431. Question Time: Netanyahu’s Survival, Deadly Clashes in Syria, and Japan’s "Deep State"

Is Netanyahu escalating conflict to distract from scandal? How is toxic masculinity taking hold among young men? Is Japan’s youth driving a new wave of nationalism? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. The Rest Is Politics Plus Join with a FREE TRIAL at therestispolitics.com, for exclusive bonus content including Rory and Alastair’s first ever miniseries The Real JD Vance, early access to Question Time episodes and live show tickets, ad free listening for both TRIP and Leading, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy Fuse are giving away FREE TRIP+ membership for all of 2025 to new sign ups 🎉 TRIP+ gets you ad-free listening, discounts, and early access to episodes and pre-sale tickets for live shows! To sign up and for terms and conditions, visit GetFuse.com/Politics ⚡ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: Evan Green, India Dunkley Producer: 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

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• 0:00Rory Stewart?

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• 1:14Rory Stewart?

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• 1:17Alastair 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.

• 1:29Rory 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.

• 1:53Alastair 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?

• 2:00Rory Stewart?

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• 2:25Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to the Rest of the Planet's Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 2:27Rory Stewart?

  And with me, Rory Stewart. And here we are, Alistair. First one, Andy Kidd, a member from Bristol. Please can we have an update on what's currently going on in Syria? There seems to have been some tension brewing there again, but not widely reported. A shared post on LinkedIn, of all places, alerted me to it. Janice, a member of Abingdon, what's going on in Syria? Was the optimism about the new regime misplaced? What does Israel hope to achieve by its attacks? I mean, let's start on this fact about it not being widely reported and being picked up on LinkedIn. I mean, is this a general trend? I mean, I've worried in the past about the fact that as the revenue streams of newspapers and televisions collapses, they have less and less money to pay for foreign correspondents.

• 3:10Rory Stewart?

  And they're more and more driven by algorithms which reward reporting on, I don't know, whatever, the Kardashians as opposed to Syria. And that tends to mean that some really big issues get neglected. And I know one of them that you wanted to raise, we've got quite a lot of questions on, was Japan as another example.

• 3:26Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I mean, just first of all, in answer to Andy's question, big shout out here to Alex Crawford, the war correspondent Sky News. She's done some amazing stuff in Syria this week, really out there where the fighting is going on between the Druze and the Bedouins and the Syrian security forces as well. I mean, really, really has been unbelievably courageous. And I saw some very good stuff on the BBC as well. So I don't, I don't think that's fair. I don't know what media you consume, Andy, but I actually think that Syria has been a huge story this week, quite rightly. And Janice's question about whether the optimism about the new regime was misplaced and what does Israel hope to achieve by its attacks? Well, if you listen to President Erdogan, who I listened to on TRT last night,

• 4:10Alastair Campbell?

  he was absolutely scathing about the Israelis and said this is all about trying to prevent the success of a unified Syria coming together. The Israelis would say that they were Netanyahu said that he was protecting what he called the Druze brethren.

• 4:26Rory Stewart?

  But what do you make of it, Rory? Shout out also to Charles Lister, who's done some wonderful reporting on this, who's a real Syria expert. But very, very quick explainer in response to those questions, what's going on in Syria? Over the last 10 days, in the south of Syria, around a big city called Suede, which is dominated by the Druze. And the Druze, just to remind people, are a minority religious sect, esoteric, quite mysterious, but related to Islam. It began, it seems, with somebody from a Sunni Bedouin tribe, so Bedouin obviously being traditionally nomadic Arabic communities, seizing a Druze truck and essentially robbing the truck and beating up the truck driver.

• 5:06Rory Stewart?

  That was then followed by Bedouin being abducted by the Druze and the beginning of fighting between the Bedouin and Druze communities. And the reason why this was important is that Syria is struggling to reunify. The Druze in the south, people will also remember the fights with the Alawites. The Kurds control a lot of northeast Syria. And the challenge for the central government is how do you bring together a country which has all these different ethnic and sectarian divisions? So Syrian government claims that they had been speaking to Israel and the US about this. And they had thought, because Al-Shara had been at a meeting where he'd actually in Azerbaijan sat down with the Israeli government

• 5:50Rory Stewart?

  and thought that he'd got agreement from the Israeli government, that it was important for the Syrian state to have control over the country. Otherwise, the whole thing fragments. So Syrian military deployed, the Druze executed nine Syrian soldiers on the roadside, kidnapped, I think, 10 others and then executed them. Israeli bombs started landing around Suede. The Syrian army advanced, they took Suede, they basically recaptured that part of Syria. It was very brutal, there were clearly atrocities committed by the Druze, but also atrocities committed by the Syrian army.

• 6:28Rory Stewart?

  There's a big debate about what happened in a hospital, which passed hands between the Druze and the Syrian army, in which people... Were killed. Almost certainly, the final atrocities were probably committed by the Druze because they were the last people to control the hospital before that film was taken. But there's no doubt that there was horrible stuff going on on both sides. At which point Israel then bombed Damascus. So you'll remember it because we drove past that building when we were together in Damascus. This is bang in the centre of Damascus. It's like, for British listeners, it would be like bombing the MOD main building on Whitehall, right next to the House of Parliament. So civil servants are in there going to work. Three rockets go straight through it. Syrian army then withdraws.

• 7:10Rory Stewart?

