511. Is Blair Undermining Starmer on Iran? (Question Time)

Why is Tony Blair criticising Starmer’s approach to Trump’s warmongering in the Middle East? Should European leaders be calling out Trump’s lies more directly? What is actually unfolding inside Iran right now? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. __________ 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. To sign up and for terms and conditions, visit fuseenergy.com/politics. Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] __________ Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith, Bruno Di Castri 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.

• 0:00Rory Stewart?

  Blair has strongly, strongly given the impression that he would have been much more strongly behind what Trump and Israel are doing in Iran than Kier Starmer.

• 0:09Alastair Campbell?

  If you are any former prime minister, but I would argue particularly Tony Blair in this context, where a Labour prime minister has got a particular difficulty with the American president, then there is no such thing as off the record.

• 0:21Rory Stewart?

  We need some way of saying to the US, we're distancing ourselves, we're not going to be your lackeys anymore. You've just strengthened Russia's hand by pushing up the oil price. You've weakened Ukraine by taking Patriot missiles out. You've weakened our own economies. With respect, you tell us to look after ourselves, stand on our own two feet, be proud national Europeans. Our priority is this, we're not having anything to do with this.

• 0:51Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:54Rory Stewart?

  And with me, Rory Stewart.

• 0:55Alastair Campbell?

  And as with the main episode that we did live yesterday, we are going to be focusing entirely on Iran. We have had thousands of questions from you, and it is such a consequential

• 1:05Rory Stewart?

  And amazing. And actually, I mean, even on the live show, we got a huge amount of questions. But we've also had people sending them in by, I guess, email, all different social media platforms, Discord. I mean, it's been incredible. I want to start, though, with Jennifer, who's a Trip Plus member. Thank you, Jennifer, very much. Thank you. Thank you for subscribing. From New Maldon, what do you make of Alistair's former boss commenting on Starmer's reluctance to join the orange man and his seemingly impulsive war in Iran? There's a lot of adjectives going on here, Jennifer. I know that post Brexit, the unspoken policy of ex-prime ministers not commenting on their successes seems to have gone out of the window. But to me, it seems particularly vicious to kick Starmer when he's already down, especially when on this occasion, most British people believe he's right. Has being on the orange man's

• 1:50Rory Stewart?

  board of peace gone to Blair's head? Or is he now bored of peace?

• 1:54Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, well, I'll put the case to the defence, then I'll put the case to the prosecution.

• 1:57Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 1:58Alastair Campbell?

  In a good, sort of, you know.

• 1:59Rory Stewart?

  A fairly balanced way.

• 2:01Alastair Campbell?

  I'll give that. So the case for the defence is that Tony is adamant he didn't say the things that the headlines said he said. In other words, the headlines were Blair rebukes Starmer, Blair admonishes Starmer, Blair says Starmer weak, and he says he said none of that. What he did say. Was that in an ideal world, Britain would be alongside the Americans in these foreign policy adventures.

• 2:26Rory Stewart?

  And that he suggested that he personally, had he been Prime Minister, would have been squarely behind the US in this particular.

• 2:33Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I don't even know that he said that. Now, what he what he hasn't done is denied saying some of the things that he's reported as saying because he's assuming, and this is where I make the case for the prosecution. If you are any former Prime Minister, but I would argue particularly Tony Blair, in this context, where a Labour Prime Minister has got a particular difficulty ongoing with the American president, then you are a very, very skilled, very, very experienced politician. There is no such thing as off the record. There is no such thing as Chatham House rule. It said in the papers it was a Chatham House event. There's no such thing.

• 3:09Rory Stewart?

  Sure.

• 3:09Alastair Campbell?

  So my sense is that as much through body language and tone, he gave enough to the Mail, the Telegraph, et cetera, whoever was taping the thing, to run the headlines that they did.

• 3:21Rory Stewart?

  And just to sorry, in very, very basic terms, the story seems to be that Blair has strongly, strongly given the impression, whether he exactly said this or not, that he would have been much more strongly behind what Trump and Israel are doing in Iran than Keir Starmer. And if he'd been in charge, the implication at least was that Britain would have opened up these air bases, got behind it. And the suggestion is that he's worried that Starmer hasn't done enough to support the US. And that's Trump's line too, which makes it even more complicated because Trump also has been going around saying that, you know, Starmer's not exactly Churchill, you know, we used to be a great ally, and

• 4:03Rory Stewart?

  has basically been insulting Starmer, saying he's not been strong enough with the US.

• 4:07Alastair Campbell?

  Right. And that is why, in my view, Tony should have been a lot more sensitive, whatever he said and however he said it, to the notion that there would be people in that room. This was a Jewish news fundraiser. This is a very, very pro-Israel audience. Israel is much more in favour of what's happening in Iran than the UK or Europe or indeed the United States.

• 4:27Rory Stewart?

  And why is why is Tony speaking at a fundraiser for Jewish news?

• 4:31Alastair Campbell?

  Probably because he's, you know, supports some of the causes that they support and I've said to you before, one of the reasons I actually don't mind him being involved in the Board of Peace, because I think he is one of the few people who genuinely has access to all of the sides in this debate and does at least care about the future of Gaza in a way that I'm not convinced that Kushner and Whitaker and Trump remotely do. But I just, I just felt when I, when I got the, the pig on my phone, I just thought, oh God, I mean, Keir Starmer can do without this.

• 5:02Rory Stewart?

  And to be fair, John Major would not be tempted to do that kind of thing. He's been much more careful, hasn't he? I mean, the interventions from people like Major were very, very limited, certainly when we were in government. I mean, you, you were not worrying.

• 5:13Alastair Campbell?

  He had a lot goes at Boris Johnson.

• 5:15Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, until Boris Johnson.

• 5:16Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 5:16Rory Stewart?

  But that's because he had been very loyal with Cameron and May. And with Johnson, he thought he'd completely overstepped the mark on Brexit. So when Major decided to do it, it was, he was putting the boot into somebody he thought was a terrible prime minister. So very, very odd. Rishi Sunak's come out in favour of what Trump's doing, or seems to have done, judging by the headlines in these papers.

• 5:37Alastair Campbell?

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• 5:40Rory Stewart?

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• 6:09Rory Stewart?

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• 6:17Alastair Campbell?

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• 6:31Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 6:33Alastair 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.

• 6:46Rory 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.

• 7:09Alastair 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?

• 7:16Rory 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/rusthispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rusthispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 7:32Speaker 02

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• 8:03Alastair Campbell?

