578. Alastair and Michael Gove Disagree Agreeably on Brexit and Israel

Will there be another EU referendum, despite Andy Burnham promising not to re-run old Brexit arguments? Will Michael Gove ever criticise Israel's actions in Palestine, and if not, why not? What do the charges against Manchester City tell us about Manchester’s growth since 2008 – and why do questions around a football club present the first serious challenge to Burnham’s premiership? Join Alastair and former Conservative cabinet minister and arch Brexiteer Michael Gove as they answer all these questions and more in this week's edition of Question Time. __________ Enjoy Rory and Alastair’s interview with Shabana Mahmood 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. Move faster with daily global market analysis, the download on tokenisation and how to manage your company's energy transition all from Lloyds Corporate & Institutional Banking. Search Lloyds Corporate. 🌏 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, Louis Mealing Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Producer: Evan Green Exec Producer: Bella Soames 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?

  We had some great questions for this episode with Michael Gove, standing in for Rory. And one of my favourites was this one from Oscar. Have Michael Gove and Alastair Campbell ever agreed about anything? Well, we both think Tony Blair was an exceptional prime minister and we both know that Boris Johnson was a charlatan, but we express these things in different ways. There are two big issues that we really disagree about. One is Brexit and the other is Israel Gaza. We're going to be discussing those because we've got lots of questions on both. With Michael, unlike Rory, an actual football fan, we'll also get into Manchester City's troubles too. So plenty of scope for agreeable disagreement as we ask, will the UK get back into the EU? Will Manchester City get relegated?

• 0:44Alastair Campbell?

  And will Michael Gove ever, ever criticise Israel?

• 0:50Rory Stewart?

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• 0:53Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:03Rory Stewart?

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• 1:15Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:31Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:39Rory Stewart?

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• 1:55Alastair Campbell?

  This episode is brought to you by Wise. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print. Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate and easy transfer and no surprises along the way. Wise keeps things simple. Wise is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than 160 countries and with over 40 currencies, most transfers arrive instantly. Wise uses the mid-market exchange rate, like the one you see on Google, with no markups or hidden fees.

• 2:36Alastair Campbell?

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• 2:54Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 2:56Alastair 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.

• 3:08Rory Stewart?

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

• 3:32Alastair Campbell?

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

• 3:39Rory 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.

• 4:04Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to the Rest is Politics question time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  And me, Michael Gove.

• 4:09Alastair Campbell?

  And Michael Gove is standing in for Rory Stewart and we are going to be talking about the many, many questions we got on these subjects. Brexit, Middle East, Israel Gaza and Israel West Bank, Manchester City. And then we might lighten things up a bit towards the end, but let's just start with these questions on Brexit, a couple here. Simo N, do you think there will be another EU referendum? Time will tell. Tim from Birmingham, hi Alistair and Michael. Before the leadership challenge, Andy Burnham promised not to rerun the Brexit arguments. Now, a few months into the job, he's saying we could go all the way and rejoin. Where does he go from here? If Labour goes into 2029 offering a choice between status quo, customs union, single

• 4:54Alastair Campbell?

  market or full membership, which would each of you back? So first of all, yes or no, Michael, do you think we will have another Europe referendum at some point in our lifetime? And secondly, which of those options would you back if we did?

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Funny enough, I don't think there'll be a referendum. What I think Andy Burnham will try to do is to forge a new relationship with the European Union on closer terms and then seek a mandate, probably not necessarily at the next election, but probably at a future election, to take us back in on the basis of a general election result. So I don't think that there will be another referendum. If there were another referendum, I'd vote for the status quo.

• 5:32Alastair Campbell?

  That is interesting because that is my ideal position, the one that you've just outlined, and I've written about it in The New World this week. And I've said that I don't think even Andy Burnham will be that bold, but I hope you're right. I hope you're right because I think that will be the right thing for the country. What do you make of his statement in his speech in Liverpool that Brexit has done more harm than good? It's very hard to dispute that, Michael.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  It is, I think, challenging, but I will. The interesting thing is that he acknowledged that it had done some good. So normally.

• 6:04Alastair Campbell?

  So where did he, which bit of the speech did he acknowledge it was more harm than good does not, does not mean that good was done?

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Well, I took from it, and you might say that this is an example of cockeyed optimism, that he was acknowledging that there was a balance. And one of the things I'd say about the Labour government is that it has actually, in its actions, recognised that there are good things from Brexit. So taking VAT off gas and electricity bills, impossible within the European Union. Putting VAT on independent school fees, impossible.

• 6:43Alastair Campbell?

  A policy which you support, obviously.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Exactly. Impossible within the European Union.

• 6:48Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think you can, you can always get right. Some of these taxes, you can put different taxation levels on these different things, including VAT. So I don't, I, look, I think that was cockeyed optimism. When he said more harm than good.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 7:01Alastair Campbell?

