103. Question Time: Expensing helicopters, the North-South divide, and Rory's return to politics?

Will Rory ever return to politics? How do MPs serve effectively from remote areas? Should Russia be allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics? Alastair and Rory cover these topics, plus the role of Cabinet Secretaries, Biden's State of the Union Address, and what it means to be a 'recovering politician'. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, 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. 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. 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/restispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:43Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to another episode of the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 1:47Rory Stewart?

  And with me, Rory Stewart.

• 1:49Alastair Campbell?

  Now Rory, we talked in the main podcast about the earthquake in Turkey, but very good question here from Fred Banning. Reports this week suggest that Turkey has raised £30 billion in earthquake tax since 1999, that's the earthquake that I mentioned in the main podcast, but it's unclear where the money has gone. How can those donating to the Disaster Emergencies Committee Appeal and other organisations do so with confidence that the money will get to where it's needed? And I guess that's something you have to wrestle with as a charity head the whole time.

• 2:21Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so we're actually involved in a very small way in the response to Turkey and Syria, because one of the things that you need to provide, and it's something Give Directly provides, is cash support to people when families are wiped out, because it allows them to meet their immediate needs. Sometimes you get in a problem, which is that you guess that what everyone in a town needs is tents, and actually they've got shelter and what they need is food. So cash allows you to adapt that. The answer is Disaster Emergency Committee and their appeal goes through NGOs that I admire immensely, NGOs like Save the Children that I've praised a lot on this, on the show, others like Oxfam, who I've got a lot of admiration for, and they absolutely are getting this money directly out on the ground. It's not being handed over to the Turkish government. And the same's true with our operations

• 3:06Rory Stewart?

  through Give Directly. We, as the name implies, we take cash from the public, we put it straight into the hands of the recipients on the ground. We're not putting it through the Turkish government.

• 3:14Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Big Kenny, I don't know if that is King Kenny, Dalgleish, I know his daughter is a listener, but I don't know about Kenny himself. Kelly, you'll have to tell us. Are the Tories trying to leave the country in such a bad state because they know Labour are going to win the next election? That way they can blame them for everything and try to cut it to one total opposition? I don't think that's as crazy as it sounds.

• 3:36Rory Stewart?

  Go on then, give us your theory on that.

• 3:38Alastair Campbell?

  No, I don't. Look, some days I think, I do think, everything this government is touching seems, they seem to be making things worse. Is there some kind of, is there some weird plan going on here? But it's interesting, we had another Tory MP yesterday throwing in the towel, Glenn Stevenage.

• 3:56Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 3:56Alastair Campbell?

  21 now, I think it is.

• 3:59Rory Stewart?

  And I think it's part of the general, I mean, I think it's very miserable being Conservative MP. I saw a minister recently, who's been a minister for a long time now, and I said, how are things? And he said, how do you think things are? I'm just miserable. He was even more miserable when Boris Johnson was in.

• 4:13Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 4:14Rory Stewart?

  But it's just horrible, really, and I can see why many, many of them are leaving. I don't think they're trying to screw the country up. But I do remember it's something that political parties often say, the myth in the Conservative Party, which they're not going to be able to keep going now because they've wrecked it, but always used to be that they inherited financial problems from Labour and then they sorted them out. But that fundamental story that we campaigned with on 2010 seems to now be in a bit of trouble.

• 4:39Alastair Campbell?

  I think Labour genuinely will be able to run the mess we inherited, the mess we inherited, the mess we inherited. Yeah, I also think, by the way, it opens the door for Labour to be much bolder. I'm even beginning to wonder, we get quite a lot of questions about electoral reform. I'm even beginning to wonder whether you couldn't actually wipe the Tories out for good by saying, listen, we'll think about changing the electoral system next time as well.

• 5:03Rory Stewart?

  I think you could have a huge impact because on the current polls, you'd end up with Labour getting almost half the seats and Tories only quarter the seats. I agree with you also that you keep sending out this tweet saying, I can't believe it, 20% of the British population is still voting Tory.

• 5:18Alastair Campbell?

  I'm glad you've noticed, I'm glad you've noticed.

• 5:20Rory Stewart?

