67. PRIME MINISTER RISHI SUNAK

Rishi Sunak is the new Prime Minister. Join Alastair and Rory as they discuss the new leader of the Conservative Party and Britain's first Asian Prime Minister. Will he be able to unite the party? What does his age say about British politics? Did Boris Johnson really have 102 MPs? Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Producers: Dom Johnson + Theo Young-Smith Exec Producer: 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. 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/rustaspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rustaspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:43Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to The Rest is Politics with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alastair Campbell. And Alistair, you're still in France and I am still in Africa, with which a big apology, please, to listeners, because we're recording this on Monday afternoon. I have left my family. We are, we're very, very lucky. We're on a safari in Kenya and we've been looking at wonderful animals with a five-year-old and a seven-year-old. But I've left them for three hours to try to find my way to an internet connection to record this, but that means that we are recording at a time when it's still not clear exactly what's happening in Conservative leadership. But it, my guess is, and I'm betting hard on this, and please, you know, I'll be humiliated if I'm not right, that Rishi

• 2:24Rory Stewart?

  Sunak is going to be the only one who will cross 100 backers, which is means Rishi Sunak will be our next Prime Minister, and I'm going to record on that basis. And if I'm wrong, you can all laugh at me.

• 2:34Alastair Campbell?

  Well, you wouldn't, I mean, I think that would be harsh to laugh at you, Rory. I think we'll be, I will be just reflecting on the fact that we will now have had five Conservative Prime Ministers in six years. It really is the sort of thing we used to laugh at Italy for. So we've gone Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, and now Rishi Sunak. And we had that sort of convulsion at the weekend as the Attention Seeker-in-Chief and the Charlton-in-Chief decided that what the country needed was for him to come back and expose us to more lies and lawbreaking, no doubt. That's gone. I suspect that his statement, I don't know how many untruths there would have been in his statement last night, that

• 3:18Alastair Campbell?

  he'd got over the limit but decided.

• 3:20Rory Stewart?

  It was infuriating. Can we just cut in on that, just for our listeners, readers of the podcast? So for those of you who didn't follow this statement, I mean, it was eye-wateringly vain. I mean, it was like the kind of thing that you'd see from Donald Trump. Essentially, he is so competitive, he could not bear to admit, as far as I'm concerned, that he wasn't going to make it. He had about 50 declared supporters, and he claims that he got something like 102. So he's trying to claim that he just crossed the numbers. I don't believe it for a moment. I think the only reason that I don't, I can't imagine that there will be people who would have been backing Boris Johnson, who would have been doing it secretly. The people who were backing Boris Johnson would have been doing it openly,

• 4:02Rory Stewart?

  looking for jobs in Boris Johnson's cabinet. So the reality is, unless he tells us differently, he probably only had about 50 out of the 350 Conservative MPs, thank goodness, right? So he had, you know, less than a sixth of them.

• 4:15Alastair Campbell?

  But he's also, I mean, I think the whole thing was, he probably, did he think deep down it might be possible, I don't know. But one thing we know about Johnson, that he loves being talked about, loves being the centre of attention. But also presumably has some self-awareness, enough to know that he has a massive job on to rehabilitate his reputation. So he wanted the airwaves to be full of people saying, the guy's a winner, when in fact, I think that's the Johnson of old, not the Johnson of today. That people would forget, as I'm afraid far too many in the media were far too keen to forget about what actually led to his demise. It just became a sort of a numbers game. But I doubt whether he got more than the ones that declared, maybe a few that would, were trying to sort of keep a foot in the Sunak camp in case Sunak won.

• 5:01Alastair Campbell?

  So I just, I just think that what we're seeing is the, I don't know if you saw Rory on the BBC last week, I got a mild ticking. Very mild, because it turned out that Ofcom didn't object, but I, I did say that Johnson was like the turd that you can't flush away in the toilet. But I think he is now being flushed away. And he said in his, the other thing he said in his statement was that he would be back. And he saw himself possibly as a contender in 2024 or whenever, I mean, just go away, you're deluded.

• 5:27Rory Stewart?

  It's very Trumpian, Trumpian language, isn't it? It's very sort of big Z, I'm very successful, I'm the biggest, I mean. So the last few days, I've been overwhelmed by the number of people who suggested I should once again contest it. I've been attracted because I led our party into a massive election victory less than three years ago. And I believe I'm therefore uniquely placed to avert a general election now. I believe I'm well placed to deliver a Conservative victory in 2024. Tonight, I can confirm that I've cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations, including a proposer and a seconder. I don't know why he put that in, I mean, including a proposer and a seconder. He had 102, why was he struggling to get two people? Anyway, the whole thing was extraordinary. It's a sort of massive, sort of narcissistic, egotistic rant.