  And we're now in a situation where the Druze have retaken control of the south of Syria around Soweida. The Syrian army has completely withdrawn. The Syrian government has basically had to give up on that. Big spillover effect, which is that they were in the middle of negotiations with the Kurds in North East Syria, who control almost everything east of the Euphrates. The Kurds were increasingly drawing away from the Syrian government and have now made it clear that they have no interest whatsoever in cooperating with reintegrating into Syrian state. The American government is very angry with Israel because, remember, you remember very well, but listeners remember, President Trump

• 7:51Rory Stewart?

  made this radical move to recognise Al-Shara, this man with his al-Qaeda past, and the US was really hoping that Syria was going to be part of its initiative in the Middle East and all the other Gulf countries, from the UAE through to Saudi and Qatar, very much getting in behind Al-Shara. Also very critical of Israel. You know, Israel that was trying to rebrand itself in the last few weeks as a source of stability in the Middle East, they now think, wait a second, what on earth are you doing? You're basically guaranteeing that Syria is going to be a failed state. And that's where we are.

• 8:22Alastair Campbell?

  It's very hard to know what Israel's motivations are in a lot of this, but just to give you one sense of some of their former ambassador, I don't know this guy. So maybe he's a well-known critic of, you know, I just don't know, but he was an Israeli ambassador. He was the consul general in New York. I call Alan Pinkas. And he said this, this is on Al Jazeera. Of course, it's nice to pretend we're helping our friends, the Druze, in the same ways we never helped. Other friends, the Kurds. But he goes on to suggest that this is all about boosting Netanyahu's image as a wartime leader, pushing back his corruption trial, which has happened, and reinforcing the delusion that Israel has somehow managed to reshape the Middle East through military force alone. Lastly, he doesn't want to see a unified Syria, which is the point that Erdogan was making as well.

• 9:06Alastair Campbell?

  So there is cynicism amongst some. Netanyahu is out very, very clearly saying that this is about protecting the Druze and so forth. But I think what's really, I found fascinating was in, I watched, call me sad Rory, I watched the Oval Office encounter between Donald Trump and the Crown Prince of Bahrain. And by the way, our theory that we talked about in the J D Vance series, that he basically wants to be the monarch. He introduced the Crown Prince by saying he's the Prime Minister and the Crown Prince. I wonder which of those titles would I prepare if it was to be, I think I'd prefer the Crown Prince.

• 9:45Alastair Campbell?

  And they weren't to talk about how great it was to think that you could get power just by being the son of the king. So anyway, when he was talking about this, he handed it straight over to Rubio. And Rubio, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, was basically saying, this was a misunderstanding, there's been a misunderstanding. And we're going to just try and sort this out as quickly as we can. It does appear for now to have been stabilized, relatively stabilized. But what you saw if you were watching Alex Crawford on Sky News was that it's very, very tense and very, very volatile. I also want to say, Rory, to those people, we had so, so many of them, including Joey Barton. Do you know who Joey Barton is, Rory?

• 10:22Rory Stewart?

  No, you keep quoting Joey Barton, so I imagine.

• 10:24Alastair Campbell?

  Do I? I don't keep quoting him. He's a former footballer who, how shall we say, a certain reputation. But he was posting pictures of you and me and Al Sharar with all this stuff going on, saying, you know, hey, look what your mate is up to now. I'd just like to point out to our listeners and viewers that if we were to do an interview with Donald Trump, which we would love to do, it does not mean he's our mate. We will interview people who are in politics, who are interesting. So there you go, Joey, that one was just for you. Just on Israel, Rory, I think we've got to talk about Israel because we've talked about it a lot in the last couple of weeks. But, you know, briefly, the things have got worse. I mean, Rory, when you were in the military, answer me this question, when you were in the military?

• 11:07Alastair Campbell?

  If you were told to fire a warning shot, where would you fire that shot?

• 11:12Rory Stewart?

  Well, but the point about the warning shot is that it shouldn't hurt anybody. It's a warning shot.

• 11:16Alastair Campbell?

  Right, so where would you fire it? Where would you point your gun?

• 11:18Rory Stewart?

  You'd point it in the air.

• 11:20Alastair Campbell?

  Yesterday, dozens of people, including children, were killed queuing for food and medicine and so forth. And they said that they fired warning shots. Well, then what? I heard David Lambeau being interviewed today because he did a statement in the Commons yesterday. There was this statement of twenty seven, twenty eight countries that have come together to condemn what's going on, repeat everything about, end the hostages out, ceasefire, get a ceasefire, end the war, et cetera. The rhetoric is ramping up, but the more and more that it does, the more you get the sense that unless America really calls this out, Netanyahu thinks he can do what the hell he wants.

• 11:56Rory Stewart?

  Two quick things there. One is that America, I think, is genuinely angry. I think Marco Rubio in particular was furious at what Israel did in Damascus. And actually, even for defenders of Netanyahu, this has been a very strange moment, trying to justify what on earth they think they're doing. And it's had a real effect on the region because all this story about how the future for the region is peace, stability, economic integration, which you would have heard a bit of off the back of the Bahrain Trump meeting that you watched. That is fracturing now because a lot of the Arab countries are beginning to think that if Israel is

• 12:34Rory Stewart?

  essentially attacking and fragmenting Syria, then all their plans for trying to create this more harmonious, unified Middle East are being undermined. Second thing, I think it's very likely that Netanyahu will move to an election soon and may well win it. So I think there's a good scenario that he goes to the Israeli public saying, I've had this great success in Lebanon against Hezbollah, I've had this great success in Iran against the nuclear weapons programme, and I'm going to announce a ceasefire, sixty day ceasefire in Gaza, some hostages get returned, and I go to an election. And so there's a pretty good chance that he could reemerge

• 13:15Rory Stewart?

  as the prime minister for the next few years, maybe with a coalition that doesn't include Smotrich and Ben Gavir. And that, again, is really serious because

• 13:25Rory Stewart?

