428. Rory vs. Alastair: Are we spending too much on defence?

Is Starmer falling into Trump's defence spending trap? What's the bigger threat to the European democracies: Putin or populism? Why has a Labour-affiliated union suspended Angela Rayner, a trade unionist Deputy PM? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. The Rest Is Politics Plus: Join with a FREE TRIAL at therestispolitics.com, for exclusive bonus content including Rory and Alastair’s first ever miniseries The Real JD Vance, early access to Question Time episodes and live show tickets, ad free listening for both TRIP and Leading, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Fuse are giving away FREE TRIP+ membership for all of 2025 to new sign ups 🎉 TRIP+ gets you ad-free listening, discounts, and early access to episodes and pre-sale tickets for live shows! To sign up and for terms and conditions, visit GetFuse.com/Politics ⚡ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: Evan Green, India Dunkley Producer: Nicole Maslen, Fiona Douglas 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

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• 0:04Rory Stewart?

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• 1:22Alastair Campbell?

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  I actually had a Nord VPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creve. And of course, the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN and it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're 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.

• 1:58Alastair Campbell?

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• 2:57Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to The Restless Politics with me Rory Stewart.

• 2:59Alastair Campbell?

  And with me Alastair Campbell. And Rory, you said something very interesting last week, which I want to develop. When you said you were beginning to change your mind about the merits of increased defence spending, which given that defence is so high up on the agenda in so many different issues, not least Russia, Ukraine, Gaza, et cetera. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about tariffs and we're going to talk about Labour and the unions with a couple of little skirmishes going on on that front, including the doctors, who I don't think are going to get quite as much as sympathy as they did last time, but we'll see. So listen, let's start with with defence. First of all, in a word, do you think that by the time this podcast goes out, Trump will be saying that America is finally sending these Patriot missiles to Ukraine that they wanted?

• 3:44Alastair Campbell?

  Question B, will they, will he insist that Europe pays for them? But more importantly, I want to know why you're changing your view on defence.

• 3:51Rory Stewart?

  Right, on Trump, I think I've learnt painfully that predicting what President Trump will do or predicting whether what he says will actually happen is an absolute mugs game. So it's perfectly possible that between now and when this goes out, he'll say that he's sending Patriot missiles, then he'll say that Europe's going to pay for them. Then he'll say, I've signed a great deal with the Pacific, which means our Patriot missiles are off there. And then he'll revert back the Nobel Peace Prize and tariffs. So that's my guess on Trump. Defensively, Alistair, listen, this is, this is something that has been quite difficult for me. So I was Chair of the Defence Select Committee and I, with other colleagues, put a lot of energy into getting the UK up to a 2% commitment on GDP in defence.

• 4:34Rory Stewart?

  We organised debates in the House of Commons, that was our big drive. And I think that I, like you, was pretty horrified by how little we were spending, by how much weight the US was carrying. But I think we have missed.

• 4:51Rory Stewart?

  Just how dramatic what's now happened, what a big difference it is looking at 2% and what it is looking at 5%. So just a couple of figures to start us off and then maybe back to you on this. The first is, we talk a lot about the peace dividend. Essentially during the Cold War, 1989, we were spending about 4% of GDP on defence, we and European countries. By cutting that spending, Europe managed to free up about $4 trillion. That's $4,000 billion for investment in mostly our welfare states. If we start reversing back in the other direction, Europe and the UK will end up

• 5:31Rory Stewart?

  spending hundreds of billions of euros extra on defence every year. I mean, the estimate at the moment for Europe, for example, is going to be about 650 billion euro every year. And that has got to come from somewhere. And the European Union's latest calculations suggest that about 200 billion of that will come out of health, about 100 billion of that will come out of education, about 200 billion of that will come out of green investment, and about 100 billion will come out of social care. And then on the other side, and I can get into this a little bit more, the other claim is that, well, this will deliver great economic benefits. If you were asking the question, what's the best way to get the British and European

• 6:16Rory Stewart?

  economies off the ground from their pretty parlous state at the moment? I don't think any economist in the world would say, well, the most straightforward thing you should do is spend a lot of money on defence. They would say you get a much better return on investment, investing in education, in health, in infrastructure, in green investment. So it's, I think, something that's very dangerous, and I also think that it's something that the US may come to regret, because they're pushing Europe to spend more on defence than the US does, when the European economy is in a much weaker position. And the long-term consequences of that is that the Western Democratic Allies, the US, will be ever more impoverished and ever weaker, should the US ever wish to call on them again.

• 7:00Alastair Campbell?

  Impressive. I mean, might it be that Trump is being his self-styled strategic genius and he's and he's getting Europe to do this because he that's exactly what he wants, get them to pay more and he becomes more powerful. Just I've been since you said it, I've been really looking into this in a, in a, you know, quite a big way. So you're right about the, the, the level. So post obviously Second World War massive. At the time of Suez, defence spending in the UK was about seven percent of GDP. And it dropped down to around four percent by the seventies, and then it was up to five percent around the time of the Falklands War. And even then, if you remember, the military and those who support the military, the defence industries and so forth, they were saying, you know, we're getting perilously

• 7:42Alastair Campbell?

  close to the real low end. Then, as you say, comes the peace dividend. And you're saying there that this could be quite dangerous in, in terms of the the loss of spending that we would get for health, education and all the other things that people want their money spent on. I guess the question boils down to whether we think it is dangerous not to do this. So for example, Patrick Sanders, who was the Chief of the General Staff until quite recently, he was saying at the weekend that he thinks we have got to work on the basis that we will be at war in some shape or form with Russia within three to five years. And I think that is a fairly common view amongst people who are full-time immersed in this whole military planning scenario.

• 8:28Alastair Campbell?

  And his worry seemed to be, and I think the worry of other people seems to be that actually we're, we think we're making a massive step in saying share of GDP. But actually, are we doing the planning and the preparation? And do we have the resources to do it now? Should that scenario be true? So if you compare it, I think I said to you recently, I heard this amazing podcast on one of my German podcasts about the, the reserves in Finland. So Finland is a country with a population almost identical to Scotland. I think it's sort of five and a half million. And they're almost up to a million reserves. These are people who are being trained in defence. They're people who are being encouraged to build bunkers under their own homes and all this sort of stuff. So

• 9:13Alastair Campbell?

  I guess you're saying it's dangerous to go down that route because of all the impacts upon other parts of our national life. I guess where I'm still coming from is I probably am more on the, the hawkish side of things that thinks. Putin's in for the long haul. He's gonna keep going till he gets Ukraine and then he's gonna try and pick off a NATO country, or at least getting a NATO country engaged.

• 9:33Rory Stewart?

  Well, okay, so let's maybe push this one more level. So what's the biggest threat that we're facing in Europe at the moment? Potentially Putin, but potentially also populism, potentially also radical far-right parties emerging angry about a lot of things.

• 9:49Alastair Campbell?

  And who will be pro-Putin?

• 9:50Rory Stewart?

  Who will be pro-Putin? The fundamental thing we hear most of the time in most countries is they just think their countries are broken. Britain's broken, it's rubbish. And what do they mean by that? Yes, they mean immigration, but there's a lot of just, public services are creaking, the economy's crap, things are not going in the direction in which they go. So if you're Labour, I guess there are two main things that you think you need to be doing: growth and public services. And radically increasing your defence spending is not good for either. On the growth side, there's been some really interesting modelling. Basically, defence expenditure historically doesn't have a great return on investment, just as an economic move. The normal modelling suggests that if you put money, a pound, into

• 10:32Rory Stewart?

  defence spending, you probably get something in the region of point fifty p or maybe ninety p back for every pound you put in.