• 6:13Rory Stewart?

  There's therefore a very good chance that I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members. And that I could indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday. Unbelievable. I believe I have much to offer, but I'm afraid that it's simply not. Not the right time. In other words, he's at his Cincinnatus, except Cincinnatus famously is very sort of puritanical Roman who went back to his plough. Boris Johnson famously set off to the Caribbean in the middle of the parliamentary working week.

• 6:37Alastair Campbell?

  Did you not think that was extraordinary as well, that he, there was next to no commentary about the fact that what on earth was he doing on yet another holiday? When Parliament's sitting, what did the people of Uxbridge think about the fact that they have this guy who appears to be as, literally have zero interest in them, whatever?

• 6:56Rory Stewart?

  Except whenever I watch clips on TV and people in Uxbridge are interviewed, they're all like, oh Boris, yeah, he's great. We're really good on Boris. Can't wait to have him back. It's extraordinary.

• 7:06Alastair Campbell?

  But I, I think that is part of this sort of wretched, we saw this during Brexit. They feel they have to get a two that say this and two that say that. I'm, I'm sure that the people, sort of people who wander up to me on trains and I was at this football on, on Saturday and I didn't get, I got one person. Who said, oh, you, I bet you worried about Boris Johnson coming back. And, but everybody else was, was a sort of mix of disgust and nausea. And what the hell's going on? So let's stop talking about Johnson. Let's talk about Rishi Sunak. He's going to be our youngest. Prime Minister in modern history, a year younger than Tony Blair when Tony became Prime Minister. He's 42. Is he the shortest? I think he might be. He's five, what is he? About five foot six?

• 7:49Rory Stewart?

  He is quite small. Yeah, he's definitely small.

• 7:51Alastair Campbell?

  Churchill was five foot six and a half. Are you good on Prime Minister or height Rory?

• 7:56Rory Stewart?

  Born in the 1980s.

• 7:58Alastair Campbell?

  Wow.

• 7:58Rory Stewart?

  Pretty amazing, huh?

• 7:59Alastair Campbell?

  I feel old. I was born in the 50s for God's sake.

• 8:02Rory Stewart?

  But, but I remember when David Cameron came in, David Cameron was, so he's born in 66, so he was sort of 44 when he came in. He, I believe the claim then was that he was the youngest Prime Minister in something like 200 years of British history, but Blair had been the youngest before him. Liz Truss was very young, but Rishi Sunak's even younger. So it's something we've talked about on the podcast before. It's part of the acceleration of British politics that. Somehow the days when Gladstone could sort of go into opposition, come back again and be Prime Minister again in his eighties seems to have been replaced by a world, except in the United States, of course, where the people slugging it out seem to be in their mid seventies. In Britain, you, you, it looks like you've got to get younger and younger and younger.

• 8:40Alastair Campbell?

  And before we did the recording with President Hollande, our latest special guest, and before you joined us from Kenya, I was having a little chat in his office and he was talking about the, he'd been following the death of the Queen and the funeral and so forth. And that shot where you had the six living former prime ministers all lined up. And he was saying, you know, the way you lot are going, the next time you have a big sort of establishment event, what's the maximum number of living former prime ministers you could have? I mean, we've now got, since then, we've had, already got two more. I mean, King Charles has barely been in the job and he's got his second prime minister to see in.

• 9:22Rory Stewart?

  It's absolutely unbelievable. And it's also a real sense. I mean, so traditionally, these roles went with seniority. And Churchill, I guess, had been in Parliament for almost 40 years before he became Prime Minister. Macmillan, I guess, had been in 20 or 30 before he became Prime Minister. I'm deliberately not Googling while I'm talking to you. But Rishi Sunak was elected in 2015. The guy's been in Parliament for seven years. It's extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. And even, you know, Keir Starmer, and he got in in 2010. I mean, it's very, very interesting, the replacement of the emphasis on experience, age, wisdom. I mean, these, these guys to become Prime Ministers for a couple of hundred years, you had to really knock around quite a lot. You had to do senior

• 10:07Rory Stewart?

  positions for a long time before people took you seriously for these roles. I mean, how long do you think Callaghan would have been in before he became Prime Minister?

• 10:14Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, he'd been around a long time. Just on to Sunak, Rory, you, you've talked a couple of times on the podcast before about how you and he used to share a desk in the House of Commons library. What sort of, let's deepen the assessment a bit. I mean, I know you had other interactions, but now that he, now that he's going to be the Prime Minister, what's your deeper and broader assessment of him as a, as a human being and as a politician?