  Any attempt for Israel to come to terms with what's happening in Gaza, any attempt for Israel to try to rebuild relationships with the region, any hope of Israel beginning to think about futures for Palestinians is not possible, so long as Netanyahu is there and there's a serious chance he could come back in again for longer.

• 13:44Alastair Campbell?

  It just shows you how volatile politics is and also how much of a survivor he is. I'm not convinced he would win, but I agree that he's absolutely back in with a chance of winning, as opposed to just being in survival mode. If you go back to not long after October 7th, it was sort of a matter of when or if he goes. And now here he is, you know, in a much, much stronger position.

• 14:06Rory Stewart?

  Final thing on Joey Barton, I mean, that's really interesting, this stuff. And you're right, we got a lot of abuse. As soon as anything happens in Syria, there is an immediate move. And it's often websites and accounts which are Russian. It used to be UAE, but not anymore. Now they've got behind Syrian account, Israelis, Iranian backed accounts, very, very quick to move and attack Al-Shara and indeed attack anyone like us who's ever interacted with him. But of course, Joey Barton isn't really following what's happening in southern Syria. Or in particular, one of the stories around the Druze, which is this man, Hikmat Al Hijri, who was the big leader of this and who's actually emerged stronger from it than before,

• 14:50Rory Stewart?

  got much more of the Druze community behind him. Of course, a lot of these people were pro-Assad. A lot of them were involved in the smuggling of drugs across the border. A lot of them are involved in secular military stuff. A lot of them worked for Israel in the past. It's a horrible situation and, you know, nobody should be letting the Syrian regime off, who clearly committed atrocities. But equally, nobody should be trying to suggest that the Druze are somehow saints in this either. And the stakes for Syria could not be higher because depending on everything that happened in the last 10 days, just goes to the heart of is Al-Shara's government going to be able to create stability and growth in Syria? Or is it going to collapse again into a failed state? And this certainly set it back a very, very long way.

• 15:35Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, Roy, let's go for a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about Japan and Superman, albeit not in the same sentence.

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• 16:45Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to the Rest is Politics question time, where Alistair wants us to go into some Godzilla movie, which is combining Superman and Japan. So here we are. First question, Ruby Bates. How is Alistair getting on with meeting Rory's challenge to address the issue of young men being drawn to the right, and even to out-and-out authoritarianism? Let's start on that, and then we'll get on to Superman, because there's a related question on Superman. But how are you getting on with young men on the far right?

• 17:13Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I'm getting on with it in that I'm talking to lots of them, and I'm trying to work my way through what I think about it. I've also been talking a lot to Peter Hyman, who's been doing this huge study, talking to 17-year-olds and finding out what they really think. And we'll put in the newsletter an article that the young guy he's been doing it with wrote in, I think it was The Observer, at the weekend. And one of the things I've been doing, which I want to push and promote today, is working on this task force, called the Lost Boys Task Force. And this was the idea of a guy called Paul Barber, who's the chief executive of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club. And he brought a group of us together.

• 17:56Alastair Campbell?

  And it was it was really interesting because we're all sort of in the same space that Gareth Southgate was in and others have been about role models, about mentors and what have you. But I think one of the things I was able to bring to it was to say that, you know, be very, very clear with something like this is not government backed, but we're going to need government support. So be very, very clear about what you're calling for and why. And the thing we've alighted upon is the sort of first step is this what we call a trusted adult guarantee. And this is where and this does need government backing and some government money. But what essentially what it means that there are there are around about 630,000 young people in England who do not have access to what

• 18:39Alastair Campbell?

  is called a trusted adult. That's somebody who they feel feels safe in going to outside their family. And it's a recognized kind of it's a recognized position within advanced developed modern societies.

• 18:51Rory Stewart?

  Tell us a little bit more about this trust. So this is not your dad. This is what a school teacher or a football.

• 18:56Alastair Campbell?

  It can be a teacher, it can be a football coach, it can be a family friend, it can be somebody in your workplace. But it's somebody that becomes known as your trusted adult that you go to if you've got things you want to discuss that you feel you can't talk to your parents about. And so a lot of a lot of young men do see their teachers in this role. A lot of young men particularly see their sports teachers in this role, twice as many young men as young women, for example. And where the government will come in is in essentially in backing it in funding the training that goes with becoming somebody who becomes a trusted adult in an education and sports setting and focusing first of all on boys who are growing up in poverty and then having a kind of national tracking

• 19:40Alastair Campbell?

  system on the number of young people who've got adults that they can speak to when when they're struggling. And I don't know if you you remember Gareth Southgate's Timmoby lecture, which was a lot of it was about this, the young men, a lot of young men feeling lost. And then they are very, very vulnerable to getting tapped up by these kind of right wing influencers who are, you know, frankly, most of them in it for themselves. So I think this is a good, specific, narrow point that we're going to try and take to government and get the government to back.

• 20:09Rory Stewart?

  I've, of course, seeing it through the lens of having an eight year old and a 10 year old son at the moment. My eight year old, very, very interesting, just how much he really values.

• 20:23Rory Stewart?

