they don't quite have the influence that they would like to have with, directly with Netanyahu. Now, that's been a deliberate thing because Netanyahu cuts them out, and Trump cuts them out in terms of saying, you know, we're the big strong men leaders, we're going to sort this out. And I guess the other thing is it's because they've had, they're under so many assaults on so many other fronts. But I think that, like I said earlier, I think they say the right things from time to time.

• 24:31Alastair Campbell?

  But it's the calling out that I think is needed more. And I thought today, you know, we're recording this on Monday. So we've got this report today from the BBC about the previous documentary. The one where it turned out to be fronted by somebody who was a child of somebody who was fairly senior in Hamas. And that was known to the documentary makers, but it wasn't made clear to the public. And fair enough, Lisa Nandley, as the Culture Secretary, has called that out. The reporter said it was mistaken, dah dah dah. But I'm not aware of similar complaints, which I, of what I think was the far more egregious position in relation to the documentary that the BBC wouldn't even show.

• 25:12Alastair Campbell?

  Look, I know the questioner there said, you know, of course you must have an educated guess. That's the best I can do because deep down I don't really know. I don't really know. Where I agree with you is I don't buy this idea that it's because, you know, rich Jewish donors give lots of money to political parties. I just don't buy that at all. One of the richest, who's given money for many, many years to the Labour Party, as I say, was one of the first people on the phone saying, you know, well done for speaking up about it.

• 25:40Rory Stewart?

  And so just on this BBC report, a couple of quick things. Number one, they are pushing for an impartiality clause. So they're saying that all narrators have to be shown to be completely impartial in their social media. But it clearly is applied to Palestinians, but not to people who are very pro the Israeli government. The bureau on the grounds in Israel, the Middle East Online Editor, their social media accounts are frequently full of very pro Israeli government statements. But that isn't taken into account. They're allowed absolutely to report. It appears to be the other side is being held to a different set of standards. The second thing is around the linguistic point.

• 26:21Rory Stewart?

  Palestinians, when they refer to Israelis, use the word Yahudi, which originally means Jew. And there is a big push now, which the BBC has now accepted, to translate this word as Jew rather than Israeli. Now, this is really matters because what it means is that when Palestinians are making comments that are criticisms of Israelis, right, in the context of Israel and Palestine, it can be portrayed as criticisms of Jews in general and antisemitism. And this is completely failing to understand the cultural and linguistic context in which people are using those words. Now, these seem like small things, but this is basically part of a prolonged campaign

• 27:02Rory Stewart?

  against the BBC by various very aggressive pro-Israeli lobby groups, which have frightened the BBC into taking a position where they're being much less brave in defending their journalists and their objectivity on this issue than they are in almost anything else. Another big point, which, which I think you've made in the past, but I want to sort of emphasise, is this fight against antisemitism, the Labour Party, and trying to distance themselves from Jeremy Corbyn. I mean, I felt that in our interview on leading with Gabriel Attal, the former Prime Minister of France, who didn't really want to be drawn in criticism of Israel, very much said, well, I don't really have a view on that, but kept coming back to antisemitism in France.

• 27:40Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 27:40Rory Stewart?

  Um, and so domestic politics seems to drive people who were on the left, in the case of Attal or Starmer, to feel that the main thing they need to be talking about is domestic antisemitism, not the actions of Israel.

• 27:54Alastair Campbell?

  I think there is definitely, that is an element within this, and I think that was particularly relevant in the early days, post October 7th, when Israel, you know, we said on the very first podcast, you know, Israel's response is, you know, I really fear for what they're going to do to the people in Gaza. I mean, it's been way worse than anything I expected. But I think at that point, Labour's messaging was driven partly by a genuine sense of solidarity at, you know, a country that's under such attack. Right to exist, Israel's right to exist, which they, which they keep emphasizing, which is fair enough, hostages and, but I think a part of it was that they were just, they were slightly in a defensive crouch because they're thinking people are going

• 28:35Alastair Campbell?

  to be looking for the slightest sign that Labour is, quotes, anti-Semitic because of all the rows that we'd had under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. And, and meanwhile, I think Israel has deliberately, as part of its strategy, got to a place where it feels comfortable in making the allegation of antisemitism against anybody who criticizes the Israeli government. Um, and that's, I think, part of the badness that we're now, that we're now dealing with. Anyway, thank you to everybody who took the trouble to listen. Shall we take a break? Let's take a quick break and we'll come back after the break.