• 10:36Rory Stewart?

  Well, I've gone round in a real circle on this. So when I first met him, I was really won over because he's very bright, he's very thoughtful, very charming. I was very proud that the Conservative Party had recruited somebody who was obviously so bright and talented. And I enjoyed my interactions with him. I guess the tension entered our relationship when he decided to commit early to Brexit, and I just couldn't understand it. I just couldn't begin to comprehend what he'd done. And I'm afraid I kind of teased him a bit about that, and he understandably didn't think that was very amusing. We then had standoffs over prisons. He was the minister responsible for collecting council tax, and I thought it was ridiculous that people should be sent to prison for not paying their council tax.

• 11:20Rory Stewart?

  And I went to him, hoping that I'd get his agreement on that. And we had a very strange argument for half an hour, where he was, again, very, very clever, but I felt like I was in a sort of schoolboy debating competition. I didn't feel I was really able to get over. This is ridiculous. People should not be in prison for not paying their council tax, not paying their TV licence. This is not what prisons are for, when they're already overcrowded, eighty-three thousand people in prisons built for sixty-three thousand. So that was, I guess, a low point. And of course, I was also felt very, very sort of negative towards people who joined Boris Johnson's cabinet, because I thought Boris Johnson was such a bad person. I mean, one of the reasons why I refused to compromise with him, refused to rejoin the Conservative Party, is that I couldn't bear the idea of

• 12:03Rory Stewart?

  running with Boris Johnson's leader. I couldn't bear to put a leaflet through a door with his photograph on, to say that I think he'd be a good prime minister, let alone serve in his cabinet. I mean, actually, he had a very interesting, I had an interesting conversation with Boris Johnson, just before he took over, where he got me into his office and said, in his very charming and buoyant way, basically implied that he'd like me to continue in his cabinet. I don't know what he would have wanted me to do, maybe to stay as Secretary of State for international development. And of course, knowing Boris Johnson, he might have changed his mind the next moment, or might never have meant it anyway. But I had to say to him very clearly, I cannot possibly serve in your cabinet. I actually ran my whole leadership campaign, saying I can't serve in your cabinet. Anyway, to cut to the chase, Rishi Sunak was prepared to serve in his cabinet, was prepared to be his Chancellor

• 12:48Rory Stewart?

  of Exchequer, so that worried me too. All that said, my goodness, I've been through the wringer on alternative conservative leadership candidates. And of course, at the end of the day, I have concluded that Rishi Sunak is by far better than Boris Johnson, better than Liz Truss, better than half a dozen of the other candidates who ran in the leadership, and is probably the only leading Conservative now that actually has the chance of being prudent, thoughtful, and restoring some degree of grown-up, mature management. So rollercoaster on Rishi Sunak.

• 13:21Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think that's, I think that's really interesting. And of course, I know what you mean about going through the wringer. I mean, a part of me, when Johnson threw his hat back in the ring, thought, oh, this is great for Labour. But at the same time, I felt physically sick at the prospect that actually we might have him back and we might have to be talking about him. So Rory, let me just say once more, let's try not to talk about Boris Johnson anymore on this podcast. Let's focus back on, on Rishi Sunak. To tell you something, I, I've, when I was presenting Good Morning Britain, I interviewed him one morning, I think it was during the Tory Party Conference, and I had a sense of somebody very prickly and very, and I'd heard this from people at the Treasury when he was there,

• 14:01Alastair Campbell?

  very thin-skinned. Do you think he's fully aware, we, I talked last week about how people underestimate the gap between any other job in government and being Prime Minister. Do you think he has that bandwidth and that capacity to move up in the way that he's about to?

• 14:17Rory Stewart?

  Well, I guess we'll find out. I'm in 42, as I say, is very, very, very, very young. And unlike David Cameron or Tony Blair, who were the other two very young Prime Ministers that we've had in the last couple hundred years, they had years in opposition to prepare, get their manifestos together, build the parties around them. And they had the enormous mandate from winning a huge election. I mean, you know, Tony Blair, extremely able politician, right? Obvious extraordinary charisma, very good communicator. But part of what gave him that power is that he had delivered this incredible majority to a party that had felt in the early 90s they might never win again. So that allows you to silence the party. It means that, in the case of Tony Blair, I can't remember, what was your majority again? That first time, 97?

• 15:05Alastair Campbell?

  It's one of the sort of historical fact they should know right off, but it was 179, I can't remember.

• 15:10Rory Stewart?

  Anyway, whatever it is.

• 15:12Alastair Campbell?

  Dom's looking it up right now.

• 15:13Rory Stewart?

