248. Battle lines are drawn: defections, defence, and David Gauke

What is Rishi Sunak’s plan to win back voters? Why has Putin removed his ally as Russia’s defence minister? Has Labour’s embrace of a defecting Tory MP backfired? This week, Alastair is joined by former Lord Chancellor and Conservative MP, David Gauke, to answer all these questions and more. 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. TRIP ELECTION TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Election Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Assistant Producer: Fiona Douglas Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair 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.

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creef. 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.

• 0:42Alastair 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?

• 0:49Rory 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/risterspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/risterspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  A payday candy bar is miles and miles of peanuts. Salty crunchy peanuts, sweet, sweet caramel, wrapping you up with every bite. Enjoy the tasty journey, my friend. Payday Peanut Caramel Bar.

• 1:20Speaker 03

  Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 1:25Speaker 04

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo.

• 1:38Speaker 05

  Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 2:26Alastair Campbell?

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

• 2:29Speaker 06

  And me, David Gork.

• 2:30Alastair Campbell?

  Yes, indeed, it is David Gork off the bench to replace Rory Stewart. And who could be better, given that Rory Stewart says you are his political hero? And for those who didn't listen last week, Rory is currently sitting cross legged for 14 hours a day on an 11 day retreat.

• 2:48Speaker 06

  Handcuffed to a radiator.

• 2:51Alastair Campbell?

  Might as well be for a we do.

• 2:52Speaker 06

  I think it's a hostage prep.

• 2:54Alastair Campbell?

  Blissfully unaware that he won a major award for his book last night. He was made to, back to the hostage theme, he had to pre-record a video of acceptance without knowing whether he'd actually won or not. Well, we now know that he's won, but he doesn't. Anyway, David Gork, we're going to be talking about UK politics in the first half, another Sunak reset, another blot on the Rwanda landscape as they struggle to get that through, and another defection from Tory to Labour. And then we're going to, in the second part, talk about the state of the world, Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, and we've both been following things in Georgia, which is very, very interesting. And though this is not an episode of Leading, I hope we will be able to touch a little

• 3:36Alastair Campbell?

  bit on your career, David, MP from 2005 to 2019, three ministerial jobs in the Treasury, so maybe something good to say about the state of the economy, Work and Pension Secretary, Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary for Theresa May, and then the career coming something shuddering of a halt when you made it clear you wouldn't serve Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. So for that alone, welcome.

• 3:58Speaker 06

  Well, thank you very much, Alistair. It's a great pleasure to be with you and to be the poor man's Rory Stewart for the week.

• 4:05Alastair Campbell?

  You weren't called upon to accept his book award last night.

• 4:07Speaker 06

  I don't know, it didn't get to me, no message. I felt I missed out.

• 4:11Alastair Campbell?

  So listen, where shall we start with the state of your party? We've just done this rather remarkable interview with Kwasi Kwarteng on Leading, which I know you've listened to. For those who haven't, the first half is out now to everybody and the second part will be out on Monday. And if you can't wait, and I think there's quite a few people who, because this is where he gets on to trust and to the actual event of the mini-budget. So all you need to do if you want to go for it now is to become a member of The Rest is Politics Plus, and you do that by going to therestispolitics.com. You sign up and you can hear Kwasi part two straight away. I was very, very struck that if I was sitting in central office listening to that and I hear a serving MP.

• 4:52Alastair Campbell?

  Say the sorts of things that he said about he kind of knew that Truss was a disaster. And also saying if he was in his twenties, he couldn't really find a reason to vote Tory. And yet there he is, having been the Chancellor at this sort of seminal moment and now, albeit not standing in the election, is a serving MPs. What did you make of it?

• 5:11Speaker 06

  Well, I did listen to both interviews. I thought they were fascinating. I thought what was most striking was that essentially quasi has gone from being a participant to a commentator. Now, that's a route that I can kind of understand, but generally you tend to do that, you know, after you've left Parliament. Yes. So he's, or at least left the party, which doesn't necessarily happen at the same time. So, you know, he was very candid, very open about the failings of him and Liz Truss. I mean, to some extent, a bit glib about it, I thought, but it was a, it was a very candid interview. And as he, as he said, he said, if I was twenty two, I probably wouldn't be voting Conservative. But I mean, he was sort of late to the party to some extent. I mean, the context was he was talking about how in his early twenties, he wasn't particularly party political.

• 5:56Speaker 06

  But I mean, that is a real problem for the Conservative Party, how badly the Tories are doing with younger voters. And, you know, some of the polling is pretty spectacular, how badly they're doing. And yeah, I mean, he, he sort of slipped into the sort of reminiscences of a retired politician, almost forgetting he was still a Conservative MP. And, and, you know, as I say, I don't know whether he was sort of auditioning to be the next substitute Rory Stewart, but I say hands off.

• 6:22Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. I think one old Italian in here is enough. I really do. How would you define yourself politically now?

• 6:29Speaker 06

  So I would consider myself to still be a person of the centre right. But I feel politically homeless. I've got a lot of friends still within the Conservative Parliamentary Party. And, you know, a lot of them I wish really well. I think the country has definitely reached the point where it's, feels it's time for a change. I've got a lot of respect for people like Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting and so on. I don't think they'll let the country down. But I'm not a lateral Labour person. I'm still somewhat of the centre right. I'm still someone who is, you know, perhaps sceptical about. What the state can do, I'm not a sort of anti-state libertarian, but I do think there are limits to what government can do. I essentially believe in a free market economy.

• 7:12Speaker 06

  I'm sort of naturally sceptical about utopian ideas. I dislike the far left, that's very much not my politics. So I think I belong on the centre right, but I don't feel the Conservative Party really represents me. It's not as hostile, it's not as unattractive as it was under Boris Johnson. Do you think Rishi Sunak is an improvement? But I do still think that the right is calling the tune and I do fear that we're looking forwards. The Conservative Party may well move fairly significantly.

• 7:41Alastair Campbell?

  So what do you vote, what are you going to vote?

• 7:43Speaker 06

  I don't know at the moment how I'm going to vote. I would say, look, if I was living in constituencies which were, you know, not crucial as to who was going to be in power next time round. But constituencies with good one nation Conservative MPs or candidates, I would be voting for them. So if I was living in the, you know, don't want to run exhaustive list, but, you know, if I was living in the constituency of Alex Chalk or Greg Clark or Caroline Noakes or Rupert Harrison as a candidate, yeah, there's many others I could mention. I almost certainly would vote for them mainly because I think Labour are going to win next time round.

• 8:18Alastair Campbell?

  You don't think there's any doubt about that?

• 8:19Speaker 06

  No, I don't have any doubt.

• 8:20Alastair Campbell?

  You and I did an event in your former constituency recently and I think I was the only person in the room who was still making the case that it's not all over. Why are you so convinced that Labour are going to win? And do you think they're going to win with a majority?