  But that, of course, connects to your point about what we were discussing with Alan Milburn on leading around the Ming Vaz strategy, that when you've got that kind of lead, I do think you can be a bit bolder. Now, I say that bearing in mind that many of us said that to Theresa May when she seemed to have a commanding lead over Jeremy Corbyn seven weeks before an election, encouraged her to bring in these very radical tax to fund social care, tax on homes, and she managed to lose her majority from this amazing commanding majority. So, you know, maybe I'm contradicting myself.

• 5:52Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 5:53Rory Stewart?

  Gone. Your comments will be welcome. This is from M Taylor on Richard Sharp's position after the Sunday Times front page this weekend.

• 6:02Alastair Campbell?

  We talked on the main podcast about the lack of shame in relation to Lee Anderson being found out of sort of, and it was trivial on one level, stitching up a sort of a guy to say he was wonderful. But I watched Richard Sharp through that Select Committee appearance and, I mean, I know not liking the cut of somebody's jib is not enough to say that they should go. But what I find scandalous about this is that he can't see that there was anything wrong with what he did. That while he was trying to become chairman of the BBC, he was helping the prime minister, who would be ultimately the person to decide whether he got the job or not, to get an £800,000

• 6:44Alastair Campbell?

  loan from somebody who at the same time, it seems, was also trying to become the head of a, I think it was the British Council.

• 6:50Rory Stewart?

  And even weirder, the Cabinet-

• 6:51Alastair Campbell?

  It's so cosy.

• 6:52Rory Stewart?

  And the Cabinet secretary appears to have decided that Boris Johnson didn't need to declare this loan because the man was a relative, a second cousin. But then it turns out that he'd never met this second cousin, that he required Richard Sharp to introduce him to his second cousin, which really calls into question the Cabinet secretary's judgement. I mean, how could he somehow think that it was okay for Boris Johnson to take an £800,000 loan from somebody he'd never met, simply because he happened to be his second cousin?

• 7:20Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, I've yet to hear anybody tell me anything about the way Simon Case has conducted himself as Cabinet secretary that tells me he's there doing the job that the Cabinet secretary should be doing, which is, one, speaking up for civil servants. I don't get the feeling he does that too much. But also, part of your job in that position is to speak truth to power. And part of speaking truth to power is to tell them the limits of the power that they have. And that was one absolute red line. I can't believe, look, it wouldn't even have required the Cabinet secretary. I can't think of anybody that I worked with in Downing Street who would not have said, "I'm sorry, you can't do this."

• 7:57Rory Stewart?

  It's also that, I mean, Simon was brought in very, very, very young. I mean, it's a strange decision to have brought somebody in in that way. Cabinet secretaries, we should talk about them a bit more on the show, but, you know, these people, I'm a real admirer of a man called Richard Wilson, who maybe you came across. But Robin Butler before him, Robert Armstrong before him, I mean, these were sort of, they came in at much, I think, they were much older when they came in, they had incredible seniority within the Burke trend, another very famous one, wasn't he? Had such sort of gravitas and such an ability to sort of represent the traditions of the civil service in its best way to the Prime Minister. And I think Simon Case wasn't really set up to do that when Boris Johnson brought him in.

• 8:42Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. Well, we could definitely talk about all of those because they were, not all of them, not Bertrand, but several of those you mentioned were Cabinet Secretaries during during our time, but that's probably a much longer discussion. But what about this one, Rory? James Thomas, where between Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and Nadeem Zahawi on the Rory Stewart distinguished scale does Lee Anderson sit?

• 9:10Alastair Campbell?

  So I'm going to draw the scale for you. I think we'd say that on your distinguished scale, Johnson is so far off it.

• 9:18Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Alastair Campbell?

  That, you know, he's right, he's right over there. Nadeem Zahawi, I think you started with him over here, but I think you brought him into about here. I've now got my hand in the middle of the scale.

• 9:29Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 9:29Alastair Campbell?

  So where are you putting Lee Anderson?

• 9:31Rory Stewart?