  Anyway, whatever it is, there's, you know, well over 100, maybe even 200 Labour MPs who felt that they owed their job to Tony Blair. And that's an incredible mandate. And that means even with all the divisions between the kind of left wing Benites and all the things that could have torn the Labour Party apart. So I think David Cameron didn't have that kind of majority, but he had taken out the Labour Party that felt as though they were unbeatable. The Conservatives had struggled very hard in the early 2000s, late 90s. So again, there were a lot of MPs. When I came to the House of Commons in 2010, half the parliamentary Conservative Party had been elected for the first time and felt they owed their seats largely to David Cameron.

• 15:56Rory Stewart?

  So that helps you when you're a very young Prime Minister. Rishi's coming in younger than all of them, but he doesn't have any of that stuff. Doesn't have any of that stuff happening. Nobody feels they owe their seat to Rishi Sunak. He hasn't won an unbeatable majority and he's taking over a party. That is so factionized, as you pointed out last time we chatted, they're already, the ERG is already on manoeuvres.

• 16:18Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I was on, over the weekend, I think it's fair to say that the Bring Back B O R I S, I never actually say the B word. Campaigners, they set up all these WhatsApp groups, which were remarkably easy for their non-supporters to access. And I spent, when I was on the train back from the football at Sunderland, where I'm sure you shared my delight at our amazing comeback Rory from 2-0 to 4-2.

• 16:45Rory Stewart?

  Extraordinary victory.

• 16:46Alastair Campbell?

  Thank you, thank you. On the train back, I was in these WhatsApp groups, just sort of abusing myself at watching. But honestly, the stuff they were saying about Sunak was extraordinary. And I have to say, a lot of it was racist.

• 17:01Rory Stewart?

  What sort of things were they saying?

• 17:04Alastair Campbell?

  Well, for example, all Sunak's ever done is look after the tech companies and it's basically all about helping his fellow Indians. There's that sort of thing. There was, there was just sort of, it was, it was just nasty and unpleasant stuff. And it was, it was this kind of cult of Johnson. It was very, very odd. And then you had one last night from David Campbell Bannerman. Basically saying it was time for a new party now, that you know, that this is really time to sort of clear it out. But you're absolutely right. He doesn't have that. People might, you know, respect him. Some of these people might respect him, but he doesn't have that kind of loyalty that he's going to need. And I think what was coming through loud and clear, reading the exchanges on these groups, was the the idea that it's going

• 17:48Alastair Campbell?

  to be easy to bring the Tory party together. And you talk about the, you know, 10, 11, 12 factions. I think it's very hard. And you said, I think you said the other day that, you know, it's going to have to be somebody of extraordinary charisma and a great communicator. I'm not sure he's got that. I'm not sure he's got that.

• 18:04Rory Stewart?

  It's a very difficult job, isn't it? A very difficult job. I mean, he's incredibly able. I think he's got one big thing in his favour, which is that he clearly called out the mess that Liz Truss and Quasi-Courtain created, which will have given him a reputation for economic prudence and foresight. He is the person that the majority of MPs voted for last time. And my goodness, they've mustered behind him this time. I mean, the figures at the moment at which we're recording suggest that of the declared figures, he's up, you know, in the 170 region. And Penny Mordaunt, his nearest rival, is only declaring in the high 20s. These are of declared MPs. There may be people who are covertly voting.

• 18:46Rory Stewart?

  But that's an extraordinary mandate. And it would be interesting to work out who's not getting behind him, because many of the old One Nation, we talked about these factions, you'll see that his early supporters came from what I would call the sort of One Nation Conservative Left. And that was true last time round. I mean, a lot of the people who supported me in the leadership campaign, and there weren't that many of them actually, but a lot of them got behind Rishi Sunak. And that was striking to me, that people who'd been, for me, saw in Rishi Sunak, something despite the fact that he'd been in Brexit, but he's also got people like Suella Bravman, who's one of the kind of Spartan champions of the Brexit ERG right behind him. So he's managing at the moment to communicate to

• 19:31Rory Stewart?

  the left of the party that he's more thoughtful, more sensible, more grown up. Than Boris Johnson, but of course the Brexiteers will be reassured that he voted Brexit. But the question is, can he keep that coalition together?

• 19:42Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Steve Baker as well came out for him and made it very, very clear that he expects the ERG mandate, as he sees it, to continue to run. I also think, I don't know, I think that once you get to the level that he's now at and the profile, so for example, there were lots of stories around during the Eat Out, what was it, Help Out, Eat Out, Help Out, where I think there was a sense that maybe he was, I don't know, that didn't go as well as he wanted it to. I think some of his tenure at the Treasury will now come under greater scrutiny. And I wonder as well where, whether his, you know, really vast personal wealth, I mean, there was a hundred grand on a swimming pool quite recently.

