327. Question Time: What does peace look like in the Middle East?

What is the point of the House of Lords today? Does Elon Musk have presidential ambitions? How bad do Downing Street comms have to get before Alastair steps in? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more in this week's Question Time. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy, a green electricity supplier powering homes across the UK. Use referral code POLITICS after sign up for a chance to win a signed copy of Rory and Alastair's books with personalised messages. Learn more at getfuse.com/politics ⚡ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Podcast Editor: Becki Hills Assistant Producer: India Dunkley Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Producer: Nicole Maslen and 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

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. And it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 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/rustispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rustispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:05Speaker 02

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• 1:58Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to the Rest is Politic's Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 2:01Rory Stewart?

  And with me, Rory Stewart.

• 2:03Alastair Campbell?

  Right Rory, where do you want to start? Let me start.

• 2:04Rory Stewart?

  Go on then.

• 2:05Alastair Campbell?

  Tim, Northants. Elon Musk is using his money and influence to help Trump hold the line, but why? Has Musk realised that Trump is 78, won't be a viable candidate for anything much longer? Or is this about creating him as an heir apparent for President Number 48? Well, he can't be President Musk because he was born in South Africa.

• 2:21Rory Stewart?

  Good answer, very good answer. Listen, just very quickly on Musk, I think his personality is central here. One of the things is that he's got a sort of strange fixation with an idea of Trump's machismo, connected to the moment that he was shot at and Musk has convinced himself this is the kind of leader that America needs. Secondly, there's a lot of this stuff that he keeps talking about on Twitter about challenging the woke mindset, which is partly to do, I think, with his transgender child.

• 2:46Alastair Campbell?

  Who loads him.

• 2:47Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, and his unhappiness about that, yeah. But also to do with a whole series of theories he has about, you know, the dropping US population and immigration, all this kind of stuff that ties in. But finally, there's a sort of more fundamental problem with some of the people around him in Silicon Valley, which is they basically think that they're smarter than everybody else, that they are great sort of contrarians, that they made their money by challenging the conventional wisdom. And the more that people say positive things about Trump, the more inclined he is to backing. Can I just pick up though, just as we were coming in here today, you said something to me about how you felt that actually there is a sort of quite cosy liberal establishment and that that is part of the story behind Trump. Tell me a bit about what you were saying there.

• 3:32Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it's actually something Katie Kay was saying when we were having dinner, where she was saying that, you know, there is this sort of sense of an elite in America, and it is slightly condescending to people in the, what they call the middle of the country. But I don't see Musk as being part of that. I see Musk as being something much more dangerous, which is that we know that Trump is jealous of Putin, jealous of his power, jealous of his authoritarianism, jealous of his ability to stifle or criticise. Jealous of his ability to plunder the reserves of his nation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And Anthony Scaramucci was also at this dinner. He was making the point that in a sense, what you've got with Trump, if Trump gets back, is sort of there's Trump at the centre in power. And bear in mind, this is a guy whose son-in-law, something

• 4:16Alastair Campbell?

  like Jared Kushner, who's reckoned to have made about eight hundred million dollars whilst he's in the White House. It's beyond imagining that that, one, that it can be done, two, that you can get away with it. So what I think, and what Scaramucci was saying, people like Musk, people like Peter Thiel and others in that sort of, you know, elite billionaire class, that what they see is the possibilities of a kind of Russian-style oligarchical situation developing in America.

• 4:42Rory Stewart?

  I'm not so sure about that because I know Peter Thiel a little bit. I don't know Elon Musk at all. But I do think there is a strong element of intellectual vanity, a strong element of liking to be contrarian, a strong element of them increasingly believing that the world's become too censored, that it's becoming too controlled.

• 5:01Alastair Campbell?

  Hold on a minute, Rory. Talk about censorship. Nobody is censoring more than Musk at the moment. You're constantly pointing out to me that certain people on social media who used to get massive traction for the stuff that they were posting are sort of being reduced to nothing. Whereas Musk's tweets are kind of going to all of us and getting ventilated again and again and again. And also, Tortoise Media did an extraordinary thing recently about the extent to which he goes after people who criticise him.