  It's not very distinguished, not my, not my type of Conservative. Although it's an interesting, I mean, it's a stupid comment because it responds to slightly what we were talking about yesterday. But those three figures do show the way the Conservative's party is changing and its diversity in terms of people's backgrounds. I mean, nobody could be more different in their background and education than Lee Anderson and Boris Johnson. And yet they ended up on exactly the same side on Brexit.

• 9:58Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And Lee Anderson is on record as saying that he sees Boris Johnson as part of his family.

• 10:03Rory Stewart?

  Now, here we are, Berlin elections, Joe Hager. Given Alistair's interest in Germany, it'd be great to hear your thoughts on the Berlin election results. How much of this is due to citizens' dissatisfaction with the way the city is governed versus a more general swing towards the right in Europe? Could you just begin by telling us what happened in the Berlin election?

• 10:20Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Berlin is one of the three cities in Germany that is also a land, one of the sixteen Lender. I think the other two are Bremen and is it Hamburg? So they had on this weekend just gone, they had the election there and it was pretty catastrophic for the SPD, the Social Democrats. Berlin has been a Social Democrat place for as long as I can remember. And it was governed up until now, and this is, we'll get on to this, this is the crazy thing about their system, by what's called a red, green, red coalition, the SPD, the Greens and the left party, DIE LINKE.

• 11:00Rory Stewart?

  And just to interrupt for a second, so broadly speaking, you're saying that Berlin was left wing in the way that London, by and large, has become a left wing city, is that right?

• 11:10Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah, and it's always been seen as an SPD stronghold, but because of their system, not necessarily with sort of massive numbers in terms of the share of the vote. But what happened at the weekend is the CDU, the right wing party, Angela Merkel's party, went from 18% to 28.2%, the SPD fell from 21 to just over 18, the Greens fell slightly, the LINKE fell slightly. So the CDU are without doubt the clear out and out winner, but in the discussions that are now taking place, the SPD is still trying to see whether they can't put together the same coalition, and I think it's leading to a lot of soul searching. And of course, it's not a good result.

• 11:53Alastair Campbell?

  Obviously, this is not just about national government, and I hate it when people have local and regional elections and they just sort of, you know, say what this means nationally. But I think it is a bit of a blow, both for Scholz and also for the Free Democrats who are part of the government, they fell pretty badly as well, from 7% to 4.6. So yet again, we're seeing that governing parties struggle. And I think the other thing that was, there was a lot of, didn't really get much coverage this outside of Germany, but there was a lot of disorder around New Year, a lot of it blamed upon the immigrant population and the feeling that, you know, the authorities just haven't got on top of this.

• 12:36Alastair Campbell?

  So it's whichever way you look at it, and I speak as somebody who obviously is a supporter of the SPD in Germany, whichever way you look at it, it is not a good result for them.

• 12:44Rory Stewart?

  Okay, right, so I think I had a question for you as our sports expert. Joseph Salter on the Paris Olympics. My question to you in two parts, what justification is there for the Russian Federation being allowed to compete at the Paris Olympics? Secondly, what can be done to overturn this position?

• 13:02Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I don't think there's any justification for the Russian Federation taking part. The question that I think is is being discussed is whether there should be any place for any of the Russian and Belarusian athletes under a neutral flag. And this has become a real hot potato. In fact, I know you've been in Switzerland, I've just been in Switzerland, and I was talking to somebody who works at the International Olympic Commission, the IOC. And their position, the position of Thomas Bach, who's the head of it, is that there should be a place for athletes, but not, they will not get medals, as it were, that go on the medal table for their country, they would not wear the national flags, they would

• 13:45Alastair Campbell?

  not have the national anthem sung if they were to win a gold medal. But Zelensky is very much against that. I see the British sports minister took part in a conference call the other day with a lot of Europeans who said that they didn't think there should be any place. And I think it's a tricky one, because if you go back through the history, at the moment, everybody knows there's wars going on, there are lots of wars going on at the time of Olympics. We're back to the discussion we had with Michael Johnson about other issues, about, you know, two different people can be right in different ways at the same time. So I think it's not as black and white as saying they are from Russia, therefore they should have no right to compete. You know, how would people feel, for example, if a Russian or Belarusian athlete took part

• 14:27Alastair Campbell?

  and then defected and then made a great statement against Putin and against Lukashenko? So I think it's one of those that's going to resolve itself over time. I think Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, I think she's come out very strongly against, but I think this one's yet to be resolved.

