451. Is Trump Destroying the UN?

Is it time to move the United Nations headquarters out of New York? Will recognising Palestine as a state make any difference to the plight of Gaza? Why does Reform UK get so much more coverage than the Lib Dems? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus: Start your FREE TRIAL at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, an exclusive members’ newsletter, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Fuse are giving away free TRIP Plus membership for all of 2025 to new sign ups 🎉 TRIP Plus 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 ⁠https://www.fuseenergy.com/politics⁠ ⚡ Visit theweek.com/trip and enter code POLITICS to claim your six-week free trial, plus an extra 10% saving on all subscription packages. Find out more about how Google’s AI is helping fuel the UK’s growth and transformation and read the report at goo.gle/aiworks. 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 Senior Producer: Dom Johnson 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.

• 0:00Alastair Campbell?

  Donald Trump is deliberately trying to undermine the United Nations politically, financially, in every other way.

• 0:05Rory Stewart?

  One of the problems for the UN at the moment, it obviously doesn't have any voice really, and Ukraine doesn't have any voice in Gaza.

• 0:11Alastair Campbell?

  On Gaza, the vote on the Security Council was 14 to one, and the one was the United States.

• 0:17Rory Stewart?

  Trump is so open about the fact that he rejects all of that. No interest in international human rights, no interest in international law. America first all the way.

• 0:24Alastair Campbell?

  Israel is never going to be secure unless Palestinians have freedom. And Palestinians are never going to have freedom unless Israel is secure. Is it just that because they have this seeming blank cheque from Donald Trump, that they don't really care what the rest of the world thinks?

• 0:40Alastair Campbell?

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• 0:42Rory Stewart?

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• 1:10Rory Stewart?

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• 1:26Rory Stewart?

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• 1:35Rory Stewart?

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• 1:37Alastair 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.

• 1:50Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creve. And of course, the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN and it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying. If you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 2:13Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think you're not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this. Or should I say Fiona Fiona managed to do this?

• 2:20Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your Nord VPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/RestIsPolitics. That's nordvpn.com/RestIsPolitics and the link is in the episode description.

• 2:36Speaker 02

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• 3:14Alastair Campbell?

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

• 3:16Rory Stewart?

  And with me, Rory Stewart.

• 3:17Alastair Campbell?

  So Rory, we're going to talk about United Nations because the United Nations General Assembly is on. Donald Trump, amongst others, will be speaking there today. We're going to talk about the recognition of Palestinian state. And then I think in the second half, go a bit more domestic because there'd been the Lib Dem conference, Ed Davies' speech today. Hope it doesn't clash with Donald Trump, Ed. And we should talk about Nigel Farage's latest sortie into the issue of immigration. He's going to basically, it seems to me, get rid of anybody who works in the health service or other public services, though he didn't quite frame it that way himself. So where do you want to start with the UN?

• 3:48Rory Stewart?

  And let's start with the fact that this is the 80th anniversary of the UN. And it would have been set up in past times to be a big, big event. Big anniversary, big celebration, jubilee celebration. And it does not feel like that at all. Quick reminder, UN obviously set up 80 years ago, hosted for these meetings in New York. And that's really important for the story of what's going on at the moment because America controls a great deal, including whether or not you get a visa to come and speak at the UN. A lot of the funding for the UN comes from the United States.

• 4:21Alastair Campbell?

  Although they're cutting it back.

• 4:22Rory Stewart?

  Although they're cutting it back. The UN, I think, and I love your view on this, had two big themes since its formation. The first was, broadly speaking, a theme about human rights, so Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt, and a sense of universal values. And that was stuff which, particularly in the 90s, people like Clinton, Tony Blair and others associated themselves with. That was Sierra Leone, Liberia, Kosovo, Bosnia, later Sudan, interventions in Cambodia. So it was quite an idealistic vision that all these nation states would get together. And broadly speaking, as Clinton said in his great speech to the UN, it was about a world that was heading towards human rights,

• 5:06Rory Stewart?

  democracy and peace. The second story of the UN is the story of the smaller countries. And that's the story of often anti-colonial movements, countries that had just gained independence, 77 smaller nations that saw the UN as a way of creating identities for themselves, separate from the big players. And really symbolized, I suppose, above all by Uthant, who was this amazing Burmese Secretary General, who played a critical role in the 60s in the Cuban Missile Crisis, tried to mediate on Vietnam and really gave a voice to those countries that had been marginalized. And I think both those themes are now under huge strain today. Anyway, over to you.

• 5:45Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And just so people understand how it works. So the United Nations, you say, formed in the aftermath of the Second World War. So the five permanent members of the Security Council, US, UK, France, Russia, China, essentially, they were viewed as the five big post-war powers, nuclear powers as well. And in a sense, it was recognized by the world that they should be central to reshaping the world in the aftermath of the Second World War. So they have a permanent seat on the Security Council and they all have the right of veto. Security Council itself then has ten others who come on and off. And so sometimes you will get a key country that will be a small country. But what actually for a year or so will have will have real power.

• 6:28Alastair Campbell?

  And what's happened in in recent years is that the United States has become under Trump. I mean, first term, Trump was pretty opposed to the United Nations, doesn't like international organisations. And this time, the funding cuts have been huge. I think in to some extent, other countries are stepping up to fill the political gap. But they're not necessarily stepping up to fill the financial gap. China doing the former, not the latter.

• 6:53Rory Stewart?

  Just to flesh out a little bit for listeners, for the key UN humanitarian agencies, things like the World Food Programme, but also UNICEF, UNHCR. The US through USAID, its development programme, was providing in many cases forty or fifty per cent of the entire funding of these agencies. So if you go to the frontline in Somalia or Sudan and you go to an emergency feeding camp where they're giving plumpy nut to children. Lot of that is done through these UN agencies. And the UN humanitarian appeals, when I was the Development Minister in the UK, led by the UN and the US putting in a huge amount of money. Now that has gone, obviously, you lose fifty per cent of your funding. That isn't just all the UN staff losing their jobs.

• 7:35Rory Stewart?

  And of course, most of those staff are not in New York, they're the staff on the ground in Somalia or Sudan. It's the recipients, it's the people who would be receiving the tents, the emergency food, the shelter, the child protection.

• 7:46Alastair Campbell?