• 8:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think they're going to win with a majority. I mean, it's a point that even if they don't have a majority, no one will go into coalition with the Conservatives. But I think Labour will get a majority. I turn it around in a way, Alistair, is that why do you, you know, despite all the polling evidence, why do you think Labour are not heading towards a big majority?

• 8:49Alastair Campbell?

  That is a very good question and I guess partly it's my kind of historical experience of having been in places where it looks like the results done deal, but then the result turns out to be different. But also I keep looking at the numbers and the swing and even with those local elections, I look at them and think, hmm, okay. The Tories did very, very badly, but there was still one in four people who could be bothered to vote, still voting for them despite everything. And of the two thirds that didn't vote, at least a good two thirds of them are probably going to come out. And if they weren't already motivated to vote against the Tories, maybe they can be won back. Now, I'm deliberately playing the pessimist because I've always done that, but I just, I just worry as well

• 9:30Alastair Campbell?

  that the politics is so volatile. I think the Conservatives still have an incredibly biased media in their favour. We've seen that in the last couple of days. I mean, Sunak, Rishi Sunak delivered this speech, which was billed as the sort of, you know, the big speech, that this is where the electoral battle lines were being drawn. And I read it, and it was like a not very well-written Daily Telegraph column about the state of the world, interspersed with a few gratuitous attacks on Keir Starmer. It didn't seem to me to add up to anything at all.

• 10:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, I, I think I can understand why Labour people who have had the experience of 1992 and 2015, when you were both expected to win.

• 10:08Alastair Campbell?

  And the last century, by the way. I mean, you, you lot have just been so good at winning.

• 10:13Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 10:14Alastair Campbell?

  And that's, I think that's ingrained in people like me.

• 10:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, but most of the time, it's kind of expected that we were going to win. So everyone knew in 83 and 87 what the result was going to be. Look, I can understand the nervousness about it. And I do think there will be a bit of a narrowing, because I do think quite a lot of the don't knows really do look like Conservatives, and they'll break that way. And I suspect Reform will get squeezed a bit.

• 10:36Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think, by the way, the Reform, I mean, Farage just loves being talked about, but do you think Reform are no longer in a place where they can credibly do a deal with the Tories like they did the last time?

• 10:48Speaker 06

  I don't think they can do a deal with the Tories. I do think, I think Reform can do a certain amount of damage to the Conservatives, because they clearly, more than UKIP, they take their votes off the Tories. So they certainly can do some damage. My worry is the Conservative Party gets so hung up about Reform and says, oh, we're losing some votes to our rights, ignoring the fact that losing vast, you know, vastly more numbers.

• 11:10Alastair Campbell?

  People like you.

• 11:10Speaker 06

  People like me to the Liberal Democrats or to Labour and so on. I also, I mean, I'm hearing rumours that Nigel Farage doesn't think that this is going to kind of work out, that he's not going to win a seat if he stands. So if he doesn't stand, I think that helps. And actually reforms performance in elections, whether by elections or council elections, does tend to be a bit below what you'd expect if the national opinion polling was right.

• 11:36Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think some of that reform vote could actually go to Labour, the current Labour?

• 11:40Speaker 06

  I'm not, not so much. I think Labour have already got those, if you like, the people who were voting UKIP, who were, if you like, Labour, UKIP are now back at Labour, a lot of them. I think the people that Reform get is probably more damaged, is more concentrated on the Tories.

• 11:55Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 06

  Than was the case with UKIP.

• 11:58Alastair Campbell?

  Now, you were Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. So I've no doubt you followed the whole Rwanda debate with a lot of, a lot of interest. First of all, could you have voted for the stuff that they've done in Rwanda? And what do you make of this judgment that's been made in Northern Ireland? Where essentially they're saying that uh, uh, somebody who's crossed the channel on a small boat has made his way through the mainland, as it were, and has ended up in Northern Ireland. And the judge there is saying that he cannot be sent to Rwanda, which strikes me as yet another little legal hurdle that the government probably hadn't thought about.

• 12:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's, it's more difficulty for the government here. And this comes down to the Good Friday Agreement and the terms of that. And I know Rishi Sunak has been saying, but you know, this is not what the Good Friday Agreement was. Sorry, this is all in legislation and the, you know, the judges get to decide these things. So, look, on, on the Rwanda bill more broadly, I, I didn't like it um, for a couple of reasons. One is that when it comes to whether a country is safe or not, that seems to be a matter of fact that should be determined by the judiciary, not by parliament. Secondly, I think in terms of value for money, this is a sort of terrible policy. And on the deterrent argument, it's only small numbers of people who go to Rwanda. So it doesn't meet the scale of the problem.

• 13:13Speaker 06

  Where I have perhaps a bit more sympathy for the government on this is, this is a problem in terms of the small boats coming across. I think if you found somewhere that was safe. And said, well, okay, we're going to outsource the asylum system. I know a lot of people will say that's objectional.

• 13:32Alastair Campbell?

  Other countries are looking at that as well.

• 13:33Speaker 06

  Other countries are looking at that. I don't find that objectional in principle. If you've got somewhere that is genuinely safe and a country says, look, you know, rather than take asylum seekers ourselves, we will fund people getting asylum in another safe country that's prepared to take them. But that has to be a safe country and that should be determined by the judiciary. And I particularly dislike, and you know, if there was something that would completely put me off voting conservative next time, is the discussion about coming out of the European Convention on Human Rights. I think that would be a ridiculous policy.

• 14:08Alastair Campbell?

  And Sunak presumably would agree with you on that, but feels he has to do it because of the problems of this world.

• 14:12Speaker 06

  Presumably, but again, coming back to the speech that he delivers, the sort of reset speech, you know, is a very strong hint if, you know, if it's a choice between sticking by the conventions and protecting this country, I'll protect this country. And that's the way he's framing it and he's almost sort of talking himself into a position. I just think the problems that arise for our international reputation, if we left the ECHR, we'd be with Russia and Belarus, the only countries not in it. You've got all sorts of issues with the Good Friday Agreement. And at a practical level on this very issue about small boats and illegal immigration, you know, it's very evident that we require cooperation with other countries and there will be less cooperation if we're outside the ECHR, not more.

• 14:57Alastair Campbell?

  You called his speech a reset and I think by my calculation, it's seventh or eighth sort of attempt to kind of project something very, very different. This is where I think the, this sort of rather slavish support of a lot of the media works to his disadvantage because they, they sort of assume that their readers have no memory. They assume that we have no memory. And it struck me as being in complete contradiction to the image of himself he was projecting at his party conference, whereas he was Mr. Change, I'm going to be the change guy. And now essentially he's being Mr. Continuity. And I also thought, I don't, I have this theory that the public hate politicians when they have colds. He had a really bad. He had a really bad call.