• 14:43Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Now, here's one teasing you.

• 14:46Alastair Campbell?

  Oh dear.

• 14:46Rory Stewart?

  So this is on the pronunciation of the Chinese premier from Andrew Collier.

• 14:50Alastair Campbell?

  I get this a lot.

• 14:51Rory Stewart?

  Please would former diplomat Rory give accomplished linguist Alistair some coaching?

• 14:57Rory Stewart?

  On the pronunciation of the Xi in Xi Jinping, anywhere between Xi and Xi is fine, but definitely no Xi.

• 15:05Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 15:05Rory Stewart?

  Now.

• 15:06Alastair Campbell?

  This is not the first time I've had this. Why do I say Xi Jinping? I guess it's because.

• 15:11Rory Stewart?

  It's partly, this is because of the way in which Chinese is turned into British. So there used to be something called Wade Giles system. When I was taught Chinese, we were taught in the Wade Giles system where his family name, which is the first bit of it, was spelt H S I, which encouraged me to think it was pronounced C. But then they've changed it to X I. And I think the struggle for English speakers is to work out how you pronounce that X because it's not obvious why you wouldn't write S H to try to, try to render it. And then the final thing, of course, which, which, you know, where we all go wrong, and I'm horrible at, is getting the tones right because it's in fact a rising tone, a falling tone and a rising tone. So it's something like Xi Jinping. And I, I, I'm now going to be criticised by everybody.

• 15:55Alastair Campbell?

  So, so I do tend to say Xi Jinping, but I shouldn't say Xi, I should say Xi. Francois Hollande told me that. He told me I mispronounced it. He said it's Xi, he's Xi, Xi Jinping, Xi Jinping.

• 16:10Rory Stewart?

  Yep. So it goes up, down, up.

• 16:12Alastair Campbell?

  Okay.

• 16:13Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, anyway.

• 16:14Alastair Campbell?

  Okay.

• 16:15Rory Stewart?

  Well, you, you'll be better at it. You're a better musician, better linguist than me. Go on then, question for you to me.

• 16:19Alastair Campbell?

  Flame, where do you see yourselves in 10 years? If you could pick any job, political and other, what would you do to best influence the world for good? And Rory, will you be returning to active politics? I hope you can both use your wonderful positions to make a real difference. And we talked about this a little bit with Decca Aikenhead, who I thought made a very fair point. She said, it's all very well for you guys, you know, getting lots of people listening to your podcast, but surely if you really want to make a difference, you should get back in. And I should give a shout out to Douglas Alexander, one of your predecessors as Secretary of State for International Development. He's just been selected for Labour in East Lothian, lost his seat in Paisley.

• 16:57Rory Stewart?

  Good on him.

• 16:58Alastair Campbell?

  And has come back. And I think, I do think good on him because I think.

• 17:01Rory Stewart?

  That is good on him.

• 17:01Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:03Rory Stewart?

  That's really good on him.

• 17:03Alastair Campbell?

  So what about you? Do you think you, do you think you will ever go back?

• 17:07Rory Stewart?

  I mean, I'm very, I'm, I am very, very lucky at the moment because I'm involved in this charity that I love and, and I do come across colleagues who've left politics or even people who've sold businesses casting around to work out what to do with their life. And I've got an amazing team. We're running 12 country offices. I think we're making a real difference to extreme poverty. And I think I can help in a small way, lead a drive to convince people that the way to address extreme poverty is through cash and that that's the key to international

• 17:34Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but I can feel a but coming. I can feel a but.

• 17:37Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, and the but, I suppose, is this, that, that as I relax more, as I recover more, I'm a kind of recovering politician, the temptation comes back more.

• 17:46Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 17:47Rory Stewart?

  And, and if I can find, I mean, it's so difficult, isn't it? I mean, the, the fantasy is to find a way to be helpful and really help the country. But boy, boy, Douglas Alexander putting himself through that. Is, is it a seat he's likely to win? Is it?