  I was talking to somebody at the UN the other day who was saying that the United States now vetoes anything which refers to the Sustainable Development Goals. So we have on leading this week as part of this sort of international podcast festival of hope. We're talking to Maro Itoji, the England rugby captain. But essentially, we're trying to help the Sustainable Development Goals stay on the map. But that is what they're up against. You've got China and Russia that for some time have been against anything that America wants to put forward. You now have America not just against China, but also frankly against what the UN is trying to achieve. And that is making it very, very difficult.

• 8:27Alastair Campbell?

  Guterres, the Secretary General, is coming forward with pretty profound budget cuts that will affect some of the programmes that they run. And I think that you said that maybe this is not, this one is not as relevant or doesn't feel as relevant as in the past. I think maybe because of Palestine it does. I think the, I think what Macron, the Saudis, the UK, Canada, Australia, Portugal now as well, I think what they've all reckoned is that the, the place to have this debate about the recognition of the state of Palestine is at the United Nations. So there's been this steady build up. And it feels to me that they've been actually quite strategic about that. I imagine by the time this comes out, we'll know because Trump will have done his speech.

• 9:10Alastair Campbell?

  And if he's moved off his nonsense about autism, he may want to talk about the Palestine recognition issue.

• 9:15Rory Stewart?

  Just go and explain the autism point.

• 9:17Alastair Campbell?

  He did a big, I mean, at Charlie Kirk's funeral, about which we'll talk in Q and A, he actually made a speech. It was one of his rambles, but one of the points he made is, you know. I think we found an answer to autism. How about that? Turns out the breakthrough on autism is yesterday with his mad anti-vaxxer Bobby Kennedy, basically saying that if you take Paracetamol when you're pregnant, you're more likely to get your child to have, which is utter nonsense.

• 9:44Rory Stewart?

  And there was this sort of extraordinary classic Trump moment where you have this elderly man telling pregnant women in the United States, they're going to have to tough it out.

• 9:53Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 9:54Rory Stewart?

  Of course, Tylenol is the only thing that a pregnant woman can take for pain relief.

• 9:57Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And of course, seventy eight year old men, they know a lot about the pain of pregnancy, just like he knows a lot about the pain of, of going to war and being a veteran, which he never did because he got copped out of it. So he's going to go there. Let's assume he, he does address the Palestine issue. So when he was with Keir Starmer in the UK on the state visit last week, he openly said that Palestine recognition was one of the, he said, one of the few issues on which he and Keir Starmer disagree. And I think he might feel. That he's being slightly ganged up on by the smaller, what he perceives as the smaller powers, France, UK, et cetera. But what it does mean now, from the Palestinian recognition perspective, you now, of those five members of the Security Council, four, all of them apart from the United States, now formally recognise the state of Palestine.

• 10:40Rory Stewart?

  The US response to that is twofold. One is that they have refused to allow Mahmoud Abbas to get a visa, or the Palestinian delegation to come into

• 10:49Alastair Campbell?

  He's the leader of the Palestinian Authority.

• 10:51Rory Stewart?

  And that's really troubling, obviously, because the point is that the US is just hosting the UN, and the UN should be able to operate as an international organisation. It shouldn't be up to the United States to just decide on the basis of its own personal views whether or not to give a visa. I mean, remember in the past, famously, Nikita Khrushchev would address them, Fidel Castro would address them, Che Guevara addressed the UN and was almost assassinated by pro-Cuban activists in the General Assembly chamber.

• 11:19Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Khrushchev, for our younger listeners, was famous for banging his shoe

• 11:23Rory Stewart?

  Banging his shoe, yeah.

• 11:24Alastair Campbell?

  On the lectern. That's, I could see our social media team getting very excited about it. He banged his shoe

• 11:30Rory Stewart?

  That's right.

• 11:30Alastair Campbell?

  On the lectern.

• 11:31Rory Stewart?

  I noticed The Economist in an article this week said allegedly, I don't think it was anything alleged about it at all. I thought he definitely banged his shoe, but we can get into that. The second thing, though, that the US has done is that Reuters has reported from five different sources within the administration that they're now looking at full entity sanctions against the International Criminal Court. So the International Criminal Court, UN body that's been investigating allegations of crimes against humanity and genocide, they began by targeted sanctions against individuals on the court, and that's including making threats against people who advise the court, so people like Baroness Helena Kennedy and others who advise the court. They're now looking at an entity sanction, which means sanctioning the entire organisation. Now, this raises the question for me, should

• 12:15Rory Stewart?

  we not begin to think about the UN moving? Out of the US, if the US is no longer prepared to play its role as a fair, neutral arbiter hosting an international organisation, why don't we take it somewhere else? And of course, in the interview that we have with Mike Pompeo, which is

• 12:30Alastair Campbell?

  Coming out on Monday.

• 12:31Rory Stewart?

  Coming out on Monday, so former US Secretary of State, former head of the CIA. It's a fascinating revelation of the way that somebody from, not quite full on Trump anymore, he's more the sort of right wing, the Republican Party, views this conversation. How aggressively they view it. He was just like, well, you take the UN, except you're never going to.

• 12:49Alastair Campbell?

  Take it on.

• 12:49Rory Stewart?

  Because you're all a bunch of wimps, right? It's the basic thing. It's an extraordinary kind of confrontational interview, really, really worth listening to.

• 12:56Alastair Campbell?

  He also, we should say on this subject, I noticed a cameraman, he's literally, his jaw dropped when Mike Pompeo basically said, as a matter of fact, get over it, there is never going to be a Palestinian state, just absolutely straight out. And of course, that is the American position right now.

• 13:14Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 13:14Alastair Campbell?

  But you see, even on that, you take something as simple as that, let's assume, as I do, that Donald Trump is deliberately trying to undermine the United Nations politically, financially, in every other way. Because they have the power of veto, how would it move? Under the current institution, if the US said, no, no, it's staying in New York, yes, it's a pain in the neck, yes, the security is a nightmare, yes, we have to have these awful, terrible foreign people coming here.

• 13:39Rory Stewart?

  And yes, we can suddenly veto people with visas and yeah.

• 13:41Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly. So why would they want it to move to Geneva or wherever it might be?

• 13:44Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, Geneva's the obvious place, isn't it? Although that's got slight sort of legacy to the League of Nations. I sometimes wonder whether other countries, London, Canada, who knows where else could step up?

• 13:53Alastair Campbell?

  Qatar.

