234. Question Time: Why New Labour introduced tuition fees, Thatcher and Blair’s canvassing secrets, and the greatest prime minister we never had

Who would have been in Rory’s cabinet if he had won the 2019 Tory leadership contest? Who is the best prime minister we never had? How can we fix England and Wales' struggling universities? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all this and more on today’s episode of TRIP Question Time. 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ TRIP ELECTION TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Election Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] 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/restorspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  Nordstrom Rack is celebrating 125 years of Nordstrom with 125 of the best deals, up to 65% off in stores and online. They're only here while supplies last, so shop today. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

• 1:33Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.

• 1:36Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Alastair Campbell. And Rory, quite a few questions this week on the premise that you might have won the leadership contest in 2019, which I'm sure would have made you very, very happy and would have made me very happy because it meant Boris Johnson would never have been Prime Minister. Harrison Jane. If you Rory had won the leadership contest in 2019, who would have been in your cabinet? Philip Davis, I don't think that's Philip Davis, the MP, sorry, Sir Philip Davis. In a parallel universe, if Rory won the Tory leadership contest and became PM, what were your three top policy deliveries?

• 2:09Rory Stewart?

  Policy, more straightforward because that was something I was actively campaigning on. And that was customs union. Then and now, I believe that the UK joining the customs union is the best way of recognizing the results of the referendum while also giving Britain a close relationship with Europe economically, politically. And I think even today, if we join the customs union, could transform confidence in our economy. The second one was getting cross-party agreement on adult social care and the NHS. I mean, it seems to me like a massive looming disaster that broadly speaking, the two parties ought to be able to agree on, and we need to put it on a 2030 year footing and fund it properly. And the third one, which was a bit more left field, was I was pushing for midlife education. I was very conscious that AI robotics would lead to people losing their jobs.

• 2:53Rory Stewart?

  And I still think in the next 10 years, we're going to see a massive displacement in the workforce. So having really high quality training for someone in their 30s or 40s to allow them to get another job was the other bit. Cabinet's more tricky. I mean, cabinet, obviously, I didn't talk about at the time. You'll be astonished to hear I would have made David Gork my Chancellor of the Exchequer. Really astonished, breaking news here.

• 3:14Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think David Gork is mentioned more than any other non-party leading or presidential or prime ministerial figure on this podcast?

• 3:24Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's possible that I'm actually running a leadership campaign for David subliminally all the time. I did actually want him to run. I only ran because he wouldn't run.

• 3:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Who's your Foreign Secretary?

• 3:34Rory Stewart?

  Probably David Liddington, who again, you know, left with me, but I thought had been an amazing Foreign Office Minister, very, very calm, very quiet, highly admired.

• 3:43Alastair Campbell?

  And your Home Secretary, and I'm watching out for diversity here, Rory.

• 3:47Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. So you're saying the answer couldn't be Ken Clark? That was not the route to go down.

• 3:53Alastair Campbell?

  I'd have made him justice.

• 3:54Rory Stewart?

  Justice. Well, I rated Victoria Prentice, who I like very much. I rated Alex Chalk, Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt. Of the Brexiteers, I probably would have put in James Cleverly, Graham Stewart, Rishi Sunak, Nigel Adams, Mark Spencer.

• 4:10Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm, it's a pretty rum lot.

• 4:15Rory Stewart?

  Who are you going to put in? Or is your basic view that we're all such a bunch of disasters? You can't come up with a single one?

• 4:22Alastair Campbell?

  I had a struggle. I noticed I didn't hear the name Gove in there.

• 4:25Rory Stewart?

  Well, Michael Gove was controversial to education. He was very good, actually, in environment, very good in justice. And there's a reason why he's in everybody's cabinet, which is he's very hardworking, very focused, very practical. So I think the temptation probably would have been to use him actually in the way that even Boris Johnson, who had real problems with him, used him in a delivery department.

• 4:46Alastair Campbell?

  Would you have tried to persuade Theresa May to take a step down?

• 4:50Rory Stewart?

  Well, Theresa May as Foreign Secretary would have been interesting, wouldn't it? That's a good idea. Yeah. Is that what you were pushing for?

• 4:56Alastair Campbell?

  So Liddington's been sacked already?

• 4:58Rory Stewart?

  Well, I don't know. I'm just trying.

• 4:59Alastair Campbell?

