254. Question Time: Is Biden alienating young voters?

What is the international significance of Mexico's presidential election? Is Biden risking the support of young voters over his stance on Israel? And how did Rory find his silent retreat?! Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more on this week's Question Time. TRIP ELECTION TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Election Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Edited by Robby Williams Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Assistant Producer: Fiona Douglas Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

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

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

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

• 1:07Speaker 02

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• 1:25Alastair Campbell?

  Hi there, it's Alistair here. Now, we recorded this episode of Question Time on Tuesday morning, would normally have gone out on Thursday, but then along came Richie Sunak, announced his decision to call an election Wednesday afternoon in the pouring rain, without an umbrella, with Things Could Only Get Better blaring in the background. This episode includes some, I hope, interesting, enjoyable discussion on both national and international politics, as well as a full breakdown of what Rory got up to on his 11-day silent meditation retreat. And also I'd like to say it's worth bearing in mind that we recorded the discussion on the Mexican presidential election before the news broke about the awful death of at least nine people,

• 2:06Alastair Campbell?

  possibly more by the time this goes out, at a rally on Thursday in Nuevo Leon. Anyway, we'll see you next week as we count down to the election, July 4. There'll be lots more podcasts between now and then, planned and thus far unplanned. Enjoy this one. All the best.

• 2:30Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to the Restless Politics Question Time with me Rory Stewart.

• 2:33Alastair Campbell?

  And me Alastair Campbell. And Rory, I want to start with Adrian RP. Can we hear about Rory's retreat, please? Where was it? What happened? How was it? I should tell you before you answer, I was speaking at the Inverness Chamber of Commerce, and I did one of my Ask Alistair Anything things, where they all have postcards and they all submit questions, got hundreds of questions, got loads about your retreat. And the one I asked of the audience, was somebody asked me if I would ever consider doing an 11-day retreat, sitting cross-legged 14 hours a day. And I said, I couldn't, I just couldn't even think about it. And I asked the audience if they would do it. And there were 352 people there, and it was 351 to 1. 1 being, yes, I would do it. In fact, they had done it. So it's quite a rare thing that you do.

• 3:17Alastair Campbell?

  Just tell us why and what.

• 3:20Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think the first thing is, it's, every time it's different. It's the third time I've done it. Just to explain quickly for listeners, what happens. You, in this case, it's in Herefordshire, 45 men in a separate facility. There are women in another facility, so this is just men.

• 3:42Alastair Campbell?

  My God, you can't even mix a bit?

• 3:44Rory Stewart?

  Can't mix it. You're sharing room, you're also sharing toilet facilities, showers, kind of communal toilet showers. So it's a bit like being back at some kind of institution. You are woken by gong at 4:00 in the morning.

• 4:00Alastair Campbell?

  4.

• 4:00Rory Stewart?

  4. So you start, you have to be down and meditating at half past 4. So you do two hours without a break, then you take a little break, then you do three hours meditating, then you take a break, then you do four hours meditating without a break, then you take a break, and then you do three and a half hours, and then you go back to your room.

• 4:23Alastair Campbell?

  So you don't, do you talk to anybody?

• 4:25Rory Stewart?

  You're not allowed to talk, you're not allowed to make eye contact, and you're not allowed to eat after about half past 11:00.

• 4:32Alastair Campbell?

  So did not one single person make eye contact and say, I love the podcast?

• 4:36Rory Stewart?

  No, I was vaguely aware, of course, and that was one of the things that made it a bit weirder for me, that some of the people clearly kind of recognised me. Because when you arrive, before you've sort of settled in, it isn't full silence. And sure enough, at the end of it...

• 4:53Rory Stewart?

  You know, there was a young man who said, oh, I'm in foreign office and a couple of people who said that they'd done the retreat because they'd heard on the podcast about the retreat.

• 5:02Rory Stewart?

  But it is the most incredible experience. I mean, I think one of the things that I noticed is the way that your mind produces a narrative. So in my case, I went from, in this particular case, from, you know, day two, oh, my goodness, this is so beautiful, it's spring, blackbirds. Day three, my life is completely meaningless. I'm gonna die. I'm achieving nothing. I'm at a total dead end. I've got no idea what I'm doing for the next 20, 30 years of my life. Day four, this is so boring. This is boring beyond belief. Day six, oh, my goodness, look at that snail on the tree. I'm appreciating

• 5:46Rory Stewart?

  the beauty of nature. Day eight, I'm, you know, got this great scheme for how I'm gonna change the world. And then somewhere in the middle of it, days of incredible pain, because if you're sitting, as I was for, I guess it's 12 and a half, 14 hours a day, cross-legged, and you're not used to it, your knees and your back begin screaming. And of course, the, you do something called adhitana, which means that you, you, you commit to not moving for now. You can't shift position for now. So you sit there and if you get it wrong, your right knee can end up trembling, and you end up feeling almost sort of physically sick with the kind of pain of the not removing your right knee. And you pay to this, to do this? No, it's actually, it's free. It's free?

• 6:32Rory Stewart?

  It's completely free. I mean, the voluntary contribution at the end, but anyone can do it. And the mixture of people was, was really striking. You know, there was somebody who'd been a bit in trouble with law. There were software engineers, there were like novelists, there were climbers, outdoor instructors.