• 5:27Rory Stewart?

  Well, maybe this is, we don't have the thought space to do this as seriously as we should. But sometime I should ask you about how Musk might or might not compare to the kind of great press barons of the past, to sort of a Rupert Murdoch or a Lord Rothermere. Because in some sense, obviously, controlling X gives him the most astonishing ability to sway things. And of course, Trump will be hoping, give Trump a significant leg up in the election.

• 5:54Alastair Campbell?

  But also, there's clearly, I'm not saying Musk is directly involved in this, but there's a lot of people who want Trump to win, clearly involved, I think, in the manipulation of the betting markets, which then has its own effect. I remember when social media first came along, one of the reasons why I welcomed it was because I thought it would break down the sort of Murdoch, Rothermere-type oligarchies of the media. But Musk is, I think, worse in many ways, partly because he's global. But Twitter as a business or X is absolutely dying on its feet. Of course, he probably doesn't care because he's made so much money elsewhere. I also think that extraordinary picture of him going to the Trump rally and jumping like a boy, like a child. There's something very weird about his desire to be noticed, his desire to be liked.

• 6:37Alastair Campbell?

  Somebody who knows him way better than I do, I don't know him at all, as you don't. But somebody who does know him quite well says that he can't understand why when he says something that he thinks is funny, people don't laugh and it really upsets him that people don't find him kind of amusing and witty. And I think the thing with Trump, Trump will destroy him. If Trump becomes president, he may give him this job as Department of Government efficiency, whatever, he'll kill him.

• 7:02Rory Stewart?

  We should put in the episode description box. I think one of the funniest things that I've seen on social media recently, which is somebody pretending to do a chat show with someone defending Elon Musk. And one of the great lines in it, which should hurt the two of us is it's fine if he wants to spend, you know, forty billion dollars, nine billion in today's money, buying Twitter. It's just like a middle aged guy getting a motorbike and starting a podcast.

• 7:28Alastair Campbell?

  Very good. Well, we don't have a motorbike. I certainly don't have a motorbike. Now, listen, what about this one for you? I think we might be able to disagree agreeably upon this one. Alan Stock, praising the Labour Party for taking on the hereditary peers and kicking them out of Parliament, but actually saying, why don't we go further and get rid of the place altogether?

• 7:45Rory Stewart?

  Well, you know, weirdly, I think there will be now, this is going to sound very strange, more conservative support for abolishing the House of Lords now that the hereditary peers have gone. And it's going to sound completely mad, but for me, certainly, I partly like tradition, just as I like the royal family. It's not that I think it remotely is rationally justifiable, obviously, that a bunch of dukes are doddering around, talking about, you know, British sheep or whatever they're focusing on in the House of Lords. But it had a wonderful historical connection to the past. This thing had been around for a thousand years. Some of these people, you know, the Duke of Montrose, who I'm talking about sheep is, you know, descended from the great hero of our country in the seventeenth century. And I think that once they were removed, Labour's done something.

• 8:29Rory Stewart?

  Inadvertently, rather brilliant, because in fact, nobody is remotely interested in a bunch of washed up old politicians and corrupt party donors calling themselves lords and strutting around in ermits. I mean, who's really interested in Michelle Moon or Lord Ali or any number of my former colleagues strutting around calling themselves lords? The whole thing looks absolutely preposterous, right?

• 8:53Alastair Campbell?

  But they are legislators, they are part of our legal process.

• 8:56Rory Stewart?

  And once you've removed the hereditary peers, you've actually struck a body blow to the whole thing. The reason why presumably all these people want to be in the House of Lords is they're hoping that somebody, I don't know, a maître d' in a restaurant might mistake them for being a hereditary peer. As soon as the hereditary peers are removed-

• 9:15Alastair Campbell?

  The restaurants don't care whether they're hereditary or not, honestly, that's nonsense.

• 9:18Rory Stewart?

  As soon as, no, the whole snobbish value, which is the whole thing, right? And why does somebody want to be called a lord? For one reason and one reason only. People think it's like Jane Austen or the War of the Roses, you're a lord, right? You might have a country house, you might have-

• 9:30Alastair Campbell?