  See how hard it is to do reshuffles, Rory?

• 5:01Rory Stewart?

  It's very hard. And of course, balancing the different parts of the party, because of course, what I would have done is I then would have had an enraged Boris Johnson, Priti Patel, Liz Truss, all of whom would be Braverman, all of whom would have been Braverman, I think, in 2019, luckily, didn't really exist, but well, not in the same way she does now as a major political figure. And Jacob Rees-Mogg and the rest of them would have been causing absolute ructions on the back benches. Yeah. So no, you're right. It's really difficult putting these cabinets together because you're trying to get talent and you're also trying, which is my kind of David Gork, David Liddington bit, you're also trying to get big communicators and you're trying to hold different parts of the party together. And I guess this is why we look at these cabinets and we're like, whoa, how on earth do we end up with that?

• 5:42Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, they're like a very, very difficult psychological jigsaw.

• 5:46Rory Stewart?

  Right, here we are. Best of the rest. Sean Rutter. You've done best and worst PMs. Who's the best Prime Minister we never had? Who would have made a cracking PM but didn't quite get there for whatever reason? Can you give us a couple of names from various parties on that?

• 5:57Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, I think it's so hard to answer that question because you just don't know until they get there whether they would have been any good. I think an obvious one is David Miliband. I still wonder, I mean, it's idle wondering it now because he didn't become leader of the Labour Party, but I wonder whether he might have beaten David Cameron. I think going back, Tony Blair became Prime Minister, having become Labour leader on the back of John Smith dying. Now, I think John Smith would have become Prime Minister and would probably have been a very good Prime Minister, very much in the kind of Atlee Starmer mould as opposed to sort of, you know, Blair Clinton, as it were. I think on the Tory side, I actually do think Michael Heseltine would have been a pretty good Prime Minister. Again, more

• 6:38Alastair Campbell?

  of a sort of Blair Clinton figure than Atlee Smith Starmer.

• 6:43Rory Stewart?

  What did you make of Willie Whiteley, who of course people thought was the person who was, he was in my constituency penrith and border and was the person people thought was going to beat Mrs Thatcher?

• 6:51Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, on a personal level, I liked him. He used to do these, these briefings for journalists and, and he was, he was very funny, he was very charming. I mean, I don't think he'd have been a good Prime Minister.

• 7:03Rory Stewart?

  No, it was a difficult time to come into, wasn't it, late seventies, whether he would have been able to actually bring through reforms?

• 7:09Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Rory Stewart?

  I've been caught up a little bit in this whole debate around, so Chris Patton's stepping down as the Chancellor of Oxford.

• 7:15Alastair Campbell?

  Yep.

• 7:15Rory Stewart?

  And there's this big debate because they've seemed to be changing the rules to prevent white male politicians.

• 7:20Alastair Campbell?

  Politicians becoming Chancellor of Oxford University.

• 7:22Rory Stewart?

  Exactly. But the last two, Chris Patton and Roy Jenkins, are interesting characters. I mean, it's, it's sort of became a role for people who, Oxford graduates at least, rather kind of fantasized about becoming Prime Minister but did never make it.

• 7:35Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, you see, again, those two are classic. When I said earlier, you wouldn't really know until they got there. Both very, very significant political figures, both with a track record of making real change. You know, some of the greatest things that past Labour governments did, it was Roy Jenkins who had them on his, on his agenda. Whether they had what it takes for the very, very top job, I'm not sure. I remember with Chris Patton, when there was a lot of talk that he might become Prime Minister or certainly become Conservative leader, either before or after John Major did, I remember a big part of the debate was about the fact that he was a, he was a Catholic.

• 8:12Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 8:12Alastair Campbell?

  And how difficult it would be for a Catholic. And now, without any sense of it being a problem at all, we have a Hindu.

• 8:19Rory Stewart?

  Prime Minister. So that that shows just how much things have changed.

• 8:22Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. But I think both, listen, both of them very, very significant. And I have to say, Chris Patton did an interview the other day on LBC about Brexit, which was absolutely brilliant. He really called it out for what it is. So yeah, both of them, very big political figures. But I just think you don't know until they get there whether they can do it.

• 8:41Rory Stewart?