• 10:41Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it sort of depends who you're talking to this, right? I was talking to somebody very much on the pro-spending side of things. He was saying it's two point two. For every one we put in, we'll get two point two. I mean, listen, there's loads of-

• 10:53Rory Stewart?

  I guess, you're completely right. I mean, obviously, a lot of this is finger-in-the-air stuff. And the OECD does it, the IMF does it, the EU does it. And I guess you're probably right, whoever your friend is would be pretty sceptical of the fact that there are huge claims made for green investment, because understandably, we all want to be friendly to green investment. So they think pound going into green investment creates far more jobs in defence, creates far more return on investment in defence. But the reason why it's probably true that you get less return on investment for defence is firstly, that there's an incredible leakage. So a huge amount, thirty to fifty percent of our defence equipment comes from the US and Israel. We don't make it ourselves. So unlike- Investing in education, health or road infrastructure.

• 11:39Rory Stewart?

  A huge amount of that money that we'll be spending will simply be flowing out of Europe and the United Kingdom. Towards other people's economies. It's also very geographically concentrated. If you invested in education. It would reach everybody in the country. If you invested in defence manufacturing. It would benefit B A E systems. It's relatively low employment too. It's quite capital intensive. It also, the only way in which we're going to be able to do this is by ramping up our debt by borrowing money. And that also can drive up interest rates. That can also have an effect on businesses' ability to borrow and invest in other directions. And the final question, I guess, is that the big old chestnut is, of course, that it's true that in the US.

• 12:24Rory Stewart?

  Quite a lot of the Department of Defence investment led to these amazing things like famously the internet. And global positioning, your Google Maps comes directly out of military investment. But is it the most reliable way to get to that tech result? No. And of course, Europe is littered with things of which maybe Concord is the most dramatic example. A very, very expensive, incredible tech investments which didn't have. The kind of spillovers to the economy that people were looking for.

• 12:52Alastair Campbell?

  But just a couple of examples. So, you know, we've talked a lot obviously about Ukraine and. The Russia-Ukraine war, if it's done, it's done lots of things, but one of the massive changes. Has been the change in the nature of warfare and particular drone and A I technology. Where the Ukrainians seem to be doing a pretty amazing job. Now, the Russians are responding in kind and with the rest of it. But so that's all going to change. And I was talking to somebody who, so for example, was saying that we will spend billions, literally billions, on, say, the next generation of fighter jets. And meanwhile, A I is developing fighter jets without pilots or fighter jets with co-pilots.

• 13:30Alastair Campbell?

  Added to which, we're developing drone technology which can take out fighter jets and can take out unbelievably expensive tanks. So I think what maybe. We need to be thinking about is the three percent, five percent, whatever it's going to be, is a signal of direction, of signaling to the rest of the world, we think the world is a much scarier place. Yes, Putin is a genuine threat, there will be other threats to come, and therefore we need to build up our defences. But we need to do it in a way that is much more rooted in this world of technological revolution. And the other country that I think is interesting is Estonia, because Estonia, again, has increased defence spending because it's right there at the heart of the possible sort of frontline in a future war.

• 14:13Alastair Campbell?

  But it's also become one of the most significant developers of tech upstarts, many of them in the defence industries. So I think it's somehow, it's maybe we, we're not disagreeing that there's a threat. You think there's a real danger that we're going to waste a lot of money through a sort of political virility contest about what the percentage of GDP is. I guess I'm thinking that we have to match the threat to the changing nature of warfare and also the role of societies, and that's why the Finland Reserve is story so important.

• 14:45Rory Stewart?

  You're completely right, and the chances are, based on what we've been doing over the last few decades, is we will really screw this up because we are very, very, very bad at defence procurement. We're always buying kit which turns out to be nine or 10 times more expensive than we initially thought it would be. And by the time it's delivered, turns out to be completely outdated for the environment that we're operating in. Because the threats change very quickly. I mean, you talked about this. You talked about how in 2000, we're not thinking about 9/11. Straight after 9/11, suddenly 90% of the activity of our intelligence agencies are counter-terrorism and our whole military shifts towards fighting people like the Taliban.

• 15:27Rory Stewart?

  So it's very low intensity, essentially fighting people on donkeys with Kalashnikovs. And then we reorient our whole military towards that. And then suddenly we're, and then we do a strategic defence review where Boris Johnson says, and this isn't an attack on Boris Johnson, this was the conventional wisdom of the time. We're not going to have to fight a war on the European plains with tanks and then immediately Russia invades Ukraine. So that's one problem. We're very, very bad at predicting what the nature of the threat is and what we need. I mean, do we, to put it bluntly, let's take your examples. Do we need to be following Finland and having a huge number of people? Do we need a massive army? Do we need mass? That's what the Russians and the Finns believe. And that would require a national service.

• 16:11Rory Stewart?

  Or do we follow the Americans in thinking that what we need is incredibly expensive, exquisite technology and could we afford it if we wanted it? Or do we follow your Estonian example? And say what we need to spend a lot of money on is cyber defence. I mean, UK cyber defence is terrible, really terrible. And why is it terrible? Basically because we don't spend enough money on it. We are very, very vulnerable. We have a few decent people, but beneath the very top, there's just not enough people doing decent cyber defence in the UK. It's terrible.

• 16:41Alastair Campbell?

  I think the other thing that we underestimate when you hear Keir Starmer and John Healy, the Defence Secretary, talking about increasing defence spending up to three percent, five percent, whatever it's going to be, is that our nuclear defences will continue to take an enormous part of that. This new deal with the French notwithstanding, there is already a sort of, I think it's running about seven billion, what they call a kind of equipment gap. And then, of course, you've got the whole personnel issue on top of that. So even at three percent, if the threat is genuinely more serious than it was, you're talking about pretty tight resourcing. And just finally, on the economic point, Rory, the, so basically during, and this is very, very inexact. So for example, you can point to the Soviet Union,

• 17:23Alastair Campbell?

  which had a defence spending of any regularly in double figures and often up to twenty percent. And basically an economy that was completely crippled because the money never went anywhere else. But in our economies, growth, growth has been higher when there has been higher defence spending in general. And I'm not suggesting, by the way, that's one of the reasons for our state nation.

• 17:43Rory Stewart?

  But I, I think that's basically because growth was higher in the fifties, sixties and seventies. And that's much more to do with a youthful population.

• 17:50Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 17:51Rory Stewart?

  New technologies coming on, and it happened to be a time of spending defence.

• 17:55Alastair Campbell?

  I guess the point I'm making is that you can, you can look at any of these examples and fit them to make any argument. Ultimately. We have to make political judgments, that's the political leadership of the country, and we all have to make judgments about whether we take this threat seriously. Because if we do, then I think we all have to change our mindset about it.

• 18:13Rory Stewart?

