325. Question Time: Are the Tories dead or sleeping?

How many civilian casualties is too many: what defines a proportionate war? What makes a good civil servant according to Alastair and Rory. And, why should children learn how to disagree agreeably? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all of these questions and more. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy, a green electricity supplier powering homes across the UK. Use referral code POLITICS after sign up for a chance to win a signed copy of Rory and Alastair's books with personalised messages. Learn more at getfuse.com/politics ⚡ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ 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. TRIP TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com Instagram @restispolitics Twitter:@RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Assistant Producer: India Dunkley Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Producer: Nicole Maslen and Fiona Douglas Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:04Rory 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/rustispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rustispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

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• 1:58Rory Stewart?

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

• 2:01Alastair Campbell?

  And me Alastair Campbell. And Rory, I want to start with Jacob Aldons, Aldons, A L D O N S, says, I want to express how excited I am to be attending Trip Live at the O2 on the 15th of October. It just happens to be my 18th birthday. You will definitely get a shout out, Jacob. As long as you promise with it, with your first vote, you'll be voting for Labour, obviously. You then go on to say, I'm also interested in your thoughts on the possibility of the return of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius sparking new disputes with Argentina and Spain over the Falklands and Gibraltar, respectively. Very good question.

• 2:34Rory Stewart?

  Amazing. Okay. Chagos Islands. Chagos Islands are part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. Traditionally, they are atolls, low-lying sandy beaches, palm trees in the Indian Ocean. They were found by the Portuguese, part of French colonies. The French brought over slaves, mostly from Africa. And a particular culture developed of the Chagosians on those islands. They were then evacuated by the British in the 1960s, who then handed them over to become an airbase for the United States. And there has been a long-term claim on these territories from Mauritius. Britain initially seemed to pay Mauritius

• 3:15Rory Stewart?

  in exchange for keeping these islands. And now Keir Starmer has finally resolved this very longstanding dispute between Mauritius, Britain in the international courts, by handing over the Chagos Islands and getting a 99-year lease for the US on those islands. Over to you.

• 3:33Alastair Campbell?

  We talked about Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's Chief of Staff on the main podcast this week. And Jonathan was involved in this, because part of what he does is sort of, you know, resolve difficult disputes and so forth. In answer to Jacob's question, I don't see a read across to the Falklands and to Gibraltar. This has also been driven in part by court judgments that Britain had to address. The other argument that has been put around is of course Mauritius is quite close to China. Does this sort of open the door to China somehow taking over there? I think that's all sort of, you know, far right fanciful stuff. I actually just think this is a pretty sensible deal. On what's really interesting was, you know, within 24 hours, I guarantee that I'm going to make up a statistic.

• 4:18Alastair Campbell?

  Eighty seven percent of the people who commented as experts on the Chagos Islands had never heard of it until the day before this deal was done. Anyway, Jacob, really looking forward to seeing you at the O2.

• 4:31Rory Stewart?

  One quick one just on that. Some people suggested, and it seems plausible to me, that we're getting a bit of a glimpse of Keir Starmer's values, that, you know, he was a human rights lawyer, he's interested in international law. So it's not an accident that if we're looking for something distinctive about his premiership, it is decisions like the attorney general that he appointed, some of the decisions around human rights investigations into British troops, some of the decisions around arms sales to Israel. And the Chagos Islands are part of Keir Starmer's worldview and the kind of role that he wants Britain to play in the world. So there are two ways of playing it. You could say this was inevitable, it was going to happen anyway, and the Tories were about to do it. Or you could say, and I'm surprised Labour hasn't more,

• 5:13Rory Stewart?

  actually, this represents Keir Starmer's values and the kind of country he wants Britain to be.

• 5:18Alastair Campbell?

  Good, your question.

• 5:19Rory Stewart?

  Brendan May, what's the point or future of the Tory party? If you're vaguely centrist pro-EU, you vote Labour Lib Dem. If you're far left, you vote Green. If you're Scottish Welsh, you vote anything but Tory. And if you're as right wing as generally, but not, you'll probably vote Reform anyway. Well, there we are. What do you think about that?