• 13:54Rory Stewart?

  Well.

• 13:55Alastair Campbell?

  I mean.

• 13:57Rory Stewart?

  They've got a lot of space. I'm campaigning Canada at the moment. I'm going Canada because I think.

• 14:01Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but there's no way the Americans are letting you go to Canada, is there? Rwanda?

• 14:04Rory Stewart?

  Switzerland will be the easiest, wouldn't it?

• 14:05Alastair Campbell?

  Switzerland would definitely be the easiest. Why other countries have that sort of Swiss sort of reputation though?

• 14:11Rory Stewart?

  Brazil would hope to, but it's been going through a tough time, hasn't it?

• 14:14Alastair Campbell?

  I've got to say, you've just got Brazil, this massive trade war. You see, I just said the Netherlands at one point.

• 14:19Rory Stewart?

  Oslo, Norway?

• 14:20Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Anyway, it's not going to move.

• 14:23Rory Stewart?

  Couple of things that I was wondering about, which is the future of the UN, how it could be different. Mark Malick Brown, who's a friend of yours and mine, who was Labour Minister, but was also the Deputy Secretary General of the UN. Has been talking about whether it couldn't change to reflect, you know, mini multilateralism. So, you know, the emergence of what kind of world would China imagine? What kind of world alternatives, it's a separate idea. Brazil and India, these emerging powers might imagine. And what sort of world, and we talked about this with Singapore, might smaller nations who suddenly don't want to be in a world in which might is right, to understand the value of an organisation that could help smaller countries.

• 15:05Rory Stewart?

  So that's the sort of Singaporean alliance, countries like Ghana stepping forward, Caribbean nations, Myanmar and others taking lead.

• 15:12Alastair Campbell?

  Barbados, yeah.

• 15:13Rory Stewart?

  And then the second question, I I've been reading an amazing book, which I'd like to plug by Tant Min Yoo, who is the grandson of Utant, who I was praising as the UN Secretary General, it's called Peacemaker. And I was talking to him again yesterday and he would say that one of the problems for the UN at the moment is it's got to get back into its traditional role of peacemaking, that it's become invisible in places like Myanmar. It it obviously doesn't have any voice really in Ukraine, doesn't have any voice in Gaza. And that one of the mistakes it made is under the last two Secretary Generals, under Ban Ki Moon and under Good Terrish, to be too much of a humanitarian organisation. Humanitarian stuff can be done by our friend David Miliband and others.

• 15:57Rory Stewart?

  The UN's unique role is the Secretary General, often in the sixties and seventies, on the ground, chipping away at things. You know, Hammus Gold being killed in the Congo, UN Secretary Generals spending three, four days quietly negotiating with leaders.

• 16:12Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. I think the problem with that, though, is goes back to the point I made, that if the the UN essentially is a collection of the powers of the world and the major powers have more power than the smaller powers. That's that's just the reality of it. And it then depends, I think, upon the personality of the of the Secretary General, who never gets appointed without those major powers being happy, in particular the United States. I think we underestimate just how hard it is for the UN to do what you're saying. And you're, and I wonder what, where you write though, I wonder if they've moved into this place of we're about humanitarian, we're about refugees, we're about climate, we're about the sustainability of development goals. Because actually, within the political context, they don't have the leverage, they don't get the traction, and particularly with Trump.

• 16:56Rory Stewart?

  But to be a little bit more optimistic, it was remarkable what they were able to do even during the Cold War. So in the Cold War, actually, the situation was a bit like this because Russia and America were vetoing each other all the time. But what the UN was able to find is these niche moments. Sometimes, actually, it was Russia and America itself, Cuban Missile. Sometimes it was areas which the rest of the world wasn't concentrating on so much, doing very, very remarkable things in Sierra Leone or Liberia. Or, you know, one of the funny things that Mark Brown was saying is he remembers your government, Tony Blair's government, with Sudan almost acting as the desk offices for Sudan with

• 17:37Rory Stewart?

  the UN, sending ministers out, getting involved in these kind of things. But so I think one of the visions could be to say, actually, if you do it quietly, if you do it behind the scenes, if you use the legitimacy of it, if you speak up for small nations, if you really get the support of other players who aren't on Security Council, there might be quite a number of conflicts around the world where the UN could play a very, very useful part.

• 18:00Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I'm sure you're right about that. But I, you know, so we had a vote last week on Gaza, where the, the vote on the Security Council was fourteen to one, and the one was the United States. And I think that, that sense of the United States now seeing itself and acting as an obstacle to what the United Nations more broadly might be trying to do, I think that becomes an almost insurmountable problem.

• 18:26Rory Stewart?

  And if it is, then I think all the stuff that you often talk about, about reform to the Security Council, we're getting there. For someone like me, I really wanted to hold on to Britain's place on Security Council, but I was still stuck in a nineteen nineties world, where we were standing up for a liberal world order, a rules-based international order. What Trump is now doing is making me think, okay, this this thing really is broken. And now suddenly, people like me are much more open to Brazil, India, joining the

• 18:55Alastair Campbell?

  European Union.

• 18:56Rory Stewart?

  European Union, joining the UN, and just rethinking it. Maybe permanent representation for a smaller countries, reimagining the whole thing. Because it was an American creation after the war. It was created by the victors, the Second World War. And it was because America believed, reluctantly, often, but in a liberal, universal model.

• 19:15Alastair Campbell?

  And in global leadership.

• 19:16Rory Stewart?

  Believed in universal human rights, talked about international law. And we've now entered a world where Trump is so open about the fact that he rejects all of that. No interest in international human rights, no interest in international law, America first all the way. At that point, Britain and France trying to say, well, we can sit with the US and pursue that stuff, doesn't work anymore. The West has gone.

• 19:38Alastair Campbell?

  I did an event at the Kenwood in Pamstert. They have this How the Light Gets In Festival, and I did an event with Curtis Yavin.

• 19:48Rory Stewart?

  Oh, my goodness. We need to talk about that.

• 19:49Alastair Campbell?

