364. Question Time: America’s waning power, Alastair vs. Meta, and the existential threat of depopulation

Musk, Zuckerberg, and Trump – who’s controlling who? Does populist isolationism actually make a country weaker? Could Farage actually be Prime Minister by 2029? 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 England, Scotland & Wales. Use referral code POLITICS after signing up for your chance to win a TRIP merch bundle. Learn more at GetFuse.com/Politics EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/therestispolitics Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Don't go dry this January with Bulldog Moisturisers 💧 Discover the range online here: https://www.boots.com/bulldog/bulldog-skincare?criteria.product_type=moisturiser *subject to availability 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. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Assistant Producers: India Dunkley, Evan Green Video Editor: Joshua Smith Social Producer: Jess Kidson Producers: Nicole Maslen, 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

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

• 0:03Alastair Campbell?

  The Rest Is Politics is powered by our friends at Fuse Energy.

• 0:07Rory Stewart?

  And there's still time to win one of our merch bundles, signed by Alastair and me, if you switch energy suppliers to Fuse by the end of January.

• 0:15Alastair Campbell?

  All you've got to do is go to getfuse.com/politics and use the referral code POLITICS to sign up. And merch on no merch, it is worth considering switching to Fuse. They're a green electricity supplier, generating power from their own solar and wind farms, and they invest 100% of profits into building more renewables.

• 0:37Rory Stewart?

  Their tariffs are cheaper than any of the big six competitors, so you'll still be saving money, even though the price cap has gone up. And their customer service is excellent. Fuse offer 24/7 support and promise they'll answer any query within a minute on the Fuse app.

• 0:50Alastair Campbell?

  So download it now, use the referral code POLITICS after signing up. Visit getfuse.com/politics for terms and conditions and to learn all you need to know.

• 1:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 1:07Alastair 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.

• 1:19Rory 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, and 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.

• 1:43Alastair Campbell?

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

• 1:50Rory 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.

• 2:06Speaker 02

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• 2:44Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 2:47Rory Stewart?

  And with me, Rory Stewart.

• 2:48Alastair Campbell?

  Now Rory, a question here from Simon Hood, who I think is one of our Rest is Politics members. You can become a member, just go to therestispolitics.com. What are your thoughts on South Korea's institutional response to an existential threat to the rule of law, particularly when contrasted to recent developments in the US, a much older democracy where they've struggled to deal with one? I mean, South Korea is still going on this thing with the president.

• 3:09Rory Stewart?

  It's amazing, isn't it? Quick reminder of what happened over the last couple of weeks. So, the president of South Korea declared martial law. The parliament and the opposition responded by issuing an impeachment order for the prime minister's arrest and his arrest. The police turned up to try to arrest the president of South Korea and his bodyguards then formed around the presidential mansion and didn't let the police in because it was going to be a standoff. And then finally, the military rolled in with special forces and other units to arrest the president. Now, I was just trying to get my head around this because South Korea is, of course, one

• 3:53Rory Stewart?

  of the wealthiest, most developed countries in the world. You know, we've talked about K-culture and K-drama and K-pop. Its GDP per capita is mesmerizingly high. It's one of the most amazing economic success stories and it graduated from being an authoritarian, military-dominated state in the 1980s into a democracy. And it's a key ally of the US and the West. So this is a bit of a sort of revelation that whatever South Korea is, it's not quite Kansas or not quite the Kansas of the 1950s, maybe more the Kansas under Donald Trump because you can't quite imagine this happening in Britain or Italy.

• 4:40Rory Stewart?

  It feels a little bit more like the kind of story that might come out of Latin America.

• 4:46Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 4:46Rory Stewart?

  And I guess, I guess one theme in it is that it implies that things aren't quite clear yet in the constitution. You know, who gets to declare martial law? Who gets to impeach who? What's the president's power? What's the parliament's power? And who does the military listen to?

• 5:06Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 5:06Rory Stewart?

  And when do the tanks roll out?

• 5:08Alastair Campbell?

