222. Question Time: Banning phones in schools and parliament, citizens' assemblies, and American isolationism

Should mobiles be banned from schools and the House of Commons? What is Labour's grand plan for citizens' assemblies really about? Is there growing Russian influence in Britain? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all this and more in today's episode of The Rest Is Politics: Question Time. 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. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen 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 Crete. 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/restorspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  When you think about Crocs, you think the classic clog. But did you know there's also a canvas clog? A vegan suede clog, a coastal-inspired style. A style with studs, straps, and lots of sass. Honestly, I could keep going with the surprises. You've got to see them for yourself because there is literally a style for every kind of girl. So do your thing and head to crocs.com or a store near you now.

• 2:08Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to The Rest Is Politics Question Time with me Rory Stewart.

• 2:12Alastair Campbell?

  And me Alice Campbell. Where do you want to start?

• 2:15Rory Stewart?

  Well, lots of great, great questions, but but one of the ones I really wanted to get to is citizens assemblies, which we talked about in the main podcast. You mentioned the fact that Keir Starmer is in favour. I noticed that The Spectator is already out there attacking Labour's pernicious idea of citizens assemblies, which really got my back up because I think citizens assemblies are actually a fantastic thing, not just in Britain, but actually in the US and elsewhere to revive democracy. Just to remind people very quickly, they're like a jury. So you select, let's say, 300 people randomly, sortition, it's a kind of random collection of citizens representing every demographic group in the country. Sit them down for two, three days to talk about an issue seriously, often with some experts guiding the conversation.

• 2:59Rory Stewart?

  And it often has spectacular results because unlike busy MPs in Parliament voting on party lines, this is a group of citizens without party commitments, able to look at an issue. And in Ireland, which is like the most polarised society on earth, or seem to be on an issue like abortion, the citizens assemblies really found their way towards a compromise on abortion. And I think if we'd had citizens assemblies after Brexit, we would have ended up in a customs union rather than the hard Brexit we're at. So over to you on citizens assemblies.

• 3:31Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think it's part of the Irish experience that has made people interested in this because, and I'm assuming that what The Spectator objects to is the idea that it's a way of trying to kind of get people in and do a sort of glorified focus group and manipulate them to to want to go down the track that the politician has already decided upon. But I think if a citizens assembly is done properly, then like the one I think going on in France at the moment on assisted suicide. Then I think that it can lead to people really engaging in the debate, really understanding the importance of expertise. And dare I say, Rory, getting people to sit around the table and disagree agreeably before then finding that there's more that they agree on than they disagree on.

• 4:16Rory Stewart?

  That's lovely. So Leo Russell and Nick Simpson, just a bit shout out to them because they were the two that asked these questions on citizens assemblies. How transformative could they be? Is it a way to deliver more radical policy once in government without having to include it in the manifesto was Nick Simpson's question. I mean, I think that's an interesting idea, too.

• 4:32Alastair Campbell?

  Well, is that where the spectator coming from that is a sort of backdoor policy lever?

• 4:37Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, they also attached it to a sort of attack on Sue Gray and blamed her on bringing it in. I remember when I was running for the Tory leadership, there was this extraordinary moment where Dominic Raab, who was in the earlier round in the ITV debates, kept saying, because I supported citizens assemblies, I was Maduro from Venezuela. This was a Venezuelan style option. The idea was the most kind of massive proto-communist.

• 4:59Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Rory, I noticed that you mentioned the questioners, but without reading the question, the end of Leo Russell's question is, Rory, might this policy help Labour get your vote in the next election?

• 5:08Rory Stewart?

  Ah, if they came out really strongly and were really radical and said they could imagine permanent sitting third House of Citizens Assemblies with the right to review legislation from the House of Commons, yes.

• 5:23Alastair Campbell?

  Very good. Hope they're listening. Now, sticking with similar theme, Xavier Gole, who I think is Swiss, but the question is certainly about Switzerland. You often rule for more devolved powers to local authorities. I wish we did rule. We don't rule, but we argue for. In Switzerland, says Xavier, the fact that every locality canton can set their own tax rate enables both more power locally and also a natural way to get people interested in politics. Is this a way forward for the UK?