  It was projected as the philosopher behind J D Vance. My sense of it is actually he's he's not as significant as the P R shtick. I think so. His ideas do not stand up to much scrutiny at all. However, what is clear is that I think we still kid ourselves that the United States is still intellectually and politically the same sort of country that it was, but just with a very different, very unique sort of leader. But I think this change goes very, very deep. And I don't know whether he was shocked or not. And I did exactly the same with Mike Pompeo. You know, I've I've got a new question to ask all audiences now, which is, which is the greatest threat to global stability, USA or China? This audience, it was an international audience, mainly in the sports industry, and it was

• 20:33Alastair Campbell?

  overwhelmingly, the USA is a greater threat to global stability. And I said to Pompeo, does that shock you? And he said, they all watch the BBC and CNN. That was his kind of pushback. And with with Yavin, it was exactly the same. In fact, it was even bigger majority said that America is now the bigger threat to global stability. And his response was basically to say, well, you people don't, you don't understand the world.

• 20:55Rory Stewart?

  What struck me with the Pompeo interview, and I again would encourage people to listen to it, even if you dislike Pompeo, so leading.

• 21:01Alastair Campbell?

  Did you dislike him?

• 21:02Rory Stewart?

  Leading or not, yeah, I got very wound up actually in the end. Because I thought he was basically saying, essentially, Europe doesn't matter.

• 21:11Rory Stewart?

  You're not paying your way. We slightly despise you. And by the way, you're always going to come along with us and do what we say. And it doesn't matter what we do with to you. You're always going to be our allies. You're always going to support us. You can rely on us.

• 21:21Alastair Campbell?

  He didn't exactly say that. I'll tell you why I quite, I didn't, I can't say I want to, you know, spent that much time hanging out with him. But I'll tell you what I quite liked about him. Is that because before we did the interview, I had this hour with him in front of another audience. And I quite liked the fact that he did not mind really being taken on and being challenged. And at the end of it, even though we had some pretty feisty discussions, he was sort of, you know, thoughtful and quite charming and what have you. And I also sensed with him, this is the power of Trump. I sensed with him that he, he wasn't being completely who he is. Because everybody in the right wing of the American politics at the moment has to shape themselves according to what they think is going to follow Trump, because he wants to

• 22:03Alastair Campbell?

  follow Trump. So it's sort of distorting, I think, a lot of people's character and personality. But the contempt for Europe is pretty strong.

• 22:10Rory Stewart?

  It's extraordinary. I mean, every time now I go to the United States, go to a big American conference, the story is always the same. US top, China's the threat. And by the way, I forgot to say Europe doesn't matter.

• 22:21Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, and the other thing about this guy, Yavin, honestly, he was, he was doing the whole thing about, you know, I, I slightly take, I decided not to take his ideas too seriously and take the piss a bit. And I said, you must be, you must be scared walking around London. Because I mean, all you MAGA people talking, this is, this is the crime capital of the world, and it's absolutely terrible. And, and he actually said, so you feel safe in London, do you? I said, well, I do. Yeah, I've lived here a long time. And you feel safe in every part of London? Well, yeah, I do. And I said, I was really pleased. I hope Sadiq Khan's listening. When I defended Sadiq Khan and said, we have a really good mayor in this city, loud round of applause. And he looked really shocked because they believe all this shit that they pump out about Britain.

• 23:03Rory Stewart?

  It's extraordinary.

• 23:04Alastair Campbell?

  He, he, he did the whole Yuki thing. If you know this Yuki thing. You know, we don't call this the UK now, we're Yuki, as in yuck.

• 23:10Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 23:10Alastair Campbell?

  Anyway, on the recognition issue itself, a lot of sort of commentary, oh, well, it won't make any difference. Okay. Nothing's going to change overnight, which is true. But I think where I see it as a, as a, the right thing to do is I think it underlines this central point. Israel is never going to be secure unless Palestinians have freedom. And Palestinians are never going to have freedom unless Israel is secure. If we have this forever war. Aimed with it with a which is what a one state solution will deliver. In my view, if the Israelis just think, you know, we go on until we've got the whole lot. I don't see how you don't have a some sort of forever war, then we've got to hang on to those two things. So even though it's not necessarily going to change things overnight, if and when this war does end.

• 23:55Alastair Campbell?

  The recognition issue by some of the bigger powers, I think, really matters.

• 23:58Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's extraordinary, though, how explicit now Israel's become in its complete rejection of a two state solution. Netanyahu's now stated there will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. Right. Which is essentially there will be no Palestinian state all the way through to the sea.

• 24:15Alastair Campbell?

  Well, you talked a few weeks ago about this E one, this area within the West Bank, which they're basically taking over through the expansion of settlements. Which is which essentially is going to sort of separate the land that the Palestinians do have. We talked about this, the the last time we talked about is the issue, the the things that you need to be called a state. You need a permanent population, you need defined territorial boundaries. And you need a government and you need an ability to conduct international affairs. Now, they've got the ability to conduct international affairs. I thought I have to say, Husam Zomlet, the Palestinian ambassador here, who we interviewed on on leading a few months ago. I thought his speech yesterday was really, really powerful when he was raising the flag outside the what will now be a Palestinian embassy.

• 24:57Alastair Campbell?

  They sort of have a permanent population being moved about left, right and centre. And what Israel seems to be doing is making sure they don't have defined territorial boundaries. They're just creating these kind of grey spaces. And as to what the government is, you know, Labour rightly, in my view, Labour government here. Keir Starmer, when he made the announcement about the UK recognising Palestine, saying Hamas can have no party in its government. But ultimately, that's got to be down to to elections at some point. So I think it is symbolic, but I also think it will become significant if and when this war ends. And we start to have proper discussions about how it gets resolved.

• 25:33Rory Stewart?

  I think this is a really interesting, because your point about statehood and what it takes to recognise. Just to make it deeper, Ramallah, which is the capital city of the Palestinian Authority. Is being choked at the moment in terms of funds. Israel, in ways that we haven't reported on the podcast, has now said that Israeli banks can't correspond with Palestinian banks. Palestinian migrant workers can't cross into Israel, so they can't bring any income in. The customs revenue, which Israel used to share with the Palestinian Authority, has been cut. So there's no revenue coming in. And of course, most of the international donors who used to provide support to the Palestinian Authority, when I was at David, of course, we were giving an enormous amount of support.

• 26:17Rory Stewart?

  We supported mostly the Education Ministry. Those donor funds have been cut as well. So huge economic problems. And Israeli lawyers, of course, are using this to argue that you cannot, in international law, recognise a state that's under occupation. So it's a sort of kind of slightly cruel paradox that they're saying, because it's giving them, in a sense, an incentive to continue to weaken the state and occupy it on the grounds that you can't, under law, recognise the state that's being occupied.