  But I can think of nothing worse.

• 9:33Rory Stewart?

  No, of course you can't think of anything, you wouldn't want to be in there in the first place.

• 9:35Alastair Campbell?

  I think there are more people like me than there are people who want to be a lord.

• 9:38Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely. You've got to agree with me that the only reason that all your former colleagues want to be lords is snobbery. And why do you want to put lord in front of your name?

• 9:46Alastair Campbell?

  No, because they have to.

• 9:47Rory Stewart?

  Because people might think that you were a lord, right?

• 9:49Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think, I know, the one time I visited-

• 9:52Rory Stewart?

  Everyone has a lord so and so, lady so and so. It doesn't work if there are no lords.

• 9:56Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but the-

• 9:57Rory Stewart?

  If they're all fake lords.

• 9:58Alastair Campbell?

  I think most of the people that I know who are in the House of Lords, they'd certainly say, and I think most of them believe, that this is the only way to stay in politics. I don't agree, but this is the way to stay in legislation.

• 10:08Rory Stewart?

  I bet they put it on their business cards. I bet they go around, lord and lady so and so. I'm sure they love it.

• 10:14Alastair Campbell?

  I must say that, yeah, well, maybe, I don't know.

• 10:17Rory Stewart?

  Can you see my sort of argument, that this is the end of it?

• 10:19Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I hope so. God, I hope so.

• 10:20Rory Stewart?

  That actually, by removing the hereditarys, you've removed the last bit of aristocratic glamour.

• 10:25Alastair Campbell?

  Alan Stock, feel free to ask us another question, but definitely tell us what you think of Rory's answers. Now, listen, your turn to ask me a question.

• 10:30Rory Stewart?

  Okay. Teacher John, how bad would it have to get for Keir before Alastair offers to go back to Downing Street to sort out comms?

• 10:40Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think it's bad?

• 10:40Rory Stewart?

  Without overly flattering my podcast partner, it would seem to me that they need exactly your skill set at the moment. They need some way of framing ideas, getting policy, and then packaging it in a way that gives a sense of forward direction.

• 10:56Alastair Campbell?

  Let's just say, for the sake of argument, Keir phoned me up and said, Asda, comms aren't going great, would you come in and sort it out?

• 11:02Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 11:03Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, would I advise that that was a good short term plan for him? What would the story be?

• 11:07Rory Stewart?

  Ah, that's true. That's true. That would be, yeah.

• 11:11Alastair Campbell?

  So I think the only way.

• 11:12Rory Stewart?

  Yes, and everybody then would remember the Iraq war. They get cross about that.

• 11:15Alastair Campbell?

  So I think the only way to do it.

• 11:16Rory Stewart?

  And the Labour left would go completely mental, wouldn't they?

• 11:19Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think they'd, I think they'd like me more than they did.

• 11:21Rory Stewart?

  Okay.

• 11:21Alastair Campbell?

  But I think there'd be people thinking, oh, he's really sort of getting serious about it and that's good.

• 11:26Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 11:26Alastair Campbell?

  But I think also it would be playing into the notion, we've got loads of questions which relates to this, about whether we think that the media really is very, very biased against Labour. And I, and look, they are, they always have been. But I think there has been quite a substantial loss of perspective on a lot of this stuff. It's become a given. One, that Keir Starmer was unbelievably unpopular, and two, that they've had a terrible start. You can certainly say that his ratings have gone down, but I think in part that's because the coverage has been so negative. And yes, you can say they've made mistakes, no doubt about that, or hiccups, as I call them on the main podcast. But I think the loss of perspective has been quite substantial.

• 12:03Rory Stewart?

  George Osborne, who I've just talked to.

• 12:05Alastair Campbell?

  You're always talking to George. What's going on?

• 12:06Rory Stewart?

  So, so what George?

• 12:07Alastair Campbell?

  Ah, I've got, I've worked it out. So Ed Balls, because he's married to Yvette Cooper, is probably finding it difficult on the podcast, which I must admit I've only listened to a couple of times, but he's finding it difficult to be, say what he thinks. So therefore, George is getting a bit bored with it and is looking for a new partner where they make it more about the Tory party.