• 15:35Speaker 06

  It's not really his fault, to be fair.

• 15:36Alastair Campbell?

  It's not his fault, but, you know, whenever Tony had a call, I was a little, let's just, let's just make this very, very brief. Instead of which, he did the full thing, and it was quite a long speech. There's a very funny thing, if you go to the Downing Street website, I, I tried yesterday because I'm a great believer in reading speeches rather than relying on the BBC or anybody else telling me what's being said. So I wanted to read the whole speech. So I thought, I'll go to Conservative Central Office website. I mean, that website is so bad. The last news item was something about the budget, which I think was in March. It's basically about donate, donate, donate, donate. And then, so I'll go to Policy Exchange, the dark money, right wing think tank where the hosted this event. So they said, full text available here.

• 16:18Alastair Campbell?

  I click on here, it takes me to the Number 10 website, where the speech says, nine times in the text, please note political content redacted here. So they've got the whole speech.

• 16:30Speaker 06

  In a political speech.

• 16:32Alastair Campbell?

  In a political speech, apart from all the bits that are political, which were basically saying Keir Starmer's, you know, this, the country wouldn't be safe. But I just find with Sunak, he's out again today talking about food security. It strikes me that he's kind of confusing, being busy, either with doing the job or actually with having a coherent strategy. And I just wonder, you, you kind of are closer to these people psychologically, what are they trying to do and what is their thinking as we now head towards fairly soon a general election?

• 16:59Speaker 06

  First of all, I agree with you in terms of, I mean, even the speech itself had two big messages, one of which is, you know, storm clouds are gathering. On the other hand, it was, you know, it's going to be a really exciting time with AI and technology. And, and there was a very good cartoon in the Times today that had Rishi Sunak as Chicken Little, and it's, you know, the sky is going to fall in and the plan is working. So, you know, if the plan is working, then, you know, we should be doing something about the sky, I suppose. So I think that's a, that's a difficulty, a strategic message difficulty. And actually, there has been a longstanding problem not to settle on a line. And so the party conference position, and that, you know, I was going to be the change, and we've had 30 years, which seemed to be.

• 17:44Speaker 06

  Dig at David Cameron amongst others and then a month later, David Cameron's back in the cabinet. Good thing too, I would say, but yeah, that's not very consistent. And even in this speech, I mean, they're sort of scrabbling around for attack lines. They're trying this argument that Labour is a risk with national security. I mean, on that particular issue, it's not the public's priority. And the Conservatives have a small lead on it, on some polls at least, but it's tiny. I mean, it's better than a lot of other topics for the Conservatives, but it's pretty small. But it seems to me their whole argument, an awful lot of weight is essentially placed on the, well, we've promised to get to 2.5% of GDP defence spending by 2030.

• 18:27Speaker 06

  And Labour haven't matched that promise, but you know, two points on that. One is the Conservatives actually haven't said how it's funded, so it's an unfunded spending commitment. They say it's about cutting civil service, but it really isn't that they haven't, they haven't properly funded it. Secondly, look, this was an announcement they made on the 24th of April. So, you know, three weeks ago, they said we should get to two and a half percent. And now they're saying, well, Labour, you know, they haven't said they get to two and a half percent, you know, for over the last three weeks either. I mean, it's a bit late in the day if that's your big divide. And look, I mean, sometimes, frankly, Labour on occasions have been really weak on national security.

• 19:07Speaker 06

  I mean, you know, a party do still think it is appalling that a mainstream political party went into an election led by Jeremy Corbyn twice. And, you know, in those circumstances, particularly after what happened in Salisbury and so on. I think, you know, the Tories are perfectly entitled to give the Labour Party a kicking on national security. I just don't think it's going to resonate in the same way with Keir Starmer and John Healy and David Lammy in the same way.

• 19:33Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, I've been at quite a few military and defence establishment things recently. And there was one at which actually both government and opposition were present. And one of the guys who was there, he was ex-military, but now working in the defence industry. Basically said that, you know, you look around the room, people are looking at John Healy and thinking, well, he's all right as a Defence Secretary. So I don't think it works with Keir Starmer. I think what they've been trying to do over the course of the Parliament. Has been this constant linking of Keir Starmer to Jeremy Corbyn, but I don't think it's worked because Keir Starmer has kicked about the party and Keir Starmer does use the phrase the changed Labour Party almost as often as we used to say New Labour. And I think that has kind of got through. And of course, you know, maybe we should talk

• 20:18Alastair Campbell?

  a little bit about Natalie Elphick, because this, this is the other big thing that's happened recently. And I think it's worth people knowing that Rory and I talked about defections recently, and I talked about the defections that I was involved in, Alan Howarth and Sean Woodward and Robert Jackson and Quentin Davis. But here's a quiz question for you. From one main party to the other, how many defections have there been since the turn of the last century?

• 20:40Speaker 06

  From both the main?

• 20:41Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And, and, and one of them was at a time when the Liberals were the second other main party. So, so that's Churchill in 1904.

• 20:50Speaker 06

  That turn of the century.

• 20:51Alastair Campbell?

  So, so since, yes, the turn of the last century, yeah.

• 20:53Speaker 06

  Nineteenth through the twentieth.

• 20:54Alastair Campbell?

  So that was 1904.

• 20:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 20:56Alastair Campbell?

  This month. Since then, how many, from one main party to the other defections have there been?

• 21:02Speaker 06

  Directly, not, not with interim.

• 21:04Alastair Campbell?

  Not via independence or whatever.

• 21:05Speaker 06

  I would, I don't know, 12, 15, something like that?

• 21:07Alastair Campbell?

  Eight.

• 21:08Speaker 06

  Eight.

• 21:09Alastair Campbell?

  Eight.

• 21:09Speaker 06

  Right. And we've had two in the last couple of weeks.

• 21:11Alastair Campbell?

  We've had two in the last three weeks and we've had three in this parliament. There was, I think there was a massive gap between Churchill and Reg Prentis in the seventies, who went from Labour to Tory. So, so they're very, they're relatively rare. And I think it's very interesting how, I guess I'd be interested in your take on whether you think Labour were right to take Natalie Elphick, and whether you think the Tories have been right to launch what appears to be a pretty concerted campaign to try to discredit her.

• 21:41Speaker 06

  Well, I can see why they took Natalie Elphick, but it's, I think it's a fascinating one. And I suspect that if she was not the Member of Parliament for Dover, they wouldn't have done. So it's a defensive move, I think, coming from Labour, that they are worried about the Rwanda small boats issue. And they think as part of their defence, if they can say, well, even the MP for Dover thinks that we're better on small boats than the Tories, then that is helping to neutralise. From their perspective, a potentially dangerous issue. I do think it is still causing Labour some embarrassment. I mean, I was very surprised if I was to come up with a list of Tory MPs who were gonna flip over.

