256. Question Time: Will the podcast dynamic change after the election?

Is it time for a new curriculum? Do the UK's creative industries receive enough funding in relation to the soft power they exude? Who is 'El Loco' in the election in Panama? Listen to Rory and Alastair answer all these questions and more in today's Question Time. Subscribe to The New European and receive a £25 voucher to spend on their shop, exclusively for The Rest Is Politics Listeners: theneweuropean.co.uk/TRIP 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://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 FIRST 100 DAYS TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Election Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Podcast Editor: James Hodgson Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Assistant Producer: Fiona Douglas Producer: Nicole Maslen 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

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 Creve 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/restorspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  Botox on a botulinum toxin A prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 1:58Speaker 02

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• 2:05Speaker 04

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• 2:28Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to The Rest Is Politics, question time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 2:31Rory Stewart?

  And me, Rory Stewart. And this is really exciting because now we're fully, this is the first question time into the six-week UK election, but a lot of other stuff to cover around the world, I guess. What have you got to start us off with?

• 2:44Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think we should start with this question from three women. I'm assuming three women is a social media handle rather than the person's name. "Will you still be running your election roadshow in Cardiff on October 14? I saw a poster for it on Cardiff Station yesterday. Is the tour still going ahead?" Yes, it is. Rishi Sunak has complicated things for sure, but all of the venues that we've booked are going ahead. I think we'll have to sort of make it more international, Rory. It'll be the post-election UK roadshow, but there'll still be the American election and lots of other elections going on. So yes, they're going ahead. Tickets are going very, very well in lots of different places. We've still got a few thousand to shift in the O2, but we're getting there.

• 3:22Rory Stewart?

  It'll be exciting because at least as far as Rory's concerned, you're going to have the chance to discuss the first Labour government for 13 years in office and what it's done in its first few weeks and get into some gritty policy issues. Where's the country going as well as the international stuff?

• 3:38Alastair Campbell?

  I've got to say, Rory, wait a minute, you've got Rishi Sunak who says that we've all got to learn maths to 18. You're stuck on this 13 years thing. We're into the 14, it's 14 years now. Years, 14 years. It's 2010 to 2024.

• 3:51Rory Stewart?

  Unbelievable. Well, I mean, it's really astonishing, isn't it? Really astonishing that they've mentioned. I think it's, and that's another reason why I don't think they can win. And this, this means that, you know, we're comparing it to, well, it's one of the reasons that things look a bit odd. I mean, we're comparing it to the 13 years of Tory government that went through to Macmillan and what was achieved or what wasn't achieved, which I think Labour referred to as 13 wasted years. Then there was the pretty long period of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, but even that oddly, you've got a sense that a great deal was happening during that period, wasn't it? That from seventy nine through to ninety seven, so I guess that is a longer period.

• 4:30Alastair Campbell?

  It was eighteen years, yeah.

• 4:31Rory Stewart?

  But you've really got a sense that the Conservatives changed the country, whereas in this case, I guess we're going into an election where I'm going to appeal to our wonderful polling from JL Partners again, where I suspect we'll find, as we do these polls every week, many people in the public struggle to work out what actually has changed the last thirteen years, which wouldn't be true of the earlier periods.

• 4:50Alastair Campbell?

  No, that's right, fourteen years Rory, fourteen years. Now Rory, let me ask you this one, because I know this is something that you you're interested in, so am I. Rebecca Walker, can the UK's creative industry still be considered a soft power?

• 5:02Rory Stewart?

  Now, this is, this is, yes, absolutely. I mean, the the stats on UK creative industries, and in particular on film production, are completely staggering. So seventeen four point four billion pounds, that seventeen point four thousand million pounds brought into the economy, nearly two hundred and ninety thousand people employed in the UK, and individual films, Barbie, for example, which both of us watched, which was shot in Hertfordshire, brought in about eighty million pounds to the British economy.

• 5:32Alastair Campbell?

  Sorry, which both of us watched. Can you say, can you make sure that that was, both of us watched, i.e. we went to see it and we watched it? We don't, it sounds to me like we watch it, like we watch it all the time. I only watched it once, and I'm only, and I'm only ever going to watch it once.