• 29:32Speaker 02

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

• 29:38Speaker 03

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• 31:00Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome back to the Spur's Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 31:02Rory Stewart?

  And with me Rory Stewart. So a question from Fatima Shah. Will Starmer and Macron's migrant deal actually provide a serious solution to what is now a big problem in Europe? Or is this just another Rwanda deal remix? So just to explain, this is something which is the first step towards something that I've been a real believer in. And I wished we'd been doing for the past. And in fact, you got cross me understandably because I was kept interrupting the unfortunate Gabriel Attal, the French Prime Minister, by trying to push him on this issue. But it seems to me ridiculous that people are able to leave France, which is a safe country, on very dangerous rubber boats, often actually drowning in the

• 31:46Rory Stewart?

  Channel in order to claim asylum in the United Kingdom. It should stop and everybody who comes over should be sent back to France. And obviously, the reason I was pressing Gabriel Attal is that he sees that as being an obvious position for France to take to North Africa, but seems to find it a bit more difficult to see it as a position that Britain could take towards France. Anyway, Macron and Starmer seem to have agreed this, although sadly still in pretty limited terms because they're only talking about being able to do it 50 a week and people who haven't tried across before. And I'm not quite sure why they're limiting the numbers in that way. Anyway, over to you.

• 32:19Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think they're limiting those in the numbers in that way because they're going to see whether it works as a pilot, as a pilot scheme.

• 32:26Rory Stewart?

  Can I just interrupt there for a second? I don't think it will work unless it's 100% of people. I think the whole point of it unfortunately is deterrent. The whole point has to be to see whether it'll work. What you I think would find, and this is the risk Macron would have to take. Is that in the first few weeks, you would be returning thousands of people, but thereafter, you wouldn't have to return anybody because nobody would go to the trouble and the expense. You're paying 10,000 euros to get on a boat, you're taking the risk of drowning. If in a hundred percent of cases, you're just going to be returned to France, you'd never do it. So the numbers would drop literally to zero from however many thousands, but doing it with 50 a week destroys the whole thing from the beginning.

• 33:07Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I'll just point out to all those right wing newspapers who've already decided this is an absolute disaster and to Nigel Farage, who was busy floating around the channel on the day that this deal was announced, that we did, under the Dublin Convention, have an agreement that we could send asylum seekers back to the first port of entry into the European Union. So that is, this is a consequence of Brexit, and I shall keep pointing that out. I thought, I mean, the state visit generally, I thought was pretty good, and I thought there was, and actually, I thought one of the, we talked about defence on the main podcast, I thought there was, I actually thought the nuclear deal that they did was, was pretty

• 33:47Alastair Campbell?

  amazing to think that this is sort of, you know, Anglo-France European nuclear protection thing. I also thought that your friend, your friend, the King came out and did his bit, and so I think as an event, I thought it was very, very good.

• 34:01Rory Stewart?

  Can I just, just stop on that for a second? I mean, obviously, I'm fishing for compliments to King, but I do think there's a sense in which these state banquets, since the King's taken over, we saw it with France, we saw it with Qatar, we saw it with his opening of Parliament in Canada, there is a real sense in which quite a lot of British soft power foreign policy is partly played out through the mechanism of, of these royal events being tied in with what the Prime Minister's doing, or am I missing something?

• 34:29Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think you're right, and he's going to have to rely on all of his diplomatic experience and skills, been mid-September when the President Orange arrives to go and be put up at Windsor. But the thing is that on this one in, one out thing, the only thing I felt was that... I I think they've got to be very, very careful on this about the oversell. By the way, it answered the question, Fatima. I don't see it as another Rwanda deal remakes because the Rwanda deal, I think, was just this massively expensive, constantly being ramped up nonsense that was never ever going to work. But I think the way to sell, to project this idea is not to say this

• 35:12Alastair Campbell?

