134. Question Time: Solving sewage, building on the Green Belt, and the most intimidating person in politics

Should we start building on the Green Belt? Is there a fun side to politics? Why don't ministers resign anymore without being pushed? Tune in to hear Rory and Alastair discuss all this and more on today's episode of The Rest Is Politics: Question Time. LEADING - Leo Varadkar: 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] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

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

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

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

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• 1:33Rory Stewart?

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

• 1:37Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Alastair Campbell.

• 1:39Rory Stewart?

  Very good. So, Alistair, sewage dumping, this is a question you like. Clive Fenton, I'm sure you'll be aware of all the news covering the dumping of sewage into our country's waterways and onto our beaches. I understand you voted to support this approach in a recent vote this year, did you? In Parliament, is that correct? I'd like to understand why, and given, I imagine this may be addressed at me, I'm only teasing you. I'd like to understand why, and given the absolute mess, what actions you're going to take to reverse this unacceptable situation. So Clive, I'm not actually... A sitting MP, so I haven't been a member of the British Parliament since 2019. So I certainly did not vote to support this approach in a recent vote this year in Parliament. However, it is a good subject and one that's worth talking about.

• 2:23Rory Stewart?

  Basically, at the heart of it, I believe, is the incredible lamentable underinvestment in our sewage system, which means that the whole British sewage system at the moment and has for a long time depended, if there's an overflow, in discharging raw sewage into water. And fixing this, and I was the Environment Minister, so I spent a lot of time looking at this issue, is an issue of tens of billions of pounds. The number that was thrown at me was something like 23, 25 billion pounds, which, to put it in context, is, I don't know, the entire prison budget four times over, would have to go into fixing this.

• 3:04Rory Stewart?

  So it's, it's, it's not a small amount of money and it would be interesting to see a cross-party approach to put the funding in place to get it together. And I think there's another thing that isn't communicated to the public, which is that, being a bit unfair to colleagues in the Treasury, but the, the impression I got from the Treasury was that they thought that 23 billion pounds wasn't worth it for the health benefits that you derive from not putting the sewage into the water.

• 3:32Alastair Campbell?

  Question here related to Lee Williams. Your thoughts on water companies charging the customer 10 billion pounds over 10 years to repair antiquated network despite withdrawing over 50 billion pounds in dividends over the last 10 years? I think this is what gets people really angry, Rory. This, this of all the privatizations, I think this is the one that really gets people's goat. And I think that, that people just feel that these water companies have been absolutely in it for the money, haven't really invested for the long term and sort of stop care. At some point, they stop caring about the quality of water. And of course, if you have somebody like Theresa Coffey as the Minister, who always seems to me like somebody who, it's almost like everything is happening around her as though it's got nothing to do with, oh yeah, well, it's not very good, is it?

• 4:15Alastair Campbell?

  But it's better than it was or it's, you know, we've got, she actually went on television the other day and said, we've got the cleanest bathing water we've ever had. Well, You then look at these maps of where this S H I T is being pumped out in massive quantities. And as you know, I'm a cold water swimmer and we're always looking for new places. And you can't even, you can't even get the data now as to what is clean and what isn't. I think the government's completely underestimating this issue as a, as a real problem for them.

• 4:40Rory Stewart?

  I mean, it is a really interesting, the, the one that I was completely obsessed with was air quality, because when I was the minister, it became clear that at least 26,000 people a year were dying prematurely from air pollution. But I remember doing a debate with Diane Abbott in the House of Commons, and she was saying, it's absolutely disgusting that air pollution is, you know, worse than it's ever been. And I had to say, actually, that isn't true. And sounding a bit like Cherie's coffee, of course, the truth is air quality is much, much better than it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. It was unbelievably bad, the nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide that was in our air. And of course, you go back to the, the famous smogs and fogs of Victorian Britain, that

• 5:24Rory Stewart?

  that was air pollution, that wasn't, that wasn't weather. What Dickens thought was part of the traditional London weather was simply industrial pollution. So it is also true that actually our beaches and water have, on many indicators, improved over the last 20, 30 years. But our expectations are also understandably expanding all the time. So just as I don't think it's good enough to say, we don't need to do anything on air because it was worse than the past. Well, 26,000 people are still dying prematurely. And you can make the same argument around sewage. Yes, it may well be that our bathing water is cleaner than it was in the past. I mean, the Thames famously is much cleaner than it was in the early eighties. And we've built a huge super sewer under the Thames, being built four billion pounds

• 6:09Rory Stewart?

  super sewer under the Thames, which will make it even cleaner. But I think the public still wants things better than that, don't they?