• 26:46Alastair Campbell?

  Which is exactly what they're doing. On the point about the UN, so Palestine has the observer status at the United Nations. And again, because of America's position, it won't move beyond that, just because these other countries have said that they recognise it. But I think it does change, I think it changes the relations with Israel, both for good and for bad. The Israelis absolutely furious with the Brits. You had David Mensah, this guy who's the Brit who now is-

• 27:10Rory Stewart?

  Who we know.

• 27:10Alastair Campbell?

  Who we know, who now is a spokesman for Netanyahu. He was on the media yesterday saying that the Jewish community will never forgive the Labour Government for recognising the state of Palestine. This is a reward to Hamas, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so, you know, and likewise with the French, likewise with the Portuguese, with the Australians, with the Canadians, very, very angry. And that, but that does mean a resetting, a recalibration of relations. And I think the Israelis underestimate the extent to which, I don't know if you've noticed how often this phrase "pariah state" keeps being sort of banded around by commentators, by people who are there, what have you. And it sort of feels that is where they're heading. Now, do they care?

• 27:51Alastair Campbell?

  Is it just, is it just that because they have this seeming blank cheque from Donald Trump, that they don't really care what the rest of the world thinks, but that will, that will have consequences long term as well?

• 28:00Rory Stewart?

  And I wonder with Netanyahu, as with Putin, whether occasionally they're not just doing very provocative, risky things because it reinforces their strong man image. So I, I was sitting there thinking, why would Netanyahu attack Qatar in that way? There was nothing really to gain. If it was a completely failed operation, he didn't even kill the Hamas negotiators. And even if he had, what advantage does he get, given the massive disadvantage, which is international condemnation? UAE Dubai, which had been getting close to Israel, then pushed away, massive Gulf solidarity. And then I thought, well, isn't that a bit the same as Putin? And what does Putin have to gain from striking Kiev

• 28:42Rory Stewart?

  just as he's about to meet Donald Trump? Why are these people taking these risks with Trump? You would have thought in both cases, they might as well just sit back. And the answer must be not just that they've got a blank cheque, not just that they sense they can do whatever they want and Trump will never go against them. It actually must instinctively feel to them they benefit from challenging Trump, from provoking the world, from pushing the boundary. And even if it doesn't make any strategic sense, and this is the standoff between Netanyahu and the Israeli military. The Israeli military is reported to be very angry about the Qatar attack and have thought it completely senseless. The chief of the army staff was against the current operations in Gaza. They say they've achieved their military objectives.

• 29:23Rory Stewart?

  Going into Gaza is just going to increase international opposition. It's not going to achieve anything strategic. But Netanyahu keeps doing this stuff. Well, what is it? I mean, is it coalition management? Is it strong man status? Is it polling? I mean, why would you keep poking people without much strategic gain?

• 29:43Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I, I, it depends where you think Netanyahu is coming from, but I, I, I wouldn't rule out.

• 29:51Alastair Campbell?

  The fear that he has that if eventually he gets forced into elections, that he loses those elections, then justice, domestic justice, don't forget he's under all sorts of investigation for corruption and other things, and international justice, he's been indicted for war crimes, takes its course. So he has to stay in power. How does he stay in power? He stays in power by holding this coalition, which is part propped up by these absolute out and out extremists, Ben Gavir and Smotrich, who basically think that they have got the idea of the Palestinian state on the run, that they do have impunity, and while they've got that, they use it. So I don't think it's much more complicated than that. And of course, the consequences of the people who are there, both Israeli and

• 30:35Alastair Campbell?

  Palestinian, by the way, is absolutely horrific.

• 30:38Rory Stewart?

  And it's creating a dissonance. I'm observing now with many Israelis who are who were very, very supportive of the operations in Gaza, who are very focused on the hostages, very much committed to attacking Hamas, but are beginning to sound a bit uncertain when they're asked to defend what's being done in Qatar, or the bombardments against Syria. You can sense around the edges, not just from the Israeli military, that instinctively they want to defend Netanyahu, they want to say that he's doing the right thing. But the theories they're producing for why he's doing some of these more extreme things are getting less and less convincing.

• 31:17Alastair Campbell?

  Let's end this discussion on a sliver of hope, and that is art. You know, I told you last week I spent some time in the World Food Programme, and there's a Gazan artist called Ahmed Muhana, and he has an exhibition. He can't leave Gaza, he's in Gaza. He ran out of canvases, so he's been using used World Food Programme boxes on which to paint. And the World Food Programme has brought 60 of them out, and they're now on tour in Europe. I think they're in Malmo at the moment, but they're doing a tour of major European cities. And it's just, so basically just capturing daily life in Gaza. But if people check out World Food Programme Instagram page, they'll see these beautiful paintings on their boxes.

• 32:02Rory Stewart?

  Great. Let's take a break. And then back from the break to talk about UK politics.

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• 32:53Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by Google. We won't fully realize the potential gains of AI unless we make it accessible and useful for everybody across the whole UK workforce. That's why Google, for example, are working closely with trade unions.

• 33:08Alastair Campbell?

  AI and trade unions may not sound like the most natural of partners, but the union movement has got a proud history of supporting members from across the economy and preparing them for the ever-changing world of work.

• 33:20Rory Stewart?

  That's why Google partnered, for example, with the community union in the UK on a People's First Skills Pilot called AI Works. And it's designed to see how AI could help workers and ultimately create productivity benefits across the whole wider economy.

• 33:35Alastair Campbell?

  Just a few hours of training could save members almost a month a year on routine tasks, time-free for the work where their expertise really counts.

• 33:42Rory Stewart?

  One community member, for example, working in a supported living home, said Gemini helped streamline paperwork so she could spend more time with residents.

• 33:50Alastair Campbell?

  That's a very powerful story, and it shows the positive impact AI can have on people's lives, making a real difference in the day-to-day.

• 33:57Rory Stewart?

  Find out how Google's AI is helping fuel the UK's growth and transformation at goo.gle/aiworks.

• 34:11Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to The Rest is Politics with me Rory Stewart.

• 34:14Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Asda Campbell.

• 34:15Rory Stewart?

