174. Scrapping HS2, ‘Ukraine fatigue’, and 'Vive le Roi!'

Is Angela Rayner more popular than Keir Starmer? What’s going on in Poland and why is one of Ukraine's strongest allies seemingly waning in its support? Why do the French love King Charles? 🌏 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. 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.

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• 2:41Alastair Campbell?

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

• 2:43Speaker 06

  And with me Rory Stewart and we're in person, Alistair.

• 2:46Alastair Campbell?

  We're in person.

• 2:47Speaker 06

  And you're wearing, surprisingly, a Burnley tie.

• 2:49Alastair Campbell?

  I've got 31 Burnley ties and this is one of the 31.

• 2:52Speaker 06

  How does it work? They're all different ties.

• 2:54Alastair Campbell?

  Because they have a club shop. They want to sell lots of different things.

• 2:59Speaker 06

  And the theme is claret, but they do a lot of different stripes.

• 3:01Alastair Campbell?

  Claret and blue and then down there is the badge. Thank you for showing such an interest. How many of our listeners do you think get interested in the fact that I'm wearing a Burnley tie?

• 3:08Speaker 06

  Well, I think people, you're getting a lot of Burnley fans out of this podcast. I think it's one of the big things. I hate Burnley's thanking you.

• 3:13Alastair Campbell?

  Well, shall I tell these Burnley obsessed listeners what we're going to talk about?

• 3:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, please.

• 3:16Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, we're going to talk about Rishi Sunak and his sudden attempt to be action man. And some of the actions that he's doing, be that somewhat reversing, I say, stance on climate change, banning bullied dogs, tackling smoking, scrapping HS2 possibly, the northern bit. And also we've got some, we mentioned it last week, some very interesting polling. Not on how people are going to vote, because I think that's a very silly question. How are you going to vote if there was a general election tomorrow when there isn't? But other stuff about how things are shaping up. I think we should also at some point have a chat about your friend, the King's visit to France, which seems to have gone pretty well. And then I think we, you and I want to talk about Ukraine. Having spent a bit of time at the UNGA last week, I want to talk about Ukraine

• 3:57Alastair Campbell?

  in the context of the Polish general election where Ukraine is becoming a bit of a kicking ball for the right wing and the populists. And then I think we need to talk about Nagorno-Karabakh. On the continuing theme of talking about very, very, very important things in the world that seem to be bypassing most of our media.

• 4:14Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Let's start with our polling. So Ipsos, polling company, has very generously worked with The Rest Is Politics for the first time to bring together a series of polls which we've commissioned. And if listeners enjoy it, we'll keep, keep doing some polling.

• 4:26Alastair Campbell?

  We'll put the full thing in the newsletter, which if you subscribe to therestispolitics.com, you can get that and all sorts of other stuff.

• 4:32Rory Stewart?

  And the fun thing is, we hope listeners actually might be able to feed in a little bit to the next round of questioning. Couple of questions that we asked that I thought were quite interesting on their responses. The first is, we asked how many people thought they might change their mind on which party they vote for, for the election. And the second one is, we got into the question of which parties we thought were more likely to raise taxes and spend. Let me start on the second one. I stuck that one in thinking this is a real one of sticking it to Labour.

• 4:58Alastair Campbell?

  And you scored a massive own goal.

• 5:00Rory Stewart?

  Massive own goal, because I thought what was going to happen is that they would come back and say, obviously Labour are much more likely to raise taxes, and that this was the great Achilles heel of Keir Starmer, and that Rishi Sunak would be able to exploit this. And the results were?

• 5:11Alastair Campbell?

  Fifty percent think Labour will put up taxes, and 51% think the Tories will put up taxes.

• 5:18Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, totally indistinguishable. And basically, they think both parties are likely to raise taxes.

• 5:22Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 5:23Rory Stewart?

  The polls suggest Labour is more likely to spend it on public services. I don't know what the public think that the Tories are going to spend the money on when they raise taxes.

• 5:30Alastair Campbell?

  Their friends, their friends, corruption, bugging their donors. I thought that was interesting, because it says to me that what the Conservatives always felt was a given, we are the party of low taxation, has been eroded by the fact that we're paying a lot of tax. And also, I think it probably will be, Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor, will probably see it as a little bit of a vindication for her very kind of tough line on this. It also does say, though, that people, they essentially are saying they don't believe the parties when they're saying they won't put up taxes. But I thought there was a very interesting question we asked about, about belief and about trust, and question, who do you believe? How often, if at all, do you think each of the following tell the truth? Now, Keir Starmer does come top. People think he tells the truth all of the time, 25%. About half the time, 24%. Not very often, never, 38%.

• 6:16Alastair Campbell?

  Sunak is on 2023 47, think he never ever tells the truth. But by a mile, by a mile, the winner of who never tells the truth are these two politicians that led the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union and government ministers. And I think that's probably a reflection. I often look at these interviews that the ministers are doing the rounds when they're out every morning and I just think, why does nobody get a grip of this? Because every day they're going out there, they're gaslighting, they're saying black is white, and I think the public are on to that. The point you made, though, about people changing your mind, there's something here that I think should worry both of the main parties, and that is the number of people who, when they're asked about how likely are you to vote for a particular party?

• 7:01Alastair Campbell?

  And the figures for the Liberal Democrats and the Greens are a lot higher than their projected share of the vote.

• 7:06Rory Stewart?

  That may be your point, that there isn't an election tomorrow. I think some pollsters say they often consistently poll higher than they actually get a result.

• 7:13Alastair Campbell?

  I also think this is quite interesting. So the current polls at the moment, there was one yesterday, the Delta Poll, Labour, I think, was 16. I loved it. The Daily Telegraph said Tories slash Labour lead. When you got to the eighth paragraph, Labour was 16 points ahead. But what's interesting in this one is over two in five say they are likely to consider voting Labour. Are you very or fairly likely to consider voting for Labour? Forty-four. So I think Labour can probably say their people are almost certain to vote Labour. Thirty-nine percent say not very likely, would not consider at all. Figures for the Tories, 32% very or fairly likely, 51% not at all. But the Liberal Democrats, 28% likely or very likely. Green Party, 25. Reform Party, 17. I should apologize in advance to the SNP, this was a UK-wide thing, but we didn't feel

• 7:58Alastair Campbell?

  that on this.