  It's still not entirely clear to me what the, the prime motivation was for the, for the initial order of martial law, which is what led to the protest and led to his being taken through this constitutional process. So he's now being investigated by the Corruption Investigation Office for High Ranking Officials, called the CIO. He'll only be removed from office, there's a stand-in president there at the moment. He only gets removed from office if a constitutional court upholds the impeachment. And that, again, is a bit like the American system, that depends on kind of who's sitting on the court at the time. But I guess the point you're making is that I think insofar as, you know, South Korea impinges upon us, we know about it in relation to the, its divisions with North Korea, but also it is sort of seen as one as an economic success story.

• 5:53Alastair Campbell?

  And normally with economic success stories, you have a sense of political stability. And what this has shown is a, a sense of pretty profound political instability.

• 6:01Rory Stewart?

  And at quite a dangerous time because it's difficult to know how this will play out. But clearly there are two factions and there are different people with guns on either side. It may well calm down, but if I were the ambassador in South Korea, I would be a bit anxious about what this suggests might happen over the next few months. And I'd also be a bit anxious about whether North Korea, which is of course, sitting just on the other side of the border with 25,000 American soldiers in between, might not use this moment of uncertainty and instability in the South Korean government to try something. Hostages, land grab, missile tests, and particularly to do it at a moment where there's a new, very uncertain Trump government.

• 6:44Rory Stewart?

  Coming in in the US. Final thing on South Korea before we move on. We've talked about demography and I hope we're going to probably do a bigger, bigger show on what's happening to world population, which is one of the biggest stories. But South Korea is the most dramatic, almost example in the world. Its birth rate has dropped. Replacement is obviously about just over 2%. You know, two people need to have just over two kids for your population to remain stable. In South Korea, the birth rate is 0.7%. Its population is currently projected to shrink from 51 million to 28 million by the end of the century. So basically its population's going to halve.

• 7:21Alastair Campbell?

  I think at some point we should do a really big thing on depopulation. I think it's one of those massive themes that people aren't really focused on in the way that they should be in politics. Now Rory, we had, we had a bit of a chuckle with Tom Fletcher on leading about perishing the thought that you and I could ever, and he could ever be smug and self-complacent and self-satisfying. So let's take a critical question. David Crabb, Rory and Alistair, you both harp on about political integrity, yet you've been part of the very establishment that has eroded public trust. Is this podcast your attempt at redemption or just another ego trip? I think David's a big fan. What do you make of that?

• 7:55Rory Stewart?

  It's interesting, isn't it? Because it sort of echoes that, that statement in the Trump second inaugural, where he talks about a radical and corrupt establishment extracting wealth, power from our citizens. I mean, it's part of the whole style of new politics, isn't it? This, this general sense that we're suffering from a corrupt elite. I mean, yes, the public is dismayed by politics. Yes, incumbents are being defeated. Is the podcast our attempt at redemption or just another ego trip? I'm not sure it's quite either of those things. And I'm not sure it's directly connected to this question of how governments restore public trust. But partly the problem is the expectations from the public about what governments can do.

• 8:39Rory Stewart?

  Are completely out of whack with the reality and people are perpetually disappointed, infuriated and looking for more and more radical solutions.

• 8:46Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I mean, I get where he's coming from. I think it is, as you say, part of the whole sort of anti-politics mood. And we are, because of our backgrounds, probably still seen much more as political figures than what I know you would love to be seen at, which is a public intellectual.

• 9:03Rory Stewart?

  That's right.

• 9:03Alastair Campbell?

  I know, but you love that phrase.

• 9:07Rory Stewart?

  Do you have ever wanted to be a public intellectual? Or is that something that fills you with horror?

• 9:10Alastair Campbell?

  It does fit with horror, but I think that the point about is a podcast you're attempting redemption? No, just another ego trip. Well, I think we're all driven to some extent by ego. I think it's quite nice when lots of people listen. It's quite nice when you do big events and, you know, sell out the O2 and that sort of stuff. I mean, we'd be lying if you said that there wasn't an element of ego to this. But from my perspective, I don't think I'm corrupt. I find it very hard to see myself as part of the establishment, even though I probably am. I think one of the reasons, for example, why I've never accepted an honour is because I want to hold on to the idea of being anti-establishment. I don't at the moment. I can see how the UK political establishment is sort of, you

• 9:55Alastair Campbell?

  know, pussyfooting around, saying we have to say that Donald Trump's better than people think and blah, blah, blah. I don't feel I have to do that. But I think we both want to have an influence on political debate. I remember Al Gore used to once said to me that about on the speaking circuit that we all sort of, you know, do a bit of as well when you leave the sort of political front line. And he said, you know, it's basically, it's basically white collar crime. And I said, well, I prefer to see it as a lucrative way of pretending that you're still relevant. So I think there's a bit of all of that.