• 5:52Rory Stewart?

  Quick thing. So obviously Xavier Gole, as presumably French speaking Swiss or possibly German speaking Swiss. What do you think the word is that leads him to say you often rule for more devolved powers to local authorities?

• 6:03Alastair Campbell?

  I think, well, we did have a question, Rory, about if we formed a coalition, who would be Prime Minister and who would be Deputy Prime Minister? What would we fall out about?

• 6:11Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 6:12Alastair Campbell?

  So maybe Xavier is sitting there, doesn't follow British politics that closely.

• 6:17Rory Stewart?

  You don't think there's a French or German word which could be translated as rule, which has something more ambiguous?

• 6:23Alastair Campbell?

  Possibly, reglet. I don't think so, Regal. I don't think so.

• 6:27Rory Stewart?

  It would still, it would still be sort of imposing.

• 6:30Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think, I think, I think he, but we, we, maybe he just thinks we're in power. I mean, the country would be so much better.

• 6:36Rory Stewart?

  Well, of course, that, that was fair. Darren Bent famously thought that, didn't he? And now, just on this, listen, I was just in Switzerland, just come from Switzerland. And last time you talked to me, I was in Switzerland, and it is amazing the way the government works there. How much power the towns have, how much power the cantons have, how little power the federal government has, the way in which referenda are used. I mean, I do think Switzerland is a pretty remarkable vision of democracy, often really giving choice to citizens at a very local level. And, and possibly a model for the rest of us, but it's quite a complicated system to explain. In a sense, maybe we should try to get a senior Swiss politician on who'd be happy to talk us through how it works. Because it is, I think it's a model for the rest of the world, isn't it?

• 7:21Alastair Campbell?

  They have the, the layers of power. The, the thing I've noticed whenever I've been to Switzerland is how, compared with us, compared with most countries of the world, how serious their media is. So if you have, I think to have that system of constant referendums about all sorts of issues, large and small, you have to have a serious media that is, that sees its role as trying to lay out informed debate. Now, they do have opinionated journalists and they do have opinionated media. But I think they sort of feel that greater sense of responsibility. But I, I really do hope that Labour go big on devolution. And if you think about, one of the things we get quite a lot of questions on, we should come back to it at a later date, is this thing about, you know, the financing of local government at the moment.

• 8:06Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, we've got so many councils who are heading for bankruptcy.

• 8:09Rory Stewart?

  And you can't have proper local government unless the government can actually get the revenue in and set its own tax rates. It's, if, if you remove that power from them, they're, they're lacking the most fundamental. I think you've also made an important point, which is a good corrective. And I'm, I'm probably wrong when I was pushing for Switzerland, because what you're basically saying is that you can't just copy and paste a system from one country to the other because they're culturally quite different. I remember a friend of mine who's Swedish saying that the Brits are absolutely obsessed with trying to copy things from Sweden without remembering that Sweden's taken hundreds of years to develop the kind of culture that supports the type of practices they have in Sweden. It's not just an easy. Question of pasting it across.

• 8:48Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Now, here's one from Reg Girl. Now that Henry Staunton has explained the reason Badenoch sacked him was because he refused to delay postmaster payouts to allow the government to limp on to the next election, do you believe the Tories are attempting a scorched earth policy to mess up the chances of Labour in office? Now, Kemi Badenoch, we should say, has gone to the House of Commons and has very angrily denied that this was ever said. Mr Staunton, who I don't know, but who is described as a sort of incredibly serious, experienced, well-regarded business figure, is absolutely 100% sticking to his story, which I have to say, I think fits with what's happening on the contaminated blood scandal.

• 9:33Rory Stewart?

  I write that the story is that he was told it not by Kemi Badenoch, but by a senior civil servant, who said, could you delay the payouts because we can't afford it?

• 9:41Alastair Campbell?