  Let me translate for you, Michael. He was saying it's been a bit of a disaster. And I think he's probably thinking that because of the massive, the huge hit on GDP, which whoever, I know we don't believe in experts, but we're talking between somewhere between six and eight percent according to the experts. We're talking about a big fall in investment, which is partly being blamed on Brexit. We've seen our exports fall. And you did promise, Michael, you and Boris Johnson, and I know that you were a true believer and he was just a charlatan. I least respect for the fact that you did believe in this. The customs declarations alone, we're now talking about 39.2 million customs declarations,

• 7:45Alastair Campbell?

  individual forms, which have hit British business, we reckon by about 7.5 billion a year. So I think it's very, very hard. And then you talk about taking rights away. We've taken rights away from people, particularly young people. So anyway, I think it's noble of you to keep pretending that there have been some advantages, but you haven't spelt them out very clearly for me.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Well, I think the first thing is that the degree of the hit that the, the UK economy has taken is disputed. There's no such thing as an expert consensus. And also the best comparison is not necessarily with a woulda, coulda, shoulda future, but the actual factual existence endured by our neighbours and by other countries in the EU. Alistair, we both love Germany. It's been the case since 2016 that Britain has grown faster than Germany and about at the same rate as France. No country is as embedded in the EU or its structures. No country benefits more from or is more restricted by the EU than Germany.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  So as a test case, how can it be that Brexit is such a disaster when we've been growing faster than the quintessential EU nation itself?

• 8:59Alastair Campbell?

  I think, well, first thing to say is I think there is a consensus of expert opinion. It depends what you define as an expert. My, my definition of an expert is I do think that the big international economic institutions and the Bank of England and some of the bodies that you, I hope, would respect at least the sort of factual analyses that they do. Yes, the French and German economies have struggled. Yes, the European Union as an economy as a whole has struggled. And yes, I would argue that the European Union needs considerable reform as well. But I think one of the reasons why the European Union has struggled is actually because their confidence was hit by our departure. We have suffered as a result and they have suffered as a result too.

• 9:41Alastair Campbell?

  But I don't think you can dispute that GDP per capita has fallen because of our leaving the European Union. The buggeration for trade has definitely increased and our sense of who and what we are as a country, I think, has been changed in a very, very negative direction.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  So I think it's undoubtedly the case that there has been some additional cost that some parts of the economy have endured as a result of leaving. But those costs have been absorbed. The benefits of being outside the EU are growing. Those benefits exist in the realm of data, in AI, in areas like gene editing and selective breeding. So in the growth industries of the future, life sciences, tech overall, and indeed in financial services, we've already shown that we outside the EU have the potential to attract investment, which the EU doesn't.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  And even this government, especially this government's acknowledged that we don't want to be within the regulatory ambit of the EU when it comes to financial services or tech or developing the crops and livestock that will be a part of a, you know, a climate transition. All of those things are easier to achieve outside the EU and none of them are things that this government wants to give up or indeed that people in the banking sector or people in the tech sector want to give up as well.

• 11:13Alastair Campbell?

  When I said earlier, I've always been fascinated by this because I know it's a sort of question more for the historians, but. Although I was sort of teasing you and saying it, I might, do you think I'm, do you think I'm right? When I say that you were at least a true believer and probably still are.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 11:30Alastair Campbell?

  Whereas that the guy, the guy alongside, alongside whom you stood at the time, Boris Johnson, actually was not a true believer and was doing this for other, very different purposes, which met their goal, he became Prime Minister. But the, the damage along the way has been considerable, both to your party and to the country.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Um, I, I have a number of criticisms of Boris, but I actually do believe that he was a true believer. Um, I think that of course, he saw a political opportunity. Because i- it was likely to be the case that even if the Leave campaign lost, that a majority of Tories, Tory members, Tory voters, would emotionally be attached to the Leave campaign and that would have been pole position to succeed David Cameron. I'm sure that was a factor in his mind. Uh, it may have been, uh, the decisive factor, but in his heart, Boris was, um, definitely a lever, absolutely.

• 12:27Alastair Campbell?

  And what about the point, may we talk about Kemi Badenoch's essay, The Right Way? What about the point that, that she made, that one of the big criticisms she had of the government, that she was a part, was actually that you, we had this referendum and a plan put forward by you and Johnson, et cetera, to leave the European Union, but there was nothing to back it up, that we left without a plan. Is that a fair criticism?

• 12:52Speaker 02

  I think that the, the more precise criticism, I think it's broadly fair, but the more precise criticism is that Boris and I blew ourselves up on the launchpad, um, uh, in the immediate aftermath of the, uh, referendum victory. And that Theresa May didn't really have a proper plan for Brexit and a series of decisions were made when Theresa was Prime Minister, that put us on the wrong trajectory, uh, for those negotiations and for exit. Uh, there are a number of things that Theresa did that I admire her for, and I don't want to be churlish, but I think that the, the Brexit strategy that was pursued under Theresa was a mistake.

• 13:31Alastair Campbell?

  But you still about blowing yourselves up on the launchpad. You, Johnson, Farage delivered the victory and then since when, we've had chaos and we've had seven prime ministers and he's hopefully will last a bit longer than most of those predecessors. So you have to take some responsibility for the chaos that was followed.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  Oh, I do. Yeah, I do. So point one, uh, Vote Leave did have a clear plan for uh, how we could make the most of, uh, uh, Brexit and some of those elements of that plan were subsequently implemented. But in the week after the referendum victory, uh, they, the problems during that leadership election, I think are well advertised and I should bear the lion's share of the blame for that, absolutely. Um, and then I think more broadly, uh, it was the case that within the Conservative Party, uh, Brexit became associated with signing trade deals. Um, and so the mark of Brexit's success was racking up a new trade deal with, uh, where the hell is done?