• 22:24Alastair Campbell?

  You might have put by us Elwood first.

• 22:26Speaker 06

  Let's put it this way, I wouldn't have Natalie Elphick.

• 22:28Alastair Campbell?

  Just tell, just, just, just, give it, give us a sense of, of who and what she is.

• 22:32Speaker 06

  Right, so there are two issues with her, I think, in terms of this defection. So Natalie Elphick was the wife of Charlie Elphick. I don't know Natalie very well, I have met her, but I didn't really know her well, but I was colleague of Charlie's for nine years. He was charged with sexual assault cases and essentially, you know, stood down in 2019 as the MP for Dover. Rather surprisingly, Natalie, who was well known to be a Conservative Party activist, you know, she was a, she was always very political, emerged as essentially the only candidate to be the Tory parliamentary candidate in Dover and won the seat.

• 23:10Alastair Campbell?

  And also stood by him through.

• 23:11Speaker 06

  And stood by, including after he was convicted in 2020 and she made some comments, you know, essentially critical of the victims, the people who'd given evidence against him. And, yeah, it was because he was, he's been punished for being attractive and attracted to women and so on. So she stood by Charlie. Now, I find these issues a little bit difficult because you've, you've clearly got personal loyalties and so on. And I, I'm, I'm, I don't want to rush to be too judgmental about that. But I can understand why quite a lot of Labour MPs are saying, you know, really, you know, for the, for women victims of sexual assault, you know, that was not great.

• 23:49Alastair Campbell?

  And the fact that now, according to Robert Buckland, though he's kept quiet about it ever since he claims it happened, she tried to interfere in the case.

• 23:57Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 23:57Alastair Campbell?

  As you, you as a former Lord Chancellor would have run a mile from.

• 24:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, to, to be honest, I think I would have probably done as Robert did, which is to say, no way. You know, which, so essentially Natalie Elphick went to Robert Buckland, who was the Lord Chancellor at the time, and said, you know, can we, I think, wanted to change the judge in the case because this one's a toughie, which is, you know, pretty outrageous. And Robert said. No, there's no way I'm going to do that.

• 24:22Alastair Campbell?

  Shouldn't you have done more than that? Shouldn't you have gone to the Standards Commissioner and said, excuse me, I've just been approached by an MP who's asked me to nobble a judge?

• 24:28Speaker 06

  I sort of thought about this. I think you would tell the chief whip, which I think he did, but you know, it very much depends on the specific circumstances. But if if she sort of went away, oh, is that right? Oh, sorry, I'm dropping it. I mean, it clearly got nowhere. There was no nobbling of judges. Nothing ever happened. Yeah. Would I then be inclined to sort of say, well, this was wrong. I've sorted it out. Nothing has happened. You know, there's been no nobbling of judges. I've told the chief whip. If the chief whip wants to do anything, that's up to him. But I've kind of done my duty. I can sort of understand how that would happen. Could I then, if I was Robert Buckland four years later, when Natalie Elphick then defects, would I resist?

• 25:09Speaker 06

  Telling that story to the public? I'm not sure I would either. So I think, no, well, I'm not sure, yeah.

• 25:14Alastair Campbell?

  So all is fair in politics?

• 25:15Speaker 06

  I think in in in this case.

• 25:17Alastair Campbell?

  Was the law, we can just sort of play around the edges?

• 25:19Speaker 06

  I don't think, yeah, there was no nobbling of judges. She made an improper request. It was a foolish error of judgment. She shouldn't have done it. But she went to a ministerial colleague and a ministerial colleague said, no, this is going nowhere. Forget it. And if it was forgotten, that was the end of it. Yeah, so be it. I don't think it's the sort of, yeah, I don't I don't think it's, nor is it, by the way, I think devastating for her, whether she can carry on as a Labour MP. There is a second aspect, though, which is that she's consistently been a very right wing populist MP. You know, she is not someone, unlike, for example, Dan Polter.

• 25:55Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 25:55Speaker 06

  Or Christian Wakeford, you know, both of whom you could see were sort of closer to Labour on quite a few issues.

• 26:01Alastair Campbell?

  And in agony about what was happening inside their party.

• 26:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, I that that's a different thing. Yeah, I think there are some defections are more honourable than others and more understandable than others.

• 26:11Alastair Campbell?

  Can you see any others of your former colleagues? Because Labour keeps saying there are others in the pipeline, which is presumably the, maybe true, but may also just be a destabilising tactic.

• 26:19Speaker 06

  Well, if, again, if in the sort of all fairs in politics thing, if I was Labour, I would absolutely be saying this. In fact, I did an event with Wes Streeting last night and he was.

• 26:28Alastair Campbell?

  Did you?

• 26:28Speaker 06

  I did, yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, he basically said I was too left wing to come over, so.

• 26:35Alastair Campbell?

  Ah, so we don't want, we don't want leftists, we just want these right wing populists, I see.

• 26:39Speaker 06

  No, personally, I personally, I'm sort of thrilled by this defection if perhaps another Labour could take another hundred or so populist right wingers. And then leave the Tory party to the sensible grown ups, I'd be delighted, carry on. I think others should follow the, um, I'm just, it's pretty Lee Ellison didn't, didn't go in the same direction.

• 26:55Alastair Campbell?

  It is interesting how the reaction inside the Labour Party has been very interesting.

• 26:59Speaker 06

  I mean, are you comfortable with it?

• 27:00Alastair Campbell?

  Um, broadly, I am. I don't like her politics. I actually, nobody would be surprised to know, I've never been that close to Jeremy Corbyn and, and Diane Abbott. But I think it, it sits a bit odd that they're not really considered to be Labour and suddenly Natalie Elphick is. But I think the broader message that the Labour Party is saying, we did not get the support of a lot of people who may be considered to be right wing. People like Natalie Elphick or voters who have voted for people like Natalie Elphick, we have to get those people back. So I think what Keir Starmer's, I can't imagine Keir Starmer felt terribly comfortable, but I think there is a bigger political gain there.

• 27:42Alastair Campbell?

  Which is that once people, and I'm afraid this will happen quite quickly, once they forget Natalie Elphick. What they will remember is the sense of Tory decay. And I think they'll also remember that the Keir Starmer's out there basically saying, we need people who didn't vote for us to vote before to vote for us. So I think there'll be people who maybe feel a bit uncomfortable about Labour, who could possibly feel a bit more comfortable because of this defection. But I don't think it's a huge thing. I think it'll be forgotten much more quickly than some of the other defections.

• 28:09Speaker 06

  Is there a line that you would draw? Are there Conservative MPs you would say, no, we're not having them? Or, or is the political prize, you know, I, I, I agree with you by the way, that the takeaway most people have from this. When it all settles down in a few weeks' time is, you know, another Tory has defected. But, you know, are, are there things that have been said or done by any Tory MPs that you would say, no, no, we, we can't touch you?