• 7:59Rory Stewart?

  And it touches, of course, on our old story around proportional representation, which is that if you had a PR system where people thought voting for these parties, the Greens and the Lib Dems, was more likely to result in seats in Parliament, you could end up in a situation which is much closer to the kind of situations we're talking about in France and Spain, where you end up not with two parties but four parties, almost indistinguishable. I mean, I guess in this case Labour on slightly more, but the others on more than a quarter of the vote.

• 8:25Alastair Campbell?

  I did an event yesterday for Comic Relief, for the staff at Comic Relief, who, like most charities, are feeling a bit sort of under the cosh from the whole woke nonsense. But in the Q and A, there was a very nice woman there called Emma who said she would vote Labour if there was a commitment to changing the electoral system, but she's a Green Party supporter and she feels she has to vote for the Greens. So I was left arguing, and I accept it's not a very strong argument, I really think that if you are in a Labour Tory marginal and you vote Green, you have to just be honest with yourself, you're effectively voting to keep the Tories in. And I said to her, and I say this to Liberal Democrats as well, I think they'd be far better off playing into this idea that there should be a sort of so-called progressive alliance, get the Tories out, but make clear as part of their strategy, we are lending your vote, our vote to Labour, but only on

• 9:10Alastair Campbell?

  condition that there is some movement on electoral reform.

• 9:14Rory Stewart?

  And I wonder whether there will be any movement on that. It's amazing that New Zealand did the change because there is this sense that turkeys don't vote for Christmas. And trying to understand what it was in New Zealand politics, which meant that people who benefited from the first past the post system were willing to introduce proportional representation.

• 9:29Alastair Campbell?

  Well, when we interviewed Chris Hipkins, the Prime Minister, on leading this week, he was clear that actually Labour had been to some extent a victim of the first past the post system, which helped. And then I think for other people like Helen Clark, it was the sort of the steady sense of people in the population saying, like they're saying here now, this just isn't working. And I think, I think it has to change. And, you know, you and I both spoke at that How the Light Gets In Festival at Hampstead. It was a very Hampstead event, wasn't it? Very, very enjoyable, but very Hampstead. I got lots of rounds of applause, by the way, for slagging off Brexit, slagging off the Tories. The minute I said that the best thing we could do in this country to improve equality was scrap private education, there was very muted applause, I have to say. Oh, sorry, forgot we're in Hampstead. And there, you know, it was, I'm sure you got the same, it

• 10:13Alastair Campbell?

  was just everybody basically saying, this has to change. And I do think actually Angela Rayner is on to something in this stuff that she started to talk about, about public service and restoring values of public service.

• 10:24Rory Stewart?

  So I, I've also been very struck, I was talking to a friend of mine who's a polling expert called JJ, who was the head of polling for Theresa May, and he's been doing a lot of focus groups recently, which is seeing a lot of support for Angela Rayner. More support, it seems, for Angela Rayner than for Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer. And that is because she seems to come across the focus groups as really standing for something. And I think this is important for Keir Starmer, because these same polls we're looking at are showing that only thirty six percent of voters are decided and thirty eight percent are still open to changing their mind. That's mind blowing, absolutely mind blowing. I mean, if you look at the US figures, nobody's changing their mind on Biden and Trump. Everybody's made up their mind. So here we are, a year out from

• 11:08Rory Stewart?

  the election, thirty eight percent of the voters open to changing their mind. And what I think is coming across is that Keir Starmer needs to take positions, even if they're unpopular. I think it wouldn't be a bad thing to choose two or three things, even if they didn't poll well as things, the general symbol of him standing for something is going to be hugely important.

• 11:27Alastair Campbell?

  No, I was talking to somebody recently who's voted Tory all of their lives, ex diplomat, very private school, Foreign Office type. And he was saying, I can't vote for the Tories, I'm desperate to vote for Labour, but they need to give me a tune to march to. I thought it was a very good way to put it. I want to have a tune to march to. And Fiona, yesterday, we were sort of, we were out having dinner and she sort of, we were talking about politics generally. And I was saying, I think the Tories are finished, but Fiona was saying, yeah, but if you go to those people there and you say, I'm going to vote Labour because, what are they saying beyond because the Tories are terrible? And I think they are moving into that. But if you look at, let's go on to Rishi Sunak, because we can talk about the merits and demerits of the stuff that he said, but you can't say that he's not saying and doing things.

• 12:11Rory Stewart?

  And let's just quickly remind people what he said. So you gave us a bit at the top of the menu, but the big astonishing, slightly horrifying thing is, while I was in New York for UN Climate Week, Rishi Sunak came out and reversed his position on very fundamental things to do with climate. So, for example, in the United Kingdom, we were in 2030 going to be in a position where no petrol or diesel cars could be sold, pretty soon, seven years out. Very important signal, signal to the motor manufacturers, signal to any normal member of the public buying. If that deadline was held and people thought the government was serious about it, it would have driven an incredible transition in our vehicle fleet. What he's done there is just pushed the date out by five years.

• 12:53Rory Stewart?

  He's got this very sort of, he doesn't have a populist manner. So the way that he explains it is very moderate. Oh, we're still going to make the 2050 target. I'm just being more pragmatic. But of course, as soon as the government shows an inch, it destroys all the credibility on these things. You know, my mum, who was about to make a transition into buying an electric vehicle, of course, these are expensive things. You've got to change the charging and everything. Now thinks, wait a second, it's not really happening in seven years' time at all. It's happening in 12 years' time, which seems much further out. Then he's also changed policy on insulation, on boilers, on requiring landlords to upgrade their houses. All of this stuff is, I feel, a whistle to the right, to some of the people who are on the climate change denial right.

• 13:36Rory Stewart?