• 17:59Alastair Campbell?

  All of these seats at one point you'd have felt were, were Labour. It's East Lothian. I think it is a winnable seat. And I could be completely wrong here. I think I'm right that the sitting SNP MP is a guy called Kenny McCaskill, who was one of the few who defected to Alex Salmons outfit. So whether there's something not very healthy going on within the SNP there. But Douglas is somebody whom I've got a lot of time, and he's obviously, you know, I've worked with him on several election campaigns. He's smart. He was a good minister. I think it's good that somebody, and you know, and I've got to say, if, if I were, if I were Keir Starmer, you, I know you were raving about Alan Milburn the other day, I would be thinking about, I wonder if there are people out there of the, you know, the, the younger ones of the older generation, as it were, that it might be

• 18:44Alastair Campbell?

  worth thinking of trying to get them, persuade them to come back. So I, I think it's good because I think, I think Decker had a point. I think we both feel we can make a contribution in a different way. I think the podcast is a good way of sort of staying engaged in the debate. But, you know, one of the reasons I've written this book is ultimately it's about encouraging, in my case, particularly younger people to say, I want to get engaged in politics. I want to know how to do it. I want to give it a go. Because if, if not, we just leave it to the bad guys.

• 19:09Rory Stewart?

  That's it. That's it.

• 19:10Alastair Campbell?

  All right, let's take a quick break there, Rory, and we'll be back in a minute.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Comes great deniability.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  I'm not the first then.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  Espolone Tequila. Balanced. Delicious. 100% acave. 0% ego. Just add ice, lime, and your mouth. For a real margarita, ride the rooster.

• 19:54Speaker 02

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

• 20:05Rory Stewart?

  Now, where is the north-south divide? Farmer's Friend. Where do you think the north of England starts? Daughter's Friends think spalding. Grayson Perry seems to be about Sheffield on his TV show, which is the Midlands, in Farmer's Friend's view. And Farmer's Friends reckons the north starts at a line just above Scott's Corner on the A1.

• 20:27Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, you see, Stephen Monroe, who works on the Corrern Ferry, every time we talk about the north, when we're talking about England, he sends me a message saying, "We're the north. He's up in the Highlands, okay?" No, Sheffield's definitely in the north. I can't, Sheffield's not in the south. How can you say Sheffield's in the south?

• 20:44Rory Stewart?

  Well, it's interesting, well, it's a Cymru MP. I always felt a bit weird about people talking about, you know, Manchester or Sheffield being the north, because they were a hell of a long way south from me.

• 20:53Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but if you, if you live in London or, or, I mean, people talk about north of Watford. If you live in Watford, you think of Sheffield. I mean, Sheffield is the north. It's like, how can anybody dispute that? I don't understand that anybody can dispute that Sheffield is,

• 21:05Alastair Campbell?

  it's in the north. Actually, Rory, here's one that fits with what you've just been talking about. Rob Young, how do MPs manage to do their duties as affected when their constituencies are in remote areas? I've always had a lot of respect for Alistair Carmichael, who's been serving as the Lib Dem MP for Shetland and Orkney since 2001. And I, I like Alistair Carmichael as well. I think he's a very good guy. But you had a pretty rural constituency, didn't you?

• 21:27Rory Stewart?

  I had the largest, largest constituency in England. It would take me a couple of hours to drive from one end to the other. And often I was doing surgeries in different ends of the constituency. And it was nearly, I guess, a five-hour drive or many days to get up from London. And it's a difficult balancing act because particularly if you've got a, a working partner, they've got to decide whether they're going to be working in the constituency or working in London, and whichever they decide. You're only going to be able to see them about four days a week and the other three days you won't see them, whichever way you choose to do it.

• 21:57Alastair Campbell?

  I remember once being in Australia with this guy who was a member of the Australian Parliament and part of his expenses package was that he had a helicopter.

• 22:06Alastair Campbell?

  And the reason he's had a helicopter is that his constituency was was bigger than Portugal.

• 22:10Rory Stewart?

  Amazing. Well, it is amazing and I've noticed Rishi Sunak's been getting in trouble hopping around in helicopters.