• 28:32Alastair Campbell?

  I think before she defated, if you'd asked me for a list of people, I would have said, no, we don't want them. I think she might have been on it.

• 28:38Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 28:38Alastair Campbell?

  But I think you're absolutely right. The prize was to have, while the Tories were trying to pretend or say that Labour couldn't be trusted on the issue of immigration, to have the MP for Dover saying, I back Labour's plan over Sunak's plan, I think is too big a prize to dismiss. I would feel uncomfortable about some of those, you know, Braverman. If Braverman was suddenly to say, if Truss was suddenly to say, I'm backing Labour, I'd be looking for the sick bucket so fast and I would, I would then fill it and throw it at anybody who, who dared to get them over. But I, look, when I, when we were in opposition and when we were in government, I was, I was kind of in charge of trying to get defectors.

• 29:21Alastair Campbell?

  And I thoroughly enjoyed it. And it's, it always is because, you know, you know, as well as, as anybody, morale is very, very important, particularly going into an election campaign. And I think the effect of morale of knowing that you're losing people that you thought were kind of yours forever, I think it must be pretty devastating. So, I don't know, there'd be a few I wouldn't want, but I think by and large, I mean, Neelkin had said, you know, even the broadest of church has walls. Yeah, true. But, you know, you need to get new people.

• 29:47Speaker 06

  So it's politics, really?

• 29:48Alastair Campbell?

  It is politics and it's pretty brutal politics. And I suspect, I think the one thing about Keir Starmer that people maybe underestimate is I think he's pretty ruthless. And I think the ruthlessness may or may not extend in future to Natalie Elphick possibly not being as big a deal in the future of our housing policy as you might think right now.

• 30:05Speaker 06

  Or Baroness Elphick.

• 30:06Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that is the other possibility, I guess, because they're going to have to sadly. If they're going to be serious about reforming the House of Lords, they're going to have to have new peers to help them do it. So Baron Gork is also a possibility.

• 30:21Speaker 06

  I very much doubt it. Before we go to the break, Alistair, I just wanted to ask you about a piece written by Tom McTague of Unheard, I think it was republished in The Times, about Morgan McSweeney, who is Keir Starmer's right hand man. And Tom's piece is arguing that Morgan McSweeney, you know, very much an anti Corbynista, but also what he's not about is the restoration of Blairism. And, and there's a sort of distinction drawn between, if you like, a sort of Tony Blair vision for the Labour Party. Which is Labour Party should be for the people who are kind of open to a modern world, fighting against the sort of populace who want to be closed off from those realities. And it should appeal to liberal graduate voters and so on.

• 31:05Speaker 06

  Whereas the sort of Morgan McSweeney vision as portrayed by Tom McTague is much more of, actually, the Labour Party is essentially a party for the working classes. It's got to appeal to those sort of leave voting working class voters. You know, maybe the sort of Natalie Elphick thing plays into this to a large extent. And that's the direction that Labour Party is going in. And it's it's it's sees Tony Blair as being out of touch and and so on. And now, look, you're obviously a very good friend of Tony Blair. Where do you sort of stand on on this? Is that a fair categorization of where Morgan McSweeney is coming from?

• 31:44Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I thought it was an interesting piece. If I were Morgan, who I think is a very smart guy and and has done an amazing job for Keir Starmer. You rightly, I think, say he's his right hand man because he was the guy who essentially was alongside Keir Starmer when Keir was going for the leadership. He's now a key strategist, probably the key strategist within the the central team. And he's got a very interesting backstory, like he's not a Brit, he's Irish, he's from Cork. So if you go into Labour headquarters, you've got him sitting there with Pat McFadden, who's is British, but he's pretty Irish, a massive Celtic fan. And sort of came over here and really cut his teeth in politics in in barking, where he was kind of taking on the the hard right.

• 32:25Alastair Campbell?

  And then I think did take on Corbynism with as much vigour as he did in that. So he's tough, he's ascetic, he's hardworking and he's utterly fixated on winning. I'd be a little bit worried if I were him that we're talking about as the headline was, the McSweeney project. I think you've got to be very, very careful. I mean, I fell victim for this, so did others, where as part of trying to undermine the leader, people forget because Tony Blair won three elections and he's seen as such a big figure now. The Tories for a lot of the time were trying to say, well, there's nothing to Tony Blair. It's all these kind of shady figures behind him. And I think Morgan's got to be careful that he doesn't get sucked into playing that role. This was the problem for Johnson with Cummings.

• 33:06Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 33:07Alastair Campbell?

  People felt that Cummings was the maestro, not Johnson.

• 33:09Speaker 06

  Or Cummings thought that.

• 33:10Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Cummings thought that and still does. And when we interviewed Sadiq Khan on leading, he said, if you'd have been in the room with Cummings and Johnson together, you'd have thought Cummings was the prime minister. Well, that is never a good look. But that being said, I think I've talked to Morgan McSweeney about Tony's legacy and reputation and so forth, and I think he's got enormous respect for him. One for having won three elections. Morgan is obsessed about winning, and I think that is a very good thing to be if you're in opposition particularly. And I think he's not necessarily saying that Blairism, New Labour was wrong for then, but I think he is saying that some of the solutions that people like me, people like Tony, that we put forward are sometimes rooted in what we did then, as opposed to a very different politics now. So I think both can be right, because the truth is, to get the sort of majority that

• 33:55Alastair Campbell?

  I think Labour need, you are going to have to revive that sense of Labour being the party for the working classes and Labour being people who are going to look after the poor, et cetera, but at the same time, be the party of aspiration. And where I worry about Labour's project is that I think they've done a brilliant job as opposition fighters, getting themselves to this position where they've gone from Labour can't win to Labour can't lose. That's not unimpressive. What I worry about at the moment is whether the genuine makings of the government project are there. Now, Morgan is not the guy for the building of the government project. He is the guy for winning. I think that's absolutely right. So, for example, when we were running in 97, I refused to think about government.

• 34:37Alastair Campbell?

  I was absolutely fixated on the day-to-day battle to get into power, and Jonathan Powell was off working with the civil service and preparing for government. I'm assuming Sue Gray is doing a lot of that. So Morgan's utterly fixated on winning, and you have to hand it to them. They're not setting people's hearts on fire necessarily, but they are in this position where, as you say, people like you, most people in politics now think Labour are going to win. So they've done something right. But I just wish we could move on from the whole Blair. The Blair thing. I wish I wish that something new could be properly defined and articulated. And I don't think they're quite there yet.

• 35:10Speaker 06

  But do you think the Labour Party is, once again, a a class-based party? Is that right? And I mentioned that because I asked Wes Streeting that question as I did an event with him yesterday. He was promoting his book, you know, his his memoir.