  Correct. And there's a letter that has emerged today saying that, you know, one of the factors that has to be taken into account is the management of legal fees. But I think this, you know, the fact that she sort of stomped straight into the House of Commons and did a statement under parliamentary privilege, impugning this guy pretty heavily, and he's going to be up before a select committee next week. So I wonder if she's rather misstepped here, because if she's saying, if she turns out to be saying something that's not true, she'll have to go.

• 10:09Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, she'll be in real trouble. So she better be pretty confident about this. I'm not sure that it's fair to say the Tories are attempting scorched earth. I think what's probably more likely is they're just desperate to avoid having to pay for things before they hand over. It's more kind of they're hoping to have more money to do tax cuts, or they have more money to drive growth. And so I think, like almost every government, if you can possibly push the bill on to the next person, you try to do that.

• 10:39Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but I think when you're talking about the contaminated blood scandal and this post office thing.

• 10:42Rory Stewart?

  Well, the bills, the bills are astonishing.

• 10:45Alastair Campbell?

  Huge, they're massive, yeah.

• 10:46Rory Stewart?

  Billions upon billions. I mean, it's, it's. I mean, you know, these bills are big enough to actually kind of upset fundamental bits of budget calculation. Will Reiki, to what extent would you consider yourselves to, you're not going to like this, two wealthy, privileged white men with seats very near to the top of politics and business and cultural life, part of the problem? Do you agree that it's easy to disagree agreeably from the top of the pile? How do you like that? Alistair being characterised as this kind of toffee-nosed elite person sitting at the top of the pile?

• 11:15Alastair Campbell?

  I don't feel like that. But that may be, I don't know, I don't know. Wealthy? I'm better off than most people, I guess. Privileged? I don't feel I've got a seat near the top of politics or business and cultural life. We've got a seat at the top of the podcast charts. That's not the same thing.

• 11:32Rory Stewart?

  We have, we have.

• 11:34Alastair Campbell?

  I don't feel, do you feel powerful, Rory? I don't feel powerful.

• 11:37Rory Stewart?

  No, although it's interesting, isn't it? Whether we're not probably doing more to shape political debate than we're acknowledging. I think there's something quite interesting in the way in which we are very lucky to be able to have an audience, be able to put out ideas on citizens' assemblies or put out ideas on defence and foreign policy. And one of the nice things is a lot of our listeners are civil servants, politicians. So in fact, I was being called by an ambassador recently who said, be very careful, Rory, you're going to set up a very weird echo chamber where you're going to end up taking these positions, which will just echo around Whitehall and back again, and everyone will end up agreeing. So maybe we need to disagree more with each other.

• 12:16Alastair Campbell?

  Well, we don't mind that. We don't mind that. I wonder, maybe our discussions on citizens' assemblies and the Nolan principles did lead to them thinking, that's not a bad idea. When we talked about defence last week, I did get from both Conservative and Labour, I got feedback from ministers and shadow ministers saying, keep going on this one because we really need to push on it. That's not why I'm doing it, by the way. I do it because I believe in it. So maybe, maybe you're right. But are we part of the problem, was the question, Rory? Are we part of the problem?

• 12:44Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think that there's, there's an interesting thing going on, isn't it? I think the world is changing quickly. And one of the things that I notice here in the States is that, and I think Britain will follow America in this, one of the big themes amongst students is about what right have you to speak for someone else or represent someone else? You know, what right have I as a white man to? Speak for somebody from a different gender or a different ethnicity. And that is a very interesting problem for democracy, because of course, as a member of parliament, you're speaking for your constituents.

• 13:17Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 13:18Rory Stewart?

  You know, and I'm speaking for people who are very different to me. And and and it, the problem isn't solved by just getting rid of me and bringing in somebody from a different gender or ethnicity, they would face the same problem. They also would be speaking for people who are unlike them. And I do think this question of representation is going to become more challenging, which, and and that's one of the reasons why I've come back to where we began. I think Citizens Assembly is quite a useful way of providing a balance to this problem.

• 13:43Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Ken Gray, we haven't talked about Boris Johnson for a while, but I think in the light of Navalny, we should. What is stopping Boris Johnson being invested investigated properly over his links to Russia? Why wasn't he arrested for breaching security regulations after admitting he went to that party in Como? Any civil servant may working for the MOD would have been. This is the famous party where he dispensed with his protection.