  And what he's doing, I guess, and this is the political question for you, is he's trying to make a dividing line and he's inviting Keir Starmer to stand up, as we hope he will, for that 2030 date. Has Starmer come out and said he'll stand for the 2030 date?

• 13:48Alastair Campbell?

  I've not seen Keir. I saw Ed Miliband doing a pretty robust response. But it's interesting, you said he's not being a populist. I actually think that was the speech that turned him into a full-on three P politician, populism, polarisation, post-truth. Because as you say, he's got this very nice, reasonable manner. And then he does that big sort of rhetorical flourish. Seven bins. I'm scrapping it. Tax on meat. I'm scrapping it. Utter nonsense. Nobody serious is proposing it.

• 14:14Rory Stewart?

  It's completely mad.

• 14:15Alastair Campbell?

  So that is, that's how it's an out post-truth populism.

• 14:17Rory Stewart?

  I'd love to just touch on the seven bins. So I was the Minister for Recycling. And the basic problem in Britain is that we have over 20 different recycling systems in the country. Our recycling figures were absolutely horrible. When I took over Environment, it was about half that of Germany. And the problem isn't seven bins. The problem is whether we could get to three bins, right? The way to get to three bins, and I am greatly from decentralisation, but in this particular case, we need a national system. And then people can have the same trucks, the same recycling, the same bins. But my goodness, local councils won't move. My goodness, government won't move. And a lot of this is about this problem about bins, particularly people in cities obsessed with ending up with too many bins. But you're completely right. Nobody's proposing seven bins. But it would be great if we could get to three.

• 15:03Alastair Campbell?

  Anti bins, anti prime ministers standing up and saying he's somehow saving us from this menace that nobody had seriously proposed. Compulsory car sharing, I'm blocking it. I mean, when has anybody ever been told you're going to have to share your car with some complete stranger standing on the pavement? So that was full on 3P politics.

• 15:23Rory Stewart?

  And what should Keir Salma do? Should he do what I want him to do, which is to come out and say, this is nonsense. Climate matters. If Labour comes in, we're sticking to the 2030 date. Or is there huge political risk in lining up against Rishi Sunak?

• 15:38Alastair Campbell?

  There's clearly political risk, which is why they're doing it. Because the other piece of gaslighting that was going on, and by the way, in breach of the ministerial code, I'll come on to that. On the lectern, what did he say? Long term decisions for the brighter future or some such nonsense? It is a breach of the ministerial code to use a party slogan inside a government building, and that is the Tory Party Conference slogan. So back to the normalisation of the abnormal, nothing happening on that. I hope that Keir does what in a way he didn't do on the back of the Uxbridge Bri election with Ule's. It's being weaponised, just as he's now weaponising the non-existent tax on meat and the non-existent seven bins. But I think that gives Labour an opportunity to stand up for it.

• 16:17Rory Stewart?

  It could have been a huge opportunity. So presumably Keir Salma could have dominated a lot of the news channels. Because you and I have been being asked to comment on this all week. He could have been in every studio last week, standing up for the environment and getting those 20% green votes on side. If he had become for the whole week, the big public champion of, I believe, in the climate energy transition. That could have been an extraordinary week for him, couldn't it?

• 16:39Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, and maybe he might do that as we, you know, don't forget, I guess they're all sitting around thinking about party conference at the moment. It is interesting how, just how hyperactive Sunak is being. I think the inaction man thing really stung him.

• 16:51Rory Stewart?

  So he's doing international baccalaureate, he's trying to change A levels into more of a broader educational system. And Sydney, what do you think about that? This is an important idea.

• 16:58Alastair Campbell?

  My main advisor on education is somebody by the name of Fiona Miller.

• 17:02Rory Stewart?

  Your partner?

• 17:02Alastair Campbell?

  And she has been advocating for some kind of baccalaureate system for years and years and years and years.

• 17:08Rory Stewart?

  So actually on that, you think probably is a good policy?

• 17:10Alastair Campbell?

  I think it could be properly implemented. And again, the The point that you make in your book about if they propose it, it must be a bad idea.

• 17:16Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Alastair Campbell?

  I think Labour maybe should have not been so dismissive of that because we are, you know, they were right to say teachers have been through enough hell and through enough chaos of all the reforms that haven't worked. But I do think we've got to move towards some sort of.

• 17:27Rory Stewart?

  And what if they don't do? What if Labour had come out with an idea like that? Would that have been bold and interesting or too dangerous?

• 17:32Alastair Campbell?

  It would. Yeah, I think it would. If you had just been baggy about it for some time. I mean, there was, we should put in the newsletter, the clip of Rishi Sunak out and about yesterday in one of his visits where he said, he was me asked about HS2. And he said, I'm not going to comment on the speculation. He was the one who had started the speculation.

• 17:51Rory Stewart?

  So with HS2, so HS2 famously started, I think the cost was supposed to be about 50 billion. And the cost began to escalate and it's now at about 300 billion. And it's a very, very interesting project because from the point of view of my constituents in Penrith, it was actually going to make the journey less convenient. Instead of being able to get a direct line from London to Penrith, we were going to have to change along the way. And it wasn't actually going to be much faster. And the calculations around it were all about the fact that by saving time, we were going to be more productive. That's the way the Treasury did the money. And the idea was having 20 minutes less on the train would give you 20 minutes more contribution to the economy, et cetera. The real reason, I think, that people wants to do it is that the old line, which is actually quite quick, 125 miles an hour in bits, is decrepit and they want a new line.

• 18:35Rory Stewart?

  But my goodness, it's been painful. I mean, that was 10 years of real political hell. Because of course, a lot of these lines run through Tory safe seats.

• 18:43Alastair Campbell?

  Cheryl Gillan.

• 18:44Rory Stewart?

  Exactly. Tory MPs standing up against it. Anyway, the most expensive bit of the line turned out to be the bit that actually gets you from Old Oak Common, which is about eight miles outside the central London to Euston Station.

• 18:54Alastair Campbell?

  Through the chaos of which many of us have lived for many years.