• 10:29Rory Stewart?

  Well, the thing I'm most proud of on the podcast, just quickly, is I think when we are honest about what we don't know, what we get wrong, I love the bit that you did last week where you talked through all the Predictions would have been made in nineteen hundred, nineteen ten, nineteen twenty, a story of how everybody gets things wrong perpetually. And I do like that because what I think we're trying to do is bring people into a more realistic conversation about how complicated the world is and how even if people are trying hard and concentrating hard, there are many things that you get wrong all the time. And it would be lovely if we could develop that more in the culture because what I noticed,

• 11:10Rory Stewart?

  particularly obviously on Twitter, is people are so delighted when we get something wrong and they tend to assume that they've never got anything wrong in their own lives.

• 11:18Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Well, Rory, you know, you did your thing about social media and you said all these people saying that you're a wimp and you're not a real man and blah, blah, blah. I got an email from a guy who said he'd looked at your feed and he looked at all these responses. And he said, by his calculation, the vast majority came from bots.

• 11:36Rory Stewart?

  Ah.

• 11:37Alastair Campbell?

  So don't, don't overstate it. By the way, I'm glad you liked that, the Lin Wells memo.

• 11:43Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 11:44Alastair Campbell?

  We're reprinting the whole thing in the New European this week. And my friend, Tommy Vita, who used to work for Barack Obama, he said, I see you taking an interest in Rumsfeld memos. And he sent me this one that Rumsfeld wrote to his undersecretary of defence for policy, Doug Feath, in two thousand and three. And it's titled, Issues with Various Countries. Okay. This will literally take me less than a minute to read. This is Rumsfeld. We need more coercive diplomacy on Syria and Libya. We need it fast. If they mess up Iraq, it will delay bringing our troops home. We need to solve the Pakistan problem and Korea doesn't seem to be going well. Are you coming up with proposals for me to send around? Thanks. I mean, it's terrifying.

• 12:24Rory Stewart?

  Rumsfeld is amazing. I knew Rumsfeld a little bit, as I guess you will have done too. And he was an astonishing figure. I mean, firstly, he was the youngest ever secretary of defence, so he'd been secretary of defence since the seventies.

• 12:36Alastair Campbell?

  And he was the oldest.

• 12:37Rory Stewart?

  And then the oldest.

• 12:38Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 12:39Rory Stewart?

  And of course, he spent the intervening thirty years thinking about what he'd failed to do first time he was secretary of defence. So he came in with a very radical view on how it's going to turn around. His, whatever you think of Rumsfeld, if you're interested in politics, his autobiography is really worth reading. It's short, it's crisp, it's self-reflective. He's, I mean, he's obviously one of the most controversial hated figures in, in American politics, but I think he's also a very, very substantial. Interesting person. And actually, that memo that he sent to George W. Bush, where he's basically saying, you're asking me to predict the next 10 years. I don't have a clue, relates to his stuff about known unknowns, unknown unknowns.

• 13:18Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was also the only one, apart from Cheney, that I think George Bush allowed into meetings if he was late. Most people weren't allowed in if they were late. But I think Bumsfeld was allowed to sneak into the back.

• 13:29Rory Stewart?