• 35:24Alastair Campbell?

  Which is a pretty good read.

• 35:25Speaker 06

  Which is a really good read. And, you know, he comes from a very working class background. To which Wes, you know, his answer was yes, the Labour Party is, you know, fundamentally a class-based party. And I was sort of slightly surprised, given that he's seen as the most Blairite.

• 35:38Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 35:39Speaker 06

  Figure. I mean, partly that is a consequence of his upbringing, but.

• 35:43Alastair Campbell?

  I, you see, I I'm not sure about this because if if that were the case, today, for example, Gordon Brown, yet again, is beating the drum for the need to do more on child poverty. He's got a huge piece in The Guardian. I feel that the Labour Party, the current Labour Party, doesn't go on enough about child poverty. I was yesterday in a in a P R U, a pupil referral unit, you know, where the the toughest kids have been constantly, consistently excluded from mainstream schools. And, you know, it was really moving to see the the kind of work that the teachers were doing with these kids and to listen to the stories of some of the kids and the real challenges that they've faced. And I sort of feel that they're not part, that sort of child is not part of the current political debate.

• 36:26Alastair Campbell?

  So, yes, they might say that they want to project themselves more towards leave voting working class, but I think that becomes a bit of a caricature. I'm surprised Wes said that because I don't feel that's what the Labour Party are doing. I I would argue that there should be more of a focus on traditional working class than maybe they have been putting over. I still think he wants to project himself rightly from the political perspective as that kind of left of centre, but that is left and centre. And that's where I think he is, and that's where he's trying to project himself.

• 36:57Speaker 06

  I think at this point I should say, very good.

• 37:00Alastair Campbell?

  And I should say, let's take a break. No, Rory only says very good when I'm saying something that he fundamentally disagrees with. Or when I'm giving him a hard time. And he goes, hmm, very good.

• 37:10Speaker 06

  Well, I'll do that in the second half.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  A payday candy bar is miles and miles of peanuts. Salty crunchy peanuts, sweet, sweet caramel, raving you up with every bite. Enjoy the tasty journey, my friend. Payday Peanut Caramel Bar.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo.

• 37:47Speaker 05

  Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 38:30Speaker 07

  This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.

• 39:03Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics with me, David Gork. And me, Alastair Campbell. So where should we start? Should we? We're both being fascinated by this stuff in Georgia. So, and it's Georgia, small country, fewer than four million people, so smaller than Scotland. And yet the other day, there was one of the estimates said that the demonstrations outside the Parliament, there were over a quarter of a million people. So that's, that's what as a percentage, that's like, what, fifteen million Brits turning out.

• 39:31Speaker 06

  It's huge.

• 39:31Alastair Campbell?

  It's massive. Basically, the thing is over this bill that the Georgian government's trying to bring forward, essentially to say that if you are funded as an NGO or a media organisation with more than twenty percent of somebody else's money, you're effectively a foreign agent. And of course, the reason that is setting off so many alarm bells is because it's, it's sort of cut and paste from a from a law in, in Russia. And the bigger debate, and I, you know, as a sort of, you know, Remainer who's not over it, the sight of these people waving European flags while the water cannons were being turned on them was, I find very, very, very moving. So what do you make of it?

• 40:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, completely. And, and, and this debate about the foreign agents law, and essentially what's happening is you've got huge crowds outside the parliament in Tbilisi, trying to stop the assembly essentially passing this legislation. The president says that she's going to veto it, but that can be overridden. Essentially, it's a, it's a proxy battle about the direction that Georgia is going to go in. On the one hand, you have got what seems to be the overwhelming majority of the public, you know, something like eighty, ninety percent of the Georgian population want to join the European Union, which is even higher than the rejoined percentage in the UK.

• 40:46Alastair Campbell?

  Even higher, even higher.

• 40:49Speaker 06

  So there's a lot of enthusiasm about, you know, going in the direction of Europe versus Russia. But what you have got is you've got this extraordinary figure, Bidzina Ivanishvili, an oligarch, made his money in Russia, was briefly prime minister. He now has the role of, of chairman of Georgia Dream, which is the political party.

• 41:10Alastair Campbell?

  Was he effectively founded? He bankrolled it, a bit like Tais's bankrolling reform, hopefully less successfully.

• 41:17Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 41:17Alastair Campbell?

  Uh, he bankrolled Georgian dream.

• 41:19Speaker 06

  Quite. And they have be essentially been the dominant party for the last twelve years. There are elections coming up in October. And our previous set of elections, I was talking to a friend of mine who does a lot of work in Georgia, so there's a huge amount of. harassment of opposition MPs and politicians more widely. There's a great deal of concern about what's going to happen in October. And particularly if this law gets passed, does that then provide an opportunity to kind of clamp down on opposition? And there were reports already of, you know, people being beaten up and and so on.

• 41:52Alastair Campbell?

  I saw a report yesterday, but an academic who was showing the bruises and the cuts and he'd been attacked outside his house by three guys. Who basically said, stop criticizing the law.

• 42:02Speaker 06

  It's very authoritarian.

• 42:03Alastair Campbell?

  This is Russian stuff, basically. It's Russian style, even if it's not Russian.

• 42:07Speaker 06

  Yes, yes, quite. And you, as you say, you've got this guy, even a shrilly, who is, you know, he doesn't have an official role, but he appears to appoint everybody. And there's a huge amount of cronyism. So one of his bodyguards became the interior minister. Apparently the maths tutor to his children became the education minister for a period, which sounds like, you know, quite Rory Stewart-ish, doesn't it? But but there we go.

• 42:31Alastair Campbell?

  Sorry, let's let's drill down on that one. It's Rory Stewart-ish.

• 42:35Speaker 06

  Well, if the king appointed Rory Stewart as education minister, I was just thinking.

• 42:38Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but the king hasn't done that. The king can't do that.

• 42:41Speaker 06

  But, you know.

• 42:41Alastair Campbell?

  Constitutionally, the king is not allowed to appoint ministers. You know, we had a civil war.

• 42:45Speaker 06

  That's a very good point, but anyway. But anyway, a way to advancement is to be a tutor to a powerful person's children.

• 42:53Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 42:53Speaker 06

  But even if really is sort of pulling all the strings here. And he is much more orientated towards Russia. People saying his business interests are obviously based in Russia. And you've got this battle, but there's a fascinating generational divide that is going on in Georgia. Where, you know, younger people see themselves as, you know, very pro-European. My friend was telling me that, you know, they don't even learn Russian anymore. You know, it's they learn Georgian and English and French. But, you know, Russian speaking is diminishing. It's a much more Western orientated nation.