  Okay, so well, let's let's maybe finish this one by my agreeing with you on that, that if we are going to spend this money, boy, we better change the way that we spend this money. So that's partly your point about coordinating much more closely with Europe, understanding that Britain, even if it's spent five percent, can't actually operate completely independently against Russia. It could only do so as part of a much, much bigger multinational unit. We need to work out which bit of that we're providing, which bits the others are providing. Secondly, understand that these defence companies rip us off again and again, and it's a really, really inefficient way of spending money to just hand money either over to American companies like Raytheon and Orsted Grumman, or even hand over money to our own big defence contractors.

• 18:55Rory Stewart?

  Just, these are massively inefficient, costly, private sector companies in a very, kind of, I think, unhealthy relationship with government, that has the government over the barrel, and that's true in Europe too. I think one of the problems is that we fantasize that Europe will suddenly have this amazing defence industrial policy, whereas probably what they'll end up doing is just handing over money to massive French and German defence contractors who will be very inefficient.

• 19:20Alastair Campbell?

  Maybe the bridge into tariffs is maybe to say this, that there's, I think there's been a kind of unwritten rule that this whole thing's breaking down because Trump is no longer seeing himself remotely as a protector of Europe. But I think part of the unwritten rule of our reliance on the US was that we wouldn't sort of put all the money into our own defences, but insofar as we did, we would buy loads and loads of stuff from the United States. It was a kind of a bit of a quid pro quo going on that. Now, the other thing that has to happen is whether countries like ours, and countries like Turkey, and countries maybe like the Saudis, I don't know, Japan, develop their own defence.

• 19:57Alastair Campbell?

  Industrial capacity in a way that actually starts to fill that gap. Because I think that one of the things that's happening right now, and this is the direct link to tariffs. So maybe this is what we should talk about now, is the the the observation that if you feel that a close friend is moving away from you, you maybe start to look at other places. I thought it was very interesting that when Donald Trump announced the new tariffs on the European Union, for example, Von der Leyen, Ursula von der Leyen, was in Indonesia. Why was she in Indonesia? Because she was doing a big new trade deal between the European Union and Indonesia. So why don't you use that as the peg into into this week's tariff reality TV show?

• 20:35Rory Stewart?

  I think tariffs, if if defence is the most dramatic story, because it's war and conflict, and it reminds us the Second World War, tariffs is probably the most important economic story. And it's one that we're not maybe focusing on enough because Trump plays the hokey-cokey. He puts Trump tariffs up, he brings them down, and he seemed to blink against China. So actually, if you look at the markets, they've got very complacent. When, on the second of April, he announced these big tariffs, markets crashed, well, markets went wrong. Now, when he plays around, they barely respond. And I think that's because they've got themselves into a mindset of thinking, well, basically, it'll be 10%. And he'll put some tariffs on steel and aluminium and chips.

• 21:18Rory Stewart?

  But in the end, when push comes to shove, he blinks. And this was the sort of taco story, Trump always chickens out because he blinked with China. But meanwhile, with nobody really concentrating, of course, nobody was concentrating. In fact, that when he brought them down on the second of April, he didn't say, I'm giving up on them. He said, it's going to be 90 days, and the 90 days has just run out.

• 21:40Alastair Campbell?

  Hold on, he said he was going to do 90 deals in 90 days.

• 21:43Rory Stewart?

  90 deals in 90 days, yeah. And during which time he succeeded in doing maybe one and a half deals in 90 days.

• 21:47Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 21:47Rory Stewart?

  And then.

• 21:48Alastair Campbell?

  Two frameworks, two frameworks.

• 21:50Rory Stewart?

  And the 90 days then ran out. Now, what's really interesting is that during that time, many, many countries, very, very earnestly, have been working away. And and maybe the best way of showing this is through Europe. So Europe is a huge trading partner for the US, 18.5%. Of of US imports comes from the European Union. The European trade negotiators have been working day in, day out for three months. And if you'd looked at the reporting ten days ago, right from the inside of the US and European camps, they felt that they had ended up on something that would be a sort of version of the deal that Keir Starmer got. It was going to be ten percent baseline, few exceptions.

• 22:31Rory Stewart?

  And then if you see your friend Muchtaba Rahman being interviewed a sort of a week ago, he's saying it'll be ten percent and we'll knock holes in it like a Swiss cheese with a whole series of exemptions and stuff that we get. That began to get a little shaky about a week ago. But then the optimistic story was, okay, Europe is going to offer a concession on digital service taxes. And this is what Canada just did with Mark Carney. He's suddenly abandoned a three percent tax on American digital companies. And it'll be fine. We'll get it through. We're almost there. We're working with these very senior people. And then suddenly, Trump on Saturday puts out something which says, not only is the entire deal off, three months negotiations out the window,

• 23:13Rory Stewart?

  but he's not just going back to where we were on the second of April, he's putting it further up. The EU tariffs were twenty percent, he's put them up to thirty percent. The Mexico tariffs were twenty five, he's put it up to thirty. Canada's tariffs on the second of April were twenty five, he's put it up to thirty five percent. Japan's gone up slightly, South Korea's stayed the same. So it's shattering. I think the thing that I really say is, anybody who is being complacent, buying into the taco theory, saying Trump doesn't mean it, he's never going to do it in the end. There's no evidence for that. I think the evidence suggests that Trump loves tariffs. And he will, throughout his presidency, put them up whenever it suits him to achieve any number of different things.

• 23:55Rory Stewart?

  Maybe he's chasing trade deficits, maybe he just likes humiliating people, getting concessions. But we can assume, if you're running a business, that we are in the most unpredictable global trade environment that's existed for almost a hundred years.

• 24:10Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Where you're right, and this is really interesting. I think this is because the world has. Really come to see that Trump is doing the reality TV show that we talk about with Michael Wolff, he is sort of, is day by day a different story. And then there's this sort of complete lack of clarity issue. And you see interviews, so I saw an interview with one of his people the other day, and it was just mind blowing, because the interviewer was trying to get them, they were actually talking about this, the role of Congress. And Congress can only be bypassed in relation to putting on sanctions like this, when there is a national security issue or a national emergency issue. So the question the interviewer kept manfully, personfully, putting to this person, I've forgotten who it was, but it's

• 24:52Alastair Campbell?

  one of his sort of, you know, MAGA people, was what is the national security issue? What is the national emergency that leads to Trump's fears of Bolsonaro going to jail, requiring Americans to get more expensive coffee? Because this is the other thing, Trump talks, and because we know that Trump, if he says something, he believes it to be true, and he can, he thinks he can persuade his followers to believe it can be true. But the truth is, apart from a little bit in Hawaii, America doesn't make coffee. Lots of Americans drink lots of coffee, so it gets imported from places like Brazil. And suddenly, he's put a 50% tariff on it. And then like, well, you mentioned Canada there, Rory, so

• 25:32Alastair Campbell?

  you've, the basic tariff's gone up to 35%. There's already a 50% tariff on steel and aluminium. And nobody, none of these people who've been interviewed on behalf of Trump, none of them can say, is the new tariff 35%? Is it 50 still? Because that's higher than 35? Or is it actually 85? And so the lack of clarity, that's what suggests to me that he's just throwing these numbers out. And there's a guy, I don't know if you follow this guy, Rory, he's an Australian economist, but he's based in the States, and he's really, really good at explaining complicated things, called Justin Wolfers. And he clocked 11, so far, I'll do them very, very quickly, the different reasons that Trump has given for

• 26:17Alastair Campbell?

  his tariffs. The first law, if you remember, on Canada, it was fentanyl, then it was illegal immigration from Canada and Mexico, then it was to save manufacturing in the Midwest. Then it was to boost national security, then it was to avoid income tax rises, then it was to solve the deficit. Then it was leverage for trade deals, ninety deals in ninety days. Then it was to defend the role of the dollar as the reserve currency. Then it was to get Canada to drop the digital services tax, which they did. Then it was to get Spain to spend more on defence. And finally, it's to keep his fellow insurrectionists against his own constitution, Bolsonaro, out of jail.