  And would you just very quickly, what are you, given that my name's in the running for this, forget me, but what do you think about this idea that instead of having a full democracy, which is what they used to have, where all the graduates from Oxford were allowed to vote and choose whoever they wanted, they've now set up a sort of secretive appointed committee that reduces the number of candidates, presumably because they basically don't trust the electorate. They think Oxford graduates can't be trusted to produce a sensible chancellor.

• 9:04Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. I can't pretend to know what the chancellor does and what sort of powers and functions they have. I mean, the fact that somebody is a politician should not, in my view, exclude them from running for what's clearly an important position within the university. I can see why they might want to think more broadly than getting a politician. But did Chris Patton do a pretty good job? Most people would say yes. Did Roy Jenkins do a pretty good job? I think most people would say yes. So I think it's a very, very odd move. And I think it's just part of this whole sort of, let's just be horrible about politicians all the time, which when you're meant to be one of the great seats of learning in the world, I'm not sure that's a very good message to send out. Talking of universities, Rory, Chris Smith, at the time of writing, more than 40 UK universities have announced cuts and redundancies.

• 9:48Alastair Campbell?

  63% of higher education institutions in England and Wales could be in deficit by 25, 26. How has the collapse of a sector worth 130 billion to the economy been allowed to happen? And what can any government do now?

• 10:01Rory Stewart?

  Oh, and then Mark Smith on the same one, is it time to cut universities loose from the fees cap? Because I guess these things are related, aren't they? They're to do with how much money the universities get from the government, how much money they get from tuition fees, and how much money they get from international students, who I think aren't capped in the same way.

• 10:19Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 10:20Rory Stewart?

  And this was a huge issue, wasn't it? Tuition fees all the way through, because there was an argument out there that, given that graduates tend to earn more, it was unfair. That taxpayers in general should pay for something that graduates were benefiting from. So there was this move to introduce tuition fees. I think it started under you guys, under Labour. And then it was increased significantly by the Tory Liberal Coalition Government, which was a big, big problem for the Lib Dems because they'd campaigned against tuition fees. What do you remember about that whole debate?

• 10:48Alastair Campbell?

  That it was very, very difficult. And what was our, one of our most famous slogans has to be my three priorities for government. And I tell you, education, education, education. So one of our big goals was to a huge increase in the number of school leavers who went to university. We wanted a big expansion of the university sector, both because of the commitment to our own education, but also, as the questioner Chris Smith said, because of the role that universities play within the economy more broadly.

• 11:11Rory Stewart?

  And is this these Chris Smith? Is it your friend Chris Smith?

• 11:14Alastair Campbell?

  I don't know, but if it is, then Chris Smith is now, he's the master of an Oxford college. But I, I think if it was the Chris Smith or that Chris Smith, I think he would have probably said so, but it might be. I know he listens to the podcast, so he can, he can let us know. So we brought it in, quite difficult, quite controversial, but I think people more or less understood. I think we managed to explain the reasons that you couldn't. You know, when I went to university, I had a full grant and it wasn't even on the radar that we might end up having to sort of pay these sorts of fees. Obviously Nick Clegg massively damaging to him politically that he became part of the coalition and they went along with this increase. But this, in answer to Chris Smith's question, it underlines yet again just how interconnected we all are. Because one of the big factors in the problems that universities are facing

• 11:59Alastair Campbell?

  is the, the fall in the number of Chinese students because of sort of political difficulties. And of course, that's exacerbated by some recent developments. Nigerian students, who at one point were the fastest growing group in British universities, that has almost collapsed because there's been a collapse in the value of Nigerian currency. And then above all, because of the debate on immigration, the Sunak government stopping master students from bringing family members to the UK. Because a lot of overseas students, they come here for postgraduate courses. They may be into their mid twenties and older, they've got kids. So all of these things have come together to hit the number of students coming from abroad. And then you add in the Scottish angle where university fees for Scots are free. So they need more overseas students.

• 12:44Rory Stewart?

  And then inflation, I reckon, because I think by law tuition fees were capped at nine thousand two hundred and fifty pounds 10 years ago. And I reckon nine thousand pounds ten years ago is about twelve thousand pounds today.

• 12:55Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Rory Stewart?

  So there's been a huge increase in the costs for the universities inflation, but tuition fees have been kept. And of course, it's much, much higher than it is in somewhere like Spain, where I think tuition fees are like a thousand pounds a year or even less. But we've still got this amazing sector. I mean, we've got this incredible universities. I think seventeen of the top hundred in the world of British universities. I mean, it's one of the few things Britain does do better on than other European countries. We've got many more in the top hundred than France or Germany.