• 14:08Rory Stewart?

  I think the question is absolutely right about a civil servant working for the MOD or anybody who was a diplomat or an intelligence officer. It would be considered a significant security risk. One of the problems is that elected politicians traditionally in Britain are not bound by the normal rules that that that civil servants are bound by. And, you know, we we talk about tightening up. I was talking to a friend who just was listening here in the States to our discussion last week about recall petitions. So people who haven't had a chance, we did a YouTube live looking at the by-elections and we talked about the fact that we're now increasingly recalling MPs for cheating on their expenses or being suspended or breaking the law. And the person listening to this just said, this is just awful.

• 14:50Rory Stewart?

  I mean, I can't imagine talking about schoolteachers or doctors or kind of respected local officials in this sort of normal way, as though it's normal for them to break the law in this way and then have to be recalled and sacked.

• 15:02Alastair Campbell?

  We've got another one, this guy in Blackpool, Scott Benton, has lost his. He's lost his appeal, so that looks like it's going to head in the same direction. Another Tory, somebody said today, this is the first ever, first time that a prime minister has held a general election in the stages with these by-elections.

• 15:20Rory Stewart?

  And do you think, do you think it's working to clean things up? I mean, the hope was that we'd bring in these recall petitions and that would mean we'd get rid of the bad eggs and Parliament would become cleaner. Do you think that's how it's working?

• 15:34Alastair Campbell?

  No, well, I don't think, I don't think it is. I think that this Parliament, I mean, Chris Bryant's book is compelling on this. This is, this has been a truly terrible Parliament in terms of misconduct, most of it, not all, but most of it on the Tory side. I really do think, I'm sorry to keep banging the old drum again, I really absolutely am convinced that if Keir Starmer makes a huge thing about standards in public life and then is shown to mean it, kicks a few people out for, you know, the minute they cross the line and is clear about where the lines stand. I mean, the problem with Johnson, we've got this, I haven't seen it yet, there's this new drama based on the, the account of the Dr Rachel Clarke about, you know, the health service during Covid. And looking at the reviews and looking at

• 16:18Alastair Campbell?

  some of the stuff on, on social media, it's clearly just retelling the story that while the health service was, you know, working flat out and while the most of the public were obeying the laws, you know, Johnson was off doing what Johnson does. And I do think the whole thing about Russia, you know, we still haven't had a full account of Russian attempts to influence the referendum or our electoral process. You know, we had the nauseous spectacle of these Tories coming out this week, including Johnson, talking about our sadness and the tragedy and the courage of Navalny and all that stuff. Well, you know, if you care that much, give back the money that you took from Russians who paid a lot of money to your party to play tennis with you when you were Prime Minister or leader of the Tory party. I just think that Johnson, look, he's, he's, he's lost his job and he's lost his.

• 17:02Alastair Campbell?

  His status on one level, but he's swanning around the world pontificating, making vast sums of money for telling, you know, not very funny after dinner stories and still pontificating with his, you know, column in the mail, wherever it is. And I just, I just think he's not been properly held to account for his conduct.

• 17:20Rory Stewart?

  Okay. Well, here's a, here's a firm go from this rather serious point you're making to, maybe one which is more, um, I don't know, it's still serious, but Guy Rose, Dear Alison Rawley, sure you've seen the very sad news about the passing of Steve Wright. Wondering if you'd mind sharing a bit about your relationship with British radio, whether any DJs have left a lasting impression on your life. Thanks. Over to you.