• 6:53Rory Stewart?

  Business people, I mean, it was very difficult to generalize. Very working class men. I mean, it was, and of course, you're, because ten and a half days, you can't speak. You're just looking at these people and you're thinking, I wonder who he is. He's this kind of big, muscly young man with a lot of tattoos. Wonder who he is, you know. Here's this sort of, I don't know, clearly South Asian guy who gets up with me at four in the morning and is brushing his teeth next to me in the sink, so.

• 7:21Alastair Campbell?

  But you can't talk. I don't think I could not talk. I think I'd find that impossible.

• 7:28Rory Stewart?

  That's what my seven year old said.

• 7:31Alastair Campbell?

  And what did they think about you going off and leaving them for?

• 7:34Rory Stewart?

  Well, so they've, they've watched Kung Fu Panda and Kung Fu Panda meditates.

• 7:38Alastair Campbell?

  Ah.

• 7:39Rory Stewart?

  Not very successfully.

• 7:40Alastair Campbell?

  So they, so they approved of meditation.

• 7:42Rory Stewart?

  They've got a sort of link to that.

• 7:44Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it's very good to have you back.

• 7:45Rory Stewart?

  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

• 7:46Alastair Campbell?

  I'm still not going to try it.

• 7:47Rory Stewart?

  No?

• 7:48Alastair Campbell?

  No.

• 7:48Rory Stewart?

  No.

• 7:48Alastair Campbell?

  Really not for me. No, do you feel better?

• 7:51Rory Stewart?

  Um, no, unfortunately, in this case, something went a bit wrong. I came out the other end and started a two day migraine. I get very bad migraines.

• 7:57Alastair Campbell?

  Right.

• 7:58Rory Stewart?

  The problem was that I slept about three hours a night.

• 8:00Alastair Campbell?

  Right.

• 8:03Alastair Campbell?

  Good.

• 8:04Rory Stewart?

  Great, well, here's a question for you. So, question from Ava. What do we think about the potential of a new presidenta in Mexico?

• 8:15Alastair Campbell?

  Well, we are, we're going to have the first woman president. Almost certainly, because the two leading candidates are both women. And given that she's currently almost thirty points ahead in the polls, almost Keir Starmer style lead. It's probably going to be the first Jewish leader of Mexican state as well. Claudia Sheinbaum. Who's going to take over from one of those rare leaders who is known the world over by, in politics, by his initials. AMLO.

• 8:49Alastair Campbell?

  Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. One, Mexican constitution, you're only allowed one term as president. But this election, you've got all the seats in the Senate, all 500 seats in the lower house, local congresses in 31 states, nine state governorships, and the mayoralty of Mexico City, all on the ballot on the same day. And it kind of depends who you who you talk to. There are some people who love AMLO and think he's the sort of man of the people who's delivered for them and helped the poor. And there are others who basically

• 9:19Rory Stewart?

  He's a bit on the populist left.

• 9:20Alastair Campbell?

  He's a proto-populist left-wing leader. And there are there are many who I was speaking to somebody in Mexico the other day, who basically says this guy has essentially corruptly co-opted the state to him itself and his party. And there is nowhere in the world that Scheinbaum's not going to win. And, you know, a lot of taxes.

• 9:40Rory Stewart?

  Because she's she's from his sort of proto-populist left-wing party.

• 9:43Alastair Campbell?

  She's from his party. She's very, very close to him and has supported all his sort of all his positions. So I think it's we're definitely talking about is one of those elections where we pretty much, a bit like Modi, a bit like Putin, we know the outcome.

• 9:55Rory Stewart?

  But the stakes very, very high. Because of that huge US border, because of

• 9:59Alastair Campbell?

  Yep.

• 9:59Rory Stewart?

  the incredible stories around Mexican criminality, the importance of the Mexican economy. I mean, as as the US decouples de-risk from China, more and more US manufacturing moving into Mexico as the compensation for moving out of China, which is a huge opportunity for a new Mexican president.

• 10:17Alastair Campbell?

  His his critics say that they also criticize both sides of the American debate for essentially not calling out some of the stuff that they would call out with other countries, because they basically just look to him to kind of deliver on his side of the bargain vis a vis the border.

• 10:36Rory Stewart?

  Which ditto, I suppose, with Modi. It's the sense that the US can be pretty hypocritical with allies that they think.

• 10:41Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely. So it's a big one. And that's on on June the 2nd, his party, National Regeneration Movement, Morena. And of course, it's a pretty young democracy. They had they had the same party in power for decades. If you talk to his critics, they basically say he's done all the stuff that the populists do, put his put his supporters in the key positions, judicial reform. He wants judges in future to be elected.

• 11:06Rory Stewart?

  Judicial reform is a polite way of saying stacking the judiciary.

• 11:09Alastair Campbell?