• 18:57Rory Stewart?

  Yes.

• 18:58Alastair Campbell?

  And now it's not happening.

• 18:59Rory Stewart?

  So later, the latest idea is that we build this train line and you have to get off the train eight miles outside the central London instead of getting off at Euston.

• 19:07Alastair Campbell?

  You'd probably get a rail replacement bus from there. I mean, it's not, it's just, it's terrifyingly bad. I saw you were engaged in a little bit of an exchange on Twitter yesterday with Andrew O'Donoghue, who was part of the brainchild of this whole thing.

• 19:22Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, he loved it. So Andrew O'Donoghue, just to remind people, he was Labour, he was Lib Dem, and he was a Conservative minister.

• 19:28Alastair Campbell?

  But he was the Labour Transport Secretary.

• 19:30Rory Stewart?

  And then a junior Tory Transport Secretary from the House of Lords.

• 19:35Alastair Campbell?

  Well, no, he didn't need to sit on the Infrastructure Commission or something. I don't think he was a minister. No, if he was a Tory minister, I wouldn't be speaking to him. And I still speak to him. So when we first started, 2009, as you say, it was projected costs. Then the Tories came in and Justin Green was Transport Secretary, announced they're going ahead with it. Budget of 55.7 million, as you say.

• 19:56Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 19:56Alastair Campbell?

  55.7 billion, as you say. We're now talking eight years since then. We're talking 14 years since the whole thing started.

• 20:06Rory Stewart?

  And the current budget estimate, I mean, something like 300, 400 billion.

• 20:09Alastair Campbell?

  So it's not going to fulfil. And then meanwhile.

• 20:12Rory Stewart?

  And wait, but very quickly, and from my point of view, actually, the real priority is nothing to do with this route to London. The real priority is Leeds Manchester. That's the big investment that could be made.

• 20:21Alastair Campbell?

  And that's what we talked in this very studio. We talked to Andy Burnham about that. So you've now, here's the crazy politics of this. As part of his new action man, Sunak flies the kite that we're going to scrap it at Birmingham and we're only going to come to North London, thereby cutting out the North, a part of the country which he is about to visit for his party conference.

• 20:41Rory Stewart?

  Meanwhile, you were saying about Andrew O'Donoghue's tweet on China.

• 20:44Alastair Campbell?

  So he said that while we fail to build from the HS2, China has laid down 20,000 miles of rail track.

• 20:52Rory Stewart?

  And that is really interesting. We should talk about this more because we keep saying we're going to do something on the Chinese economy. But if you look at someone like Shenzhen, which is this big sort of mega city near Hong Kong, they've built something like seven underground lines in the last decade, and they cannot afford them. It's like the railway boom in Britain, which led to Beijing closing all the lines. The Chinese have built all these lines. We've congratulated them for them, but now it turns out they can't even afford to maintain them, let alone. Own service to debt because what happened during two thousand and eight is the Chinese government said the way we're going to get the Chinese and global economy going is just build everything that's on your books just build, build, build and they all built. And it's a real reminder of the difficult balance you've got in transport infrastructure.

• 21:34Rory Stewart?

  One moment we're praising China and Andrew Donas is still in the world of praising China. I don't think he's caught up on the fact that they've massively overbuilt and what a problem that is.

• 21:43Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I don't think we can be accused of overbuilding.

• 21:45Rory Stewart?

  No, we certainly cannot be accused of overbuilding.

• 21:47Alastair Campbell?

  I've mentioned Fiona a couple of times. Can I tell you her theory about you, Rory?

• 21:50Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, go on then.

• 21:51Alastair Campbell?

  She's decided that the reason you've come back to London is that you're eventually going to end up as the chief advisor to the king.

• 21:56Rory Stewart?

  Oh, to work for the king?

• 21:58Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Rory Stewart?

  Well, that would be a very great honour. Let me, let me just, I don't think it's true, but it's a great honour.

• 22:02Alastair Campbell?

  Think it's true?

• 22:03Rory Stewart?

  No, no, I have not been offered that job, not been offered that job. And I'm not sure I could keep doing the podcast if I did.

• 22:08Alastair Campbell?

  Well, you could, surely you could at least get him on for one.

• 22:10Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, no, anyway, let me, let me just quickly though, because you've raised the king. Very interesting trip that the king just made to France and pretty astonishing the figures that are coming up. Figaro did a poll, we're talking about polls, on the French and their views to the monarchy. And of course, France, very proud republic, you know, really went for it and getting rid of their king.

• 22:29Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely, heads on sticks.

• 22:31Rory Stewart?

  One thing we know about them, but sixty seven percent of the French public, sorry, seventy one percent of the French public in the Figaro poll have a positive view of the British royal family. Eighty percent of them see the British royal family as being in tune with British voters, close to the British people. And the monarchy is most popular in France with people aged under thirty five. And one of the reasons Emmanuel Macron really went for it, he does these beautiful short clips of tribute, you would have seen this one to the queen.

• 22:58Alastair Campbell?

  And on his social media.

• 22:59Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, and then he just did one for, for King Charles.

• 23:02Alastair Campbell?

  Of all his visits to France through the years, I saw that.

• 23:04Rory Stewart?

  And he says, you know, welcome your majesty. And the reason he's doing it is it's popular with his base. I mean, being close to the British royal family really plays for him. But I didn't get this at all. Have you got any speculation or ideas about why France should have quite a sort of nostalgic positive view of the British royal family?

• 23:19Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think one of the reasons why the British, apart from the obvious historical reasons, have a such a relationship with the monarchy at the moment. Because if you think about when the queen was still. Alive. There were lots of people saying, oh, when she's gone, it's all over. Charles won't be able to step up, blah, blah, blah. Young people don't care. And there's still a little bit of that around, but not very much. But I think actually it's because of the contrast with the politicians that they've been seeing so much of. So I think they look at Charles and they think, well, you know, compare that to Liz Truss, compare that to Boris Johnson. And maybe a little bit in France. Don't forget that one of the relentless criticisms of Macron is that they think he behaves like a king. So there's sort of, I think there's part of them saying, you know, that law, I've got a real king. You're, you're just, you're just another politician.

