219. Question Time: Vladimir Putin’s strategy, Labour’s selection headache, and VAT on private schools

Will Azhar Ali still stand as a Labour candidate in the Rochdale by-election? How revealing was Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin? Why do politicians seem to see apologising as a sign of weakness? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more in this week's Question Time. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair 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.

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Crete. 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.

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/rusthispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rusthispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

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• 1:59Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to The Rest Is Politics Question Time with me Rory Stewart.

• 2:03Alastair Campbell?

  And me Alastair Campbell.

• 2:04Rory Stewart?

  Lovely to see you. Just want to do a little quick shout out for where I am.

• 2:08Alastair Campbell?

  Where are you?

• 2:09Rory Stewart?

  I am in Switzerland and I'd like to encourage people what I'm doing at the moment, which is, it's a real treat if you're able to do it, is something called ski touring, where you put skins on the bottom of your skis. You don't need to use a lift. It's more environmentally friendly, much better exercise. You get to climb up to the top of mountains, skins on your skis and then ski off the top of mountains.

• 2:25Alastair Campbell?

  That sounded like an advert to me.

• 2:27Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, that's a bit of an advert. An advert actually also for Cumbria in Scotland. When the snow's there, you can actually do it in your own backyard. So ski touring, I'd like to promote it.

• 2:35Alastair Campbell?

  Very good. Right, let's bring the session crashing down to earth with a question from Theresa Seba. What are your views on the accusation from Azhar Ali that Israel allowed the October 7th attack? So it could go into Gaza and annihilate the Palestinian people?

• 2:50Rory Stewart?

  So this is Rochdale where Tony Lloyd died and there's now a by-election. It was a by-election that was where the candidates for Labour, Labour seat included Paul War, who's a journalist who many people in Westminster know and who's written very interestingly about his experience at standing. But it was won eventually by Azhar Ali, who's a veteran Labour councillor and who I think stood for Pendle.

• 3:11Alastair Campbell?

  He's also a Burnley fan Rory, I know him quite well.

• 3:14Rory Stewart?

  Goodness gracious me. All right, well then tell us a little about Azhar Ali and tell us what on earth he's been saying and why he's been saying it and what it all means.

• 3:20Alastair Campbell?

  Well, he was secretly recorded, I think, at a meeting where he essentially did make, as Theresa's question said, he sort of bought into this conspiracy theory that Israeli knew it was going to happen on October 7th, did nothing about it so they could then go into Gaza. Now, by the time this emerged, nominations for the by-election had closed. So the initial reaction of the Labour Party was, we have to keep him as the candidate, otherwise we have no candidate. But then, I think, not least following discussions within the party, also within the Jewish community in the region and so forth, they've now announced that they won't be supporting him, which is absolute chaos. You've now got Reform who are being

• 4:03Alastair Campbell?

  Represented by somebody who used to be a Labour MP but got kicked out. You've got George Galloway, who is a really nasty piece of work. I've had many experiences of George Galloway in my time.

• 4:15Rory Stewart?

  And George Galloway also a former Labour MP.

• 4:16Alastair Campbell?

  Also a former Labour MP. And then you've got, people talk about this being a safe Labour seat, but of course, and I don't know whether the boundaries have changed, they may have done. But back in the day, of course, was the seat of Cyril Smith.

• 4:27Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 4:28Alastair Campbell?

  A Liberal MP who got caught up in all sorts of awful sort of child sex stuff.

• 4:34Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 4:34Alastair Campbell?

  And then I guess you've got the Tories, I don't know, doing what. So it's, it's just a complete and total mess. I keep saying that you never quite know what is going to blow up during a campaign. Imagine if you had a series of situations like this in a general election campaign, for example. I can't remember the last time where, I, I just don't know if there is a precedent. I can't remember a situation where the party dumped its candidate, as it were, after the election was so far down the track that you couldn't get another one. So this is a complete bloody disaster as far as I see it.

• 5:06Rory Stewart?

  It's amazing, isn't it? And I mean, I think the first thing is that obviously horrendous comments, which will really inflame community tensions. And is a reminder of something that I think we're going to cover more, which is just how much Israel Gaza is spilling over into Britain and British politics with profound fear from Jewish communities who really feel antisemitism and conspiracy theories are on the rise. And real anger from Muslim communities out of solidarity with Gaza. And the way this is defined, because I guess George Galloway as a candidate, I mean, he stood against the Iraq war. He's a candidate who's often tried to appeal to, I guess, sometimes Islamist voters. And then we've got this guy, Simon Danchook, who I remember because he entered Parliament with me as a Labour MP.

• 5:50Alastair Campbell?

  So this is the Reform candidate.

• 5:51Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, now standing for Reform, which I guess is the ex sort of Brexit UKIP.

• 5:55Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think it's about a thirty, somewhere near thirty percent Muslim vote. And you talk about, you know, I mean, what Galloway does is he, he thrives on his one by-elections before he thrives on trying to sort of create division and, and all the rest of it. You know, when Joe Cox's sister was standing to replace her, some absolutely horrible stuff around her being attacked in the street. And so it's going to be, you know, it's a very, very, very bad scene this. But the fact of the Labour candidate, you know, we've got two by-elections this week where if Labour. Win one or both, that'll be doing pretty well. They should probably win both, given the recent by-election results. And then you've got this one coming up at the end of the month, February 29th, I think it is. And frankly, here we are, sort of day after Ali

• 6:38Alastair Campbell?

  has had to pull out, or has been dropped by the party, heaven knows what's going to happen.