  is going to solve everything. It is an idea to see whether they can make a difference and hope that if they do, they can then ramp it up and ramp it up and ramp it up. I think there will be difficulties within the European Union on this because, you know, we interviewed the president of Cyprus a few weeks ago. If you're Cyprus, Italy, uh, Spain, Portugal, Greece, you may be thinking, well, hold on a minute. What's all this about the Brits kind of, you know, going to be able to send people back to France? Because once they're in France, they're not going to stay there. They might want to, you know, travel around all over the place. So I think it's it's fraught. But I think where it where it played to to Kier Starmer's strengths and I and and and I think the, you know, the work that went into this was, I think,

• 35:57Alastair Campbell?

  quite impressive. It's not going to change overnight. I think the we should be honest about that. But it could make a difference provided this scheme starts to work.

• 36:05Rory Stewart?

  Well, the next stage, I think, is to integrate, and this is where I give um credit to Atal, is to integrate it into a broader European position on returns from Europe to safe third countries, like the EU-Turkey deal. So not returns to Rwanda, but returns to North Africa or Turkey. And if it was integrated into that, you could have a system where Europe was deciding how many genuine asylum seekers it would take every year, shouldn't be heading for zero, how many genuine asylum seekers Britain would be taking every year, but also not accepting the idea that just any young man who gets on a boat across the Mediterranean or the Channel is almost automatically accepted because that is just, uh, well,

• 36:49Rory Stewart?

  partly it's driving extreme right wing populist parties that will destabilize all of our governments. And partly it just doesn't make sense in terms of natural justice compared to the other people who are more deserving of asylum.

• 36:59Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, can I make one final point on on Maccrell's visit at the press conference? I don't know if you saw the press conference that he did with Keir Starmer and at the speech that he did at the state banquet. And another couple of times, he sort of did call out Brexit and did say, look, Brexit's been bad for us, but it's been very, very bad for you and da, da, da, da. And the more I think about it, I am absolutely convinced, now this may be me falling into the trap of the the the Labour source who thinks that I'm not in touch with the the sentiment of of the country. But I honestly believe that one of the best attack lines against Nigel Farage is is along these lines. I could see that Keir was a bit comfortable, saying, oh, Emmanuel, don't go on about Brexit too much, I don't want to talk about that.

• 37:43Alastair Campbell?

  But I actually think he he would have been really powerful to come in and said, you know, and while I'm sorting this out, there's Nigel Farage out on a boat as we speak with his friends from GB News, because he's trying to exploit the problem rather than address the problem. And this is the line I would use, the line of attack we use, the one, this guy's one achievement in his entire career is Brexit. And it has done the country a lot of harm, which we're now trying to fix. But for heaven's sake, do not give the whole country to a guy whose one big achievement has been such a disaster. I actually think that is a better line of attack than, you know, he's going to privatise the health service and he's a bit of a pal of Putin, do the all as well.

• 38:25Alastair Campbell?

  But anyway, that's my, um, what do I know, Rory?

• 38:29Rory Stewart?

  What do you know? Right, well, on to Spain, Livia Raya. Given Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's initial ascent of power on a promise to clean up Spanish politics, how do the ongoing corruption allegations involving his party and family, coupled with his claims of an orchestrated campaign, affect his political credibility and stability of his government? So we've covered Spain a bit, we've covered Portugal a bit. And of course, we talked about the Iberian exception, the sense that Spain and Portugal traditionally were supposed to be the countries that didn't have these great populist parties. But populism is now on the rise in Portugal and Spain, as are these corruption allegations.

• 39:06Rory Stewart?

  And this one, just to sort of for international listeners, essentially, three of his, of the prime minister's very, very closest advisers, allies, strategists, I mean, this is would almost be like for British listeners.

• 39:24Rory Stewart?

  Tony Blair's relationship, I don't know, with with you, with Jonathan Powell, with with Angie Hunter, with Peter Mandelson, and it's them, and they're called, I think, the Perso Gang, because they were the people that travelled around with him in his car, have now been caught up in these unbelievable corruption scandals, which have included the civil guard basically taping the guy that Sanchez has been defending to the hills, saying that he's going to be taking money from government construction contracts.

• 39:54Alastair Campbell?

