5. Tribal politics, anonymous sources, and Malcolm Tucker

Do the Royal family and the Commonwealth still have a place in the modern world? Alastair and Rory discuss Rwanda and countries recovering from war, whether Joe Biden is an effective communicator, how the relationship between the media and politicians really works, and why certain people find it hard to criticise their own party. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Goalhanger Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

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

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

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

• 1:13Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to episode five, no less, of The Rest Is Politics. I'm Alastair Campbell.

• 1:18Rory Stewart?

  And I'm Rory Stewart.

• 1:20Alastair Campbell?

  And Rory, last week, you were in Baghdad. And today, you are where?

• 1:26Rory Stewart?

  I'm in southern Rwanda. I've just flown in from Qatar. And I'm in a place called Huya in southern Rwanda, about three hours' drive from the capital.

• 1:34Alastair Campbell?

  Lovely. I'm actually sitting in a hotel room overlooking the Matterhorn because I'm in Switzerland for a wedding. In fact, if you could see me, Rory, I'm sitting wearing a kilt because I'm going to be playing the bagpipes at the wedding. But we don't need to talk about my bagpipes yet. We can do that later. I want to talk today about Joe Biden and his communications. And I want to talk about Zelensky and his communications. And we've also had loads and loads and loads and loads of questions. And quite a few, I have to say, on your former colleague and desk sharer, Rishi Sunak, who I might venture has not had the best week comms-wise.

• 2:13Rory Stewart?

  Well, let's get going then, Alistair. And apologies to you and to anyone listening if the Rwandan connections are a bit strange. But I thought maybe a question would be a good place to start this week. So we got one from Shaun, and it says... Following the recent disastrous royal tour, what is the purpose of the royal family and the Commonwealth? Do they enhance our image in the world? Over to you.

• 2:40Alastair Campbell?

  Was it really that disastrous? I mean, I think it was one of those, this is Wills and Kate going around the Caribbean. And there seemed to me to have been one or two moments that were a bit tricky for them. There were a couple of images that I think they could well have done without, particularly the one where they were poking their fingers through a fence at some children. But I think it's one of those things where there is such a sort of media love in with the Queen, against whom nothing can these days be said. So they just like to have a little bit more going on when it's the, what you might call the lesser royals. And I think that, I also think that the thing I've learnt as a kind of lifelong Republican,

• 3:21Alastair Campbell?

  who has nonetheless had some connections and actually worked at different times with the royal family. They're very, very, very good at adapting. And I wondered whether when Prince William talked about, will he ever actually get to be the head of the Commonwealth? Will that change? I wondered if they were setting up questions that they will answer by adapting. Because the thing they do, without people really noticing, they do adapt as they go along. So despite still being at heart a Republican, I'm not sure the monarchy's on its way out yet.

• 3:53Rory Stewart?

  Well, it is, I mean, it's, it's, it is an amazing setup, isn't it? And I wonder also whether there aren't very specific issues around the Caribbean, which make it particularly testing.

• 4:03Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 4:04Rory Stewart?

  I noticed, for example, in the Middle East, there seems to be a much warmer reaction towards the royal family. And it may be that we need to separate off the question of what's happening in the many places. Obviously, most of the world, Britain has a pretty complicated history. But separate off some of those questions, the Commonwealth questions, from the broader question of the way the royal family's perceived overseas. And I think this point about changing is amazing too. I mean, I, It's almost unimaginable what, you know, a king or a queen 200 years ago would have thought about what the job of a king and queen is now. In fact, what do you think their job is now? If you were going to give them a job description, what do you think it is?

• 4:48Alastair Campbell?

  I think their job is to be head of state, to show a certain form of cultural, non-political leadership. And I think the Queen definitely sees part of her job as being the head of the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth means a lot to her. And interestingly, I wrote a chapter about the Queen. I wrote a book called Winners a few years ago, and I found myself writing a chapter about the Queen as a kind of enduring winner. And because I got to know a lot of the royal sort of courtiers during the, particularly during, after Diana died, I had sort of quite good access to their thinking. And I remember talking to one of them, he said, you have, the thing you have to understand about the

• 5:32Alastair Campbell?