• 24:03Rory Stewart?

  And presumably with all the tensions with Brexit, it allows France to show affection for Britain and the British people without showing affection for particular politicians. It's a way of showing continuity, respect. Some of them are drawing, you know, remembering support during the war, whether royal family is important then. So it's a way of France showing a kind of cultural respect for Britain at the time when Brexit's problematic.

• 24:25Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And I think, well, although Macron did have a very good meeting with Sir Keir Starmer, as you're probably aware, reports from both sides coming back to say it was very, very positive.

• 24:33Rory Stewart?

  He's made an effort with Rishi Sunak as well, and Rishi Sunak's made an effort with him. Yeah.

• 24:36Alastair Campbell?

  And but I, but I think what was, what was, what I find when I go to France, there is, and this is sort of global, isn't it? They're, they are, I've never understood it, but they are slightly obsessed with the royal family. I mean, virtually everybody in the world has a view about Harry and Meghan. I mean, I don't see what it has to do with their lives. I actually dreamt about Harry the other day.

• 24:55Rory Stewart?

  What?

• 24:55Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I dreamt about Harry. I was in a church.

• 24:58Rory Stewart?

  Which is not a thing you often do.

• 25:00Alastair Campbell?

  Normally funerals, but I was in a church and Harry was in the pew in front of me with Meghan and people were going up to make speeches at the pulpit.

• 25:09Rory Stewart?

  Was it a funeral?

• 25:10Alastair Campbell?

  I don't know what it was. I don't know.

• 25:12Rory Stewart?

  Must have been a funeral if they were making speeches from the pulpit and lots of people going up to make speeches.

• 25:15Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but I'd just been in a church in Devon, so it might have been that because I'd been doing a book, a book event at the church. But anyway, people were just wandering by, muttering abuse at Harry and Meghan.

• 25:24Rory Stewart?

  Oh.

• 25:25Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 25:25Rory Stewart?

  And what do they represent for you? Do you think you're Harry and Meghan?

• 25:27Alastair Campbell?

  No, I don't know what I think. It's a dream and I'll have to talk to my psychiatrist about it. But anyway, the next thing that happened was I was, I was then told I had to make a speech. And I said, well, I haven't prepared anything. So they gave me a pen and some paper and my pen started to leak.

• 25:42Rory Stewart?

  Oh.

• 25:42Alastair Campbell?

  And this black ink flooded out of my pen and it went all over Harry's shirt. He was very nice. He was very polite. So I think I can honestly say it's the first time I've ever dreamt about Prince Harry.

• 25:55Rory Stewart?

  Thank you for sharing. The listeners will have very serious on the stream.

• 25:58Alastair Campbell?

  I'm guessing you dream about King Charles the whole time.

• 26:00Rory Stewart?

  I had a series of very weird dreams recently. I'll try to remember them after the break.

• 26:04Alastair Campbell?

  The reason I remember I used to mention my psychiatrist, there was a period of my time where I used to write down my dreams. And there's a thing called hypnagolia. You can train yourself to remember more of your dreams as you're dreaming.

• 26:17Rory Stewart?

  I was told one of the tricks there was that if you drink a lot of water before you go to sleep, you have to wake up to pee and that's the moment at which you can write down your dream.

• 26:24Alastair Campbell?

  Okay.

• 26:25Rory Stewart?

  Anyway, just to finish before we go to the break. So King Charles gave a speech, a lot of it in French.

• 26:30Alastair Campbell?

  Much of it in French. Il a parlé un peu comme un roi anglais.

• 26:34Rory Stewart?

  That's right. But it was extraordinary. I mean, of course, he's got an accent, but he understood what he was saying. He did it well. And the French Senate was full of applause.

• 26:43Alastair Campbell?

  Standing ovation.

• 26:44Rory Stewart?

  And I think he managed to be very strong on standing with Ukraine, very strong as you'd expect on the environment.

• 26:50Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think the Queen would have talked about Ukraine?

• 26:52Rory Stewart?

  No, I'm not sure she would have talked about Ukraine or the environment in quite the same way. And I think that's interesting because I think what he's doing is he's speaking for His Majesty's government. He knows that both the government and the opposition are strong on Ukraine, so he's not worried about that. But he feels that if the government, and in this case, the opposition, are combined on their views on Ukraine, he can do it. On the environment, of course, he is slightly out ahead of where the government feels that it is.

• 27:14Alastair Campbell?

  I did notice that he did two speeches, one at Versailles and one in the Senate. And I noticed that the one in Versailles, when he said mon premier ministre, there was a little bit of a curl of the lip.

• 27:25Rory Stewart?

  Anyway, so he's done 34 visits to France and Macron, in that lovely social media clip, which we can share a link to, he says, "You visited as a prince. You return as a king. Your Majesty, welcome." It's a great.

• 27:37Alastair Campbell?

  Macron does that stuff very, very, very, very well.

• 27:40Rory Stewart?

  Great.

• 27:40Alastair Campbell?

  Right. I'm insisting on doing this though, because as you know, we're getting sent dozens of books, because it seems that every time we mention a book, it does very well sell. Because we've been so fawning about your friend, the King, I am going to say that Graham Smith, the guy who got arrested at the coronation, has written a book about republicanism.

• 27:58Rory Stewart?

  And has sent it to you. Well, we'll put that in the links too. Well, time for a break.

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• 29:54Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics with me Rory Stewart. And me Alastair Campbell. And just a little plug for leading, we did Chris Hipkins, who's the New Zealand Prime Minister, who's going into an election. Definitely worth listening to. He's the man who famously during Covid said people should get out and spread their legs. We've also got...

• 30:13Speaker 06

  Is that the big takeout of his life and times?

• 30:16Rory Stewart?

  It's not the big takeout, but it was.

• 30:17Speaker 06

  He says lots of other interesting things, but he did indeed say that.

• 30:20Rory Stewart?