• 17:42Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I really liked Steve Wright. When we were in opposition and we were starting to do, you know, less, what we used to call it non-news media. And Steve Wright was, I mean, he was, he's a really good interviewer, very funny, very charming. I'd probably been on his program, I don't know, half a dozen, even more than that times, no, probably way more than that actually. Um, and I don't even know this, Rory, he didn't record interviews live. He, he would always do them as live, but he, he just preferred to do interviews without that constant somebody in his ears saying, you've got 30 seconds left, you've got a minute left. He liked them to breathe and then he'd kind of edit them down. I thought he was a wonderful, warm, positive guy. And it's very, very, very sad that he's, that

• 18:26Alastair Campbell?

  he's died. I actually liked radio a lot. When I jumped ship from journalism to, to work for Tony Blair, the, the, the news actually first emerged, I think it was in The Telegraph and I was presenting a late night Radio Five show as one of my little sidelines. So I had this show, I can't remember what it was called now, but it was like, you know, it was very, very late, like 11:00 PM till two in the morning or something. And the two people who I could always guarantee would come on were Tessa Jow, God bless her, and you're going to be surprised by this, were Bill Cash. They were my absolute, if we got to sort of seven o'clock in the evening, we were struggling to get a decent debate going on.

• 19:10Rory Stewart?

  You could always get Bill Cash.

• 19:11Alastair Campbell?

  And Tessa. And, and the thing, the nice thing about Tessa was that even if she wasn't on for the whole of the program, she would wait for me and give me a lift home because she lived around the corner. Wasn't that nice?

• 19:20Rory Stewart?

  That's very good.

• 19:22Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, Rory, loads more questions. Take a quick break.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  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.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  When you think about Crocs, you think the classic clog. But did you know there's also a canvas clog? A vegan suede clog. A coastal-inspired style. A style with studs, straps, and lots of sass. Honestly, I could keep going with the surprises. You've got to see them for yourself because there is literally a style for every kind of girl. So do your thing and head to crocs.com or a store near you now.

• 20:20Speaker 04

  Chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life.

• 20:27Speaker 05

  Botox, anabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment.

• 20:38Speaker 06

  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.

• 21:14Speaker 04

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

• 21:25Rory Stewart?

  Oscar Watkins, I've always wondered if there are MPs queuing up to go on leading as it appears to be an effective way to reach a large new audience. Therefore, Rory, would you want to go on leading if you were still a Conservative MP? And Alistair, would you advise Tony Blair to go on leading, or gone on it yourself, had it existed when new Labour was in power? I mean, I think the answer is we definitely would encourage people to come on. But it's interesting, we've had a bit of problems recently getting Conservative ministers on. I was very pleased that Gillian Keegan came on, and I thought she gave a good account of herself. But there is, I think, a sense from the number 10 press machine that they feel that we're a little bit too edgy and maybe not reliably pro-conservative enough, and that we give Labour MPs an easier time than Conservative

• 22:09Rory Stewart?

  MPs. So I think there's a risk sometimes that they view us a bit in the way that when I was in government, we used to view Channel 4 news. I always used to do Channel 4 news, but the number 10 machine was always saying, why would you do that? None of our voters watch it.

• 22:20Alastair Campbell?

  I would say that is their loss, because I always felt with interviews that the interviewee, I think, if they're any good at what they do, gets far more out of it if they are challenged. Now, we're not rude to people. I thought you were pretty soft on Gillian Keegan. I was moderately tough, but not very. I thought we were both very, very nice to Humza Yousaf. I think some of his supporters probably thought we were a bit rough, but I don't think we were. I thought that was a good, rigorous discussion.

• 22:50Rory Stewart?

  And to be fair, I was quite challenging to David Lammy, about something midway through.

• 22:56Alastair Campbell?

  You were?

• 22:57Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, and I pushed Keir Starmer quite hard. I mean, I don't think it's actually true. I think we've got a good balance of three quarters of it gives people time to talk about themselves, their lives, and then we usually do about 25% of tougher questions.

• 23:09Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, exactly. But if you go through the, let's just go through the Cabinet, though. Would we have Rishi Sunak on? Absolutely, like a shot. He's the Prime Minister. Would we have Jeremy Hunt? Yes, I think we would.

• 23:20Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely.

• 23:21Alastair Campbell?

  Would we have James Cleverly? I think we would. I'd ask him why he put out that awful tweet this week about boasting that he stopped any social care sector workers from bringing any family members with them. I thought that was pretty low.