• 20:25Alastair Campbell?

  I think this is, so we're in a cost of living crisis when he's going to have to be taking, assuming he and Jeremy Hunt stays Chancellor, they'll be taking some very, very tough spending decisions. I wonder whether that then does play in a way that thus far it hasn't. And even the thing about his green card. And I do think your point, by the way, Rory, about the fact that he sat, literally sat alongside Boris Johnson in that cabinet, knowing who he was, knowing what he was, knowing that what they were being told to say was lies. And he was the main guy, if you remember, during the election campaign, Sunak was Johnson's main guy on the airwaves. If Johnson couldn't do big interviews, Sunak was the guy who stepped in. So obviously, having knifed him and brought him down with Javid at the end, that sort of distances him from that.

• 21:09Alastair Campbell?

  But frankly, he, I think Labour can really pin Sunak as part of the 12-year failure of the Tories.

• 21:16Rory Stewart?

  So all that's going to be really interesting. I also think that, obviously, the thing that we haven't talked about explicitly, which is massive, really, really important, is that we're going to have our first Asian Prime Minister. And I think that's something we should be deeply proud of, really, really proud of. I think it's an extraordinary thing. I can't see any other European country doing that. And I think it's a real tribute to Britain that that has happened so comfortably, so quickly, and very few people are remarking on it. And his family story. It's pretty extraordinary. His grandparents moved from Punjab to one lot to Kenya, another

• 21:57Rory Stewart?

  lot to Tanzania, in, I guess, relatively, within clerical jobs, and then moved back to Britain in the 1960s, migrated from East Africa in the 1960s. And so his father was born in Kenya, mother was born in Tanzania. He's part of a very strong British story. You know, that's a story that many, many people in Britain share, that movement from India to East Africa and then to Britain. And I think, just as we should have been very proud in many ways of Sadiq Khan becoming Mayor of London, I think we should be very proud of Rishi Sunak becoming Prime Minister. But obviously, I complain a lot about Sadiq Khan, and you will complain a lot about Rishi Sunak.

• 22:40Alastair Campbell?

  That is true. But no, I do agree with that. I think that, you know, funny enough, I was saying to, I was talking to Francois Hollande about the British scene earlier before we started the recording, and he was making that point that, you know, that's quite a big thing, to have somebody of Indian heritage as the Prime Minister of the UK. And he mentioned it in the context of, you know, particularly, we're talking, you know, before about empire and the context of our relationship with the Indian subcontinent in the past. So that is a huge thing. I do think that one of the reasons the 1922 Committee appeared to have been pretty desperate to get this thing through without going to vote is because actually there is still an awful lot of racism amongst Conservative

• 23:24Alastair Campbell?

  Party members. I saw some of that on the WhatsApp groups. But I think it will certainly help, I hope, the normalization of Britain as a genuinely multicultural, multinational, multiracial country, which is a good thing. Anyway, let's take a break.

• 23:40Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, let's take a break.

• 23:41Speaker 02

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

• 23:45Speaker 03

  On October 2nd.

• 23:46Speaker 02

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

• 23:51Speaker 03

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

• 23:58Speaker 04

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

• 24:02Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Digger. See the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.

• 24:11Speaker 05

  Priceline Negotiator.

• 24:14Speaker 06

  It's me, the.

• 24:15Speaker 05

  Priceline Negotiator.

• 24:17Speaker 06

  We don't need the jingle twice.

• 24:18Speaker 05

  What about a third time?

• 24:20Speaker 06

  Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars.

• 24:27Speaker 05

  Seems like they just started.

• 24:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app.

• 24:33Speaker 05

  Time to read the timeline.

• 24:35Speaker 06

  Fine. No one deals more deals than.

• 24:37Speaker 05

  Priceline.

• 24:38Speaker 06

  Please stop.

• 24:38Speaker 05

  Priceline.

• 24:39Speaker 06

  Touche.

• 24:40Speaker 05

  Priceline.

• 24:41Speaker 06

  Priceline.

• 24:43Speaker 07

  This episode is brought to you by Tic Tac. Lace up and get your game on because the Tic Tac lineup just got a new teammate. Dr. Pepper Tic Tac. This new double threat puts two of your favorite flavors into one box of mints. And when two iconic flavors come together, the result can only be iconic. Score big. Try Dr. Pepper Tic Tac today.

• 25:06Speaker 08

  There is so much NFL on ESPN right now. Monday Night Football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live, NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week. Unbelievable. And now NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on, all season long, on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app.