  Correct, correct. And he wants to do a few sort of the old our old friend, the constitutional changes is rearing its head again. So so he basically wants to change the way the judges are chosen. AK elected by a party that's winning lots and lots of votes and also wants to change the the way the election, the electoral commission is run. So it's, you know, it's pretty much, it's the usual stuff. And because we've talked on the podcast before about how he has co-opted the military to do quite a lot of infrastructure work, quite, quite a lot of this domestic policy stuff. And that is something that, on the one hand, has proven quite popular, because the military are pretty good at delivering stuff. But also, he now wants to extend their mandate well, well past twenty twenty eight. So it's a, it's

• 11:54Alastair Campbell?

  a big, big, big changing country. And it's an election result where I think we, we're pretty clear about what the outcome is going to be. And we talked in the, the discussion about mental health and our MPs, maybe just a more sobering point, ahead of the twenty twenty one midterms in Mexico, thirty candidates were assassinated. And in the local, these, these elections so far, locally and in the mayoralities, twenty four candidates have been killed. So you're talking about, and that's partly about political rivalries, but it's also about the impact of the role of organised crime.

• 12:30Rory Stewart?

  Okay, now let's, let's come on to a question that I'm really interested in, and you know more about than almost anyone, which is Toby Bradley Watson, could there be a civil war in New Caledonia? And how has Macron played this so badly? So just before we let us to get going on New Caledonia, New Caledonia, Melanesian island, population, I think, just over two hundred thousand people, and it is part of France. It's had, I think, three referendums on independence, keeps voting to remain part of France. And these territories are part of France, we've discussed this in the past, in a quite different way from the way that British overseas territories are part of Britain. I mean, it, they, it's just a proper department. I mean, it's, it's, it would be like Britain having a Polynesian

• 13:13Rory Stewart?

  island, which was as much part of Britain as Cumbria. They send representatives to the assembly, they send their senators, run as part of France, which is why.

• 13:24Rory Stewart?

  The collapse in New Caledonia and the violence in New Caledonia is felt pretty viscerally in France itself. And it's not the first time, because we've also had some problems about other French territories off the coast of Africa, where we've had recent problems around migration and movement and voting rights. Anyway, over to you on New Caledonia.

• 13:41Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I'm touched that you describe me as an expert. There was you earlier talking about how, you know, people are appointed to charge of China who've never been there. I've never been to New Caledonia. I cannot claim to be an expert.

• 13:54Rory Stewart?

  And what do they, do they actually call it New Caledonia? Or do they call it something else?

• 13:57Alastair Campbell?

  Do you know, no, it's called La Nouvelle Caledonie. And do you know why? Because a Scottish explorer by the name of Cook was one of the first people to discover it. And given he was from Scotland, they decided to call it New Caledonia.

• 14:13Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 14:13Alastair Campbell?

  As in Caledonia. So he went there many, many years ago. This week, 600 heavily armed gendarmes have been sent from France purely to secure one road. The, and that's the main artery going through the place. And the other, the other big, big news, that the reason why this became sort of a huge deal.

• 14:36Rory Stewart?

  So what's, what's the fight about electoral reform?

• 14:38Alastair Campbell?

  This is kind of just, it's built and it's built and it's built, partly economic, partly tribal. And also there are, despite these referendums that you talk about, there are, there are occasionally these flare ups of we don't want to be part of France anymore. So they've had to call off the Olympic torch. So, so part of France is it, that just as we had the Olympic torch in 2012 go through the whole of the country, the Olympic torch was meant to be there at the weekend. And they decided it was just too risky, that it would just be provocative and cause a huge thing.

• 15:10Rory Stewart?

  Somebody would capture it and it would never be released.

• 15:11Alastair Campbell?

  So they've cancelled that. So far, relatively low numbers of deaths. I think we're in the single figures, but hundreds have been injured in what are pretty vicious riots.

• 15:22Alastair Campbell?

  And it's, you know, Macron, the question sort of saying that Macron is getting a lot of flak. There is now a state of emergency. Um, there's been a ban on TikTok because that was being used to.

• 15:35Rory Stewart?

  How do you put, what does that mean? How do you ban TikTok? They shut it down?

• 15:38Alastair Campbell?

  You shut it down. You can't, you.

• 15:39Rory Stewart?

  Can we shut, can we shut down TikTok?

• 15:41Alastair Campbell?

  If we had to, yeah, absolutely.

• 15:42Rory Stewart?

  Shut it down.

• 15:43Alastair Campbell?

  God, Rory, have you not been talking to these special groups anymore?

• 15:45Rory Stewart?

  No, I haven't. You haven't told me I could shut off TikTok. I don't, I, in the interest of my children, I'd be quite keen to shut off TikTok.

• 15:53Alastair Campbell?

  Well, did I tell you, by the way, talking of, talking of that, I want to talk about this last week, but we just didn't get around to it. My friend in South, the Premier of South Australia, Peter Malanowski's.

• 16:00Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Alastair Campbell?

  Is bringing forward legislation to ban all 14 year olds from having social media accounts, under 14.

• 16:08Rory Stewart?

  Well.

• 16:09Alastair Campbell?

  What do you think of that?

• 16:09Rory Stewart?

  So I'm in favor. Listen, I, I get in a lot of trouble for this. I, I basically think these things are really dangerous.

• 16:15Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 16:16Rory Stewart?

  One of the people who's.

• 16:16Alastair Campbell?

  Rory is holding a phone.

• 16:17Rory Stewart?

  One of these people on my, my retreat, who's a software engineer, was like, I do not carry a phone anymore. I've deleted.