  It's the Lib Dem conference this week. Now, who would have thought the Lib Dem conference was interesting? There's a tradition sadly in British politics, which I am very guilty of, and I would like to try to apologize, which is that it's traditional within the major parties to be a bit mean about the Lib Dems. In fact, I noticed when we interviewed Nicola Sturgeon on leading, she couldn't resist having a bit of a go at the Lib Dems as well. And it would be interesting at some point to get into what it is psychologically that makes everybody slightly groan when they hear the Lib Dems. Nevertheless, Ed Davey is trying to emerge as rather an interesting voice, standing up for values that you and I believe in, standing up for the centre ground, standing up against Trump, standing

• 34:55Rory Stewart?

  up against Farage, and becoming one of the last champions for the kind of values that most of us took for granted in the 1990s.

• 35:04Alastair Campbell?

  The answer to your question, why has it always felt a bit like the Lib Dems don't really matter that much? I think it's because we've, all of us, grown up in a world where we only ever expect the Conservatives or Labour to be the government. And that's why they've always been known as the third party. At the moment, we still have a first past the post system, which is kind of designed for this idea that it's either going to be Labour or Tory, but we now have a multi-party politics. And I think Ed Davey and the Lib Dems, they did pretty well at the last election, they got 72 seats, but they're still struggling. They're still struggling to be heard. Ed Davey this week had a real old pop at the

• 35:44Alastair Campbell?

  BBC about the way that they frankly, just anything that Nigel Farage says or does is deemed to be whoosh breaking news, whereas the Lib Dems only get covered if he goes on a bungee jump.

• 35:55Rory Stewart?

  Well, let me agree with you and sympathize with the Lib Dems. I was yesterday reading the Daily Telegraph, a newspaper I imagine you never read, but one of the, there was a really interesting example of exactly what he's complaining about there. Two stories right next to each other. Ed Davey saying Elon Musk should be arrested in the United Kingdom for his offensive hate speech, right? Which presumably the Lib Dems would have thought would be quite a big story. And next to it, a bigger story with a photograph saying, inside the Reform Headquarters, they now refer to Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservatives, as Santa Claus with a picture of her generated by A I as a snoozing Santa Claus because she always gives the Reform Party

• 36:40Rory Stewart?

  a present at Christmas time. Now, what is this story? How do you get that story in The Telegraph?

• 36:46Alastair Campbell?

  It isn't a story.

• 36:47Rory Stewart?

  And, and, and they didn't, and there was nobody to quote. It was sources inside the Reform Headquarters. There wasn't even any individual quotes.

• 36:52Alastair Campbell?

  But it's not even that interesting. I don't get it.

• 36:55Rory Stewart?

  Right. So, so I, I can see where the Lib Dems are coming from, which is that my, my assumption, right, is that some desperate Reform P R person working with The Telegraph, who want to promote Reform, have said, oh, if you're looking for a story, how about this? Why don't we say that we call Kemi Badenoch Santa Claus because she gives us a present for Christmas?

• 37:15Alastair Campbell?

  But isn't yesterday the day that the Daily Telegraph led on Nigel Farage?

• 37:19Rory Stewart?

  That was the front page.

• 37:19Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 37:20Rory Stewart?

  And, and this was really dramatic, was this story that Farage and Zia Yousaf, and there was a, there was an op ed by Zia Yousaf in The Telegraph as well, were going to deport and revoke people in the United Kingdom with indefinite leave to remain. So, as with many Farage's policies, the details of it are still not very clear, but the core phrase is he's going to force all migrants with permanent residency to reapply, meaning that hundreds of thousands of people with legal permanent status in the United Kingdom would risk being thrown out of the United Kingdom and having their permanent status revoked. These are people, I, I have friends, I, I'm thinking in particular of a, a couple

• 38:03Rory Stewart?

  that I know quite well, who've been in the United Kingdom now for 25 years, who chose not to apply for a passport because they've got indefinite leave to remain. Their children have got passports, their lives are in Britain, they live in Britain, and they are now facing the possibility of deportation, ditto people who've got visas and established themselves. And those people that all of us encounter all the time within the N H S, within the care system, are now at risk of deportation. These people, legal rights in the United Kingdom. This is not Reform going after people on boats or asylum seekers. These are people who might have been in this country for a very, very long time.

• 38:41Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, I'm, I'm pleased to see. I'll come back to Ed Davey and the BBC because I really do think he's got a point and I'll come on to that. But I'm pleased to see that at least some of our newspapers today have actually taken apart Farage's stuff with a little more rigor than they have historically. The Daily Mirror, for example, is pointing out that if this policy were pursued, it would lead to the collapse of the National Health Service. Now, as you know, I was in hospital yesterday and I had this sort of, you know, operation and I had a general aesthetic and the the main doctor was Spanish, the anaesthetist was from the Middle East, then I had during the course of the day, of course, I'm a bit mad. Once I'd come round, I sort of asked them

• 39:23Alastair Campbell?

  all where they were from. I had probably about eight different nursing people through the day. One was British, seven were from seven different foreign countries. Now, these are people that we need in this country to keep the health service going. We need people in the care system to help people go. So what yesterday was about was Nigel Farage, who's on a bit of a roll, and he thinks he's on a bit of a roll because of immigration. He thinks, right, I'll continue the role by going even further. And that way, I get on the front page of The Telegraph, and inevitably, because it's on the front page of The Telegraph, the BBC, ITV, Sky, they, oh, it must be news. And I just think it's where Ed Davey absolutely has a point. When Nigel Farage had his two-day conference, okay, a guy with four MPs at the

• 40:08Alastair Campbell?

  time, now it's five because Danny Kruger, the Christian nationalist, has come over. He got wall-to-wall coverage, day and night. The Lib Dems, the complaint they make, so you say about The Telegraph, Laura Koonsberg, BBC's main Sunday programme interviewer, she had a piece trailing her interview with Ed Davey. She had this piece on the website and the headline was something like, is it time for Ed Davey to get serious? Enough of the stunts, enough of the bungee jumping, et cetera. So it's only my view. Slightly your view, but actually, if you read, now, because we knew that Ed Davey's speech was today, and this will be recording before the speech but going out afterwards, I sort of badgered them to send me his speech. And I sent it to you last night. And I actually

• 40:53Alastair Campbell?