• 12:28Rory Stewart?

  You can imagine, that'd be a real hit, wouldn't it?

• 12:29Alastair Campbell?

  I think George and Rory, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:31Rory Stewart?

  The specialist Tory party.

• 12:33Alastair Campbell?

  The rest is Tories.

• 12:35Rory Stewart?

  The rest is Tories.

• 12:35Alastair Campbell?

  The rest are Tories, the rest is Tories.

• 12:37Rory Stewart?

  The rest are Tories.

• 12:38Alastair Campbell?

  The rest is Toryism.

• 12:39Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 12:40Alastair Campbell?

  I see. So who will I get when you've gone? Who will I get?

• 12:42Rory Stewart?

  You'll have to get Ed Balls. That's the way this whole thing works.

• 12:44Alastair Campbell?

  No, because you can't criticize the Labour government, whereas of course I'm not at all tribal.

• 12:47Rory Stewart?

  Exactly, exactly. Anyway, what he would say is that when he came into politics, most of the right wing newspapers were supporting you guys, that you've developed this sort of extraordinary

• 13:01Alastair Campbell?

  Up to a point, up to a point.

• 13:03Rory Stewart?

  The Sun were behind you, the Mail were behind you.

• 13:05Alastair Campbell?

  Well, the Sun were behind Labour at the election, but they still put the boot in. And don't forget Rory, we had Bernie Ecclestone fairly soon after we got elected. We had a big argument, a big rebellion on child benefit.

• 13:18Rory Stewart?

  But you still had net popularity rating for Tony Blair at this stage of about 80%.

• 13:23Alastair Campbell?

  True, true.

• 13:24Rory Stewart?

  Whereas Keir Starmer is on minus what? I can't remember, but I'm in rubbish anyway.

• 13:28Alastair Campbell?

  Pretty rubbish. This morning, before coming down to Wales, I had breakfast with Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand. And she was unbelievably popular at a certain point. And then it just, it just went.

• 13:39Rory Stewart?

  Not within a hundred days.

• 13:41Alastair Campbell?

  No, no, it's true. This is

• 13:42Rory Stewart?

  This is a record. I mean, nobody has succeeded in

• 13:45Alastair Campbell?

  Right, and they have to, they have to, one of the lessons they have to learn is from all these questions about the media. You know, they've got to work out how you deal with it because that's the reality. They are biased. They are unpleasant. They really want to destroy you.

• 13:59Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 13:59Alastair Campbell?

  So, one, don't give them ammunition. Two, have a more strategic approach, not to the communications, but to the governing and the communications follows from that.

• 14:08Rory Stewart?

  Talking about washed up all politicians, I'm talking about me and George Osborne, but another former big beast of the Cameron government was saying that one of the interesting things in Britain is that there's no sort of second act for politicians, that the media is so brutal. That once you've left politics, that is it. I mean, you could be 30 years old leaving politics and that's it.

• 14:30Alastair Campbell?

  Like Murray Black.

• 14:31Rory Stewart?

  And I think, you know, even Nick Clegg maybe would love to do stuff in public service in Britain and probably feels it's quite difficult for him to imagine what his route back might be. And it's partly because unlike in America where often there are so Many opportunities, it seems. Many, many other people leave politics, go into government for a bit, or go into business for a bit and are able to come back. There's more of a revolving door.

• 14:51Alastair Campbell?

  You can come back in different ways. Douglas Alexandria has come back as an MP. Alan Milburn has gone back advising the government on health. But I think for me, Rory, I think the only way I could do it is to do it in a very coded way and do it very publicly, possibly through a podcast, that kind of thing.

• 15:08Rory Stewart?

  You could sort of take over a podcast.

• 15:09Alastair Campbell?

  I could sort of, I could have a podcast and I could say, let's talk about the grid this week. What should the grid be doing this week? How should the grid be working?

• 15:16Rory Stewart?

  Please, please don't do that. That's just terrible.

• 15:18Alastair Campbell?