  It was one of the great political lines we'll tie. And we're also doing Theresa May, who's going to be out next week, which will be in a good listen. Next prime minister on the show. But in the world at large, I guess there are a couple of things that we haven't talked about. One of them is Ukraine, and in particular, the way that Poland, which is really, really important to the story around Ukraine, is beginning to shift its position on Ukraine and what that suggests. And the second thing is the fight in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is a fight between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Really big news, but not reported much in the British press. But should we start a little bit on Poland because it's something that you raised. What have you been finding out about Poland?

• 30:57Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Ukraine is just becoming a little pawn in the election. And I suspect that the Ukrainians will be quite worried about it. So you've had the Polish government, this law and justice, very right wing, but under pressure from a very, very right wing force, the party called Confederation. And the rhetoric against Ukraine has been cranking up. So they've talked about not necessarily giving weapons. They're in the middle of a grain war. And then Duda at the United Nations, I'll give the quote, "Ukraine is behaving like a drowning person clinging to anything available. A drowning person is extremely dangerous, capable of pulling you down to the depths and simply drowning the rescuer." And what these, the far right, this Confederation lot, who like a lot of far right parties in Europe are sort of basically pro Putin,

• 31:40Alastair Campbell?

  they're essentially going around the place saying the trouble with Ukraine is they never say thank you. It's a classic sort of, you know, we're helping them, but what do they do for us? And it's dangerous.

• 31:48Rory Stewart?

  Really important, isn't it? Because Poland was probably the fiercest, clearest ally of Ukraine from the very beginning. They were the people, you raised Nord Stream two, the gas line last week. Poland was out there very early, 2004, saying that signing up to Russian gas was like the ribbon drop packed with Hitler. They were right out of the gates when the invasion happened. Got a lot of credit for how strongly they stuck with Ukraine. They took 1.7 million Ukrainian refugees. They're the major logistics hub for supplying the Ukrainians with military. They gave them most of their MiGs. They were one of the first to. Deploy aircraft and actually it's been interesting because since 2015 Poland along with Hungary have been the strongest example of right wing populism in Europe.

• 32:33Rory Stewart?

  It's in a very difficult situation in the European Union because the polls have been cutting down on the judiciary in a brutal way. I mean, this is the theme of right wing populism. We talked about it with Israel, but in Poland, it's very, very clear. You know, they've got involved in the nomination of the judges, they've set up new supervisory bodies, basically the politicians are running the courts in Poland. The European Union has a standoff, there's nearly 30 billion euros at stake in Covid relief fund in the standoff between Poland and the EU. But because Poland was so strong on supporting Ukraine against Russia, this populist government began to get some credit in the West and a lot of popularity with the US and even with the EU. And now this is beginning to falter and and this far right party you're talking about, I mean, it's a really disturbing party.

• 33:16Rory Stewart?

  We've talked about far right parties in Sweden and Finland, but this party, you know, wants to provide a list of.

• 33:21Alastair Campbell?

  Homosexuals.

• 33:22Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, really, really weird stuff. And I think it's a reminder of something that we maybe haven't talked about enough, which is that these populist parties don't, as it were, remove the kind of toxic right wing views from a society by absorbing them. They actually enable even more right wing views to emerge on their right.

• 33:39Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it's it's a kind of extreme reiteration of the way that UKIP and its various manifestations pull the Conservative Party further and further to the right. But the grain situation, every, most of our listeners will know about the importance of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world. So for their exports, they've had to go through Poland and a lot of Polish farmers who are pretty powerful in the Polish debate have have objected to this because it's also going into the Polish market. And so they're bringing in pretty old fashioned protectionism to protect the Polish farmers, to get their support through the election. And okay, so that's a little trade war going on. But then to bring into that, then on the platform of the United Nations, the president basically saying, this is like a drowning man dragging us down.

• 34:23Alastair Campbell?

  So I think that explains why Zelensky, partly why Zelensky has been so busy on the international front in recent weeks. And of course, a smaller country, we've talked before about this guy Fisco in Slovakia, same story being told.

• 34:34Rory Stewart?

  So Zelensky was obviously in the States when I was there last week, and he was at the UN General Assembly, which Biden very much wanted to make about Ukraine, but he didn't succeed. What actually happened at the UN General Assembly last week is the focus was very much more on development and on climate, not enough on climate, but more on development and climate. He then went down to Washington, and he's facing a real challenge with dealing with the Republicans, because the dominant Republican runners are very doubtful about the continuing support for Ukraine. As a Republican field, they basically divide into three camps. There's Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, who are very much behind the Biden strategy and think that you've got to defeat Russia, and that's

• 35:17Rory Stewart?

  the only way to protect Taiwan against China, and it's important for American primacy. You've got a second group, like Vivek, who think that Russia is a distraction from China, and that we should be putting, the US should be putting more energy into China and less into Russia-Ukraine. And then the third group, which is, of course, Trump represents, and Trump's the frontrunner by such a country mile. Trump in May was out there saying he would resolve the entire Russia-Ukraine more than 24 hours of taking office. And although he never quite says it, the implication is that he'd do it by giving bits of territory to Putin. So there's now another big, over $30 billion package, trying to go through Congress at a time when the US government is frozen again, they're not paying civil servants, air traffic controllers are working for free, et cetera, which is supposed to

• 36:02Rory Stewart?

  be for Ukraine. And all of this, I think, reflects a bigger issue, which is, there was so much hope for this counteroffensive. And Zelensky was communicating at the beginning of the year, this was the year they were going to roll through. And of course, the first Abrams tanks, these big American tanks, have now turned up on the ground yesterday. They've got their air support, they've got a lot of the missiles that they requested, but actually what they're doing is they're fighting over this place, Bakhmut, that we talked about, which the Wagner Group took, that was Prigozhin's great victory. Ukrainians are trying to take it back. A lot of the US military is very doubtful about this, General Austin Defense Secretary. Saying why waste your time about Backwood? It really doesn't matter. Head south to try to cut off the Russian lines of Crimea. And these are all complicated ways of saying it's just not moving. And the public sense that it isn't moving.