• 6:42Rory Stewart?

  Presumably what they should have done is they should have moved immediately against him five days ago, instead of what they did, which is get into five days of media fury. You know, you had Labour Shadow Ministers saying his comments were unacceptable, but the Labour Party was still supporting him, and that just dragged out the story, didn't it?

• 6:55Alastair Campbell?

  But I don't know whether by then it was already, you know, I guess the question was when nominations close, whether you could actually replace him. And what's clear is that as things stand, you can't replace him.

• 7:04Rory Stewart?

  So he's going to run as a Labour Party candidate, but without the support of the Labour Party?

• 7:09Alastair Campbell?

  If people want to vote for him, they can. He's on the ballot paper.

• 7:12Rory Stewart?

  With the Labour Party logo?

• 7:13Alastair Campbell?

  Correct. Which presumably means that if he were to win, there's then a conundrum as to whether he takes the Labour whip or doesn't. I mean, honestly, the whole thing is a bit of a mess.

• 7:24Rory Stewart?

  More than a bit of a mess, because presumably at one level, Labour need the seat, they need to win a by-election, but they also don't want him to win.

• 7:31Alastair Campbell?

  Well, they certainly don't want Galloway or Reform to win either. They don't want the Tories to win, which is, would be an utter miracle if that were to happen. It just shows you, all sorts of stuff happens in campaigns. And the other thing that this will do, will encourage the newspapers that don't want Labour to win, the Tories that clearly don't want Labour to win, to sort of, you know, maybe start on some big digging exercises on candidates now. And then they'll keep things back and try and create a few hand grenades like this during the election campaign itself. Let's stick with Labour and elections. Alad James, who will win the Welsh Labour leadership election and become next First Minister? Alad, there makes a very interesting point. I find it strange that so little notice is being paid to this nationally compared to the Scottish leadership

• 8:12Alastair Campbell?

  race last year, considering this is the only nation in the UK governed by Labour. Very, very good point. So the Welsh Labour leadership election is between Jeremy Miles, who's the Education Minister, and Vaughan Gethin, who's in charge of Economy. And this is happening because Mark Drayford has stepped down. And it's very interesting that, that is a very good point by Alad. If you remember- Much we talked about the Scottish leadership election about the national media did. This is happening pretty low profile outside Wales. Partly, I guess, because they're being quite polite to each other, but it's very, it's very interesting how Jeremy Miles essentially is putting the economy at the heart of his campaign, suggesting that there hasn't been enough sustainable economic growth.

• 8:54Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that might be to do with the Economy Minister, Vaughan Gethin. And meanwhile, Vaughan Gethin says that his big thing is to raise standards in education. And of course, Jeremy Miles is the Education Minister. So there's this, it's a bit of a sort of polite way of tearing lumps out of each other. It's very much not like Liz Truss and that campaign went on. I know that Vaughan Gethin was the, was certainly the favourite at the start. There's been a big sort of row going on about some of this sort of union stitch ups that have been, that have been going on. But I think it's going to be pretty close. I think it'll be pretty tight and voting starts this week.

• 9:31Rory Stewart?

  Question from Andrew Elliott to jump international for a moment, then we can maybe scoot back to the UK. What do the new malaria vaccines mean for subsaharan Africa? So this is a really, really interesting development. A new vaccine has been developed. Now malaria, just to give people background, I think something like half a million people a year still die from malaria. And well over 90% of them are in Africa and it disproportionately affects the young and the poor. Partly because treatment for malaria is pretty expensive. There are many, many things that have been done to massively improve this. So Bill Gates, who we interviewed on Leading, has put a lot of energy into trying to deal with different types of tropical disease, which malaria is one. Huge evidence around the fact that bed nets alone make a huge difference.

• 10:15Rory Stewart?

  Simply putting up a bed net and reducing the amount that you're bitten and bed nets are pretty cheap. But the real holy grail has been finding a vaccine, something that actually makes you immune against malaria. And there is a new vaccine which has been, been tested, I think, for nearly 10 years, but is now finally being rolled out, which seems to have an efficacy rate of 75% over 12 months. And it's now being rolled out. So could be very, very exciting news. And along with all the gloomy messages we have, malaria is one of the greatest killers in the world. And if we're finally getting on top of that, could make a huge difference.

• 10:48Alastair Campbell?

  Jason Palmer, Tucker versus Putin. Objective thoughts on the Tucker Carlson interview with Vladimir Putin. Unlike the Laura Trott interview, this interview did get a lot of coverage.

• 10:59Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I mean, absolutely extraordinary, partly because Tucker seemed to sort of initially suggest he was the only person who'd ever thought of interviewing Putin, whereupon every journalist in the world was like, wait a sec, I was trying to interview him. We're going to interview Steve Rosenberg, I'm really looking forward to that, who's the BBC correspondent in Russia, who has occasionally managed to land questions with Putin and got an amazing interview with the authoritarian leader of Belarus.

• 11:20Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm, Lukashenko, yeah.

• 11:22Rory Stewart?