• 26:50Rory Stewart?

  To pay tribute to another Australian, my hero, Dmitri Grozovinsky, who I spoke to for an hour and a half, who has written this incredibly good, amusing, intelligent book on tariffs and trade, which I'd really recommend to people. He would say that underlying those are five completely contradictory ideas around tariffs. So I think we've talked about it a little bit before. We've talked about the fact that, you know, one is you manufacture in China, then you charge at the US border and you make a lot of money. So it's about revenue. Number two, it's about reshoring, moving manufacturing to the US. So then you don't get the revenue because you're making it in the US. Number three, you're doing it for something else like fentanyl or immigration, in which case it's not economic at all.

• 27:33Rory Stewart?

  Number four, you're doing it because you're in a fifty year fight with China. And the whole thing is really just about impoverishing China to stop it building up its military. And number six, I think, is just a general sense that you're enjoying the game of extortion, concessions, humiliation. Maybe that's the sort of thing that binds it all together. Along with the first one, which is a session with trade deficits, is just this sense that it's a tool in his arsenal to allow you to humiliate people. Brazil, though, is the most interesting. You're right, and I should have raised it because Brazil is the one example of these countries that doesn't actually have a trade surplus with the United States.

• 28:15Rory Stewart?

  So generally what he's doing is he's going after countries that sell more to the US than they buy from the US. And of course, one of the big reasons for that, again, as Dmitri points out, is that US consumers are wealthy and spend a lot of money. The average American household spends two and a half times more a year than the average German household. And a lot of the goods they buy come from abroad. But in the case of Brazil, that isn't the problem. Brazil is importing more from the US than it's exporting. So there what he's doing is he's saying that he hates Lula, that he thinks the case against Bolsonaro, his fellow populist leader who's basically on trial for trying to stage a coup d'etat is fake. And he's very much against the Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Morales,

• 28:58Rory Stewart?

  who's a very, very controversial figure that we were talking about over the weekend, who is a hero of the left and an absolute enemy of other people in Brazil because he's doing many things which are pretty close to absolutist, authoritarian and illegal to go after anybody who he thinks is on Bolsonaro's side, including imprisoning businesspeople for making jokes about coup d'etat on WhatsApps, locking up congressmen for nine years for contempt or this sort of stuff. So all of this stuff is happening. But my question to you is, how would the world react if China went around doing this?

• 29:33Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, exactly. Exactly.

• 29:34Rory Stewart?

  I mean, let's say China had got in touch with France and said, we'll be imposing a 50% tariff on you unless you release Marine Le Pen from jail.

• 29:44Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, or if they'd done the same with us and said, unless Julian Assange is released and freed from whichever embassy he was in, it was Ecuador. The answer to your question is that we would say this was unacceptable, bullying, intimidating behaviour by a rogue state. That's what we'd say. But I think this goes to the heart of the way that Trump now operates. He basically, in all of his international affairs, he's, there's a little bit of divide and rule. But what there's a lot of is the demanding of obsequiousness in exchange for not usually political support, but just sort of not giving you quite as hard as a harder time as he otherwise could.

• 30:28Alastair Campbell?

  And I don't know if you saw, Roy, the now infamous meeting with the African leaders where he congratulated the Liberian president on his excellent English, either not knowing or pretending not to know that English is the language of Liberia. But three of the leaders who were there, Senegal, Gabon, And Mauritania, all as part of their prepared remarks, basically said that they thought Donald Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize. So this is, this is all just part of a, we're all, when we say we, I don't think you and I are, but I think large parts of the world are playing into this idea that he's the king of the world. He has actually become what Boris Johnson always wanted to be, world king, and that's how he has to get treated.

• 31:10Rory Stewart?

  Can you help me understand why, what's going on with this culture of so many political leaders coming pretty close to embarrassing themselves in falling over backwards to be unbelievably obsequious? I know people say it's like dealing with a king, but actually, my, my memory of kind of medieval Britain.

• 31:33Alastair Campbell?

  Were you around then, Rory?

• 31:34Rory Stewart?

  I was definitely around then, yeah. I know it's older than you think. Is, is that they didn't actually cringe in quite this way, that, that if you were a knight or a lord going in to see an English king, you tried to preserve your dignity. Yes, you were polite, but you didn't actually grovel on the ground, call them daddy, tell them they were the best person ever. And if you did, you'd suffer real contempt. I mean, I can't, you see, forget, let me put it, forget medieval England. I can't imagine Angela Merkel or Theresa May groveling to Trump in the way that Mark Rutte's groveling to Trump.

• 32:06Alastair Campbell?

  Rutte was the most obvious. However, the reason that sort of was so damaging was because it was the combination of what he said in private with what he then said in public with the daddy thing that sort of took it to a different level. I thought actually watching these African leaders, it was pretty obsequious. I mean, the truth about the Nobel Peace Prize, anybody with a, you know, any sense of the state of the world right now is going to say it is a total absurdity. Added to which, not least because of which is sometimes called the Richard Holbrook Principle, the Nobel Committee basically thinks if you openly overtly campaign to get the Nobel Peace Prize, or talk about your own strengths and why you should get it, it makes it less likely that you will

• 32:48Alastair Campbell?

  get it. But he will be saying, yeah, but I break all the rules. This is like a global intimidation campaign of these five people on the committee that I mentioned last week. But he's co-opting all these other leaders. And here's one, Nick Thomas Simmons, the British minister was on the radio recently. And I actually think he's a very, I think he's actually a very good minister. And he, he's done all the kind of European negotiations and that sort of thing. But at the end of the interview, it was thrown at him, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Trump should get Nobel Peace Prize. Do you agree? And of course, as we get closer to the state visit, in which now been announced for September, they're all going to get asked this. So by advice of the British government, have a line ready.

• 33:28Alastair Campbell?

  Make sure it is not yes, but make, but make sure that it's something that Trump could maybe not take as a total rejection.

• 33:37Rory Stewart?

  Let me just weave these two ideas that you've got together, um, which is Trump obsequies Nobel Peace Prize and defence spending. The truth is that Trump is a contributor, massive contributor to global conflict. Because in essence, the peace that existed since the Second World War was based on a rules-based international order. NATO, the UN, US as a global policeman. And a sense that you did not invade neighbours and that certain kinds of things were not acceptable, right? International law. And of course, there was hypocrisy and many listeners will get in touch and say there was a lot of nonsense going on in the eighties and nineties. And the US got a great deal wrong, as did the UK.

• 34:22Rory Stewart?

  But Trump is the first president to set about very deliberately to dismantle that entire international system, to show complete contempt for international law, for the UN, for allies, for state borders. He's somebody who has made it perfectly clear that he sympathizes with Putin and authoritarian strongmen. And therefore he has created, it's no coincidence that he comes in in 2016. And a lot of what we've seen over the last 10 years, every year, more internally displaced people, refugees. Conflict stems from Trump's style of isolationism, populism. He drives the conflict. And the consequence of that is that he creates the conditions which makes Putin and Russia.