  I won't do that. Let me just point and say this, though. I think it's interesting that we've had loads of questions in recent weeks, essentially on the theme of why have Labour messed this up? Why have Labour messed up? Why has it been so disappointing? I have noticed a real surge in questions saying, why is the media so biased against this Labour government? Why do they only pick on the bad stuff, not do any good stuff, et cetera? And so I think Labour just have to be aware of that. These people are not your friends.

• 15:44Rory Stewart?

  Question from Barbara Vols, age 93. Do we now have the right calibre of people in government? And that's what we're going to find out over the next few weeks, months, because that is what will decide whether this is just a comms problem or whether my instinct is right that some of the cabinet are good. You know, I think West Streeting sounds plausible, sounds clear. But without naming names, I think quite a lot of the rest of the cabinet are pretty hopeless. I don't feel this is a big.

• 16:12Alastair Campbell?

  Hopeless or average?

• 16:13Rory Stewart?

  Average, uninspired at a time when the country really needs radicalism and imagination. It doesn't strike me as a team that you'd put in in a crisis. The real illustration of that is I really don't feel they had a plan. It's very odd, a hundred days in, that we haven't seen the plan produced. I think that sort of suggests a lack of intellectual curiosity.

• 16:34Alastair Campbell?

  On the train down, I met this woman from Scotland who was coming to our show with her sister as a surprise birthday present. And she said, I've been thinking all week about what question I'm going to ask you. At the at the show and I've decided and she decided what she's going to ask us was, why is Angela Rayner actually quite low profile within the government? I think Kier looks and sounds the part and I think has done some good things. Talk about the riots. I think actually he's got resilience. He keeps going when the S H I T is flying around him. And I think that, you know, this investment conference shows seriousness of intent around the main mission, et cetera. Wes, as you say, Peter Kyle, I think is very, very effective. I think Pat is Pat McFadden is very, very good at what he does. I think you can go through and it all comes back to the central point I keep making.

• 17:18Alastair Campbell?

  It's every time that Keir Starmer or any of the government come on the television, the public should have an immediate sense of the kind of thing they're going to be saying because they've got a sense of the overall strategy.

• 17:29Rory Stewart?

  And also of the figures. I mean, I think you would have got that with David Blunkett. You would have got that with Ken Clark. You would have got that with Michael Heseltine. Actually, you probably would have got that in a different way with even with figures like John Reed.

• 17:42Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, a hundred percent with John Reed.

• 17:43Rory Stewart?

  So what I'm what I'm lacking here is people who are going to move into these studios and give a sense that they've really, they're imaginative, they're funny, they're alive, they've dominated their brief, they've got ideas.

• 17:57Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think the other thing we need is a bit more of kind of, you call it intellectual curiosity. And whatever you think about Gove, and I know he completely shafted you and he's pretty duplicitous and what have you. But when he was particularly in opposition, actually, but you always had a sense of him coming up with ideas. It may have been bad ideas and to my mind, a lot of them were. But you had a sense that they were coming from a position of relentless intellectual exploration. And I think the thing about politics today is you can have a lot of impact on the debate as a politician by floating ideas yourselves and saying, I don't quite know what I think about this, but here's some interesting thoughts. Here's something interesting happening in Australia. Here's something interesting happening in Latin America and I'm going to go and look at them.

• 18:36Rory Stewart?

  You also got the sense Gordon Brown came in with quite a lot of ideas. I mean, he's gave the impression of somebody who had his nose stuck.

• 18:42Alastair Campbell?

  Well, he was relentlessly intellectually curious. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, Rory, quick break, then more questions.

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• 20:39Alastair Campbell?

  Right, now a couple of questions here on Israel, both coming from a very similar place. The first one is from at Erm. What would Israel have to do no longer to be supported by the UK and the US? Algar Celtic. Do our government have any red lines when it comes to Israel? So they're both asking the same thing. And we had quite a lot of questions on that theme this week.

• 20:59Rory Stewart?