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Um, that was not the principal point of Brexit. The principal point of Brexit was greater regulatory freedom and autonomy. Um, uh, sovereignty is the romantic element to it, which has a huge appeal to my heart and I think is politically and ideologically important. But the economic element was the capacity to regulate differently. And this was a benefit that would accrue over time and I believe that we are seeing those benefits. The difficulty is, and here Boris was very honest, that the down payment right at the beginning, the economic hit that you take as a result of new customs barriers is real. The economic benefits, um, which will accumulate over time are only there if you're savvy enough

• 15:20Speaker 02

  to steer the right course and that hasn't always been the case, that's true.

• 15:23Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, well, that was moderately agreeable disagreement. We didn't charge to each other as we have done in the past.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:29Alastair Campbell?

  Um, let me just read you something very interesting from the Financial Times. This is a survey of, of, uh, voters around Europe, whether they would back the UK's re-entry into the European Union. By the way, I don't think we should talk about re-join and re-entry. We should talk about joining something new and bigger that we helped to create. Let me ask you to guess which of the countries in Europe are most welcoming of the idea that we get back in and which are the least welcoming? Have a stab at that.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  The most welcoming, I would think, would be, um, Sweden, Estonia, the Netherlands and Denmark.

• 16:12Alastair Campbell?

  Well done, that you got the top four right in the wrong order. Well done.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:16Alastair Campbell?

  And, and least welcoming?

• 16:18Speaker 02

  The least welcoming would be, uh, France, Spain, Belgium and Greece.

• 16:29Alastair Campbell?

  Ah, you did better on the welcome with the the welcome. No, well, you got France. The bottom four, in, uh, coming, the most unwelcoming is Bulgaria, followed by France, followed by Italy, followed by, by Hungary.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 16:44Alastair Campbell?

  Um, but the figures are all, I mean, Denmark is top seventy-five percent. Bulgaria is bottom at fifty, fifty-four percent. I think that's quite interesting. They, they, they definitely, I think they, they do feel that we, they have lost as much. Well, not as much, but they've lost as well. Now, we had a question, next question, um, Michael, we'll definitely disagree on this one as well.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 17:06Alastair Campbell?

  Gordon Carrera, who presents The Rest Is Classified along with David McCloskey, he has asked us this question, how do you think the perception of October seven as an intelligence failure on the part of Netanyahu and his government will impact the upcoming elections in Israel? And I have another question from somebody called Alastair. Um, as Alastair Campbell is his name, is have you, Michael Gove, ever, ever, ever said anything critical of Israel?

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Uh, so on the first, I think that there, there are three big issues in the Israeli election. Um, one of them, the, the dominant one is what went wrong on October the seventh? To what extent, um, was the Netanyahu government uh, culpable for security errors both, uh, before and after? Um, there are all sorts of vile conspiracy theories out there. I'm not endorsing those, but it is the case that there is a very live debate about that.

• 18:03Alastair Campbell?

  Just to be clear, so the, the main conspiracy theory being that actually he had been given.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 18:07Alastair Campbell?

  Some very, very credible warnings that this was going to happen and he chose not to do much about it.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Exactly. So I, I don't give any credit to that, but I think it's perfectly legitimate as part of public debate to say, look, were we well enough prepared for any type of assault? And in the aftermath, did, what, what was our response, the right one? Um, and that is the key issue. There are also subsidiary issues to do with, uh, whether or not the ultra orthodox should serve in, uh, uh, in the military and therein there are broader economic issues as well in the elections. Um, but on your substantive point, um, yes, but, um, there are so many people lining up to criticize Israel with such vehemence and an increasing number who are increasingly vehement.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  That, um, I, uh, I'm perfectly prepared to acknowledge criticism of Israel, but I'm not really interested in initiating it. Because my view is that, um, Israel, uh, its cause and its population need friends at the moment and I'm very, very proud to be one of those.

• 19:11Alastair Campbell?

  But I would say that for most of my time in media and in politics, I would have said much of what you just said. But I think there has to come a point where people who support the state of Israel and support the right of Israel to exist call out what they're doing. And when I was, I was sort, watched a thing the other day, it was just a, um, aerial film of Gaza before and after. It's utterly horrific what they've done. And then you look at what's happening in the West Bank and you look at the way that the settlers are being encouraged and emboldened to, to do things which even a few years ago would have been internationally unacceptable.

• 19:53Alastair Campbell?

  And then for Netanyahu, it seems to me to try to turn that into an electoral strategy, I just think is repellent and, and I can't, I just, I just would love, and it's not just because I want to hear them being criticized, because I actually want, I want them to be strong and secure, just as I want the Palestinian people to be able to have a strong and secure place to lick all their own. But, you know, you, who are somebody who I think does, for all the joke about, you know, don't believe in experts, I think you do like to look at fact.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 20:23Alastair Campbell?

  And I find it incredible that you can't at least say they've gone completely over the top. They are killing people who should not be killed. They are treating people with a disrespect for life, a human life that I find unacceptable.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Well, I don't believe that they're treating, uh, people with a disrespect for life. I, I do think it's the case. It's a war, um, and innocents die in war and you can't be indifferent to that. Um, it's horrific, uh, for any innocent to die, but, uh, uh, the facts, they're chilling, but the facts also point out that, uh, the Israeli Defence Force operating in a built up area, uh, uh, in Gaza have, um, inflicted fewer civilian casualties than British or American forces inflicted operating in similar areas in a conflict like Iraq. Um, the, the reality of war is horrific.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  But this was a war that was visited on Israel, not a war that it sought. In the West Bank, there are problems with, uh, some settlers. But again, the, i- i- it's not the case that they are either representative of or endorsed by anything like a majority of the Israeli population, uh, or even a majority of those, uh, uh, Jewish citizens who live in the West Bank. So yes, there's a problem there, but we have a problem with um, people misbehaving on our streets. The French have a problem with people misbehaving on their streets. The presence of some extremists within your own ranks, uh, doesn't invalidate the, the strength of your democracy overall, just as things going wrong in a war.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  And commanders on the ground need to be prosecuted if they've allowed that to happen, doesn't invalidate the right to defend yourself.