• 5:34Alastair Campbell?

  Um, very good question. I don't think, by the way, that Labour and the Lib Dems can take the pro-EU vote for granted. I'd think many of the Greens would hesitate at being called far left. But I did say, one of the things that really shocked people at Brighton, do you remember Rory? When I said that I'd been talking to a pollster. Who does focus groups who said you underestimate how many people during the last election, the choice that they were making was between green and reform. In other words, they didn't want to vote for the big parties and they could be socially conservative, but also really care about the environment. Look, I think the Tories do have a real problem. I'm not sure that this leadership contest is addressing that problem.

• 6:13Alastair Campbell?

  Because what they should be addressing is why did they just suffer such a catastrophic defeat? And what Jen Rick and Badenoch seem to be saying is, look, you may think that this was the most right wing version of Tories ever, but believe you me, I'm going to make it even more right wing. Whereas with Tugendhat, you were saying, well, I'm a bit of a centrist, but I'm going to pretend to be a bit more right wing because that's where you need to be to try and win. And James Cleverly, he actually goes, it's a pretty bad thing when you're the centrepiece of your speeches, we just have to be a bit more normal. So I think they, until they go away and properly think about why they lost and what they need to do to change, I think they're in trouble.

• 6:57Rory Stewart?

  It's interesting that Cleverly began his conference speech just by saying, sorry, sorry, sorry, which I think acknowledged something. I wouldn't count them out. I mean, you know, famously the cliche is the oldest political party in the world and all this kind of stuff. And the electoral system definitely favors Conservative and Labour and the way-

• 7:18Alastair Campbell?

  Especially Conservative.

• 7:19Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, councils are structured, the way the parties are structured gives them a huge advantage. But they do face a problem. I mean, the Reform, Reform is a problem for them and the Lib Dems are a problem for them. They took a lot of votes on both sides and working out what you do about that. Do you tack left, do you tack right, or do you try to find an offer that somehow brings all those people back to you by reframing them? And presumably it's the last one you need to do.

• 7:39Alastair Campbell?

  Or do you do a modern version of what Cameron tried to do, which essentially is to say, we are going to be very different to what we have been. That's what I've not been hearing from any of these, these four. I remember what somebody in Tony always used to say when, we used to have these weekly meetings, right? If we were the Tories and we knew about us, what we knew, what would we do with it? And even when Duncan Smith was leader, we would sort of have these sort of meetings. Philip Gold and I used to chat around. And I remember once when Duncan Smith was leader, he said, oh, for God's sake, this is a waste of time. This guy's going to win. And I remember Tony Blair saying, the thing you've got to remember about the Tory party is they're not dead, they're sleeping. So I would say at the moment,

• 8:22Alastair Campbell?

  they're still in that sleeping mode, but eventually they'll presumably stop sleeping and wake up. But if I were Labour, you should never, ever be complacent. But I haven't seen anything from these four that makes me think there's something a bit special coming down the track.

• 8:36Rory Stewart?

  One of the problems that Labour always faces is that with the honourable exception of Tony Blair, basically anybody in the Labour Party finds it very difficult to understand why anybody would ever vote Tory. And that makes it very, very difficult for Labour to actually anticipate what the move's going to be. It's a bit like, I mean, you understandably are very puzzled by when anyone vote for Donald Trump.

• 8:57Alastair Campbell?

  Well, so are you.

• 8:57Rory Stewart?

  I'm also puzzled by why people vote for Donald Trump. But it is the great question and ditto with, I mean, I really get the sense with most of the

• 9:04Alastair Campbell?

  No, I understand why people vote Tory.

• 9:06Rory Stewart?

  They don't get why people vote Tory, really.

• 9:08Alastair Campbell?

  No, I do. They have bought the line that low tax is per se good, that a small state is per se good, and that people should be entitled to sort of, you know, get on and get on with their lives without being too much bothered by government. That's the sort of basic reasons that people give. And then they find themselves being led by Johnson and Trust.