  I think one very interesting thing is that by shifting the focus to Hezbollah and Iran, Israel has pulled off a public relations success in the US because the US is often frowned upon. This sort of axis of evil with Iran at the centre of it. And if Israel's going after Iran, it feels the US as though they're going after a common enemy in the name of democracy, and it takes their eyes off the question of what Israel's doing in Gaza. And it's also allowed Israel to portray sending troops into Lebanon as being an attack on Iran, basically. But I think that narrative isn't getting through totally. I don't think Netanyahu has managed to convince the world of that in Lebanon by any means.

• 21:44Rory Stewart?

  And very interesting things around the Irish peacekeepers, who many listeners will be aware. Israeli tanks rolled up to the UN bases where the Irish peacekeepers in southern Lebanon were and told them to leave the bases. And the Irish have said, no, we are here on a UN mandate, provide security in southern Lebanon. We're not evacuating these bases. That, I think, shone quite a sort of stark light on the question of what's happening. And if America is genuinely talking about a rules-based international order, Israel's actions are causing a real challenge to what the narrative is here. It's an easy narrative on Russia, Ukraine. Russia has invaded somebody else's sovereign nation and Ukraine is defending its territory. You can see what the narrative might be on China, Taiwan.

• 22:27Rory Stewart?

  See what narrative be on North Korea, South Korea, which, incidentally, is getting more and more dangerous. But if America is really to build a rules-based international order, there need to be rules, clear international rules. And the UN's got to be part of that. And I'm afraid the International Court's got to be part of that and sovereign borders have got to be part of that. And if Israel is really pushing troops into what at the moment feels like prolonged military operations in somebody else's country, and America is responding now by sending troops into Israel to support Israel on this, I think it's going to be very difficult.

• 22:58Alastair Campbell?

  Over the weekend, sort of hopping around some of the channels, but I spotted several American politicians and former military people actually criticizing Biden for not being supportive enough of Israel, which is just, to my mind, ridiculous. Biden and Netanyahu don't get on at a personal level. But I think it's very hard to say Biden hasn't been supportive of Israel. And I think that, you know, the question here about whether there's any red lines for Labour, you know, Labour has already reversed its position in relation to the charges from the International Court against Netanyahu, stopped the sales of some parts of the arms that we sell to Israel, and has been trying to, I think, slightly calibrate the position and the message around that. But essentially, it's still pretty much an echo of the American position.

• 23:41Alastair Campbell?

  But to answer the question directly, what would a red line be? So for example, let's say they did take out part of the nuclear programme. Is that a red line for America? Is that a red line for the UK?

• 23:50Rory Stewart?

  No, I'm afraid what we've learnt is that it is impossible to imagine anything at the moment that Israel could do, it seems, that would change American support. And that's probably been true for a very, very long time. I think US support for Israel is so deep and so bipartisan that it doesn't feel to me as though, you know, because famously, you know, Bill Clinton was annoyed with Netanyahu. Biden's annoyed with Netanyahu. But since the 1990s, really, that hasn't had any effect. And I think one of Netanyahu's learnt from that is that he really can do whatever he wants. There is never going to be a moment, it feels as though. And what could the US do? Would they be able to get support in Congress or the Senate or amongst voters for not no longer sending weapons to Israel?

• 24:34Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but you talk about the voters. I mean, this is surely this one of the reasons why the Americans need to recalibrate as well. It's because, sorry to bring sort of base politics into this, but Michigan is one of the key states that Kamala Harris really has got to win. And I can't imagine this is doing a lot of good.

• 24:49Rory Stewart?

  I don't want to keep going back to the meta level, but just for a second, my goodness, it's difficult to talk about this stuff because I can absolutely feel Jewish friends of mine listening to this saying, whoa, you're getting pretty close to antisemitism here. I can absolutely.

• 25:03Alastair Campbell?

  In what way?

• 25:04Rory Stewart?

  Just not being sympathetic enough to the threat that Israel has experienced, to the suffering.

• 25:09Alastair Campbell?

  Did you get much back last week? Because we had this discussion last week about whether they faced an existential threat.

• 25:14Rory Stewart?