• 13:21Alastair Campbell?

  But what we're seeing at the moment is, so last week, I think it was Essex that announced that they were facing real financial difficulties. It's happening a little bit piecemeal at the moment, and I'm not aware of a kind of government strategy to address this. And I worry that it's one of the growing list of areas that the government is thinking too hot to handle, pre-election, let's leave it. And if Labour win, they're going to have to pick this up. But if universities start to go bust, that is going to be incredibly damaging to the UK.

• 13:48Rory Stewart?

  There is also another thing which I think people have pointed out. I'm sure this is a bad egg problem. It's not definition of the sector, but unfortunately, there have been institutions which have just been relying on income from foreign students and not producing a really great level of education. And the implication is that students are signing up to these courses partly to be able to come to the UK, not getting a great deal of education out of it. So there's a real problem, which is this is a huge sector with a lot of income coming in, but people being a bit worried that at least on the fringes, there are some pretty dodgy universities who are not really providing very good education and are getting people who aren't really committed to education as a way of coming into the UK.

• 14:27Alastair Campbell?

  Of course, the other factor that has played a part in this is our old friend austerity. There've been cuts to funding for teaching, really substantial. Inflation, as you say, is a big part of it as well. Some of the universities that we're talking about, they're, you know, they're pretty big names within the university sector that are reporting real difficulties in pay, in hiring. And you talked about the, as you say, we are, I think we're second only to America in terms of how many universities we've got in the top hundred in the world. And in 2012, British universities accounted for fifteen percent.

• 15:02Alastair Campbell?

  Of the most cited research papers in the world, and that's now fallen to just above 10%. Now, there could be all sorts of other factors there, rise of China and so forth. But I think that we underestimate how much good our universities do, not just in education, but also in the economy and our soft power as well, our global standing. It's incredibly important.

• 15:22Rory Stewart?

  Okay, Anissa, quick break, then back with more questions.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Nordstrom Rack is celebrating 125 years of Nordstrom with 125 of the best deals up to 65% off in stores and online. We're talking incredible savings on brands you love like Vince, Sam Edelman, Rag and Bone, All Saints and more. They're only here while supplies last, so shop today. Join the Nordie Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favourite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

• 16:02Rory Stewart?

  Someone called Kenabot coming in with a question here. In Australia, you've just come back from Australia, we're seeing an enormous surge in former NHS staff migrating here for economic reasons. They can get paid double or sometimes triple here what they get in the NHS, and yet our healthcare is largely affordable and high quality. Can Britain learn lessons from us? I mean, I'm sure we can learn a lot of lessons, but I hope what Kenabot doesn't mean is that we should be paying three times as much because wage bills are already 37% of the NHS budget. I mean, if we tripled the salaries of people in the NHS, obviously 95% of the current NHS budget would just be salaries and it would effectively double the size of the budget.

• 16:43Alastair Campbell?

  You mentioned the fact I was there recently and I met both doctors and nurses randomly who were Brits, who were out there, who'd gone out there. And they didn't say they were tripling their salaries at all. They said they were improving their salaries. But actually, they said there were other factors that they felt were more important. And the one that was most cited. Was the fact that they felt they were valued and respected. I think I told you before, there was one guy who'd worked in a hospital in Surrey who said, it's just so nice going to work and nobody abuses or insults you. You know, I was in the Royal Free recently in A and E, visiting somebody and there's signs all over the place, you know, abuse will not be tolerated, our staff are entitled to respect. And this is all because they are, it's just becoming

• 17:28Alastair Campbell?

  part of the furniture now, working inside the NHS that you're going to get shouted at because people are waiting too long, there isn't the bed that you need and so forth. So I think it is that, I think it's the sense of respect. And so I don't think it's just about money. I mean, yes, listen, the other thing, let's be absolutely frank about it, the weather, the lifestyle, that's the other thing they said, it's just so nice to be able to leave work and, you know, go to the beach.

• 17:51Rory Stewart?

  Have you ever been tempted by Australia as a place to live? I mean, it seems to be, you seem to have a lot of fondness for it, don't you?

• 17:56Alastair Campbell?

