551. Will Farage’s Trumpian Resignation Stunt Backfire?

Is Farage's shock by-election gamble a Trumpian trick to bury the scandal over his finances? Why has the Murdoch press finally turned on Britain's most protected politician? Can Andy Burnham beat the media machine that swallowed Keir Starmer? Join Alastair and Mehdi Hasan as they answer all these questions and more in this week's edition of Question Time. __________ Enjoy Rory and Alastair’s interview with Ben Rhodes by searching ‘Leading’ on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube. Go deeper into the world of The Rest Is Politics by signing up for our free newsletter HERE, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis and weekend reads from Alastair and Rory. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus. Start your free trial at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, exclusive newsletters, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Stop overpaying for energy. Switch at fuseenergy.com/politics and get a free TRIP+ subscription. Sponsored by Lloyds. Get the account that offers more. You've earned it. See how Lloyds can help you make the most of your money. Search Lloyds Premier. £15 per month fee refunded when you meet the eligibility criteria. T&Cs apply. UK residents, aged 18+. 🌏 Upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app! Get an exclusive NordVPN deal + 4 months extra here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics. It’s risk free with NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee! __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] __________ Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Adam Thornton, James Clayden, Caroline Kaye Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Producer: Evan Green Exec Producer: Chris Sawyer General Manager: Tom Whiter 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.

• 0:01Alastair Campbell?

  Nigel Farage, who rarely visits Clacton, thinks that what Clacton needs is a by-election. Beset by questions about where all his money comes from, losing his rag with reporters as he returns from the United States, and apparently with some of his own supporters losing faith in him, he clearly thinks he needs a new narrative. Is this a big-bol move to show he's the victim of an establishment stitch-up, as he claims? Is it about trying to stop the investigation into his finances in Parliament? Or is it just Nigel Farage, big Nigel Farage, and getting us all talking about him? One thing is for sure, just as in recent weeks we were talking all the time about Makerfield, in the coming weeks it's going to be Clacton.

• 0:40Rory Stewart?

  This episode is powered by Fuse Energy.

• 0:43Alastair Campbell?

  Right now Fuse Energy's tariffs are up to £200 below the Ofgem price cap. Plus, they've just launched a new referral offer that can bring your bill down even further.

• 0:53Rory Stewart?

  What I love is the simplicity of it. If you refer a friend, one of those few people who haven't heard about Fuse from us every week, and they switch both their gas and electricity, you each get £50 towards your next bill.

• 1:05Alastair Campbell?

  So it starts with one conversation, no prize draws, no chance, no complicated reward scheme, just the power of one smart recommendation that rewards you both.

• 1:15Rory Stewart?

  And remember, energy prices are more volatile than ever, but don't wait for rates to spike again. Switch to Fuse in just three minutes and move to cheaper energy designed to help you and your friends cut bills.

• 1:27Alastair Campbell?

  So don't just listen to another price cap story, switch to Fuse, save up to £200 and get trip plus free with code POLITICS at fuseenergy.com/politics.

• 1:42Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 1:45Alastair 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.

• 1:57Rory 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.

• 2:21Alastair Campbell?

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

• 2:28Rory 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/restispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restispolitics, and the link is in the episode description.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  A BetterHelp ad. Imagine carrying a backpack every day, every conversation, every mistake, every expectation. You probably wouldn't notice how heavy it was until someone asked if you wanted to put it down. Sometimes feeling better starts exactly like that. Better isn't one size fits all. Better is personal. It's therapy tailored to you to help lighten what you've been carrying. Match with a therapist who truly gets you. Visit betterhelp.com/restpolitics.

• 3:22Alastair Campbell?

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

• 3:24Speaker 03

  And me, Mehdi Hassel in Washington DC.

• 3:27Alastair Campbell?

  And the reason Mehdi's here is because Rory, as you know, is on his annual silent retreat. Mehdi and I are not going to be silent as we talk about all sorts of things. Now Mehdi, while we were recording the main episode, we had one eye on a television in the background because Nigel Farage was speaking. And the reason we're putting out a question time ahead of the main episode is because, as expected, he was announcing that he was stepping down, not stepping down as Reform UK leader, not stepping down as the man who thinks he can be the next Prime Minister, but stepping down and sparking a by-election in his own constituency. Let's kick off with that. Question from Matthew, what is Nigel Farage up to?

• 4:11Alastair Campbell?

  Do you want me to have the first go at that, or would you want to have a go at that?

• 4:13Speaker 03

  I mean, it's very clear what he's up to. It's this is classic, this is classic distraction and deflection. Nigel Farage worships at the altar of Donald Trump, where I am in Washington DC. Trump has mastered the art of distracting from scandals and controversies by making you look over there, by flooding the zone with shit, as Steve Bannon famously put it a few years ago. And this is the classic response. Nigel Farage is facing the worst media he's ever had, which isn't that high a bar because he's had such soft and good media for the last 15 years. It's the first time he's really ever faced any serious sustained scrutiny or criticism of his finances, of his leadership, of his background, of his allies. Instead of addressing it head on, we first saw him hide from media interviewers during the recent elections.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  And now doing this kind of David Davis-esque gimmick, if you remember the Shadow Home Secretary at the time. David Davis resigned, was it Holton, Priest and Howden, I think was his by-election?

• 5:06Alastair Campbell?

  Well done, well done Mehdi.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  2008, I was a British journalist.

• 5:09Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but you've been away a long time.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  And he quit over some civil liberties issue, and it was a ridiculous thing. And he had to kind of, you know, we did a whole by-election, by-elections cost a lot of money. This is what Farage is doing. He's not giving the people what they want, which is goodbye Nigel Farage, go away. He is actually doing this gimmick whereby, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know what happens to his parliamentary investigation into this £5 million donation. Does that get put on hold while this by-election goes on? Do we stop talking about it? Because that's what he wants us to do.

• 5:39Alastair Campbell?