  I think you're always going to be careful with these things because there is something, I mean, forget Johnson and Trust, but the sort of serious form of prime ministers, Tony, John Major, et cetera, Theresa May, they will think very, very carefully before intervening in a domestic political, a live domestic political issue. Partly because when they do, it should carry weight and have impact. They shouldn't become, kind of rent a quote. And it's perfectly clear to me that Tony did not imagine... And this is where I think he made a mistake. He did not imagine that this is going to become a big thing in the newspapers. So he sort of indicated, yeah, well, basically, I'm probably more on the American side than the British government is.

• 8:39Rory Stewart?

  Just to be mean for a second, I mean, is it really, if you were listening to that and he was sitting in Downing Street in the comms department, listening to you, would they not be saying, come off it, Alastair, for God's sake. I mean, every time a minister said to you, oh, I didn't realise it was going to be a big thing in the newspapers, you would say, grow up, you're a senior politician.

• 8:58Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, you do.

• 9:00Rory Stewart?

  And the idea, the idea that Blair, with all his experience, gets to say, ooh, whoops, I thought it was Chatham House rules, I didn't know it to be a big thing.

• 9:08Alastair Campbell?

  No, I don't think he's saying that. I think that was, that was what they, was then sort of put out there. Look, I don't think he would want, he would not have wanted the set of Sunday newspaper headlines that we got. He would not be wanting to make Keir Starmer's life even more difficult. Now, there is a case, Matt Kelly, the editor of the New World, he's, he's done his whole podcast, and this is the best sort of PR gift to, to Keir Starmer going, because Tony Blair is seen as, you know, negative vis a vis Iraq, and this is Keir Starmer doing something different. I think Number Ten could have done without it, no doubt about that. And I also think, maybe to go to the, you know, the point that Jennifer's making, I do think, you and I argued about the way that they got there, but I do think Keir Starmer's ended up in broadly the right position for the UK. He doesn't want to be falling out with Trump. Now,

• 9:53Alastair Campbell?

  he has fallen out with Trump, they had a phone call that apparently went reasonably well but not great. Trump does think that asking for the use of a base is not that big a deal when you're an ally, and he thinks that being told you can't use a particular base at a particular time was a really bad move by the Brits. But can he get over that? Keir Starmer has to try to rebuild that relationship.

• 10:14Rory Stewart?

  There's been a lot of very complicated reporting coming up from the Cabinet, and a lot of Cabinet leaks going on, where there was a story about Ed Miliband being very much against using US bases, and John Healy being in favour, and then a lot of briefing coming from people close to Starmer saying, he decided one thing on Thursday, these are people that are close, but who are not on his side, saying he decided one thing Thursday, Friday, and then he changed his mind on Saturday, and then you have other people in Downing Street saying, the US didn't request on Thursday, Friday, so he only agreed to it on Saturday. It doesn't seem to me as though those stories feel like.

• 10:53Rory Stewart?

  A clean, clear decision tree. They feel like an almighty disagreement within the cabinet about what they're going to do and a lot of uncertainty about what US were requesting, when they were requesting it, what's going on. Here's another fact that was interesting to me, which is just how much these bases are being used anyway.

• 11:10Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 11:11Rory Stewart?

  So the Daily Mail did some pretty good reporting on what was happening in Prestwick, which is owned by the Scottish government. So they discovered that at this base, Prestwick Airport, in the build up, so the implication is not after the operation started, there were already 10 F-35s, American F-35s, the big attack aircraft, two A-10 Warthogs, two C-17As. To make the story even more complicated.

• 11:36Alastair Campbell?

  It was on me anyway.

• 11:37Rory Stewart?

  It appears that the US was just using all these bases anyway. So him saying, one day you can't use them, the next day you can use them for defensive purposes. I also still didn't quite really understand what that means. I mean, does that mean to defend US missile bases and radar stations from Iranian attack? In which case are you saying it's not justifiable for Iranians to attack US radar stations if they're defending themselves?

• 12:00Alastair Campbell?

  My, my understanding of what they didn't agree to was British assets being used in the initial attacks on Iran.

• 12:06Rory Stewart?

  So no British planes flying?

• 12:08Alastair Campbell?

  Correct.

• 12:08Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 12:09Alastair Campbell?

  And now, does that mean that there weren't British assets that are used under our everyday 24/7 defensive ranges of the US? Probably, which is the point you were making. So actually, there was one of the, I saw on the, one of the, I think it was CNN, they were filming from Fairfield and talking about whether they could use this base and you could see stuff coming and going and you're thinking, that is not a civilian aircraft I'm looking at there. I do think on this, I think we've got to be really careful to, I mean, I said last week, I thought you were being quite harsh on Q and quite unfair. I think we are in this very, very weird political environment. So yesterday, for example, Rachel Reeves stands up in the House of Commons and makes a statement about the economic impact. The level of coming from the Tories and from Reform and from the Lib Dems of, you know,

• 12:52Alastair Campbell?

  you're making a complete mess of this and you haven't done this and why aren't you doing this? There's no sort of understanding of just how tough this is right now. And likewise for Keir Starmer, I mean, you and I weren't at the National Security Council meeting. It is terrible if somebody is briefing out of that, truly terrible. Rightly Theresa May sacked cabinet ministers who were briefing out of that. So, and I think what usually happens, whenever you're reading a partial, tendentious account of meetings, it's always worth asking who benefits from the way that this is being projected. Now, because Keir Starmer is kind of public enemy number one in the eyes of most of the right wing in the, of our media, he becomes the one who's slighted and projected as being weak in this context.

• 13:36Alastair Campbell?

  I don't know. I, what I do know is that there was a pretty robust discussion about all of the consequences, which you would expect. If you go through what we've, just, just go through all the things that we talked about yesterday on the main podcast, of all the things where we said, did Trump even think about this, even think about that? I would hope that the British National Security Council would think through consequences for environment, consequences for desalination, consequences for oil, consequences for the sort of geostrategic alliances that we have. Does that mean then that because Minister A says one thing and Minister B says something else, and Minister C, or even worse, may I suggest, an official starts to brief the media?

• 14:17Alastair Campbell?

  And Tim Shipman, the journalist who, who wrote it, Tim Shipman, who's, he's written these books that sort of chronicle the Tory years and, but I think we've got to stop pretending that just because you're Tim Shipman, I'm not maligning Tim Shipman in any way here, but it doesn't mean that you have got a full account. And just because you've written it under Michael Gove's banner in The Spectator, does not mean it's all accurate.