• 6:15Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Now, Kirsty Sevapalan, I've just ordered Alice's book, thank you. As somebody who's disabled and lives with a chronic illness, ME, which limits mobility and exertion, what can I realistically do? Do you know of any active disabled chronically sick politician role models to inspire people like me? Actually, there is a, when you read the book, Kirsty, you'll find that I have a, a section where I pay tribute to three of my favourite MPs. Jack Ashley, who was profoundly deaf. David Blunkett, who was, as we all know, blind and was one of our best ministers by a long way, and an Beg MP up in Aberdeen, who I suspect was in there when in Parliament with you, Rory.

• 6:54Rory Stewart?

  Yes, yeah.

• 6:55Alastair Campbell?

  And of course, was in a wheelchair. And I don't know if, you may know Rory, I also know politicians who struggle with mental health problems. I don't know of any who have ME. We don't know whether you do Rory, but I don't think we should think that it's impossible to be a Member of Parliament with a chronic illness.

• 7:14Rory Stewart?

  No, I mean, well, so one of the, one of the, one of the striking examples in my intake is Paul Maynard, who has cerebral palsy. He was strangled by an umbilical cord at birth, developed epilepsy and has been a very effective MP. And he was a Minister in Justice, Minister in Transport, a very bright guy. I mean, it's not easy and there have been times where he's felt that he's suffered real abuse as a politician. I'm afraid to say also actually abuse from the Labour benches when he's been speaking. But he's a real example of somebody who's overcome extraordinary difficulties to be a powerful MP. Now, here's a question for you. Charlotte, what are Rory and Alistair's views on Keir Starmer's plans to allow more building on the Green Belt? I live on the Wirral.

• 7:59Rory Stewart?

  There are applications to build houses on our Green Belt land, which were extremely unpopular with myself and local residents. I've always voted Labour and was planning to at the next election, but Starmer's comments made me think twice. Where are you on building on the Green Belt?

• 8:12Alastair Campbell?

  I think I'm moving towards it. I don't see how we, I, as you know, love a great landscapes. I think a lot of the, when we talk about the Green Belt, we're not necessarily talking about great landscapes. We're talking about land that has been protected from certain forms of building into which there has already been a sense of encroachment. And I think as long as we do have proper environmental policies, then at some point, given the housing crisis in this country, we are going to have to look at it.

• 8:38Rory Stewart?

  I'm on the other side of this. So I think the Green Belt has been an amazing thing around our cities. I think it stopped urban sprawl. It was a really smart move. If I look at a city like Nagoya, where I was yesterday, and see what happens when there isn't adequate protection around. And a lot of American cities, you can really see how the sprawl continues endlessly. I'd like us to be more imaginative. I agree. A lot of the Green Belt band is substandard land. So I'd like to see Keir Starmer put in his manifesto. In fact, you and I should write a manifesto for Keir Starmer. But in his manifesto, a commitment to plant the Green Belt around London with the largest forest in England. We could put in 500 million trees. We could transform air quality. We could have an impact on climate. We could have an incredible impact on leisure.

• 9:21Rory Stewart?

  By putting the Green Belt to proper use. So it's not just sitting there as sort of half abandoned land, but get a beautiful, beautiful grand forest planted there.

• 9:29Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, listen, Harry Diamond, what does a UK cabinet minister in 2023 have to do to get the sack? As in, no resignation given or accepted, plain outright, you're fired. What do you think a minister would actually have to do to get the boot without any sense of, if I think of Ron Davis, when he went for a walk on Clapham Common, that ended up in him being sacked. We had, uh, but when was the last sacking in this government?

• 9:54Rory Stewart?

