116. Question Time: Corbyn and Cummings, Cool Britannia, and Ofsted

What's the story about Cummings and Corbyn on the podcast? Should GB News be considered a news channel? How did Britpop and Cool Britannia affect the 1997 election result? Tune in to today's Question Time pod to hear all these answered and more. Sign up to the free TRIP weekly newsletter: bit.ly/3zhYAIl LEADING: Follow this link to hear our episode with Gary Lineker: pod.link/1665265193 TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Crete. And of course, the thing flashed up, saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. It was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think, are you not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/risterspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/risterspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:05Speaker 02

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• 1:33Rory Stewart?

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

• 1:38Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Alastair Campbell.

• 1:40Rory Stewart?

  Very good. And let's maybe start on Australia. Tara Ward, what are your thoughts about the new South Wales state election on Saturday? Means the Labor Party now holds power at the federal level and in every mainland state in Australia. Labor's pledge to scrap the public sector wage cap was instrumental in delivering the party majority government.

• 2:03Alastair Campbell?

  There's something else very interesting about the election in New South Wales, Roy. I wonder whether both the main parties listen to our podcast because there seemed to be an outbreak of agreeable disagreement. People, Australia is amongst the roughest politics in the world when it's rough. It can be really, really rough.

• 2:23Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 2:23Alastair Campbell?

  But it seems that the new premier, Chris Minns, when he took office, he, the guy he defeated thanked him for the nice way that he campaigned, urged all New South Walesians to get behind him. And it just seemed all a bit strange for, for Australia. And I just wonder whether it's a sort of belated reaction to the fact that they had the sort of Morrison populist politics for so long and then it maybe they feel that it, that it did a lot of damage. But it means that of all the mainland Australia now is 100% Labour. Tasmania is the only part of Australia that now has a non-Labour leader at federal or state level.

• 3:07Rory Stewart?

  Very, very interesting, isn't it? And I was struck, I was in Australia about nine weeks ago now, and I was very struck there by how proud people are at the moment by Australian politics. I had Australian students when I was teaching at Yale towards the end of the Trump era. And I remember feeling exactly what you're expressing, which is in Britain, we often had a sort of cliche about Australian politics, that it was quite sort of coarse, almost populist in tone. But my Australian students were incredibly proud of the moves made, for example, by Howard on banning guns and certainly in a US context, felt very, very proud of how moderate Australian politics was.

• 3:44Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. There was also, it was, it was interesting how within the debate now in Australia, there's a debate about whether ultimately it helps states that have the same party in power as they have at the federal level. And there's quite a lot of interesting stuff in history to suggest that it doesn't always work, work that way. And I guess you could, you know, I guess it's a question that at the moment, Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham in Manchester, Steve Rotherham in Liverpool, the other kind of Labour, big Labour councils as well, there's an automatic assumption it's going to help. And you understand why, because they're basically on the same side. But of course, what it means is that they then have to, you know, they just that they have to negotiate

• 4:29Alastair Campbell?

  and they have to deal with the federal government. But at the same time, they don't necessarily have the ease of being able to blame the federal government if if things don't quite go their way.

• 4:39Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, and we should we should encourage people who haven't heard it to listen to our Julia Gillard interview, which had a lot of reflections on misogyny in Australian politics, compulsory voting and a great deal else. Anyway, ever do you want questions?

• 4:50Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Right. What about whether this one for you? Norma Rigg, I want to know why Ofcom can deny that GB News is a news programme. And if there is a higher body than it, to whom we can address the question of why GB News has given licence to broadcast if it's not what it says it is. Are you across this one?

• 5:09Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's gone. Tell us. Tell us about why we're on the idea that it's not a news programme.

• 5:13Alastair Campbell?

  Well, because they've said that they can't be treated the same way as, say, the BBC or ITV, because it doesn't project itself as a as a news programme. But the fact is, it calls itself GB News, and it says it wants to be Britain's main news programme. And what's more, John Nicholson, the SNP guy is across this in a big way. He keep I keep seeing him sort of push stuff out about why he thinks this is a scandal. And I think that I think people should be a bit wary of this, because Labour should definitely be wary of this, because what I think GB News is doing, they've got you had a situation, for example, where Jeremy Hunt, who, you know, we both would accept is, you know, trying to be, quotes, the grown up in the room. And yet, his big pre-budget interview was

• 5:57Alastair Campbell?

  on GB News with two Tory MPs. Now, that's a clear breach by the broadcaster of an Ofcom rule. If Tory MPs, you can't present your own programme unless you have a balance of views across it. And yet, Ofcom seemed to say, well, it's kind of nothing to do with us, because they're not a news programme. I think that's what the question is getting at.