• 14:39Rory Stewart?

  No, I don't think it's a hundred percent accurate, but it is also true that certainly when I was in government, Tim had a lot of people on speed dial and there are lots of MPs who'll be talking to him, giving him.

• 14:49Alastair Campbell?

  Which is, which is just, can I, can I just make a point in this, really? Because having been involved in one or two of these war situations, it is a time when you have to have absolute grip on the communications.

• 15:01Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 15:01Alastair Campbell?

  You can't have people, I'm always amazed when I see these TV reporters and this and that, and I got a WhatsApp from this message, this minister, and I got a WhatsApp from that minister, and I got this and that and the other. What the hell are they all doing?

• 15:13Rory Stewart?

  No, I agree.

• 15:13Alastair Campbell?

  If you're in this situation, you have to have an agreed approach and then you stick to it.

• 15:17Rory Stewart?

  It's completely shocking. And as you say, Gavin Williamson was fired for doing this, but I was really struck as a minister, how angry. I remember Tim Shipman getting very angry with me because I wouldn't talk. Um, and him saying, you know, I don't see how you're presenting yourself as a insurgent candidate running to be the prime minister if you're not talking to journalists. So the deal which Liz Truss benefited from is the more that you have a good relationship, the more they promote you. And so if you are West Streeting or you're Angela Rayner, or I don't know, you're Shabana Mahmood, you're thinking, well, these connections help to boost my stock. We have to remain with the big story and not get caught into the weeds of this too much.

• 15:58Rory Stewart?

  And I think there are two big stories. One of them is this is an illegal, immoral war. So it doesn't make any sense in international law, but it's also, uh, as Tali Ron would say, right? It's, it's not just a crime, right? It's stupidity. This is a, this is something which is going to go badly wrong.

• 16:19Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think Trump has heard of Tali Ron?

• 16:21Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, he thinks about him a lot. Yeah. So the key point here is that it's going to almost certainly create a repressive regime in Iran. It's going to shake the economies of the Middle East. It's going to make Britain's economy struggle, Europe's economy struggle, and it's achieving next to nothing. That's the big story. Should a British prime minister be supporting this kind of war? Absolutely not. Not least because the way that Trump and Netanyahu has done it is flagrantly undermining international law.

• 16:52Alastair Campbell?

  Should he be saying it in the terms that you've just said it? Because that's where, that's where you and I disagree.

• 16:56Rory Stewart?

  No, no, I don't think you should be saying it in those terms. I think what he should have said, and I think it's a difficult line, but it's got to be the line going forward for all these guys, right? Which is to say to the US, you've said from the beginning that you want to retreat from Europe because you want to focus on China. You want us to focus on our own backyard. You want us to take on Russia. And guess what? We're doing it. You've taken $50 billion out. We've taken responsibility for that. You want us to be sovereign. You want us to be independent.

• 17:22Alastair Campbell?

  And by the way, you're making it more expensive for us right now.

• 17:24Rory Stewart?

  By the way, you've just strengthened Russia's hand by pushing up the oil price. You've weakened Ukraine by taking Patriot missiles out. You've weakened our own economies. So with respect, you tell us to look after ourselves, stand on our own two feet, be proud national Europeans. Our priority is this, we're not having anything to do with this.

• 17:43Alastair Campbell?

  I mentioned yesterday his book, you can't read it because it's in German, but this honestly has got to be translated into English. It's a really important book, I think. The Grown-Up Land, Germany Without America. But I was, I found this amazing account, this was when Merkel was Chancellor and Jared Kushner was in the little team and they were doing all the small talk before the big meeting started. And this guy, Christoph Heusgen, who is an advisor to Angela Merkel, and he's, he's having this discussion with, with Kushner. And Kushner says as follows, we're business people. In business, one day, somebody's your friend and the next day, they're your enemy. That's how our foreign policy is going to work.

• 18:25Alastair Campbell?

  That's at the very first meeting with the German Chancellor.

• 18:29Rory Stewart?

  No, honestly, you, you've, you've talked a lot about middle powers and response, we both have, and, and what that narrative could be. And you've been challenging me on this response. I don't think it's just a question for the UK. And Nick Ossler, who's a Trip Plus member, has a question on this. With three years left of Trump's chaotic presidency, should Starmer and other world leaders stop tiptoeing and start calling out his childish, unpredictable and dangerous actions? The usual strategy of ignoring insults and hoping flattery works doesn't seem to be preventing real damage to the world order. Has the time come to speak plainly about the emperor's lack of clothes?

• 19:06Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. I mean, that, that does, in a way, speak to the different challenges that are, that are posed to people like us, who can say what we want and say what we think, and people who are actually involved day to day in the art of statecraft and trying to build alliances. But I, I think, for example, just two quick examples that relate to this. We talked on the main episode yesterday about this school that's been hit in, that was hit on the day, day one, a hundred and fifty people killed, many of them very, very small children. Trump is lying about it. He is now, he's basically saying, oh, well, we think it was Iran. He's the only person who's saying that. He was actually, to be fair to a reporter, he was directly challenged about it yesterday. And he said, oh, well, there's a report, we'll

• 19:49Alastair Campbell?

  see what the report is. But I think there comes a point where other leaders actually have to step up and say, look, if we cannot even tell the truth about mistakes that are being made in this war, then we cannot possibly. Tell the truth about the bigger picture. And so I think those sorts of things, and maybe we're off to Spain tomorrow to see the Prime Minister of Spain, maybe it's the sort of thing that he could do. But I I think this, it really does speak to just how hard this is when you know, if you have a go at Trump, he's going to make you pay a price.

• 20:22Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 20:22Alastair Campbell?

  You've got to balance that all the time.

• 20:24Rory Stewart?

  It it is also fascinating because I think we're also learning that, of course, we're very dependent on the US, but the US is actually quite dependent on us. It's no accident that he went ballistic when the Spanish Prime Minister didn't let him use his air bases, or that he put so much pressure on Starmer to let him use British air bases. The idea that the US can just do what it wants around the world isn't quite true.

• 20:44Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 20:44Rory Stewart?

  It does depend on allies, and that gives the allies more leverage than they realise.

• 20:48Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, well, and they will get more of that leverage if they if they come together.

• 20:52Rory Stewart?