  Think, I mean, there's a bit of conference knockabout about bungie tummy. I think it's a serious speech. I think he's got some very serious lines in it, not least on Europe, as you say. I think he's got a very interesting and clever strategic line about ten fifteen times. He says that is Trump's America. Do not let it become Farage's Britain. He really is pinning Farage and Trump. It's quite a big thing to do. So I actually, I actually think Ed Davey's got a point.

• 41:20Rory Stewart?

  So I thank you for sending me the speech and I read it and the structure of the speech, if people listen, is he begins saying we've done unbelievably well in the parliamentary elections, we've done very well in the local elections. There's a lot of emphasis on local campaigning. One of the strategic decisions the Lib Dems made in the last election was to go hyper local campaign on clean water and constituencies, maternity wards and constituencies, things that really mattered to this particular group as opposed to the big national international issues. And then he shifts, he goes after the Tories, congratulates the Lib Dems on getting rid of the Tories. Then he goes after Labour and says

• 42:00Alastair Campbell?

  Quite hard.

• 42:00Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, says that Labour's basically Sunak's party.

• 42:03Alastair Campbell?

  Continuity sooner. I didn't quite think that line worked, but like his general attack was harder than he normally is attacked later.

• 42:09Rory Stewart?

  And the story basically is there, there are austerity lights, no difference between them and the Tories. And actually, it's interesting just on this one, Robert Colville, writing an article again, I think in The Telegraph, trying to say to Conservative voters, get behind Rachel Reeves, she's our last hope for fiscal responsibility in Britain. And this is now an argument coming from someone from the sort of centre right. If you let Farage get in, or you let the Greens get in, or you let Corbyn get in, or perhaps by implication, the Lib Dems, you're back into a world of money trees and borrowing and taxing and spending and goodness knows what. And Rachel Reeves is the last champion of fiscal discipline and control.

• 42:48Alastair Campbell?

  I thought that was what was in the interview with Murrow, it told you on leading and you, he basically said he was, he was a Labour supporter, he supported New Labour, wanted Keir Starmer to win. And you said, yeah, what do you think of the government so far? And he wasn't exactly saying it's been the best government of my lifetime, but he was making the point, I think, that And he, do you remember he said he'd, he'd listened somewhere and somebody had said, and he couldn't remember where it was, that everybody from centre left to centre right should want this government to succeed. It was Jeremy Hunt.

• 43:19Rory Stewart?

  Right, right.

• 43:20Alastair Campbell?

  On our podcast.

• 43:21Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 43:21Alastair Campbell?

  Um, and, and because, and the point Mara was making is if this Labour government doesn't succeed, then the alternative isn't going to be kind of, you know, a moderate Tory party, it's going to be something much more extreme.

• 43:31Rory Stewart?

  Well, so then the question, I guess, for the Lib Dems is, will they be able to build a real movement around this sort of passionate appeal against Farage, against, as you say, this sort of vision of Trump's Britain? It would be interesting to know what their polling people say, how it works, the strategy. I mean, you know, you and I agree completely with the philosophical things. But presumably there will be people within the party saying, okay, that's all very well, but that's quite highfalutin. In the end, what voters are going to vote on and how we're going to increase our vote share in the next election is by focusing on individual seats. Real bread and butter issues, cost of living, and we don't really need to get drawn into international human rights.

• 44:15Alastair Campbell?

  My sense of what he's trying to do with this very clear, and I, I literally lost count of how many times it says, you know, that is Trump's America, don't let it become Farage's Britain. That is very clearly the line that he wants us to take out of this speech. And that does take you to the bread and butter issues. It does take you to what sort of economy you want, whether he believes in the health service, whether he actually will, will build it up. And so I, I thought it was a pretty clever speech. I think his, the thing about the attack on Labour. Um, because of course, if you think back to the last election, one of the reasons that, that the Tories got wiped out is because the Labour, Labour and the Lib Dems, they had a kind of informal deal going on.

• 44:55Alastair Campbell?

  You know, where the Lib Dems could beat the Tories, Labour let them, they didn't fight. Where Labour were way ahead, they didn't fight. It's now been complicated because we have kind of five parties, maybe even six, if Corbyn and Sultana sort themselves out, who are fighting for, for, for votes in, in every area. So I think it'd be interesting how, I still think come the election. It may be if this, what the BBC love to call the rise and rise of reform, if that continues, it may be that some kind of informal lib lab campaigning coalition as opposed to a sort of formal coalition. And it was interesting how he really didn't want to answer the question about whether he was ever going to coalition with Keir Starmer.

• 45:37Rory Stewart?

  Couple of brief things that come out of that. One is that I think you and I should be leaning more into constitutional reform. What you keep describing, which is a world that's gone from a two party system to a five, six party system, is not remotely reflected in the way that our country works. And I'd like to see us get behind a constitutional convention and start thinking about all the things we talk about. Australian style compulsory voting, New Zealand style balances of first past the post and proportional, et cetera. Second thing, this is very unfair to you, but I'm going to do it to you anyway, because I think it represents something interesting. Of course, when we were covering the election, we knew exactly how many seats of the 122 seats the Conservatives took, Reform came second in. Without being unfair, just get a sense of it.

• 46:22Rory Stewart?

  What would be your guess of how many seats Reform came second to the Conservatives of out of the 122?

• 46:27Alastair Campbell?

  Do you know the answer?

• 46:28Rory Stewart?

  I do, yeah. That's why I'm being unfair. But I had to check yesterday and I got it wrong myself.

• 46:33Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, I know for Labour and the Lib Dems, for Labour it's high.

• 46:36Rory Stewart?

  Okay. What do you think it is for the Tories?

• 46:39Alastair Campbell?

  I'm going, I'm going third.

• 46:43Rory Stewart?

  It's actually only nine seats. So I got it wrong too, unlike you and everybody I know who studies politics.

• 46:48Alastair Campbell?

  Do you know what? I thought it was going to be low, but then I thought it was a trick question. So I'm thinking it is obviously not low. Bugger.

• 46:52Rory Stewart?

  No, no, but everybody I know who's been focusing on politics, and actually Ian Dale wrote quite

• 46:56Alastair Campbell?

  So what does that tell you?

• 46:57Rory Stewart?

  Wrote a good article. Well, what's really interesting is that the Tories are obsessed with Reform, but out of 122 seats, only nine of them as Reform second. In 108 seats, Labour or Lib Dem are second to the Tories. And in 64 of the 72 Lib Dem seats, the Tories are second. So really, what the Lib Dems are occupying is the sort of centre right Tory voter, sort of people like me, right? They're pulling over. That's maybe why I'm being so chippy about the Lib Dems resisting it.