• 5:47Rory Stewart?

  The other people who've done, I mean, Star Wars, huge number of Star Wars films shot in the UK, thirteen billion pounds of Disney sales over the last six years, much of it generated from the UK. Tom Cruise, his Mission Impossible movies, he loves the UK as a location. But what we need in the UK, and we're now moving into second place behind Hollywood worldwide for films, is we still need production space, because there's been real moments of where independent production companies haven't been able to go to the ground, and this relates to Some of the conversations we've had, because there's a planning application in Marlow at the moment, which I think is on the edge of the green belt, which could be fantastic for the creative industries, but raises a lot of the issues that you and I debate a lot about whether you're prepared to compromise on the green belt for these kind of growth opportunities.

• 6:31Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, well, that's why I suspect Labour keep talking about the grey belt. And that event you and I did in Leeds last week with UK Reef, with all the investment and infrastructure and housing people, I think they were looking to be able to sort of expand the places that they could do that kind of thing. Now, Rory, just on the same subject, and I wasn't going to raise this, but given that I plugged my books on the main podcast, but then discovered that due to ridiculous Ofcom rules, that wasn't allowed to go out on Channel Four, I am going to say that one of the people who's quoted in my book on this very subject is none other than Keira Knightley, who, as you probably remember from the Albert Hall, is a big fan of the podcast. But she makes the point that our country is globally renowned

• 7:16Alastair Campbell?

  for culture and for creativity in the creative industries. But she says she sometimes feels that politics views culture as a luxury rather than the necessity for education of the economy that it is. And I think that I completely endorse that. I think that Labour, if they come into power, should put the creative industries right at the heart of this growth strategy. And I hope we hear something of that during the campaign.

• 7:39Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it'd be great to see who the new Culture Secretary is going to be coming in. And Anthony Gormley, the interview on Leading, if people haven't heard it, is a really powerful case made for why Keir Starmer and Labour really need to get behind the creative industries. He paid tribute, actually, to the Conservative Culture Minister, Greg Goward, who he said was the last decent Tory Culture Minister.

• 7:58Alastair Campbell?

  In the House of Lords. He also said, if you remember, because if the Shadow Cabinet becomes the Cabinet, Sangam Debhanair would be the Culture Secretary, and she is like a really serious musician. Now, that doesn't necessarily translate, obviously automatically translate, but I think it does help. If you have people in those sorts of positions who in their own lives have lived and understand why this stuff is not just, you know, arty farty stuff for people who like the arts, but actually is fundamental to who and what we are as a country and the economy, the kind of economy that we can build.

• 8:32Rory Stewart?

  I also think, again, we could be learning a bit from France. France has just given a palm door to George Lucas, despite the fact that Lucas has made so many of his Star Wars movies in Britain, helped British economy a lot. I'd like to see Labour looking at giving an honorary knighthood to him in the way that we did to Sir Ridley Scott. It would be a pity if the French yet again charmed one of the great factors of our economy away with their offers of honours.

• 8:56Alastair Campbell?

  Oh God, Rory, you and your honours list, honestly. Panama, Anthony Shaw. Please do, I think do means here discuss, the Panama election. Really high turnout, surge of independence, big two parties wiped out. Leading candidate is qualified by court for dodgy dealings. He fled to the Nicaraguan embassy and his vice presidential nomination wins the election in his place. Bizarre election thoughts. And Anthony, thank you for your perseverance because you've been asking that for some time. So Rory, just cover off the Panama election. He's right, it was interesting.

• 9:27Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, Panama election. So the key figure in the Panama election is a man called Ricardo Martinelli, commonly known in Panama as El Loco. El Loco was the president from 2009 to 2014. Very colourful figure, credited with enormous investment and growth, increasing the size of the Panama Canal. He was done for wiretapping, done for money laundering, was running again in the election, so having been there 2009, 2014, hoping to come in as the 2024 candidate. But unfortunately was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Took refuge

• 10:08Rory Stewart?

  in the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City from when he was running his campaign until the Electoral Commission ruled against him. So his vice president, Jose Raul Mullino, who also was in jail for embezzlement in 2015, managed to come in with a 10-point lead, backed by Martinelli, backed by El Loco, and defeated Ricardo Lombana, who's a diplomat. And Panama, I think, interesting. I mean, it's an interesting example of an economy where They have some of the things that we grumble about in Britain without apparently the economic effects. So, you know, like Britain, people complain about skilled shortages, a lot of migrant labour coming in, unskilled migrant labour, not properly funded pension

• 10:52Rory Stewart?

  system. But all that seems to mean in Panama is that growth has dropped from 7.5% a year down to 2.5% a year, which we'd be biting people's hands off for.