  We don't have to, nobody can tell us what we talk about, and people can talk about it. I don't know about the election because of course, the minute you do the Chilton hundreds, as they're called, and you're no longer a member of Parliament. So if you're no longer a member of Parliament, are you being investigated? I don't know is the answer to that, but the parliamentary investigation is not going to go away if he becomes an MP at the end, again, at the end of the by-election process. But the issues of Farage and money are not going to go away. And if anything, even though you're right, this is very Trumpian in saying, you know, let's create another drama over here, and you go over there, that's true. But at the same time, it also elevates the scrutiny that people want to give him.

• 6:22Alastair Campbell?

  And I think you're right, by the way, I've been raging for ages about the extent to which, they talk about two-tier care in relation to policing. The only two tier that we really have in our political culture is in the way that the media have covered historically people on the right of politics, particularly Farage. Very interesting to me, for example, one of the reasons he's losing the plot at the moment is because it was the Sunday Times that did this big thing at the weekend about so-called Post George, this guy, George Cotterill, who's a kind of very weird, flamboyant, colourful gambling character. Even when he got done for fraud in the United States, and I think was even with Farage,

• 7:03Alastair Campbell?

  who was out there when he was nicked, a bit like Mark Rutte with Donald Trump, he says that Nigel Farage is like a father to him. Farage and he are very, very close. There's a picture, which frankly, again, with a sort of serious grown-up media landscape, would this picture would be as well-known as, you know, any other picture of modern times. It's Farage and Post George, and who's between them in the background? Nathan Gill, currently in jail for essentially being a Russian plant in the European Parliament. So the issue's not going to go away, but we're going to talk, as you say, about something different. There's going to be a race, there's going to be a by-election.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  And the media reverts to form. You know, Alistair, the media loves a good horse race. So a lot of the political journalists who just recently, finally, started asking tough questions of Farage, may go back to just talking about, is this a test for Andy Burnham? How will Labour do in the by-election? What about Zach Polanski and the Greens? So it's very useful for Farage in that way. And I can't say the statistic enough times. Nigel Farage has been on Question Time 38 times. The only person who's been on as many or more times than Nigel Farage is Michael Heseltine, who first appeared on Question Time in the late 1970s, right? In those 38 times he was on Question Time, how many times was he asked about his finances?

• 8:14Alastair Campbell?

  When I was complaining, as I have done before, about the Question Time issue, I think I was told that Shirley Williams might have topped a lot of them, but I could be...

• 8:23Speaker 03

  I thought it was Heseltine versus Farage. Either way, he's in the top two or three.

• 8:27Alastair Campbell?

  He's definitely right, he's definitely right on that.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Having not been an MP until very recently, and having not, my bigger question is, does he ever get asked these questions? Why did it take so long? He was an MEP in 1999 in the European Parliament. He became famous in 2009 when UKIP did really well in those Euro elections, I remember it vividly. He did Brexit in 2016. He's been on the public scene for 15 years minimum, if not longer. Why has it taken so long to ask these very basic questions about who funds him? Who are his allies? Who does he hang out with?

• 8:55Alastair Campbell?

  Well, but again, partly Trumpian, they hide in plain sight. The bad boys of Brexit, Aaron Banks. I mean, Aaron Banks was sort of scrutinized, at least to some extent. The Russian connections were being talked about. But I think what's so interesting about the Post George story is that it is the Sunday Times. Because the truth is that that says to me that the Murdoch press, maybe, is tiring of Nigel Farage. One hears that Christopher Harborn, the guy who's central to this story, because he's the guy who gave £5 million to Farage, that Farage said was just a little gift, nothing to see here, then it was for his security, then it was a reward for Brexit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you hear, I hear, from people, I don't know that many people in Farage's circle,

• 9:40Alastair Campbell?

  but I know some, that he's getting really fed up, that all this money is going into Reform and into Farage, but actually it's not delivering a greater likelihood of Farage being Prime Minister, because they worry that they peaked. Because yes, in a polarized, in a broken-up political system, you don't need what you used to need to get... A majority, but it doesn't look like Farage is going to be there. And then, of course, we'll talk about Andy Burnham later on, but Andy Burnham showing that you can beat Reform in their own backyard, which is why Andy Burnham's become about to become Labour leader and Prime Minister, that's an added pressure. But I see, I watched, I'm sure lots of our listeners and viewers saw Nigel Farage

• 10:20Alastair Campbell?

  coming back from America, where like every good patriotic British person, he went to America to pay homage.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  Him and Rupert Lowe.

• 10:27Alastair Campbell?

  Him and Rupert Lowe, they went to America to pay homage to the Americans for breaking free from the British King and taking back control rather better than they took back control with Brexit. And he comes back to Britain and he's doorstepped, as anybody in politics who's high profile often is, by a guy with a camera who's asked a very straightforward question. Do you regret not declaring blah, blah, blah, blah?

• 10:51Speaker 03

  And he lost his shit.

• 10:53Alastair Campbell?

  He completely lost the plot. He, and he looked, I, I wondered when he announced he was doing this announcement today, I wondered whether it was going to be to sort of talk about, and I know he talked a little bit about the harassment he comes under. And honestly, the whinging attached to that, I'm going to repeat this, I said it last week, but for this guy to say he's the most attacked politician in modern British history, when two MPs, one of them during the referendum, have literally been assassinated, you can fuck off with that Farage.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  You know where he gets that line from, right? I mean, Donald Trump says the same thing.

• 11:28Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Trump says exactly the same thing, that I'm the most hated, I'm the most attacked, no one's had it worse than me, even Lincoln, who was assassinated and killed. So it is very Trumpy and he's not used to being doorstepped, as you say. One thing I would say about a by-election is it will give journalists an opportunity to spend more time with him out and about because he has to go out and shake hands and kiss babies and knock on doors. So we won't be able to hide from the media in the same way he has.

• 11:52Alastair Campbell?