• 16:23Alastair Campbell?

  I thought you weren't allowed to talk.

• 16:24Rory Stewart?

  No, no, the end, the very end, because we were leaving. He said, I, software engineer, don't carry a phone anymore. I've deleted all my apps because I know more than anyone that we design these apps to be addictive.

• 16:35Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 16:36Rory Stewart?

  They're just designed to suck you in. And then I was talking to a mother yesterday with a young daughter and she was like, um, her daughter is seeing a lot of male private parts that she does not.

• 16:47Alastair Campbell?

  Particularly when her daughter. I was in, I was in a school last week, City London Academy in Southwark, and I told them about this Australian, Peter Malanowski's and this, this idea. So we had a little vote. We had a little sort of, you know, pros and cons. We had a little vote and banning won. And one of the, one of the girls who voted for the ban said, I see things on my phone every day that I know I shouldn't see.

• 17:09Rory Stewart?

  There's a movement in the US, really well organized movement to stop people wait till eight, which I think is about stopping till eighth grade. But I think it should be pushed.

• 17:18Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, it's supposed to eight AM or eight PM.

• 17:19Rory Stewart?

  Push, push, push, push much, much longer.

• 17:22Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 17:22Rory Stewart?

  And anyway, but every time I keep, then I have counterpoint people saying that the evidence isn't that compelling. There's no real evidence has much. I, I think you just end up down a horrible, horrible tunnel. And I'm, my dream would be to kind of. Social attraction, nature, outside, something other than kind of doom scrolling on your phone. Okay, we'll re quick break then, back with more questions.

• 17:47Speaker 02

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• 18:22Rory Stewart?

  This Emily Cornell, how do you think Joe Biden's reaction to the UCLA protests will impact the US election? Do you think Biden will have turned off a lot of young liberal voters? Who else would they vote for? Well, just to remind people, these, we've talked a little bit about these. These university protests in the US are absolutely huge and have become central to the debate. So I talked to you a little bit about how, you know, I was teaching at Yale and I had students who were on the pro Palestinian side, students who were on the pro Israeli side, how Yale had to clear the students out or decided to clear the students out, the police arrived, one of my students was arrested. But this is being played out, and Yale actually has handled it quite well, but it's been being played out at much, much bigger scale than UCLA. It got pretty violent.

• 19:05Rory Stewart?

  There were people going, it was baseball bats, people in masks, and Biden basically has expressed support for the authorities against the students. My friends who are on the very concerned about Israel are horrified when they look at these demonstrations because they think that the young students are ignorant, are endorsing Hamas, are, they hate the fact that there are flags up in favor of Intifada or saying from the river to the sea. I have Jewish friends in London saying to me, how could these people possibly be so ignorant?

• 19:45Rory Stewart?

  On the other side, I have Palestinian, pro Palestinian students pointing out that trucks were driven through Yale and Harvard with their names and addresses and telephone numbers and faces, saying because they supported the pro Palestinian protests, they should be tracked down and they should never be given a job. And Bill Ackerman, who's a big hedge fund guy, saying he's not going to employ these people, lists being run, which apparently includes some of the biggest American hedge funds and banks. So one of the reasons why people are masked is not that they're proto terrorists, it's that they actually want to be able to get a job when they leave university.

• 20:23Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 20:23Rory Stewart?

  And then you have this whole question of how both sides are provoking each other. So, you know, we had a case where somebody claimed to have been stabbed in the eye by a flag. The New York Times then reported it. Then it turned out it wasn't true. Other people are pushing through with social media, trying to catch, you know, one side saying antisemitic stuff, other side saying genocidal stuff, but they're often standing there for 12 hours, looking for that one moment where they can.

• 20:48Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Rory Stewart?

  Anyway.

• 20:49Alastair Campbell?

  I think in answer to Emily's question, do you think Biden will have turned off a lot of young liberal voters? I think there's no doubt about that. I guess the calculation he's making is that he's still in that position of trying to do his level best to influence Netanyahu and has decided rightly or wrongly that the way to do that is to be pretty supportive, even though Israel thinks he's not being supportive enough. And I think on the protests, you're right that they're far bigger in America. They do seem to have provoked far deeper political polarization, but we are seeing them more and more in the UK as well. I don't know if you follow the Marsh family, Rory, who they sing very funny songs on Twitter,

• 21:35Alastair Campbell?

  but they've done a very, very funny one about Suella Braverman. She took a GB News reporter to one of these tented protests and they obviously knew she was coming. They just decided not to say a word to her. So she's sort of walking up and down the line, talking to the G P O, they go, hi, I'm Suella, I'm Suella. And anyway, we will put in the show note, we'll put in the newsletter, the Marsh family, there's a family that just sing sort of political satire. I think there is a real problem for progressive parties who are not.

• 22:08Alastair Campbell?

  A bit harder over in terms of of what's been going on in the Middle East and and and there, you know, I I wonder whether we talked earlier about whether that's why David Lammy was much harder on the ICC than Andrew Mitchell.

• 22:22Rory Stewart?

  And and and Labour's okay here because they're twenty points ahead on the polls. But in the in the case of Biden, of course, just to remind people.