• 22:15Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, I, I, I honestly don't see how you can make that comparison. We, you know, we talked in the main episode about France, okay? You have young people protesting and in some cases rioting and you have the police putting it down. What's happening in the West Bank is that the security authorities are allowing something which they know to be illegal. And so that to me is a virtual breakdown of law and order. And also the comparisons with, I don't have the figures for Iraq, maybe I should have them on the top of my head, but I don't have them, but I do know that eighty one thousand Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Eighty one thousand and, and a major, and mostly civilians, including twenty one thousand children. You cannot

• 22:57Alastair Campbell?

  possibly say that that has been justified by, and even, even according to their stated goals. I mean, I know the stated goals of Ben Gavir and Smotrich are basically to say, let's wipe the lot of them out because that's what they think and they are part of the government. But I'm, I'm just surprised, Michael, that you've, you know, even now, you've, you've even, you've even suggested the IDF should get Nobel Peace Prize. I'd rather Donald Trump got it than them. And I think he's utterly unqualified for it as well.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Well, uh, the first thing is Ben Gavir and Smotrich are not representative of mainstream Israeli opinion. They are loudmouths.

• 23:36Alastair Campbell?

  But they're powerful. They're powerful.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  They're, I think the person who never said they're loudmouths, they are in the government, obviously, they are ministers, but they're not steering policy. That's one of the reasons why they mouth off in the way that they do. Secondly, on the West Bank, I think there's a distinction and these, the, the, about, you know, when people are talking about illegality. So there's obviously a continuing debate about the legality of the settlements. We won't get into that now. But is it the case that there are some, particularly younger folk associated with the settler movement, that have taken the law into their own hands, absolutely? Is that wrong completely? Should they be dealt with? Of course. Is it the case that there are some voices in Ben Gavir and Smotrich's parties that have

• 24:17Speaker 02

  a sneaking regard for them? Absolutely. But Israel overall deals with people who break its laws and behave outrageously in a far more effective and proportionate way than any of its neighbors. We should hold Israel to high standards, but of course, we're speaking in the run up to an Israeli election, in which you've got fierce contestation, in which the prime minister could lose, and which if he loses, he might actually find himself for, for separate reasons in court. There is no other country in the Middle East in which you could have an open election, in which the prime minister could lose and then

• 25:00Speaker 02

  could find himself in court afterwards on corruption charges. So whatever the criticisms that people might level against the state of Israel and how it's conducted itself in this conflict, it remains a robust democracy, one in which the balance of power in this election, after votes have been cast, may be held by Arab parties. There's no Jewish party that holds the balance of power in, in, in other countries. And then on the toughest point of all about those civilian casualties. The key thing here is that Hamas, and we both know that Hamas does not represent the majority of Palestinian people, but still,

• 25:37Speaker 02

  Hamas deliberately puts civilian lives at risk, while the IDF, imperfectly, but consistently, tries to minimize civilian casualties. And that's the key difference between them. And that as long as that prevails, then you will find me absolutely on Israel's side.

• 25:59Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Just their, their own figures, the Israeli, the Israelis' own figures, their military data indicates a civilian death rate in Gaza of eighty three percent. They previously claimed it was fifty percent. They now acknowledge it's eighty three percent. Civilian, rate of civilian casualties in American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, sixty eight percent and twenty six percent respectively. Now, too high, both of them too high, but I, I think we are dealing with some different. And also, by the way, Michael, I'm not criticizing the state of Israel. I'm criticizing the, the conduct of this government in relation to the way that it has responded to October seventh. And I would always say when we talk about this, that what Hamas did was unspeakable, unforgivable, and there are some very, very

• 26:42Alastair Campbell?

  bad people with a very, very bad ideology. But I think the response has been disproportionate. And I think it's one of the reasons why Israel now has so many critics around the world and has lost so many friends.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  So the first thing is, I've never doubted that you and Laurie are good faith actors in this debate. And everything that you've said that's critical of Netanyahu has also been articulated by people within Israel, Israeli journalists, politicians and activists. So your position sits squarely within Israeli domestic political debate. So I don't doubt both the sincerity and the force of, of your case. And there are other people whom I like and admire who share it. I just disagree. The second thing is that the, the, the figures on casualties and the, the, the basis of the calculation was gone into by a House of

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Lords report that was produced for the APPG there. Maybe, up to you, we could include a link to that and to your data for listeners in the newsletter that you send out. They can compare and contrast and draw their own conclusions because it's such an important issue. But the final thing that I would say is that, if I were living in Israel now, I would find it difficult to know who to vote for. Because while I am supportive of the state of Israel in its actions to defend itself, I do think that there are all sorts of criticisms that can be directed at Netanyahu and the choices that he's made, and that

• 28:19Speaker 02

  there are other leaders and other parties that might give Israel a better future. But as I say, my, my general disposition at a time when, and I, it's so important that I draw distinction between the points that you and others make critical of Israel and what I'm about to say. But when you've got folk like, you know, the Green Party leadership taking the position that they do, in the, in the, in the broad scales, I'm very happy to be on Israel's side. That doesn't mean that I want to undermine or delegitimize criticism of it, but it does mean that in that broader debate, I know where my heart and my head are.