  The male teachers at his school and he's he's moving schools and he's just feels the loss of them so much. And, you know, he had an amazing as an eight year old credible sit down with one of them, talking through so many issues. And yes, you're right, partly it's it's one of them's a sports coach that he loves. Another one's a deputy head. But it's it's lovely seeing these men who are just being, yeah, they're great. I mean, I guess they're guys in their 30s and really, really kind and thoughtful with an eight year old. And it's it's it's wonderful. See, the other thing, of course, you see with young kids at the moment, that this is obvious to every listener, but they are drenched

• 21:06Rory Stewart?

  in violence. They're drenched in violence from movies, from video games, from toys. And even if you're not putting your kids directly in front of this, all their friends are watching that stuff. So, you know, I can do all I can to shelter my kids, keep them away from the stuff on the on screens or iPads, you know, this and anyone who hasn't listened to our Jonathan Haidt interview on leading, please do, because I think it's just extraordinary stuff on the influence of this. But even if I keep them away from screens, they will come back having spoken to their friends. And their friends are very, very quickly getting in, even at the age of eight, into influencers who are killing

• 21:47Rory Stewart?

  crocodiles, or influencers who are bodybuilders. Even at seven, my little one was very, very excited by Anthony Joshua, who we we interviewed on on leading. This then raises the question, what are the values that they attach as they get older? Who are they looking for in politicians? Because if you're living in a world which is saturates it with with these sort of hyper aggressive.

• 22:15Rory Stewart?

  Images, figures, weapons, et cetera. Then then who is it that you think is exciting? Who is it that you think is charismatic? Who is it that you look to by the time you are sixteen? Which isn't very long away, and that's only six years away, my 20 year old.

• 22:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 22:32Rory Stewart?

  And and and he's voting. Anyway, over to you.

• 22:36Alastair Campbell?

  Well, as long as he votes Labour, Roy, that's the main thing. What do you think of it as an idea that just to get this concept out there on the map? Trusted adult guarantee is not an easy state. Government plays a role in training and in tracking. And, you know, particularly with people who would be identified as being vulnerable or living in, you know, poor circumstances.

• 22:57Rory Stewart?

  I think it's incredibly important because, you know, if I can think of how important it is to my child, who is in so many ways so cherished, privileged, looked after, how important it is to him, how much more important it is to people who are in vulnerable circumstances or in poverty, I think it's an amazing thing to do. I mean, yet again, you've got to work out how you how you do it effectively. I mean, what what you don't want is nightmare bureaucracy, another set of paperwork for teachers and all the kind of nonsense that we get. But but look, if we could imitate what I'm seeing with the best men and and getting, I mean, you know, part of it is also, unfortunately, getting more men teaching in primary schools. I mean, those are very, very female dominated spaces.

• 23:38Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. But I always some of the best contributions on the task force, quite a big, there's about 20 of us on it, are actually young men who've been through really difficult times and have ended up turning their lives around in part with the help of a of a trusted adult outside the family who's, you know, sometimes a teacher, sometimes a coach, sometimes a family friend, whoever it might be. Anyway, I hope people will check it out. Hopefully, that's going to make a contribution. But the other question, Roy, on this theme, Harim, have either of you seen the new Superman film? If so, did you spot the pushback at some of the anti-woke manosphere ideas that seem to be taking hold among young men? And I got a fabulous email from a woman who said, I hope, I don't know if you're

• 24:23Alastair Campbell?

  a fan of Superman, she said, and brackets, I'm not. But if you go and see it, you'll see that actually that it's it's even got some subtle messages about Gaza in it. I don't know if you saw that.

• 24:33Rory Stewart?

  So you went to see it? I did go to see Superman, and I think it's a lot of fun. I don't think you'd like it. I mean, you you don't particularly like uh high-tech stuff. I watched with Shoshana and she did think that the first half of it, she got a bit put off by the violence and the high-tech stuff. But as it developed, she was increasingly interested. And and there is, I mean, you know, it's pretty good at picking up on problems. And the the first problem is that Superman is a celebrity hero who, from the very beginning, is being completely ground down by the modern world. So the whole thing is him being attacked on social media, all his motivations being challenged, made out as a villain, a society that's become completely sort of indifferent

• 25:17Rory Stewart?

  to the catastrophic issues surrounding it. So you get people working at their desks and outside the window are these kind of alien life forms being battled by Superman, and they just don't care, or they're taking little selfies in front of it. There's a big push um from our supervillain, who is, again, a kind of Elon Musk-like figure in the way that he's portrayed, Lex Luthor. He's a sort of tech guy who's got a lot of contracts with the Department of Defense and who keeps saying the problem with Superman is he's an alien, um, which explores another theme, which is his sense of inadequacy, his sense that Superman has somehow ruins his life by making him feel inadequate all the time. Um, I I also thought about it a great deal. I've just been partly inspired by you,

• 26:02Rory Stewart?

  been working on a BBC Radio 4 series called The Idea of the Hero from Achilles to Zelensky, uh, which is coming out uh on the fourth of August, so kind of week and a half's time, where I've been trying to look at how ideas of heroes have changed through time. And I think superheroes are a really, really interesting example of this, because on the one hand, they're sort of role models, but on the other hand, they're not very good role models, because they are by definition not really human. They don't have normal, they're not limited in the way that humans are. They're not killed in the way that humans are. And they actually create a completely unrealistic idea of good against bad, you

• 26:43Rory Stewart?

  know, heroes against villains. The central part of the movie, which maybe you would enjoy, is that a sort of

• 26:53Rory Stewart?