  I do, I would be tempted. I mean, look, I actually said to my kids, I said, you know, if I was your age, I'd love to live in Australia. I think it's just got the feel of a young, dynamic country. Now, it's got problems and I think the whole Aboriginal issue is really, really quite profoundly depressing. I think its politics is quite interesting. I've just read a brilliant book, by the way, Rory, you would love it. It's 20 odd years old now, but it was given to me out there and it's a book by a pork eating speechwriter called Recollections of a Broken Heart. It's the best book I think I've come across for describing what it's like inside a high level political organisation with all the ups and the downs and the characters and the egos and all that. So, yeah, I do like Australia, but no, I think

• 18:39Alastair Campbell?

  if I was going to leave England, it would be to live in either Scotland or France, I think.

• 18:44Rory Stewart?

  Great.

• 18:45Alastair Campbell?

  Now, here's one, Rory, also a health question. Helen Cooper, how about a sugar tax entirely to be used to help fund the NHS?

• 18:53Rory Stewart?

  Well, what do you, what do you think about the idea of a sugar tax?

• 18:55Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think that one of the reasons why the health service is struggling today is because of obesity, an obesity which is caused by

• 19:05Alastair Campbell?

  Bad diet, lack of exercise and so forth, and a lot of that related to poverty. And so you've got to be careful, on the one hand, would the sugar tax punish those who are already pretty poor? But on the other hand, if you could hypothecate it, have the sugar tax and say that is money going directly to the National Health Service as part of a more preventive approach, I wouldn't have a problem with that. But of course, the food and drink industry has such powerful lobbying.

• 19:28Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, we did actually, this was a conservative thing that we did, and it's an interesting thing, because actually, to be frank, I'd forgotten that in 2017, I actually voted for sugar tax and we introduced the sugar tax.

• 19:37Alastair Campbell?

  What happened to it, though? Did it happen?

• 19:39Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it happened and it's still going, but I'm not trying to call you out here. So it's no levy on soft drinks less than five grams of sugar per hundred millilitres, eighteen pence per litre of soft drinks containing between five and eight grams. But the reason I'm sort of pointing to is not to point to you or I not knowing it, it's that it's an example of something that governments do, which are quite sensible, but which get not that much coverage unless you're really concentrating on it. So you or I, or a general member of the public, can barely be aware that the sugar tax exists. Now, one of the things, the sugar tax at the moment is just a general tax, it just goes to the government, so maybe hypothecating it for the NHS might be interesting. The government did it, thinking that they could reduce sugar intake by 20% by 2020. They totally failed to do that.

• 20:23Rory Stewart?

  So I think there are questions about whether it really works as a kind of policy lever. And I'd love us someday to debate this amazing new drug that's come in an issue for diabetes, but called, I think, Zentec, which leads to this incredible weight loss, which may turn out more than almost anything else to transform public health in a lot of our countries, we can get costs down on the drug.

• 20:43Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. I've done what you normally do, Rory, I've had a quick hit on Google. BBC coverage of George Osborne announcement. Mr Osborne said the money raised, an estimated £520 million a year, will be spent on increasing the funding for sport in primary schools. Well, I haven't seen much evidence of that, I must say. You talked about there about the difference that things can make that aren't necessarily the obvious things on healthcare. It's the 20th anniversary of the smoking ban in public places in Ireland. And I would argue that, which has now been followed in seventy odd other countries, I suspect that has saved more lives around the world than a lot of the more high-profile, expensive changes that we've made to healthcare.

• 21:26Rory Stewart?

  Here's a question for you, Alastair, which I think, you know, we maybe do more detail next thing, but this is our year of elections, but we didn't cover properly one of the most exciting elections recently, which is the Turkish local elections. So just a quick explainer, the CHP, which was the opposition party, had a very disappointing performance against Erdogan, the president, who's had this increasingly authoritarian rule and, you know, building four hundred million pound mansions and locking up journalists and this, that and the other, last year, despite all the fallout from the earthquake, despite some catastrophic economic policies, but has had an amazing renaissance in these local elections. And these are serious stuff. When we talk local elections, we tend to think about little district

• 22:07Rory Stewart?

  councils in Cumbria. This is the directly elected mayor of Istanbul Ankara with huge powers. And basically Erdogan has lost every single one of the major cities. It's a crippling blow to him because he was the mayor of Istanbul. He really leant into this campaign. It's how he made his name. He thought he could take it back. And this may mean that he's what people are worried about, which is he's going to muck around with the constitution so that he can run again in 2028. He's now in a weaker position than he was.