  Okay, now, on the theme of getting things wrong, in the last podcast, I was having a go Meta, which is the Facebook parent, about them getting rid of fact checkers. And Meta has got back in touch to challenge what I was saying. And they've pointed out that I said that they were getting rid of 40,000 odd fact checkers, and that this was not true, and that I'd said they were getting rid of algorithms, and this was not true. So let me firstly apologize. The answer is that I can't stand up that figure, and I totally take down that figure. So to explain what's happening with the fact checkers, their fact checking system,

• 14:14Rory Stewart?

  as far as I can work out, which was launched on Facebook in 2016, relied on third-party fact checkers certified by something called the International Fact Checking Network, and it included more than 90 organizations that would fact check posts in more than 60 languages. And in the United States, included groups such as PolitiFact and factcheck.org. And again, I'm often be challenged by Meta, but the story that was run in most of the press is that they were spending about $100 million funding these organizations, and they ceased the funding. So he's going to allow in more debate around immigration, gender, and he says the reality is it's a trade-off. And this is Zuckerberg's words, we're going

• 14:57Rory Stewart?

  to catch less bad stuff, but we'll also reduce the number of innocent people's posts and accounts that we accidentally take down. Now, I continue to believe this is a big mistake.

• 15:09Rory Stewart?

  That he was right to be veering on the side of caution. This is a reversal of eight years of Meta policy and it's strongly, strongly influenced by pressure from Trump and Musk and this whole idea, particularly on, you know, taking off moderation on things like immigration and gender. It's very much tying with Trump's executive orders.

• 15:30Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think you're being unbelievably generous. I read the rebuttal that Meta said, and it's not the first time that they've complained about things that we've said. It always amazes me how these great champions and fighters for free speech really don't like it when you say things about them that they don't like. Now, you've been gracious enough to say that on a factual point, you said something that was incorrect and you've corrected that. But on the bigger political point, here at The Rest Is Politics, having seen the changes and also having seen the pathetic presentation of them by Zuckerberg. Be honest, just be honest. Say, look, you know, Elon Musk is ahead of the game on this. He's right up Trump's backside and I can't afford to be too far behind him. So I'm going to get in there as well.

• 16:15Alastair Campbell?

  So yeah, I'm going to spend a load on his inauguration. I hope I'm going to sit in a couple of rows behind Melania and Barron and I'll be on the TV. Honestly, who the fuck do these people think they are? As if they haven't got enough power and wealth as it is. They now have to control these great believers in speech, what comes out of your mouth and my mouth. I'm very happy, always have been, if we get things wrong, people should point it out and we should say so. But let's not pretend that, and let's, to go back to our interview with Nick Clegg, you know, for Nick Clegg, I wish we had been tougher at the time. The idea that there is no link between the social media explosion and some of the problems

• 16:57Alastair Campbell?

  of mental health and some of the violence that we talked about in relation to Southport and all this stuff, if they want us to get real, they can get real too. So I look forward to their next missive. Okay, Rory, I'll calm down and take a break.

• 17:09Speaker 03

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• 18:44Rory Stewart?

  This segment of today's show is brought to you by Bulldog Skincare. Now, if you've been a keen listener, you'll know that Bulldog have been sponsoring the podcast. And I, I myself, Rory, have been a user of their moisturizer this year. I'm not sure, actually, I'm not sure whether I'm quite beautiful enough to be the key ad from a moisturizer product.

• 19:04Alastair Campbell?

  Is that your way of you saying that you think I am beautiful, therefore I don't need moisturizer?

• 19:09Rory Stewart?

  Well, I'm definitely, I definitely think, definitely, there's a lot of fans you've got out there. And maybe with a little bit more moisturizer, you could get some of that thing with the mooch. One of the things I noticed on the, when we were doing the live tour with the mooch, is just how amazingly unashamed he is about his facial routine, which I think takes a very considerable amount of time.

• 19:32Alastair Campbell?

  So Rory, Bulldog actually sent in a question.

• 19:36Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Having worked with a lot of politicians in the US and with your co-host Anthony Scaramucci, do you think there's more focus on physical appearance in the US even for men? Absolutely. Hundred thousand million percent. You see it in the clothes they wear. I'm always struck with American politicians, how their shirts always fit perfectly, which suggests most of them have them kind of, you know, tailor-made. Suits tend to be much more expensive. Shoes tend to be more polished. Quite a lot of RMPs are quite scruffy, I would say. Don't really take that much care of their appearance.

• 20:13Rory Stewart?

  Boris Johnson, I always remember when I was sitting next to him on the ministerial bench, I'd look up and Alan Duncan would lean across and say waspsishly to me, "I notice he hasn't shaved under the chin. I wonder which girl he was staying with last night."