  Lukashenko, yeah. But anyway, what was your sense on how Tucker Carlson managed interviewing this bizarre guy?

• 11:27Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think it was a, I think from Carlson's perspective, it was a bit of a disaster. He was used as a bit of a useful idiot. His arrival at the airport, he was sort of feted like a kind of global superstar by the Russian media. And then the interview itself was essentially Putin giving him a very, very, very, very long, tendentious history lesson. Carlson looking a bit like, he reminded me of Rishi Sunak when he was with Elon Musk. It was like, ooh, tell me something else really interesting. I thought the whole thing was awful. And of course, he talked about, you know, he was asking the questions that nobody else

• 12:10Alastair Campbell?

  wanted to ask, he was getting the interview that nobody else was interested in getting. There's not a journalist in the world who wouldn't sit down with Vladimir Putin. One, he'll only talk to people that he's absolutely 100% are not going to give him a hard time. Two, quite a lot of journalists who would like to interview Vladimir Putin are in jail, put there by Vladimir Putin because they say and do things that he doesn't agree with. And three, Tucker Carlson could have done a kind of traditional journalistic job of trying to sort of answer some of the questions that the public in America might like to hear the answer to, instead of which it was just a sort of succession of slow ball, full tosses. So I thought very embarrassing of him. He won't care because he kind of got the publicity, which is what he wants.

• 12:52Alastair Campbell?

  But basically, he is essentially, I think Putin would see Tucker Carlson as a bit of a Russian asset, which is probably why he was there.

• 12:59Rory Stewart?

  A good shout out here possibly to Tom Holland from The Rest is History, who did a really, really good three and a half minute social media clip on Putin's approach to history and the oddness of it. I mean, the oddness of sort of locating your political agenda in the early Middle Ages and how bizarre that would be. I mean, you imagine, you know, in Europe that you're sort of talking about Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Empire and his borders as a way of trying to envisage what the relationship between France and Germany would be, or the time when Britain was Welsh. But of course, part of the issue is that Putin is not unusual in doing that. I mean, he's a sort of 19th century nationalist and there are an enormous amount of them around. And you can see it in the Middle East, you can see it in the way that Narendra Modi talks about Bharat,

• 13:41Rory Stewart?

  traditional India, you can see it in Myanmar, you can of course see it in the rhetoric of Xi Jinping. So nationalism remains incredibly strong and appealing.

• 13:49Alastair Campbell?

  Now, here's one, Rory, that will allow us to disagree agreeably. Den Dunbar Brunton, I'd like to hear each of your opinions on the adding of VAT on fee paying education and how this token policy can be implemented in practice to positive effect without a far more radical approach to education overall. Now, I actually, one of the speeches I made last, whatever day it was, when you were telling me I was doing too much, was to the Independent Schools Bursars Association.

• 14:17Rory Stewart?

  Oh my goodness, you really go to the most glamorous places, don't you?

• 14:20Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it was, I was very keen to go into something of the lion's den. So these were the bursars and finance directors of 300 private schools. And as you know, I'm not a big fan of private education. I actually do support Labour's plans to change the tax regime in order to raise money to put into, I think it's about one and a half billion to put into specific things in state schools. By the way, Den, if you want to see my opinions, I put the speech that I made on my website and it's all there explaining why I don't think the private schools should see this as the end of the world and why I think it's a good limited thing for Labour to do. But what was interesting, Rory, was how many of them, particularly speaking maybe privately, accepted my broad view that

• 15:04Alastair Campbell?

  Maybe we do need to focus more on education for the many, not the few, as it were, when only 7% use private schools.

• 15:11Rory Stewart?

  Well, that's astonishing. I mean, presumably the bursters, some of the bursters listening to this, people like, what the hell are my colleagues talking about? Because the VAP at 20% is a big, I mean, not to the Eton's this world that has money and wealthy parents, but makes a huge difference to a lot of private schools around the country, which are struggling to fill their places and which have families on lower income that are struggling to pay the school fees. Those schools were just shut, weren't they?

• 15:32Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I don't think that many will shut. There's a very, very good analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which talked about somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 school pupils perhaps not leaving the sector. They talked about how many wouldn't necessarily go in because of the VAT. But bear in mind, Rory, there are falling school roles within the state sector. There are state schools that are closing at the moment. So this idea that we should sort of, you know, all be kind of shedding tears because one or two private schools might close down. There are schools closing in the state sector. There are vacancies for kids in many of the state schools.

• 16:05Rory Stewart?

  And your point is that that 20,000 to 40,000 extra students that would have been in the private sector going to the state sector are not going to cost the state as much as the amount they'll make from the VAT.

• 16:15Alastair Campbell?

  Correct. Which maybe is a very long report, but the IFS report is pretty compelling on this. And clearly it's going to make life more difficult for some parents and for some schools. Most of the persons that were there, Rory, they do say the whole time, listen, we're not Eton. And I get that point. But my point was actually that we haven't, as a country, we haven't really ever tried truly comprehensive education. And those countries which have, like Finland and Canada, tend to do better in their overall education systems than we do. I'm sure lots of them didn't agree with me at all. I mean, I know that lots of them didn't agree with me at all. But I was rather touched that some of them did.

• 16:52Rory Stewart?