• 25:42Alastair Campbell?

  This week's episode is sponsored by The New European and if you're a reader, you will know that I write for it every week as their editor-at-large, but I do think it's been an absolutely brilliant addition to our media landscape.

• 25:55Rory Stewart?

  One of the great things in it is the cultural stuff. So Charlie Connolly writes something called Great European Lives, where he covers a figure such as Sevi Balastiros, who all the listeners will remember, great golfer, but also the French singer Sacha Distel, who of course is somebody who Alistair loves. So anyone interested in European culture too, not just politics.

• 26:15Alastair Campbell?

  If you want to actually do something positive, support a new newspaper that is fighting back against the nationalist populist right-wing press that got us or helped to get us into the mess that we're in, then The New European really is the antidote to all their nationalistic brainwashing. They've got a very special offer exclusively for Restless Politics listeners. You can get full access to the New European digital edition for just a pound a week, or if like me, you love getting the actual newspaper delivered to your door, you get that as well for just two pound a week. That is less than the price of a coffee and you'll have the satisfaction of helping support good, honest, high-quality journalism, which is quite frankly, something we now need more than ever. And that is a

• 26:56Alastair Campbell?

  point we also discussed with President Hollande. So subscribe today, just visit www.the new european.co.uk/trip, that's www.the new european.co.uk/trip.

• 27:17Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to The Restless Politics with me Rory Stewart.

• 27:20Alastair Campbell?

  And me Alastair Campbell. And I should start Rory, listeners might be hearing a bit of sort of background noise, it's because I am still in President Hollande's office and, you know, we have to allow former presidents to carry on working even if they're trying to be very, very quiet. Okay. So I just want to, if you hear shuffling of papers and envelopes and signatures.

• 27:44Rory Stewart?

  Thank you. And if you, if you hear a weird noise in the background, that's because very kindly, my hosts here in Kenya have turned on a generator to try to recharge my laptop. So I that's I'm feeling a bit embarrassed towards the environment, but the solar panels weren't able to recharge the laptop for some reason. Okay, now back quickly. So you were telling us about Nadiem Zahawi. What was the Nadiem Zahawi news?

• 28:05Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Nadiem Zahawi, who, as you know, I control all his movements. I'm inside his head all the time, as we showed in the video that we put out a few weeks ago. He wrote a piece yesterday for the Daily Telegraph, which he then tweeted, he confirmed his enduring love and support for Boris Johnson. And literally, two minutes later, Boris Johnson announced he was pulling out. And as fast as you could say, I'm determined to get a job, whoever's Prime Minister, Nadiem Zahawi then announced, I'm backing Rishi.

• 28:41Rory Stewart?

  It's a bit unfortunate, because of course famously, he joined, he became Boris Johnson's Chancellor, didn't he? And then he had to move within 24 hours to topple Boris Johnson. And then he had to put out a tweet saying that Boris had learnt from his mistakes, and he was a different Boris from the one that he'd known two months earlier. And now he's, I mean, it's, it's a real, it's a terrible slope slipping back and forth.

• 29:02Alastair Campbell?

  He did a, he did a tweet yesterday, which began with the words, when I was Chancellor. And I think it's a bit like when I, when I say, as I often do, when I played football with Diego Maradona, I do know that I, I come across as a complete prat, and I'm exaggerating my importance as a footballer. But to start for him to say, when I was Chancellor, I mean, he was there for about two minutes.

• 29:29Rory Stewart?

  Now, let me just put on record, I really like Nadiem Zahawi. And I'm sorry for him. And I'm sorry that these, all these things have happened. He is one of the most, you know, he joined with me in 2010. He's one of the most lovely, warm hearted. Colleagues and you know, I feel I feel embarrassed that this has happened to him, but I think he's a great guy and I'm sorry that it's getting stuck in this way.

• 29:52Alastair Campbell?

  There we go. I have to say, it's a minor part of a bigger story. Just on Rishi Sunak, we know a fair bit about him. We know about his kind of life story a fair bit. I'm sure there's more to come. We know what he was like as Chancellor of the Exchequer, but not in a very normal, you know, he, I'm sure he wasn't enjoying spending billions on furlough schemes and so forth. We know that he's on the right of the Conservative Party. I've always seen him as one of these kind of sovereign individual types. That could be fair or unfair, I don't know. We know that he's from an incredibly wealthy family. But I don't have a clue, for example, other than the fact that he voted Brexit, I don't have a clue what his approach to foreign policy is going to be, what his view of the United States is, what his view

• 30:35Alastair Campbell?

  of China is, what his view of Russia is. I just don't know what his foreign policy views are, and that's going to become quite important quite quickly.