• 6:17Rory Stewart?

  So they sort of classify themselves an entertainment programme. They were able to to pull up Mark Steen for saying wrong stuff about the third vaccine booster claiming it was causing higher infection, hospitalisation and deaths. So Ofcom did an investigation on on GB News and that.

• 6:33Alastair Campbell?

  Fair enough. But I mean, I think what the I think the Tories are pumping stuff on to GB News, because they're collecting stuff to use for their election broadcasts. And, you know, they get all these rants, so they can pretend it's like a sort of independent commentator on the television.

• 6:48Rory Stewart?

  Well, we should we should talk about it a bit more. I mean, it's a very, very sad thing going on in the Conservative Party at the moment. They really, I think, basically have given up on winning the next election. But the big question is really what follows the election. And I'm increasingly worried that we're going to end up with a right wing leader coming in, because that's what the Conservative Party members want. Remember, they voted fifty eight percent for Liz Truss against forty two percent for Rishi Sunak last time.

• 7:18Alastair Campbell?

  But I've got to say, by historical standards, I'd say Rishi Sunak is pretty right wing.

• 7:22Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, but boy, oh, boy, if you look at the Conservative Home Polls, the people who are now seem to be leading amongst the members are Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch, and not amongst the Cabinet, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel, very popular. So I think that one of the big fights really is, and for the good of British democracy, I think we should both want a Conservative Party that was led by a more moderate figure. Otherwise, you end up in these very divisive cultural wars as the polarisation increases. I know there's a, you might think there's a short term benefit for Labour for having a lunatic right wing leader in for the Conservatives, but I think it'd be very, very bad for our democracy.

• 8:01Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it might not be bad for our democracy if it went literally the way of, you know, wipeout. Might not be bad if something else new emerged. But you're saying that the right will never be a rump now. The right is now where the real Conservative Party lies.

• 8:15Rory Stewart?

  Well, I would almost want to explore whether one could convince people to start joining the Conservative Party simply to vote for more moderate candidates to stop this lurch to the right.

• 8:25Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. Somebody's just sent me a list of the Tory MPs. This relates to your point about the Tories thinking they can't win. Now, I being the eternal pessimist from the Labour perspective, I am always convinced that the Tories could win. And I imagine that Rishi Sunak has to get out of bed in the morning, has to think that he can win. But when you see this list, Mark Porsy, Sajid Javid, Douglas Ross, Deanna Davidson, who's only twenty nine, William Rags, thirty four, Chloe Smith, forty, Chris Skidmore, forty one, Andrew Percy, forty five, Charles Walker, Nigel Adams, Adam Afri, Crispin Blunt, Mike Penning, Gary Streeter, these are all people, Matt Hancock, forty four, Edward Timson, forty nine, Joe Gideon, Nadine Dorries, Paul Beresford, Stephen MacParland.

• 9:11Alastair Campbell?

  Robin Walker, forty-four, Graham Brady, fifty-five, he's obviously going to join the board in Korea, Pauline Latham, seventy-five, Nicola Richards, twenty-eight, Stuart Anderson, forty-six, that's a long list of people, many of whom are young.

• 9:25Rory Stewart?

  And from every side of the party, I think that is partly, and there's actually a number of Labour MPs leaving as well, despite the fact that it's almost certain that Labour will come into government, I do think that this is partly the phenomenon that we've seen with Nicola Sturgeon and that we saw with Jacinda Ardern, which is that modern politics is becoming increasingly brutal. And whereas people in their late thirties, early forties would have been proud to have a political career, would have fought tooth and nail to cling on to it, it's increasingly becoming something where many of those people, the people who joined with me in 2010, are feeling, after thirteen, fourteen years, that they just can't bear to do it anymore, in terms of the impact on their lives, the impact on their families.

• 10:09Rory Stewart?