  Kind of Russian style dictator is invading his neighbours. And his neighbours are basically seem to be Afghans or Pakistanis. They're dressed in shawakamis, the women are veiled. And it's it's them that Superman is defending. It's interesting decision from a Hollywood filmmaker that the sort of victims, the heroic resistors are Muslims.

• 27:18Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Roy, I haven't seen the film, but I have read the Economist editorial about it. And it points out that the director, James Gunn, had apparently done an interview pointing out that Superman was an immigrant and that this was a story of basic human kindness, which sent the MAGA crowd into overdrive, saying the whole thing was woke and therefore nobody should go to see it. Lots of people have been to see it. But I loved it. The final line of this editorial is this, "The movie is not hitting at Bennis. Instead, it illuminates what has always been Superman's most important power, a character sound enough to resist the temptation to abuse his other powers. That is a political lesson for any era."

• 28:03Alastair Campbell?

  Donald Trump, are you listening?

• 28:04Rory Stewart?

  Maybe you should, maybe you should go and see it.

• 28:06Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, maybe I'll go and see it.

• 28:07Rory Stewart?

  June Bug, what's your opinion on the election success made by Japan's do it yourself party? Now, this is a big story, which I think you you said actually hasn't been properly covered. So over to you on Japan. And I've just got back from Japan, so I'm very interested in this too.

• 28:25Alastair Campbell?

  So they had the election over the weekend in the the country's upper house. Unlike the UK, both of their houses of parliament are elected. They'd already lost the majority in the lower house, which is like, as with our system, is more powerful. But then losing it in the upper house is an indication that the LDP, the party that's governed Japan pretty much all of our lifetime, with lots of different changes of leadership. But they've always adapted to stay pretty much in power. They've now lost control, lost overall control in both. And this is another story of. They needed fifty seats, half of the seats were up for grabs.

• 29:08Alastair Campbell?

  They needed fifty of the hundred and twenty four to get to keep their majority. They ended up three short. The main opposition party came second, but pretty badly. And the two parties that did very well are these right wing parties, one of them very populist, very Trumpian, calls himself Japan first, admires Trump. So the Democratic Party of the people and the more extreme one, the San Zato Party, they have basically, you know, they they look like they're beginning to break the mold. And the the interesting thing is that it is younger people in particular who are voting. This is what I was talking about yesterday on the main podcast, because they think that politics is skewed way too much to the old, that they they're worried about demographics,

• 29:51Alastair Campbell?

  they're worried about their lack of pay rises, they're worried about housing, and they're very worried about immigration and over tourism. Over tourism is a thing we should come back to at some point, Roy. This is another issue that is really sort of driving this populism.

• 30:04Rory Stewart?

  The Japanese case is extraordinary because Japan is an outlier in so many ways. It's not just an island country, but it was a country that was the most incredible economic miracle in the world after the Second World War. And, you know, had by the nineteen eighties was getting up to nearly forty percent of Americans GDP and it was taking over Manhattan and people thought at the time they saw it in the way that we see China now as the economic superpower that was going to run the whole world. And then, of course, famously, it ground to a halt and flatlined and property prices collapsed and it's gone from being the greatest economic miracle to being the most incredible

• 30:48Rory Stewart?

  economic paradox, this enormous economy that suddenly stopped growing. And a lot of this, of course, is about demography, as you say, it's about a country where people are having very few children and where there are more and more older people. The the I'm pretty close to median age in Japan. Whereas in Nigeria, for example, the median age or in Afghanistan, the median age is sixteen. In in Japan, it's almost fifty. But it isn't a country that was particularly vulnerable to.

• 31:18Rory Stewart?

  Populism in elections, as you say, the LDP, which is a sort of centre-right, almost aristocratic party. I mean, we've talked about the fact a lot of these prime ministers come from political families. They're often by Western standards quite low-key, quite conservatively dressed. Many of them have uncles and cousins who've been ministers before them, the current prime ministers, no exception to this rule. There was a slight exception with Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022, who had a little bit more of a populist edge, but it's still very relative.

• 31:51Alastair Campbell?

  I think, though, he definitely held that sort of very nationalist right pretty much in check, whereas his successor, Ishiba, has kind of, he's let that go a bit. And I think that's what's opened the door to this. Is this guy Sohei Kamiya, who is the leader of this very far-right party, the very, very populist party, that he talks about the deep state. He really made his name during Covid, posting videos which essentially were conspiracy theories about vaccines and masks. So it's the same story that was fuelling parts of MAGA.

• 32:25Rory Stewart?

  One of the strangest things in the politics is, as you said, that there's an anti-immigration message here, although Japan has basically the lowest immigration in the world.

• 32:37Alastair Campbell?

  Three percent.

• 32:38Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, you go around Japan, you basically, compared to almost any other developed economy in the world, you basically don't see people who aren't Japanese. It is incredibly difficult to get Japanese citizenship. Almost no asylum seekers are accepted in Japan. And yet, as you say, it's become this political hot potato. And this is a sort of sense of the kind of the weirdness, the virtual world. So let's say you thought that all politics was completely just about the facts, right? And let's say you thought, as some people often suggest in Britain, that populism is just an objective reflection of the fact that growth is stagnant and immigration is too high. You've got to explain the fact

• 33:20Rory Stewart?

  that in Japan, where immigration is almost non-existent, immigration has become the big issue that's helping the populace. And in America, where growth has been astonishing since two thousand and eight, right, gone from being the same size as the European economies to in some measures almost twice the size of the European economies. And yet, still, Donald Trump is elected. So clearly, you're not going to solve populism just by reducing immigration and encouraging growth. I'm not saying those aren't both really important things to do, but you also have to understand that this part of modern politics is completely sort of virtual. It's about the way that social media, Covid, for example, JFK, Epstein create conspiracy theories, whip people up, disenchanted young men, lack of purpose, and in Japan in particular,

• 34:05Rory Stewart?

  this incredible, extraordinary traditional society with its very strange relationship with the modern world, which we can see in all my children's toys. You know, in Hello Kitty, Transformers, Pokemon, all of which are ways in which Japanese young men are moving into a virtual world, creating almost childlike things as a way of responding to this strange moment.