  You, you say that, his announcement was covered wall to wall across all our TV channels, okay? Now, I've got a vague feeling from my days in government, unless the BBC sort of guidelines have, have changed. You can't take the live feed from a political party. You know, for example, when you're doing a party conference and quite often before the leader's speech, you'll have a big video pumping up the crowd, whatever. The BBC, and I think Sky as well, they go to something else because you don't cover feeds that are provided by a political party. They took a feed from Reform with no media in the room able to ask questions.

• 12:34Alastair Campbell?

  So you say that a by-election will expose into more media, it might well not, it might well not.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 12:40Alastair Campbell?

  Because you're so, what, what you do, this is Trumpian, you create yourself as the centre of the story so much that the media is desperate just to get anything from you.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Yes. No, it's, it's a very fair point. And when Donald Trump announces war in Iran on February 28th, Alistair, most presidents, I think all presidents, taking American forces to war have done live address from the Oval Office, they've done a press conference. He did a pre-taped announcement from Mar-a-Lago in a baseball cap. So there is again, yeah, hiding from the media when tough questions need to be asked. But I'm saying if he is out and about and reporters are in the vicinity, will they continue to ask about these donations or will they let it go? That is the fundamental question right now. My big critique of journalists on both sides of the Atlantic is when there's a big story, when there's a big scandal, you must focus on it, you must ask follow-up questions, you must persist, you must not allow yourself to be deflected, diverted, distracted.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  You must keep going. And I think that's my number one criticism of interviewers right now.

• 13:37Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, just, just to remind people of what happened in the Clacton election. So Farage was elected with forty six point two percent of the vote.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Not a majority, not a majority.

• 13:46Alastair Campbell?

  Well, not, he didn't, he, he, he won the election and quite substantially, he got twenty one thousand, twenty two hundred and twenty five votes. Giles Watling, the Tory, got twelve thousand, nearly thirteen thousand, Labour came third, seven, seven thousand five hundred. And then so it went on. And I wonder whether there is a kind of, a sort of public interest service to be done, saying, listen, mate, you've caused this by-election. We're not going to waste loads of money on it. Maybe, maybe put up, put up one candidate to take him on.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Or maybe we ask Christopher Harborn to pay for the by-election, not the British taxpayers, because it costs a lot to run a by-election.

• 14:18Alastair Campbell?

  Well, in a way, he's, he's caused it, hasn't he?

• 14:21Speaker 03

  I, I just, I just Googled it while you were talking. David Davis in two thousand and eight, when he quit to run for this by-election, this ridiculous egomaniacal by-election, the Culture Secretary at the time said he should pay for it himself. And the Culture Secretary at the time was Andy Burnham, just randomly.

• 14:37Alastair Campbell?

  Ooh.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Eighty thousand pounds, eighty thousand pounds it cost to run that. That was two thousand and eight. I have no idea how much it cost to run a by-election in twenty twenty six.

• 14:44Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. And you're talking there, not the parties, you're talking about the public purse.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm talking about, yeah, the, the public cost of a by-election.

• 14:50Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. So there we are. I, I, I think the, the point I was making about the, the doorstep he did with, with Sky is he really looked on the edge, he really, really did look on the edge.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  For the first time.

• 15:00Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And, and so, and I wonder whether what's sort of driving him there is he's thinking, well, if the, you know, if, if you've got the Murdoch lot lining up against you, you know, he knows the Tories are against him, he knows Labour against him, et cetera. I agree with you. I think Farage has had one of the easiest rides of any major political figure in modern times. He doesn't get asked difficult questions. He basically gets treated by the media more as a commentator than as a politician.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Yes. And, and sorry to keep banging the DC Trump drum, but it's exactly the same here. The interviews with Trump, the press conferences, he's treated like a pundit, he's asked his opinion. I always say to American journalists, stop asking Trump opinion questions. Stop asking, Mr. President, do you agree with this or that? What's your take on what just happened? Ask him actual accountability questions. Did you do X? Why did you do X? There's evidence you did X. And I think that is a fundamental problem with the White House press corps, the Downing Street press corps, Sunday morning show hosts in the US, whatever it is, BBC hosts there, obviously you guys still do better interviews than the US. The US interview scene is horrifically bad. But with Farage, for some reason, as you say, this kind of affable, I'm the bloke down the pub,

• 16:08Speaker 03

  it's treating him as a question time panelist who gives his take on the stories of the day. And any of the defence always was, well, he's not a member of parliament. Well, he's now, he has been for a while and he's now triggered this major by-election. He's seen as the next Prime Minister, according to some polls. Ask him the hard questions, be embarrassed that it took so long to ask about where his money's coming from. Why, I, I just saw, I think Gary Gibbons, Channel Four News report the other night, and they had footage from the Reform HQ of

• 16:35Alastair Campbell?

  Posh George.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Posh George, Cottrell wandering around, just taking phone calls. He's there, he was present. Why did it take so long to ask questions about this guy? Why did it require a Sunday Times insight investigation now?

• 16:46Alastair Campbell?

  Well, the answer is that most of people on the right have want, they wanted Brexit. The newspapers on the right wanted Brexit and Farage was a big part of that. They wanted him in Parliament, they wanted to drag the Tory party further to the right, they've done that. They've now dragged it so far, the, the centre of gravity in the right wing of our politics so far to the right that now even Nigel Farage is not right wing enough and Rupert Lowe

• 17:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 17:10Alastair Campbell?

  comes along even further to the right. So listen, it's, it's so funny, I'm getting so many people messaging me about what they think about this. I've got so, one person, his judgment, I quite respect, saying, think this is a really smart move. Other people saying, this is the next step, this is the next nail in his coffin. So this is what he does, he makes us all talk about him, think about him. But I think that there's some big questions here for the Tories. The Tories, I don't think are yet settled on the strategy of whether they try to compete with Farage by being more like Farage or whether they go for Farage. There's some, clearly you're right that people will say that, because right in the middle of this, at some point, Andy Burnham is going to become the Prime Minister.

• 17:52Alastair Campbell?