  And it's from every part of the Conservative spectrum, there are people there who were people I was very fond of, who are on the left of the party, there are a lot of people from the right of the party. But it's very striking, because many of those people are in very safe seats, that it would be very unlikely that they would lose even if Labour did very well in the next election, and they're still leaving. Where's the excitement? Erica Mas, I remember the 1997 election and the elation many felt, not unlike 1966. The prospect for Labour government turning over newly, feeling that things were really getting better. So my question is, why am I not feeling the same level of anticipation and excitement about the hopefully next Labour government? Is it age? Is it that they haven't chosen the campaign music yet?

• 10:53Rory Stewart?

  Is it because they're just not a very exciting party anymore?

• 10:57Alastair Campbell?

  I feel quite excited at the thought of a Labour government coming back, but I don't feel there yet, and I think that's a good feeling to hold on to, because I don't agree with you that it's a done deal, I don't agree with you that it's a foregone conclusion. And I think Labour has to maintain that. I think the reason why Erica is not feeling the excitement is twofold. I think one, there is such a powerful feeling now, you get it everywhere, that even if Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are trying to be better than Johnson and Trust, which isn't hard, but even if that's, even if you set that, this just a feeling that they've been around too long, the election ought to come sooner rather than later, we've got to get rid of them. That's a very, very powerful feeling

• 11:41Alastair Campbell?

  in our politics and our country at the moment. But at the same time, Labour are pursuing a strategy that I think is directed to the point of ending, the point of the election itself. So they're not coming out with the detailed policy that maybe people want, not least because as we saw the Tories trying to do on childcare, we talked about this last week, there's a danger that the Tories kind of nick it. And secondly, I think the fact is that people, there's a dichotomy going on here, in that people constantly say, you, you need charisma in politics, you have to sort of have a bit of pizzazz and all that stuff. But actually, I think what Keir Starmer may be doing is suggesting something different. We've had enough of that. We've had enough of Johnson, we've

• 12:25Alastair Campbell?

  had enough of Trump, we've had enough of that style of politics. And I'm going to be, I am going to genuinely be the serious guy in the room.

• 12:31Rory Stewart?

  My anxiety is that it's not exciting in part because it's not specific enough. I'm all for serious, but it's the lack of content. I mean, we did see this in the pladium. Again, we did our classic questions to the audience.

• 12:46Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, we did, we did.

• 12:47Rory Stewart?

  What was it, sort of two and a half thousand people and everybody agreed. Remind us of the three stages of Keir Starmer again.

• 12:54Alastair Campbell?

  No, I was very struck by this as well. And you're absolutely right. I'd forgotten about this. The first question we asked the audience was, of the three stages of Labour's strategy for this election, the first phase was decontaminated the Labour brand. Do you think they've been successful? Yes or no? It was virtually 100% for yes. Tick. Second stage, show that the Tories are unfit to govern. Do you think they've been successful? And it wasn't far off the same, ninety percent, I'd guess. And the third stage, setting out a bold, compelling alternative agenda for the country. And I don't know, what was a third, if you're lucky?

• 13:29Rory Stewart?

  Oh, less, less, less. I mean, it was very

• 13:31Alastair Campbell?

  Quarter?

• 13:32Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. I mean, it was very striking that certainly that audience, which I would imagine is basically a centre-left audience.

• 13:41Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Rory Stewart?

  Don't feel they've got a clear, exciting agenda out of Labour yet.

• 13:45Alastair Campbell?

  No, but that was why, that was, I actually went out, I thought it was a great night and we enjoyed it and all that. But I actually went home feeling a little bit down because I thought, my God, if a very sizable chunk of that audience that is clearly interested in politics, otherwise why are they listening to us, clearly engaged in politics, otherwise why are they coming and paying decent money to hear people talk about politics, but they don't get really what the Labour Party is saying. So that's the bit that has to be filled. And I think that's where you're right. I think that's where the excitement needs to come from. The excitement, my point, the point I was making is the excitement is not going to be about campaign songs or razzmatazz. The excitement has got to be about people feeling change is coming and this is what it is. Okay, Rory, loads of all questions to get through, so let's take a quick break.

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• 16:51Alastair Campbell?

  Right, here's one for you, Rory. If you were to add two more regular guests to the podcast, one to the political left of Alastair, and one to the right of Rory, with whom you could still disagree agreeably, who would they be and why?

• 17:03Rory Stewart?

  Well, we've had a bit of a go at this because I think one of the things we talked about is shortly before I came on this podcast, I was approached by somebody suggesting that I do a podcast with Jeremy Corbyn. And I believe you were also thinking about doing a podcast with Dominic Cummings, is that right?

• 17:17Alastair Campbell?