• 47:26Alastair Campbell?

  Ed Davey says that in terms, he actually says that in terms that, you know, the Tories are where we've targeted our fire and that's what's worked.

• 47:33Rory Stewart?

  But it's also what's mad. So, you know, I was, we were talking about Danny Kruger last week and I was looking again at some of the WhatsApp messages that he sent me when he.

• 47:41Alastair Campbell?

  When he fired you.

• 47:42Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, exactly. When he fired me. And of course, what he was saying at the time was, oh Rory, it's such a pity we've lost you from the Conservative Party. We've got to keep the Conservative Party together. And the irony is that the right of the Conservative Party that drove out me, David Gork, Ken Clark, Nicholas Soames, and then earlier lost Sam Jima, Philip Lee to the Lib Dems. At those days were saying, you know, we've got to keep the Conservative Party together and it's such a pity that we've lost the left of the party. Those people are now leaving. Adam Holloway, Danny Kruger, Maria Caulfield, Nadine Doris are now gone after reform. So the Tories are in this extraordinary position where they shed the centre left.

• 48:23Rory Stewart?

  By kicking us out, saying how sad it is. And the very same people that kicked us out are now high turning it off to reform. What does that leave the Tories with?

• 48:30Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that's also why I think that Labour has not been making the right strategic choice in, in sort of focusing so much of its messaging kind of around what I would call reform light. I think there's a, I think we underestimate how much desire there is for a bit of hope, a bit of optimism, a bit of kind of passion, a bit of a real sense of change. And. I'll tell you the thing, you talked there about the constitutional stuff. I was talking to a minister the other day who's got, you know, a particular really difficult problem to address. Policy wise. And I know we're already more than a year into the parliament, but I actually think, and it, you know, I've got no doubt Keir Starmer's speech is probably pretty much.

• 49:09Alastair Campbell?

  Written by now. And maybe it's too late to do this, but I actually think taking three or four seemingly intractable policy issues.

• 49:19Alastair Campbell?

  And immigration might be one of them. And saying, okay, this is proving more difficult than we imagined. This is really difficult. We can only make the changes that we need to make if we actually bring the public with us. Therefore, we are going to do citizens assemblies. That would feed your desire for some sort of constitutional change. It would, it would, it would be honest with the public that we've got some really difficult choices to make. Right now, this is why I felt Trump's autism thing was such a ridiculous thing to do. At a time when people are trusting politicians and believing politicians less. And therefore aren't necessarily buying into the tough choices we have to make. You've got to bring the public in with you.

• 49:59Rory Stewart?

  And for things like immigration, things like NHS reform, adult social care, which is this complete catastrophe. People in Cumbria have seen fifteen minutes a day by carers. Never really worked out how to fund that. Citizens Assembly, cross-party commissions, constitutional reform. I mean, I'm still a little bit, and this is me being narcissistic, but I'm still a little bitter that I was never able to work with Labour on this stuff. I was desperate before the election to say, can I help support a commission on AI, a commission on the NHS? And I, I do think there's a real opportunity to, to reach out across party and create broader swathes of support for Labour.

• 50:44Rory Stewart?

  I'm, I'm sort of surprised that they're still thinking so tribally.

• 50:48Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. I think part, maybe partly because of the way that the Tories have conducted themselves since the election. I mean, I thought, one of, I thought one of Ed, Ed, David's strong sections in the speech where he basically talked about how the Conservatives have operated since the election. No apology, no sense of any, anything we did was wrong. And you saw that today, I heard, I was on the Today Programme this morning, talking about podcast crowds and theatres, Rory, as you do.

• 51:13Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 51:13Alastair Campbell?

  And before that, Kevin Hollandrake, the Tory Party Chairman, talking about immigration and all this stuff. And it, it was sort of embarrassing because he was, every single question virtually, Nick Robinson was able to come back and say, but that was your policy. But that was on your watch. But, and until I think they, they have some sort of strategic break and acceptance that part of the mess we're in is because of what they, what they left. I don't think they're gonna get heard. So I think that may be one reason. But I I agree with you. So for example, I would say on something like, you know, welfare reform, which clearly was, you know, a big part of what Labour's trying to do, got defeated by their own MPs. That's going to make it difficult to sort of, you know, do the next stages of welfare

• 51:54Alastair Campbell?

  reform, which has to happen. Maybe there is a case for for Pat McFadden sitting down with Ian Duncan Smith. And that will give some Labour people the heebie jeebies. But but Ian Duncan Smith at least did reform that kind of people understood. And whether you agree with it or didn't, he he knows the area really inside out. So I agree with you. I I think that what our politics needs is greater sense of we're facing really big challenges. It's so difficult to be in government right now. Okay, part of the job of the opposition is to make it even more difficult. But actually, I think the Tories and other parties would do themselves a lot of good if they actually said, maybe we can help here.

• 52:34Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, and they should be able to help. And the advantage isn't just that you could get the legislation through. But if you make it genuinely cross party on something like adult social care or welfare reform, you can begin to get long term stuff. I mean, remember, we're talking about a 10 year housing policy. How do you get a 10 year housing policy? Only if you get the other parties to sign up. Otherwise, nobody believes in a 10 year investment horizon. So it'd be brilliant for investment if we had a sense that there was a cross party agreement on these things.

• 53:06Alastair Campbell?

  So let's wrap it up there. And then question time tomorrow. What we're going to talk about tomorrow, we're going to talk about.

• 53:11Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think we need to to look at some very, very interesting things happening in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk. We also have the Moldovan elections coming, which sounds a bit niche, but actually is really critical to European security and Russia.

• 53:23Alastair Campbell?

  I think we should also take a look at China and espionage because of this case that's been dropped, which Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the Commons, is very unhappy about. So look at that. And here's one for Roy. Let's try and let's try and pick our favourite ever advert on TV. It's the 70th anniversary of TV advertising.

• 53:43Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 53:43Alastair Campbell?

  See you tomorrow.

• 53:44Rory Stewart?

  See you tomorrow.

• 53:49Speaker 05

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

• 54:04Speaker 06

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 54:21Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 54:25Speaker 06

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 54:28Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 54:30Speaker 06

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

• 54:35Speaker 07

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• 54:43Speaker 08

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