• 28:57Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Well, let's take a break. And then when we come back, we'll talk about Manchester City and the continuing controversy surrounding the way that they've been funding themselves. See you soon.

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• 32:20Speaker 02

  Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics Question Time with me, Michael Gove.

• 32:25Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Alastair Campbell. And Justine from Manchester is one of many people who has asked us about Manchester City. Justine's question goes as follows. Andy Burnham's Man City comments were treated as a gaffe. But weren't they just an honest account of how modern Manchester was built? Courting Abu Dhabi money and big foreign investment is a core part of Manchesterism. If that model depends on not asking awkward questions about where the money comes from, what does that mean for Burnham's vision for the country? I guess that gets to the heart of whether there is now a political and a diplomatic angle to this, as well as just the sporting angle.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  I think there is. So I don't blame Andy Burnham. The role of the UAE in Manchester's economic success and in Man City's footballing success predates him becoming the mayor of Greater Manchester. But it is the case that you can't tell the story of Manchester's success without the Emirati element within it. And it does raise some difficult questions, not so much for Andy Burnham, but more broadly about how Manchester grew over the course of the last decade, decade and a half. I don't think it's wrong to welcome Gulf investment.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  In particular, I think of all of the Gulf states, the UAE is one of the most admirable, you know, it's in relative terms. However, for football fans overall, it's clearly the case that the Premier League have found that the relationship between state financing and the rules of the game have led to Man City securing an unfair advantage overall. And because of that, it will raise profound questions about the role of the Emiratis in funding Manchester's success. But I don't think anyone's found, even though the rules of the premiership may have been broken.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  I don't think anyone's found anything else to suggest that Emirati investment has somehow been, you know, so far as we know, dodgy in Manchester itself.

• 34:35Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, partly because Rory has a bit of a blind spot about football. We're all allowed our blind spots. I have blind spots too. This is the first time we've actually talked about the Manchester City situation on the podcast. So maybe just briefly, if I go through what this report said and what some of the main accusations were. Essentially, the first issue is one of sham contracts and disguising the funding that's going to the club. So they use this disguised funding scheme essentially to inflate, artificially inflate their commercial revenues by well over 800 million pound fake sponsorship contracts with companies that were based in Abu Dhabi, where the money was actually being paid by the Abu Dhabi United Group.

• 35:17Alastair Campbell?

  And this violates the rules against direct owner equity injection. Okay. The next thing was concealing the true financial state, misstated accounts, misleading auditors, artificially inflating revenues and lowering true operating expenses by almost a billion. Hidden compensation and salary schemes. And then 35 of the 115 charges were about non-cooperation and failure to be open and honest. So serious, serious stuff. And of course, massive consequences because, I mean, my team, as you know, is Burnley and we were involved in a dispute with Everton. We got relegated and Everton had broken rules way, way less serious than this.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:59Alastair Campbell?

  And we ended up, I think it was getting, we got 35 million pound in compensation because we get relegated. And the argument was we might not have got relegated if Everton, who came just outside the relegation zone, et cetera. So every club in the Premier League could argue that they have lost money as a result of this. The question's now, do Manchester City get relegated? Do they get kicked out of the league? Do they get told they can't buy any new players for 10 years? I don't know if you know this, Michael, Manchester City are currently five to one to win the Premier League and 13 to eight to get relegated from the Premier League, which is a pretty extraordinary thing.

• 36:39Alastair Campbell?

  And so I, it's a, it's a hu, this is a huge story that's going to run and run, particularly now as they've appealed. And they could, the appeal could last the entirety of the season. So they might end up winning the Premier League with virtually every other club thinking, well, you didn't deserve to win the ones that you've won, let alone this one.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  You are absolutely right. There's a sort of double jeopardy here in that it's not just Manchester City's sporting achievements that have been tarnished. There's hard cash as well, because the position in which you finish in the Premier League, and indeed whether or not you stay in the Premier League, determines how much cash you get in the next season. And we're talking gazillions here because of the success of the Premier League. And, and, and again, this is part of it, that money invested in teams like Manchester City have attracted international talent. They've led to the regeneration of parts of Manchester. And it's also the case that there are other clubs like Newcastle that have benefited from Saudi investment.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  So it's undeniable the case that the success of the Premier League has been a honeypot. But because of that, those who are perceived, or in Manchester City's case, accused of having garnered an unfair advantage, are not just getting extra silverware, they're getting extra dollars to a remarkable extent. So it becomes a very intense competition with lawyers inevitably being engaged by the other teams. And also there's a parable here as well in the Scottish Premiership. As you know, Scottish football for a long time is essentially a geopoly between Rangers and Celtic. But Rangers were guilty of some very dodgy financial dealings.

• 38:18Alastair Campbell?

  And they were chucked down a couple of leagues.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Exactly. They were thrown out of the Scottish Premier League, put into the bottom league essentially in Scottish football. They fought their way back up, but it was a lesson to them and indeed to Scottish football overall. But be ever so mighty, if you break the fundamental rules of the game, then there will be retribution. And I suspect that almost everyone who is not a Manchester City fan would say that whether or not they should be stripped of past titles, they should certainly be relegated at the end of the season.