• 35:06Rory Stewart?

  Become an existential threat to Europe. He creates the conditions which then forces Europe to have to increase its defence standing. He creates the conditions which will lead to hundreds of billions of euros being removed from our health, education and welfare budgets over the next few years. Our people will get poorer, less educated, less healthy. The world will become more dangerous, thanks to Donald Trump. And that's what the Nobel Peace Prize Committee should remember.

• 35:32Alastair Campbell?

  Very well put, but also you're looking at today as he goes around saying, and as Netanyahu says, this guy's bringing peace to countries in the region. The fact is, he is a driver of this Gaza, quotes humanitarian fund, which, and we're going to talk about this in question time, where so many people are being killed while they're literally while they're queuing for food. Gaza is, we keep hearing the ceasefire is coming, but has it yet come? No, he's enabling and empowering Netanyahu in his style of politics. And then you've got Russia, Ukraine, which is not in a better place than it was when he said he was going to resolve it in 24 hours. Add to which, you've talked a lot, Rory, about this sort of, you know, sense of the

• 36:15Alastair Campbell?

  conflict that is right across Africa from, from west to east. But there again, he has the African leaders in the country the other day. What was, what was his real interest in all that? It was about minerals, it was about copper, and it was about mines, and it's all about the money stuff. So, no, we disagree slightly about defence. I think we, we are fundamentally united in our view that the Nobel Prize Committee's reputation would be zero, literally zero overnight, if it were to make the mistake of giving the award to Donald Trump. I actually think it was a mistake to give it to Obama so early in his presidency.

• 36:50Rory Stewart?

  I agree.

• 36:51Alastair Campbell?

  But there we are. Not as big a mistake as Gandhi never getting it. I think that was a bad one. Gandhi never got it. While we're talking about defence, Rory, I think it's, we, our leading interview this week is with a friend of yours, Democrat Congressman Seth Moulton, who is not just interesting because he's a congressman with some very, very harsh words to say about Trump, but also some very harsh words to say about his own side as well. But also, one of those congressmen who really was a sort of serious military veteran and with some, I thought, really moving accounts of his time serving in Iraq in particular, when he clearly didn't believe. In the the policy he was involved in, but people are interested in that whole thing about the sort of defence, military, switch to politics. I I really enjoyed it.

• 37:36Alastair Campbell?

  I actually think in our up some, I listened back to it today. I think I think we were a bit a little bit harsh, actually. I found him really impressive listening, sort of listening back, really impressive.

• 37:44Rory Stewart?

  So pleased to hear that. Yeah, I was sad that you said that you didn't think he should be president. I'm pushing for Seth to run again for the presidency. People can listen to it, of course, on The Rest is Politics, leading on our leading stream.

• 37:55Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I definitely think he's got a lot of what it takes. Let's take a break and then we'll come back with Britain.

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• 38:56Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by Penguin audiobooks.

• 38:59Alastair Campbell?

  And this is a treat for audiobook obsessives among you, and that does include me when I'm travelling and Rory pretty much all the time.

• 39:10Rory Stewart?

  So we've teamed up with Penguin and we've got now The Rest is Politics audiobook club, where we're going to recommend titles we spent real time with, those that gripped us, stirred us or echoed long after they ended. Big ideas, brilliantly told.

• 39:22Alastair Campbell?

  So I am going to start with a book that I mentioned on the podcast when I first read it. It is called The Nazi Mind by Lawrence Ries. And it is an incredible account of how ideology can warp entire

• 39:36Rory Stewart?

  My recommendation would be Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which recasts your entire understanding of history and philosophy.

• 39:45Alastair Campbell?

  So these are not books that you're going to flick through absentmindedly. They're books that you will enjoy more by having them read to you properly by voices that understand weight, rhythm and the power of a well timed pause.

• 40:01Rory Stewart?

  Just beautiful. I'm going to get you to read my next audiobook. Visit penguin.co.uk/trip to browse more of our audiobook recommendations or find a link in our next newsletter and start listening today on Spotify or any audiobook retailer. More recommendations to come.

• 40:23Alastair Campbell?

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

• 40:25Rory Stewart?

  And with me Rory Stewart. And Alistair, we're now getting on to something that we have talked about in the past, which is the Labour Party, public sector reform, particularly, you know, what can happen to the National Health Service, how that could be turned around? And the question of the unions in all of this, and particularly this week, because there's been a big standoff between Angela Rayner and Unite, the largest union in the United Kingdom, and now a threat of junior doctors going on strike against West Street and the Health Secretary. Can you just begin by just giving us a sense of why unions continue to matter in British politics, particularly for the Labour Party? And do they matter much less than they did when you were in government with Tony Blair? Or is it pretty much the same story?

• 41:10Alastair Campbell?

  I think if you track it back, so, you know, when I was growing up, the big trade union leaders were every bit as well known as all but a handful of the major politicians. You know, you could, they, and I'm not just talking about Arthur Skargill, the miners leader, but you know, there was a whole range of trade union leaders who were, they were big figures, they're on the news all the time. And I think that one of the reasons, so at the moment, you mentioned the Angela Rayner dispute with Unite. What Unite say this is about is the, this continuing dispute about the dustbin collection in Birmingham and the, what they identify as a huge pay cut

• 41:55Alastair Campbell?

  for some of the people who are involved in refuse collection in Birmingham. But I think part of what's going on, I'm, I'm not minimizing their, their case, but I think part of what's going on is that these days, the union leaders have to actually fight quite hard in what is a political attention economy, if you like, to get noticed. So I think if, you know, talking to people who are, you know, close to Angela Rayner, I think they would say that this is about them using Angela Rayner's position as deputy prime minister and a member of Unite to drag her right into something where they want her to be, as it were, on their side in a dispute that should be being settled by the council involved.

• 42:38Rory Stewart?

  Just to explain what happened here, Unite says that they've suspended Angela Rayner from their union. Angela Rayner says she'd already resigned anyway. But in a sense, it doesn't really matter whether she was suspended or resigned. This is a big break with the deputy prime minister from the biggest funder of the Labour Party and the biggest union in the country.

• 42:54Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Now, what, what is also true, you talked about the difference between our time. I think during our time, because we were, we were, we were very deliberately making party funding, the, the funding of the Labour Party as broad as possible. And that included part of our whole shtick to the country. The pitch to the country was that we're a party, not just for the unions, but for business and for consumers and not just for those who produce services, but above all those who use them. It was a different part of that messaging. And so the funding from unions became less significant. It's still important, don't get me wrong, you still have the unions making significant contributions. But I think part of what's going on is actually Unite and the leadership, Sharon Graham.

• 43:38Alastair Campbell?

  Making broader complaints about the direction of the Labour Party. And this is, this, you know, this has given her the opportunity. She's been on the airwaves in recent days and weeks in a way that she most of the time isn't. And of course, the other thing that's going on in the background, I don't know whether this, I'm not saying this is organised. But in the background, you've got the whole sort of Jeremy Corbyn, Zara Sultana. Might they be setting up a new party to the left of the Labour Party? And that, I suspect, is, is kind of feeding into this debate as, as well.

• 44:08Rory Stewart?