  We've got to do two things. We've got to be able to not be dragged into whatever mad adventures Trump or his successors want to pursue if they're not in our interests. And secondly, we've got to slowly be able to become more independent of the US, stand and run two feet, tech, AI, defence, et cetera. And we need a narrative. We need some way of respectfully saying to the US, we're distancing ourselves, we're not going to be your lackeys anymore, you don't get to help yourself to Greenland, and we're going to start separating ourselves from US AI tech defence. What's the best communication strategy for that? What's the best way of articulating that? And we've got to do it together, because if we don't do it together and we don't have

• 21:33Rory Stewart?

  a joint statement from Europe, UK and Canada, what he'll do is he'll divide and rule. What we'll find is when it suits him, he'll offer a nice trade deal to Keir Starmer and make Starmer feel he's got a special relationship. And when it suits him, he'll sit down with Metz, the German Chancellor in the in the White House, and Metz will say supportive things. And goodness knows, he may even be able to get Mark Carney to say supportive things. And he will do this again and again and again. You know, if Spain comes against him, he'll punish them on tariffs and trade. So what I'm looking for.

• 22:07Rory Stewart?

  Is there a narrative and is the narrative the one that I'm trying to sell? Which is you told us that we needed to stand our own two feet and this is us standing on our own two feet.

• 22:16Alastair Campbell?

  I think that is part of the narrative, but I think the bigger narrative goes to something else we've talked about in the last few weeks, which is values. What I really liked about the Modi Carney statement was that it was essentially a response to what Trump's doing without talking about Trump. It was this really long, detailed agreement that they reached across so many different aspects of their economies and their business landscapes. And I think it was a really, really, really impressive piece of work. And I think we need something really big on that front. So for example, whether there is a case to be made for the revival of human rights, whether there is a case to be made for the revival of international law, a new definition of international law, where somebody like Keir Starmer gets together with a Carney, possibly with the Australians, possibly with the Koreans and says,

• 22:59Alastair Campbell?

  you know, we're all being challenged in this, let's redefine what it is. And if the Americans want to be part of it, fine. If they don't, they don't.

• 23:05Rory Stewart?

  And you were mentioning that we try to hold together a pretty consistent coalition of joint statements. Or is it going to be little ad hoc on this one, Korea, Canada, Britain, on that one, France, Germany, whatever? I mean, how's this going to operate?

• 23:18Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think partly this is a result of the kind of the pace of the world that we're in. So for example, yesterday he had a situation with five women Iranian footballers who have been decided that they want to stay in Australia. Okay. So that becomes an issue which Trump decides to get involved in because it's a way of saying Iran bad, America good. So I've said to the Australian Prime Minister, you've got to help these people out. That could happen in any country in the world. I think it makes more sense that Albanese, rather than sort of thinking about that on the hoof, is thinking, right, well, what would we do if this was Canada, if this was Britain, if this was Korea, if this was New Zealand? And we start to kind of think through some of these scenario planning situations.

• 24:03Alastair Campbell?

  Because the thing we know about Trump is he does operate according to to impulse. He just sees that situation, women, football, World Cups coming down, I've got to get involved.

• 24:12Rory Stewart?

  And I suppose there are two big pitches that all these leaders can begin to develop. Number one is more independence from the US. So define the 10 things that the US has a chokehold over us from.

• 24:23Alastair Campbell?

  And by the way, that's hard. Your AI series undermines how hard that is.

• 24:27Rory Stewart?

  Very, very.

• 24:27Alastair Campbell?

  Defense is hard, AI is hard.

• 24:29Rory Stewart?

  Very hard, very hard. But if we're going to do it, what's that five, 10 year plan? What are the steps we're going to take to get there? And I suppose the second thing is what are the new rules? Because we need some rules, we need some laws, we need some norms, we need some idea of how things operate. And we'll know consistently that those are the two things with Trump.

• 24:45Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Rory Stewart?

  He will be weaponizing any form of dependence and he'll be breaking every form of norm.

• 24:50Alastair Campbell?

  And just before we go to the next question on the on the kind of military thing, I was just looking last night. So, and it is honestly your old party, Roy, they are pretty nauseating the way they're sort of blaming Keir Starmer to for the state of our armed forces. So 1993, height of the Cold War, we had a combined armed forces across the three services of 321,000. Okay. By the time we got to the Iraq War, we're on 207,000. And we're now on 125,680. So we have more than halved, well more than halved, our army, navy, air force since the height of the Cold War.

• 25:31Alastair Campbell?

  And that's just a fact that that we are now going to have to deal with and address in a way that means really difficult decisions for government.

• 25:39Rory Stewart?

  So a guy called Tom Sharp was writing in The Telegraph about trying to think about a UK naval responses. And it's completely astonishing, you know, it's basically one ship that they're all talking about called HMS Dragon. One ship, right?

• 25:53Alastair Campbell?

  Which is going next week.

• 25:54Rory Stewart?

  Right. There's one submarine, one working attack submarine, which was recently in Australia, which hopefully is beginning to steam its way back. There's an aircraft carrier HMS Prince Wales, but it ain't going anywhere at the moment because we're not really sure how to defend it. There's only one out of two of those. We are supposed to have a non-combat evacuation ship, but that is in extended readiness in Gibraltar. And extended readiness seems to be a spin phrase for not operating. And the last one of our four mine hunters made it back without a crew, carried by another vessel back to the UK, and that's the end of all our mine hunters. So what can we actually do in Hormuz? We can't do any mine hunting because we don't have any mine hunters. We can't do any civilian evacuation. We haven't got a civilian evacuation ship.

• 26:36Rory Stewart?

  Our single submarine is pottering over from Australia. We hope. We don't know. It's under the water. Our aircraft carrier can't move, and this thing called HMS Dragon appears to be the entire British Navy.

• 26:47Alastair Campbell?

  Your fault. Your government's fault.

• 26:49Rory Stewart?

  All our faults. Yeah, all our faults. Okay.

• 26:52Alastair Campbell?

  No, but it's a fact, and that's where we are going to have to face up to that. So when you say, what's the overall strategy? There has to be a defence strategy that's part of this. Now, we both said Trump had a point in saying NATO countries have to step up more than they are. But even by their own definition of what stepping up means, they're not going to fill that gap.

• 27:12Rory Stewart?

  No.

• 27:12Alastair Campbell?

  Anytime soon.

• 27:13Rory Stewart?

  No, no.

• 27:13Alastair Campbell?

  Right, Roy. Irene from Toronto. We had a lot of response to the talk about Churchill in the main podcast. Eighty years ago, Churchill said in his Sinews of Peace speech, "It is not our duty at this time, when difficulties are so numerous, to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of countries which we have not conquered in war. Has our duty changed? If it has, in what circumstances can we justify that interference?" It is an amazing speech, by the way. When you go, I went back and read it. It's just, you talk about the stuff of history. There is so many elements to that speech.