• 22:15Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, I think I think that's fair. I think I do think the other day where it was he went down to the West Country, then he got flown back and then he got a helicopter back to Cornwall the next day. I mean, you've got to think about the optics as well as the fuel that you're burning.

• 22:27Rory Stewart?

  Well, I don't know. I mean, it's it's an interesting one. I I obviously I think it'd be outrageous for me to have a helicopter, but it is true that I felt there was a big difference between MPs like me representing constituencies up on the Scottish border and people like, you know, Malcolm Rifkind, who was representing Chelsea and Westminster, where he could just his constituents weren't there for the weekend and he could just toddle out of the House of Commons straight over. It's a very different world. And we talked a lot about Lee Anderson on the last couple of shows. There's a reason why increasingly the new breed of politicians, new generation politicians are very much local people who've grown up, spent their whole life in local constituencies, because there is a big divide

• 23:08Rory Stewart?

  between the culture of London and the culture of elsewhere. And I think the days of people like me and dare I say Tony Blair, slightly parachuting into into seats in the North, may be coming to an end.

• 23:20Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. Well, let's see. Let's see, Rory. There's lots of gaps opening up in the Tory ranks, that's for sure. Stephen Clark, what did you make of last week's State of the Union address by President Biden?

• 23:31Rory Stewart?

  I missed it.

• 23:31Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, Rory, you can't present a podcast called The Rest Is Politics and not at least have a sense of the President of America's State of the Union.

• 23:41Rory Stewart?

  Go on and tell us about what you thought of it.

• 23:43Alastair Campbell?

  Uh, I, two things. One, I thought he was on really good form and hit a lot of good buttons, stayed off a lot of the so-called woke stuff, did a lot of the foreign policy stuff. I guess the speech was got a lot of the coverage, though, was from the heckling by some of these Republicans. And that woman, Marjorie, whatever her name is, something Clark, I saw yesterday coverage of her doing a rally and down in wherever she's from. Where she got the crowd going by saying, hands up if you think Mitch McConnell really is a Republican. No, no hands were raised. Hands up if you think Mitch McConnell is actually a Democrat. Yeah, hands up. And then somebody shouted, he's not a Democrat,

• 24:25Alastair Campbell?

  he's a communist. And I thought, my God, what is happening to this country? Mitch McConnell is so right wing in my scale, right? And here we have a Republican Congresswoman whipping up her crowd against, not against Joe Biden, he's just, you know, evil, but against Mitch McConnell. I mean, that place is becoming ungovernable.

• 24:46Rory Stewart?

  Well, it's, it's, it's interesting, isn't it? I, I always think about this when I was in the States and people focused a lot on Joe Manchin, who's the, the Democrat Senator from West Virginia, who had the swing vote on a lot of the legislation in the first couple of years of Biden's administration. And everyone was completely horrified by the fact that he had much more right wing views than many other Democrats. But of course, on the other hand, he would never have won that seat if he hadn't had more right wing views. It wasn't a natural Democrat seat, it was a Republican seat. And he held on to that seat for the Democrats and had won the Democrats that majority in the Senate, partly through those views that, that people then complained about.

• 25:23Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but he also, if, if I can give a bit of breaking news.

• 25:26Rory Stewart?

  Oh, go on then.

• 25:27Alastair Campbell?

  To our listeners, well, we've done, we've got David Lammy next for leading, then we've got Fiona Hill, Foreign Policy Advisor to Trump and others. But we also got Bernie Sanders coming up.

• 25:37Rory Stewart?

  Bernie Sanders.

• 25:38Alastair Campbell?

  And as a result of that, I'm reading his new book, It's Okay to Be Angry About Capitalism. And Manchin features quite a lot, as he calls him a corporate Democrat, one of the corporate Democrats. But what comes through in reading Bernie's book is just how difficult American politics is because of the grip of money on politics. And I think we've really, really got to be very, very careful about the way our money's going. I, I didn't see it, but I saw a lot of social media traffic on this Channel Four documentary about Russian money in the Conservative Party. I think that Labour, I think Sunak should do this as well, but he, he won't because I think he's too deep in. But I really hope

• 26:20Alastair Campbell?