  So it's something to watch because it's one of the big flagship Labour policies. And it's something that will have, I think, an impact on parents who are not on high incomes, sending their kids to private schools. And around me in Scotland, around Creef, there are many private schools that are not in a very good financial situation. So they're very, very concerned about, about what this will mean to them. At the same time, I saw your, your old friend, the headmaster of Eton.

• 17:17Alastair Campbell?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:17Rory Stewart?

  Who would want me to tell you about the work that Eton is doing and other schools are doing to support academy trusts and the investment they're putting into supporting the state sector and fulfilling their charitable objectives. But I guess that probably you would say won't be enough to, to save these schools from their VAT.

• 17:36Alastair Campbell?

  Um, no, I hope not. Um, but you know, I'd love to know of all these bursaries that are given because what they, the other thing they say is we won't be able to give bursaries. But how many of these schools really do give bursaries to children on free school meals or pupil premium? And they tend to be a way of just sort of cutting fees for middle class parents. And just to, just to give you a sense, Rory, so Rishi Sunak says that this Labour policy is, uh, it's class war, it's class envy, it's a hit on aspiration. But my argument, what I said to the, to the bursaries and finance directors was the real class attitude is actually revealed in him basically saying that if you don't want to pay the extra to buy the smaller class sizes, somehow you're hitting aspiration. But actually,

• 18:19Alastair Campbell?

  surely the aspiration of a prime minister ought to be that you raise standards for everybody. So he's paying forty eight thousand pound per pupil for his daughter. The average in a state school is somewhere between six and eight. The average in a private school is between twelve and twenty. So if we're really serious about leveling up, surely we have to look at, at closing that gap, which is continuing to widen.

• 18:40Rory Stewart?

  One of the things I never asked you is, do you have the same view on private health insurance? Do you also think that it'd be much better if there was no private health insurance and everybody used the NHS?

• 18:48Alastair Campbell?

  I do historically, but I think it's becoming virtually impossible. Look at the argument that's going on at the moment about dentistry. We had an NHS dentist for years and he now does mainly private work. And I fear, I do think that more and more people are being, as it were, pushed into the private sector, pushed into private healthcare. I mean, when I had my, my breakdown in the nineteen eighties, Rory, I was the only person on today newspaper who had refused to accept the private healthcare cover as part of the salary package. And of course, I was the first person who was committed to a private hospital. I don't know whether the bills ever be. But I think in a way that ship has sailed for lots and lots of people because it's just become so difficult to get care in the health sector. And I think that's part

• 19:33Alastair Campbell?

  of a deliberate strategy.

• 19:34Rory Stewart?

  And presumably there, again, even more than this argument around schools, if you banned private health insurance, at the moment, it would put unbelievable extra pressures on the NHS.

• 19:43Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely impossible. And don't forget as well, the other difference, I suppose, I guess, with education is teachers have to be essentially, maybe they can, they can do a bit of tutoring outside, but essentially teachers have to be state school teachers or private school teachers. Whereas what you have in the health service are doctors in particular, who spend a bit of time in the health service and a bit of time in the private sector.

• 20:04Rory Stewart?

  And am I right, often actually by doing so, making up their incomes. So one of the ways in which underpaid doctors get more money is by working in the private sector as well.

• 20:11Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely. The other thing, Rory, is I hadn't realised until I did the research for this speech, is that there's a real thing about the birth rate in some parts of the country. London, for example, has been a big decline. And so local authorities in London, they are predicting a 7.3% fall in reception pupil numbers between now and 2027.

• 20:31Rory Stewart?

  Which is very weird, because then at the same time, we've got 1.2 million gross migrants coming to the UK this year. The net figure lower than that, but still hundreds of thousands of people. So presumably, we're then going to end up with an enormous bulge in the opposite direction. So one of the problems with the government is they have to deal with pupil numbers collapsing. And then a few years later, pupil numbers exploding again.

• 20:51Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but in our area, we've had three primary schools close recently. Two of them, one of the big factors has been the fact that there were a very large number of Polish kids and post Brexit, a lot of them have gone home.

• 21:04Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 21:05Alastair Campbell?

  So you put together falling birth rate, migration to the private sector, London's got the, by far, the biggest sort of numbers using the private sector and Brexit. So you've got falling roles. And I think that's why this argument, this is why the IFS report's worth reading. I think this argument that somehow this change by Labour is going to lead to the sort of collapse of the private sector, I just, I don't see it.

• 21:24Rory Stewart?

  Very good. So here I've got another question which I quite like, which is from Marcus Castor. And his question is, we're going to Creef for the weekend in May. Which Monroe would Rory suggest for five relatively fit 60 something? So promote my hometown of Creef. Incredible place, just on the edge of the Highlands, which do walking. And I would recommend, probably the most famous would be Shahelian, which is relatively easy up. Ben Honsey, absolutely lovely route up above Glentara, this beautiful reservoir at the bottom of it. So either of those, Marcus.

• 21:53Alastair Campbell?

  Are you a Monroe collector? Because it's a big thing, isn't it? People collecting all the Monroes and going up all of them.

• 21:58Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I'm not a big collector, but I do love, love, love walking and climbing Scotland. I go up and down those hills a lot. I tend to repeat rather than going on to new ones.