• 27:45Rory Stewart?

  One of the things that's so interesting about him is that we forget how experienced he was. By the time he's speaking out in the 30s, let alone after the war, he's already been Home Secretary, Chancellor, Colony Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty. I mean, he's been in and out of cabinets of all the colours for almost 30 years. And

• 28:09Rory Stewart?

  He's also a guy who made his whole career about very clear, big ideas. Values were right at the heart of it. So when he's talking about Hitler, and this is why I'm interested in how he would deal with Trump. My guess is he wouldn't just keep quiet, flatter, keep his head down and try to do things in the background. He would find a way of articulating clearly values, British interests, alliances, and framing what he thinks the future of that relationship over the next 20, 30 years is. So what I'm looking for in the Churchill moment is somebody who can say to the US, look, of course, you are going to be a very, very important ally for us for the next 20 years.

• 28:55Rory Stewart?

  But equally, the world in which you tell us what to do and we're just a mini me for the United States is over. And we're now going to explain what that new world could look like, where we stand proud and tall and we're better allies for you as a result.

• 29:10Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I also think he would, in relation to Ukraine, and there was Trump yesterday, did a phone call with Putin. The top line when he came out was, he's trying to be helpful. He's trying to be helpful. He's basically giving Iranians all the intelligence they need.

• 29:25Rory Stewart?

  Why would he be trying to be helpful? I mean, obviously Putin is not trying to be helpful. I mean, obviously, obviously for Putin and Xi Jinping, this is a dream, right?

• 29:33Alastair Campbell?

  Particularly for Putin, because he's all prizes in the toilet.

• 29:36Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, no, it's absolutely brilliant. Sanctions being lifted, his revenue is going up, Russia's getting richer, all the missiles that could be fired at him.

• 29:41Alastair Campbell?

  And Trump's picking up the phone to say, what do you think we should do?

• 29:43Rory Stewart?

  Being fired at Iran, right. And he gets to play every which way. He can be like, this is what you should do. And meanwhile, under the table, Putin can screw him over.

• 29:50Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly. So I think Churchill would have been on to that. And I think he would have been on to the impact, the worrying impact upon Ukraine and why it was in our interests as the UK and Europe to be very much on that side.

• 30:03Rory Stewart?

  It's such a sign of desperation and weakness, though. The example, and Churchill did point to this, the example before the war, was some of his colleagues absolutely desperate to try to get Mussolini's advice on how to deal with Hitler and hoping that if they were nice to Mussolini and Abyssinia, he'd somehow help them against Hitler. And Churchill was saying consistently, you're out of your mind. It doesn't work like that.

• 30:23Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. You know the famous picture of Stalin and Roosevelt and Churchill where Churchill's sort of sitting down, he looks quite bored and he's sitting down his chair.

• 30:32Rory Stewart?

  This is Tehran.

• 30:33Alastair Campbell?

  That's Tehran, yeah. So I mean, this, the way that he read is part of this, this story. But he also, he had this wonderful thing. He said, this is where the meeting where he realized that he was sitting between the great Russian bear and the great American buffalo, while Britain was resembling the poor little British donkey. So his, his observation about the special relationship was much as, it was as much a plea for the special relationship as opposed to, it's become known as a definition of the special relationship. Anyway, I think, yeah, Churchill, I don't know. He also, he also did, he was the one who said that whenever you go to war, you end up at the mercy of malignant fortune, ugly surprises and awful miscalculations, which again, I don't think Trump thinks in those terms.

• 31:16Rory Stewart?

  Nice. Seems a good one. Well, let's take a quick break and then I think what we should do maybe is come back to what's happening on the ground in Iran, because as I say, we tend to look at this from 10,000 feet. And actually, right at the heart of this is the experience of people in Iran at the moment.

• 31:31Alastair Campbell?

  Cool. See you in a bit.

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• 33:08Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to the Rest is Politics question time with me, Rory Stewart.

• 33:11Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Asda Campbell. And Rory, as if by magic, Lorcan of London said, what is actually unfolding inside Iran right now? I love the way that our listeners assume that we will be able to answer questions like that.

• 33:22Rory Stewart?

  The first answer, Lorcan, is we'd be bluffing if we said we completely knew because internet's down often, telephone's down often, it's really difficult talking to people in Iran. An Iranian friend of mine managed to get through to his mother yesterday. Another one of my neighbors managed to talk to someone in Tehran. So what am I hearing from them? This is a random anecdotal. First thing is their experience is they think that the US is mostly striking military sites, ballistic missile sites. Israel seems to be, but how on earth they differentiate an Israeli bomb from an American bomb, I have no idea.

• 34:03Rory Stewart?

  But anyway, their understanding is that it's Israel that's mostly hitting the government offices. And one of the things that you will realize when you go to Tehran is that these government offices, and you can go to Shiraz, are right in the middle of town. And there's residential neighborhoods all the way around. It's not actually quite like hitting Whitehall here. It's much, much more integrated into civilian life. Second thing. We talked about yesterday what's happened in the leadership change. So the Iranian people overwhelmingly detest this regime. Eighty, ninety percent of the Iranian people want to see this horrible regime gone because for almost half a century, they have been ruled by an increasingly brutal,

• 34:47Rory Stewart?

  cynical, repressive, theocratic regime. But there isn't any credible opposition on the ground. And so they are stuck in this horrifying situation where they're being forced to choose between a regime they hate and American and Israeli bombs. And that's a really difficult issue because as an Iranian nationalist, you don't want either of those options.

• 35:11Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. I was talking to somebody who works with the Iranian diaspora here and in different parts of Europe, who said the worst thing about what's going on is that we feel we're going through two wars simultaneously. We feel that the regime has been waging war on us. And now we feel that we, despite being opponents of the regime, are being put into exactly the same basket as the regime because we happen to be Iranian.

• 35:39Rory Stewart?

  And Hex has certainly talked about that.

• 35:40Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely. Hex has basically said, you know, the ones, the ones who are Iranian and still still think they're going to live, they're our target. Well, that, again, that one could come back to haunt him in a, in a tribunal down the track. But if you imagine that, there will be, I mean, it's impossible to know, but let's, let's say you're right, eighty, ninety percent. Let's say the sort of ten, fifteen, twenty percent totally support the regime, totally locked up. That means you've got eighty percent saying, not for us.

• 36:06Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 36:06Alastair Campbell?