• 36:45Rory Stewart?

  Now, I know you you were talking to people who slightly disagree with this and a bit more optimistic about Ukraine, Russia, is that right?

• 36:50Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I was, but were they optimistic? Because they want to be optimistic. I don't know whether there's a bit of optimism bias going on. But I think that where we are now is that you've mentioned America there. But the politics of the democracies are now, I think, really playing into Putin's hands. And of course, the reason Poland's become so important is because before, when Erdogan helped get that new sort of trade deal going, a lot of it was going to seaports. And of course, Putin's been battering them. And that's why they've had to resort to land. And then that goes through Poland and hence they're in the the difficulty that they're in. And this election is very, very soon. It's on October the 15th. So we're talking, you know, a matter of weeks now. Who knows? None of us know where it's going to end.

• 37:31Alastair Campbell?

  But the fact that the governing party is playing this game at this moment suggests to me that they've decided that is the way to help them win it.

• 37:38Rory Stewart?

  So I I think, I mean, if you're Zelensky, I think it is it is tricky. You know, he sacked his defence minister. He's under huge pressure to demonstrate progress, to demonstrate that all these munitions that are coming in are really going to make the difference. He's saying that Russia's exhausted. He's going to try to fight through the winter. He thinks Russia can't keep going. But other people are saying, look, these minefields the Russians have laid are very deep. They're very entrenched in. The ground's going to get very soft and soggy, which is going to make it very difficult to do an offensive.

• 38:06Alastair Campbell?

  People I was talking to did say that Russia had a real problem with with armaments manufacture at the moment. And that's why he had to go and see Kim Jong-un and try and get a bit of help from there. I don't know. Okay, so if that's not complicated enough, Poland, Ukraine, let's talk about Nagorno-Karabakh. And of course, Putin's at the heart of this as well. Because you have breakup of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan. They've been effectively at war ever since, in part over Nagorno-Karabakh. And in the first war, not long after the breakup of the Soviet Union, to everybody's surprise, the Armenians won. Since when Azerbaijan has been hell-bent on revenge. Russia's been in there as a peacekeeping force, basically on the side of the Armenians, historically, and now has sort of stepped aside, as has the Armenian government effectively,

• 38:51Alastair Campbell?

  as Azerbaijan has just rolled in.

• 38:53Rory Stewart?

  So if I can do an explainer for people, so Armenia and Azerbaijan, Armenia predominantly Christian, speak in Armenian language, Azerbaijan predominantly Muslim, speaking a Turkic language, Armenia to the west, Azerbaijan to the east, Azerbaijan along the Iranian border and along the Caspian Sea, big difference Azerbaijan, huge revenues from oil and gas, big historical tensions, and part of this goes back to the Armenian genocide, the Armenians were a very large, very ancient Christian population, I mean, they sometimes claimed to be the first Christian country in the world, they converted very, very early to Christianity, they're a state that have been there since the time of the Roman Empire,

• 39:34Rory Stewart?

  and they had populations that spilled into what is now Turkey and Iran, and I remember on my walks through the Turkish Iranian border, coming across these abandoned Armenian churches, and essentially around the First World War, the end of the First World War, the Armenian population were driven out and killed by Turks out of these areas, so they are hypersensitive to this question of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is an area, tiny area, just over half the size of Cumbria, about 150,000 people.

• 40:06Alastair Campbell?

  Well, they reckon at the moment they're about 80,000, even before they were taken out, there were a lot of people moving out.

• 40:11Rory Stewart?

  Tiny, tiny thing, and it's surrounded on all sides by Azerbaijan, so it's a little sort of enclave in the middle of Azerbaijan, captured after the fall of Serbia in 1994 by the Armenians, so a little Christian enclave, and that displaced about 800,000 Azerbaijanis who were living around the area. A couple of years ago, the Azerbaijanis, by now much wealthier with oil and gas, used Turkish and Israeli drones in an attack in 2020 to take a loss of that area, Russian peacekeepers came in, traditionally again on the Armenian side, and that's partly about the history of the Russians standing up for Christian populations, going all the way back to the Crimean War, Turks much more on the Azerbaijani side.

• 40:51Rory Stewart?

  And again, it's more of a Muslim thing. And now, as you say, we now have a big advance where it looks as though Azerbaijan has retaken Nagorno-Karabakh. And now it's incorporated back within Azerbaijan and people are very, very worried again about the ethnic claims of the Armenians.

• 41:06Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, because the president, Al Aif, has made all sorts of positive noises about you will be welcome citizens, et cetera. But the history is brutal. There was all sorts of stuff circulating on social media about saying things like, you know, now we can go and rape in the women like they used to do to us and all this sort of stuff. And there's something else that was very interesting. I spoke to somebody in the Armenian government who was making the point that since this happened, Macron has spoken to both sides, Blinken has condemned what's happened and called for a ceasefire, which seems to be sort of working-ish. Schultz spoke out about it at the UN in his main speech.

• 41:43Rory Stewart?

  The German Chancellor, yeah.

• 41:44Alastair Campbell?

  The UK, it's been left to a minister by the name of Doherty, who I must admit I'd never heard of. And then I think somebody called Lord Omar. I'm not aware that the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary, I could be wrong, but I'm not aware they've said a word. And is that related to the fact that, I'm again grateful to my good friends at Der Spiegel, Ach Milliarden Podcast, where I heard that they were saying that even as this military attack was happening, executives from BP were at some sort of celebration event, not about the invasion, about the attack, but about something else with the government. And you mentioned oil, and of course, that is what has given the Azerbaijanis the upper hand.

• 42:22Rory Stewart?

  It's fascinating. And my old friend's ESI, this think tank, European think tank, did some extraordinary reporting on the influence that the Azerbaijani government has had over lawmakers in Europe and in Britain. They were very, very astute at inviting people on paid holidays and getting their positions on the Council of Europe. There's a lot of reporting in their reports around an ex-lib Dem MP called Mike Hancock and his links into Azerbaijan. But it's also a sense of the way in Ukraine, Russia is changing things because Azerbaijan now really matters for Britain and for Europe. Because it's the place which we're getting our oil and gas when we're not getting it from Putin's Russia. So Azerbaijan could not be in a Stronger position.