  And I suppose you might think that it could work for Labour to have a big public fight with the train unions, particularly at a moment where they're being accused of not being fiscally responsible, wavering over welfare, giving in to revolts at their back benches. I mean, it might, if what Keir Starmer's about is trying to appeal to middle Britain and brand himself as a kind of responsible centrist, then maybe it doesn't do him any harm to be seen as having a bit of a standoff with the unions, because it certainly wouldn't suit, suit him for his voter base if he was seen to roll over all the time, right?

• 44:40Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't think there's any point in having fights for the sake of having the fight. I think, I think these fights should be over things that really matter. What I think is, is true is that having been defeated essentially, or having had to back down, for example, on the welfare rebel, on the welfare bill, uh, and change it fundamentally in order to, to appease the, the parliamentary rebels. I do think that when, you know, he, he, he needs pretty quickly a message that says, that does not mean that I'm not in the business of reform and including a very difficult reforms, where we are going to have to take, make decisions that, you know, people that may support us and want to continue supporting us don't actually like.

• 45:23Alastair Campbell?

  And maybe that's a useful bridge into the, the, the row with the BMA. Because of course, I think what, one of the things I think Labour thought they'd achieved in the early days of the Labour Government was to strike a deal with the striking doctors. And that seems to put the issue to bed for a while.

• 45:38Rory Stewart?

  Just quickly for international listeners, BMA, British Medical Association. And a lot of the fight, I think, at the moment, is that right, is with junior doctors?

• 45:45Alastair Campbell?

  Well, they've they've changed their name now, or their name has been changed to resident doctors. And I think that's a sensible thing because junior doctors was a ridiculous label for people who did so much of the work. The B M A, for international listeners, and I suspect for a lot of domestic listeners as well, sometimes referred to as the most powerful trade union in the country. That is not seen in the same way as the Unite or, you know, some of the more traditional working class manufacturing unions and so forth, but the B M A operates as a very, very, very powerful voice for doctors. I know quite a lot of people in in in medicine and including in the B M A. My sense is that there was a lot of support for the resident doctors first time around, including from, as it were,

• 46:31Alastair Campbell?

  people in other levels of the medical profession, but much, much, much less so this time. Because think what this one does, it shows that they really do think they're a very, very, very special case. Now, you could argue, well, they are a special case because they're saving our lives and all that stuff. But teachers are a special case and, you know, the bin men are a special case. And so I I think this is this is an this is a fight that West Streeting has to win. It doesn't mean he can't do some sort of deal at the edges, but you can't give in again on this one.

• 46:59Rory Stewart?

  Little explainer on what I think is, I understand has happened, is that ninety percent have voted to strike uh between the twenty fifth and the thirtieth of July. There were eleven separate walkouts between twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four. And that, of course, has a huge impact when doctors um walk out. You end up missing, you know, over a million healthcare appointments, ends up costing the government about a billion to try to fill in the gaps. After the election, they got a five point four percent rise and then an additional twenty two point three percent rise, starting salaries up nearly ten thousand pounds. And now they're claiming another twenty nine percent and that that's what it would take to take them back to where they were in two thousand eight.

• 47:41Alastair Campbell?

  And they're saying they're saying it's non-negotiable.

• 47:43Rory Stewart?

  And that's again is disputed again, depends on how you calculate inflation, because some people say actually they're only about four point seven percent worse off. Polly Tyneby, who I think would normally have been seen on the left, just wrote an article in the Guardian. And pretty much taking your position, saying that she doesn't want to be silly, but the PM's salary is fifty seven percent lower than it was in two thousand and seven. And that even her sympathy for doctors is beginning to to wane a bit.

• 48:07Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, I guess I guess where this where this goes to is the fact that we have had for some considerable time, a pretty stagnating economy. I fear that that's why ultimately, unless we can get the economy growing properly. These sorts of disputes are going to become more commonplace. And that's why I think it would be pretty bad news if the government had to. Reopen a pay deal that they thought had been settled. Uh. So I suspect what we'll see is a little bit about whether it's around conditions or some of the training. I don't know. Um. But it's a it's a very tricky position to be in at a time when, you know, getting waiting lists down. We're actually, I think we're treating the health service as doing a good job.

• 48:49Alastair Campbell?

  But that path has got to be continued right, you know, going for several years. Before the the issue of health sort of gets out of its place at the moment, which is still right at the top. Of of public concerns, but I don't feel either in the the vote. Or the manner in which they've been communicating since. I don't think the resident doctors are doing themselves that many favors right now. But, you know, we'll see.

• 49:15Rory Stewart?

  Here's my question on West Streeting. I I'm I I started by being very much supportive of his vision, which uh many people will remember is the kind of great vision of shifting. Basically from hospitals to community hubs, from uh treatment to prevention and from analog to digital. So the big idea that West Streeting had, I think, is that to get better health outcomes. And I guess by that, that's a pretentious way of saying presumably what we're aiming for is that on average, people in Britain are going to live longer, healthier lives. Um. In order to do that, we've got to move money away from getting people at stage three cancer. It was quite a good example, I think he gave when we did a leading interview with him.

• 49:55Rory Stewart?

  If you can detect it at stage one, you can treat it much more effectively and much more cheaply. So I was all with that. But then suddenly he announced that the big target he was chasing is reducing waiting lists. And I'm worried that's pushing completely the opposite direction. Because it seems to me that there is a a pretty basic. Choice, which is quite difficult to get around. Either you are trying to make people live longer, healthier lives, in which case a lot of your money really is going into what we call public health. Air quality, not drinking, not eating sugary foods, dealing with obesity. Or you're trying to run a fancy healthcare system.

• 50:40Rory Stewart?

  And those two things weirdly don't go together. In fact, actually, there are people out there saying, Britain's spends about 10% of GDP on health. That what we should actually be doing is spending 5% on hospitals and 5% on public health. And actually, of the NHS budget, we only spend not 50% on public health. We spend 2% on public health. And it's been cut even more, right? So how do you get that 2% up to 50%? Well, you could only do it by closing a lot of hospitals.

• 51:11Alastair Campbell?

  And every single, you know this from having been a constituency MP. Every single hospital, no matter how small, no matter how people have raged about it not being good enough or the, you know, the building falling to bits, people will always fight to save their local hospital. But this is where I think the government, when I talk about having fights that are worth having. I actually thought, I didn't read it when it came out, but I've since read the Wes's 10-year plan. I actually agree with you. I think that vision really works as a long-term vision. Where I think you're spotting the clash is that in the political imperative, which is you've got to get these waiting lists down because that's the metric by which you're going to show at the next election, look, we said we were going to change the health service, improve it, and we have.

• 51:55Alastair Campbell?

  But meantime, you're making a lot of change, which are going to require a lot of fights, including with the public action, because some of these things are going to require public change in attitudes, public change in behaviour. To get a long term change, but I think where I think he's absolutely right is the long term change is fundamental and necessary.

• 52:13Rory Stewart?

  Let me give you a challenge and a communication challenge. So here's a little figure. So there were seven hundred and eighty people last year who died unnecessarily through poor practices and hospitals. So it's it's a difference of like a hundred fold, hundred times more people died from obesity.

• 52:32Alastair Campbell?

  And the first number presumably are many of them now involved in sort of litigation and the health service having to compensate and.

• 52:41Rory Stewart?