  And then in the middle of all this, in a debate in Parliament, the opposition leader stands up and says that Sanchez's father-in-law, father of his wife and therefore part of the wealth that, you know, he enjoys, made all his money from running gay brothels.

• 40:17Rory Stewart?

  I've missed that one.

• 40:19Alastair Campbell?

  Now, this is, this, this actually has given Sanchez the ability to go out and say, this is now just a complete, you do the Trumpian thing, it's a witch hunt. They just had to get me, they're going for my family and da, da, da, da, da, da. But it's a bit of a mess. And and as some went economically, largely thanks to migration, they say, Spain has been doing reasonably well. I said in, I said in the main podcast, I was at Wimbledon, also the same day was Nick Clegg and Miriam Clegg, and Miriam Clegg, who we talked to about, you know, her campaign to sort of get sensible centrist politics in Spain. But this, this has the feel of a, not, not necessarily, I don't know anything about the gay brothel stuff,

• 41:03Alastair Campbell?

  but the, the other thing feels very, particularly as he made such a big thing about corruption, feels pretty ropey and we're going to have to see how he gets through it. And also, right in the middle of this, I mean, this is how politics goes, right in the middle of this, they've had these terrible floods, suddenly, you know, another sort of climate crisis disaster, but terrible floods, he's having to deal with that.

• 41:24Rory Stewart?

  And he's also being, being, being threatened, I mean, just a sort of sidebar to relate to the podcast we did yesterday. He's being threatened by Trump because he's also said that he won't increase defence spending up to the NATO 5% from 2%. He says frankly, Spain can't afford it. And he doesn't think it's the right thing to do. And and we're now getting Trump suggesting he may take economic sanction action against Spain.

• 41:50Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, where the opposition are trying to push this is is, you know, to try to force him to have another election, which he's he's currently resisting. But I think it's one where we we we may be coming back to coming back to that one. Now, Rory, Talia Jolay wants to know, we're really asking us about the PKK's disarmament. And I I find this incredible. I agree. It's it's it's just an extraordinary story that nobody seems to be talking about.

• 42:19Rory Stewart?

  Just quickly, as an explainer for listeners, this is Turkey. This is the Kurdish movement in Turkey. So people remember the Kurds are a completely separate ethnic and linguistic group that are located in the east of Turkey, the northwest of Iraq, the west of Iran, the east of Syria. In fact, they they almost got there in independent state after the First World War, but ended up being divided amongst four countries and have been conducting a long ongoing insurgency against the Turkish government and Turkish military. Great book about it by Christopher Lake that I I need to plug. He actually spent serious time out in very dangerous parts of eastern Turkey, living with Kurdish separatists, living to

• 43:04Rory Stewart?

  help the vice. And then, as you say, suddenly, astonishingly, after decades of conflict, this announcement of peace and disarmament. Back over to you.

• 43:12Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And, you know, so when I when I heard it, and this came from the PKK leader, Abdullah Okcholan, who's been in jail for for decades, but, you know, is obviously, I think he's been in prison all of this century and maybe a bit more. And they they're basically saying they'd like him to be released. Well, you know, who doesn't want to get released from prison? But in order that he can maybe lead the process of disarmament. So they're essentially, so it felt to me a little bit like, I thought, this is going to be like the Good Friday Agreement all over again. This can be like a massive sort of, you know, but it sort of came and went was hardly, I bet most of our listeners aren't even aware of this, that this this has happened. I think it's an extraordinary thing.

• 43:56Rory Stewart?

  It tells you a lot, doesn't it, about how weirdly the world has changed? Because my guess is if this had happened in the 90s. This would, like South Africa and Ireland, be seen as one of the great peace deals. People will be talking about Nobel prizes, instead of which now the whole world is all about conflict, authoritarianism. So if we think about Turkey at all, we think about it in terms of, you know, what's Turkey doing with Europe and Russia? What does Trump think of Erdogan? How is Erdogan stealing elections?

• 44:31Alastair Campbell?

  Here's a thought. What about if, let's just say this thing holds and it sort of all works. What about Erdogan gets the peace prize?