• 23:34Rory Stewart?

  Don't put him off. We definitely have James.

• 23:36Alastair Campbell?

  You would have him. We'd have him.

• 23:38Rory Stewart?

  Definitely have James Cleverly on.

• 23:39Alastair Campbell?

  Would we have Camille Badeknock? Yes, I think we would. We've tried to get Michael Gove. He's said yes about 15 times, but mysteriously never seems to turn up. Who else would we have?

• 23:51Rory Stewart?

  I think, I think all those people would be. I'd be interested in interviewing Ben Wallace. He's no longer the Defence Secretary, but I think he'd be a good person to get on.

• 23:57Alastair Campbell?

  What about Lucy Fraser? Would you be interested in Lucy Fraser culture?

• 24:01Rory Stewart?

  I like Lucy Fraser.

• 24:02Alastair Campbell?

  It's not about whether you'd like them, it's whether you'd be interested in, would they be interesting to our listeners? Would she be as interesting as Anthony Scaramucci and Robert Sapolsky?

• 24:10Rory Stewart?

  Well, Robert Sapolsky, you know, I still think is the greatest, the greatest thing ever. Right, go on. Books on AI. Joe Smith, you've talked a lot recently about the influence that AI will have on our lives. The students soon looking to get a job. Are there any books, resources you recommend to get to grips with AI? I'd start by recommending maybe listening to a couple of our leading interviews with Reid Hoffman and Mustafa Suleman, both of whom had produced very good recent books on AI. Mustafa's called The Coming Wave. Reid Hoffman's was actually written with ChatGPT.

• 24:41Alastair Campbell?

  Yep.

• 24:42Rory Stewart?

  There's a huge amount of books now coming out on artificial intelligence, though. Nick Bostrom's book, I think, is a, is a really good way to start. I want to get, which is called Superintelligence. He's a Swedish philosopher. Have you been reading much about, about this, or is this?

• 24:56Alastair Campbell?

  No, as I say, we were listening to the Sam Bankman-Fried book, which sort of touches on it. The last book I read on AI was The Coming Wave, which I thought was really, really good. And I think in conjunction with the, with the podcast, I think you have to have the two together, because I got the feeling that he was a, a little bit more negative in the book than he was on the podcast. About the whole AI thing.

• 25:20Rory Stewart?

  It's, I mean, I was just talking to someone this morning here in the States who's been doing some amazing work on AI with its medical applications. Because what it does is it can suddenly accelerate in organic stuff, the creation of new organic compounds, but also in terms of manufacturing, you know, if you're making batteries or something, massively accelerate the development of completely new materials for batteries and things. I mean, we're just at the beginning of people getting there. This Tristan Harris, I'd like us to interview if we're doing AI. He's run something called the Centre for Humane Technology and he's, if Reed is more on the optimistic side, Tristan is on the more worried side.

• 25:58Alastair Campbell?

  Just on, just on this thing, this thing about the question earlier asking about whether MPs try to come on leading, lots of them do. And Rory, you keep sort of, you were sort of borderline manic this week, suddenly endlessly saying, why don't we get this person on, why don't we get that person on?

• 26:13Rory Stewart?

  It's because, wait, wait, it's because I was challenged on somebody saying that we hadn't had enough women on. So I sent about fifteen, fifteen names to women.

• 26:20Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Yeah, but we've, we've actually, we've got a lot lined up already, Rory. We can't, we can't, we've got, you've got to think of yourself as a bit of an air, we're like air traffic controllers. We're only doing one episode a week of these interviews. We can't do them every day. So we have to just sort of stagger them a bit.

• 26:38Rory Stewart?

  So just calm down, stop, stop sending all these emails.

• 26:41Alastair Campbell?

  No, I don't mind the emails. I don't mind the emails, but, and then you, then the other thing you do is you come on the programme and say, why don't we get this person, that person? And then all these other people think, oh, there must be shorter people to get on the podcast. I'll phone up Alice and see if we can get, get on there.

• 26:54Rory Stewart?

  I'll stop doing that. That's bad. Yeah, no, we do get a lot of people getting in touch.