  Exactly, billions of pounds worth of compensation coming out of health services, etc. But let's say you were given the mission and the mission was this, to say to the British public, look, if what we really want is for the British public as a whole to live longer, healthier lives, what we really need to put our money into is every stage of life. So before babies are born, making sure that mothers are getting the right kind of vitamins and they're not smoking. After, in the first five years, making sure that there's no childhood trauma, they look after their oral health, they're fit. And then in later childhood, making sure that there's clean air, there's no junk food, there's good mental health. And then, once we become adults, making sure we're not living two sedentary lifestyles.

• 53:26Rory Stewart?

  And then when we become older, dealing with loneliness, supporting people in the home, etc., right? That's where the money should be going. And if we did that, we could massively drive up life expectancy and health. Right, okay, but here's your problem to communicate. So to do that, you would have to put probably actually tens of billions into public health and cut that from hospital. And so what would happen is somebody like me, let's say I have a heart condition, I go into hospital and because of all the cuts to hospital, I die, whereas I wouldn't have done under the old system. But at the same time, maybe five thousand more people are living longer, healthier

• 54:09Rory Stewart?

  lives because the government is cutting down on obesity, supporting people in early childhood, helping them live healthier lives. How do you explain to the public that one person they know has died unnecessarily because there wasn't the hospital care available, but thousands more people have lived because of public health?

• 54:26Alastair Campbell?

  I think we have to get away, this is this is tough, but it's but I quite, I think as a communications challenge, I quite like it. And I think West Streeting would quite enjoy it as well. Because we have definitely got ourselves now into a culture where without really wanting to pay for them through our taxation, we are expecting absolutely brilliant, tip top public services in every aspect of our life. So I think actually, first of all, on the litigation side of things, for example, I think it's tragic that Britain has become this culture. And I also, by the way, think it's leading to worse medicine, because I think doctors are becoming, I've talked to doctors who tell me this, you become more

• 55:09Alastair Campbell?

  risk averse. You you become, you you tend to play safe, and that can actually mean not doing what might be the difficult thing, but the right thing in terms of medical care. So I think arguing for that cultural change, can we please actually give a little bit more faith to our doctors? Can we please give a little bit more faith to our healthcare system? Can we stop spending all our time saying the National Health Service is on its knees, let's meet the challenges and let's meet them together? So I think that's quite an interesting sort of, you know, national mission to speak up and stand up and save our National Health Service. I know that's a good communications challenge. And then I think on the other stuff, the, because this is totally part of his thing about moving

• 55:49Alastair Campbell?

  from, you know, cure to prevention. I actually think that I could, I'd love a campaign that basically said, and I'm probably upsetting people who may at times have, you know, paid me to advise them in the past, but I think actually saying that, because we, let's be frank, over time, we have done it with tobacco, but actually to do the same in relation to junk food and in relation to alcohol, to say, look, you know, we can, we can decide life's just all about having fun and having what I want when I want it, even if it's going to make me worse off, health wise, but actually, no, it's your government, you can call it nanny state if you want, but I'm actually going to say, no, I'm sorry,

• 56:30Alastair Campbell?

  if you're making all this money out of the foods and the drinks that are doing harm, you're paying it through tax, but also I'm going to create a public health fund and you're going to be part of it. I could see that as being a very, very good communications challenge. I'd enjoy that one.

• 56:43Rory Stewart?

  It's weird though, isn't it? Because my clearest example of this was air quality. Where I think our department calculated, let's say that if we'd spent three hundred million a year on cleaning up air in Britain, it would lead to something like two, three billion worth of benefit in terms of life expectancy. So you were getting a return on investment of kind of tenfold. And yet the Treasury would never do it because they didn't see it as a direct saving from the NHS budget. And it's still not happened. I mean, our air quality is still dreadful and I don't see actually Labour putting the money into really making the radical change. You would need to make air quality in the centre of Leeds or the centre of London what it should be to stop what are still tens of thousands

• 57:27Rory Stewart?

  of preventable deaths every year.

• 57:29Alastair Campbell?

  Air pollution in the UK estimated to cause between twenty eight thousand and forty three deaths annually and worldwide at six point seven million.

• 57:36Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. So twenty eight to forty three thousand deaths annually. But it is something to do with the way we calculate things. I mean, I suppose it's partly the moral hazard that maybe we think that somebody dying of preventable obesity, the eighty two thousand people who die every year from preventable obesity, that's somehow their fault, whereas maybe somebody going to hospital after a car crash isn't their fault. And therefore we expect the state to do one thing, we don't expect the state to do the other. The second problem, I guess, is behaviour change is tough. I mean, it's all very well talking quickly about stopping mothers from drinking or smoking during pregnancy, or sending people into an elderly person's home to nail down their carpet and get the right glasses prescription

• 58:21Rory Stewart?

  so they can read their medicine bottles properly so they don't end up in hospital or falling over. But of course, any local council hearing that would just put their head in their hands and say, but you just don't understand how complicated and costly and difficult it is to change the behaviour of a mother or get people in inspecting every old person's house to make sure they're not tripping over.

• 58:39Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Thirty thousand deaths a year that are put down to obesity. Of course, the air pollution, the air quality thing is interesting though. So I've had asthma all my life.

• 58:48Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 58:48Alastair Campbell?

  And, you know, it's pretty well treated and I don't have many really bad asthma attacks, but when I have them, they're really bad. But I have actually noticed an improvement in London in recent years. Now, that may be a change of medication. But let's just say that I, when I die, let's just say that the, the, the cause of death is put down as, I don't know, COPD, pulmonary disease. Am I, would I then be included in these thirty two thousand deaths? This is where the numbers get very, very difficult. You know, I could argue that I've been, I've, I've died because I've sort of had asthma all my life, but I've treated it pretty well and therefore, you know, but then when I finally peg it, um, you could argue that I'd be killed by air pollution. So I think that, look, the stats on this are difficult, but I think

• 59:31Alastair Campbell?

  that, do we, is there anybody listening to this who doesn't think that Britain has an obesity problem? I'd be very surprised if there is.

• 59:37Rory Stewart?

  And I guess is there anybody listening to this who doesn't think that, okay, maybe we're never going to get to spending five percent of GDP on healthcare and five percent on public health, or five percent on treatment, five percent on prevention. But I don't think there's anybody who thinks that we should be spending only two percent of the NHS budget on public health.

• 59:54Alastair Campbell?

  I, I, that can't be right, two percent. I mean, even, you know, even the advert, I see all the, there are lots of advertising. I saw a bigger campaign recently, not least because, and by the way, why nobody has ever been to jail for the bloody M R R campaign of a few years ago, including the editor of the Daily Mail and others. Um, the, the, you see there was another death from measles, but I, I noticed the big measles campaign recently. I've noticed some big, I mean, that is that, does that go down as public health? I don't know. I mean, I, I, I don't know where that two percent comes from. That sounds really strange.

• 1:00:27Rory Stewart?

  It's not just the UK. Every country, and I'm in the US at the moment, where unbelievable amounts of money, huge amount of GDP is spent on the fanciest healthcare in the world, particularly for the wealthiest. And yet, public health is terrible. But even in, even in the Nordic countries who are the real leaders on this, they haven't begun to get towards a fifty fifty balance between treatment and prevention.

• 1:00:49Alastair Campbell?

  Final stat before we go. So we've said both obesity and air pollution in the sort of thirty thousand territory. Road traffic is about seventeen hundred.