• 11:00Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely. They had a genuine boom, didn't they? And it sort of it sort of tailed off. But it's, we should have probably discussed this at the time, because it is one of the more interesting elections that's happened recently. Relatively small country, I think it's about four and a half million people, or perhaps four and a half million voters. But the right wing lawyer, Mr. Molino, is now the El Presidente. Just on El Loco, Rory, I'm sure you know who the most famous El Loco is. You must know who the most famous El Loco is.

• 11:29Rory Stewart?

  Is he a boxer or wrestler? No?

• 11:31Alastair Campbell?

  As far as I'm concerned, the most famous El Loco was a Colombian goalkeeper by the name of Jose Rene Higuita. And if people want to see some absolutely amazing coverage of a goalkeeper who was just a bit, and most goalkeepers are said to be crazy, but...

• 11:48Rory Stewart?

  And what made him crazy? He was just very brave. He'd fling himself under people's boots.

• 11:53Alastair Campbell?

  No, he did kind of really crazy weird things on the pitch. And he had some sort of extraordinary techniques that he used that nobody else used. And just was a bit, you know, like a lot of these Latin American footballers, like my friend Diego Maradona that I talk about, just a very, very, very, very live wire, live wire character.

• 12:11Rory Stewart?

  What I've never understood is you played with Pele and Maradona. Why is it we don't hear more about Pele?

• 12:17Alastair Campbell?

  Very good question. Partly because the Maradona Day, I can feel the editors rolling their eyebrows even as I say this, Rory, because as you know, I talk about it all the time. The Maradona was special because it was the first amazing playing football experience of my life. And I played alongside him for 45 minutes. Pele was a match at Stoke City's ground, where he was unveiling a statue of Gordon Banks, of the famous save that Gordon Banks, the goalkeeper made from Pele. And he was sort of... He was a bit older, he was effectively just coaching rather than playing and it just wasn't as exciting. The Maradona thing, and I've always just loved Maradona, I mean even before I met him,

• 12:58Alastair Campbell?

  I loved him, so that's why I don't talk quite as much about Pele as I do about Maradona.

• 13:03Rory Stewart?

  Jamie, is it time for a new national curriculum? Current one's 10 years old, when you consider world events and societal changes since 2014, completely dated. It's also totally unwieldy with too much to teach. To what extent do you think the general election winner will affect the content of a new national curriculum?

• 13:21Alastair Campbell?

  Yes, is the answer. I think the current curriculum is largely, the most recent changes were largely under the watch of Michael Gove. Now, I know that Michael Gove has his followers and has his fans as Education Secretary, but I think, I always felt that Michael Gove's vision of education was rooted very strongly in his own education. And I actually think there's so many, so many issues and so many things that children today should be learning about that weren't even around then, you know, artificial intelligence. I think that some of the societal changes should be part of our discussion. And I think the debate about history has changed. We had quite a few questions this week about what somebody called the weaponisation of history.

• 14:04Alastair Campbell?

  I do think there has to be a bit of a change in the way we learn and teach history. And I think, you know, we've talked before about how if there is a Labour government in the early days, they're going to have to do things that aren't just about money and aren't just about sort of rebuilding infrastructure and so forth. And I think the curriculum is an interesting place to start where you can signal changes. The downside, I guess, for teachers is that it's always very, very disruptive when you have big changes to the curriculum. But I think, I think now, this period in history is a good time to do it.