• 20:30Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think Boris Johnson is definitely not an advert for grooming products. But I think it's wonderful that you're taking on the Mooch's leadership role. The Mooch is without doubt the rest is politics, families, grooming product guru. He does, as you say, he loves wearing makeup. Lots of, I'll tell you, lots of politicians I do know, British and American, mainly American, you know, sometimes if you're on a programme with them and you go in the room and they say, you know, can we put a bit of makeup on and you put the makeup on. Now, as soon as I've got the makeup on, I want to get it off, okay?

• 21:02Rory Stewart?

  You get one of those wet wipes.

• 21:04Alastair Campbell?

  You get the wet wipes and you just take it all off. I've been with so many politicians who'll say, "I'll keep it on just in case I get more bids later in the day."

• 21:13Alastair Campbell?

  You know, so I guess, you know, we're all very different in this, but listen, don't underestimate. The thing is though, where the Mooch is right, don't underestimate the extent to which people make their first judgment about a politician by how they look when they first meet them and first see them on the TV.

• 21:28Rory Stewart?

  And I do think, yeah, as you keep saying, kind of energy virility, I think you were a great one for saying Tony Blair wasn't allowed to go around saying he was feeling ill or feeling a bit low or a bit tired. He had to project a sort of sense of vigor. It's now a cliche, but from many of my friends, particularly women, saying that when you go to work and somebody says, "You're looking tired", it's simply that you haven't put the foundation on, haven't got the moisturizer on. And that's the only difference between looking tired or not. So that concludes this special segment brought to you by Bulldog Skincare. Don't let your skin go dry this January.

• 22:10Rory Stewart?

  Anasta, question from one of our members, and again, thank you, everybody who joins The Rest is Politics as a member. By becoming members, we can keep the podcast going and be less dependent on ads, but it also gives you access to book discounts, early access to our live events, which we've got some coming this year. So, thank you very much.

• 22:32Alastair Campbell?

  You can become a member, just go to therestispolitics.com. We should also think, Rory, about, I mean, Katy Kay and the Mooch, they do these kind of special sort of mini-series just for members. I mean, they obviously haven't got that much to do with their time. I mean, Mooch talks a very good game about how sort of rich and well-connected he is, and Katy works for the BBC and blah, blah, blah. But it seems to me they spend a lot of time making mini-series, but maybe we should do one of those as well.

• 22:56Rory Stewart?

  We should do a mini-series. Let's think about it. Let's do a mini-series for members only. So do please join as a member and we will bring that together if you. Now, here's Daryl Cousins, a member. Doesn't the growth of populism globally, the closure of borders, enforcing country-first policy ultimately end up in that country being weaker on the world's stage? This is a really interesting question because this is right at the heart of it. If you are a populist, if you're Trump or Orban, you think closing your borders, putting your country first, makes you stronger. I mean, in this Trump second inaugural, he had this extraordinary line, you know, we're going to be respected again, admired again, prosperous, proud, strong, we're going to win like never before. But what I guess Daryl

• 23:40Rory Stewart?

  is pointing out is that you lose an immense amount too. And what America is at risk of losing is 70, 80 years, a century of accumulated soft power, of accumulated global leadership, of influence in NATO, in the United Nations, in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Asia, its ability to lead through vision rather than just through interest. And I think America will find that its global influence really, really decreases. And by crying wolf, next time it cries, people may not be coming to the banner quite in the same way.

• 24:16Alastair Campbell?

  I think the difference that we're seeing at the moment is we've got, populism has been around forever, but generally. Populist leaders have not necessarily made it into government. So we're now going to be able to have a better judge of this. So if you look at the two foreign leaders who were most prominent at Trump's inauguration, Maloney of Italy and Millet of Argentina, their supporters will argue that they are doing what they said they would do and it's been good for the country. Okay, now we can have a debate about that. Maybe we should talk about Millet's record in the near future or his, you know, the stuff that he's doing and the effect that it's having. But I think in general, if we define populism as, as you say, pulling out of international

• 24:56Alastair Campbell?

  organisations, using the politics as a vehicle to divide rather than unite people, then I think it's hard to point to a country where that has gone well. I don't know if the if the meta fact checkers can maybe do a bit of research and find one for me where that that statement is wrong. But I I think generally, particularly in such an interconnected world, then I'm not convinced that populism makes effective policy. But I guess what we're going to be able to see in the next few years is whether that still applies when you have a number of populist leaders who are now in power. So we talked about Peter Hyman's piece where he essentially was, and this is why I said that I didn't lie the way that Peter was sort of saying, it's all our fault, we progressives.