• 22:29Alastair Campbell?

  Well, in Michigan, there's a big Arab vote there.

• 22:31Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, brutal truth, which is that they're absolutely neck and neck at best. Trump may even slightly be in the lead. And, as you say, these key swing states like Michigan, it all comes down to turnout, all comes down to turnout. And the problem is, if people are alienated and think, not in my name, I can't bear to vote for them, and just stay at home, Trump wins. And that, of course, is what's going to happen to the Conservatives. Most of the moderate Conservatives I know in Britain are not going to vote Labour, they're just going to stay at home.

• 23:04Alastair Campbell?

  You think some will vote Labour? Do people not feel they have to vote?

• 23:07Rory Stewart?

  No, I think a lot of people just don't vote. Because if you feel.

• 23:11Alastair Campbell?

  Even if they care about politics?

• 23:12Rory Stewart?

  Well, it's an interesting one. I mean.

• 23:15Alastair Campbell?

  But you couldn't not vote, could you?

• 23:16Rory Stewart?

  If you were really, I'm tempted to not vote. If you were really pissed off at Labour Party, you know, when Jeremy Corbyn was in, you ever tempted to be like, I can't bear to vote for another party, but I'm not going to vote for Corbyn?

• 23:27Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I voted Lib Dem and Europeans, and I did vote Labour.

• 23:29Rory Stewart?

  But you you've never ever had a temptation of, I can't bear to vote Lib Dem, I'm just not going to vote at all?

• 23:34Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think, no, I haven't. I think, and if I hadn't voted, I think I probably would have felt I had to go and vote Green or vote for an Independent or something. I just feel you have to vote. I think it's a really bad thing not to vote.

• 23:46Rory Stewart?

  There is this thing in the US writing in, I got my name, I got my name written in in US elections. Somebody wrote me in the congressional district in New York.

• 23:53Alastair Campbell?

  Did you win?

• 23:54Rory Stewart?

  And no, I didn't get enough write in, sadly.

• 23:55Alastair Campbell?

  Now, listen, maximum, we've talked about, a lot about the age of Biden and Trump, but what about this one from Rich Hurford? There's been much criticism of the age of the two US presidential candidates, yet in the UK, Queen Elizabeth continued to exercise government functions until her death at the age of ninety six. Do you think there should be a maximum age for a monarch to continue exercising functions?

• 24:15Rory Stewart?

  Well, we do have a system actually in Britain, which goes all the way back to George the Third, which is that if you conclude.

• 24:21Alastair Campbell?

  We see the mad one.

• 24:22Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, exactly. You conclude a monarch can't issue their functions properly, you have a regency. Where a regency.

• 24:28Alastair Campbell?

  And who decides that? In in the modern age, who would decide that?

• 24:30Rory Stewart?

  Effectively, the Prime Minister.

• 24:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 24:32Rory Stewart?

  The council around the Prime Minister would decide.

• 24:34Alastair Campbell?

  So it could have been Liz Truss.

• 24:36Rory Stewart?

  Exactly, could have could have could have been Liz Truss. And then normally what happens is that the the heir would then step up and and be be the the Prince Regent.

• 24:46Alastair Campbell?

  Right, while the king was still alive.

• 24:48Rory Stewart?

  Operate the role, yeah, yeah.

• 24:48Alastair Campbell?

  But no, yeah. Did you see the new portrait by Jonathan Yeo? Or was that while you were away?

• 24:52Rory Stewart?

  No.

• 24:53Alastair Campbell?

  Have you not seen it yet?

• 24:53Rory Stewart?

  No, no.

• 24:54Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, get up a picture for Rory. I mean, I, right, I am now good. Because Rory's been in his retreat, he's yet to see the first official portrait of the king. Now, I have to say, I really like it. Um, I think it's got the face really, really well. Um, and I like the whole red stuff.

• 25:12Rory Stewart?

  Oh, it's wonderful.

• 25:14Alastair Campbell?

  You like it?

• 25:15Rory Stewart?

  Oh, it's wonderful. Oh, I think that's lovely.

• 25:18Alastair Campbell?

  So you didn't even know where you weren't even you, the close friend of His Majesty, were not even aware that Jonathan Yeo had done this portrait.

• 25:26Rory Stewart?

  No, I think that's splendid.

• 25:28Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think it's.

• 25:28Rory Stewart?

  I think it's splendid. I mean, the only problem is, my father had his portrait painted when he was in his eighties. And he didn't like it at all. He kept saying, I look like I look like an old man. But what is that? You're eighty eight.

• 25:41Alastair Campbell?

  But Charles, but Charles doesn't look, he certainly doesn't look older than he is. And I and I think it's, I think he's got his face really, really.

• 25:47Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's a very, very powerful, very striking.

• 25:49Alastair Campbell?

  What do you make of the red? Is it blood? Is it whales? Is it? What is it? What's going on there?

• 25:55Rory Stewart?

  I don't, what is it? I think it's, I think it's his military jacket.

• 25:59Alastair Campbell?

  The whole thing is red.

• 26:01Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's it's his red military jacket leaking the world. And then there's the butterfly, isn't there?

• 26:05Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 26:05Rory Stewart?

  There's nature and there's maybe a sunset.