• 43:02Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 43:03Rory Stewart?

  And again, it's been a humiliation for the US.

• 43:05Alastair Campbell?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:06Rory Stewart?

  It's also been a humiliation for Russia, actually, because Russia had peacekeepers. And in fact, some of those Russian peacekeepers have been killed in this Azerbaijan attack. So Russia likes to believe that it is the dominant force in the former Soviet Union. It presented itself as keeping the peace here. It had peacekeepers supporting the Armenian population in this corridor running through.

• 43:24Alastair Campbell?

  Which the Azerbaijanis had effectively shut down.

• 43:26Rory Stewart?

  Effectually cut. So it's been a humiliation Putin, it's been a humiliation for the US that was trying to call on restraint. And a victory really for Azerbaijan and Turkey.

• 43:35Alastair Campbell?

  Turkey, yeah.

• 43:36Rory Stewart?

  And it does feel like we're back in the 19th century because the Turks are fighting, as it were, a sort of almost proxy war against Russia in Azerbaijan. They were fighting a real proxy war against Russia in Syria, where the Turks were against Bashar al-Assad, the Russians were on his side. And in Libya, which we talked about last week, where the Russians were on the side of Hiftar and the Turks were on the side of the government of Tripoli. So but at the same time, of course, the Turks are buying Russian military equipment. So final thing I noticed is the role of celebrities in this. So we've got a situation in which the Armenians are being endorsed by Kim Kardashian. So see on the basis of celebrities, which side you think you should support. So the Armenians are being supported by Kim Kardashian, Michael Jordan and Mel Gibson.

• 44:18Rory Stewart?

  And the Azerbaijanis are being supported by Ronaldinho and Chuck Norris. Who would you go with?

• 44:23Alastair Campbell?

  I'm not making my judgment on this based upon which celebrities are telling their many Instagram followers. I'll tell you the thing about America as well, shortly before, I've not, again, this is something I've not seen anywhere in our media. There were military exercises involving America and the Armenian, very, they have a very weak military. But there were military exercises just before this. I don't know whether that was about Americans sending a signal, but if it was, it seems to backfire. And I think the the reason perhaps the Russians didn't get as involved as they might have done in keeping the peace is perhaps Putin was saying, listen, if you're going to play around with Americans, then don't expect us to keep the thing together.

• 44:59Rory Stewart?

  It feels as though this is dangerous from Niko Pashinian, who's the Armenian leader. Because he took a risk of growing pro-Western and distancing himself from Putin. And it, boy, has it not. Paid off. The US and the European Union have not ridden to his rescue in the way that he would have hoped. And that's the problem, because that was a big diplomatic play by the US and Europe to try to leverage away former Soviet states from Russia. And this, this is bad, I think.

• 45:27Alastair Campbell?

  What do you think it is about the British government has been so quiet about it? I know Cleverly was busy on the King's visit.

• 45:33Rory Stewart?

  I, I imagine it probably is that they're very conscious that we're very dependent on Azerbaijan for oil and gas if we're not taking oil and gas from Putin. And therefore they're reluctant to come in. Thank you, though. That, boy, we covered a lot of ground there. We've done a lot of detail on Poland, a lot of detail.

• 45:47Alastair Campbell?

  We'll have to do your dreams another day.

• 45:48Rory Stewart?

  Do my dreams another day.

• 45:49Alastair Campbell?

  Maybe you should start doing what I do. What I recommend is, is, this is what I did when I was doing this. I don't do it anymore. But I do remember my dreams much more than I used to, is before you go to sleep, you basically say to yourself, I am going to remember my dreams. And you have a notebook and a pen next to your bed.

• 46:03Rory Stewart?

  Okay.

• 46:04Alastair Campbell?

  And then while you're dreaming, it comes over time, this is the hypnagogic process. Over time, you develop this capacity is that while you're dreaming, there is a part of your conscious mind saying, I'm going to remember this bit.

• 46:16Rory Stewart?

  Okay, here's my, here's my final dream, just to disturb all listeners at the end of their thing. Okay. So I'm, I dreamt that I was standing in the airport security line. And standing in front of me, I believe, was Timothy Garton Ash, who's this kind of professor.

• 46:29Alastair Campbell?

  So I dream of Prince Harry, you dream of Timothy Garton Ash. And I won't tell you about my dreams about Halle Berry.

• 46:34Rory Stewart?

  Timothy Garton Ash sort of left the security line, and I couldn't quite work out why he left the security line. And I was kind of joking to the guy I was standing with about this professor leaving the security line. And then I realised that at the end of the security line was not an X-ray machine, but a guillotine. And I was going to have my head chopped off. And I realised I had about a minute until I was going to have my head chopped off. And my strongest thought was, this is all very well making jokes and sort of putting a brave face on it. But I've got a minute to contemplate my life before I get my head chopped off. Why am I wasting time making jokes rather than preparing myself with dignity for my death?

• 47:07Alastair Campbell?

  Or getting out of the situation, surely.

• 47:09Rory Stewart?

  Or getting out of the line, but that never occurs to me. No, I'm a proper conservative. I just do what I'm told. I just plod forward towards the guillotine.

• 47:17Alastair Campbell?

  Well, on the note of Rory Stewart having to, his head chopped off, we'll see you soon.

• 47:23Rory Stewart?

  Thank you very much.

• 47:28Speaker 08

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

• 47:32Speaker 09

  On October 2nd.

• 47:33Speaker 08

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

• 47:38Speaker 09

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• 47:41Speaker 08

  And Digger's gonna dig us up.

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  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 47:45Speaker 10

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you're freezing to death, that's what...

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  With great power comes great deniability.

• 47:52Speaker 10

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 47:54Speaker 09

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

• 47:59Speaker 11

  Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended Blinds.com.

• 48:06Speaker 12

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