• 25:41Alastair Campbell?

  And Neil Kennedy sent me this message. He said, I agree with a lot of what Peter said, but there's one big point he's missing. Almost a decade into the populist surge, not to mention the years it was building, their leaders are now politicians, not just angry campaigners. They should be attacked and exposed on that basis. They are hardly ever subjected to challenge about their absurd policies or ridiculous statements, and this is the UK context, and they are never blamed for the Brexit catastrophe. We can and should do all the political adjustments that Peter suggests, but that is only part of the answer now. So I think now they are, you can't say Trump's not a politician because he's a second term president.

• 26:17Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 26:17Alastair Campbell?

  Millet is in power in Argentina, Maloney is in power. Farage thinks he's going to be in power here.

• 26:24Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 26:24Alastair Campbell?

  Now Farage still gets away with being treated like a campaigner, not a politician.

• 26:27Rory Stewart?

  We've had a question from Lady Shalaf's on Farage and the EU and various other things. And we've also, Kieran's also asked us about polling surge for reforms. So let me just stop you there for a second. I mean, you know, we've just talked about how difficult it is to predict the future, but. I guess there is a narrow scenario, I don't know what percentage you'd put on it, 10% maybe, that there could be a universe in which the fact that Keir Starmer and Labour are pretty unpopular in historical terms, that they've inherited a difficult situation, that there's a strong chance that they're not going to be able to achieve remarkable results in the next five years, that we're in a world of anti-incumbency, that Labour

• 27:12Rory Stewart?

  actually struggle at the next election. And then there's another chance connected to that, which is that Farage gets big funding, you know, from Musk or whatever. The Conservative Party collapses in on itself because Kemmy Badenoch makes the mistake of trying to tack towards Farage and then gets out Farage by Farage. And so I suppose a possibility that Reform could do very well in the next election, and very well might mean maybe not winning, but maybe coming second. I mean, it's not a big leap to get ahead of the Conservative Party that barely cleared 20% in the last election. We've seen the AFD in Germany and we've seen in Austria, right-wing parties get that kind of a... Can you see that happening? Tell us about what you actually think about Farage's future.

• 27:57Alastair Campbell?

  Well, when I was on Question Time with him, and I said to you earlier, I had quite a few hours waiting in a green room, just chatting away. He definitely thinks he can become Prime Minister. Now, part of that, part of Farage's whole show is confidence and bluster, and that's what he does, that's the vibe. Having Trump in power helps him spread that vibe. I think the politics of it for him are quite harder than people imagine. Also, the question from Kieran that you mentioned, it talks about a Reform polling surge. I think if you look at some of the local by-elections, council by-elections have been going on, not doing that well. There might be a by-election coming up in the seat where the guy Mike Amesbury thumped somebody, see how that ends up. That's what he'll be looking for, a by-election

• 28:42Alastair Campbell?

  so that he can show that he's winning. I mean, Kieran's question is interesting. He says, "The next election result seems to be nailed on. It's a Labour-Lib Dem coalition. So much is being made of the latest polls show Reform leading Labour, but when translated to seats, Labour and Lib Dem combined will form enough to form a coalition. With the Reform Party and Tories going further to the right, it's unlikely they'll be able to gain enough national support." I think we are in anything goes, anything could happen territory. I do think Labour's got to deliver and more in order to to hold on to anything like the majority that they've got now. But but Neil Kinnock's point is important. Farage still gets treated in the main like a commentator and a campaigner, not like a politician.

• 29:23Rory Stewart?

  Which is a great trick for them, isn't it?

• 29:25Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely, absolutely. But it's up to the media. It's up to the media in large part. Now, OK, social media is different. You can create your own channels and what have you. But Neil, Neil reminded me that Beth Rigby, Sky News, did an interview with Farage, which, you know, was just a pretty conventional, quite tough interview.

• 29:41Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 29:42Alastair Campbell?