• 22:36Alastair Campbell?

  No, it's, I enjoyed your, that little comparison between these elections in Istanbul and a local election up in Cumbria. If you see some of the TV pictures, I mean, these massive rallies and hundreds of thousands of people turning out. And it does seem, I mean, Erdogan had a candidate running for his party that was very much his man. A lot of the billboards and the posters and the advertising were the two of them together. He projected it very much as, you know, a vote for him is a vote for me. And Ekrem İmamoglu, who is the incumbent and an opposition figure, this has enormously strengthened him because he is now seen as the guy who might actually take on Erdogan.

• 23:17Alastair Campbell?

  And knock him out. So I think the the result was way, way bigger than anybody seemed to expect. And I think it is a pretty, as you say, a pretty severe blow to Erdogan.

• 23:29Rory Stewart?

  Alan Salazar, I'm an American fan of the podcast. Thank you, Alan. And we're going to be doing more and more international stuff. So I'd like to build our American base. Comparing dysfunction, polarization, and the rise of populist stroke authoritarian tendencies, I think US politics may be far more toxic than the UK, where Brexit and Boris Johnson, notwithstanding, democracy seems to be more stable, right or wrong?

• 23:50Alastair Campbell?

  I think it probably is worse there. I look, I could be wrong about this. Johnson was an awful aberration. Trust was an awful aberration. But I don't think that the British would ever have them back. Whereas Trump has so managed to polarize the debate in the United States that he's now, you know, a serious credible contender to come back despite all the lies, all the corruption, all the damage that he did to America's standing in the world. And I think a lot of this is about this polarization, which means that it's not just that people who are not a Democrat say, I don't like Joe Biden, I prefer Donald Trump. It's just that anything Biden says or does is bad, and anything that Trump says

• 24:34Alastair Campbell?

  or does is good. And I'm a pretty tribal person, but even I do not go that far in terms of, you know, everything Labour says is good, everything the Tories say is bad. And I think the other thing that's happened in American politics is, which is why we've got to be very, very careful about the way our media landscape develops. I'm not convinced that Trump could have become president without social media, without Fox News. And what's what's interesting is how, even though the media landscape, I would argue, is less favorable to him now than it was, I think he's managed to infect enough people with the sense that whatever he says is right, that he's still in the game. Now, as it happens, I don't think he's going to win. That's famous last words, but I'm kind of with Scaramucci on that. I

• 25:17Alastair Campbell?

  don't think Trump ultimately will win. I hope I'm right. I know you you are maybe a little bit more less confident than I am. But I think America is, the politics there is worse than ours.

• 25:27Rory Stewart?

  Question from Amy, books to recommend, which is something we haven't done recently.

• 25:31Alastair Campbell?

  I just, I just did it five minutes ago.

• 25:33Rory Stewart?

  Books? What was your book?

• 25:34Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I just talked about Australian book five minutes ago.

• 25:37Rory Stewart?

  Oh, your Australian book, I'm sorry. But it wasn't a question on books. You just, you just, you just leveraged in this book on Australia. Okay. So we got your book in. Let me, let me do my books then. I won't, given you've done your book.

• 25:48Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 25:48Rory Stewart?

  I've been reading two amazing American coming of age narratives. Donna Tartt's book Goldfinch. So she's famous because she wrote a book called Secret History. People have heard of.

• 25:57Alastair Campbell?

  Fiona's read that one.

• 25:58Rory Stewart?

  Which is, I, I thought just wonderful account of a young man moving from New York to Vegas. And the other one, which is Barbara Kring Solva's Demon Copperhead. Both of them, interestingly, about young orphan men. And a lot of them engaged with, in particularly Demon Copperhead, it's about these communities in parts of the United States, the old coal country, along the Appalachians, where, you know, he's living with this kind of hillbilly reputation and the total devastation of communities by opiates. And that makes it sound a bit depressing, but actually both books are kind of rather wonderful accounts written by women of young men navigating their way through life without stable parents.

• 26:40Rory Stewart?

  And they're funny and they're beautifully observed and they're incredible portraits of the United States.

• 26:45Alastair Campbell?