  I think Ron Davis is unfortunate because I think Ron Davis is a legacy from a period where the press were pushing for ministers who were gay and he was stuck in a problem about not being comfortable coming out. I think that that wouldn't happen today. And I think ministers are much less likely to be forced to resign over affairs. Although I guess Matt Hancock had resigned, but that was connected with breaking COVID regulations.

• 10:22Rory Stewart?

  What would it take to drive people out? Well, I mean, there have been, remember, the number of people have gone, have resigned or been sacked. Nardim Zahawi went about his tax affairs.

• 10:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but they always go after a long drawn out, try to defend them and keep going. There's, I, it was, there's not, there's not a sort of. You know, there's nothing seems to be cut and dried anymore. And this this whole thing about the Sunak appears to be sort of using the ethics adviser in much the way as previous Tory prime ministers have done to sort of say, let's see if we can sort of kick the process into the long grass a bit.

• 10:53Rory Stewart?

  Oh, I'm not sure that's fair. I think this ethics adviser, Laurie Magnus, is not only pretty good, but pretty quick. I mean, I know people suspected that, but actually what happened with Adam Sahabi is I think he was back within four days. As soon as he produced his report, Adam Sahabi went. No, I think that's working pretty efficiently. It's not kicking it into long grass like a royal commission or something.

• 11:14Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. James O B. Who's the most intimidating person you've both come across in politics?

• 11:19Rory Stewart?

  Is that James O'Brien?

• 11:21Alastair Campbell?

  No, I don't think it is James O'Brien. I think James O'Brien is called James O B. on social media, but I don't think this is James O'Brien.

• 11:27Rory Stewart?

  The most intimidating person?

• 11:29Alastair Campbell?

  I'm going for Helmut Kohl. I found him incredibly intimidating.

• 11:32Rory Stewart?

  More than Vladimir Putin?

• 11:34Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah, partly because of his physicality, I think. He was very, and I don't mean intimidating, by the way, in a in a Dominique Rab type way of bullying and aggression, just incredibly intimidating because of his size. And there was a power about him that sort of emanated. I find him very intimidating, yeah.

• 11:53Rory Stewart?

  Well, I put my money on the leader of Zimbabwe. I was the first minister to meet President Mnangagwa after his inauguration. And he killed his first man, I think when he's 14 or 15, and then led Mugabe's security service. And at that period when he came in, there was a real desire to believe that now that Mugabe had stepped down, that Mnangagwa was going to lead a new liberal opening, that they were going to open up economically and politically and run clean elections. And he marched in to see me with two men in full military uniform on either side of him, sat down, and he began talking about Laura

• 12:37Rory Stewart?

  Kabila and his time in military training camps in Angola in the 1970s and early 80s. And I sort of remembered, you know, and I gently tried to suggest in the weird way that British ministers are supposed to, that maybe we should allow Zimbabweans outside the country to vote, and we should have independent electoral monitors in. And he looked at me with a sort of extraordinary sort of mingled pity experience and slight sort of derision. And I left the room thinking that the idea that we were going to get amazing reforms out of a man called Emerson the Crocodile Manangawa was not very likely.

• 13:16Alastair Campbell?

  Well, the one that I almost said, but I didn't want to was also Zimbabwean, and that was Mugabe. But I didn't feel intimidated by him. I felt utterly repelled and revolted. It's one of the most expensive suits I've ever seen.

• 13:29Rory Stewart?

  You've got a good eye for expensive suits, haven't you? You're always noting them on Michael Heseltine. Who else did you think had an expensive suit?

• 13:34Alastair Campbell?

  Philip Hammond. I saw Philip Hammond recently. He had a very expensive, very, very expensive suit.

• 13:39Rory Stewart?

  And what's the sign of an expensive suit as a man that doesn't notice these things? What do you notice about expensive suits?

• 13:44Alastair Campbell?