  Labour do come in with a, with a new approach on funding. And I know it's difficult, they've all got to get funding, they've all got to get money raised, but.

• 26:26Rory Stewart?

  Oh, I, I'd love to do it. I'd love to do it. And luckily, we don't have, I mean, the thing that gets in the way in the States is this ridiculous abuse of the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings, which allow these super PACs.

• 26:36Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. No, Bernie taught us a lot about that. Hopefully they're sending you the book before we do it as well, but it's really worth reading. You feel like you're you're listening to a never ending Bernie Sanders speech. He really sort of is on it the whole time, but you've got the guy's got energy, I give him that.

• 26:51Rory Stewart?

  So in Britain, it was lovely, to be honest, running as a local MP in Penrith and the border and realising that the total campaign spending limit for the short campaign was, I think, seventeen thousand pounds.

• 27:05Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 27:05Rory Stewart?

  And I think that's, you know, I keep saying this to American colleagues, that's the way to do it. And my Labour and Lib Dem colleagues watched every penny we spent. If our team were wearing T-shirts, they'd get the cost of the T-shirts, they'd get the cost of every banner to make sure we weren't spending over seventeen thousand pounds. And it does mean that basically in those local constituency elections, there isn't really huge scope for corruption in Britain, because you can't actually buy someone for that money, because actually your local association is able to raise most of that money itself. To finish, though, I mean, I'd really like to challenge, the Conservatives have got to stop taking money from big business and Labour have got to stop taking money from the unions. It's not necessary. There is no reason why these parties need to bring in these millions of pounds.

• 27:49Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, you sure about that? I mean, you've got to have an organisation, you've got to have structures. Look, I agree, it's become corrupted, but, listen, I ran a few election campaigns and I wouldn't have liked to have done it without a few, you know, yeah. Danger Dins, would, this is a straight yes or no question, Rory. Would Rory be a Democrat in the United States? Yes. Good. Tom Halloran, thanks to Rory, Alistair played a blinder against Rees-Mogg on the Radio 4 Brexit panel. Totally disarm him. Do you both agree? I did use your tactic, Rory. You said that I should sort of, you know, expose what he was doing, and I did do a bit of that. But actually, I think he lost the debate because he He just wasn't on form. He was, he was sort of a bit all over the place. He was very subdued.

• 28:31Alastair Campbell?

  He started gaslighting straight away. And once people started booing him, it was, it was pretty much game over. Listen, here's a question for you. I think, I think we'll disagree agreeably on this one. Daniel Viren.

• 28:41Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Alastair Campbell?

  I'm a first year economics and politics student at University of Bristol. Do you believe that compulsory voting should be implemented in the UK? It's a successfully increased voter turnout in Australia and Belgium to ninety two and ninety percent respectively. I am a yes.

• 28:55Rory Stewart?

  I, I'm a yes too.

• 28:56Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, are we? We're agreeing.

• 28:57Rory Stewart?

  I'm a yes too. A, a lot of our listeners hate it when I say that, actually. I've been abused particularly by Cumbrian constituents. And before we close, I did have somebody ask me a Valentine's Day question, which I thought was a definitely something we have to cover. So Steve Smith, heading to Cumbria for an evening this Valentine's. Rory, any recommendations on walks and local eats? So, big recommendation at the moment, if you can, get up High Street, which runs and walk the whole route, which takes you from Ascombe right over to Watermille. So you're basically going from Penrith, right the way over to the other side of the Lake District.

• 29:28Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, hold on. This is, I think the question is about a date, Rory. It's not about a walk. It's about a date.

• 29:32Rory Stewart?

  He said walks and the local eats. Okay, local eats. Um, well, if you, if you're really feeling like treating someone, Ascombe Hall, absolutely lovely, delicious meal.

• 29:41Alastair Campbell?

  Very good. It's a good plan. And Rory, we get a lot of people saying they enjoy saying what we're reading and watching. So I've told you what I'm, I'm reading Bernie Sanders' book. I've just finished, I finished Fiona Hill's book on the drive down, listened to an audible at double speed, which gave me a bit of car sickness. Um, but it's a very good read. And I'm also reading John Lennon. I didn't even know that this, it's one of those books that's just been sitting on a bookshelf for years. And it's, it's his musings, John Lennon in his own right, W R I T E. It's absolutely brilliant. And the guy was a genius, comic genius.