  And this will be sort of, you know, part of the backdrop of that as well. So, look, it's, it's an interesting move. I think it's a move born of desperation. I think it's a move born of his, of his inability to withstand pretty limited gentle scrutiny by a media that up to now has been far too tame with him. But I think he might get away with it in Clacton. We did this, when we did this mini-series with Cat Nealan from The Observer about who funds Reform, which I recommend to those who haven't listened to you, you do have to become a member to, to listen to it. But what was interesting when Cat and I did a Q and A about it, which is available to all who listen wherever you get your podcasts. But she was, she'd spent a lot of time in Clacton. And she was basically saying that people didn't like this stuff about the money,

• 18:38Alastair Campbell?

  but it wasn't necessarily shifting them. Now, that's the thing that we'll have to see, a bit like in America, I can't believe that Trump making two point two billion doesn't make everybody think, why did I vote for this crook? Right? But it doesn't seem to be happening at the pace that you and I might think that it should.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  You would hope that the UK is not the US still on these issues and that shame still matters and that decency still matters and that anti-corruption still matters. Obviously Farage doesn't have the Donald Trump, I'm a businessman excuse that Trump and his sons have wheeled out for their crypto fortunes. Farage is slightly different, right, Alistair? He's not doing, he's not getting his money as a result of investments. He's getting his money as gifts or what he claims are gifts.

• 19:16Alastair Campbell?

  He's getting money from all sorts of places. I mean, look, as, as somebody says, you know, if you would, if you're willing to do a cameo saying up for the rah for eighty, for, for eighty quid, what might you do for five million? I mean, he's got all sorts of money, you know, he's got this, this bullion company that he promotes, he's

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Alistair, I'm just looking at the numbers, he got forty six point two percent of the vote in twenty twenty four. If he gets less than that, is that bad? Is that going to be seen as a defeat? If his vote share goes down, because you've got the Greens now as a force that they weren't in twenty twenty four?

• 19:48Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 19:50Alastair Campbell?

  I don't know, I don't know, because in the end, this is the great thing about by-election, this is why, you know, Makerfield was suddenly being talked about around the world. I mean, I literally was getting vocals from Australian television. Could I come on to talk about what Makerfield is like?

• 20:03Speaker 03

  John Oliver did a whole segment on it on HBO here at the US.

• 20:06Alastair Campbell?

  He did, yeah, exactly. So, and now the people of Clacton will now, their views will matter. So do they want a by-election? I'll tell you the thing that Cat said was really, really interesting. And this will go to the heart of the of the by-election. This is where the other parties really should go for. There were a lot of people saying to Cat Neillan that the guy's never here, he spends more time in America than Clacton. That was damaging more than he's in the, you know, he's a puppet of Putin, or, you know, he's too close to Trump or whatever. I think the Trump thing's a problem, by the way. I do think that his, and it's interesting, you know, why did he go to America? Why did he go to America for the independence when he's got all this stuff going on around him? Answer, because that's where he feels happier.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:52Alastair Campbell?

  That's the politics that he believes in.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Alistair, when he says, you know, he does his interviews, I don't want to be Prime Minister, I've never plotted it from Oxbridge like Boris Johnson and others. I actually kind of believe him. I don't think he has massive ambitions to be Prime Minister. Well, in the sense of, obviously, he wants power, but I think he'd be just as comfortable doing a Fox News primetime show, making a ton of money and hanging out with people who are sycophants as being Prime Minister. It's like when Donald Trump won the presidency. He didn't really want it in 2016. He was running in 2016 because he wanted to build a TV network. He wanted the attention. He didn't expect to beat Hillary Clinton. Now, obviously, it's a very different situation. 10 years later, he's a professional politician and loves it. But I think these people, as you say, they are very happy in these other scenes, in these other walks of life.

• 21:34Alastair Campbell?

  Look, I, I've watched him doing this shtick, you know, I never wanted to be Prime Minister. I came into politics to make a difference. It's not to be Prime Minister.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, that's bullshit.

• 21:43Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, it's bullshit. It's bullshit. He might not have come into politics to be Prime Minister, but now that it sort of looks like it could happen, I think he's absolutely gagging for it. And I think saying that is part of the shtick.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 21:56Alastair Campbell?

  That gets him there. But I think the Clacton thing will be interesting. I think, I think if, I don't know how the other parties are going to handle this. I wonder whether it is worth Labour just saying, look, Tories came second last time around. This is, this is basically about the politics, the psychodrama, the politics of the right. Let them all just fight it out. I don't know. It's going to be very, very interesting. But it's, I do think this is born of weakness rather than strength, and that is never a good place to start a campaign, but we'll see how it goes. Now, I mentioned Andy Burnham. We've got loads of questions this week about Keir Starmer. He's off to, I mean, I can't help feeling sorry for Keir Starmer. He put out a video yesterday, he put out a video, visiting the, the motorbike riders who give the Prime Minister there. And he was there thanking

• 22:40Alastair Campbell?

  them for looking after him for the last two years. He's now off to, he's now gone to Turkey for the, for what will clearly be his last NATO summit. So that's going on. And Andy Burnham, there's now been so much sort of focus on what Andy Burnham thinks. So let's just get a few questions of this. Izzy, back to the media. How much was Starmer defeated by a media landscape he didn't understand or perform well in? And can Burnham get his messaging right and keep the press at bay? How much do you think Keir Starmer's downfall was due to media, communication, all this other stuff that we talked about?

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Before I answer that question, let me agree disagreeably with you.

• 23:16Alastair Campbell?

  You're disagreeing agreeably?

• 23:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, that'd be weird if I agreed in a disagreeable way. That'd just be contrary.

• 23:22Alastair Campbell?

  I totally agree with you, you bastard.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  I totally agree with you, you bastard.

• 23:25Alastair Campbell?