• 44:40Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, Trump could hardly complain about one of his fellow strong men leaders getting the peace prize. Actually, your point, your point, Rory, and maybe this this is the final question, it relates to this. L. Cowley, is it just me who was depressed by the 40th anniversary of Live Aid? I love the nostalgia, but it was proof of how we've lost our soft power and also how disengaged artists are. We need more Bob Geldof's. Will we ever see a return to this kind of movement? Now, I've I've got a lot to say about this because I was at Live Aid as a Daily Mirror journalist 40 years ago this week, aged 28. It was an incredible event, absolutely unbelievable. And I looked up all my old cuttings the other day, but it really was amazing.

• 45:24Rory Stewart?

  Just for international listeners, younger listeners, just to remind us, there had been a horrible civil war and conflict in Ethiopia, which ended up with millions of people starving. And BBC, Michael Burke, did a report on the horror that then led to this massive movement to try to raise money, I suppose, food, shelter, support for people dying in Ethiopia, which led to this incredible musical event and maybe sort of contributed towards other things, which is Make Poverty History, Sustainable Development Goals, Millennium Development Goals. And this was the first real visible attempt at that. Over to you.

• 46:02Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, it was the Bangladesh concert that George Harrison started that was a pretty amazing thing, but I think this was an extraordinary event. The day itself was just amazing. I mean, you know, every major singer and band that you can think of as, I know you're not big into music, but even you will have heard of, you know, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger and David Bowie and Freddie Mercury and Adamant and Spandau Ballet, and I could go on and on and on. It was just incredible. And so last night I was at the the gala performance of the Live Aid musical, which John O'Farrell has written, and it is absolutely brilliant. Honestly, if people haven't seen it, it's unbelievable. Partly because of the music, but also the way he tells

• 46:44Alastair Campbell?

  the story, because the story essentially is Bob Geldof watching that report and just basically saying in typical Bob Geldof way, you know, fuck it, we've got to do something about this. Michael Burke was there last night, went up on stage at the end with Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith, the promoter, and John Kennedy, the lawyer, who's been the lawyer for Band-Aid for 40 years unpaid. They're just an amazing group of people. Michael Grede, who BBC gave time for the single, when, how the story started, they first ordered the song, Do They Know It's Christmas, then they, the Americans did a song, then they just decided to do this Wembley concert, and then they had it on simultaneously, one going on in Philadelphia, and famously Phil

• 47:29Alastair Campbell?

  Collins performed in Wembley, then got on Concorde and performed in Philadelphia before it had finished. So it was just an amazing day, but the question is actually a brilliant question, and Bob Geldof kind of answered it. And Midjor, who was the other founder, Bob Geldof and Midjor, they wrote the song that started the whole thing. And I saw Midjor last night and had a chat with him. He listens to the podcast, by the way, Rory, and so does his wife.

• 47:51Rory Stewart?

  I think even Bob Geldof does occasionally, although, as you can imagine, he's occasionally quite rude about it.

• 47:55Alastair Campbell?

  A bit grumpy about it, yeah, and sort of disagrees, but he'll presumably say something unpleasant about this relentless plugging of his brilliance and his genius.

• 48:03Rory Stewart?

  He has great comment on that. He said, I'm responsible for two of the worst songs in history. That's saying his other one was We Are The World.

• 48:14Alastair Campbell?

  No, listen, he's, I'll tell you what, he's a, he's an amazing guy. I mean, if most politicians could think, he has got a legacy. We talk about legacy in politics, politics, right? He has got a legacy. Live Aid is a real thing. It's still going on. It's still giving money. And the fact that people are going to see musicals about it forty years on. And I watched some of the, they showed the whole thing again on BBC Two the other day. It was amazing. But the point is, could it happen again? That's what El Cowley is asking. Could, you know, why aren't we doing this now for climate or for Gaza or for Sudan or wherever it might be? And I think there's lots of reasons. One is, I don't think we watch the same things in the same way anymore. So if the BBC did a report like that today, would we all

• 48:59Alastair Campbell?

  be affected in the same way? Has social media made us a bit more uncaring about some of this stuff? Have the artists become less outspoken because they're constantly worried of being cancelled? What Midjus said, when I was talking to him, by the way, he said that the problem is, I think that people are now so distracted in their lives. There's so many distractions. And a lot of them are just on their phone the whole time. Anyways, it was, I would recommend it to anybody. I left the place singing, whistling, springing my step, thinking, let's find a way of doing this kind of thing again.