• 34:29Alastair Campbell?

  But this is what's going to be so difficult for the LDP. They've they've they've schmoozed along since nineteen fifty five as the absolutely dominant political force. They're suddenly no longer with a majority in either of the Houses of Parliament. And yet, the issues, some of them are real and they're driven by, they'll look at the data and say, yeah, I can see where that's coming from. But, you know, so the number of foreign residents in Japan is is is it is a record, but it's three point eight million.

• 34:58Rory Stewart?

  Out of a population of of almost a hundred million.

• 35:00Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly, exactly. So it's so it's just over three percent. And so you've got them saying, young people saying, I'm voting for these populists because we're doing too much, we're going to have to work for too long to keep all these older people because the demography is there. Well, the obvious answer to that is you're going to have to get a few immigrants coming in to help to do some of the jobs. But they sort of, you know, they don't want to, don't want to see that. And the other thing that they're doing, which of course Farage does here, is they're basically saying that it's the foreigners that are responsible for the rising crime, the rising inflation, all the problems in our society.

• 35:35Rory Stewart?

  Final point, the reason this matters, of course, is that Japan is still the third largest economy in the world.

• 35:43Rory Stewart?

  So any hope that we have of creating a world which isn't dominated by an unstable Trump or an authoritarian China involves Britain and the EU reaching out above all to places like Japan, South Korea, Australia. So let's say we're thinking about defence. Let's say we're thinking about AI. In fact, almost anything to do with this rules-based international order. The third way is going to come from those economies. But in order to do that, you really need a Japan which is still centrist, committed to a rules-based

• 36:23Rory Stewart?

  international order. If Japan becomes populist nationalist, my goodness, they're not going to want to cooperate on international things like AI. We're not going to be able to rely on them. And of course, that's also the problem when it comes to Europe. I mean, I think one of the things that's so mad about J D Vance's attempt to promote far-right populist parties in Germany and Spain and Austria is that these parties are not going to be allies for a Western order. They're going to become themselves nativist, isolationist, screw the rules-based order, and then going to retreat in on themselves. So Japan is a really important bellwether for this. If Japan goes, then a lot of these hopes

• 37:06Rory Stewart?

  we have for some alternative to the US and China really fall away.

• 37:10Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. You mentioned a J D Vance there. I must mention the chat that I've done with David Frum on the end of the J D Vance series. Honestly, listening to David Frum talk about how much Britain and Europe need from each other right now in the face of Vance, he's basically saying, forget that you can trust America. It's a fascinating listen. It really, really is. And that's out on Friday for members. Now, Rory, we've got lots of questions about the Afghan data leak. Let's just give this one Lauren Becker. What are your, it's very simple. What are your thoughts on the Afghan super injunction?

• 37:46Rory Stewart?

  Firstly, just a quick reminder for international listeners, the story seems to have been that during the evacuation from Kabul, a top secret list of tens of thousands of Afghans who'd worked closely with British forces was left, so the Taliban could potentially gain access to it. And as a result, the British government began a secret policy of evacuating Afghans to the United Kingdom at a cost of billions of pounds and imposed a super injunction on the newspapers not to report on it from the government's point of view in order to protect the identity of the Afghans they were moving. And when the news broke, firstly,

• 38:30Rory Stewart?

  the government was very unlucky. I mean, if this news had broken during the evacuation 2022, there was still a lot of sympathy for Afghans who'd worked for British forces. Three years later, of course, people like Dominic Cummings see Afghans as this sort of epitome of all evil. And the idea is the government's engagement, a cover up and spending billions of pounds, bringing unwanted people to the United Kingdom rather than bringing people who'd worked with our troops. It's also raised questions about the Taliban government itself, because the last time the Taliban took over in the mid 90s, they conducted these brutal reprisals. So everybody was assuming the same thing would happen again. The truth is that actually, the Taliban this time around are not quite like the Taliban

• 39:12Rory Stewart?

  in the past. Yes, a few hundred people were killed, but not the tens of thousands of deaths that people were expecting. And the Taliban government is a chauvinistic government that has put out very aggressive edicts against women. Women's life in Afghanistan is very difficult, but as I discovered when I was in Afghanistan towards the end of last year, in many other ways, security is actually relatively good. The problems with the country are oppression of women and stagnant economic growth, not so much this reprisal. So anyway, Ovi, what did you make of it all?

• 39:47Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, God, it's a really, really tricky this one, because on the one hand, you think, my God, these data leaks happen, they shouldn't, but they do. And the MOD sometimes, I think it can be a bit loose, but if one individual makes a terrible mistake. These names with email addresses and other contacts, including people who have worked for Britain during the war, others are just people who want to come and live in Britain and making applications to come here. But you get these thousands and thousands of names go out there, including then we discover later, several dozen members of special forces and members of the British intelligence services. So you can see why when this happened, the MOD thinks, shit, we have got to kind of try to clamp down

• 40:31Alastair Campbell?

  on this. So they go and get injunction, okay? I'm imagining while they work out what to do. I spoke to somebody about this who was really closely involved in it. So it was then the judge that decided to make it a super injunction.