  No, I wasn't thinking about it, but the goal hanger, the gaffer, Gary Lineker, his people were thinking about it. I did talk Dominic Cummings about it, and I think we both agreed it wouldn't be a good idea.

• 17:27Rory Stewart?

  What do you think would have happened if we'd ended up, me and Corbyn?

• 17:30Alastair Campbell?

  Well, one, would he have done it? I don't, I'm not sure he would. I don't think he'd, I think he'd still see you as a sort of bit of an out and out rank Tory. He might do it. Do you want to get rid of me and get Jeremy?

• 17:40Rory Stewart?

  No, I, I like you. I like you. Although we do have a question. Go on, as a segue. Why Starmer blocking Corbyn? Ali Ellis. What's to be gained by Starmer blocking Corbyn from standing at next election? I'm not a Corbynista, but this does seem petty, unnecessary, and likely to alienate a significant number of Labour votes. Why is he doing this?

• 18:00Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I guess he, he, I mean, from the strategic point of view, it goes back to the, what we'd said about the first question at the Palladium, decontaminating the brand. So getting him kicked out of the party because of the feeling that he hadn't dealt properly with antisemitism and didn't accept the findings of the, you know, of the inquiry into that, that is a, you know, he, so he did that. And if you kick somebody out of the party, it means they can't stand as, as a candidate. And it's, it's what I think, if Sunak had any sense, would happen to Boris Johnson. So that's the kind of, that's the, the sort of specific explanation. And I guess strategically, it confirms that. Then the risk, I suppose, is, well, if Jeremy Corbyn does stand as an independent,

• 18:41Alastair Campbell?

  how well does he do in Islington? And I guess the calculation is that he doesn't win. And the election, then by the election, it doesn't become about Jeremy Corbyn. Added to which, I guess, I don't know why the Tories keep banging this drum about, you know, one minute you served in his shadow cabinet, now you're, you know, it, that's, it underlines the fact that the Labour Party has changed. So I guess that's why it's doing.

• 19:05Rory Stewart?

  Ofsted. Daniel Woodruff. Following the tragic suicide of head teacher Ruse Perry after an Ofsted inspection that downgraded her school from outstanding to an inadequate, do you think Ofsted should have paused inspections? Is it fit for purpose? And what changes to the inspection process would you make?

• 19:23Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think to have paused the entire Ofsted process because of one absolute tragedy.

• 19:30Alastair Campbell?

  Would have, other than maybe if you were doing it literally as a, as a tribute to somebody who died, I can't see that that would have actually achieved much. But I do think the final point in the question, what changes to the inspection process would you make? And I think this is part of a broader assessment of how we educate our kids and what we expect from our teachers. And I do, I do wonder whether we don't need to move away from the, the, the, parents have a right to know whether schools are good, they want to know everything about the school, and Ofsted has been the vehicle for that for some time, and by and large, has probably done a reasonably good job in maintaining

• 20:11Alastair Campbell?

  standards. But I think particularly now, when you talk to teachers and head teachers about the pressures that they're working under, about the, the, the lack of resources that they feel, about the problems of pay and the problems of retention, I think to add in the way that Ofsted operate, I mean Fiona, my partner, who's been a chair of governors of more than one school and has sat on the board of governors of several schools, and you know, the, the whole, the way that Ofsted done it, it feels like, you know, when, when, when they get the call that Ofsted are coming, it really does sort of send a chill through schools now. Now, you could argue, well, if they were running the schools properly, then, you know, they wouldn't have to worry because everything would be running perfectly.

• 20:55Alastair Campbell?

  But they don't feel that when Ofsted come in, that they're looking at the school as it operates day to day, they're looking at the school according to tests that they're setting. And there's a process now that people feel they have to go through to get a good Ofsted outcome.

• 21:11Rory Stewart?

  It's, it's very difficult, isn't it? Yeah. Because I face the same as the prisons minister with the prison inspectors. And prison governors were often prison officers, very, very angry at the reports they got from the prison inspectors. But of course, as a minister engaged in policy, It is absolutely invaluable to have an independent eye of experienced inspectors going in and trying to provide an objective judgement, which is almost impossible to get from within the system. I mean, one obvious reform that Ofsted could make is to focus exclusively on schools, not get involved in questions such as care, become off-school as opposed to Ofsted.

• 21:55Rory Stewart?