• 14:36Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting one, isn't it? Because we spend a lot of time on the podcast complaining about everything changing too much, that there've been, you know, whatever, six housing strategies, five employment strategies, 11 ministers or 14 ministers in the Senate Department. So actually, the curriculum is rather unusual, being something that has actually stayed the same for 10 years. And I guess, teachers who are very, very angry about a lot of things, particularly the volume of paperwork, the way offset and sections work, the way school funding has been affected. Presumably feels some relief that at least they're not having to learn and teach a completely different curriculum every two, three years, but maybe 10 years is long enough for a refresh. On the, here's a question from Jack Evans, which follows up.

• 15:19Rory Stewart?

  What do you make of how history is often weaponised in politics, the empire being an obvious case? Should there be a shift in our school's history curriculum? Thanks. I've just been reading this wonderful book by Satnam Sanghera called Empire World, which is really, I thought, thoughtful and balanced. One of the things that he rejects is the sort of totting up the plus and minuses of empire. He points out there's something very odd about saying, well, on the one hand, we massacred people in Amritsar and empowered the slave trade. On the other hand, we built railway lines and opened universities. What he tries to do is give a sort of much richer, fuller picture of its different dimensions.

• 16:01Rory Stewart?

  He actually quotes Kwasi Kwarteng, who we interviewed on leading quite a lot in the book. I thought it was a really thoughtful, grown-up way of doing it that finished, actually, with quite a moving section of him attending the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

• 16:13Alastair Campbell?

  Well, you mentioned Kwasi Kwarteng interview, and obviously that got a lot of, well, it got a lot of listeners, but it got a lot of comments from people who were saying, why are you giving a platform to this guy who smashed the economy with Liz Truss, et cetera? But one of the things I found really interesting in that interview was his take on empire. And I have read his book, it was some years ago now, but I have read Kwasi Kwarteng's book on empire. And I think that is a very, very good example of where a modern curriculum would take a different look and would have a different sense of what the empire was all about. And you see, and this is what I meant about when Michael Gove and his take on the curriculum being very much about his view of history and his view of education. So that was, I said earlier, that's obviously where I saw this, isn't the question about

• 16:58Alastair Campbell?

  what he talked about, weaponised. I think it is weaponised, and I think we have to, if we can, de-weaponise it, and that means having a more measured view of some of these historical events.

• 17:09Rory Stewart?

  Okay, Alasdair, let's take a break.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, Myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 18:06Speaker 02

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• 18:29Speaker 05

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• 19:04Alastair Campbell?

  Now, what about this one, Rory? I don't know whether you've followed any of this. Toby Morris on the COVID inquiry has been massively overshadowed by other events, i.e. the election. But what did you make of Simon Case's bizarre performance at the COVID inquiry? It was bizarre.

• 19:18Rory Stewart?

  Well, the first thing, I called it a little bit, and I'd love to hear more, but I think just as background for listeners, the background of it is these WhatsApp messages that we've talked about. So Simon Case, head of the Permanent Civil Service, and you know, this is Burke Trend, this is Robert Armstrong, this is Richard Wilson, these kind of grand, sort of more than Sir Humphrey figures of the past, who are seen as these very sort of dignified, cunning, but quite sort of understated figures without, who very carefully not express political views. And Case's WhatsApps were put out, and they were absolutely astonishing. You know, he referred to the Prime Minister as somebody, Boris Johnson admittedly, but his Prime Minister, his boss, he's sending WhatsApps saying, this guy can't lead, he

• 19:59Rory Stewart?

  changes strategic direction every day, he surrounds himself with people who are basically feral, he calls him a distrusted figure, he says, I've never seen a bunch of people less well-equipped to run a country. So that was, and called officials pygmies at the height of the pandemic. I mean, so that was, that's the background. But how about his appearance?

• 20:19Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it got, it got very little coverage in terms of the sort of big news bulletins because of the election dominating things. But I don't even know whether it was live. The bits I saw, I mean, Toby used the word bizarre, it was bizarre. Because as you say, we'd had all that, we knew all those things that he'd said, as it were, privately. The bits that I saw, he was essentially trying to make the case that Boris Johnson was, was really quite good at certain things. And he kept doing this thing of, almost like he was on, it felt at times like he was on that programme of, you know, Just the Minute, where you're just trying to sort of, you're trying to just keep talking. And he kept saying, you know, this is a bit off-topic. Well, it's not for him to decide what's on or off-topic, that's what the inquiry is there for. And, you know, I'm sure we'll

• 21:02Alastair Campbell?

  get on to this. And it was bizarre, the whole thing was just weird. And a manner that... I found really quite bizarre, really, I mean bizarre is the right, Toby, I can't really add to what Toby said, it was bizarre.