  They are now feeling like they are on the receiving end of a massive American Israeli war. And that is psychologically, I'd have thought, pretty crushing, knowing how to get out of it.

• 36:17Rory Stewart?

  Another thing I think that's so interesting, when, when we talk about this, is people talk about what Iranians think or Iranian public opinion. But it's a massive country of almost a hundred million people. It would be like saying, you know, what do the British think? And of course, as we found out with Brexit, you could talk to one group of good British friends and they could be like, no, no, no, no, no. You know, all these Brexiteers and maniacs. And you talk to another group of British friends and it turns out fifty two percent of people are voting for Brexit. Again, if I was to, you know, let's say I was an American journalist interviewing you about Nigel Farage. You might be a bit tempted to be like, he's an idiot, nobody likes him, nobody supports him. No, you might not. Maybe, but anyway.

• 36:57Rory Stewart?

  But you see the basic point that part of the problem when we're talking to Iranians is who are you talking to? Are you talking to somebody from a wealthier, more educated background, living in a city? And those people have hated the regime for forty years. Are you talking to someone in the kind of villages that I was walking through? Which are poor, conservative, nationalistic, propagandized, who traditionally have been the base of the regime? Are you talking to ethnic groups? So one of the things we need to think about is that there's these persistent rumours that Trump and the CIA have been flirting with the idea of arming the Kurds.

• 37:41Rory Stewart?

  Kurds, less than ten percent of the population of Iran, right? It's just predominantly a Persian country, located up in the northwest and the western edges of the country. That would be a terrifying thing to do. I mean, the Kurds have been very badly treated by the Iranians, terribly oppressed. But the idea that arming a ethnic group and starting a civil war.

• 38:03Alastair Campbell?

  I think he's backing off that. The other thing that I find incredible about the way that Trump conducts himself in this, this is his genius as a sort of political operative. You have serious journalists today whose framing of this is, well, it looks like Trump is going to decide when this is over and he's going to declare victory on his terms. And they're already shaping the debate like that.

• 38:25Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 38:26Alastair Campbell?

  Which of course is what then allows him. To do it.

• 38:29Rory Stewart?

  And everyone bringing a sigh of relief. So I was listening to today's programme this morning and oil prices down because Trump has said, it was extraordinary Trump communication. I think it's going to end very soon. When? Well, you know.

• 38:41Alastair Campbell?

  We haven't won enough yet. We've won, but we haven't won enough yet.

• 38:43Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah. Which which means I think at some point we should get on to a very interesting question, which is that even if the war ended tomorrow, my reckoning is that consequences of this are going to be with us for a very long time. This is a shattered region now.

• 38:55Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 38:56Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 38:56Alastair Campbell?

  The way that the literally the media around the world allow him to dictate an agenda, as you say, based on just a couple of throwaway remarks, which are probably not thought through. Just on Trump, by the way, there's some very good polling I saw. I mean, Trump, as we, as the mooch and I found in Belfast and Dublin, he's really not popular right now. But if you go through it according to how you voted in the 2024 election, so Lib Dem, if you're a Lib Dem, seventy nine percent define themselves as very anti-Trump. Labour seventy five, Greens seventy four, Conservatives forty five, Reform twelve. Now, I think this is a really big problem for Mr. Mr. Farage. Mr. Farage, who went off at the weekend,

• 39:38Alastair Campbell?

  he was going to have a meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Trump, he got stood up, poor chap. But I think that Farage has locked himself into a position alongside a deeply unpopular American president. And Keir Starmer, whatever people say about him, on the politics of this, which are fiendishly difficult, has ended up broadly, I think, where British people feel pretty comfortable with the position that he's now landed in.

• 40:05Rory Stewart?

  Just to finish up with Lorcan and what's happening on the ground in Iran, you you you talked about the different leadership candidates. So you you raised last week Ali Laranjani, who's the National Security Advisor. We could have talked about Mohamed Bakr Ghalibat, who's the Speaker of the Parliament. And those were the kind of two securocrats that people thought, you know, really were at the key of this regime, running it day to day. And now we've had Khamenei's son, which have a Khamenei takeover.

• 40:37Rory Stewart?

  The bottom line on these three figures is they are regimes through and through and through. I mean, anyone who hoped that this is the beginning of a new reform and a new pragmatism. This is instead people who I think absolutely buy into Hamani's fundamental position. And Hamani's position is the same as Xi Jinping's position. They both looked at what happened to the Soviet Union. And they thought what happened is Gorbachev was too soft. The biggest moment of danger for regimes is when you reform.

• 41:08Alastair Campbell?

  Yep.

• 41:08Rory Stewart?

  Hamani has another Iranian wrestling statement where he used to say that when your opponent is pushing you hard, what you must never do is step back because they just occupy that space and push you further back. And they will all-

• 41:22Alastair Campbell?

  That's one of Putin's judo principles as well.

• 41:24Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Well, they will have all concluded that they were too restrained in their response to Israel and the US last time around. That Hezbollah, in retrospect, should have launched 100,000 missiles into Israel straight after October the 7th. That they should have hit back at the whole Gulf and launched all their drones after the first two strikes. That they gave the impression to Israel and the US that they were weak and they gained nothing from it. That everybody who had said to them, listen, if we keep our heads down, maybe they won't come after us. What they've actually heard from Netanyahu and Trump is we will not stop till we've wiped you out.

• 42:08Rory Stewart?

  And if someone says to you, we will not stop to watch out, what possible incentive is there?

• 42:12Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly.

• 42:12Rory Stewart?

  To restrain yourself in any way at all?

• 42:14Alastair Campbell?

  Is it also the case, if you go through the three ayatollahs? So we go, uh, Hamani, Hamani, Hamani too.

• 42:20Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 42:22Alastair Campbell?

  Are they becoming less and less theocratic?

• 42:26Rory Stewart?

  Well, they're so, so these are all, and these are, this is, um, this is slight nuance because this depends whether you buy into Shia theology, right? So certainly true. Ayatollah Hamani was a really major theological scholar. And, and in some ways Shia Islam feels a bit like the Catholic Church. Except the Pope-like figures, who are these sources of emulation, are often profound theologians. And the great example is Sistani, who's basically the, the big figure sitting running this from Najaf. And Khomein, which is the kind of holy city in Iran, is where they all move through. But don't underestimate the fact that when we say

• 43:11Rory Stewart?

  that Mujtaba Khamenei is not a great theological scholar, the guy has almost certainly memorized the entire Quran from one end to the other and could certainly spend nine or 10 days lecturing you on detailed surahs and theological implications.