  Good. Well, sticking with books, Irina, inspired by Alastair's book, she says, I recently canvassed for the Labour candidate in Peterborough, engaging with voters on various issues. I'd love to hear from both of you about your personal experiences with canvassing and voters. Could you offer advice to young volunteers like myself?

• 27:06Rory Stewart?

  Well, my one bit of advice is don't approach it too clinically. Don't just be like, okay, all I care about is getting down the street as quickly as possible, ticking off as many names as quickly as possible. It's a lovely opportunity to learn from people and debate them. And one of the positive aspects of Margaret Thatcher was she was famous for being prepared to stand on a doorstep for an hour, arguing with Labour voters, trying to win them over. When her team was saying, come on, stop the conversation. We've got to get on. This person's never going to get vote for you. Get on, put the leaflet through the next door. But I think you've got to have a bit of sincerity and belief in converting people on the doorstep. Over to you.

• 27:43Alastair Campbell?

  Tony Blair used to tell this very funny story about canvassing in, I think it was in tower hamlets. And this was at a time when Labour was committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament. So he goes up, knocks on the door and he's giving this woman a leaflet where Labour are committing to unilaterally disarming their nuclear weapons, a policy in which Tony Blair did not believe. And so he's trying to persuade this woman of this and says, well, see what I care about? What do you care about? I care about the rats. I've got rats in my councillor's. What are you going to do about the rats? And Tony goes back to try to persuade her about unilateral nuclear weapons. She says, is that how we're going to deal with my rats?

• 28:22Alastair Campbell?

  So, and I think the lesson from that is go with the flow in the conversation. I think you're right about it. Sometimes it takes time. I would not recommend spending an hour and work out very, very quickly whether it's a good use of your time. Yes, it's a good use of your time to hear what people are saying. But if somebody says to you straight out, I'm not voting for you. I wouldn't vote for you if you gave me £10 million here and now, then I would just move on to the next ones. You are in the act of persuasion. I think the other advice I'd give is genuinely to listen and to feedback. If a good campaign does listen and it does work out what a community as a whole is trying to say to you. Rory, did I tell you about my Bob from Bakewell? I can't remember if I told you about Bob from Bakewell.

• 29:05Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, go on, Bob from Bakewell, go on.

• 29:07Alastair Campbell?

  So I got a wonderful email the other day, you will know this, about sometimes writing a book can be very, very, very lonely. And I got this email from a woman telling me about her husband who read my book about the need to get more politically active. The local Tory councillor stepped down whilst Bob from Bakewell was reading the book. And he decided, do you know what? I need to get more involved. I'm going to put my hand up for Labour. He stood as the candidate and won the seat for Labour for the first time ever.

• 29:38Rory Stewart?

  Oh.

• 29:39Alastair Campbell?

  How's about that?

• 29:39Rory Stewart?

  That's lovely. We're looking for optimistic news. Turns out there are two things there. People can get involved in politics, but also writing books can make a difference in the world.

• 29:47Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly. Okay, Rory, another question time come to an end. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.

• 29:51Rory Stewart?

  And good luck with the next book and inspiring more people to change their lives.

• 29:56Alastair Campbell?

  All the best.

• 29:57Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  There we are, getting a statement from Number Ten. On that flight, with three hundred and fifty passengers on board.

• 30:12Speaker 04

  The Great Game: Strategic Struggle Between Britain and Russia.

• 30:20Speaker 05

  We assess, Prime Minister...

• 30:23Speaker 05

  With high confidence, it was Russian.

• 30:26Speaker 04

  Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

• 30:28Speaker 06

  They took down a British passenger jet containing three hundred and fifty people.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself: You want to play, or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done... Nothing!

• 30:44Speaker 07

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today. And disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO.

• 30:55Speaker 08

  A FRAGO that says to... Kill the President of Russia.

• 31:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 31:02Speaker 08

  New from Goalhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off?

• 31:06Speaker 09

  You're my soldier, are you? Sergeant Tom McDuff, Duffy!

• 31:11Speaker 08

  An audio drama journey like no other.

• 31:13Speaker 09

  Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons.

• 31:16Speaker 08

  Devized as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller.

• 31:20Speaker 09

  We have two tight, friendly key...

• 31:21Speaker 08

  Where Britain plays its strongest hand... He's the best. Against its strongest foe. Don't do it, Duffy! Bear Hunt. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.