• 21:17Alastair Campbell?

  And it was, there was such a disjunction between what we now know went on, what he clearly felt was going on when he was there, and what he was now saying about it, and I wonder whether he just didn't want to make things worse for Boris Johnson, I just don't know. There's one here, Rory, Paul Dreschler, who I'm sure you'll know, he's the ex-president of the CBI, and you'll watch what he does here, Rory, it's very, very clever, you know, it's almost as clever as some of your book plugs. There is something not quite right as I watch all the architects and champions of the most consequential decision taken by the UK this century, Brexit, abandon ship and depart Parliament with smiling faces and platitudes. I am on edge, but what can I do?

• 22:02Rory Stewart?

  Hmm, very clever, I like that, that's clever.

• 22:04Alastair Campbell?

  But he's got a point, he's got a bloody point, he has got a point.

• 22:07Rory Stewart?

  Well, it's, it's really astonishing. Mathieu Said wrote an article in The Telegraph, where in an article that basically says, this isn't a serious election and we're not a serious country. And basically, he takes Brexit as exhibit number one, I mean, he has other ones, like Cameron cutting defence spending every year, as China and Russia was clearly on the rise, so that we're now coming up from this very low start. He points out that the public needs to take responsibility for the fact that on the one hand, we complain about lack of housing, on the other hand, we block every housing application, we complain about public services not being funded, but we don't want to pay taxes. But his biggest example, of course, is Brexit.

• 22:47Rory Stewart?

  And he says, I agree with you, it is staggering, absolutely staggering, that we're going into an election where neither the Conservatives nor Labour nor the Lib Dems are prepared to raise an issue where not just almost half the country voted to remain, but where a majority of people now think leaving the European Union was a mistake, and where there are so many things like a customs union, which could at least be a halfway house towards repairing some of the damage.

• 23:13Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I mean, I felt the most disappointing part of the interview on leading with Rachel Reeves is when we got on to the European Union and Brexit, because she just wasn't going to go there. She just was not going to allow it to become an issue. And I felt, you know, I talked on the main podcast, I thought Keir Starmer did a pretty good job in his first big speech of the campaign and the way that he dealt with the media and so forth. But you've also got to look to the media. I mean, they all raise the questions, you know, small boats and, you know, tax and trust and all the stuff that you'd expect. But at some point, both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have got to be asked about this in a serious way, because I cannot think of any other issue that would have been so, to

• 23:53Alastair Campbell?

  use Paul Dresler's word, consequential, and had such a huge impact upon our economy, 4%. And what's more, with this fingerprint thing coming down the track that is going to drive people absolutely crazy, I can absolutely confidently predict that when we're having to stop and get out of cars and get out of lorries and go and get fingerprint tests and all that sort of stuff. So, and yet, it's not part of the campaign, which instead can become this, let's talk about national service, let's talk about a new sort of approach on pensions. So I just think that you, Paul says he's on edge, but what can I do? I think all we can do, Paul, is actually demand of our politicians and demand of our

• 24:36Alastair Campbell?

  leaders that on this consequential issue, they actually get to a point of saying, yeah, hasn't gone that well, we're not talking about going back in the European Union anytime soon, but we're going to have to fix it. And that is what Michael Heseltine, he did an interview and was, he's 91 now, Michael Heseltine, and he said, I've been through a lot of elections, this is inevitably the most dishonest election of my lifetime, because nobody wants to talk about Brexit.

• 25:05Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's interesting, I listened carefully to the Michel Hussein interview on Today programme with Keir Starmer, which maybe we should talk about for a second. I thought he struggled a bit, actually. He found his feet strangely, a little bit more on Palestine, where he sounded more confident and had clearer principles, but he struggled on university tuition fees, two child benefits, Diane Abbott. House Lords, but she didn't push him and they've made an example of it. She didn't push him significantly on Brexit. Instead, she's going for these, trying to catch him out on these, these other domestic issues. Why, why do you think that is? Why, why do you think that in that big flagship interview, that's the direction she chose not to go?