• 43:33Speaker 06

  And of course, there are parallels with Ukraine in the sense that you've got two parts of Georgia that are already occupied by the Russians in Abkhazia and. Has been since two thousand and eight. You have got younger people particularly who you know want to look towards the West. You've got this huge protest and of course that's reminding the Russians of what was going on in twenty fourteen. And you know how essentially Ukrainian government.

• 44:01Alastair Campbell?

  It must also be reminding the protesters of because there's there's a real risk to what they're doing. Because if if they get this thing through and if this harassment of the opponents does step up and continue, then they will be a crackdown on protests. So what they're doing is incredibly brave.

• 44:15Speaker 06

  Yes, there's no doubt. Look, there's there's, you know, it's go back to what happened in Maidan Square in Ukraine. You know, a hundred protesters ended up being killed by the pro-Russian Ukrainian regime. That resulted in Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president at the time, fleeing the country, change of government. Yeah, it's very, very unstable, but you know, I know you've discussed many times the sort of big elections of this year. But yes, it's a small country, but Georgia in October is going to be fascinating.

• 44:46Alastair Campbell?

  It's going to be, it's going to be. Talking of elections, we've just had one in Lithuania. Another, as it were, potential hotspot in this kind of spreading Russian story. And so that's been won pretty convincingly. It's got to go to a second round, but the current president, Nauseda, has won. He was short of the fifty percent that you need. He was pretty close though. He got forty four percent of the votes. And the second person was only on twenty percent. So they've got to go into runoff. He's going to win that. But what was interesting about the debate is just how many, all of the candidates essentially were were very, very strong on defence, very strong in in basically saying this is an election about about Russia. And in his speech, he said, Zelensky has already said it all. They don't need our declarations of goodwill.

• 45:28Alastair Campbell?

  They're no use in a fight. They need air defences. Until they have air defences, Ukraine will stay vulnerable. And the polls in Lithuania, Lithuanians essentially believe that they are now vulnerable to an attack from Russia. So there's Georgia fascinating and ongoing. Lithuania election still to be concluded, but looks like it's going to be won by somebody who's very anti-Russian. And meanwhile, in Russia itself, we've had a pretty significant change of personnel. The Defence Minister Shoigu, who's been there, I think, for 12 years, and he's been replaced by, you know, I think you've got to be right inside the Kremlinological weeds to kind of read this one properly. But

• 46:08Alastair Campbell?

  it's a guy called Andrey Belusov, who is not from a military background. He's more an academic and economic background, and he's got no background in the military or in the security services. So I don't know what that says to you. What it says to me is that, you know, this is Putin telling everybody within the infrastructure that none of them are fully safe all of the time. Although I see Lavrov is still there, the Foreign Minister. I suspect he'll be there until he dies. So what do you make of that? And what do you make of what's been going on in terms of we've got Blinken there today in Ukraine, essentially signalling American support. We talked about John Healy and David Lammy earlier. They've just been to Kiev as well, signalling that if there is a change

• 46:51Alastair Campbell?

  of government, Britain will still be with Ukraine. But it feels like, things feel militarily like they are moving Putin's way.

• 46:59Speaker 06

  They do, I'm afraid. And obviously, we've seen the advances near Kharkiv. And now the city itself is within, you know, range of artillery from, it's called tube artillery, from the Russian forces. It also makes it harder for Ukraine to attack logistical points for Russia. So that's moving definitely in the wrong direction. I'm afraid, you know, the West did take its eye off the ball here, particularly in the US, long delay before Ukraine got the sort of $60 billion package of support. And, you know, to some extent, Ukraine needs to play for time. But most of the analysis I've seen in terms of the new Defence Minister, you know,

• 47:42Speaker 06

  this economist, Belusov, is that he's pretty able. Yes, he doesn't come from a military background, but this is a sign that Russia is In for the long haul. This is about combining the Russian economy with the Russian military even more than it is. I mean, it's it's on a wartime economy as it is, but this is going to be very attritional. Russia think they can outlast the West and obviously they're they are looking at what's going to happen in the US in November in the hope that if Trump is there, then you know, the opportunities are great. Although it is interesting that Trump in the end didn't block the sixty billion dollar package. Whether he was somehow talked around, maybe maybe David Cameron did the business.

• 48:27Alastair Campbell?

  Certainly sources close to David Cameron are constantly saying so.

• 48:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, it could well be true, but there's definitely been, you know, there was a there was a shift there, but nonetheless, you know, if you're Ukrainian, you're going to be very worried about the outcome of the US election.

• 48:39Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think if you're British, you're pretty worried.

• 48:41Speaker 06

  Well, yes.

• 48:42Alastair Campbell?

  There's a very interesting piece that we should put in the newsletter from the Wilson Center, which is an analysis of just how quickly the Russia's war budget has grown. And of course, what's interesting in a dictatorship, you don't have to reveal all the spending that's already been in the system. So they've actually been, they've been growing and growing and growing and growing. But now essentially ten percent of their GDP is going on this war. We're talking thirty percent plus. And it includes things. They've got this fascinating thing where it includes, for example, do you include the the tripling of patriotic education costs? This is like right across the government machine now. This is an economy and a budget that is utterly focused on this war.

• 49:24Alastair Campbell?

  Now, we can have our little debates between Skiers Starmer and Rishi Sunak about who's going to be first to two point five percent. But this is a level of commitment and spending that is off the scale, and I don't think the West has yet fully caught up with that.

• 49:37Speaker 06

  Now, I think that's that's right. We should also remember, though, that Russia is a relatively small economy.

• 49:42Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 49:42Speaker 06

  You know, it's it's a lot smaller than the UK alone. And if the West really wants to do this, and I think it is absolutely in the West's interest to support Ukraine and ensure that Ukraine ultimately prevails. You know, it it needs to do so and and to some extent, you know, just can't wait around. You know, this isn't about expenditure in the twenty thirty s and it doesn't, you know, if we're we're spending money, it doesn't have to be necessarily our own armed forces. You know, it's Ukraine that is on the front line. It's Ukraine that is, you know, trying to contain and ultimately overcome Russia. And, you know, I think there is a very good argument for saying expenditure now in support of Ukraine

• 50:24Speaker 06

  will mean we will need to spend less on defence in ten years' time. You know, I do think we should be looking at this as a as an investment. You know, I come at this as a sort of, you know, former treasury person, you know, very cautious about public spending. But I worry that if ultimately Russia prevails, we will be in a world where we will be have to have to spend three, four, five percent of GDP on defence each and every year.

• 50:48Alastair Campbell?

  As we did during the Cold War.

• 50:49Speaker 06

  Exactly, as we do. I mean, it can be done, you know, whether that can be done and we can spend as much.

• 50:53Alastair Campbell?

  Six, seven percent all the time.