• 1:00:58Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 1:00:59Alastair Campbell?

  Suicide is nearly eight thousand.

• 1:01:00Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:01Alastair Campbell?

  So all of these things you can say that, but, but the truth is, these are all deaths that cost a lot of money in different ways. But I I I think maybe we should get Way Streeting back on at some point and and we should work on this communications challenge together.

• 1:01:13Rory Stewart?

  And talk also more about tech and AI in relation to this because it it it's right at the heart of the question of not just what tech can do, tech can do amazing things, devices can now monitor your health, but it's to do with whether we're going to allow tech to do it. I I mean, I keep grumbling to you that in Cumbria, we only really got on to using the telephone in G P surgeries for appointments about one hundred and twenty years after the telephone was invented. So I don't know how quickly we're going to bring in AI.

• 1:01:41Alastair Campbell?

  Rory, I've got a question for you because nobody's been able to give it. We'll we'll close with this. But you understand this stuff and I don't. So I went to the I went to Wimbledon the other day to the tennis and on the way in, I was with Grace, my daughter. She decided that she wanted to get good content and she ended up getting really good content because accidentally we happened to be sitting directly in front of Leonardo DiCaprio and we weren't even in the royal box. So anyway, en route in, Grace suddenly decides, you know, it's really hot. I need to go and get some some water and something to eat in case I get hungry. We go to this food shop inside Wimbledon. There's a woman, there are these barriers and there's a woman at the barrier and to open the barrier, you have to put your credit card on the barrier.

• 1:02:25Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 1:02:25Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. So you tap the barrier with your credit card. You then walk through and then I went over there and got a banana and a sandwich and a bottle of water and then Grace went over there and got something else. And then we walked out and as I was walking out and said, where do we pay? And the woman said, you've already paid.

• 1:02:45Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 1:02:47Alastair Campbell?

  And I said, how? And she said, it's something to do with the cameras.

• 1:02:51Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 1:02:52Alastair Campbell?

  So what what was going on?

• 1:02:54Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think a lot, lot of different things could be going on, but my best guess is that they read your credit card number. They didn't charge you at the point of entry. They then managed to pick up remotely which items that you took through some sort of camera system and then debited your card on exit. I mean, that's pretty fancy stuff if that's what they've done. I mean, I I I.

• 1:03:16Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, well, they did.

• 1:03:17Rory Stewart?

  And and did you and Grace get different charges? It wasn't that you got the same charge both of you.

• 1:03:22Alastair Campbell?

  No, it's one card. We went through on one card and went to different parts of the shop.

• 1:03:25Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, that that must be what they're doing. That's it's something that supermarkets often talk about. I haven't seen it seen it done at scale yet. So that's.

• 1:03:32Alastair Campbell?

  Well, there you are. I'm ahead of you on a hour.

• 1:03:33Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, that's good. That's fancy fancy stuff. So and and my goodness, look, if we were. But of course, the problem in health is that we're not comfortable yet really sharing data in a way that would allow a lot of this incredible benefits to come from.

• 1:03:49Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Rory, do we listen, having looked into Mr. Peter Thiel of Palantir fame during our discussion of J D Vance for our mini series, do we really want him to get any more of our data than he's already got?

• 1:04:01Rory Stewart?

  Well, that's a good segue, Alistair, to end because we, of course, discuss a great deal about Peter Thiel in our J D Vance series. We are doing a special Q and A this Friday on The Rest is Politics Plus, off the back of our four episodes charting the rise of J D Vance. Thanks to Radio Times for the lovely review, by the way, an invaluable primer on the most complex personality in U S politics. So if you have any burning questions on J D Vance, maybe something you've we've missed, and it could be more on Peter Thiel, something extra you want to know, just sign up to The Rest is Politics Plus at the rest is politics dot com and follow the link at the top of your welcome email.

• 1:04:39Alastair Campbell?

  And just to get people up to speed quickly, on the fourth episode, we're right into his time now as Vice President and focusing on what we've learnt about him from his famous speech at Munich, from his spat with Zelensky, from his ups and downs with the Pope, and also a little bit of a contretemps with Keir Starmer as well. So I've really enjoyed making it, and I hope you've enjoyed listening to it. And those who haven't, I hope you will.

• 1:05:01Rory Stewart?

  What we've got into is whether potential J D Vance presidency, which isn't impossible by any means, could be even more dangerous than Trump two point zero. We do a little explainer on the history of the Vice President, which I claim to have read 10 books for.

• 1:05:14Alastair Campbell?

  I think you'll find you reread at least five of them. Anyway, if you want to hear the first four episodes in full right now, get up to speed before the Q and A, which is this Friday, head to the rest is politics dot com to join The Rest is Politics Plus. Takes two minutes to sign up and you get the member feed synced straight up to your preferred podcast platform. So here's a little clip from episode four.

• 1:05:35Rory Stewart?

  Are you more or less worried by a Vance presidency or a Trump presidency?

• 1:05:41Alastair Campbell?

  I think there's a very good chance it could be even worse. When Trump says something, he thinks it is true. Vance knows that he's lying.

• 1:05:48Rory Stewart?

  Vance, in a 2021 interview, says, "We are effectively run in this country by a bunch of..." Childless cat ladies. "...this Zelensky showdown in the White House. It's not normal to have a vice president sitting in there and interrupting."

• 1:06:02Alastair Campbell?

  I thought he was utterly disgusting. That was Vance showing, "I will be your attack dog." This is a guy who's had a pretty rough life, pretty rough childhood. And meanwhile, he has a level of ambition that makes him prepared to do or say anything in the moment to get to the next step. And the next step for him is the White House.

• 1:06:23Rory Stewart?

  Take that lack of virtue, that lack of moral character, and combine it with the economic and military might of the United States, and you should be very, very worried about a J.D. Vance presidency.

• 1:06:40Rory Stewart?

  So if you enjoyed that and want to tune in to all four episodes and get Friday's Q and A, sign up at therestispolitics.com.

• 1:06:47Alastair Campbell?

  And you get the full trip plus experience, mini-series like this, member bonus content, completely ad-free listening, much, much more. Just go to therestispolitics.com. So Rory, see you tomorrow for Question Time, which is not the same as a Q and A. And we're going to be talking, I think we're going to have a very big discussion on Israel and the reaction to our discussion last week, maybe a bit on Macron and his visit here. What else do you want to talk about?

• 1:07:10Rory Stewart?

  Like to talk a little bit about Spain. Gosh, there's so much going on in the world. It's going to be exciting. Let's, let's push it all into the, the Question Time tomorrow.

• 1:07:18Alastair Campbell?

  See you then.

• 1:07:43Speaker 04

  We assess, uh, Prime Minister,

• 1:07:47Speaker 04

  with high confidence it was Russian.

• 1:07:50Speaker 05

  Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

• 1:07:52Speaker 06

  They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.

• 1:07:55Speaker 07

  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!

• 1:08:08Speaker 05

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 1:08:10Speaker 07

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

• 1:08:19Speaker 08

  A Frago that says to... Kill the President of Russia?

• 1:08:24Speaker 07

  Yes.

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

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  Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons.

• 1:08:40Speaker 08

  Devized as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller.

• 1:08:45Speaker 08

  Where Britain plays its strongest hand... Against its strongest foe.

• 1:08:50Speaker 06

  Don't do it, Duffy!

• 1:08:52Speaker 08

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