• 9:30Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. Connected to that is the critique of Labour, which is that they think Labour's likely to be a bit pious, a bit idealistic, waste quite a lot of money, have good intentions, not run things well.

• 9:39Alastair Campbell?

  All the lies they've told down the years. Now, Roy, you're going to enjoy, you're going to enjoy what I'm about to reveal to you. This is a question about one of my pet subjects. Alison Lycardle, this week, the Commission report on oracy in English schools is published. You've talked about this before the election.

• 9:54Rory Stewart?

  Yes.

• 9:54Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think it will happen? Do you think the children should be taught how to speak, how to communicate and how to love the language? The answer to that is yes. But Rory, I've read the report.

• 10:03Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 10:03Alastair Campbell?

  And my old friend and colleague Peter Hyman was talking about it on the on the media today. And it's the Chair of the Commission, he's a guy that I actually know very well called Jeff Barton, who has worked in head teacher for years, good friend of Fiona's. And this is from his introduction, Rory, just listen to this, you'll love this.

• 10:21Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 10:21Alastair Campbell?

  It's across our early year settings, our schools and colleges, where we're going to need to rekindle a sense of optimism, educational mission of joy and learning. Now more than ever, we need our young people to be equipped to ask questions, articulate ideas, formulate powerful arguments, deepen the sense of identity and belonging, listen actively and critically, to be well steeped in a fundamental principle of liberal democracy, that is, being able to disagree agreeably.

• 10:50Rory Stewart?

  Hey, that's what we like.

• 10:52Alastair Campbell?

  Our slogan has made the oracy report. Listen, I've read the report, I'll send you a copy if you want to, and we'll put it in the newsletter. I'm very, very up for this. And what I like about what they've done, they're not going to be adding to the curriculum, they're not going to say you have oracy classes. Essentially, they're saying it should be included in every subject as an entitlement, because the ability to speak well, clearly, communicate well, actually is a key to social mobility. Parents and employers have expressed a lot of support for it. There is loads of good examples in this report of where it's already happening in state schools. And, you know, parents are behind it, the economy needs it, democracy, it's good for democracy, teachers welcome it, children deserve it. So I'm very, very pleased this has happened.

• 11:35Alastair Campbell?

  And he acknowledges in the report that Keir Starmer and Bridget Phillips have said that they're behind this. So onwards and upwards with that one, I say.

• 11:42Rory Stewart?

  Onwards and upwards with that one. Okay, here's one, maybe slightly grimmer. How's Johnson? Is there a definition of proportionality, remilitary actions, targeted bombing, et cetera? Is there an acceptable number of civilian casualties in eliminating one or more individuals? Does this depend on the importance of target? Do different countries and bodies such as the UN agree on these metrics? Who decides? Would love to hear your views. Okay, this is obviously central to debates around Israel's action in Gaza.

• 12:10Rory Stewart?

  It was also very important to debates around what the US and its allies were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. So at the heart of international law, it's a pretentious Latin phrase, usad bellum, which basically means that you need to make sure that you've calculated that your strike is proportional. And that means taking into account what's the military objective that's served. Have you distinguished between civilians and military personnel? Is it a short term or a long term objective? And the laws on that are very, very strange. And one of the things that I learnt in Iraq is that we often didn't count civilian casualties if they were co-located with a military target.

• 12:51Rory Stewart?

  The fact that it was co-located military target meant that they weren't really counted as civilians. And I suppose, I mean, to put it in really blunt and brutal terms, you know, are you justified killing over forty thousand people? Because a thousand of your own people have been killed. And how does that work? And how does the sense of whether you're on the right side or not work? And that's exactly what international law is about. It's exactly what is tried in the international courts. And it's hugely controversial. And it's also why lawyers are involved all the time. Or at least the militaries claim lawyers are involved a lot of the time. Although, to be honest, with many strikes, I find it difficult to believe

• 13:36Rory Stewart?

  that the lawyers are actually sitting at the commander's shoulders in the way that these armies claim.