  Yes, you're right. I know you're right.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  On Starmer, you know, there's a lot of these political obits being written. A decent man brought down by media. I want to talk about the media in a moment, but before then, he did a lot of things that suggest he was not a decent man. October 11th, 2023, a lot of us will not forget that LBC interview where he was asked, does Israel have the right to block power, water, food going into Gaza? He said, Israel does have that right. He later walked that back, but not after he didn't spend 24, 48 hours defending the line. He then obviously did support Israel during this genocide. He did crack down on vicars and old ladies, women and children peacefully protesting the genocide, rounded them up en masse. I don't think that was a decent thing to do. He did lie in order to become Labour leader. I'm sorry, there's been multiple U-turns, things he promised to do and didn't

• 24:09Speaker 03

  do. So I'm not sure I buy this line that he was just some decent dude who, you know, fell afoul of a horrible right wing media. Having said that, clearly, any Labour leader is up against a Murdoch press, a right wing press. And now, these tech giants, let's not forget Elon Musk's role in British politics, a big role. I think any leader, wherever they are on the political spectrum, if they are Labour leader, if they are Prime Minister of the UK right now, and Andy Burnham will feel it very, very quickly if he isn't already, is up against this kind of transnational hard right coalition of tech bosses and activists and media organisations and online pundits. And even there was that Russian politician who was like, we did this, we brought down Starmer.

• 24:50Alastair Campbell?

  Tridymitriev, yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  That's it, yeah. Merz is next. We do live in this age where social media and the algorithms are able to foment a lot of division. A lot of people, look, I can state the reasons why I don't like Keir Starmer, but I bet there's a lot of people who can't state those reasons, and they don't quite know why they're supposed to hate Starmer. And I think that might be a lot to do with the social media and media diet that they get. And clearly, he was his own worst enemy. I don't know how he was Director of Public Prosecutions, how he was a top barrister, because he's one of the worst speakers I've ever seen in modern British public life. Like, no charisma, wooden speaking habit, no humour, no ability to engage or persuade. Look, you don't all have to be Tony Blair in your delivery, but you have to be someone who can engage with the public and go over the heads of the media. Use the bully pulpit, as they call it here in the United States.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  And he didn't do that at all.

• 25:37Alastair Campbell?

  There's a very, very interesting analysis, but you're slightly provoked by something where you, I think, slightly misunderstand what I was saying. I felt sorry for him that he has to go on this kind of farewell tour to say thank you to all of these people.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  I did miss that.

• 25:54Alastair Campbell?

  And that then has to go and be the Prime Minister to summit when everybody else is sitting there thinking, you're not going to be here next time, and therefore it doesn't matter.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  But even then, I don't feel sorry for him. Have a little bit of humiliation. Have a little bit of humiliation. I have no problem with that.

• 26:07Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, okay. And also, I do, I do think he's a much more likeable guy than his public image.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  Oh, that's true. That's true. That's the media. There's definitely a media role. And I think Andy Burnham is supposed to be this great northern white knight, talks like a normal person, is a, you know, is a communicator. I think that's all going to change very quickly. You watch the media narrative about Burnham will change very fast.

• 26:29Alastair Campbell?

  That's what I think the question relates to, is whether, you see, I think, you, you know, I know we've discussed this before. You think we went too far back in the day in taming the Murdoch press, trying to get the right wing papers to be less vile than...

• 26:41Speaker 03

  Sucking up to the Murdoch press, Alistair, I would say.

• 26:44Alastair Campbell?

  That's what you would call it, I know. But we were taming a beast and keeping a very nasty animal in the corner of the room.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  Sorry, Alistair, just, I've got, no, sorry. If that was the case, if that was the case, I have one very simple question. Why, after leaving office, did your old boss carry on sucking up to those people? If it was just a political move?

• 27:03Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I, I stopped working for my old boss and being his spokesman long time ago, buddy. So, and he's not here to defend himself, is he?

• 27:13Speaker 03

  I think the listeners can work out the answer there very clearly.

• 27:16Alastair Campbell?

  Look, I do still defend my boss for all sorts of things, but I think, I think sometimes he does have a fondness for these people that are well to the right of him, well to the right of me. And, you know, he likes being around with very, very powerful people.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  As do a lot of politicians, unfortunately. You saw the recent Spectator summer party where all the Labour politicians always turn up to kind of, you know, kiss the rings of the people in power. And Starmer went again. And I just find that all very, even when I worked in the British press corps, when I worked in the lobby, I always found that very distasteful.

• 27:45Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I wasn't invited this year, which may be something to do with the way we interviewed Michael Gove. I don't know. On the point about Andy Burnham, though, where you're absolutely right is that it's going to go, you watch, Elon Musk will forget who Keir Starmer is in no time at all. He will direct his kind of algorithmic hate towards Andy Burnham, Friedrich Merz, whoever stands up against Le Pen or Bardella in the French election. That's what's going to happen.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Hundred percent.

• 28:11Alastair Campbell?

  So the question then, the question then is, what's the best way to deal with it? Before you sort of, you know, attacked my integrity and impugned my entire career in the way that you did by saying what we call it sucking up, strategic management of a difficult enemy is how I would frame it, but there we are.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  I thought you were a plain speaker, Alistair. I went for the simpler description.

• 28:33Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, okay. And I, I understand why you say it. I understand why you say it. But the point is, we were trying to tame an enemy.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  By the way, I'm not saying you weren't. I'm just saying it was also sucking up.

• 28:44Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. And we did it in the way that we did it. Okay, now, the landscape that Andy Burnham is going to inherit is even more complicated than the one that we had. So here's a question for you. For example, you talk, we talk a lot about Musk. We all talk, we understand this kind of the way that his mind works, the, I think he's a fascist, the algorithm, the way that it works, some of the other people around him that are vile, social media, Starmer wants to ban it for under 16 year olds, therefore they hate him even more.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 29:10Alastair Campbell?

  I thought it was interesting last week, the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandi, came off X, finally. Do you think that maybe Andy Burnham should instruct the entire government just to say, we can't support and be part of something that is so divisive, vile?

• 29:29Alastair Campbell?

  Neo-fascistic.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  I'm surprised, Alistair, that you're offering such a tame solution.

• 29:33Alastair Campbell?

  No, no, I'm going one by one.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  But I just think it's so ridiculous, that Lisa Nandi pulling off of X. It's like, oh, you know, I've got to leave this platform because it's become so toxic. Well, you're the Culture Secretary, do something about it. Don't just quit the platform.