  It's the cut. You can tell. You can tell. It's just very, very, very well cut. And the cloth sort of... I noticed with Philip Hammond, for example, we did a panel together and we were sitting down maybe for about two hours. But I noticed that when he stood up, it still looked like he'd just put it on. It was the weight of the cloth. I mean, I don't know, I could be, maybe it was Marks and Spencer's, but I don't think so. So Mugabe was wearing this incredibly expensive suit, and it was at the Chogham, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh. And his first question was on the lines of, why did Tony Blair surround himself with nothing but homosexuals? Jonathan Powell and I were both sort of very confused as to why he was asking this question. But so then he went to add a little briefing about Tony Blair's gay mafia. All very, very, very odd.

• 14:27Rory Stewart?

  Gosh, goodness gracious me, how did you tell you? Oliver Merriman, you're a broad story for Alastair. I am, like you were, a student of modern languages at Keyes College in Cambridge. Is that Gonville and Keyes where I got that?

• 14:39Alastair Campbell?

  That's the one. That's where I went.

• 14:40Rory Stewart?

  Gonville and Keyes College, Cambridge, where you went, right?

• 14:43Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Rory Stewart?

  September, I'm going on my year abroad and would therefore love to know the most memorable story you might have from the time you spent on your year abroad and as a modern linguist at Cambridge University.

• 14:53Alastair Campbell?

  It was one of the best years of my life. Totally random. All the students were given the choice of having a year abroad in a school, teaching English for 12 hours a week, or going to university. I went for the school. It's then total potluck about where you get sent. And I got sent to a school in Nice. So I had a year living in Nice, down by the port, and it was absolutely wonderful. The highlight moment, in a bizarre sort of way, was probably when I realised that I could make a very, very good living as a busker. Because I had my bagpipes.

• 15:26Rory Stewart?

  With with your pipes.

• 15:27Alastair Campbell?

  I had my bagpipes. I went and found a very quiet place out in the open, but a sort of random car park in the middle of nowhere, tuned them up, started playing them just for my own entertainment. And this crowd came out and started throwing money into the into the box. And I thought, oh, my God.

• 15:42Rory Stewart?

  You you were just practicing.

• 15:44Alastair Campbell?

  I was just practicing. So that evening, I went to the I went to the Promenade des Anglais and then Rue Massena, which is the sort of pedestrian precinct. And I stood there playing my pipes. I thought, God, I could make an absolute fortune. So I then, what I did, I persuaded the head teacher of the school, can I pack my 12 days, 12 hours into one and a half days? And then the rest of the year, I just spent the time travelling around Europe, making a lot of money with my bagpipes.

• 16:07Rory Stewart?

  And that's how you made your fortune.

• 16:09Alastair Campbell?

  Well, fortune overstates it. So Rory, if you're asking me specific questions aimed at me, Carl Wiseman, could Rory please share a few of his lessons from staying overnight with ordinary people during his mayoral campaign?

• 16:20Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so that that, thank you. So this was something called Come Kip With Me. And I put out a tweet saying I'd love to be invited to stay in people's houses. And about 6,000 people wrote back almost immediately. And there were lovely emails coming in from people saying, they were often very long emails, trying to explain why I should be staying with them and what I'd learned by staying with them. But it was really eye opening. I stayed with a cooperative for older women up in North London. I stayed on the sofa of a guy's family flat in Wandsworth, where he was living with his parents and his sister and a younger brother in a two bedroom council house.

• 16:59Alastair Campbell?

  Did you did you check, did you have anybody check them out before you went?

• 17:02Rory Stewart?

  Um, yeah, someone from our team would would call them. When you're an MP, obviously, you're often leafleting. So you knock on a door and you put a leaflet through and you ask a couple of questions and you move on. If you stay in someone's house, you have the whole night and the morning and you talk late into the night and you wake up and you often you can walk, walk to work with them in the morning or walk to their, to the underground station in the morning. And I I learnt so much. I mean, I learnt so much from just getting a sense there was a stable of a woman who was volunteering in a in a homeless shelter out towards Stratford. And a lot of the times I was sleeping on people's sofas, but it it just gave me an amazing insight in a way that is so important for London because London isn't really one place. It's sort of 32 cities connected to each other

• 17:47Rory Stewart?

  and you've really got to spend time in all of them.

• 17:50Alastair Campbell?

  And did you, did you literally stay on your own or did any of your people, your team stay with you?