• 30:42Rory Stewart?

  Will become very important. Just on the record, his parents are not incredibly wealthy. I mean, his parents, his father's a GP. His wife's family is the extraordinary story. His wife's father founded Infosys, which was, and is really the kind of founder of, basically the founder of the amazing technology revolution in India, built as CEO over, I guess, 30 years, this incredible global company, from relatively modest beginnings. It's a pretty amazing story there. But you're right, he's married the daughter in arrears. It'd be like marrying, kind of, I guess, I don't know, Bill Gates's daughter or something. I mean, you end up with a huge, huge, huge fortune. I think 770 million pounds is what they claim, but I don't, who

• 31:26Rory Stewart?

  knows what the, what the numbers are. By the time you're that wealthy, it's quite difficult to make any sense of that at all. On foreign policy, he's not been Foreign Secretary, and this was the problem with Liz Truss. And again, like Liz Truss, he hasn't spoken much about foreign affairs. So it's quite difficult finding one's way towards that. I guess, you know, like many Brexiteers, he would have made pro-Chinese comments, because a lot of the Brexit gamble was about being able to swap slow growth in Europe for rapid growth in China. And of course, that bet is looking much more difficult now, isn't it?

• 31:57Alastair Campbell?

  But we don't really know that much about him, whether he has a real, genuine political philosophy. And of course, he is coming in, you've said this before, he's coming in at an incredibly difficult time. Politically, economically, his party, I think, is going to tear itself apart pretty quickly. And do you think if he, um, look, this is me sort of looking way into a future that may come, may not, but let's just imagine that the Conservative Party does crash and burn again. We can't do, we can't, surely five, five prime ministers in six years, and I think there should be a general election anyway, but they can't do it again, can they? Surely this has to be it, in terms of changes of prime minister?

• 32:38Rory Stewart?

  I think, I think they will definitely think this has to be it. And I think, I think you, you can't keep doing this. And but, but if they, if it collapses again, I mean, I think people will simply give up, because the reason it will collapse again is that people have just totally lost any, any confidence that they can hold the party together. It'll become an unmanageable collapsing coalition. One of the problems he's going to face is putting a, putting a cabinet together. Lots of quite talented ministers left over the last few years, quite a lot more have signaled they're leaving. But I'd like to

• 33:19Rory Stewart?

  see, given his youth, that he starts bringing back some of the people who were ministers under previous governments, you know, there are people like Nick Gibb, who's a very good education minister, be nice to see brought back.

• 33:31Alastair Campbell?

  Rory, Rory, we could, we could be here all day on that one, Rory.

• 33:34Rory Stewart?

  You're ready? You think there's a lot, a lot we could bring back in?

• 33:37Alastair Campbell?

  I think so. Yeah, I think you're, you're, you, I think you and I are going to differ hugely on the record of the Cameron and May governments on education. But let's not, let's not go there, because we'll disagree disagreeably on that one. Let, but what about Michael Gove? Do you think you should bring back Michael Gove? And do you think there's also a case for him bringing back Theresa May?

• 33:54Rory Stewart?

  I think he should bring back Michael Gove, he should make Theresa May Foreign Secretary, would be a good, quick move, I'd like to see that. I'd like to see him bring in Mel Stride, who's Chair of the Treasury Committee. I'd like to see the people that haven't been promoted that should have done, and I would have loved to see running for leader now. I keep talking about Gillian Keegan, who's Africa Minister at the moment, but very, very talented. Alex Chalk, who's a lawyer, very smart, thoughtful guy, who represents Cheltenham. There is talent there, and it'd be nice to see it brought in. What worries me is that a lot of ideologues, without much substance, have been promoted very, very quickly into the Cabinet, without much behind them. And they're going to feel that they should be clinging on, because Boris Johnson put them in, he created a Cabinet, essentially, where there were far too many loyalists,

• 34:38Rory Stewart?

  without much substance to them, and left on the back benches. Many people, or as junior ministers, many people with a bit of spirit and drive to them. I'd like to see Victoria Prentice in a more senior position, but some listeners won't have heard of these people, partly because Boris Johnson deliberately, and Liz Truss deliberately, excluded them from senior office.

• 34:55Alastair Campbell?

  But also, if he brings in all this new talent that you're describing, that means pushing out other people, making them even angrier, even more bitter. Do you think he's got the political management skills that are going to be called upon to hold this thing together? Because I think that's a real, you know, if you think about, just look at the damage that Michael Gove did, very subtly, and sometimes less subtly to Liz Truss. But that was because he was on the outside. So, like, you bring in Theresa May, let's say he did bring her in as Foreign Secretary, that means you're getting rid of James cleverly. He's going to be offside. I think if he brings in some of the other people you mentioned, presumably that means

• 35:38Alastair Campbell?

  there's no place for Sunak Braverman, no place for Steve Baker, who's currently ludicrously a minister in Northern Ireland. So, these are huge problems that he's going to have to both solve and then create more problems.