• 38:57Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, well, in which, and because they're such a top club, nobody's ever thought they'd get relegated. It means that players like Erling Haaland, I don't think Erling Haaland has a relegation escape clause in his contract. There's a very funny AI thing, I shouldn't laugh at AI because I think it's a menace to the world, but of Erling Haaland channeling David Brent as he lists all these extraordinary places that he might be happy to go to play football in Brackenall, Maidenhead, et cetera. I'm going to say, I'm, I find, one different part of this I find very difficult is that Howard Bernstein, who died not long ago, and Richard Lees, who are both, we've talked about them many times on the podcast. They're absolute giants in local government.

• 39:38Alastair Campbell?

  And I do sort of pause for thought when I hear Richard Lees say, you know, he's with Manchester City on this now. And I must give a shout out to David Collins on the Sunday Times, who's been reporting on this issue for, for years. And a lot of what limited knowledge I have comes from, from reading his stuff. And what I haven't fully understood was the extent to which large parts of Manchester are now actually owned by Abu Dhabi.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:06Alastair Campbell?

  And that this, this joint venture that they had called Manchester Life, and they did get decent deals on the land, 990 year leases. And Richard would argue that the land was derelict brownfield site, nobody else had the money to develop. And this was a way to get growth going and indeed growth was going. But they, but of course, now that Andy is the, the prime minister, I think you're being very fair in saying that this happened, as it were, not directly on his watch. But it was interesting that he got criticised for coming out and saying, I hope that Abu Dhabi doesn't get pushed out of Manchester. Because people at the time were just seeing this as a football issue and if Manchester City cheated, as you say, they should be punished.

• 40:46Alastair Campbell?

  But obviously what Andy Burnham knows is the deeper economic link between Manchester and Abu Dhabi.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  The success of Manchester has been built to a significant extent on its capacity to attract investment from abroad. And you're quite right, Richard Lees and Howard Bernstein, who led Manchester, did a very, very good job in that regard. That achievement now looks like being tarnished, but it's made a real beneficial difference to the citizens of Manchester.

• 41:15Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Now, a question here from Gary in Swindon. First of all, before I ask it, Michael, have you seen any clips or the whole thing in the interview between Tucker Carlson and your friend Jacob Rees-Mogg?

• 41:27Speaker 02

  I have seen clips. I haven't seen the whole thing.

• 41:28Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. And the question is this, 20 years ago, somebody expressing views like Carlson's would have been laughed out of mainstream political discourse as a heretic. How does someone go from being a mainstream broadcaster to promoting conspiracy theories, historical revisionism and obvious misinformation? While retaining an enormous audience that apparently trusts him? Now, I have to say, I watched a fair chunk of it. I find Tucker Carlson pretty repulsive. I did have a bit of a run in myself with Jacob Rees-Mogg recently when we did a 10th anniversary event with Michelle Hussein at Bloomberg about Brexit. And he really went on the attack, which said to me, Michael, he wasn't very, feeling very confident about his

• 42:11Alastair Campbell?

  arguments, but there we are. But my sense is that Jacob Rees-Mogg got the better of Tucker Carlson by some considerable distance.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  I think that's completely correct. One of the interesting things about Tucker Carlson is that he started out as a sort of relatively mainstream Republican figure. You know, he was a supporter of George W. Bush and his whole demeanor is very preppy American establishment. And when you see him, you assume that he would be, you know, one of those sort of, you know, East Coast, George Bush, Republican figures. But what he's peddling, what he's increasingly peddling is the sort of republicanism that America had in the 1930s and which we thought that the Second World War had extinguished. So it's not just isolationist, it's isolationist with a tinge of admiration for fascism.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  And when you had that with Charles Lindbergh before the Second World War, and also there was a very famous radio broadcaster in the 1930s in America called Father Cochrane, who was a part of that trad Cath antisemitic tradition. The feeling was that that was extinguished by the experience of the Second World War and the experience of the Cold War. But antisemitism is a light sleeper. Tucker Carlson has started trafficking in that. But more than that, he's linked it to a variety of other conspiracy theories. And one of the trends of our time, which is worrying, which you've lighted on, Alistair, is the way in which A toxic mix of low economic growth, increasing

• 43:45Speaker 02

  identity politics, rampant social media has created scope for people to monetise conspiracy theories and prejudices. Now, I'd argue that there are people on the left as well, like Hassan Piker in America, who are operating in the opposite pool. So I don't think it's just a problem on the right, but it's undeniably the case that Tucker Carlson and also this guy called Nick Fuentes, who, if you can imagine such a thing, even worse, are reviving demons. They are raising dark forces from America's buried soul. And the same thing is happening in the UK as well.

• 44:29Alastair Campbell?

  Well, not least, not least with, I would argue, with GB News,

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Well.

• 44:34Alastair Campbell?

  of which Jacob Rees-Mogg is a prominent player. So, but I did think, I must say, I thought he, I mean, I thought he really came back at Tucker Carlson. Well, I mean, Carlson was saying the most ridiculous things.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:45Alastair Campbell?

  Including some factually stupid things like the Russian economy is bigger than the UK economy. But when he got on to, you know, what was the point of Britain getting involved in the war, in the Second World War, it was kind of, you could see that even Jacob was thinking.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  Oh, quite.

• 44:59Alastair Campbell?