• 22:07Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, okay. Right. Harry F. After watching the excruciating interview Evan Davis did with Laura Trott, did you see it, Rory?

• 22:15Rory Stewart?

  I missed that. No, tell us about it.

• 22:17Alastair Campbell?

  I'll tell you in a minute. I couldn't help but compare the response, or lack of, with Diane Abbott a few years ago, when she got her numbers wrong and was all over the tabloids, social media as a result. So Laura Trott is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, as you know, Rory. She did an interview with Evan Davis of the BBC, who as you also probably know, knows quite a bit about the economy. And it was absolutely mind blowing because poor Evan was making a point about debt as a share of GDP rising. And Laura Trott insisted that it was falling. And poor Evan is sitting there scratching his head because he's looking at the figures.

• 22:55Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's not falling.

• 22:56Alastair Campbell?

  And it's rising. And so I watched this and I thought it was, as a sort of, you know, former government communications person, I was almost sort of curling up like a ball, cringey. It was, it was truly cringe worthy. And yet, as Harry rightly says, you don't know about it because it's really had very, very, very little coverage. Whereas Diane Abbott, who got a bit financially muddled when she was not even the Treasury Minister, she was not even in government, she was the Shadow Home Secretary, she got her numbers wrong in an interview. And it produced a million memes and people still will talk about Diane Abbott and her maths. So I'm afraid it was just a very good example, Harry, of how beneficial it is to the Conservative Party to have a press that basically tends

• 23:40Alastair Campbell?

  to avoid covering their many, many gaffes.

• 23:43Rory Stewart?

  It's actually amazing that stuff. I mean, I'm always very struck by this, that the economy, obviously, is probably the most important thing in the end to most of our lives and most of our democracies. You know, are we going to be able to be better off? Are we going to be able to pay our bills? And yet, the most basic things about the economy, public, obviously, often is struggling to understand. I remember when I was running in Cumbria, I initially was trying to talk to people about the difference between the debt and the deficit, till some political veteran took me aside and said, Rory, do shut up about the difference between debt and deficit. Nobody gives a monkey's about it. But also, as you say, politicians, I mean, you know, often politicians getting this stuff wrong. And yet, nothing could be more important. Laura Trotter, I think, studied economics at Oxford, so it's particularly kind of bizarre.

• 24:27Rory Stewart?

  Here's a university question for you off the back of that. So Finn Wilson, any advice to a university student that struggles immensely with anxiety and worrying? Any personal anecdotes would be greatly appreciated.

• 24:38Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, Lord. I don't know if I studied, did I suffer with anxiety because I-

• 24:41Rory Stewart?

  You were pretty miserable at Cambridge, weren't you?

• 24:43Alastair Campbell?

  I was pretty miserable, but I think actually the reason why I was drinking so much was perhaps because I was already suffering with depression and anxiety, but didn't want to admit it. I would say, try not to get hooked on the drink, try to keep fit, try to sleep well. I think my problem at Cambridge is that I arrived and I honestly was meeting sorts of people that I'd never met before. And I, I did have a bit of a, not imposter syndrome, but I, I assumed, but because they were sort of noisier and because they looked more at ease with themselves and looked more comfortable. This is maybe where my sort of loathing of private education comes from, is that I kind of immediately felt very, very out of place.

• 25:27Alastair Campbell?

  I just sort of felt I didn't really belong here. And what's more, I didn't particularly want to belong, which is not a very good attitude when you're about to spend four years there. Specific things, by the way, I'll give you one specific thing which I use whenever I feel anxiety rising. I just do this. I just rub my fingers and my, my forefinger and my thumbs together. And I don't know why, but it always works.

• 25:51Rory Stewart?

  And is there a sense that different people might have different things, but it's something, something like that which you do?

• 25:56Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, yeah. Hundred percent. You have to have your own. You have to, I got this actually when I was having sort of panic attacks. Live on television, which is not a good thing to do. And I saw this, a guy called Andy McCann, who's a sports psychologist. And he said, you have to find your own thing. Some people, it might be just rubbing their arm. It might be sort of putting their hand through their hair. It's something that centers you. You have to know it's your thing. So I had to find something that was just, nobody would see that you were doing it. And I do this now, by the way, when I get attacked, some very occasionally, sort of physically, or when I feel my blood boiling, starting to boil, I just do this and it just calms me down.

• 26:37Rory Stewart?

  And I think it's also interesting, isn't it? I mean, I've been thinking about children in this regard, that it's also great if you are able to develop something which isn't too visible.

• 26:45Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:45Rory Stewart?

  Because I think it's also sad if what you're doing is so unbelievably visible. That can sort of, I think, increase anxiety.

• 26:51Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, Rory, lots more questions. Let's take a quick break.

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• 28:00Rory Stewart?

  Question from Kimmy. When did apologising become a sign of weakness? I'm interested in this because my instinct, again and again in politics, was to apologise. And I usually found that when I apologised, it worked. So when I was called in front of a select committee and they said, I'd been prison minister for about a week or two, they said, "Conditions in Liverpool prison are absolutely terrible. Spectres have come in, there's blood on the floor, the windows are broken, violence is out through the roof. Who's fault is it? Who's going to take accountability?" And I said, "It's my fault. I'm the minister. I'm responsible for Liverpool prison. I apologise and I'm going to sort it out. And if I haven't sorted it out in 12 months' time." And that worked well for me. Why, though, is it that, generally speaking, politicians seem to be advised not to apologise?