• 35:52Rory Stewart?

  And this is one of the reasons why these big parties, in the end, have a sort of lifespan. They can't keep going. I mean, this is what, in a way, was one of the things that presumably began to be a bit of a problem for Gordon Brown as well, that after you've been in office... For a few years, you have had to throw quite a lot of senior people out of the cabinet. You've got quite a lot of younger people who are angry that they haven't been promoted. You can get away with that more easily in the first five years when you're on the honeymoon period. But as years go on, you've got more and more people who feel that they're big beasts, who've been in the cabinet, who are bitter about not being back in. And more and more younger people who feel they're excluded. So you're absolutely right, there are some really impressive people out there. I would love a Conservative Party that had a friend of mine called Damien Hines.

• 36:37Rory Stewart?

  So I think he's a fantastic guy. I'd love to see him back in the cabinet. But trying to do that is going to cause problems. And if you add to that the factionalisation at this point that I keep making, that there are now 12 different Conservative Parties. There's a kind of Singapore Conservative Party. There's a Jacob Rees-Mogg Conservative Party, which is a sort of Victorian Conservative Party. There's the fragments of a pro-European Conservative Party. There's Steve Baker's Christian Conservative Party. All these types of parties pushing in different directions.

• 37:06Alastair Campbell?

  There's the Libertarians.

• 37:07Rory Stewart?

  There are the Libertarians, there's the Liz Truss quasi-Courten Conservative Party. You've noticed the Institute for Economic Affairs, your great favourite Tufton Street think tank out there saying the problem was that it wasn't implemented correctly. They keep saying that these decisions, these economic decisions were absolutely fine. They just weren't implemented correctly, which is...

• 37:24Alastair Campbell?

  That's very Ben- that is very Benite.

• 37:26Rory Stewart?

  Very Benite, isn't it? Yeah.

• 37:29Alastair Campbell?

  We weren't socialist enough, yeah. Well, we'll see, we shall see. It's going to be very, very interesting to see how Rishi Sunak beds in, as you say, to see what his team is, who he surrounds himself with.

• 37:41Alastair Campbell?

  And also how the Labour Party reacts to it and how the other parties as well. But I just hope to God we have a general election sooner rather than later. Because I honestly, it's so nice to be in France, Roy. I know they've got massive problems at the moment, but it feels quite sort of stable and normal and... There's no fanaticism going around the place. How's Kenya?

• 38:02Rory Stewart?

  Kenya, Kenya's got some trouble. I mean, we should talk about this sometime. I mean, Africa in general is at the receiving end of all the horrors of the world. And as Britain and Europe and the United States hit economic problems and feel poorer, they're going to be providing less and less assistance at exactly the moment when we need debt forgiveness here, we need massive development programs, we need real thought about food security in Africa, climate change. I mean, here in Kenya, I'm in a place where there's barely been any rain for three years. You can see all the cattle have got their bones sticking out of their flesh. I mean, it's, it's pretty bleak. And that's much, much worse up in Somalia and northern Kenya.

• 38:44Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Rory, I just want to say, if you read volumes one to eight of my diaries, you will find many accounts of me breaking into holidays to the annoyance of my family. And I do not recommend that you do it too often. So thank you for breaking into your holiday today. We've recorded, this is the main podcast, we've recorded a Q and A, which will be going out later in the week. We've recorded an interview with President Hollande. And tomorrow I shall be flying solo insisting that you have your holiday when I do an interview with the former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, which will be going out in the near future as well. So have

• 39:23Alastair Campbell?

  a nice holiday and try not to worry about either the podcast ratings, they're doing very, very well, Rory, not to worry, and or the future of the country, which is not doing quite as well.

• 39:36Rory Stewart?

  Merci. Au revoir.

• 39:38Alastair Campbell?

  À bientôt.

• 40:16Speaker 09

  It arrives in a cloud of feathers with a cry to wake the dead. Espolón Tequila. Balanced, delicious, perfect for nights out, nights in, and people who like to drink tequila. Just add ice, lime, and your mouth. Then hold on tight. 100% agave, 0% Ego. Espolón Tequila. For a real margarita, ride the rooster.

• 40:38Speaker 03

  Espolón Tequila, 40% alcohol by volume, 80 proof. Copyright 2026, Campari America, New York, New York. Drink responsibly.