• 40:44Rory Stewart?

  What's the difference, Alice, between an injunction and a super injunction?

• 40:47Alastair Campbell?

  Well, if you have an injunction, the media can report that there is an injunction. With a super injunction, you can't even report that the injunction has been granted. And I also heard, again, I'm not, I haven't verified this independently, but you can see why this might be the case, that the Speaker of the House of Commons was told by the court that, you know, MPs shouldn't raise in Parliament. So you're talking about a level of secrecy that is really, really, really high. Now, that I think at the time was Ben Wallace, then you had Grant Shapps, and then of course, you can see why with all the toxic politics around refugees, they did not want this coming out during the election campaign. What's happened since then, as I understand it, is John Healy as Defence Secretary has kind

• 41:32Alastair Campbell?

  of been landed, he was briefed apparently in opposition, but he didn't say anything, kept it to himself, in office, checked the policy and decided to publish what was called the Rimmer Report, was into all this, but also felt that they had to end this secret route for Afghans who were coming here, not least because the costs were astronomical. And somebody I spoke to in the MOD says they reckon they've saved about 1.2 billion by bringing that route to an end. And also, understanding that, I mean, basically, I think their view was that the Taliban knew all about this stuff anyway. It's not as if they don't have access to knowing what, what people are doing, what have you. So

• 42:14Alastair Campbell?

  the thing's been lifted. But what it means is that something around, if you include the families of the people who've come, by the end of it, it's going to be about 7,000 in total. Okay, so 7,000 people. We'll come here. Now, some of them are already here and are working and their kids are in school. Some of them probably are struggling, but it's, you know, in the current environment. And it was, this was, this was underlined by the, by Richard Tice, the Reform guy, who during the evacuation from Kabul was saying, we must take the Afghans who work for us, no ifs, no buts. And now is saying, this is an absolute abomination.

• 42:57Alastair Campbell?

  None of these people should be brought in, et cetera, et cetera. So Reform hypocrisy, wow, breaking news. But I, I, I actually think John Healy's ended up in a, you know, clearly a mess, but I think he's just about got to the right place. But now what's happening is the Intelligence Select Committee and the Defence Select Committee are going to have really, really deep dive inquiries on to how this happened, how the schemes worked and what other, and how the other schemes involving Afghans have, have panned out.

• 43:23Rory Stewart?

  It is possible still to support people in Afghanistan. It's still possible to do really good development work there. All the time in any of these conflict zones, the non-profits working them are having to make these very difficult choices of balancing what you can do to help individuals who are in real poverty and suffering against conflicts and regimes, who are like the Taliban. And before we, we can get into the details of this, and I think in a sense, the British government is dealing with this too. And I, I, I'm so pleased you raised that Richard Tice thing. It's so strange that the right has gone from the position of these were brave Afghans working with our boys on the

• 44:08Rory Stewart?

  ground. We have a moral obligation towards them to now presenting them as kind of evil refugees who are destroying the United Kingdom.

• 44:15Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. It doesn't do much for our soft power either, and our reliability.

• 44:20Rory Stewart?

  Well, here we are. Final question for you. Tom Henry, Shropshire. Hello, both. I don't know about both. With the British Irish Lions rugby tour to Australia underway, I wanted to hear Alice's recollection of an event I heard on a podcast recently. Prior to a big squad announcement press conference, one of the players kegged you. And pulled your trousers down in front of the press conference. Then another player proceeded to steal your BlackBerry phone and text Tony Blair, I love you to the hysterics of the players. Please can you confirm this funny story and give your version events and give a quick insight into your experience on that tour and the challenges compared to managing political wars? Blimey, Alistair, I mean, talk about toxic masculinity. What's going on in this anecdote?

• 45:04Alastair Campbell?

  You didn't know that I was an international rugby player, did you?

• 45:06Rory Stewart?

  I did not, no, no, no.

• 45:09Alastair Campbell?

  The story's sort of true. It's sort of true. So I went on the Lions tour in 2005. Still writing about it, Le Keep, the French sports newspaper, had a huge piece about it the other day about, you know, the spin doctor who caused chaos on the Lions tour. But I actually got on, I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't do it again because I think it was the time when I realised I couldn't really do a normal comms job again because there was too much of a sort of focus on what I was doing and saying. But this specific incident is true. And what happened was, do you know about, I don't know if you've ever been on a rugby tour already, but one of the things they tell you is always keep the lace on your tracksuit

• 45:51Alastair Campbell?

  bottom tied, properly tied up, okay? And so I'm walking out and I think it was Steve Thompson, the hooker, and Paul O'Connell, the Irish lock forward, who basically grabbed one side of my trousers each and pulled them down as we were coming out. Now, I hastily pulled them up and then watched in utter panic, horror, call it what you want, as my then BlackBerry flew out of my pocket, okay, to be picked up by Steve Thompson, who ran away with it, okay? And I only got it back by saying to the security people, listen, there's no point

• 46:36Alastair Campbell?

  in me trying to reason with you, you'll just tell me to F off. Would you tell him the stuff on there, which if it got out, I would be in really deep shit, really deep shit, and therefore you've got to go and get it back for me, which they did. He's always, they've always maintained they texted Tony Blair and said, I love you. But if so, they sent it to the wrong club because Tony never got that text.