  I wonder if I should agree to this conversation.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. So there's a legitimate scholarly debate for some people who, revisionist historians who question whether or not every aspect of Britain's policy in the 1930s and 1940s was right. That's fair enough. But when you get into the Carlson territory, it's beyond that. It's a sneaking regard for Hitler. It's David Irving type territory. But the one thing I have to do, and I have to say this, I think both out of defence of Jacob and more broadly, is that GB News, and I know that you don't like most of the content, I can understand why, does draw a line. And there are people who have crossed that line who have been thrown off GB News. The difference with Tucker Carlson is he hasn't just crossed

• 45:45Speaker 02

  that line, he's trampled over that line with glee. And I think that this is something which is, it's as much an issue for me and people like me as it is for anyone else, which is, if you are on the right, how do you ensure that in your commitment to free speech, that you welcome challenge, but you also police a boundary so that when people are trafficking in conspiracism, or when they are recycling prejudice, that you say, okay, we know what you are, you are no longer welcome on our platform or in our broad team. You know, I'm very anti censorship, but I also think that there's a responsibility to say that if your

• 46:30Speaker 02

  title or your studio carries with it any sort of prestige or status or reach, that you should say, no, you're out, if people cross certain lines.

• 46:43Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Well, listen, that leads me on to a couple of questions. We had a lot of questions that were about you, Michael, and The Spectator.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:50Alastair Campbell?

  James asks whether Michael feels any responsibility, along with the rest of the right wing media, for Jason Arday's death. And Ed asks, why is The Spectator trying to rehabilitate Enoch Powell?

• 47:03Speaker 02

  Very good questions.

• 47:04Alastair Campbell?

  Tough questions for you.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Again, we still don't know all the circumstances surrounding Jason Arday's death, but I think it's absolutely legitimate to have a debate about whether or not this was a story that was blown out of all proportion, because that has ramifications for how people in universities and more broadly see themselves. I don't think that the media should feel responsibility for Jason Arday's death. I think, and here I am making a tentative judgement, that for Jason Arday, it wasn't so much the media coverage from the right wing press, it was more the sense that within those people who'd hitherto been supportive of him, that there was a withdrawal of support that may have, may have contributed to a sense that

• 47:51Speaker 02

  friends and allies and those upon whom he had relied were less constant. That may have contributed to some of his feelings.

• 47:58Alastair Campbell?

  What about the, maybe the lesser accusation, which I think I would make, that the story took on a tone and a volume that was utterly disproportionate, and that only happened that way because people on the right want to say that if a black person gets on, it's because they're black, and it's the whole DEI debate that we've seen become so toxic in the United States, and that the left, I would agree with you, parts of the left wing media got way, way, way caught up in that, whereas actually I think they should have been challenging the response more than just sort of diving into it themselves.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  I think it's fair to ask tough questions and compel people to examine what the impact of their coverage might be on wider society. Within that, I would say two things. There are other people of colour in education, Catherine Burble Singh, who've also been attacked on the other side because of their views. So someone like Catherine has been very vigorously attacked by people on the political left, sometimes in terms that I would consider to be beyond unchivalrous. So there are risks, I think you are right, in being out there in a debate at the moment where identity politics overall has become a stronger force

• 49:19Speaker 02

  in our conversation. But I also think that quite a lot of the Arday criticism wasn't directed at Arday himself, it was directed at Cambridge. And in particular, there was questioning of the quality of his work and the reason why Cambridge were vaunting and giving lustre to his work, when it was, and it seems so graceless of me to mention this, when the poor guy is dead, but when his work wasn't necessarily of the standard you'd expect of someone who was a professor in the Department of Education.

• 49:53Alastair Campbell?

  But when we discussed this, Rory and I discussed at the time, we had a long list of people of whom the same and worse could be said, of whom there was no media furor whatsoever. And the other thing, you mentioned Catherine Burble Singh, who actually gets a, she gets a shout out in Kemi Vaidenok's essay that we talked about.

• 50:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 50:12Alastair Campbell?

  Because she is one of those people who has a lot of media and political protectors on the right. This guy had no media and political protectors anywhere. And then the other thing I would say is the, I compare and contrast the coverage of him with the coverage, say, of James Orr, another Cambridge University Associate Professor, who was exposed in that film about Farage and funding as an absolute charlatan, this sort of plain, in plain sight to my mind, political corruption. And yet, does anybody who's listening or watching this really know who I'm even talking about? Because it got next to no coverage. They all know about Jason Arday, and they knew about it before his death.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  Well, the thing about Jason Arday is that you're right that towards the end, some of those who had been his supporters and champions were silent. But he did have, right until the moment of his death being reported, some very articulate and prominent political and media champions. And he had been a significant media presence, he'd guest edited the Today programme on Radio 4, he'd been awarded a book contract by a reputable publisher. Indeed, his memoirs are still available out there, and, you know, his aspects of his story are undeniably affecting. So I don't think it was the case that Jason Arday was a lone figure who, for much of his career, was unsupported by a media or

• 51:38Speaker 02

  political sort of scaffolding. That was all there. It crumbled towards the end. More broadly, I think it's the case that James Orr's future has been placed in the spotlight, both by Cambridge University and by others, including his own party Reform, as a result of the allegations that have been made against him. And I think that we'll have to wait to see how that plays out. But I think that, to go back to the original question, The Spectator's coverage and the coverage of other newspapers of the affair was driven to an extent by concern about what was happening in our higher education institutions. And one of the pieces that

• 52:20Speaker 02

  I wrote under my name, which is linked to the Arday affair, was less about Jason Arday and more about the person, Hilary Cremen, who's the professor who's in charge of the Education Department. And my criticisms of her were not personal, they were about what's going on in her name, within her department, when it comes to the training of the next generation of teachers. And I'm very happy to stand by that critique. And indeed, if Hilary Cremen wants to write for The Spectator or appear on our baby podcast, Quite Right, then brilliant. Maybe we could interview her on Leading Together if Rory's on holiday again in the future.