• 26:07Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, a bit of nature, definitely a bit of nature. What are the, what are the big news of you missed? Because that was a huge thing. It was all over the news for days.

• 26:14Rory Stewart?

  Oh, I've got, I've missed missed pretty much everything, haven't I? I mean, I didn't know.

• 26:17Alastair Campbell?

  Who's won the Premier League?

• 26:18Rory Stewart?

  I have no idea. He's won the Premier League.

• 26:20Alastair Campbell?

  You don't know who's won the Premier League? You really don't?

• 26:21Rory Stewart?

  No. Who won the Premier League?

• 26:23Alastair Campbell?

  Manchester City.

• 26:24Rory Stewart?

  And what's happened to your team?

• 26:25Alastair Campbell?

  I'm afraid we've been relegated. While you were away, we were officially relegated.

• 26:29Rory Stewart?

  Did David Gork get into this with you on it? Switched town?

• 26:31Alastair Campbell?

  He, they've been promoted.

• 26:32Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Alastair Campbell?

  And he's very happy.

• 26:33Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 26:34Alastair Campbell?

  Um, and Darren Bent was discussed again.

• 26:38Rory Stewart?

  This this this great thing. Okay.

• 26:40Alastair Campbell?

  So you maximum made no, but possible if King Charles were to become debilitated, then Prince William steps up as a Prince Regent. That's what you're saying.

• 26:49Rory Stewart?

  Yes. At Xavier Turner dash X I four E B. Good. It's like a password. And what are your views on the current situation in Wales involving born getting born getting for listeners, the new leader of Wales?

• 27:05Alastair Campbell?

  And the controversy that dogged him during the leadership election, which he won against the his fellow minister, Jeremy Miles, is continuing to dog him.

• 27:15Rory Stewart?

  And this is the one that we talked about where essentially they'd stitched up the electorals around the union.

• 27:19Alastair Campbell?

  No, it was more the fact that he had this donation from somebody who'd been convicted of environmental offences. And it sort of isn't going away. So it's being raised again and again in the Welsh Parliament. And it's just one of those stories that seems to be hanging around him. So I don't know whether at some point he's going. I think he's, I think we're talking about 200,000 quid. But, you know, we'll just have to see whether it's one of those things that blows over and he toughs it out or not.

• 27:47Rory Stewart?

  What's your sense on these kind of scandals? If you were giving professional media advice, how do you know whether a scandal is actually something crippling where eventually, I'm really sorry, you're going to have to step down. This is just getting in the way of everything. Or whether it's, don't worry about it, it'll blow over, it'll be next next morning's fish and chips.

• 28:08Alastair Campbell?

  I think because the pace of the news cycle is now so much faster than it used to be. I think on the one hand, it's possible to survive much more. But on the other hand, if something keeps coming back and keeps coming back and keeps coming back, then it can become, it can become unbearable for the individual.

• 28:28Alastair Campbell?

  And it can become debilitating for the administration. I don't think he's near that yet. I don't think he's remotely near that. But I think that's what his opponents are trying to do. It's exactly what the right wing are trying to do to Angela Rayner in relation to this council.

• 28:39Rory Stewart?

  And what determines whether these things come back and back and back or not?

• 28:42Alastair Campbell?

  Political will, journalism, whether the media keep going at something. I think one of the reasons why this government's got itself into such a mess is because the media has not kept on at stuff, which the public, every time it does come back, are reminded, oh god, yeah, they did that as well. So I think that's why sometimes you can benefit from a more robust media, because once you're through it, in a sense, you can be strengthened by it. Let's say, for example, that this Angela Rayner thing goes nowhere. Because the right have made such a big thing of it, it could ultimately end up strengthening her.

• 29:18Rory Stewart?

  Got you.

• 29:18Alastair Campbell?

  As she comes through it. So it depends. But this one, I think this is one where, because I don't know who's really pushing this, whether it's the media, whether it's his political opponents externally or internally, whether it's a bit of a mix of both. But it's certainly within the Welsh media, it's there as a bit of a cloud over him the whole time.

• 29:39Rory Stewart?

  Right. Okay. So Dutch government, we talks about this incredible result in Holland, where Heert Wilders, who was elected first to the Dutch parliament in 97, who's a classic populist, which as listeners to rest of politics remember, means that he has crazy hair, Donald Trump, Millet in Argentina, Boris Johnson.

• 30:01Alastair Campbell?

  Millet, have you seen what he said about the Spanish Prime Minister's wife?

• 30:04Rory Stewart?

  What did he say about the Spanish?

• 30:04Alastair Campbell?

  So Millet, another, I think you might have just been coming out of the retreat at this point. Millet went to this sort of far-right lovin' in Madrid, hosted by Vox, and he was like, Maloney was there, and Le Pen was there.

• 30:18Rory Stewart?

  And just again to remind people, Vox is the far-right Spanish party, basically dominated by macho cigar-smoking Spaniards.

• 30:26Alastair Campbell?

  With hair.

• 30:27Rory Stewart?

  With hair.

• 30:28Alastair Campbell?

  Some of them are very, very bald, if you notice that. So they've either got very big hair or they're bald.

• 30:32Rory Stewart?

  Or in American populist politics, migrate heroes.