• 17:53Rory Stewart?

  I'd, I'd stay on my own, except one case, I think my friend Will came and stayed once. But generally I'd stay on my own and we'd have, sometimes have supper. I'd bring a, I'd bring some milk tray, I'd bring, bring, bring milk tray with me.

• 18:07Alastair Campbell?

  Milk tray?

• 18:08Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, Cadbury's milk tray.

• 18:09Alastair Campbell?

  Interesting. Always milk tray?

• 18:10Rory Stewart?

  Always Cadbury's milk tray, yeah.

• 18:12Alastair Campbell?

  Why?

• 18:13Rory Stewart?

  Well, because someone had made a joke about my being, you know, the man with the milk tray. So it was just kind of crap joke.

• 18:18Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, okay. Cause then Matt Hancock was the milk tray man as well, wasn't he? Cause he dressed with that.

• 18:22Rory Stewart?

  Well, that's because he wore a black, that, that wasn't because he, he, he went in through people's windows for the present. I think it was more because he, he wore a dodgy black polo neck.

• 18:29Alastair Campbell?

  Right, well, let's, let's just take a quick break on Rory Stewart, the milk tray man.

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• 20:40Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question Time. Jonas, you both seem like very busy people, constantly on the move, travelling to different countries, working on multiple different projects. I wonder what are your tips for work-life balance? I manage communications for a UK diplomatic mission while also having three kids under the age of five. I feel burnt out most days for the struggle of wanting to give my all for the job and also my family.

• 21:03Alastair Campbell?

  I'm the last person to answer that very, very well because I don't think I do it very well at all, the work-life thing.

• 21:08Rory Stewart?

  I feel completely burnt out most of the time. As you know, I'm running this charity give directly, which means that I have to be in Africa quite a lot and fundraising in the States quite a lot. And I feel very, very guilty. I've got an eight-year-old and a six-year-old and I won't see them now for almost three weeks.

• 21:29Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, Lord.

• 21:30Rory Stewart?

  So I think it's tough. It's tough. And I think it's tougher, maybe this isn't true, but I sometimes feel it's tougher for my friends who are women. I think it's particularly tough for Shashana, who's running a big charity in Afghanistan and Myanmar, and is also having to do an enormous amount of other stuff in the house. I think it's pretty tough being a young parent, though, I guess, any gender, because the expectations are generally pretty impossible, aren't they?

• 21:56Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. No, listen, I'm a lot better than I was in that I rest more than I used to, but I still feel I have to exercise every day. I've been out swimming this morning and I'm doing boxing later on. I've got to exercise, I've got to sort of look after myself. And you know, our kids are grown up, but we still see a lot of them and still worry about them and still want to be kind of connected to them. But I guess you, I mean, you do have a job, but you're also seen with the job to have quite a lot of freedom.

• 22:28Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, I'm the boss, which helps. And a lot of what I'm doing is fundraising. So a lot of the time I'm traveling around trying to raise money. And it's true, actually, as a member of parliament too, that you are your own boss as an MP and you can pretty much, MPs do work hard. I mean, whatever we think about them, maybe evil, maybe incompetent, but they do work hard.

• 22:48Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think very few, very few are evil. Some are incompetent, but I agree with you that most work very, very hard.

• 22:53Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Alastair Campbell?

  Listen, we've got a couple of, a few critical questions this week, which I think we'll come back to later. We've got a lot of people asking, suggesting that we were very dismissive of doctors and the question of why we've got such a problem with training, training doctors, which I said we'd come back to. But given the, the level of the number of people who got in touch to say that they felt we were dismissive, I think we should come back at it when we've really looked into the issue. And here's another one. We've got some, we've got a bit of criticism. Fritfly, the most populous country in Africa held an election this year, the results of which remain controversial. I haven't yet heard you guys mention it once. Can you give some thoughts and analysis on Nigeria before the swearing in of Tinubu at the end of the month? In fact, Fritfly, you must have missed the episode where we talked at good length about the election.

• 23:36Rory Stewart?