• 13:39Alastair Campbell?

  I can remember, my only sort of direct experience of this was when I was seconded to NATO during the Kosovo conflict. I've told you before about when General Wes Clark, who was the leader of the whole operation, and he took me to one side and showed me some targeting plans and explained about this building and asked me whether I thought they could hit it, which was kind of, it was a bit of a weird moment for me. I was kind of, you know, I really thought, is this totally appropriate? But the reason he wanted to ask me was because this was the building. From which some of the Western and European, other European and American broadcasters were broadcasting from. So I said, well, no, that, you know, if you think it's part

• 14:21Alastair Campbell?

  of his military machine, then fair enough, but should probably try some way to make sure that people who might be there aren't there. What struck me during that period, though, is there genuinely was, I don't know whether every target went to before a lawyer, but there genuinely was a discussion about whether there was risk to civilian life. And I think that will be very, very interesting when we get through this awful situation in the Middle East right now, and in particular, what's been going on in Gaza. You know, the Israeli government at some point will, I imagine, have to publish records of discussions and paperwork of meetings and so forth. And it'll just be interesting to know whether

• 15:03Alastair Campbell?

  at various points, they said, you know, we should be mindful of the loss of civilian life and what efforts are taken to to avoid that. Now, what they say, of course, is that, and this is an argument that's often used, this was used in Iraq in relation to Saddam, using civilians and children in particular as as human shields. I think it's fair to say that the, certainly the situations I was involved in, it was definitely part of the discussions. But at some point, you know, as you say, these things can end up before a court and the judgments, yes, they're partly legal, but ultimately, they're founded often on fairly subjective judgments that are made in a previous era.

• 15:42Rory Stewart?

  Not to promote other shows, but I heard the most extraordinary interview on Radio Four with a drone pilot about what it's like in modern warfare. And he was in charge of in the RAF, and he stopped flying planes and found himself living in the English countryside, flying drones over places like Syria. And he would be watching sometimes for quite a long time, a particular individual. And the way the optics on the camera works, it's as though you're looking at them from about, you know, 50 metres away, you know, pretty close, right? You get to know their family, you get to know their children, you're watching

• 16:24Rory Stewart?

  their cycle, and then you kill them. And then you watch them die to make sure that they're dead. And then you write up a report on it. To meet international legal obligations, et cetera. And he killed many, many, many people. And he has gone through the most horrifying trauma and post-traumatic stress. And has found it very difficult to explain to people because of course, some people think, well, what say you weren't in the front line, you weren't at danger yourself. So why are you going through post-traumatic stress? But he was driving off, leaving his family, spending eight hours a day doing this and then going home to have dinner with his kids.

• 17:08Rory Stewart?

  And so I am sorry to raise it, but we'll put a link in that show because I thought it was just sort of reminder of the kind of horror of modern war.

• 17:16Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I assume that part of what he's going through, maybe also the reason why he wants to talk about it, is because he maybe lies awake at night, wondering about the morality of what he's done. And in preparation for the interview that we did with recently with Timothy Snyder, I listened to something that he was doing where he talked about, we're now up to a million casualties, Russian and Ukrainian in the Russia-Ukraine war. I mean, does Putin ever at any point lie awake at night thinking, hmm, a million people? Or does he think, oh, well, Stalin did a lot more than that and I don't need to have to worry? I mean, when do you, how do you draw these moral arguments for yourself?

• 17:54Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. And do you ever think, it's also the dehumanizing thing, that one of the things that obviously operates in every war is that you see the other side as being not really human?

• 18:03Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 18:04Rory Stewart?

  And you don't really care because you're not forced to concentrate on their family, their children, their lives, their grieving relatives and parents and friends.

• 18:14Alastair Campbell?

  And that's a reason why in times of war, we're seeing at the moment in regard to Israel, where the international media really can't get access to Gaza, we're seeing it in Ukraine with the Russian operations. It's why they go to great efforts to make sure that you can't see what's happening. Okay, Rory, quick break and then more questions.

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• 20:23Alastair Campbell?