  Yes, when I try to suggest that actually Iran is relatively weak and has shown that it's relatively weak, I'm told that I'm an apologist for the mullahs and for the ayatollahs. I get a lot of people saying, you're only criticizing Israel because it's doing it. But what about Sudan? Why are you not talking more about Sudan? I think we talk quite a lot about Sudan. I think it's really interesting. There is no other topic I'm aware of. And at the same time. I'm getting Arab friends very angry with me. You know, I have an Arab friend who watched my explainer on the Middle East. Extremely upset with my description of the question, the state of Israel, said I'd been far too sympathetic to Israel that I'd.

• 25:54Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, yes, yeah.

• 25:55Rory Stewart?

  But here's one more thing to just throw into the debate, right? I saw a very senior, unbelievably wealthy person in the United States, who I know meets very senior Israeli politicians as well as senior American politicians. And he said to me that he thought in the end it might have to come to Israel dropping a nuclear weapon on Iran. And.

• 26:18Alastair Campbell?

  But you're saying that's not a red line.

• 26:20Rory Stewart?

  Well, I listened to this and I find it very, very, I mean, you know, beyond imagining this kind of conversation. I don't even understand where this is coming from, but it is this sense of an ever ratcheting narrative. And to return to this question, if it's true that we face challenges almost on on three continents simultaneously. Because I think you're right to keep raising North Korea and we have to keep returning to that. I think North Korea against South Korea is a big problem. Obviously, Russia, Ukraine is a big problem. If America is to handle that and is to get allies in order to deal with China, Taiwan, the situation it's got itself in the Middle East is very, very muddled, very troubling.

• 27:00Rory Stewart?

  And it's, and I don't know how it's going to maneuver its way towards describing what an international legal system is, particularly when Netanyahu is so explicit about saying effectively, he rejects the UN. He's declared the UN Secretary General persona non grata. He rejects the international courts. What is international law then? By that, I'm not saying that all the allegations against Israel are correct. But what is an Israeli concept of international law which the US can get behind if it's supporting Israel, which then allows it to get behind the international legal order?

• 27:29Alastair Campbell?

  We had a lot of comments last week about the discussion. We had also about the legal side of targeting. And I got, I think I showed it to you, I got a message from somebody whose family works exactly in that and said that when we're involved, we, the Brits are involved, then lawyers are all over every sort of targeting plan. It'd be very, very interesting. I just, I just don't know. But last week I got whacked, not physically, but walking down the street. Somebody actually came up to me near where I live and said, when are you actually going to be, start being reasonable to the Palestinians? So that's just one person, okay? But there's a little bit of that goes on. But every time that we talk about this, I get. Probably ten times as many people saying, I don't defend Israel enough.

• 28:13Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, and and of course, not to put too much weight on this because we've got to keep doing our job. We've got to keep trying to think honestly and be clear about these things. But this is true for everybody.

• 28:22Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 28:23Rory Stewart?

  In this discussion, you can see it in the US media.

• 28:25Alastair Campbell?

  Particularly for governments, to be fair, particularly for governments.

• 28:27Rory Stewart?

  But also for journalists, you you can see that the incredible knots the BBC ties itself in trying to deal with this. And people are saying, you know, why are we not reporting that an Al Jazeera cameraman has just been shot dead? Journalists killed in this way elsewhere would be reported by, but then equally.

• 28:44Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, they're not allowed to see it.

• 28:45Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 28:45Alastair Campbell?

  You know, I mean, Jeremy Bowen, the BBC, he regularly makes the point rightly that, you know, journalists are not allowed into Gaza. So if you're not allowed into Gaza, it's a lot harder to report what's happening in Gaza.

• 28:55Rory Stewart?

  Okay, so let's just return to the big picture, maybe as a way of kind of finishing this subject, which is peace. And how do we get to peace? So and I I'm very interested in talking to you about this because you really lived this with the Good Friday Agreement. I I really do think that, you know, when you read accounts of what was going on in the seventies and eighties in Northern Ireland, very, very difficult to believe that you would ever find your way to peace. And you would have had people in the unionist community saying, you don't understand the IRA. They are literally committed to the elimination of the British state in Northern Ireland. They are literally killing women and children. You cannot possibly negotiate with these people. And somehow this sort of miracle happened.

• 29:38Alastair Campbell?