  Farage did not like it, couldn't hack it. I felt the same on Question Time when I went to him over Brexit.

• 29:47Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Alastair Campbell?

  He did not like it. So I I think that they can do well, but they'll only do well if the other parties let them. I think the Tories are letting them by playing their game. Labour needs to take reform more aggressively, I think. Partly that's about doing, and that's important, and all of the policy agenda, but actually also in campaigning terms, stop treating Farage like a sort of, you know, a rather colourful character. He's a politician now, and he's got to be treated as such and handled as such, and that means going after him on detail and on policy.

• 30:21Rory Stewart?

  OK, another member question, slightly self-serving, but anyway, Shannon, I appreciate that it's always best to read from a wide range of sources, but if you could only get your news from one outlet, which would you pick? And else you're not allowed to say from the rest is politics.

• 30:35Alastair Campbell?

  OK, only one outlet, kind of, it's hard to answer that because it depends what you want. You know, The Economist sponsor the podcast, so that maybe the people may sense a vested interest there. But the fact is, I would recommend The Economist.

• 30:49Rory Stewart?

  My number one outlet, if you literally had no time.

• 30:51Alastair Campbell?

  You're going to say The New York Times?

• 30:52Rory Stewart?

  I am definitely going to say The New York Times.

• 30:54Alastair Campbell?

  And I was going to say, if I'm thinking about international stuff, possibly The New York Times. But you see, the other thing is, I'm a bit weird, Rory. I do read a lot of French and German stuff. And I think it's hard to say one. I think you've got to create your own media landscape. So for example, in France, I read the right wing papers easily as much as the left wing papers.

• 31:13Rory Stewart?

  But I guess the question is relevant to a lot of our listeners, because unlike you, they're not going to be reading German and French papers. This is presumably a question from a busy person who's trying to stay on top of the news. And they're trying to, and it's difficult. I mean, all these things have have different, we talked about actually the fact that often you can get some very interesting reporting out of Al Jazeera on international events.

• 31:35Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Listen, channel hopping is not a bad thing, you know, if you get half an hour channel hopping with lots of foreign channels, that's worth doing.

• 31:44Rory Stewart?

  Just my little plug for the for the New York Times, who is not a sponsor, and this is a completely objective plug. It's amazing still, if you wanted a long article on Ghana, or a long article on, you know, I don't know, what's happening in Azerbaijan, it's almost only now the New York Times that has resources to to write those long detailed articles.

• 32:08Alastair Campbell?

  If I wanted a long read on Ghana, or I wanted to educate myself about Ghana, I actually probably would just go to the internet and type in Ghana news. And then I would work my way through. And you get a sense of who knows what they're talking about and who doesn't. So I think I think in the modern age, it's impossible to say just one out there.

• 32:25Rory Stewart?

  It's a really interesting question, isn't it?

• 32:27Alastair Campbell?

  It is, yeah.

• 32:27Rory Stewart?

  Because when we when we're in government, this is a big question, because one of the ludicrous things about government is that you're dealing with 10,000 times the amount of information that any human brain can possibly digest. I mean, obviously, when you watch ministers at the dispatch box, it's 99% bluff. They've memorized a series of talking points, and they're sounding very authoritative. You know, so when I was the environment minister, I was simultaneously responsible for chemical regulation, flooding, air quality, international biodiversity, nature, three and a half billion pounds of environmental payments, the Environment Agency, Natural England, all the national parks. And I've only just begun, right? And

• 33:11Rory Stewart?

  obviously, I can't know about all those things, although I'm pretending at the dispatch box in a sense that I can, because that's the game, right? People ask you a question, you know, are you not disgusted by, you know, what happened in the southwest corner of the Yorkshire Dales National Park last week? And I go, yes, well, of course, you know, the Yorkshire Dales. What I did in government, and I don't know whether you're different to this, and this is actually slightly applies to the podcast, is I began to develop one or two people on each subject who I really trusted, who I could almost have on speed dial. And so I would have somebody who I really thought understood air quality. And if I was worrying about air quality, I could then spend an hour asking very naive questions. Do you do that?