  Question here from somebody called Irina Nogali about the election later this month in Moldova. Small country, but pretty important for reasons that we'll go into. What are your thoughts in the upcoming election in Moldova and Mya Sandu's chances of extending her presidency? Do you foresee Russian intervention? How might this impact the EU referendum taking place on the same day?

• 20:45Rory Stewart?

  Very quickly, Moldova, just before Alistair gets into the details of what's happening, is a country with a population of about 2.5 million people, surrounded on three sides by Ukraine and the other side by Romania. It was part of the Soviet Union, broke away, and part of it has split off to form something called Transnistria, which is a kind of breakaway republic within Moldova. So over to you, Alistair, on the question.

• 21:07Alastair Campbell?

  No, this is, this, that is a great question, Irina, and thank you for asking it. There's actually just been the most extraordinary thing discovered. Moldovan police... On last Thursday, they made a huge number of raids around the country because they found that upwards of $15 million was being transferred from Russia to Moldovan voters, trying to get them to vote a certain way. Now, May sandu, I know May sandu, remarkably strong and pretty courageous woman who is the president, she probably will win the ballot in that she might well come top in the ballot, but there are quite a large

• 21:52Alastair Campbell?

  number of candidates and what happens is it goes off to runoff. And the chances are that the guy she's going to be get up against, guy called Shaw, S H O R, who has basically been convicted of fraud and all sorts of things, and essentially is pro-Russian, and it could be runoff against him. And of course, what happens then, kind of anybody's guess. So the Russians are all over this, absolutely all over this. In fact, I think we talked about it on the podcast a while back, when there was a report prepared by the American, British and Canadian secret services, who'd uncovered a plot, both to influence the election, but also to spark protests if if Sandu wins, or if any pro-Russian candidate fails to win.

• 22:34Alastair Campbell?

  So really, really interesting election, and the referendum is happening on the same day. And this is about whether Moldovans want to carry on with the process to seek to become members of the European Union.

• 22:45Rory Stewart?

  Good. Okay. So question from Brian E Gould. I'm just reading the Prelude to Power. Wanted to ask what you think makes a good civil servant. So I'll give you first stab, and then I'll have a stab at that.

• 22:55Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, good civil servant. Easy to work with, clever, broad ranging in terms of thinking, hardworking, and wants to be part of a team, and understands that even though they shouldn't be political, politics is part of government. Any good?

• 23:15Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I think that's pretty good. I think it's pretty good. I'd add to that, being able to occasionally step back from whatever plans the civil service have, whatever they think ought to happen. Because often there are many things sort of set in place. You know, when I was in Difit, for example, there were sort of three, five year plans, which is sort of shuntering along and moving. And that meant that it was quite difficult to take input from ministers, because ministers saying things just kind of throw them off the strategy that they're. Pursuing on their own. So working out how to listen to ministers, when to listen to ministers, and accept that sometimes ministers may have something to contribute. I mean, I think often

• 23:53Rory Stewart?

  within the system, civil servants will do what ministers say because they think that's the constitution. Ministers have the right to tell them what to say. Ministers are elected, but often they'll do it pretty skeptically, thinking, well, okay, I'm doing this because the minister told me to do it. But really, I don't think much of the decision. I found it very difficult to, I mean, I think this is something we all find in our personal lives, that often the sort of tone was, okay, minister, if that's what you want me to do, I'll do it. And I wanted to say, yeah, but do you agree with me or disagree with me? Is this the right thing to do or not? And they'd be like, well, it's what you want to do. So it'd be nice if

• 24:34Rory Stewart?

  occasionally one could get a sense of real engagement and meeting of minds, which you get more in a business or charity or other things I've run, where you actually feel that that the minister isn't just somebody kind of pulling a big lever, telling people to do things they don't want to do, but instead that you can generate policy together.

• 24:51Alastair Campbell?