• 28:45Alastair Campbell?

  I broadly agree with you. And we had an example, we talked about the Rochdale by-election. Azad Ali, he apologised, but that didn't, as it were, stem the flow of criticism and anger, and therefore the Labour Party decided it had to go further. I think what the question may have in mind is this exchange that Rishi Sunak had in the House of Commons, where he was having a go at Keir Starmer. We talked about this last week. And he was doing a big thing about Keir Starmer's U-turn, and he included the thing about Keir Starmer not knowing what a woman is. And of course, in the public gallery was the mother of Brianna Gray, who'd been murdered. And that case was very, very fresh in people's mind, which did seem incredibly lacking in sensitivity and empathy, at the

• 29:30Alastair Campbell?

  very least. But Sunak doubled down and sent people out to double down. And he does seem to have a problem with apologising.

• 29:37Rory Stewart?

  And Keir Starmer, too, famously, when five, six days, the story was around that he thought that starving Gaza was fine and couldn't bring himself to come out and apologise, I think, five, six days later. So there must be something going on with communications directors on all sides. What is it they're worried about? They're worried the apology will generate its own headlines, are they?

• 29:56Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but I think broadly, that's not a bad thing. You know, I think people saying, "I got it wrong." If it becomes habit for me, then people think, "Well, why are you doing this job if you keep having to say sorry for what you've done?"

• 30:06Rory Stewart?

  Well, you've got to hope that you can sort it out. I mean, obviously, the gamble I'm making with prisons is that I'm not going to have to apologise all the time.

• 30:13Alastair Campbell?

  Yes, but in fact, to be honest, Roy, you probably would. I mean, most prison inspectorate reports at the moment are not very, they're not great, are they? I think that the big fear, I suppose, is that you are...

• 30:25Alastair Campbell?

  Admitting failure and wrongdoing, and that is something that politicians don't like to do. But I agree with you. I think generally, when you cock up, when you get something wrong, when you misspeak, and I do have a real problem with Sunak at the moment, he really is becoming as loose with his facts as Johnson was, regularly giving us economic statistics that aren't true.

• 30:46Rory Stewart?

  On the apology thing, just to be, again, a little bit cheeky and cunning, I mean, one of the things that can sometimes work with apologising profusely is that people can begin to realise that what they're asking you to apologise for is a bit absurd. So if I take that example of prisons, when I've been in office for two weeks and people are asking me to apologise to Liverpool Prison, if I go over the top and say, I absolutely apologise, it's all my fault, I'm so, so sorry, it does make people stop for a second and say, oh, wait a second, he's only been in for two weeks, is it really, is he really personal? Okay, here's a question disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. It's vital for the future economic prosperity of UKAPLC that we improve private sector productivity. We need a sector of safe productivity. Isn't it just right on that some that left-leaning politicians focus on growth only coming from

• 31:31Rory Stewart?

  public sector green investment? There we are, Alistair, over to you. How about the private sector? What are we going to do to make the private sector more dynamic in Britain?

• 31:37Alastair Campbell?

  But I don't know, they are just focusing on, I mean, look, we've just, I don't know whether disgusted at Tunbridge Wells wrote that question before the Labour Party had somewhat watered down the Green Prosperity Plan. I've been very interested in recent weeks on these going out, speaking to different businesses, how much they are conscious of the fact that the Labour Party is actually trying to persuade them that it understands the importance of the private sector in any growth strategy. So I would say that the stuff that they're talking about planning, which I think is going to be incredibly difficult to implement, but I think the fact that they're making it a big deal shows that they are serious about putting that at the heart of a government agenda.

• 32:17Rory Stewart?

  One of the weird things is, I guess, both Labour and Conservatives can see that what really matters is the ecosystem, the kind of enabling environment around private sector companies. So, you know, how much tax they have to pay, what kind of incentives they have to employ more people or not employ more people, what kind of breaks they get to invest in equipment. But also a general sense of red tape, regulations, ease of doing business. And I think both parties recognise this, and economists keep telling this, but in practice, they seem to find it incredibly difficult to create environments where small businesses really feel it's easy to operate. There are these kind of bizarre tax edge cliffs, bizarre disincentives, weird stuff while working hours. It'd be interesting to try to trace that down and work out what it is that makes it

• 33:02Rory Stewart?

  so difficult to create business-friendly environments.

• 33:04Alastair Campbell?

  It was interesting to me that a lot of the criticism of Labour's dilution of the Green Prosperity Plan, obviously it came from a lot of labour activists, it came from environmental campaigners, but actually a lot of it came from business. So I think there is an understanding from the Labour Party that you need the private sector to be generating wealth and that the state can play a role in helping to do that. And equally, I think the business is getting the message that Labour Party doesn't sit there thinking, how do I whack business? The feeling I get is that when Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnellan were in charge, they felt like they were viewed somewhat as enemies, whereas now I think they have an understanding that Labour can't meet its growth objectives without them performing pretty well, and government has a role in that.

• 33:48Alastair Campbell?

  The other big elephant in the room on this, for me and I think for a lot of businesses, is the whole European Union stuff, our relations post-Brexit, trading arrangements with the European Union.