• 30:12Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Well, here, here a couple for me. So I talked a little bit last time about this amazing book that I was reading called Lost Realms, Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings. Just a beautiful, beautiful book, because it takes all the micro kingdoms that emerged between the end of the Roman Empire in Britain. So places that were smaller, Elmoth, for example, in Yorkshire, not very far from you, actually, where you grew up in Keithley, had a bit of. Elmet going on, but tiny, tiny places with their own kings, their own literature, their own culture. And the author takes you all the way around from Wales up to Scotland in these micro kingdoms and does it with so beautifully because archaeology is changing so much in

• 30:55Rory Stewart?

  the last few years, the way that we view the so-called dark ages.

• 30:58Alastair Campbell?

  Brilliant.

• 30:59Rory Stewart?

  And he's just brilliant at bringing them to light. Another thing which I've talked about a little bit, which I think you'd really like if you haven't read them. Philip Kerr has written a series of, before he died, three detective stories where the hero is a football manager.

• 31:13Alastair Campbell?

  Oh.

• 31:14Rory Stewart?

  So I don't know whether you, whether you read detective stories, but it's really fun.

• 31:18Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Well, I've written, I've written a novel where the hero is a football manager. Saturday Bloody Saturday.

• 31:24Rory Stewart?

  Well, I need to read your Saturday Bloody Saturday.

• 31:25Alastair Campbell?

  No, I don't. Well, you might enjoy it. It's about, it's about football and terrorism. It's about the IRA.

• 31:29Rory Stewart?

  Okay.

• 31:30Alastair Campbell?

  But it's also about, the hero is an alcoholic football manager. Yeah.

• 31:34Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 31:34Alastair Campbell?

  So I'm watching this very funny Steve Martin thing, Only Murders in the Building.

• 31:39Rory Stewart?

  Oh, Lord, what's that then?

• 31:40Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it's his, this sort of, it's comic, but it's got a serious thing, but it's also, it's actually about, it's about people who are making a true crime podcast inside their own building where they live where there's been a murder. It's, it's quite funny. There's a lot of podcast dynamic going on within it, which is quite amusing.

• 31:58Rory Stewart?

  Well, I've been watching House of the Dragon, which is the prequel to Game of Thrones.

• 32:04Alastair Campbell?

  Right.

• 32:04Rory Stewart?

  Where Paddy Constantine plays a really wonderful king, sort of strangely weak, sympathetic, compassionate, puzzled. And I think for anyone interested in power, it gets, it gets better. And it's, it doesn't have the kind of, the sort of gratuitous violence and soft porn elements, which I think slightly wrecked Game of Thrones for me.

• 32:27Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I, I, I can't watch violence on television.

• 32:30Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. So there I am. House of the Dragon. I've been enjoying it.

• 32:33Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Are we about done?

• 32:35Rory Stewart?

  I think we are. And I think, honestly, you and I should go off and get a Lemsip.

• 32:39Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Is yours just a cold or is it a post, is it a post hypothermic cold, which is obviously a lot more glamorous?

• 32:45Rory Stewart?

  I don't have any hypothermia, but it's absolutely horrible. Did you ever watch a British comedy show called Citizen Khan, where the hero coughs and splutters in the bathroom?

• 32:53Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that you?

• 32:55Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, that's me. Yeah.

• 32:56Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, dear.

• 32:58Rory Stewart?

  Well, have a lovely evening. Bye bye.

• 32:59Alastair Campbell?

  See you. Bye.

• 33:05Speaker 05

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

• 33:08Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 33:09Speaker 05

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

• 33:14Speaker 02

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

• 33:21Speaker 03

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

• 33:26Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  I'm not the first then.

• 33:30Speaker 02

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

• 33:35Speaker 04

  Espolone Tequila. Balanced. Delicious. 100% agave, 0% ego. Just add ice, lime, and your mouth. For a real margarita, ride the rooster.

• 33:45Speaker 06

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