• 25:46Alastair Campbell?

  It's interesting. You see, what's interesting about this, this campaign is that I suspect both of the main parties will probably complain that they're not always allowed to be on the agenda that they want to be on. But actually, I think the media lets them play their agenda pretty strongly. So Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business spokesman, he was on the radio this morning with Emma Barnett. And it was, again, she wanted to bang on about why, why Keir Starmer has called himself a socialist and whether that meant he was the same as Jeremy Corbyn. And it was just a kind of redundant, rather dull, dancing on a pinhead kind of argument. And Jonathan Reynolds got a bit ratty and pushed it away and what have you. I actually think he's a very good media performer, I must say. But

• 26:29Alastair Campbell?

  he's the shadow business secretary, okay, who, if the polls are right, by July the 5th will be the business secretary. Business, it seems to me, is very, very, very keen to know what any future government will do to try to repair our trading relations with the European Union. So why talk about some theoretical discussion about the meaning of socialism, the word socialism, as opposed to pinning the business secretary on that? So I'm sure this will annoy both the main parties in equal measure, but I honestly think, to use Paul Dreschler's word, something as consequential as Brexit has to be part of this election debate, whether the main parties want it or not.

• 27:13Rory Stewart?

  Very, very good. Jacob Cross-Mehi, two years ago, Rory joined the Larry Summers choir of gloomy economic predictions, which surprised me. Hardly any economists I follow had this view. We seem to have had the soft landing predicted by Krugman two years ago. Will Rory admit he was wrong at that time? So that this is, this is good memory and Rory very happy to admit he's wrong. I think a track record of predicting the future is not great. I would add that The track record of most economists and geopoliticians of predicting the future is not that great, which is why we should be much better about putting forward probabilities instead of certainties. We should all get in the habit of saying, I think there's a 30% chance this happening, or a 70% chance this happening, rather than this is going to happen.

• 27:58Alastair Campbell?

  My friend, Murchabaraman, Eurasia Group, who does these very interesting political analysis all around Europe, he does exactly that. He sort of, so I think his prediction of a Labour majority has gone from like 40 to 90 over a short period of time.

• 28:13Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so, and I tend to say there's 100% chance of Labour being elected, but you've got to take that with a pinch of salt, because of course, things can go wrong. The Larry Summers-Paul Krugman thing is quite abstruse. Larry Summers, who is very big deal, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Harvard professor, was correctly predicted that there would be inflation, which others had been downplaying, and so initially seemed to be vindicated on that. But you're absolutely right, that he and another man called Dr Doom at NYU, who I'm a great fan of, were on the gloomy side, and I was attracted by the more gloomy

• 28:54Rory Stewart?

  side. And actually, the US economy in particular has performed well over the last 12 months, which matters a lot for the global economy. Of course, the European and British economies are pretty disappointing. I mean, the figures that Rishi Sunak's going to be going to the campaign on of 0.6% growth, as the Conservatives will point out, means that the UK economy is now growing faster than the major European economies, which is just a way of saying the major European economies are not doing well economically at the moment.

• 29:21Alastair Campbell?

  Although this stat he keeps using about, you know, we're growing faster than the United States, it relates to one quarter, which any economist will tell you is not really suitable for that kind of great claim. Here's a nice, short, easy, trivial one, which I can answer very, very quickly. Stephen Clark, does the Prime Minister actually get a set of keys to Downing Street? The answer, Stephen, is no. If you look very closely at the famous black door, you will see that there is no lock on it. It is manned 24 hours Hours a day by a human being. And what's more, just inside that door, there is a camera. You might sometimes wonder why when people are walking up, generally, they don't have to stand there and knock the door.

• 30:05Alastair Campbell?

  And that's because they're being watched coming up the street and the door opens magically.

• 30:10Rory Stewart?