  There's there was a moment in that process beyond that when that was being said by both sides, when a senior unionist at the cabinet table in Downing Street, having Tony suggest something that he might say or do and saying, I don't think you would quite understand what it's like sitting on the other side of the table from somebody who tried to kill you and somebody who successfully killed them, maybe your family. And that's when you do get that sense, but both of those people ended up. Being in what became the Northern Ireland Assembly.

• 30:07Rory Stewart?

  I I keep coming this lovely line from in Seamus Heaney's play where he almost describes it as a miracle. And I think the reason he uses those words is that it it's almost beyond normal human reasoning. Because it feels so gloomy and pessimistic and then somehow.

• 30:22Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 30:22Rory Stewart?

  Someone else is is able to sit down with someone who's tried to kill them and who's killed one of their family.

• 30:27Alastair Campbell?

  Yep, they all for different reasons made a jump in the right direction. Very hard to see how it happens.

• 30:32Rory Stewart?

  But we've got, we've got to keep pushing for that. I mean, I think that's the, maybe the answer is that rather than getting trapped in, am I saying the right or the wrong thing day by day about Israel and Lebanon? Shift the conversation on.

• 30:44Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Rory Stewart?

  Okay, what does peace look like?

• 30:46Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 30:47Rory Stewart?

  What's the end of this, right? And because all these things are not solutions. What Israel is doing in Lebanon, however many people they kill in Hezbollah, how many people are killed in Gaza, whatever Iran does. None of this stuff is a long term solution. These are military tactical killings.

• 31:05Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 31:05Rory Stewart?

  And somebody, the US, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the region, Egypt, Jordan. Need to be framing a vision of what peace looks like.

• 31:18Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. Right, Roy, my last one, Oliver Moore. I'd be interested in Roy expanding on his views on trade unions. Whenever he mentions them in passing, e.g. in relation to party funding or reforming public services. It's one of those occasions when he sounds recognizably conservative. Are you anti-trade union?

• 31:35Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I'm a bit divided on them. I dealt quite a lot with the Prison Officers' Union.

• 31:38Alastair Campbell?

  They're quite difficult. They've got a lot, they've got a lot to be difficult about.

• 31:41Rory Stewart?

  And and the British, British Medical Association.

• 31:43Alastair Campbell?

  Difficult.

• 31:44Rory Stewart?

  I was a bit, bit worried about.

• 31:45Alastair Campbell?

  Very difficult.

• 31:46Rory Stewart?

  Look, I mean, I think, and actually Tristram Hunt has done some very good historical work on trade unions. I think they've been incredibly important in British history and in creating a better Britain. And I think they stood for something very important and they stood for something very important also in international development. So I've got a huge affection for them there. But I'm I'm afraid there is, yeah, that may be my Tory side. When I look at, you know, what the rail unions are doing for salaries for train drivers. When I look at the British Medical Association, I I I don't feel that this is exactly what I'd like trade unions to be. But maybe I've got a too unrealistic idea of what.

• 32:22Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, there's no doubt in the past there have been excesses, et cetera. But I think it's one of those areas where the sort of decade after decade of negativity about them. And the hold of certain elements of their history have conspired, not least with the biased media we talked about earlier, to present the picture of trade unions as being wholly negative, whereas actually trade unions, I think, do an awful lot of work. And I say to any young person I meet, I say, you know, there's one thing you should do, whatever you're doing, you should try and join trade unions.

• 32:50Rory Stewart?

  Well, some of the most attractive figures in the Labour Party come out of the trade union movement.

• 32:54Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely, Alan Johnson on leading right now.

• 32:55Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely, Angela Rayner.

• 32:56Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Rory Stewart?

  The Bevins.

• 32:58Alastair Campbell?

  When we were in Chicago at the DNC, very different how they talk about the trade unions within the Democrat Party. Much more positive.

• 33:06Rory Stewart?

  But fascinating also that it was only the trade union man, I think, from the Auto Workers Union, who used the phrase working class. Everybody else in Democratic politics.

• 33:15Alastair Campbell?

  Middle class.

• 33:16Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Alastair Campbell?

  Right, excellent. Well, that's sort of weaved around in unexpected ways, but that's it for another week.

• 33:22Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye.

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