• 47:05Rory Stewart?

  Did you reach out to Tony and say, by the way, if you got a text from me saying I love you, that was sent by a drunken rugby player?

• 47:14Alastair Campbell?

  Well, he'd already had experience of it because I was once on the phone to him when Gareth Thomas, who was, everybody called Alfie, massive character, Welsh player. And I was out talking to Tony and he came out for a walk and he said, who are you talking to? And I said, Tony Blair. And he says, fuck off, you're not talking to Tony Blair. Give me your phone. I said, I am, I promise you I am. Let me fucking speak to him. So I put it on to Tony Blair and I'll never forget, he said, anyway, Tony, great talking to you. Next time you're down in Wales, come and look me up and we'll go for a pint, bud. And he gave me back the phone and then ran down the street shouting into pubs and clubs that, you know, he'd just been talking to Tony Blair. So, no, I didn't tell Tony about the I love you. But here's the thing, Rory, on the back of that tour, one of the players

• 47:57Alastair Campbell?

  was a guy called Richard Hill, who went on to be the manager of England. And not long after, he contacted me and said, we've got this young player, a rising star, who we'd love you to sort of sit down and talk to about dealing with the media, dealing with pressure. This was, you know, a long time ago now. And he came to my house here and we sat down and chatted and we've stayed in touch ever since. And that young star, his name is Maro Itogi, and he is currently the captain of the British and Irish Lions, and they won the first Test at the weekend. So there you go.

• 48:32Rory Stewart?

  Final thing for me, just on that. Just give us a sense of what actually are a couple of bits of advice that you might give someone who is suddenly, I don't know, whether they're in business or in sport, suddenly getting under the pressures of media for the first time. What would be a couple of things to think about for listeners?

• 48:50Alastair Campbell?

  Understand the difference between pressure and stress.

• 48:52Rory Stewart?

  Okay, explain that.

• 48:53Alastair Campbell?

  Pressure is good. Feeling pressure means that it matters. It means you work harder, you'll focus better. Stress is bad because you start to lose your focus, your concentration, and you feel edgy about it. So, understand the difference. And the other thing we talked about was the importance of always being, however you're communicating, being authentic to a sense of yourself. And not feeling that you have to sort of pretend that you're something that you're not. And if you watch, it's really interesting. Maro, at the moment, he's doing lots of interviews, inevitably because he's the captain. And he's got his own way of doing it. He speaks quite softly. He's very thoughtful. He doesn't come out with terrible cliches that a lot of them do.

• 49:35Alastair Campbell?

  Um, and the other thing, of course, is, you know, don't read the papers and don't read the comments about you on social media.

• 49:42Rory Stewart?

  I'm very bad at that. Anyway.

• 49:44Alastair Campbell?

  You are very, very, very bad at that.

• 49:46Rory Stewart?

  I do very, it contributes to my stress rather than pressure.

• 49:49Alastair Campbell?

  The reason we should tell our listeners that you're in Colombia is because you're actually having a holiday with your family. And for the first time, I think, in, apart from when you do your funny retreats, you're going to have a week off next week. So listeners will miss your dulcet tones, but I shall be joined by none other than our American sister, Katie Kay.

• 50:12Rory Stewart?

  Oh, it'd be brilliant. And I really hope, and thank you, guys. Yes. And apologies if you've heard strange sounds background. These are jungle birds chasing about. So, yeah, I'm going to have a full two weeks off. I'm going to put on the vacation reply email. I'm going to hand my horrible phone away so that I can't get to it. Um, and so I'll see you're not going to be able to WhatsApp me for the next 10 days.

• 50:32Alastair Campbell?

  I'll find a way. I will find a way.

• 50:35Rory Stewart?

  And another thing that people can listen to while I'm away, apart from the dulcet tones, Katie Kay, is our two-part interview with Gary Stevenson. He is this extraordinary man who came from a tough background, became a trader, banker, and developed a deep, deep unease with the way that the financial system works. And is now campaigning for wealth taxes and an economic revolution, political revolution, almost, in the United Kingdom. What did you think about the Gary Stevenson interview, sir?

• 51:06Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I thought, I think he's, he's an interesting guy. We both agreed that he wrote a very good book. I'm slightly worried about people who, I looked on his Instagram profile and it says, lots of people have ideas, but mine are all right. Um, there's a little bit of kind of, you know, I mean, when, when we were in off air, he was talking about how hard he was finding it to cope with Gary mania. You know, I think you've got to have a little bit of humility about this stuff. But listen, he's an interesting guy and he's definitely in a big debate here about the nature of our economy, the nature of our society, how we deal with inequality. And he's, you know, and he's got a lot of followers, particularly amongst young people. So he is without doubt a voice. If I were a serving politician, I would definitely engage with him.

• 51:51Rory Stewart?

  Very good, very good. Well, anyway, I hope you have a lovely time and I'll return to the Jungle Birds. Bye bye.

• 51:56Alastair Campbell?

  Excellent, bye bye.

• 52:06Speaker 05

  We are getting a statement from Number Ten on that flight with 350 passengers on board.

• 52:14Speaker 06

  The Great Game, strategic struggle between Britain and Russia.

• 52:22Speaker 07

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

• 52:28Speaker 08

  Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.

• 52:33Speaker 06

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

• 52:47Speaker 09

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 52:49Speaker 06

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

• 52:57Speaker 08

  FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia.

• 53:02Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 53:04Speaker 08

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• 53:09Speaker 02

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• 53:31Speaker 08

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