  Amazing, amazing. I guess if you're the prime minister and the door doesn't open magically, you can't struggle for your keys. Sabine Shanagall, as your faithful listener from Munich, there can be only one question for Alastair. Will Company save Bayern Munich? So this for listeners is, this was the manager of Alastair's team Burnley, which having not done that well, it seems, has been rewarded by being made the manager of one of the biggest teams in the world. What's going to happen there?

• 30:38Alastair Campbell?

  Well, what do you make of it? What do you make of it? I know you don't follow football, but when you spell the facts out like that, what do you make of it?

• 30:45Rory Stewart?

  It does seem, well, as a total outsider looking at it, I'm completely astonished because you were relegated and really it wasn't a great season for you. So I don't think he's really proved himself as a manager. So why would one of the biggest teams in the world bring him in as their manager? What's the answer?

• 31:01Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I was at the Scottish Cup final on Saturday and there were quite a few fairly prominent Scottish football managers there and they were a bit baffled by it. I guess, but there's two things to say. Bayern Munich, as you say, is one of the biggest clubs in the world. They've just had a not very great season for them. Didn't win the league, Bayern Leverkusen won it, Dortmund are in the final of the Champions League, not them. And although Harry Kane had a great season personally, the club as a whole did not. They've been struggling to find a replacement for Thomas Tuchel, who they pre-announced was going to get the boot, which is, I think is always a very, very odd thing to do.

• 31:39Alastair Campbell?

  And so I don't know, but I think a lot of Burnley fans are quite confused. I mean, they've got a lot of time, a lot of respect for Vincent Kompany, who got us promoted. In his first year, played some great football, but you're right, we didn't have a great season last year. And it is one of the biggest clubs in the world. So he's absolutely landed on his feet and we now have to try and find a new manager.

• 32:01Rory Stewart?

  Well, maybe there's hope for Rishi Sunak yet. I mean, maybe he'll come out of a not great performance and get some huge big job off the back of it. Maybe this is the theme.

• 32:09Alastair Campbell?

  But isn't that what Zach Goldsmith is saying has already happened, that he's on his way to California? This California dreaming thing is pretty unpleasant.

• 32:16Rory Stewart?

  It's very difficult that. It was the problem that Michael Ignatieff faced in. When he was running to be leader of the Prime Minister in Canada, leader of the Liberal Party, people kept running these.

• 32:27Alastair Campbell?

  Or was he just dropping in?

• 32:28Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, that's right, just visiting, were all the posters, and everyone kept saying, when he loses, he's going to leave Canada and go back to teaching at Harvard or do something else glamorous. And of course, as a result, Michael all the way through the campaign had to say, no, even if I lose, you know, I'm, I'm hanging around, I'm sticking around. And he did for a couple of years, but then eventually moved on and now lives in Vienna. And I guess it's going to be very damaging for Rishi Sunak because people like my mother, I mean, traditional Conservative voter, she's out campaigning for the Scottish Conservatives as we speak, is very troubled by the idea that he might be about to put his children in a school in California. And so it is very important that Rishi Sunak leans hard into the fact that this is his

• 33:10Rory Stewart?

  country, he's deeply proud of it, and it's not that he's heading off to sunnier climes, because that'll be very damaging for him, won't it?

• 33:16Alastair Campbell?

  Well, just to tell your mother, and I'm shocked and disturbed that despite my attempts to get her over to the Labour side of the fence, she's still out there for the Scottish Conservatives. But in the poll, perhaps we should close with this, the top emotion amongst the British public in the event of a Sunak win is disappointed. So there you go.

• 33:38Rory Stewart?

  Let me close with a final one, which I think is becoming ever more relevant. Lars and Arvid from Sweden. I had a discussion with a friend, how the dynamic of the podcast might change in the case of a Labour win, which obviously I think is almost inevitable. Will Alistair become more defensive of the government and Rory more critical? Thank you for an excellent podcast. You think you're going to become more defensive of the government by any chance?

• 34:02Alastair Campbell?

  What do you think, Rory? I think you think I will. I think, I have to tell you, I have to tell you that Fiona thinks I'm not nearly as hard on Labour as I am on the Tories, but that's because I think the Tories are truly awful.

• 34:15Rory Stewart?