• 26:57Alastair Campbell?

  Now, here's one, Rory.

• 26:58Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, gone.

• 26:59Alastair Campbell?

  I don't know how to pronounce this, but Idjehet. When you undertake your election tour later this year, will you be using a battle bus?

• 27:08Rory Stewart?

  Oh, what a lovely idea.

• 27:09Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think traditional on the stump appearances make any difference for campaigning politicians in the modern age? Now, we won't be using a battle bus, but that's a very interesting second part of that question.

• 27:19Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, I, I think it can turn things around and people will remember famously that John Major did this very counterintuitive thing of getting on a soapbox before the 92 election, going right back to the kind of world of the 1920s. And I, when I was running for leadership, insofar as I got any momentum at all, a lot of it was about in-person appearance because the truth is that social media suddenly makes in-person appearance very different to what it was in 97. I could turn up and I could go to Barking and have a conversation with an Afghan on the street and suddenly it's filmed by a camera and 350,000 people will view it. Or I could do an impromptu thing in Derby and a million people could see it.

• 28:01Rory Stewart?

  So the line between in person and virtual has been blurred. And often what people want to see is the authenticity of you actually being out interacting with people. So I think it can be very powerful.

• 28:14Alastair Campbell?

  I like this in sport as well. I love seeing those big buses turn up with the team. And the bus pulls up, the blacked out windows. I mean, we had a battle bus on the election campaigns and absolutely hated being on the bus because it wasn't very comfortable and it was quite slow. But I think it was useful and I think there is something about getting out to as many places as you can, as long as you're keeping the national thing ticking over. So I would say, Ed Juhet, that yeah, I think it is worth, I think it is worth doing. Now, here's one, Rory, from Daniel Woodrow.

• 28:50Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 28:50Alastair Campbell?

  Now, have you followed this week? The Rishi Sunak's big thing has been about banning mobile phones in schools when actually teachers already have the power to do that, they want it. But anyway, Daniel Woodrow asked this question and he attached a picture. If phones are a distraction to learning, prevent people from paying attention to the person who is talking and stop those using them from making meaningful connections with others, shouldn't they be banned from the House of Commons as well as schools? And the picture was of this, while they were discussing this very issue, it was the Tory back benches with about 14 people there and I think five or six were on their phone.

• 29:26Rory Stewart?

  Oh, it's the most miserable thing. It's not just the Tories. Labour absolutely is guilty, so are the Lib Dems, so are the SNP. It's disgraceful. I mean, the House of Commons should absolutely ban mobile phones. The truth of the matter is these debates are pretty pathetic anyway. People put less and less time into preparing their speeches, nobody's paying any attention. And if people get to take their phones in. And I was as guilty as anyone. You start doing your constituency emails, waiting for your chance to speak. So it's a dialogue of the deaf. You're just sitting there waiting till the speaker calls you and then you make a speech which nobody listens to and then you sit down and do your emails, not listening to anyone else.

• 30:01Alastair Campbell?

  And then when you've spoken, you see how many likes you're getting on your Twitter feed.

• 30:05Rory Stewart?

  Oh, it's just terrible. No, phones should be completely banned from the House of Commons and they should be completely banned from schools. And I think we should be really careful with phones and young people. I'm radical on this issue.

• 30:16Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Maybe the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, should announce two things. One, he's going to call any front bencher who doesn't answer a question properly out of order until the question's been answered. That would be very popular with the public. And the second thing is say he will not call anyone in a debate who he spots being on their phone.

• 30:36Rory Stewart?

  Very good. I like it. I like it. They have no excuse at all. It's completely pathetic. The reasons they give for using their phones are basically revealing that they're not paying any attention to the debate. They'd be like, oh, no, no, but I need my phone in order to do my constituency correspondence. I need to, you know, write an article for the local newspaper.

• 30:54Alastair Campbell?

  I suppose it could be if you were making a speech and you were, you could use it as a research tool, I guess, because you can't, your researchers can't wander in there, can they?

• 31:02Rory Stewart?