• 29:48Alastair Campbell?

  Okay.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  You know, this whole thing of, you know, that meme, we're all trying to find the person who did this. You're the regulator, you're the British government. Pulling off of X is just a weird thing to do. The thing to do is actually exercise your muscle instead of going after pro-Palestine protesters in the streets and rounding up little old ladies and vicars. Why don't you go after the world's richest man? Why don't you have him open up his algorithm? Why don't you hold him to account for some of the stuff that they're putting out there? There's many tools in the British government toolbox. They rather use them against pro-Palestine protesters than this right-wing billionaire oligarch.

• 30:18Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, and what I was doing, Mehdi, was going through a series of proposals I was going to put to you, that was the first one. Would you, if you were Andy Burnham coming in, say that the development of GB News to the place in the media landscape it now has is a reflection on the utter failure of Ofcom? And therefore, Ofcom has to be put up for a complete recalibration. Okay, we agree on that. And would you revisit Leveson too?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:47Alastair Campbell?

  So, okay, so we agreed, and that's where we look at the relation between the press and the police.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  I say this all the time, I can't say enough, I'll say on every appearance you have me on, which is you have to fight fire with fire. You cannot just sit back and play defence, you must go on the offence. You must change some of the structures of power in this country if you're going to be a centre-left or a left-wing or even a centrist Prime Minister. You cannot accept the status quo as it is currently structured when it comes to politics, when it comes to the media. I mean, just again, look at what the right does. Donald Trump comes into office, appoints his underling, his sycophant Brendan Carr as head of the FCC. The guy wears like a gold Trump badge on his lapel. He's supposed to be an independent regulator of the media and he promptly goes after all of Donald Trump's media enemies. Right, so that is what the right does. You don't have to go that far, but the idea that you wouldn't look again at Ofcom or Leveson or Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it, I think would be absurd.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  You need to understand who your enemies are. And I think Labour leaders and centre-left leaders, more broadly Joe Biden, have never quite understood who their enemies are. You need to identify your enemy, your opponent, and you need to be able to take what steps are necessary to defeat that opponent. Learn some lessons from the right, please.

• 31:53Alastair Campbell?

  Well, we've ended up violently agreeing.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Agreeing disagreeably.

• 31:56Alastair Campbell?

  Well, no, we're agreeing agreeably now. We were disagreeable in times, we would mainly agree agreeably. But no, I felt this for some time, I do think that for all the legitimate criticism that people can make of Keir Starmer and mistakes and lack of planning and preparation, all that other stuff and charisma, they can say all that. But the truth is, I think he did walk into an economic landscape that was genuinely much tougher than he thought, a geopolitical landscape that was much tougher certainly than when we were in power, but also a media landscape which you can only thrive in if you are actually dominant within it. And I'm afraid that is where you don't just fight fire with fire, you have to learn a little bit from the way that Trump has managed to do that and the way that he's done it in the States.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  And can I just say, on the policy front, because we often talk about politics just as messaging and communications, obviously I'm a journalist, you were a very famous director of communications, it is more than that, right? It is also what you stand for, what is your vision, what are you offering people? The problem is people couldn't really identify what Starmer stood for. I see the Downing Street and the Labour Party publishing lots of lists of everything he did, all these good things, he did do good things, no one's denying he did some good things, but that's not how politics works, you can't just have a list of things, you need to actually have a clear, very vision, define yourself before your opponents define you, have very clear, big policies that are going to change people's lives. We're hearing briefings about, you know, he's going to bring capital gains tax in line with income tax, we're hearing things about public control of utilities, that's fine, but you know, halfway houses will not work.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  We need to actually hear from Burnham as to what he's actually going to do. And on the geopolitical scene, let's not forget, Labour have hemorrhage votes to the Greens because of Gaza, let's not dance around that. A lot of the obits of Keir Starmer in the BBC, even in The Guardian, I think, just didn't mention Gaza absurdly. That was a huge issue for Labour voters and people who ditched his party. A lot of polling has shown that a lot of people have gone to the Greens and the Lib Dems because of Gaza. What's Andy Burnham going to do on that front? We haven't really heard much. So I think we're going to have to address some of these big issues very early on because people will make up their minds very quickly.

• 33:54Alastair Campbell?

  They will, they will, and the first big moves will be incredibly important. And thus far, he's handled himself pretty well, he's shown a real ruthlessness.

• 34:02Speaker 03

  I think people on the left are a little worried about the James Pennell Chief of Staff appointment, we'll see how that pans out.

• 34:07Alastair Campbell?

  Honestly, I think that is, I don't think that's a big deal at all. I think that is real inside-the-beltway stuff, I really do. I could be wrong.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  Just to be devil's advocate, people might have said that about Morgan McSweeney and it turned out not to be a Beltway issue, it turned out to be a national issue.

• 34:22Alastair Campbell?

  That's true, that's true, that's true, that's true. But anyway, the point I was going to make about Andy Burnham is that the first impressions are incredibly important. And I mean first impressions at every stage, like the first PMQs, the first big speech, the first big conference, the first big foreign visit, they're all very, very important. And thus far, I think he's handled himself pretty well. I think it's quite an achievement, by the way, to become leader and Prime Minister through an act of pretty profound ruthlessness. And yet, part of the imaging and part of the sort of chatter is, he's a really nice bloke, he's much more personable than Keir Starmer. That's pretty, you've got to raise your hat a little bit to that.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  If only Gordon Brown had had those eyelashes and a black t-shirt, he could have a much better job of defenestrating your old boss.

• 35:07Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I once went, was once, this would have been back in my journalist days, this is imagining Gordon Brown in a vest, black t-shirt situation. Gordon was being interviewed by Fiona for a magazine, and we went up to spend the weekend with them in Scotland, and the photographer at one point said to Gordon, do you think you could put something on a bit more casual?

• 35:28Alastair Campbell?