• 52:56Alastair Campbell?

  You can't keep taking holidays like this, Michael. We have to get a grip of this conservative work ethic. And what about what about the rehabilitation of Enoch Powell? Is that a good thing?

• 53:05Speaker 02

  So I don't think that we're actively seeking to rehabilitate Enoch Powell, but I think it is the case that people are interested in the influence of political thinkers from the 60s, 70s and 80s. And the two things, one, my friend and rival, Tom McTague, who's the editor of the New Statesman, wrote a very, very good book about Britain's relationship with Europe called Between the Waves. And in it, he takes Powell very seriously. And he's unsparing in his criticism of what he sees as Powell's opportunism and nativism. But he's also very interested in Powell's ideas. What we did at The Spectator was run

• 53:50Speaker 02

  a piece by Simon Heffer, whose original biography of Powell, Like the Roman, was published more than a decade ago. It's been reprinted and Simon reflected on Powell's legacy. It wasn't an uncritical reflection, though on the whole, Simon thinks that Powell was more sinned against than sinning. And I think that trying to airbrush figures from history is a mistake. And as time passes, we can have a genuinely rounded view of their legacy. That doesn't necessarily mean, and it mustn't mean, being negligent about their errors. And to be fair, overall, Simon does make the point that there was, even though

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Powell presented himself as a fearless truth teller, there were disingenuous elements to his character. And the speech that got him fired from the Shadow Cabinet was one which he knew was going to be incendiary, even though at the time, he pretended to some of those around him that he was surprised by the vehemence of the reaction. So yes, Powell was disingenuous. And he did pretend to being above base calculations in politics and a fearless truth teller, when in fact, he was, you know, thinking about how he could position himself for a future leadership challenge. We've seen all that before. And I think it's one of the things that both of us recognise, that all politicians are

• 55:16Speaker 02

  a mix. So there is no politician who is without ego or vanity. And in the same way, almost all politicians, there may be exceptions to this, even the most Machiavellian, at least have some element of a desire to improve the public realm somewhere in their character.

• 55:38Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Well, listen, we've covered a lot of ground, Michael, in both in the main episode and now in the Q and A. Thank you for standing in for Rory. We do like to give our readers of the newsletter, a few book recommendations. You've just given one, Simon Heffer's book. What else? What are you reading at the moment? What do you what do you take to Birmingham with you?

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Well, one thing that I do recommend is Johnny Mercer's memoir.

• 56:03Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, I've read it. It's terrific.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  I just read them over the weekend and Johnny was a colleague. He's very honest about the challenges he faced. And as you read it, you recognise, he's got a formidable sense of humour. He's a man of principle. He can be an infuriating colleague. But he's also someone who politics was stronger for. So I've enjoyed that. And then also, I'm just started a new history by a guy called Douglas Smith, who's written about Rasputin and the Russians of the past. He's written a book about Vienna, called A City Without Jews, which is about what happens with the Nazi takeover of Austria. And it's based

• 56:47Speaker 02

  around the experience of one particular family. And it's the best sort of history, because it combines both a big and timely theme with close personal detail about the experience of individuals with whom you can identify.

• 57:03Alastair Campbell?

  Excellent. Good. Well, I'm I've just finished, because we've got him, I don't think it's out yet in the UK, but we've got Michael Lewis coming on the podcast quite soon. And he's written this extraordinary book about Doge, and in particular focusing on the people who tried, and in the most cases failed, to stand up to Doge. And I'm now halfway through this absolutely beautiful book by somebody called Sophia Smith-Gayler, who is actually a goal hanger mentee. And it's called How to Kill a Language. And it's absolutely beautiful. It's really about the loss of languages that we're facing around the world. And she's got this word linguicide.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 57:44Alastair Campbell?

  So it's a wonderful, are you a Gaelic speaker at all?

• 57:47Speaker 02

  I'm not a Gaelic speaker, but I did in the House of Lords the other day, join forces with Catherine MacLeod, the Labour Baroness, in order to put pressure on the government to properly fund Gaelic. And when I was in government, we set up something called the Islands Forum, which was explicitly there to support the island communities in Scotland and also in Wales. And part of that was making sure that we could have funding for the Gaelic College in Lewis, which teaches in the Gaelic language, Gaelic medium. And I'm a very strong supporter of Gaelic, of Welsh, of indigenous languages, because I

• 58:28Speaker 02

  think that they are, they're just as much part of our culture as soaring cathedrals or parcel. And we've got to do everything we can to keep them alive. And some of the finest poetry of the 20th century was written in Gaelic.

• 58:42Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely. Well, that's very good, Michael, that you were using your time in the House of Lords for good.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  For once.

• 58:48Alastair Campbell?

  Unlike when you were playing such a central role in in putting an end to the assisted dying bill. But it's my podcast, I will have the final word. You're not coming back on that one. Thank you very, very much for both episodes. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  Thanks very much, Alastair. See you soon.

• 59:05Alastair Campbell?

  See you soon.