  Good on Fiona.

• 34:16Alastair Campbell?

  I can't stop thinking that, that's what I think, I think they're truly terrible.

• 34:19Rory Stewart?

  She's keeping you honest there, that's good on her.

• 34:21Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but you, but for example, you, I think in the interview with, with Rachel Reeves, I think you were very, very hard on her. I think harder than you were, say, on Kwasi Kwarteng, who, let's be honest, smashed the economy.

• 34:32Rory Stewart?

  Kwasi Kwarteng, I didn't even want to interview on the podcast, that was you that pushed it. I said this is going to be awkward. No, it's a weird dynamic, isn't it? Because I feel I've got an obligation to make the case against Labour, partly because we're supposed to be disagreeing agreeably. And it's the Rachel Reeves one that gave me, honestly, speaking to Shoshana, that was the one where I came out and said, actually, I'm quite open to the story around Labour. I want to be convinced. And the Rachel Reeves one was one that really made me think, whoa, hold a second, this really isn't what I was hoping for. So that was also, I think, a bit.

• 35:10Alastair Campbell?

  What did Shoshana think?

• 35:12Rory Stewart?

  She did an okay job at some bits, but she slightly agreed with me that a lot of it was pretty wooden. And it's just, it's a sort of lack of, it feels like a lack of confidence, lack of imagination. It would be nice to get her, maybe when she becomes Chancellor, she'll find her feet a bit more and open up a bit more. But it'd be nice to get a little bit more into her thinking. All one's getting is a sense of what she won't do, rather than a sense of what she will do.

• 35:40Alastair Campbell?

  I think the other thing to bear in mind is that, and again, I thought this watching Keir Starmer, and I deliberately tried to put myself in the mindset of one of these people who doesn't follow politics. I was deliberately trying to do that. I decided to do that from the word go. And what I noticed in Keir Starmer was a confidence that wasn't there two years ago. I thought, particularly actually in the way that he dealt with the media. So, for example, you mentioned earlier the interview with Michelle Hussein about the Middle East. The question was, if he were Prime Minister today, what would he say to Benjamin Netanyahu about these attacks on Rafa? And he just said, stop, stop now. Now, I think even a few months ago,

• 36:25Alastair Campbell?

  I think he would have gone into a rather convoluted, sort of, you know, explain the whole picture, et cetera. No, I think that comes from confidence of knowing, feeling comfortable in yourself. I think Rachel Reeves is probably still on that, on that trajectory. I think what you were getting irritated by was a sense, one, that she was saying things that she said lots of times before, and two, that there was a sort of a slight defensiveness to all of it. You were predicting what her answers are going to be, she was predicting what your questions were going to be, and it all got a bit scratchy. And I think that comes with confidence. I think actually just having the confidence to be in your own space, be in your own skin, and deal with whatever is thrown at you. But

• 37:06Alastair Campbell?

  listen, in answer to our questions, to our friends from Sweden, I think it will change because politics is going to change. The change of government will lead to all sorts of different issues and different things that we'll talk about. I think I will have very interesting insight. I've just told you something you didn't know about the Downing Street door. I'll have lots of interesting insights about what happens in a transition. I hope I'd have lots of interesting insights about how you put together a team inside government, about how you prioritize and that sort of thing. So I think it will become different. But listen, just in the last question or two, I was, I have been and will continue to be very critical about Labour not being open and straightforward about the changes

• 37:49Alastair Campbell?

  that are going to lead to our relations with the European Union. I will keep banging away about that, just as I'll keep banging away about, you know, other things I believe in, one of which we've just secured, which is the lowering the voting age, but I'd now let them to go further and have compulsory voting and proper political education in schools and all the other stuff that I keep going on about. Well, very, very, very, very good to that. And look forward to talking soon. And I'm so glad to hear that Shashana agrees with you in a way that perhaps Fiona doesn't always agree with me. She doesn't always agree with me. She just did slightly on that one. Okay, let's talk soon and thanks again. Bye bye. All the best. Bye.

• 39:04Speaker 06

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 39:07Speaker 07

  I'm not the earth, daddy!

• 39:08Speaker 06

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

• 39:14Speaker 08

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