• 33:52Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, absolutely. And actually, I think we find that useful in relation to the podcast. You know, both of us know people that sometimes we pick their brains and then get a sense of their views, and then we pass them off as, you know, our own great thinking and research. But when we were in government, I, people used to say to me, which newspapers do you read? And I honestly said, none of them. But what I did have was a team that were round the clock media monitors. So every morning I would read this thing that was about eight pages of A4, and it was structured according to how I wanted it to be structured. And, you know, domestic, international, economic, personal, Blair, blah, blah, blah, all the different things. Now, one of the things that I think is wrong with government is

• 34:33Alastair Campbell?

  every department has its own sort of, you know, media monitoring, and that of itself can lead to kind of confusion about priorities and so forth. So I think you just have to form your own way of accessing the themes and the subjects that you're interested in. And I think it is important not to get overwhelmed. At the moment, it's interesting, when I went swimming this morning, and normally the swimming, the queue at the Lido is very much sort of, people are just talking about everything else. But I noticed more than usual people on their phones. And this is because they were checking on Trump. Now, of course, that's what, that's part of Trump's game, overwhelmed.

• 35:09Rory Stewart?

  On this press clipping thing that you did in number 10, did you not occasionally feel that you actually wanted to see the physical paper? Because there was actually something about how big that headline was, what photograph was, what, you know, the front page of the Mail or the Sun actually looked like, which would be difficult to get just from a little excerpt in an eight

• 35:28Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but you wouldn't miss that anyway, because you see newspapers lying around, you see them being previewed, reviewed on the television, or you'd hear it on the radio, whatever. Look, sometimes if it was like, you might want to go away and read something because your interest is piqued. But I felt generally, in terms of the time that you have in the day, I mean, I remember Farage telling me, reads all the national newspapers every morning. To me, I just feel that's a waste of your time.

• 35:52Rory Stewart?

  I mean, I remember hearing that in Russia, Putin basically doesn't bother to censor the newspapers. He only senses television because he doesn't actually think newspapers have much effect on anybody anymore.

• 36:02Alastair Campbell?

  Hold on, hold on, they've, they've, they've closed down a few and there's quite a few journalists are in jail.

• 36:07Rory Stewart?

  That's true, that's true, that's true.

• 36:08Alastair Campbell?

  I think that's part of a sort of, you know, the, if you're operating a policy of fear on the media. And by the way, Orban has done a version of this. Let's see whether Trump tries a version of this. I think the whole thing about, you know, who your friends are in the media in these sorts of countries. I think that's how that operates.

• 36:26Rory Stewart?

  I guess I was sort of trying to get to whether you had a sort of implicit feeling for whether kind of TV mattered more than newspapers? Or you don't sort of agree with that kind of version of a Putin vision?

• 36:39Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely, no, I think that Russian newspapers were never as well formed, as well developed, as influential as they were here or in the States. But I think television is still an incredibly important media, probably the most important. Social media is kind of challenging it, but that's much more, that's much more kind of amorphous. I think the power of newspapers in those countries where they're still powerful or influential is where the broadcast media and policymakers still take their agenda from the newspapers. And I think that is still very much the case in the UK.

• 37:11Rory Stewart?

  And, and why does Farage wants to go and be interviewed by Beth Rigby and do that kind of stuff? Why is he not fully leaning into the Trump tactic, which I guess would be, don't be interviewed by Beth Rigby, be interviewed by Joe Rogan and focus on TikTok?

• 37:28Alastair Campbell?

  Well, he does the TikTok stuff. I think he likes to show himself to be accessible. He's still stalling our request for him to come on the Rest is Politics. I don't think he likes long form that much. He's quite ratty, I think he's quite ratty quite quickly and he may be aware of that. But I don't know, I think, I, I think, look, you can't say Farage is not a good communicator, he is a good communicator. And a lot of the time he plays the media like a fiddle. You can only play the media like a fiddle if the media let you.

• 37:50Rory Stewart?

  Well, Alastair, I think that's a good moment to conclude. We've just managed to get free this amazing media advice that people around the world are looking for all the time. I can hear a gong going, which means I need to get back to my conference. So thank you, thank you very, very much for having me and have a great day.

• 38:07Alastair Campbell?

  Thank you for having me. I mean, sounded like you'd been for dinner or something, thank you for having me.

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