  Disgrace. You shouldn't be researching a speech in the House of Commons. You should get it done. Right, last one. Trump's isolationist stance. Joe Whitehead. Thoughts on Trump taking isolationist stance. Well, we talked about this because we talked about this in the last podcast in Munich Security Conference, that one of the things that's very central to populism all over the world is that it becomes isolationism. And that's isolationism in terms of Trump saying, America's not going to be a global policeman anymore. We're going to withdraw from NATO unless people pay their bills. None of this is America's business. Make America great again. No foreign entanglements. But it's also true in terms of trade policy, right? It's moving to protectionism, putting up barriers. So if you're importing electric

• 31:44Rory Stewart?

  cars in the US, then you're now facing enormous, kind of 20 or even 40% barriers on stuff coming in. And this is very worrying because a lot of the prosperity of the world. Has been based on free trade. In fact, one of the reasons why I'm pushing so strongly to say that if Labour wants a sink to economic policy and need to rejoin the customs union is that free trade is such a powerful way of getting economies going. And look, there've been horrible problems from globalisation. There have been a lot of people who suffered. But the answer to it is not to put up tariff barriers. The answer is to provide support to our citizens, but not choke off the free movement of goods.

• 32:26Alastair Campbell?

  When we were talking to Antisaramucci about the America First thing, and I had no idea that Lindbergh, who I just thought was a sort of hero aviator, that he was part of this, the original America First lot.

• 32:40Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, there's a great, great book by Philip Roth, which touches on Lindbergh and all this stuff. It's really disturbing. I mean, it's a reminder that these great heroes are often very, very flawed people. And the Roth book's called The Plot Against America imagines Lindbergh as the president, as a kind of antisemitic president.

• 33:00Alastair Campbell?

  Wow. But what was interesting, and I don't know whether it was as a result of the interview, but people started posting stuff yesterday. There was a speech that he made that was really quite unsavoury. His dad, I think his dad was a politician, so I guess I should have thought he was a political figure.

• 33:15Rory Stewart?

  It's also a reminder that celebrities, sports stars are not kind of immune to really unpleasant political beliefs. I mean, obviously, Oswald Mosley, I think, was a kind of fencing, Olympic fencing star or something, wasn't he?

• 33:26Alastair Campbell?

  So Rory, we started with citizens' assemblies and we ended with Oswald Mosley. So I don't know what that says about us, but that's the story of today.

• 33:35Rory Stewart?

  Let's get back to citizens' assemblies for an optimistic end to our question timing.

• 33:39Alastair Campbell?

  And the reason why Rory Stewart might vote Labour.

• 33:44Rory Stewart?

  That's it, exactly. Change your manifesto, you get my vote, that one vote that can make all the difference to your future.

• 33:50Alastair Campbell?

  See you soon.

• 33:51Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye.

• 33:58Speaker 07

  We are getting a statement from Number Ten on that flight. With three hundred and fifty passengers onboard.

• 34:07Speaker 08

  The Great Game: Strategic Struggle Between Britain and Russia.

• 34:15Speaker 09

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

• 34:21Speaker 10

  Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

• 34:23Speaker 11

  They took down a British passenger jet containing three hundred and fifty people.

• 34:26Speaker 08

  Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself, do you want to play? Or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done... Nothing!

• 34:39Speaker 12

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 34:42Speaker 08

  All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today. Disseminated into an operation order. Or Frago.

• 34:50Speaker 13

  A Frago that says to kill the President of Russia.

• 34:55Speaker 12

  Yes.

• 34:57Speaker 10

  New from Goalhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off?

• 35:02Speaker 14

  You're my soldier, are you? Sergeant Tom Macduff, Duffy!

• 35:06Speaker 10

  An audio drama journey like no other.

• 35:08Speaker 14

  Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons.

• 35:12Speaker 10

  Devized as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller.

• 35:15Speaker 14

  We have two tight friendly KIA.

• 35:16Speaker 10

  Where Britain plays its strongest hand. He's the best. Against its strongest foe.

• 35:24Speaker 10

  Bear Hunt. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.