  And it's impossibly difficult, particularly at a tragic time when someone takes their life. And I'm sure it's true that a lot of improvements, but you do desperately need to have clear, independent view coming in. You can't really allow any institution, governments, schools, police, prisons to purely police themselves. You do need outsiders coming in regularly to check what's going on.

• 22:21Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I'd say the one institution where that doesn't really happen is Parliament. I mean, yes, you get people coming in every few years to decide whether they want them to stay on. But there is something a bit rich, I think, about some of these, you know, a succession of absolutely hopeless ministers who go around sort of parading, telling everybody how badly they're running the public services, when, you know, they've delivered a mess in the political management of our public services. And I do think that the kind of the absolute focus on schools being about the, you know, exams and the result, the results are the key. I think sometimes teachers don't understand what they're meant to be teaching, what the quality is meant to be.

• 23:02Alastair Campbell?

  And I think that for a lot of children, the fun to stay in our education, I think for the teachers that I speak to just, I think, feel absolutely ground down at the moment. And Ofsted, so I think, thinking, you know, I get what you're saying, but I think what we actually need is a commitment and understanding of the importance of education in our national life and the sort of support for teachers, which will enable them to teach well without constantly worrying that they're going to be marked down the whole time. That doesn't mean you don't have inspections.

• 23:37Rory Stewart?

  It's very difficult, isn't it? And you're in Singapore, where I believe teachers are often paid well and have, I mean, that's another problem. We don't pay our teachers enough.

• 23:46Alastair Campbell?

  They're also hugely respected.

• 23:48Rory Stewart?

  And hugely respected, yep. I think... But equally, there is this uncomfortable fact that we've talked about, which is that since 2010, by putting more focus on literacy and numeracy, Britain is doing much better in the international tables on literacy and numeracy. It is possible to drive up standards in schools, and one of the ways in which that happened was by setting very, very clear targets and holding people accountable to those targets, as with any organisation.

• 24:15Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I'll have to consult with Fiona, but I do remember the last time you mentioned the Pisa, Pisa League tables, Fiona said, will you tell Rory it's not all about the Pisa League tables? And then she went and said something else, which I've forgotten, but I will come back with it next week. Now, BBC chair change under Labour, Nick Teague or Tiger. If Labour gets into power, are they able to change who sits at the top of the BBC immediately? Or do they have to wait for contracts to expire, et cetera? That's a good question. I don't quite know the answer. I think that ultimately, the Prime Minister appoints the chairman. And as we discussed on the leading episode with Gary Lineker, I think we all agree that's an absurd situation. It was absurd when we did it, and it's absurd that the Tories do it. I can't understand how that guy, Richard

• 24:58Alastair Campbell?

  Sharp, is still there. But I suspect he's not going to go. As soon as that's not going to sack him. I think the only way you can get rid of the BBC doesn't get rid of the chairman. I think this is right. I think the government has to get rid of the chairman.

• 25:09Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, he's been appointed for a four-year term, 6th January 2021. So he'll run through to 2025 at the current rate. But in practice, whatever the theory is, you cannot remain as the chairman of the BBC if you have no confidence from the government. So, and it's what has also been discovered by, for the head of Metropolitan Police and other organisations like that. In practice, if a Prime Minister came in in a very determined way and said, the chairman of the BBC, no, no, that has my confidence, they would be able to get rid of them. The challenge, of course, is making sure that Labour behaves better than Boris Johnson did, and bring in a figure who, well, ideally, follow what our gaffer says.

• 25:49Alastair Campbell?

  Or a new process.

• 25:51Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly what in the leading pod, you can hear Gary Lineker talking about, which is making sure that we move away from a system in which politicians appoint the chairman of the BBC.

• 26:01Alastair Campbell?

  Theodora wants to know, Rory, do you prefer to read fiction or non-fiction? Which is more important? I'm reading David Baddiel's book at the moment, which is non-fiction.

• 26:09Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I love fiction. I think it's, nothing is comparable in its ability to open perspectives. I mean, I feel, it was very interesting hearing Gary Lineker talk about his admiration for Maradona and Messi and his sense that they're in a completely different category to him. And obviously I've got no way of judging that in football. But in reading, because I write, I, it is that sense of awe that I feel with Tolstoy or Henry James or even someone like Norman Maynard, the sense that their minds are so extraordinary, their sense of humour, their irony, their eye for detail, the empathy, their moral courage.