• 30:37Rory Stewart?

  Often go into prison bald, come out with amazing new hair and then re-win their elections as mayor. That was true in Rhode Island, it was true, the very corrupt.

• 30:48Alastair Campbell?

  They go to prison and grow hair.

• 30:50Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so the mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who I just prosecuted for various forms of fraud and corruption, sent to prison, came out of prison again and re-emerged with this incredible sort of lacquered piece.

• 31:08Alastair Campbell?

  Was it a wig?

• 31:08Rory Stewart?

  Well, it's obviously a wig, but it's amazing, the thing, all over.

• 31:11Alastair Campbell?

  You say obviously a wig. I mean, I'm sure you're well aware who Scott Brown is.

• 31:16Rory Stewart?

  I got it.

• 31:16Alastair Campbell?

  Former Celtic and Scotland footballer. He, when he was a player, was completely bald. And he suddenly emerged with a full head of hair. And it's not a wig.

• 31:26Rory Stewart?

  It's not a wig.

• 31:27Alastair Campbell?

  When he was a player, he was one of the most intimidating footballers going. And part of his intimidation was that people thought he was completely bald, shaved head.

• 31:34Rory Stewart?

  Well, no, it's got this hair. Well, no, this guy's no.

• 31:36Alastair Campbell?

  He can live with the mayor of Connecticut.

• 31:38Rory Stewart?

  The guy from Bridgeport is actually terrific. We should talk about him more because he's the guy that he decided to come out of prison, ran again to be mayor. The judge caught him on film with one of his supporters stuffing a ballot box, so suspended the election, held the election again, again stuffing the ballot box, held the election a third time and has won. Anyway, so he's now back in as the mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut. We should interview him because he's the kind of leading politician that we need a good.

• 32:03Alastair Campbell?

  Shall we get back to Hertford?

• 32:05Rory Stewart?

  Lot of hair.

• 32:05Alastair Campbell?

  Shall we get back to the Netherlands?

• 32:06Rory Stewart?

  Back to Hertford. So Hertford, this far-right politician makes outrageous comments about Islam, very much stirs up far-right populace, a sort of marginal figure in Dutch politics, and then managed to get more votes than anybody else in the Dutch election. So he was in a position to form a government. Ba da ba bum. We've now got to a situation of, and here's the question, Tony. Please explain the new Dutch government coalition. Why would Wilders pick a former Labour minister, Ronald Plastak, to be the new PM? And why would Ronalds accept the invite to lead a right wing government?

• 32:40Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, now, first of all, you went off on one so long about the American guy with the hair. I didn't complete my point about Millet.

• 32:48Rory Stewart?

  Oh, yes, yes.

• 32:49Alastair Campbell?

  Millet went to this thing and basically said that the Prime Minister, the Spanish Prime Minister's wife was corrupt.

• 32:55Rory Stewart?

  Oh, right.

• 32:56Alastair Campbell?

  And the Spanish have now called in the Argentine ambassador and complained, formal complaint, and announced essentially that Argentine-Spanish relations are now in the deep freeze.

• 33:09Rory Stewart?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 33:09Alastair Campbell?

  Until Millet apologises. Now, Wilders, so the question, I think if we wind back a few weeks, Rory, you said very confidently on this podcast that there's no way they could stop Wilders being the Prime Minister.

• 33:22Rory Stewart?

  That's true, I did say that. I was wrong.

• 33:24Alastair Campbell?

  And I think, I think I said, I think they'd find it very, very hard to stomach that. So basically, what's happened, he has agreed not to be Prime Minister. He'll obviously be a big player in the background and that four right wing parties have come together and they are going to form the government. There's his party, the far right PVV, there's the farmers' party, BBB, there's the Liberal, WD, and there's the anti-corruption party, NSC. So they have come together and they will be the government. I think they're going to find it very hard to hold this together because you're talking about people who are not used to government. Now, the guy that they're putting in as Prime Minister, as per the question, Ronald Plastak,

• 34:07Alastair Campbell?

  he's a former education and interior minister who is, like a lot of people in politics, has been on something of a journey. And his journey now looks like it might be taking him to the head of the most right wing government in the history of the Netherlands. The question, why has he done that? I think he's done it because, you know, they've asked him to be Prime Minister. And they're going to try, they're trying something quite interesting, which they've not tried for many, many, many decades. It's, in fact, probably over 100 years, where they're going to sort of have a government made up of half politicians, half... Expert outsiders, which is something you've often said you like the idea of. So maybe you should put your name in.

• 34:49Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, then volunteer.

• 34:50Alastair Campbell?

  Go and work for Wilders.

• 34:52Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, absolutely, maybe not. So, and Wilders presumably still has extraordinary influence because he controls that party absolutely.

• 35:01Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely.

• 35:01Rory Stewart?

  His party is one of those odd things that isn't a real political party. It's a bit like Farage's party, it's all one person, Wilders.

• 35:07Alastair Campbell?

  And he also said that, so this is what has held it up, is we're over 200 days. It's been a long time, a fair long time since the election. And this, this thing has been about, you know, these parties saying they will not have him as prime minister. So when he announced the deal, he said, do not forget, I will become Prime Minister of the Netherlands one day with the support of even more Dutch. So he's saying this is the latest chapter on his, his long journey. But I suspect that the, what normally happens when these populist coalitions form is that they fail pretty quickly. We'll see if that happens this time.

• 35:40Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 35:41Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, one for you.

• 35:42Rory Stewart?

  Yes, sir.

• 35:43Alastair Campbell?

  Jonathan Smith, does lack of local and regional newspapers weaken democracy? For example, in our police crime commissioner election, I've no idea who I was voting for, not so much as a leaflet websites, just don't cut it. Very good point, very good point.

• 35:56Rory Stewart?

  It's a hugely important point. So basically Britain has gone from a very, very rich network of regional newspapers and actually regional radio to, you know, strong local BBC stations, this, that and the other. So even as recently as 2010, when I was starting in Cumbria, Cumberland and West Ronald Herald, read by almost everybody in my constituency and would report on the centre of my constituency, 27,000 people. And it did everything from 25 years on in the local school to reporting on the agricultural affairs, but also getting on top of the campaign to save the local fire station or scandals involving me. And, you know, I got to write a column and my opponents got to write columns. And it was a very vigorous thing, right?

• 36:40Rory Stewart?

  By the time I was stepping down, all this stuff was in trouble. Advertising collapsing, these newspapers are beginning to get unified, they're getting thinner and thinner. They have fewer and fewer reporters, the quality is beginning to go down. And the result is that our local democracy really depends on knowing who these people are, following up. You know, it's a scandal in the A and E, do you report on it? Rory Stewart claimed he was going to duel the A sixty six, has he duelled the A sixty six or not? You know, and that stuff's gone. So I think it is a problem. How are you supposed to vote? How are you supposed to hold people to account? Because sure as X is X, the national newspapers are not going to report in detail on the performance of police and crime commissioner in Bradford, are they?

• 37:26Alastair Campbell?

  No, I also, this is something I talked about at this event in Scotland, where we're talking about the different, you know, I think it's a good thing, devolution. And there should be more of it, but people don't fully understand the different layers of our democracy. And if you don't have a kind of media debate that's explaining them, how are we supposed to educate ourselves? And also the point, I think the point that Jonathan makes about about websites is news websites. I mean, so for example, I saw the editor of the Press and Journal up in, who's a paper based in Aberdeen, which actually was one of the first to recognise that the digital route was probably where they were going to go. And they have built up a very, very sizable number of subscribers, which is fine. In most areas, that hasn't happened.

• 38:08Alastair Campbell?

  They've been hit massively by advertising because of the whole sort of Facebook revolution. The newspaper groups have become, you know, the big giants have become owners of more and more local newspapers. They don't really care about the localities, it's just another thing for the bottom line. So I think, I think it's a, it's a terrible danger to our, our democracy. And, you know, I also think that there are, there are huge success stories though. If I look at, you know, the Camden New Journal, we've got two very, very good local papers. We've got the Camden New Journal, which is a very campaigning sort of newspaper, called the Hampstead and Highgate Express, which is a pretty old fashioned, traditional newspaper. And they do, you know, they're proper local newspapers and, and I think we, we lose them at our peril.

• 38:50Alastair Campbell?

  And I think there is however, also this space for kind of more active campaigning, citizen type journalism to come in. But it's not going to replace that old fashioned, here are the eleven candidates, this is what they're saying, this is what they believe. And this is what you've seen of them in the past, you know, the past couple of years, whatever it may be, where they're building a profile.

• 39:09Rory Stewart?

  Well, thank you, Ossie, on that, on the theme of local newspapers. And, and maybe just finish, maybe a little bit of a thought as we go into next section. What could a, given that we agree that they're important, what could an incoming government do to actually be, provide a bit more support for local newspapers, local radio? I mean, I'd like to see, you know, licence fee BBC, really, could you really lean into saying, actually, you've really got to invest in BBC Camry as part of your licence fee agreement?

• 39:37Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that's not happening, is it? They're, they're, they're cutting there as well. Um, yeah, but can you imagine the politics behind governments investing in local newspapers? I mean, they kind of do it in the advertisers.

• 39:48Rory Stewart?

  Maybe give tax breaks, you can give, I mean, I don't know, anyway, something to think about.

• 39:51Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, good. Okay. And don't forget, by the way, before we go, if you haven't already, you must listen to The Rest is Politics US with Anthony Scaramucci and Katty Kay. I've listened to all of them and they are absolutely brilliant and we are very, very glad to have the Mooch and Katty Kay as part of The Rest is Politics family.

• 40:08Rory Stewart?

  It's a great, it's a great privilege. Yeah. Look forward to seeing you again soon.

• 40:11Alastair Campbell?

  See you soon, bye.

• 40:11Rory Stewart?

  Bye.

• 40:19Speaker 03

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

• 40:27Speaker 04

  The Great Game, strategic struggle between Britain and Russia.

• 40:35Speaker 05

  We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian.

• 40:41Speaker 06

  Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

• 40:43Speaker 07

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

• 40:46Speaker 04

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

• 41:00Speaker 06

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 41:02Speaker 04

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

• 41:10Speaker 08

  A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia?

• 41:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 41:17Speaker 08

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• 41:22Speaker 09

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