• 50:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, if you look, if you look at what's happened at public spending over the last, you know, sixty years, it's basically defence spending has come down and health spending has gone up. We're not going to be bringing the health spending down, so, you know, it's going to be much harder to repeat that sort of level of spending in future. If, however, Ukraine can prevail and essentially the Putin regime ultimately, you know, defeated and dismantled, then, you know, I think it's perfectly possible we might be able to, you know, keep spending on defence more than two, two and a half percent range.

• 51:24Alastair Campbell?

  That was, I felt, missing from the Prime Minister's speech on the security of the world.

• 51:29Speaker 06

  Well, sadly, I wasn't asked to contribute.

• 51:32Alastair Campbell?

  Otherwise you'd have said that. Now, let's briefly, before we close, let's just, I mean, it's hard to know where to start with Israel Gaza, because it just, you know, and I should warn you, David, whatever you say, you get criticised on this subject.

• 51:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, I was conscious of that, yeah.

• 51:45Alastair Campbell?

  Whether, whatever side you sort of, you try and explain both sides, it's very, very difficult because it's become so polarised. But it was interesting yesterday. So yesterday was Memorial Day in Israel, and that's when the war dead of the past are are recognised. But also, obviously, October seventh was was foremost in people's minds. And it was interesting, you know, Netanyahu got heckled, the Defence Minister got heckled, the people out. With posters and there was this big event at which and and also Ben Gavir and Smotrich. One of their events was kind of, you know, disrupted by protesters saying they weren't doing enough to bring this to an end and to bring the hostages back home. But there was an event, the the event with Netanyahu, he's,

• 52:28Alastair Campbell?

  I just, I just can't, I find it very, very hard to read him right now because the, there is clearly a briefing operation going on from the, from the military, from the generals. They essentially are saying, this is all very well, but we don't really know what the strategy is. So you have this absolute focus at the moment on Rafa and meanwhile, they're, they're also saying that Hamas are reappearing in the north. So the lack of clarity of a strategy other than the objective, I get the objective, he's saying they're going to wipe out Hamas and they're never going to return. But in this very studio, a few weeks ago, we were talking to John Soares, ex-MI6 and Eliza Manning and Buller, ex-MI5. And John made the point that 60% of Hamas fighters were orphans. And he went on to say, an awful lot of

• 53:07Alastair Campbell?

  future Hamas fighters are being bred right now. And I mean, that has to be part of the argument as to what, the, the consequences of the alienation that people in Gaza are feeling right now and that body of support that's developing for them around the world. And I just wondered, isn't Netanyahu so fixed upon, I don't know, his own survival, the politics of the situation, that none of that is really being addressed?

• 53:31Speaker 06

  Well, his options are narrowing pretty quickly as far as I can see and and and none of them are are good. So from his perspective, if he wants to keep, if you like, the extremists on board, Ben Gavir and Smotrich, and keep his government in place, then he needs to keep hammering away. But as you say, Israel's position, and look, I'm, I'm instinctively sympathetic to, to Israel. I think there should be a Jewish state in the Middle East. And I think what happened on the 7th of October was appalling and any country has to defend itself in those circumstances. But what has happened has undoubtedly isolated Israel, damaged its international reputation

• 54:15Speaker 06

  and left it running out of allies and it is dependent upon its allies. And you know, you mentioned the army. I think the army. In Israel absolutely recognizes that. You are also seeing a shift in public opinion in Israel. Protesters don't necessarily reflect public opinion, but but the polling does suggest, you know, there is much more support now than there was for a hostages back ceasefire type deal in Israel. That that is growing in support. Whereas previously there was overwhelming support, no, no, we've got to remove Hamas. But Netanyahu, you know, can't move in that direction without losing his extremists and then falling. But if he doesn't move in that direction, then Israel ends up being more isolated.

• 54:57Speaker 06

  And in the long term, strategically, particularly for those of us who are sympathetic to Israel, seeing the damage that is done to Israel's international reputation is really worrying. You know, in the long term, you know, it's going to be sustained over decades. It can't be the villain of the piece as it is seen. Sometimes I think unfairly, you know, it's a really difficult situation and Hamas absolutely does, you know, it exploits civilians, does base itself in civilian areas. It is prepared to put up with a level of suffering of its own people that most other regimes would not do. And it has been explicit that, given the opportunity, it will repeat October the 7th. So I think Hamas deserves a lot of the blame, but the practical reality is, you know,

• 55:42Speaker 06

  Israel is losing support, has lost, you know, Biden has moved quite a long way, now talking about not providing arms that could be used in Rafah and so on.

• 55:52Alastair Campbell?

  Also, that's the State Department report on the legality of the use of of arms that have been given by by the Americans. Although if you read between the lines, there was a warning for Israel in there as well. But what you get the feeling with, I've defended Biden's strategy the whole way through as a sense of him being, he is very, very supportive of the state of Israel. He has all his life been supportive of the state of Israel and he's been expressing that support whilst at the same time he and Blinken trying to work behind the scenes to get the Israelis to at least to be cognizant of international opinion and where it rests and to to let that sort of affect the strategy in some way. And you do get the feeling with Netanyahu that Frankly, the views of Biden and Blinken are less important to him than the views of

• 56:35Alastair Campbell?

  Ben Givir and Smotrich. Now, at some point, there is going to have to be an election.

• 56:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 56:39Alastair Campbell?

  And where's that in his thinking? And look, I don't underestimate how unbelievably difficult this is politically for him, for Biden, for Blinken, for the government here, for Keir Starmer, for all world leaders. This is becoming really, really difficult. The politics are very, very difficult. But the but the reality is that Netanyahu is the one with the most power in this situation. He is not really responding to a lot of the pressure that has been put under. And that, as you say, long term, is, I think, going to create greater problems for whoever follows him.

• 57:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's a divergence between the short term interests of for Netanyahu and the long term interests of Israel. And that tension, I think, is becoming more and more important as time goes on. And quite how this plays out, I wouldn't, you know, wouldn't want to speculate. But at some point or other, as you say, there is going to be an election and public opinion is moving against the hard line.

• 57:34Alastair Campbell?

  Well, David, it's been a pleasure to have you.

• 57:35Speaker 06

  Likewise.

• 57:37Alastair Campbell?

  We'll report back to Rory that you've you've done very, very well. Thank you very, very much for standing in for the for Rory. And we're also going to be on, we're going to be doing Question Time as well.

• 57:46Speaker 06

  We are.

• 57:46Alastair Campbell?

  Because he's still going to be stuck in his cross legged retreat.

• 57:50Speaker 06

  Looking to escape at some point, I hope.

• 57:52Alastair Campbell?

  I don't know how he gets back. Thank you and see you soon.

• 57:54Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 57:59Speaker 08

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 58:45Speaker 09

  Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended Blinds.com.

• 58:51Speaker 10

  With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget, customers who shop at Blinds.com experienced overwhelming satisfaction. Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep, and a sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Visit Blinds.com to order your free samples today.