  Now, question here from Grant Stewart. And one of the nicest things about this podcast as it's gone on is we've talked less and less about Boris Johnson. But he seems to have a book out at the moment. And Grant wants to know, what do you make of Johnson publishing his memoirs, where he recalls lots of detail that he couldn't remember at the COVID inquiry? Why didn't he provide his journal inquiry? And do you think he used his lost in quotes WhatsApp messages to fill in the gaps? I was very pleased at Brighton Rory that, I mean, I think it's fair to say that there's a real loathing for him. And I just think even though some people I think still find him quite amusing, I suspect his book will do very, very well, because he's getting massive promotion and the media are giving him nice sort of easy ride interviews in the main.

• 25:34Alastair Campbell?

  Um. But I'm not sure it's going to top yours. I don't really don't think it is because. And also, I did an interview before Bryton, before we did thing with Dutch television.

• 25:44Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 25:44Alastair Campbell?

  Um. It was really interesting because they they were going to be interviewing him the next day. Um. But they they sort of their their take on him was that and their take on the book was that. You couldn't really believe a word of it. And of course, the reason that they were particularly interested in is one of the big stories from it in serialization was this utter fiction. That, you know, there was a plan to invade the Netherlands to sort of steal some of their AstraZeneca vaccines for us. Um. Just utter fiction.

• 26:11Rory Stewart?

  It does seem very bizarre. There is the sense that he still doesn't want to present himself as serious. While also still wanting to be Prime Minister again. I mean, he doesn't seem to have given up on his ambitions.

• 26:23Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, he actually apparently at one point in one of the interviews. He was asked to comment about something, whether whether he backed Trump or Harris to become president. He said, I don't think I don't think as Prime Minister, you should answer that question. It was Tom Bradby and Tom Bradpo, but you're not the Prime Minister. And likewise, the thing about sort of the game playing, I saw some, I saw a clip on social media where he was sort of. Doing this thing of constantly turning the camera. And Sue Gray, what's Sue Gray, the one who did the inquiry, what's her job now? Uh, what's her job? Uh, she's, oh, yeah, she's chief of staff to the. To Keir Starmer, who I noticed he didn't call the Prime Minister, he's called him Keir Starmer. The point that the Dutch guy was making to me is that they couldn't understand how somebody so unserious.

• 27:01Alastair Campbell?

  Had become Prime Minister of the country, couldn't understand it. His book, Far From Addressing That, seems to have underlined the total lack of seriousness.

• 27:09Rory Stewart?

  It's very weird, isn't it? And it is, I mean, I, your friend Johnny Mercer said to me that he felt that people voted for. Boris because they sort of wanted to throw a hand grenade into the system. They were just so fed up with the system. It wasn't really that they endorsed Boris or took him seriously. It's just that they'd lost such faith in everything else.

• 27:25Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 27:26Rory Stewart?

  Um. Teacher John, one of my A level geography class wants to know if there could be enough provocation from Israel to unite Sunni and Shia in the Middle East.

• 27:35Rory Stewart?

  So very quickly on that.

• 27:37Alastair Campbell?

  Rory, you've missed the second part of Johnny's, of Teacher John's question.

• 27:40Rory Stewart?

  Oh, yeah. Also, can you say happy birthday to my daughter Georgie? She'll be 15 and is looking forward to seeing you in Birmingham on Wednesday. So very happy birthday to Georgie and really pleased you're coming to see us in Birmingham. You know, if you are hearing this and you're in Birmingham and you haven't yet booked your ticket, come along.

• 27:58Alastair Campbell?

  That's good, Rory. So far, we've had an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old who say that they come into our shows. That's good.

• 28:03Rory Stewart?

  That's really good, really good. And somebody came for their 10th wedding anniversary to Brighton, which I thought was good. Yeah. So quickly Sunni Shia, these are the two main traditions in Islam. And we don't have time to get into the details, but think about it maybe as Catholics and Protestants. And the key thing to understand is that the big Shia power is Iran, that the Ayatollahs are Shia. Whereas places like Saudi Arabia are dominated by Sunni governments, Sunni monarchy. And what makes it tricky, of course, is you have large Sunni minorities in Iran and large Shia minorities in Saudi Arabia. And some Sunni basically don't really see the Shia as being Muslims at all.