  Gordon went through to his bedroom and came back in a different tie.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  Did you see him in a shirt the other day getting ice cream with the fans?

• 35:36Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I did, and the football, yeah. Yeah, with the best fans in the world. I think Norway are trying to run the Scots fans close, but I think Scotland just about got set.

• 35:44Speaker 03

  I'm going to be sad to see England defeat Norway on Saturday because I could have a soft spot for the Norwegians, but they must lose.

• 35:51Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, okay, well, let's just see how it all pans out, shall we?

• 35:55Speaker 03

  Surely you want them to lose too, Alistair?

• 35:57Alastair Campbell?

  What? Why are you asking these difficult questions of me?

• 36:01Speaker 03

  You don't support England.

• 36:02Alastair Campbell?

  I've supported Scotland all my life.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  Come on, you've got to support England this Saturday, Alistair.

• 36:07Alastair Campbell?

  I was impressed by their win against Mexico. I actually do think this group of players have got some exceptional role models amongst them. I loved the fact that Bellingham, here's another media point, when he was going through the so-called mix zone, I don't know if you saw this, it was absolutely beautiful, there was this guy who I think was in a wheelchair, he was from Venezuela.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  He stopped to chat to him in Spanish.

• 36:28Alastair Campbell?

  And he shouted out, "Bellingham, I'm from Venezuela", and he went and chatted to him in Spanish. I think Harry Kane's an exceptional role model. He slightly went down in my estimation when I heard that he played golf with Donald Trump.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Same, same, I was like, no, no, not you, Harry, no, no.

• 36:43Alastair Campbell?

  As Donald Trump said, I was thinking, maybe it's not true.

• 36:47Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 36:48Alastair Campbell?

  But I interviewed Harry Kane a while back for, I think it was for the Evening Standard magazine, and I was actually really impressed by him. And you know, I watched the, I watched England's game against DR Congo in France, and what was really interesting was the French commentators were talking about Harry Kane in the way that our commentators talk about Messi and Ronaldo and Mbappe. They, and I don't think, because of his image, because he's not controversial and he's not glamorous and he doesn't have loads of tattoos and he doesn't sort of, you know, spend his time all over the front pages of the Sunday tabloids, I think we underestimate just how good he is in the eyes of the rest of the world. This is all a long-winded way of saying, I'm still not over Scotland being knocked

• 37:31Alastair Campbell?

  out in the way that they were, but I wish the English all the best, all the best.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  I'll take it, I'll take it.

• 37:38Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, okay, let's take a break, then I want to talk about faith.

• 37:46Alastair Campbell?

  This episode is brought to you by Lloyds Premier. Life for many people is very complex and the political goings-on in the world do not make it any easier. Trust in institutions, trust in politics, trust in business, it's hard to find.

• 38:02Rory Stewart?

  It's terrifying, isn't it? I mean, if you think about what could Trump suddenly wake up and do about tariffs? What might suddenly happen with AI? What happens when a new Labour government comes in and potentially changes capital gains tax? There are so many things, if you're investing and trying to think about your pension or future, that could be completely terrifying.

• 38:19Alastair Campbell?

  So, it is a very good idea, have a banking partner you can trust. The Lloyds Premier current account is to help their customers through the financial complexity that life throws at us. With its tailored financial coaching, you can get access to experts to help you make the most of your money.

• 38:35Rory Stewart?

  Along with benefits including the Bupa Digital Family GP and wellbeing subscription, 1% cash back up to £10 per month per account on most purchases, and lifestyle benefits you can bank on Lloyds. Search Lloyds Premier to find out more. £15 per month fee refunded when you meet the eligibility criteria. T and C supply, UK residents aged 18 plus.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr Shaq. Thank you, Mr Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10" once. Seven days to love it or return it, Mr Shaq. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven-day return policy at carvana.com.

• 39:32Speaker 05

  Nordstrom Rack is celebrating 125 years of Nordstrom with 125 of the best deals up to 65% off, in stores and online. We're talking incredible savings on brands you love like Vince, Sam Edelman, Rag & Bone, All Saints and more. They're only here while supplies last, so shop today. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favourite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices, that's why you Rack.

• 40:05Alastair Campbell?

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

• 40:08Speaker 03

  And me, Mehdi Hasan in Washington DC.

• 40:10Alastair Campbell?

  Now, here's one from Mohammed. "How does your faith drive the work you do?" I'm assuming that question is directed at you because famously, as they say, "I don't do God." So how does your faith drive the work you do? You're a Muslim.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  Well, it's interesting. Right now, it affects my work in one very singular way, which is wherever I go, wherever I speak about politics, Trump, the threat to democracy, the rise of fascism, the genocide in the Middle East, I get asked by live audiences, I do a lot of live events, and I get asked by audiences wherever I go in the US who have deeply depressed, deeply pessimistic about the future. They say, "How do you keep hope alive? How do you stay hopeful, Mehdi? How do you get out of bed in the morning and still fight the good fight?" And that is an answer I give based around faith, which is, I'm a very pessimistic person. I'm not an optimist. My wife and kids will tell you I'm negative about everything. I'm like, "Oh, it's going to be a shitty day. Although it's going to rain." I'm very negative.

• 40:57Alastair Campbell?

  No, England are going to win. That's different. But optimism is not the same thing as hope. I'm not an optimistic person, but I am a hopeful person because I'm a person of faith. And my faith teaches me that we must stay in the struggle, even when we cannot see light at the end of the tunnel. We must keep fighting to try and see that light. There's a great line from Desmond Tutu at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, Archbishop Tutu, who said, "Hope is being able to see the light despite all the darkness." It's not the absence of darkness, it's being able to see it despite it. And for me, that's what God and faith means to me. So at a time when I'm deeply pessimistic about the state of the world, every day I have to cover this shit show with Trump and with Netanyahu and all these people, that is what keeps me going.