  We've done, we've done a couple of Nigerian episodes. And we, and we talked, we talked quite a lot about Tinubu. I mean, it is, it's very difficult to know who could have brought Nigeria out of its current malaise. But it's difficult, I'm afraid, to believe that Tinubu can, because he is absolutely a veteran machine politician.

• 23:57Alastair Campbell?

  And the guy that, the guy that was meant to be sort of breath, breath of fresh air came, I think came third in the end.

• 24:02Rory Stewart?

  Who was Peter Obi. And Tinubu famously had his assets frozen by the US government for heroin dealing in 93. It's, it's, it's pretty worrying. Yeah.

• 24:11Alastair Campbell?

  Simon C. I'm genuinely interested in your answer to this. And I, I, I, I think I know what the answer is going to be, but I don't really. I'm an art teacher, says Simon. I wonder how you both feel about art. Are you artists yourself? Do you make time to be creative? Do you have exhibitions or galleries that are favourites?

• 24:32Rory Stewart?

  Goodness gracious.

• 24:32Alastair Campbell?

  Do you paint?

• 24:33Rory Stewart?

  I, I, I do paint a little bit. I paint and I draw. My first book, Place in Between, has got, got my drawings in it.

• 24:40Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, they're yours?

• 24:41Rory Stewart?

  They're my drawings, yeah.

• 24:42Alastair Campbell?

  They're not bad?

• 24:43Rory Stewart?

  Not, not, okay, yeah. And during Covid, I, um, did a bit of, bit of watercolour. Um, yeah, and, and art galleries. I mean, I, huge shout out if anyone's interested in, in London at the moment. Amazing free exhibition on St Francis in the National Gallery, if you want to pop down and have a look at it, which has the robe that St Francis himself wore in the 12th century, has incredible manuscripts, but also paintings and artwork going right the way through to the current day, including film clips on St Francis. So that's, that's my, my art gallery recommendation.

• 25:15Alastair Campbell?

  I, I, I don't, I am, I'm the worst, probably not the worst, but I'm, I can't, I can't paint and I can't draw. And I, I really wish that I could. I really admire people.

• 25:25Rory Stewart?

  But you're much, much better at music than I am. So there we are.

• 25:28Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but I just wish I could. I, I, and I have, I have had a go. Actually, there's a, we've, we've got a, an artist, Sarah Pixstone, who lives just up the road from us. And, and, and she did help me. I did a, a painting for a, for a charity. It was actually to raise funds for a, for a swimming pool down in, in the West Country. Um, and I, and actually it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad with her at my side telling me what to do. But I would, I would need to have that if I was to, if I was to paint. I do like wandering, I do like wandering around art galleries from time to time.

• 26:02Rory Stewart?

  Well, my, my complete fantasy, if, if I was going to do something, if I managed to retire, is I'd love to, to make pots. I, I love ceramics. I, I love the feeling of clay. I'm just in awe of Chinese ceramics, Islamic ceramics, Japanese ceramics. I, I'm, I'd, I'd love to be a potter.

• 26:18Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, there you go. Simon C, when Rory Stewart becomes a potter, he can come along and teach your students how to pot.

• 26:26Rory Stewart?

  Well, I've got a good one for you here. Could you both give an example of the fun side of politics? If there's a story involved, even better. Any fun stories from politics, Alistair?

• 26:36Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, well, actually, I can remember one in Japan.

• 26:39Rory Stewart?

  Go on then.

• 26:40Alastair Campbell?

  We had a gathering recently for Tony Blair's 70th birthday and there was lots of people who were, you know, basically people who worked for him the whole time. And people were remembering some very, very, very good fun times. And I think I've told you the story about Tony once sort of impersonating an Ulster Unionist in the bath in Hillsborough Castle. But the one that popped into my head, because we've been talking about Japan, was when I got a message that he wanted to see me. And this was, he was in his, in his bedroom at the British Embassy in, in Tokyo. And I walked through and he'd, he discovered, he discovered the crash helmet under the bed in case of an earthquake.

• 27:25Alastair Campbell?

  And there was something surreal about walking in to see Tony Blair lying on his bed, wearing a crash helmet, pretending that he was in the middle of an earthquake.

• 27:38Alastair Campbell?