• 33:57Rory Stewart?

  One hundred percent. I think the single biggest thing that any party could do is to rejoin the customs union. I think it would make such a difference. It's not just making trade much, much easier with Europe. And, you know, I like, presumably you and everyone, I just imported something from the Netherlands and just been hit with a huge bill coming in from customs. I don't even understand, you know, what this bill is, why it's coming in, but it must be something to do with us leaving the customs union. But it's not just the problems in supply chains, and I've got lots of businesses from the Midlands saying to me they've just given up importing from abroad because it's become too difficult.

• 34:31Alastair Campbell?

  And you've got people who give up exporting as well.

• 34:33Rory Stewart?

  Exactly, but it's also the psychological impact. I mean, the way in which it would pass a signal to investors and others that Britain is being sensible about re-engaging with its largest trading partner, because the fantasies... That people had that we were suddenly going to get these big deals with the economies that mass her China, US, India by now, I think, have been sort of blown out of the water.

• 34:53Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely. They're not even talking about them. And of course, they've moved on to say, well, that's not what it was about. And Kemi Badenoch is going to be the next Tory leader, whilst going around saying she's going to make these wonderful new trade deals with Papua New Guinea. I mean, the whole thing is a nonsense. Thomas Burridge, for most people, you like this one, Rory, for most people, a well performing local councillor is more pivotal to their quality of life than a well performing national representative. Discuss.

• 35:19Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think there's something in that, although the quality of local government is not always great. Remember, often local councillors are certainly in my part of the world, they were often retired people living off pensions who were getting a number of different council jobs to get their salaries up at increments of a few thousand a year. And these were part time jobs. So I don't think we need to have too unrealistically rosier picture. But when it works, working local government is incredibly fulfilling because of course, you actually have the budgets or some budgets, you have the direct power to affect things that are relevant to people's lives. We should do an interview, actually, I think we should, you know, we did, we did a good one. We like the Andy Street, Andy Burnham one. We should take your friend,

• 36:04Rory Stewart?

  Georgia Gould.

• 36:05Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 36:06Rory Stewart?

  And we should get a Tory council leader as well, and get them both on the podcast, talking about local councils at that level. Because I think it's a really interesting, productive bit of politics there.

• 36:16Alastair Campbell?

  Interestingly, Tom Riordan, who runs Leeds Council, very, very, very smart guy. And he, bizarrely, Rory, you must be psychic, emailed me last week, said, have you ever had a local government person on leading apart from the Andes? You could sometimes could do more about the real on the ground impact of policy. Georgia, he says, would be brilliant.

• 36:34Rory Stewart?

  There we are. And so we need to get a good Tory alongside her.

• 36:36Alastair Campbell?

  A good Tory. Council leader alongside a good Labour council leader.

• 36:41Rory Stewart?

  Maybe we could do a three hander. Maybe actually to be fair to them, the Lib Dems are often very, very strong in local government.

• 36:47Alastair Campbell?

  Yes.

• 36:47Rory Stewart?

  So we could maybe get a strong Lib Dem local. I'd shout out here for my friend Andy Connell in Cumbria, who's a Lib Dem councillor. I think he's done a very good job and is very thoughtful on politics.

• 36:57Alastair Campbell?

  Good.

• 36:57Rory Stewart?

  I've got a question here that I don't really understand, or at least I don't understand the language it's in.

• 37:02Alastair Campbell?

  Let me help you.

• 37:03Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, go on then. Give me the question. John Lewis. Will Rory become councillor there Universitat Oxford? Why is he asking this question in German?

• 37:13Alastair Campbell?

  Oh God, is it because what he's doing, I think, is translating Ochs and Ford into German.

• 37:21Rory Stewart?

  So will Rory become Chancellor of Oxford University? But we don't know why he's asking the question in German. No.

• 37:26Alastair Campbell?

  We don't. What's his name again?

• 37:27Rory Stewart?

  He's called John Lewis. Doesn't sound very German.

• 37:29Alastair Campbell?

  Called John Lewis, but he wants, I mean, I'm not aware of a, of a German university of that name.

• 37:34Rory Stewart?

  No.

• 37:35Alastair Campbell?

  Most weeks you advertise yourself for a job. We've had Labour peers, we've had chairman of the BBC.

• 37:40Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 37:40Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, do you fancy that one? Oxford University? You fancy that?

• 37:42Rory Stewart?

  Well, at the moment I am teaching, says he, avoiding the question beautifully. I mean, of course, it would be a great honour. Of course, it's an amazing university and all this kind of stuff.

• 37:51Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, it would be a greater honour. If the ball came out of the back of the scrum.

• 37:55Rory Stewart?

  That's all that sort of stuff. But at the moment, I am very happily just started my new job as a professor at Yale and taught my first class last week on the Vietnam War.

• 38:04Alastair Campbell?

  How did it go?

• 38:04Rory Stewart?

  Really great. Twenty four students seminar. We did three hours on the Vietnam War. We read all the stuff from Ho Chi Minh and General Jap, their theories on what they were doing in the Vietnam War. And then we read General Westmoreland. We looked at Dien Bien Phu. We talked about the way that communications plays into politics. And above all, I think the theme that was a really interesting one is the way that the personal and the political coincide. I mean, LBJ, Lyndon Johnson's own personal anxieties and the way that played into his decisions to ramp up in Vietnam. So I'm really loving teaching at Yale, teaching a course called Grand Strategy.