• 43:27Alastair Campbell?

  Would we take that as a mini-series?

• 43:30Alastair Campbell?

  Nine hours with

• 43:32Rory Stewart?

  Really, really odd culture because he is a very, very senior learned cleric. He's just not up at the top level, but it, you know, it's, I don't know, it's, it's, he's, maybe he's a first division footballer, not a, not a premier league footballer.

• 43:47Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, okay. So the Ayatollah Khomeini, he was, he was Champions League.

• 43:53Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, we, we have these weird phrases, like, we have these weird phrases of grand Ayatollah, sources of emulation. And, and one of the things that happened after Khomeini died is that they did two very odd things at the same time. They broke the connection between the theological religious authority and the political by allowing Grand Ayatollah Sistani, in, in, who's actually located in Iraq, to be the big theological source, separate from the political, but they strengthened the notion of the wulaytifhaki, which is the, the government of the jurists. They actually made the clergy stronger within the regime.

• 44:31Alastair Campbell?

  Are you, are you quite attracted to their faith?

• 44:34Rory Stewart?

  Shia Muslim.

• 44:36Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, if you, if you were

• 44:38Rory Stewart?

  My, my, my family have been Christians for generations.

• 44:40Alastair Campbell?

  Yes, I know that, but if, if it's like Tony Blair always used to say, we worry that if I got God, I'd become a Islamic fundamentalist.

• 44:47Rory Stewart?

  What's this?

• 44:48Alastair Campbell?

  Shia Sunni, where, where, where do you, where do you fall down? I know it's all to do with the Muhammad and what have you, where do you fall down?

• 44:54Rory Stewart?

  For those of us who are not Muslims, who are Western Europeans, there's always something very attractive about Shia Islam because it's tended to have much more relationship to a sufism, to mystical traditions, towards intellectualism, it's got more clerical authority. Traditionally, it was actually less radical. And it was always slightly on the back foot. But but one of the problems that we're dealing with here is that at the heart of it, going back to its foundation story, is the idea of martyrdom, because the break was when the son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad was killed at Karbala. The Sunni tradition takes over and the Shia tradition is from this martyr tradition, which is why you see all these great images of Imam Ali, Imam Hussein, dressed in martyrs' robes.

• 45:39Rory Stewart?

  And which is why you now have this situation where for the ten, twenty percent who support the regime, Mujtaba Hameni has now become something called a Shahid Zandeh. So he's a living Shahid, he's a living martyr because of the loss of his father, his mother, his wife.

• 45:57Alastair Campbell?

  Is that related to the Shahed drone at all?

• 46:00Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah, it's the same, it's the same.

• 46:02Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, okay, so he's a drone, right, okay. Well, I think there's a book in here, Rory.

• 46:08Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, very good.

• 46:08Alastair Campbell?

  Why I Became a Shia Muslim by Rory Stewart.

• 46:11Rory Stewart?

  Well, the final thing for listeners who really want, Roy Muthahadeh has written the great book. Also, a bit of a shout out to Vali Nassar, who's just written a great piece today in the New York Times, looking at nationalism in Iran and why he thinks the regime has actually grown stronger, not weaker, thanks to the attacks. And a shout out again to my friend Gerard Russell, who's very kind, he's been very patient with me as always.

• 46:30Alastair Campbell?

  He's a great guy, he's a great guy. Now, listen, let's get down to grubby politics. Alfie in Surrey wants to know, do we think that Netanyahu will now win the next Israeli election?

• 46:39Rory Stewart?

  Go on then, what do you think?

• 46:42Alastair Campbell?

  He's in a better place than he was.

• 46:44Rory Stewart?

  Just to remind people, he was in real trouble three years ago.

• 46:47Alastair Campbell?

  He has been politically dead so many times.

• 46:50Rory Stewart?

  Really, the assumption was before October the seventh that he was finished, right? And his opinion polling was terrible.

• 46:56Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, the thing of the court reform, you had massive protests. Then he was getting the blame for the October seventh attacks. But it's really interesting watching the opposition figures in Israel, feeling that they have to say they support what Netanyahu is doing in relation to Iran.

• 47:14Rory Stewart?

  I think public opinion is sort of nearly eighty percent of Israeli opinion is behind this Iran thing. I mean, it's a sign in a sense that Israel is now operating in a completely different media space from the rest of the world. I've never seen such a dramatic difference between what Israelis assume, which is they just take it for granted that what they're doing in Iran is completely justified, makes perfect sense, while actually the vast majority of the American population is horrified.

• 47:40Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, and I watched Channel Four News last night and Krishnan Guramurti was interviewing Benny Gantz, who's, you know, a big military figure, but also kind of much more centrist, moderate sort of political figure. And Krishnan Guramurti was saying to him, but you know, there is no legal basis for this war. And he really pushed back at him. And Krishnan held his ground, but basically there's a guy who is politically opposing Netanyahu, who is essentially giving him a complete blank cheque on the legality because he supports taking down the regime.

• 48:14Rory Stewart?

  Just quickly on this, I mean, we don't know, because this is something Rob Malley said, that we would not be at all surprised that if before this podcast went out, Trump announced a massive new phase, or if he suddenly announced the war was over. But one thing I think that we can be pretty confident of is that even if Trump stops his military operations, in a sense, the war will not be over, because the way in which senior Israeli figures are talking is that they will go back and back and back into Iran whenever they want. They can go back in three months' time, six months' time, nine months' time. Because what they're going to do is attempt to perpetually degrade the military infrastructure and probably degrade the entire state structures and government structures for Iran. They would much rather have a failed, weak state that's not a threat to Israel than have a coherent, nationalistic state.

• 49:00Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Now, Ru, I think for a final question, we ought to be allowed to have a little dig at the following people Nigel Farage, Richard Tyson, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Lewis H. from London, could you challenge some of the Brexit supporting politicians like Farage, Tyson, Rees-Mogg? With a simple question about sovereignty. They argued that Brexit was about taking back control from the EU so Britain could act independently. Yet many of them are now arguing the UK should automatically follow the United States in the Iran crisis because of security dependence. How do they reconcile demanding sovereignty from Brussels while advocating alignment with Washington? Lewis, that's a very, very good question.

• 49:36Rory Stewart?