• 26:53Rory Stewart?

  So I'd sell, I'd sell novels at the moment.

• 26:56Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm, okay. I of course can talk about Maradona, of course I play with him, but I can't talk about Messi. I never played with Messi, so I think I just have to.

• 27:05Rory Stewart?

  Couple of small suggestions for me on what I'm reading at the moment. I'm reading a wonderful book called Winters in the World, which is about a journey through the Anglo-Saxon year. I'm reading an extraordinary novel, a detective novel, whose central character has Tourette's by Jonathan Lethem called Motherless Brooklyn. I'm reading Salist's account of the conspiracy of Cataline. And I'm reading Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy at the moment. Oh yeah, that's the new set.

• 27:32Alastair Campbell?

  You're reading all of those, you're reading all of those books now?

• 27:36Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, because I'm very weird. I move between them. I usually read three or four books a day. Depending on my mood, I jump from one to the other.

• 27:43Alastair Campbell?

  Hold on, you don't read to completion, three or four books a day?

• 27:47Rory Stewart?

  No, no, no, I don't read.

• 27:47Alastair Campbell?

  You are reading, you're at the different stages of reading three or...

• 27:51Rory Stewart?

  Exactly.

• 27:51Alastair Campbell?

  Blimey. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you the book I, I picked up at the airport and to read on the flight home is The Midnight Library by Matt Hague.

• 28:00Rory Stewart?

  Uh huh.

• 28:00Alastair Campbell?

  Who's a very good chap on the, on the mental health agenda. And as I say, my, my current non-fiction, I always have one novel and one non-fiction book in my bag and my, and unlike you, I don't have a Kindle and my... My nonfiction is currently David Baddiel, The God Desire, which I don't think is out yet, but he very kindly gave us a copy when we were interviewing him for leading the other day. Now, listen, why don't we close on these two related questions, which they're kind of for me, but I think they can open up an interesting discussion with with both of us, given we've talked about the gaffer two or three times, which I guess is about the role of celebrity in in the political debate. Callum Swanson, Britpop and Cool Britannia, were Labour Tony Blair's

• 28:41Alastair Campbell?

  attempts to cosy up to Britpop brands in 97 effective? What was the thinking behind the strategy? More generally, can endorsements from musicians, actors and sports people actually make a difference? And related to that question, I ought to answer this because I did almost reveal this last week, but then I stopped. Jeff Lewis is obviously a very, very careful listener. Alice has started a story about Blair meeting David Bowie within the car afterwards in last week's Question Time. Please can we hear the rest of the story, what happened next?

• 29:14Rory Stewart?

  Oh, quickly on celebrity then. I've always been struck in politics that celebrities make much less difference in a political campaign than you would have thought. Stormzy, for example, came out, and this was a big, big thing for for Jeremy Corbyn, but I don't think it had much impact on his voter turnout. I don't think the celebrities who endorsed the Democrats in the US or endorsed the Remain campaign during Brexit made much of a difference. And I think it's partly because people admire generally celebrities for what it is they're good at. They admire them as a musician or a footballer, but they don't necessarily follow their lead on politics. But what do you think?

• 29:54Alastair Campbell?

  I think it helps the mood music. I don't I don't think people necessarily would say, I'll vote such and such a way because, you know, Dua Lipa told me to. But I think people can be influenced by that. And I think it helps the kind of the music. So for example, certainly during nineteen ninety seven. And this is maybe goes back to the early question from Erica about excitement. The sense that people like Oasis and Blur and some of these other bands were clearly indicating that they quite liked the look of this guy Blair and the look of New Labour. I don't think it harmed us at all. But I agree that I don't think it sort of shifts the dial in a big, big, big, big way.

• 30:35Alastair Campbell?

  The David Bowie story, well spotted, Jeff, because Jeff's obviously spotted that I deliberately stopped him mid-sentence because I didn't necessarily want to complete the point. But as he spotted it, I will complete most of the point. So basically what happened is in the car afterwards, Tony turned to me and said, God, wouldn't you just love to be a rock star?

• 31:00Alastair Campbell?

  And then, and then went on to explain, and we, we had a discussion about the elements of being a rock star that we would quite enjoy.

• 31:11Rory Stewart?

  I'm, I'm sure it was something as clean as throwing televisions out of windows. Um, on that, we're gonna come to an end. Bye bye, everyone.

• 31:20Alastair Campbell?

  See you later.

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