• 38:39Alastair Campbell?

  Is that what the course is? Grand Strategy?

• 38:40Rory Stewart?

  Grand Strategy. So integration, political, economic, military strategy. And we're doing everything from the British Navy in the 18th century to the Peloponnesian Wars, to teaching the Iraq War next week.

• 38:51Alastair Campbell?

  Are you doing all the research yourself or have you got teams of young American interns and things?

• 38:57Rory Stewart?

  The case studies been written by amazing people who've brought case studies to their students and then I and colleagues in the faculty, I mean, I'm teaching with two great colleagues, a guy called Mike Brenness and a professor called Arne Vestad, who's a Norwegian who speaks Chinese and about 10 other languages and is able to talk fluently about most of the world. So that's been a real treat.

• 39:17Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, well, let me give you another question related to grand strategy. If you had to start a new country from scratch, this is from James Moore, as in muscles. Rory often makes the case for constitutional monarchy. But if he had to set up a new country and its constitution from scratch, would he make it a monarchy? That's a great question, James.

• 39:37Rory Stewart?

  Well, the answer is normally you don't. I mean, normally when you set up, as it were, new countries from scratch after regime change, they tend to follow American models. But there are exceptions. Spain, of course, brought back its monarchy and people thought that was a pretty effective transition from Franco. And many people have argued that if the King of Afghanistan had been brought back in 2001, 2002, that probably actually would have also produced quite an interesting transition from the Taliban and might have led to a more favorable outcome there. So I think there's something to be said for non-political heads of state. And I think that Queen Elizabeth and King Charles in Britain are examples of how that can function. And I think the problems that the US is struggling with, Trump is an example of what happens when you over rely on democracy.

• 40:20Alastair Campbell?

  So your answer is basically yes?

• 40:21Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I think one of the ways to preserve liberal democracy is to balance a really strong elected politicians with other bits of the constitution which are non-elected. And I think the US has gone too far in the direction of electing its senate, electing all its judges, electing its head of state. I think there's something good about Britain where our judges are appointed, not elected, where the House of Lords with all the mess it's in would be a better House of Lords, not if it was elected, but if it had an appointments commission that appointed better people. I don't think the answer. When politicians are struggling all around the world is just to think the answer is more and more elections.

• 41:00Alastair Campbell?

  Interesting, very interesting. I don't agree. Anyway.

• 41:05Rory Stewart?

  You love politicians. That's the difference between us.

• 41:07Alastair Campbell?

  Is that what it is?

• 41:08Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, that's it.

• 41:08Alastair Campbell?

  I don't love them all. Lyn Jones, is the Murdoch press a good or a bad thing for Britain?

• 41:13Rory Stewart?

  I think basically a bad thing. I think Murdoch has been a negative impact. Go on, over to you.

• 41:18Alastair Campbell?

  No, I agree. And I think actually, I think the bigger impact, we talked earlier about Tucker Carlson. I think Fox News has had a terrific impact upon American democracy. And we're, you know, GB News is trying to be the same thing here and not really succeeding. But I think that the, the standards of in public life are a lot to do with, with the way that our press has developed. I saw last week that, you know, we did the same whenever Murdoch comes to town, you know, he gets in to see the prime minister. And I think his influence is pretty, is broadly malign, I would say.

• 41:46Rory Stewart?

  Final question for me then, Alsa. Keith Fitz, if Anna Wintour, so Anna Wintour, just to remind people, is the amazingly famous, iconic head of Vogue, was a guest on Leading, what clothes would Mr Campbell choose to wear? Is it true when he interviewed her for his book, he asked her brother for advice? Her brother? Who's her brother?

• 42:03Alastair Campbell?

  Her brother is Patrick Wintour, the journalist.

• 42:06Rory Stewart?

  Ah.

• 42:06Alastair Campbell?

  And so it is true. Anna Wintour is a really, really interesting person. And I think actually it's a great idea that, Keith, we should try and get her on Leading. I wanted to interview her because I had a section in the book about innovation and I saw her as a kind of innovator. So I got Patrick to make an introduction and I persuaded her to do the interview and I went out to New York and it is true, by the way, that I did say to Patrick, what do you think I should wear? She said, I don't think she'll notice really what you wear. But so as it happened, I wore a check shirt and a blue jacket and I looked reasonably smart, but not great. As I was talking to her, I realised that actually she's not going to go in the innovation section, she's going in the leadership section. She's an absolute leader.

• 42:50Alastair Campbell?

  So if we got her on Leading, I wouldn't worry too much about my clothes. I suspect I might wear the, I might wear the Stuart Tartan jacket that Rory Stewart gave me.

• 43:00Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 43:00Alastair Campbell?

  But and honestly, if Anna Wintour or her brother or anybody who works for Anna Wintour is listening, yeah, we'd love to have her on Leading. I think she'd be a great guest. She is a leader, there's no doubt about that.

• 43:10Rory Stewart?

  Brilliant. Well, that's a good way to end. Thank you for a great question time.

• 43:13Alastair Campbell?

  See you soon.

• 43:14Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye.

• 43:19Speaker 06

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