• 28:47Rory Stewart?

  They see them as being sort of slightly overly superstitious and not orthodox enough. And these divisions are so deep that it's extremely unlikely that whatever Israel does, it's really going to unite Sunni Shia Middle East. In fact, in some ways, Israel, by attacking Hezbollah and Iran, has created a situation where people like the Saudis will be more happy than they were with attacks on Hamas because they really dislike Iran and Hezbollah, almost more than they dislike organisations like Hamas because of suspicion of these religious issues and suspicion of Iran and Iranian objectives.

• 29:28Alastair Campbell?

  Also, the, just as within the Catholic Protestant divide, essentially it's often about interpretations either of history or of religious order. So the Shias essentially believe that Ali, that they're, they're, they're, they're called partisans of Ali. And they believe that Mohammed and his descendants are, it's a divine order. Whereas Sunnis don't believe in political succession based on the idea of a bloodline. So that's quite a big divide, I would say.

• 29:56Rory Stewart?

  Big divide. And then it manifests itself in many things that people will have seen. So for example, whereas in Iran, the Ayatollahs have this huge authority, almost like sort of popes or bishops, there's no equivalent in the Sunni world. There isn't that sense kind of unified religious authority.

• 30:11Alastair Campbell?

  Now, my last question, Rory, because people love us talking about how we do the podcast. Mick Flynn, after your leading interviews, do you unpack the interview straight away or sleep on it and reconvene for the summary?

• 30:23Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it slightly depends on timing, but I think it works best when we do it straight away, when it's still fresh in our head, isn't it?

• 30:28Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. People seem to have loved the one that we put up this week with Alan Johnson, and so they should because he's a wonderful chap. In fact, I went, the morning it came out, I went for a swim and two people in the pool had already listened to it and both said to the effect of, God, we could do with a few people like him around at the moment.

• 30:49Rory Stewart?

  Well, that's sort of certainly what I think I'm afraid. I mean, without sounding too ridiculous about it, I mean, the loss of the generation of Alan Johnson, David Blunkett, who was another great interview, some extent Gordon Brown. I mean, it's difficult, I'm afraid, for me to see in the current Labour Cabinet figures of that kind of stature. And in the case of Alan Johnson and David Blunkett, they also represent a generation and a world which gives them a kind of direct connection to the kind of energy of the post-war Labour Party, which is maybe lacking at the moment.

• 31:22Alastair Campbell?

  In every event I've done, I've used that stat that he said that the, the equality gap between North and South Kensington is, is bigger than North and South Korea.

• 31:31Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, speaking to me here in South Kensington. Okay.

• 31:34Alastair Campbell?

  And here I'm, I'm speaking to you from Pyongyang.

• 31:38Rory Stewart?

  From Pyongyang, exactly. Let, let me finish with a final one for me. Nico Muller, maybe more of a request. Can you talk a bit about the most impressive Parliament buildings you've visited? I was recently invited to the new Thai Parliament building. It was stunning. Then I saw the gigantic Romanian one a couple of weeks ago. Maybe some others not well known. But of course, the, the irony of it is often the most dramatic Parliament buildings are in places where democracy isn't necessarily operating very well, which I'm afraid has been true in Thailand often, where basically the monarchy and the military sit on many aspects of democracy. Over to you on favourite Parliament buildings.

• 32:14Alastair Campbell?

  Um, well, I, listen, I think you've got to say the British Parliament, for all its faults, is a pretty stunning building. I remember that the Hungarian Parliament is pretty good.

• 32:24Rory Stewart?

  What's that like? It gives a sense that.

• 32:26Alastair Campbell?

  It's sort of, oh god, it's really hard. It kind of, it's like a sort of.

• 32:30Rory Stewart?

  Looks like St Paul's Cathedral, doesn't it?

• 32:32Alastair Campbell?