• 41:43Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I was watching the Pope, who famously said he didn't want to go to the 250th anniversary celebrations because he was going to the Lampedusa to spend time with immigrants and the poor. And I watched him do that, and I felt removed by that. Then I had read about his excommunication of this very right-wing sect within the Catholic Church. I found it very interesting. I think one of the things that's very underwritten about Andy Burnham thus far, it will at some point come, but Andy's faith, I think, is very, very important. He's a Catholic. He's a practicing Catholic, and I think it is a big part of his politics.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  Maybe he'll bond with President Vance over it, who's a very public Catholic right now. In fact, he converted to Catholicism and now lectures the Pope on what Catholicism is.

• 42:33Alastair Campbell?

  I know. And he's written, but should I read this book that he's written about his conversion? Well, he's an interesting figure, and you don't think I should read it at all?

• 42:41Speaker 03

  I mean, you can if you want to. I wouldn't.

• 42:43Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but you're not going to. No, okay.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  He's a fraud.

• 42:46Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Right, this is a very, very quick question from Joey. "Explain your personal politics in three words or less." Joey, it should be three words or fewer. I'm sorry, I'm a pedant. But so Mehdi, your politics in three words or fewer?

• 43:01Speaker 03

  Justice always forever. I think my politics are all about justice. It's all about fighting for fairness.

• 43:08Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, I think I'm going to say liberté, fraternité, fraternité, égalité. No, I'm just going to say left of centre. Just be on the left of centre is where I'm going to be.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  Very modest answer there.

• 43:21Alastair Campbell?

  I know, I agree. And final question from Ali, which is not me. "How much do you both enjoy arguing for the sake of it?" Do you like a good argument just because you can have it?

• 43:31Speaker 03

  I love arguing. I wrote a book about arguing. I literally wrote a book called Win Every Argument.

• 43:34Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, he's plugging his books out. Yeah, we all didn't read it.

• 43:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm plugging the book. I'm plugging Zatayo UK, which launched last month in the UK. I'm plugging Win Every Argument. I wrote a book about arguing. That's how much I love arguing. It's a real problem for my wife and kids, for friends and family.

• 43:49Alastair Campbell?

  Do you argue with them all the time?

• 43:51Speaker 03

  I do. I mean, I lose arguments with my wife, as is the case. But I do enjoy arguing. It is a problem for me in my personal life because people get fed up with me, but it has helped me in my professional life. I literally got to where I am because I love to argue.

• 44:03Alastair Campbell?

  All right, Mehdi. Well, as you're in plugging mode, I'm going to do a plug as well, but not for me. This week Rory has got another AI deep dive for members. On Friday, you'll be able to hear his conversation with Michael Backer and Alex Petropulos. These are two authors of a pretty astonishing report which sets out what's at stake for a Europe that fails to take the AI race seriously. They are both adamant that Europe will become essentially irrelevant politically and economically if things don't change. As ever, Rory and Matt Clifford are asking them some pretty tough questions. If you want to hear that, sign up at therestispolitics.com. No, I like a good argument. And it's not for the sake of it. My daughter Grace, who's

• 44:47Alastair Campbell?

  a comedian, she does a very, very funny sketch based on true stories about times when she's had to drag me away from people because she's worried it's getting close to violence. Because I do feel things very, very deeply. And when I'm arguing with somebody whose views I really, really, really profoundly disrespect, I feel this kind of boiling rage inside me. Rory has managed to calm it.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Is it true you stabbed your hand with a needle during the, was it Hutton Inquiry or one of the Iraq inquiries?

• 45:17Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:18Speaker 03

  That's not normal.

• 45:19Alastair Campbell?

  No, it wasn't. It wasn't that. It was a select committee inquiry. No, it's perfectly normal.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  To stick a pin in your hand to keep your anger under control?

• 45:27Alastair Campbell?

  No, it wasn't to keep my anger under control. It was to remind myself that my strategy at this select committee hearing was not to let them wind me up. That morning, being a very good father, the aforementioned Grace, who was then not a comedian but a child, a young child, I was, no, for the night before, I was giving her a bath. And she had this little thing called pingu, okay, which had a beak, okay? So I thought, well, I'll do. A lawyer had said to me, "If you feel your temper rising, just have something in your hand and squeeze it into the palm of your hand and it will stop." I forgot the

• 46:05Alastair Campbell?

  bloody pingu, okay? So when I got to the court, when I got to the inquiry, I had a, I put a paperclip in my hand instead. But because the paperclip gets all squishy, I made it straight and wrapped it around my finger. And then I pulled it. And then I did notice suddenly that blood was pouring out of my hand. Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  I think I mentioned that in my book, in the arguing book. I think I mentioned that incident with you. That's why I bring it up.

• 46:31Alastair Campbell?

  Two plugs. Two plugs. Well done.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  But this one involved you. I plugged you being in the book. But there you go. But I do enjoy, look, it's not either or. I do enjoy a good argument, but at the same time, I do believe argument is genuinely the lifeblood of our democracy.

• 46:43Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. And right now, in both, particularly in the United States, but also in other parts of the world, and dangerously here, I think, if we had a very, very right-wing libertarian-style government, freedom of speech would become freedom to say the things they want you to say. And that's not lifeblood of democracy. Well, Mehdi, it's been great to have you. This is the end of Question Time. And then tomorrow, our listeners and viewers will get the delight of us having this flipped week where we'll have the main podcast where we're going to be talking about USA 250, 250 years on. We're going to be talking about football and the World Cup, because you and I, unlike Rory, are big football fans, we'll be talking about the politics of football. And we're going to also talk about the media,

• 47:25Alastair Campbell?

  role of media in democracy with a particular focus on lots of interesting stuff that's going on in Germany. Thank you.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Look forward to it.

• 47:40Speaker 06

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC. Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd.

• 48:00Speaker 07

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 48:12Speaker 08

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 48:16Speaker 07

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 48:19Speaker 08

  I'm not the first then.

• 48:20Speaker 07

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17 and a half without parent.

• 48:25Speaker 09

  We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about Blinds.com.

• 48:34Speaker 10

  Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Customers who shop at Blinds.com experience excellent customer service, from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you. Visit Blinds.com to order your free samples.