  Very good. I know that in Boris Johnson, absolutely extraordinary. I mean Boris Johnson absolutely just out there again and again saying anybody who remotely questions what the US is doing in Venezuela or Iran. Is a lefty bedwetter and clearly what we should do is get right in behind the US. No, it's very interesting. It's as though the right. Uh, really wasn't talking about sovereignty at all. One almost gets the impression that their world viewers, they don't like being told what to do. Uh, by the French and the Germans, but they want to be told what to do by the US and Israel.

• 50:06Alastair Campbell?

  They didn't, as I said yesterday, they didn't want to be told by Barack Obama to. Stick with the European Union as the better way to get a trade deal for the UK. So they want to be told what to do by right wing.

• 50:18Rory Stewart?

  Right wing governments in the US and Israel. Yeah, yeah.

• 50:21Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Even if they are people who clearly like Trump offend so many people in Britain very, very deeply.

• 50:29Rory Stewart?

  Interestingly, I also think they're going to become increasingly pro Modi. So you can see this, a Conservative MP representing a Harrow constituency has just got this medal from the Indian government. But I wouldn't be surprised if we don't find out. I mean, I'm teasing them about being too pro US, too pro Israel. I think within five years' time, they'll be knee jerking to the Indian position on the world too.

• 50:50Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. Interesting.

• 50:51Rory Stewart?

  It's, it's very.

• 50:52Alastair Campbell?

  Are you less enthusiastic about Mark Carney's bromance with Modi than I am?

• 50:56Rory Stewart?

  I think we should be cautious because I think it's an exciting idea, but remember that India was engaged in the extrajudicial killing of Canadian citizens on Canadian territory not very long ago. And Modi has been on the absolutely, on a very weird side on the Russia Ukraine conflict. He's not been providing support to Ukraine. He's been buying Russian oil like Billy O, filling Putin's coffers. India missed its chance to step up for the rules based order. It invited Putin famously to come and visit them. So I would make the core of an argument for a values rules based order. Probably I'd go to New Zealand before I went to India.

• 51:36Alastair Campbell?

  Hold on, no, Roy, you must see Alexander Stubb, the triangle of power. And he goes global, global west, global east, global south. And he said in our interview that maybe it should have been a rectangle.

• 51:48Rory Stewart?

  Ah.

• 51:48Alastair Campbell?

  The fourth corner of the rectangle has to be Europe.

• 51:51Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 51:51Alastair Campbell?

  Okay.

• 51:52Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 51:52Alastair Campbell?

  And do you think it's going to be them? But it's got to be Europe.

• 51:55Rory Stewart?

  But you've got to work on how on earth we hold Europe together. What's so sad is that again and again, you, yeah, I've given you the job. Again and again, there's this splintering.

• 52:07Alastair Campbell?

  I know.

• 52:07Rory Stewart?

  Exactly the moment where you want Metz and Macron.

• 52:11Alastair Campbell?

  Even Macron going off to Cyprus. I mean, it was quite a good thing to do an attack on Cyprus as an attack on Europe. But it sort of looked like, you know, don't worry, the French will look after you, even if the Brits won't.

• 52:21Rory Stewart?

  It's, it's really weird. And, and also they were not as supportive of Spain as they should have been. It looked like, you know, Metz was kicking the, the Spanish.

• 52:28Alastair Campbell?

  And they're not very supportive on the, on the enlargement that we talked to Marta Kos about in Ukraine, where, you know, we've got to get Ukraine in, we've got to get the Balkans in.

• 52:35Rory Stewart?

  And, you know, interesting Serbia, your friend Eddie Rama in Albania, writing op ed saying they're prepared to sign up for the single market without full membership or some sort of outside. But yeah, we need, if, if this is going to happen, and this is of course what Europe's enemies are betting on from the US to the rest of the world, is that Europe will always be too divided and too incapable of developing a common vision.

• 52:58Alastair Campbell?

  Which is why they're trying to exacerbate the divisions, not least by backing the AFD in Germany, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I, I, I wonder if the Americans are quite conscious of just how loath Trump is in much of Europe at the moment. So these pieces that you and I are writing for the, the newsletter, link in the description below.

• 53:15Rory Stewart?

  And thank you to everyone who's been signing up to this. We have a huge rise in the number of people. And I, I just actually got three friends in the Gulf writing in saying how interested they'd been in some of the recent newsletters.

• 53:25Alastair Campbell?

  Excellent. So anyway, so I've written about the mooch and I going to Dublin and to Belfast and kind of what that whole Irish story says about the way that the world is changing. Really interesting, by the way, I am absolutely convinced that the. The question on the United Ireland or a new Ireland, as they like to call it, is is moving, moving away at the moment.

• 53:47Rory Stewart?

  Moving away.

• 53:48Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Rory Stewart?

  It is.

• 53:49Alastair Campbell?

  Part of the Brexit.

• 53:50Rory Stewart?

  Feels less likely.

• 53:52Alastair Campbell?

  To me.

• 53:52Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 53:53Alastair Campbell?

  It feels like the Republic is less kind of passionate about it. Um, interestingly, the audience in Belfast, eighty percent said that Brexit had made them feel more European.

• 54:02Rory Stewart?

  Right. And and yet, but paradoxically, a bit like Scotland, makes you feel more European, but doesn't necessarily mean the United Kingdom Brexit.

• 54:09Alastair Campbell?

  And makes you worried about big institutional change.

• 54:12Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, we'll see.

• 54:13Rory Stewart?

  Good, well, I look forward to reading that very much. And thank you for a question time and let's see what we're doing next week. Um, but I think even if.

• 54:23Alastair Campbell?

  Mexico, Cuba.

• 54:24Rory Stewart?

  Exactly, think about Cuba, could well be going into Cuba, but even if the bombing stops instantly, um, I think the long term impacts of this, we're only just beginning to see, he has shattered that region. And I think he's probably had a really serious impact on the economies of Europe. I mean, one of the things we we don't talk about enough is when Rachel Reeves looks at what's going to happen as oil prices go up, fertilizer prices go up, cost of living goes up, unemployment going up, growth goes down. And that's repeated right the way across Europe. That's a gift, unfortunately, to the far right going to the elections. And for that, too, we have to thank Mr. Donald Trump.

• 54:59Alastair Campbell?

  See you soon.

• 55:00Rory Stewart?

  See you soon. Bye bye.

• 55:06Speaker 08

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• 55:34Speaker 05

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.

• 55:38Speaker 06

  On October 2nd.

• 55:39Speaker 05

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 55:43Speaker 06

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 55:51Speaker 07

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you're freezing to death, that's what...

• 55:55Speaker 06

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 55:58Speaker 07

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 55:59Speaker 06

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.