• 49:33Rory Stewart?

  Let me just add a couple more thoughts on that. I think it's a hugely important thing because it goes to the heart of how have we managed to cut UK development aid from point seven percent of GDP. Boris Johnson got it down to point five. Kirsten Palmer's now got it down to point three. So it's, it's less than half of what it was when I was responsible for that budget. How have we done it? Well, partly, this is the story of

• 50:00Rory Stewart?

  of Live Aid and everything that's going on there, which is that we've become much more cynical, much more focused on corruption.

• 50:10Rory Stewart?

  Much more doubt about whether charities do a good job, much more suspicion of celebrities, but also the falling away of other things, not just the charisma of musicians, but also churches, which were very, very important right the way through the nineties and raising money for international development, the trade union movement, its sense of solidarity also crumbling away. It's civil society in general. I mean, once civic societies dismantled, then government doing things with public money becomes more difficult. I remember talking to Bob Geldof about this, and actually, I think he's great. And if I can, I'd like to twist your arm into getting him on leading, because I think he is terrific on this stuff.

• 50:50Rory Stewart?

  But he sort of saw the high point of this being your G8 conference in Gleneagles. He saw that as sort of the the end of it, and that, I guess, 2000 was the last moment where he really felt that musicians and celebrities were really able to move the dial on things. And this returns to the whole narrative we keep coming back to, which is this sort of strange moment of the late eighties, nineties, early 2000s, when this sort of idealism, make poverty history, international development, rules-based order all seemed to be on the rise, democracy on the rise, compared to a world which seemed to turn quite suddenly about 20 years ago in the direction we're going today.

• 51:30Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, if you look at, you know, Bob, in classic Bob's style, he was he was told not to make, I think, you know, the theatre said, look, don't don't swear too much. Well, that's ridiculous, you know, but don't make it too political. And one of the first things he said was, you know, how have we gone from that to this world where these thugs, these fucking thugs, Trump and Musk and Vance, are killing kindness in the world. I thought that was a great phrase, killing kindness in the world. And if you think about the whole celebrity thing.

• 52:05Alastair Campbell?

  Be interesting to know what Taylor Swift thinks about her experience of getting her head above the parapet in politics during the last campaign in America, and whether she would want to put her voice to something political. Look at, you know, look at Lassenbury recently, you know, we had the whole debate about the rapper and the chants for the IDF and what have you, but that aside, there wasn't much politics in the, in the, in that event this year, a bit of Rod Stewart, Nigel Farage, and that was about it. So I think that, I, I've, I felt very nostalgic at this thing yesterday, but I also felt, I don't believe that there isn't still within us the energy and the passion and the politics

• 52:49Alastair Campbell?

  to, not, you're never going to recreate the same thing, but I still think you could find a campaign issue that did generate that sense of energy around, around culture and the arts. And I think if we, if, if it doesn't, then I don't think culture and the arts is as healthy as it was. And your point about cynicism, Roy, I mean, the headline of the week has got to be, needless to say, the Daily Telegraph, I just saw it on somebody's phone, and it was, how Live Aid ruined pop music for good. I don't know what the piece was about, but, so where the fuck are they coming from? How Live Aid ruined pop music for good. Anyway, it's a great, a great night out, and, and I'll tell you, rise, Bob, I

• 53:31Alastair Campbell?

  know he's already got his night ahead, but, and your friend Charles and Diana, they were both there at Live Aid as well. In fact, one of the, one of the pictures in my cuttings was, was Charles looking a bit grumpy because Diana was, she looked like she might have had the eye for David Bowie a little bit, who was looking very fondly towards him.

• 53:48Rory Stewart?

  Though, though we were finishing with a lovely sense of idealism and hope for music and culture, so let's get back to that and away from your, your dubious insinuations, back to, I, I love that point, that we should find themes and stories that we can get behind, that we need modern heroes, that we need noble purpose, and let's aim towards that. Thank you, that was a lovely chat. See you soon.

• 54:14Alastair Campbell?

  See you soon. Bye bye.