  So, you know, we had, we did have a, we had a good laugh quite a lot of the time. And I also think there is a fun in campaigning. I mean, campaigns, they can be hellish. And as Bill Clinton once said, election campaigns are the one form of activity that makes everybody look like their passport photo. But elections can be very, very good fun. I can think of lots of really, really good moments. What about you? When did you have fun?

• 27:59Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think, I think what's amazing about being a politician is that it's one of those rare professions which actually allows you to get into everybody else's house. And I think there are a couple of other professions that might like to do that. Maybe a police officer, maybe some kinds of journalists. But basically, people often live quite a limited life. You see your friends and you go to their houses. But as a politician, you can, with your constituents, you're knocking on doors, you're going to every village. And you're going to see everything from the grandest houses to the most remote outlying farms, to going into people's caravans. And I, I, I loved it. I'm quite nosey and I love the privilege of being able to see every different type of life,

• 28:40Rory Stewart?

  being able to spend time in the traveller community or spend time with, you know, help with lambing. There's a lot of, there's a lot of participation. I mean, I spent a lot of time as a politician. In strange vehicles, canoes, driving tractors, driving a mole plow, riding horses, all as part of being constituency MP. I mean, there's a lot of, lot of fun to be had there, particularly if, if like me, you're lucky enough to represent a remote rural constituency. I don't think it would be quite the same if I was representing Slough.

• 29:11Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but it would, it would in a way because you, you're absolutely right. It's the same with journalism. I think the thing I used to love about being a journalist is that you could literally walk up to anybody, anywhere and start talking to them. Hi, I'm Alice to come from the Daily Mirror. I'm doing a piece about X and it's incredible. Ninety five times out of a hundred people will talk to you.

• 29:27Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I'm, I, I totally love it. And I think it's, it's, yeah, I would, I recommend as a way of getting to know your fellow man. There are very few things that's good. So final question, what books we're reading? I put another plug in for Raphael Bear's amazing politics, a survivor's guide, wonderful, wonderful book. It's, um, it's great on Russia. It's great on populism. It's great on Britain and another book strongly recommended. I'm in Japan. It's called Lost Japan by Alex Kerr. And a lot of these recommendations on Japanese books came from Twitter. So I'm hugely, hugely grateful to Twitter. That's, um, that's fantastic. If anyone's ever looking for a book, it's just such a brilliant way of, of getting book recommendations.

• 30:11Alastair Campbell?

  That is one of the best. I, I agree with you about the, the, the social media gets a lot of flack deservedly. But actually, when you say, when you put things out like, anybody know a good book about so and so? Does anybody know a, a nice restaurant in such and such an area? It is amazing how nice people are about sending you information about stuff like that.

• 30:30Rory Stewart?

  I, I, I think it's just absolutely brilliant. And then, and then finally, I, you know, I mentioned Tanaka Kakuya. So in our distribution, I'm going to send a, a book with a lovely article about Tanaka Kakuya.

• 30:42Alastair Campbell?

  I am currently reading a book that is, was sent to me by my good friend, Carl Bernstein,

• 30:50Alastair Campbell?

  who, and it's a book not about Watergate, it's about his life as a young reporter. And any young reporter out there or somebody who wants to aspire to be a journalist, it's just a brilliant, brilliant account of, and you get a sense of why he became one of the greatest journalists of all time. And it's just about his relentless curiosity. And I think that curiosity is one of the most important characteristics for all of us, frankly, but obviously for journalism. And the other thing that I'm, that I'm reading is, it's a short history of Germany. And it's called How We Became What We Are. Obviously, Alte Deutsch.

• 31:30Rory Stewart?

  Very, very good. Well, thank you, Alison. Have a, you know, good luck on the continuing extraordinarily successful book tour and look forward to speaking again next week.

• 31:38Alastair Campbell?

  A book tour which I will be suspending for the afternoon as I am due to go to court and be a witness in the Prince Harry case.

• 31:46Rory Stewart?

  About which we'll hear more in the next podcast coming up soon. Thank you.

• 31:50Alastair Campbell?

  All the best. Bye bye.

• 31:51Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye.

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