  No, it's like Westminster. Well, it has got a big dome. It's like, it's like, it's sort of got taste of Westminster. It's got lots of turrets and towers and stuff. And it's actually got a clock tower. This is from memory now. Somebody will tell me I'm completely wrong. Not a clock tower, but it's got a tower that looks like a smaller version of um a Big Ben. Um, you'd be hard not to be impressed by by Congress. I love the, I actually do like the Australian Parliament in Canberra.

• 32:56Rory Stewart?

  I I've seen photographs of it only, but it has water in front of it. Is that, what is that water in front of it? Is that like a lake or a just a pond or something?

• 33:04Alastair Campbell?

  It's also got, not far from the the Australian Parliament is the most beautiful war memorial I've ever seen.

• 33:10Rory Stewart?

  Well, a lot of these, a bit like the House of Commons, sit on rivers, don't they? So you get this beautiful reflections in Budapest in the Netherlands of these buildings and the water at sunset.

• 33:19Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 33:19Rory Stewart?

  Um, the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest is really interesting because it's incredibly grand and it's very, very new. It was opened in nineteen ninety seven and it cost three billion euros.

• 33:30Alastair Campbell?

  What do you think of the Scottish Parliament?

• 33:32Rory Stewart?

  Well, I I go to the Scottish Parliament a great deal. Um, it's a bit sort of, I mean, it's a funny old building, isn't it? And as usual, the whole thing runs over budget. I don't know why everything has to run over budget all the time. I find I find Ottawa a bit depressing. I mean, Ottawa is like a sort of slightly grim, drab-stoned, dark red granite version of the House of Parliament sort of stuck on.

• 33:55Alastair Campbell?

  Also, it look, well, that's interesting because I've been to that one. It looks like, it looks a little bit like the Australian one, if I'm right. It's got a big tower in the middle.

• 34:03Rory Stewart?

  That's right. Yeah, exactly. It's got a big tower. Yeah, we're a big tower, a bit like Big Ben, I think.

• 34:07Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. After we finish this episode, Rory, I'm going to go away and remember, oh my god, I forgot about that amazing place.

• 34:12Rory Stewart?

  How about the Reichstag? Reichstag?

• 34:15Alastair Campbell?

  Reichstag is impressive. Yeah, it's impressive. Sort of got bad resonance.

• 34:20Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it does. It's unfortunate, hasn't it? And and of course, there was um, this, I mean, obviously, the House of Commons is so strange to work in. And and of course, you know, we're now having to decide whether we're going to spend untold billions refurbishing it. And whether part of the problem in British politics and the culture is it comes from the architecture or not.

• 34:40Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think we should just sort of knock it down and start somewhere completely different?

• 34:45Rory Stewart?

  Well, of course, Carlisle is the obvious place to have the parliaments where Edward the first had his parliament. And so I think Carlisle's right in the centre of the country.

• 34:52Alastair Campbell?

  Um, I think you might find not many takers for that one, Rory.

• 34:56Rory Stewart?

  No, no.

• 34:58Alastair Campbell?

  No.

• 34:58Rory Stewart?

  No, you don't. Cumbria, centre of the country. The whole country swings around Cumbria.

• 35:03Alastair Campbell?

  That's a very, very, very unionist view, that one, isn't it? Um, South African parliament's nice.

• 35:09Rory Stewart?

  Okay.

• 35:09Alastair Campbell?

  Has anybody done a book of great photos of great parliaments?

• 35:12Rory Stewart?

  That's good.

• 35:12Alastair Campbell?

  I'm surprised you haven't mentioned any African ones. Do you know about the laws of African?

• 35:15Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I did. Many of them built by the Chinese government.

• 35:18Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, right.

• 35:19Rory Stewart?

  Gift to the Chinese government as you walk into the parliament buildings.

• 35:23Alastair Campbell?

  Gift or debt trap?

• 35:24Rory Stewart?

  Exactly, for that sort of thing. Right, okay, on that great news, thank you, Alastair, very much, and look forward to seeing you in Birmingham this evening.

• 35:30Alastair Campbell?

  Bye bye.

• 35:31Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye.