315. Question Time: Should we fine people for missing doctor's appointments?

Is conflict brewing on the Horn of Africa? Should we fine people for missing hospital appointments? And, why do escalators pose an existential threat to Alastair? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy, a green electricity supplier powering homes across the UK. Use referral code POLITICS after sign up for a chance to win tickets to the TRIP O2 Arena show in October. Learn more at getfuse.com/politics ⚡ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. TRIP TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Assistant Producer: India Dunkley Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Producer: Nicole Maslen and Fiona Douglas 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

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• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creve and of course the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. 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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• 1:55Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to the Rest is Part of This Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 1:58Rory Stewart?

  And me Rory Stewart.

• 1:59Alastair Campbell?

  So Rory, let's start with Caitlin Parker. What are your views on Michel Barnier's appointment as Prime Minister of France? Is he up to the job?

• 2:08Rory Stewart?

  So you know this guy really well. Can I just sort of act as the questioner and the listener here?

• 2:12Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:13Rory Stewart?

  So what we notice here is that Michel Barnier was associated with the right, I mean, what used to be called the goalist parties. He was like a parliamentary aide for various right wing ministers. He served in various right wing governments. So presumably, if you're from the French left who got the most votes or most seats in the parliament out of the last election, you must be completely furious that Macron's rejected the candidate that you've produced from the left and has instead brought in somebody which would be a bit like, I don't know, the Labour Party's views if after they got most seats in parliament, suddenly somebody appointed Jeremy Hunt as the Prime Minister. Is that a dodgy analogy?

• 2:49Alastair Campbell?

  Look, what's happened is that we've talked a lot about the snap election and we've gone through the results, which essentially have ended up with this left alliance having the most seats, but not enough to form a majority and no alliance with which to form a majority. And then this sort of out on the far right, the PENs party, although not doing as well as they expected to after the first round, having a pretty sizable chunk in there. And Macron has to appoint a Prime Minister. That Prime Minister has to form a government and has to try to get a budget through very, very soon. And went through all sorts of

• 3:26Alastair Campbell?

  processes, all sorts of people, and has come up with the one that he thinks might be able to command a majority. The problem, and the reason why the left are, as you rightly say, very, very angry about it, is because what they think he has done in appointing Michel Barnier is deliberately appointing somebody that he hopes Le Pen will not pull the plug on. The problem is Le Pen now, although she didn't, quote, "win the election", This has given her enormous power because the truth is she can pull the plug.

• 4:03Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, because the left's not going to vote for Barney. So the only way he can really operate as Prime Minister is with tacit support from the far right deciding not to vote against him. So presumably Macron had two choices. He could either put his centrist bloc with the left or he could make his centrist bloc depend on the vote from the far right. Why did he decide to make his centrist bloc depend on the vote from the far right rather than making his centrist bloc go into coalition with the left?

• 4:27Alastair Campbell?

  Well, the name that the left put up, Lucy Casta, there was no way he was going to have her, simply because she is, her entire shtick was about undermining the basic reforms that he's been taking through. Added to which, this is his attempt, I hesitate to use Theresa Bay's strong and stable formulation, it's an attempt to get some sort of stability. And he would argue, I think, that any of the other groupings would not have worked. But the reason why the left up in arms about it is because, as you say, they don't think this reflects sufficiently the outcome of the election. Now, what Barney has to do, and what he'll try and do in the next few days, he is a very, very skillful political

• 5:10Alastair Campbell?

  figure. And I do think actually his, his role having held 27 European governments together whilst up against this never-endingly changing group of people and policies on the Brexit side of negotiations, he did a pretty good job of holding those 27 together. He's a good listener, he's a detailed person, he's somebody who, he has had some pretty choice things to say about Macron in the past, but he's somebody who I suspect will spend an awful lot of time sitting down for a long time with people who wouldn't necessarily consider him to be a political ally. His job is now to try to form a government. Key appointment is going to be the Finance Minister. Don't know who that's going to be. And again, will

• 5:52Alastair Campbell?

  he go left? Will he go right? Probably go, try and go somewhere in the middle. But then he has to form a government, they have to get a budget through Parliament. It's going to be very, very, very, very fraught. I would argue he's got one of the most difficult jobs in the world right now.

• 6:06Rory Stewart?

  And then get the budget through the EU and deal with the fact that France has got a budget deficit much bigger than the EU allows and its rules and all sort of stuff.

• 6:13Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 6:14Rory Stewart?

  So tell us a little bit about Michel Barnier. He ran, didn't he, at one point to be president, where he sounded like he was going quite right wing. He was making some quite sort of tough statements about immigration and obviously he came from a right wing party initially.

• 6:27Alastair Campbell?

  Remember we interviewed him for leading, you were abroad.

• 6:31Rory Stewart?

  I was virtual and you were with him, but we were both there, yeah.

• 6:33Alastair Campbell?

  And yeah, I've got to know him reasonably well. In fact, Fiona and I had a bit of time with him at his house in France last summer. And he's, look, he is pretty right wing. I think that stance on immigration that he took, I think it was twofold. I think one, that was him as he was trying to get the nomination for his party, signalling he was going to be tough on immigration. I think it may be one of the factors that Macron weighed up in deciding to to call him in. He didn't really feature much in the in the runners and riders. He's somebody who, I remember when we were at his house, he's got a very, very nice wife who's pretty glamorous, but very, very down to earth. And he was somebody who, you know, because you do, when you saw him in the Brexit negotiations, I think you saw somebody who was

• 7:19Alastair Campbell?

  very protocol, very quite austere.

• 7:22Rory Stewart?

  He looks very smart, doesn't he?

• 7:23Alastair Campbell?

  He's very, very, he's got smart white hair, very, very well dressed, but very, very polite, very polite. Even when he was dealing with the sort of, you know, the shambles of some of the secretaries of state he had to deal with on Brexit. Very, very polite, very measured. The time I saw him really expressing a bit of passion was when he was showing around his office and all these sort of, you know, pictures on the wall and what have you. And the ones that he really, really, really clearly got emotional about were about when he won the Olympics for Albertville, which is the the town in the Alps where he was born in the Alps. He was put in charge of getting the Olympics.

• 8:02Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 8:03Alastair Campbell?

  So it was quite, it was nice. I don't know if you watched the Paralympic closing ceremony, Rory, I suspect you were busy. But Macron, who got booed. Um, slightly, but they're right behind him in the shop was Barnier, who has suddenly gone from essentially being, you know, somewhat in retirement to now being the Prime Minister. I think, look, I think it's going to be a very, very tough job. I think whoever got that job, it was going to be difficult to do it for the long term. But I think the more I thought about it when he appointed him, I think he's got as good a chance as anyone of making it work because of the skills he's developed over a lifetime.

• 8:39Rory Stewart?

  Two quick things. I mean, obviously you're going to have to get us Gabriel Attal now to be in feud on leading. So that's, that's your task for the task for the month. Second thing is I don't get why Marine Le Pen would vote for him. I would have thought if you were Marine Le Pen on the far right in France, all your interests, because what you care about is being president next time round, is staying as far away from the shambles of a government as you possibly can. You don't want to be in the position of the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg of being a minority, voting to support a government and then taking the blame for what they do.

• 9:10Alastair Campbell?

  Well, look, what Le Pen has always done is sort of play the long game quietly. She's not been making a big fuss through this whole thing. Elise gave the impression that she'd sort of signaled, yeah, we'll go with Barnier. She's denied having had any conversation about that at all. I think she'll enjoy the sense of being very, very powerful without actually having to do very much and watch whilst the Macron government tries to form, tries to get a budget through. And then she'll be sitting there hoping that it's a complete mess. It's interesting. You mentioned Attal. I mean, Attal, I am sure now will go away and start to think about how he might make a pitch for the presidency at the next election. Because he has actually, he is widely considered to have done a pretty good job.

• 9:54Alastair Campbell?

  And he's actually in the polling in France and they're obsessed with polls in France. But he's doing pretty well. He may end up coming out reasonably well from this, but we'll see. Now, Tova Wang, what are the implications of Dick Cheney backing Kamala Harris?

• 10:08Rory Stewart?

  Well, I don't think Dick Cheney backing Kamala Harris, surprising though it is, is going to make very much difference to anyone, really. I don't think Dick Cheney has a big natural constituency left. His daughter, Liz Cheney, on the other hand, I think has been a courageous, outspoken, appealing voice to the Republican right. I'm more worried by Elon Musk endorsing Trump because despite our views on Elon Musk, what of course you pick up very quickly on Twitter is he has a massive fan base, particularly of young men who believe that because he's the richest man in the world, he's the smartest man in the world and like nothing more than sharing weird fake handwritten slides of seven leadership lessons from Elon Musk.

• 10:49Rory Stewart?

  And Musk now saying he's going to reform government efficiency potentially gives permission for some of these kind of business types to be like, well, I'm not sure I really like Trump, but you know, if he's bringing in Musk to sort out the efficiency of government. So I am a bit worried about that.

• 11:04Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, look, there's no doubt he's got a massive following. As we said last week, he sort of bombards Twitter with his own views. He can get attention for anything that he says or does. He posted a truly ridiculous picture of himself with these huge letters, D O G E, Department of Government Efficiency. I think that you're probably right about Cheney. I don't know if you've seen the latest campaign ad that the Harris campaign has put out is a collection of comments from, it's got Mike Pence, it's got Milley, the former head of the military, it's got the guy, the former Defence Secretary, who's done an interview on CNN, saying that the nation's security is at risk with Trump. It's got John Bolton, Trump's security adviser. They're running this line that, the caption is, "Take it from the people who work for

• 11:49Alastair Campbell?

  him. Donald Trump is a danger to our troops, our security, our democracy." There surely must be, it's not that long ago historically, that Bush and Cheney were in charge and had very, very big support. I mean, Cheney was the original neo-conservative. He's like one of the guys on the sort of, on the staging from Reaganism to Trump. So he can't be, surely he's not completely irrelevant?

• 12:14Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I suppose that's right. It's just, I mean, I suppose the question is really all comes down to these key swing voters. I've been talking to democratic organisers here in the States over the last few days, and my goodness, we're getting into funny, funny games. The amount of money going into targeting just 100, 150,000 people who could decide this election.

• 12:33Alastair Campbell?

  Well, thank God for that.

• 12:34Rory Stewart?

  So little of it, though, seems to be about policy. The basic belief in US politics at the moment is that it's all about peer pressure. So in America, unlike in Britain, the information on whether or not you voted is public. So a lot of the communication now is about reaching out to people who you think are sympathetic towards you, and obviously avoiding the people you think might vote the other way, and trying to guilt trip them. You know, your neighbours voted, your friends voted, why haven't you voted yet? And they can do that in the primaries, they can do that in postal votes, and obviously they'll do that on the final day. Just before we leave America, we did have a question from somebody asking about how the electoral college works. This is Gillian Booth. Still can't get my head around how the American Electoral College works. Seems such a strange system compared to the Australian electoral system.

• 13:19Rory Stewart?

  Can you do a, for our less informed listeners, explanation illuminate this for an old Aussie? So in 48 of the states plus the District of Columbia, there's a winner takes all system, which means that if you get first past the post in a state, you get all the electors from that state coming in behind you. And the number of electors that each state has is roughly proportional to its population, but it favours the smaller states because you get a minimum number of electors in the smaller states. And the reason that this is absolutely vital, and the reason that the entire US election is coming down to seven or probably more likely three or even one state, is that if you can narrowly squeak through with, you know, even 10,000 votes in Pennsylvania, you can swing the whole

• 14:04Rory Stewart?

  thing. And the final thing to understand about Electoral College is in the very unlikely situation that you have, although not completely unlikely, given where we are on the polls, that you have a tie in the Electoral College, it then goes through to Congress to determine who becomes president, which is where it will really matter who's got the votes and the House of Representatives.

• 14:23Alastair Campbell?

  Just to let people know that the numbers and the states that we'll all be talking about on the night, Pennsylvania is the one that everybody talks about as being the most key. That's got 19, Wisconsin 10.

• 14:35Alastair Campbell?

  Michigan 15, North Carolina 16, Georgia 16, Nevada 6, Arizona 11. But I think Pennsylvania is going to be absolutely key. They are spending, both sides are spending an absolute fortune, as you say. But of all the money, I mean, Harris is out fundraising by a factor of almost three to one at the moment. But I'm pleased, if Roy, if they're saying to you that they're putting all that money into small numbers of people and targeted advertising because, you know, they have to do these big nationwide stuff, but ultimately there are so many places where everybody knows that what the result's going to be, as we talked to Frank Luntz about that on Leading recently, where he says, you know, you know who's going to win California, you know who's going to

• 15:17Alastair Campbell?

  win Alabama and, you know, the rest, that's where you fight.

• 15:21Rory Stewart?

  Alice, a question for you. Alex Croftson, why is it that there is often such a large divergence between polls and betting markets? What does each tell us? For example, right now, many polls have Harris's pulling ahead, but the betting markets have Trump as the favourite 53 to 46. Any thoughts on this and maybe explain a bit to listeners what, how these betting markets work?

• 15:41Alastair Campbell?

  I'm not a big better, but I think that the betting markets are often more a reflection of where money is being placed. So that might be the fact that somebody might want to manipulate the betting markets to get the odds changed, but also there may well be a lot of kind of people who bet on politics who just, you know, who want Trump to win. The big betters, they are absolutely fixated upon the outcome. We interviewed Nate Silver recently and that'll be out on Leading soon. And he was making the point that in this election, it's going to be so close, he's not sure actually he's going to bet on it. But where the big betters go, they will be putting huge sums of money on, often at very,

• 16:27Alastair Campbell?

  very, very, very small odds. Okay? But what I think the betting markets here are being driven by probably is a combination of the chatter, the polls and where the bets are going. People don't necessarily bet according to what the polls are saying. Does that make sense?

• 16:42Rory Stewart?

  Got you. Here's a question that came to you from someone that you actually met called Casbury Lewis. Alistair, we met at ULCH a few weeks ago. We had a lovely chat about Timpson. So that's James Timpson, the prison minister, who incidentally just rung me an hour ago and who's looking forward to coming on the podcast. He's the man that ran this amazing business that employs ex-fenders, who's now the Minister of State for Justice. Corbyn and the NHS, everything in between. My question is, would you be in support of some potentially means tested fee for missed hospital appointments? It's disgraceful that, particularly when the NHS is on its knees, over 120 million appointments are missed every year. So let's say, Alistair, why wouldn't you support people being charged, I don't know, five or 10 pounds for a missed appointment?

• 17:26Alastair Campbell?

  I remember meeting this gentleman and I also remember the chat. And that same day, the doctor that I was seeing was complaining to me about how many missed appointments they're having to deal with. I was actually, because I, you know, I would try everything not to miss an appointment. But I was saying, actually, I found it incredible that I get, I get a letter, I get an email, I get a text message, and I get a message on an app to remind me about my appointment. And quite often, I've been getting phone calls to remind me of an appointment. And I kept saying to people, isn't this a sort of huge waste of money to have all this sort of these different ways to remind people they've got an appointment? And they were saying, well, it's because we've got so many missed appointments at the moment.

• 18:06Rory Stewart?

  Well, so if we could charge 10 pounds per appointment, we'd be able to generate 1.2 billion pounds a year off these missed appointments. So why not?

• 18:13Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but hold on a minute. How much do these systems cost to chase down 10 pounds an appointment? I don't know.

• 18:18Rory Stewart?

  Some countries obviously charge a minimal amount for an appointment of any sort in the first place, whether you miss it or not. And the idea, I suppose, is that if you charge people a little bit. They're more likely to value the appointment and they may be more likely to turn up. So even if it was a national sum like, I don't know, five pounds or something. I notice you're slightly avoiding this. Is this because you feel this is a massive political bomb and that if you supported any form of charging?

• 18:45Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I don't think my view would necessarily indicate anything about what Labour would do. I did notice Keir Starmer emphasising the importance of reform. Now, at some point, they may have to look at all sorts of different funding issues. I don't know. I, as a human being, who basically supports the NHS and thinks that our doctors and nurses do an incredibly difficult job under massive stress, facing often quite a lot of angry people. I just think that people should, if they have an appointment and they've agreed to that appointment. I'd like it to be easier to change the appointment. I quite often find it a real struggle to change an appointment. You get the text message, you get the letter, then trying to change it can be quite tricky. But I think on balance, I would.

• 19:28Alastair Campbell?

  But I'd love to know how much it would cost and whether we'd have a system that would do it without actually ending up costing us even more. Now, Rory.

• 19:35Rory Stewart?

  Yes.

• 19:35Alastair Campbell?

  This question is from somebody called Anthony Save the NHS. If you're going to get questions from people who are directed at me, this was very much for you. When Rory is on Radio 4, he uses a perfect received pronunciation accent. When he does the Rest is Politics podcast, he reverts to a mid-Atlantic twang, dropping end consonants. Is this him trying to appeal to American listeners? I don't notice that, but I have noticed that when you're on Radio 4, you will say party. But when you're, I notice this in Chicago, you will say pudde.

• 20:11Rory Stewart?

  Maybe it's just I'm a weird sort of mimic of the other person. Well, I'm not obviously mimicking you, but maybe my mid-Atlantic twang is some sort of weird attempt to adjust to Alistair. I don't know.

• 20:22Alastair Campbell?

  Do you recognise Anthony Save the NHS's point?

• 20:24Rory Stewart?

  I've been mocked for this for a long time.

• 20:26Alastair Campbell?

  Have you?

• 20:26Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah. It is also true I'm married to an American.

• 20:29Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Rory Stewart?

  And it's also true that my kids can literally change from a complete American accent to a complete British accent, depending on who they're talking to.

• 20:36Alastair Campbell?

  But do you think when you're on the BBC, because he specifically mentioned Radio 4, do you think when you're on the BBC, it speaks to something very British within you and you have to speak like a true Brit?

• 20:47Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it could be that.

• 20:48Alastair Campbell?

  All right, Rory, quick break and then we'll come back with more questions.

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• 22:41Rory Stewart?

  So, Daher, hey Rory and Alistair. Have you been following the recent tensions between Somalia and Ethiopia? What do you think about Egypt's involvement in the crisis? What are your thoughts? Over to you.

• 22:51Alastair Campbell?

  Well, this is another one that is sort of massively important.

• 22:56Alastair Campbell?

  But doesn't seem to be getting that much attention at all. So essentially what's happened is that Ethiopia landlocked since Eritrea moved off after a pretty brutal war that I covered back in the eighties, I think it was, becomes landlocked, wants access to the sea, does a deal with Somaliland, does a 50-year lease on a naval base, but of course, Somaliland is a breakaway territory from Somalia. The deal, in quotes, unspoken, partly spoken, is in exchange for getting the access to the sea and the ability to build a port, they're basically are leasing 12 miles of

• 23:37Alastair Campbell?

  coastline from Somaliland, that they will recognise Somaliland. Somalia therefore, very, very, very unhappy, kick out the ambassador, shut down their consulate, and meanwhile, now Egypt, big power, big country, has decided to give them support. So thereby, it's all getting a little bit tense.

• 24:05Rory Stewart?

  It gets even more complicated because all these other players, Qatar, UAE, Turkey, to name three, also back different provinces within Somalia. And Somaliland itself, I mean, I visited Somaliland and Somalia, and Somaliland, in many ways, has been a success story, been much more peaceful than the rest of Somalia, has done better in terms of its administration, in terms of holding elections, in terms of economic development. A lot of very prominent British Somalis are from Somaliland and are very sympathetic towards Britain recognising Somaliland's independence, which, which the world has tended to hold off from doing because they're very worried that Somalia's going to disintegrate further. And this question of these policies around ports and roads

• 24:49Rory Stewart?

  all the way down the Horn of Africa is vital because you've got China investing in ports, you've got UAE investing in ports, you've got other Gulf countries investing in ports, and as you say, Ethiopia, all of them trying to get access to that coastline. And in the case of Djibouti, I think they've managed to sell part of their port to the French, part to the Americans, part to the Chinese and part to UAE.

• 25:10Alastair Campbell?

  I think Djibouti is the only place outside China where China now has a military base.

• 25:14Rory Stewart?

  Right. It's certainly got a Chinese military base, along with everybody else's military base as well.

• 25:18Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. So Egypt has now sent a couple of C-130 military airplanes to Mogadishu. They're planning to send Five thousand soldiers in the short term to support an African Union force. Somalia and Ethiopia, constant war of words about this. But it's, you know, I'd say it's quite tense. And Turkey, interesting how often Turkey sort of pops on these things. Turkey has been the one that's been trying to sort of broker some kind of calm down agreement.

• 25:49Rory Stewart?

  Well, definitely worth keeping an eye on Somalia.

• 25:51Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, Carolina Mertes, can you please speak about the recent situation in Venezuela? And what the realistic chances are of the opposition between Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado restoring democracy, especially since Gonzalez has now taken asylum in Spain. Well, I fear that you've answered your own question there, Carolina.

• 26:09Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's been a real blow. People were hopeful, just to remind people, we covered the Venezuelan election in quite a lot of detail. But it's pretty clear that the opposition won the election and that Maduro effectively stole it. And there was hope coming off this, that there would be a negotiated settlement, particularly led by people like Brazil. Lula in Brazil, slightly more sympathetic towards Maduro, was seen as a negotiator who might be able to get some sort of deal or coalition going between Maduro's government and the opposition. But this flight, after Gonzalez had taken refuge in the Argentine embassy, with him now going to Spain, feels to people as though that's sadly the opposition

• 26:53Rory Stewart?

  giving up on that process and effectively Maduro being, at least for the time, being reinforced in power.

• 27:00Alastair Campbell?

  I mentioned in the main podcast, the chat we had with Anne Applebaum, and interesting observation she makes about Venezuela. So we assume, so you were there talking about Lula, and we'll talk about, you know, the American reaction, European Union reaction, whatever it might be. But she now talks about this as being like a network of countries where when an autocrat does something as brazen as this, comprehensively lose an election, refuse to release the data of the results, but just say that you've won it. But then support comes in all sorts of ways from the other autocrats and autocratic regimes of the world. It must be unbelievably heartrending, frustrating to to live in a country where you've, like

• 27:43Alastair Campbell?

  Gonzalez, helped by Machado, you've won an election. And the the end result is that you're being hunted down by the police, security forces are going to do whatever they do to you. And you have to get on a plane and and go and take asylum in Spain. It's absolutely horrific.

• 27:58Rory Stewart?

  Very sad. Final question from me. Georgie Maynard. Paralympics GB have demonstrated overcoming challenges and achieving huge success in Paris. How have they achieved this notable success? And who, person, party, organisation, needs to learn the most from the team and their approach?

• 28:15Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I have been following the Paralympics quite closely. My son Callum makes films about Paralympics and they won an Emmy last year for the first one, The Rising Phoenix, and they're in the middle of making another one now. And I've absolutely loved the Paralympics. GB have got, they came second in the medals table behind China. China were way ahead of everybody. But to come second is pretty remarkable. Forty nine gold medals. I think 2012, London 2012, I think was a key moment. I think that was, you know, that was the first Paralympics where people saw full stadiums, they saw amazing achievement, the whole country got stuck in. I think we've got to give a big shout out to John Major's government.

• 28:57Alastair Campbell?

  I can't remember exactly what year, was it 1993 when the National Lottery?

• 29:02Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Alastair Campbell?

  Was formed.

• 29:04Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 29:05Alastair Campbell?

  And the National Lottery has been a huge funder. And I'll tell you what's been amazing, virtually every medal winner who's done an interview has mentioned the National Lottery.

• 29:14Rory Stewart?

  That's great.

• 29:15Alastair Campbell?

  Well, when we talk about learning things, Roy, that says to me, there is a spin doctor working for the Paralympics GB who is saying to the before they do, everyone, make sure you mention lottery. But I'll tell you where I think government can learn from this. Just think about it. Investing in the long term. In good people to deliver clearly set objectives by giving them the support that they need. That is the lesson of the Paralympics, and I think it's been absolutely brilliant.

• 29:41Rory Stewart?

  To be applied to the UK water sector.

• 29:43Alastair Campbell?

  And indeed, to all sorts of other major challenges that we face.

• 29:47Rory Stewart?

  Let me ask you a final question. You've told us about your ketchup fear, but we've had a question coming in asking whether you have any particular phobias or fears. So apart from your famous fear of ketchup, are there any other things that you are rationally anxious about?

• 30:01Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think my ketchup fear is entirely rational. I have a pathological fear of being late. I have recurring dreams about being stuck on escalators. So sometimes if I get on an escalator, I just get a little sort of sense of this escalator is going to stop and it's going to be symbol, become a symbol of a stopped life. But apart from that, no, I'm very, very normal.

• 30:22Rory Stewart?

  Yes, completely normal. Right. Great. I don't think I have really weird fears. The only time I've been aware of something powerful like that is when I was 10 or 11, I went to stay with my friend, Thomas Grochran, whose father worked in Strasbourg for the European Court of Human Rights. And I went on to the roof of the cathedral at Strasbourg, and I felt that I was being dragged to the edge. It's incredibly powerful sense in the centre that I was being sort of pulled off the edge of the cathedral roof.

• 30:49Alastair Campbell?

  Do you get vertigo?

• 30:50Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so that was vertigo. And I haven't really had it since. And when I went back as a minister to Strasbourg, I went up onto the roof to see if it was still there. And it wasn't. I was able to stand on the roof fine. But as a child, yeah, that was my really powerful experience of vertigo, that sense that a magnet was dragging me off the edge of the roof.

• 31:06Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, Lord, that would be very nice. There we go. So me, it's ketchup, and you, it's vertigo. We're both very normal.

• 31:11Rory Stewart?

  Very good. All right. Have a great weekend, Alison. Bye bye.

• 31:47Speaker 06

  Espolone Tequila. Balanced, delicious. 100% agave, 0% ego. Just add ice, lime, and your mouth. For real margarita, ride the rooster.