  Queen, and Prince Charles, he said, is that they completely understand that they did absolutely nothing to deserve the position that they're in. And how she sees her job is that she just is. She is the Queen. And once you understand that, and then he also explained that's how she adapts. So for example, he said, there they are, the internet comes along, so the Queen has a Facebook page. But when you look at the pictures of the Queen on the Facebook page, she's riding a horse in a headscarf, or she's greeting some children who are giving her flowers, or she's doing a visit to a hospital or something. She is being the Queen. And I think that's her job. So in a way, and I interviewed William for

• 6:15Alastair Campbell?

  GQ magazine about mental health, and we ended up talking about how he saw his role. And he said this extraordinarily, I said to him, listen, there's only four people on the planet who might end up doing your job, you know, all things being considered, the Queen, Prince Charles, you, and now your elder son, George. I said, do the three of you, the adults, do you ever sit down and talk about it? He said, no, we never had those conversations. Have to work it out for yourself according to the time that you're living in. Weird, isn't it?

• 6:44Rory Stewart?

  Very weird. And I think one of the contracts that seems to be between the British public and the royal family is increasingly that the royal family's not really allowed to say anything or have any views on anything, seems to be part of the contract. And I wonder how that's going to work. What was your sense with Prince William and mental health in particular? Did you feel he could take? Provocative decisions, radical positions, or he just had to be pretty safe?

• 7:08Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think on mental health, he and Harry and Kate have actually done some pretty good stuff, and I think they've pushed the boundaries a little bit. I think, look, I think Charles used, did it, a lot, on the environment, on architecture, on those sorts of things. I think we're so used to the Queen being absolutely kind of on the line, doesn't put a foot wrong, doesn't say anything too provocative. But I think Charles has sort of set a different tone, and I think William has set a different tone as well. So, no, I think on mental health, they have, you know, look, they can't be, they can't sort of say the government is absolutely useless on mental health, even though most of the people who work in mental health, I think, would say that. They can't say that, but he can and does say that we have to have a different attitude to mental health, we have to take a different approach to mental health services. I mean, I've heard him say

• 7:53Alastair Campbell?

  that. But you're right, they can't be controversial. But I actually thought that him saying, maybe I won't be head of the Commonwealth, in a funny sort of way, that was quite controversial, but in a very defensive kind of way.

• 8:06Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. So I'm actually in a Commonwealth country at the moment. So Rwanda, which was, is very unusual. It's not, many of the Commonwealth countries, obviously, were originally part of the British Empire, and Rwanda was not.

• 8:18Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 8:18Rory Stewart?

  It chose to join the Commonwealth, and it's hosting the big Commonwealth meeting, the Chogom meeting this year. So when you arrive at the airport, there's big Commonwealth signs all over the airport. And I think for President Kagame, who's been the president and has been in charge of the country since the real horrors, the genocide in the, in the mid 1990s, where people remember, you know, a million people, literally a million people were killed in villages and in towns. And it's a very strange feeling, people killed with machetes just outside this, this room that I'm talking to you from. But it's interesting that amongst the many things he's done to try to rebuild the country, find out what

• 9:01Rory Stewart?

  its future's going to be, it's a landlocked country, very, very poor country. And he's done things like trying to really go hard on tourism, so trying to make as much as possible of the fact they have some of the few mountain gorillas in the world, but also trying to get into technology. I just saw a drone flying over that's taking refrigerated stuff to hospitals. But amongst all that is joining the Commonwealth. So clearly at some level, for a smaller country like Rwanda, maybe it's because of the size, it brings them into an interesting series of new relationships. So there may be a future of the Commonwealth and people are talking about Ukraine too.

• 9:38Alastair Campbell?

  That's, no, and also I think that a country that has been through the horrors that Rwanda has, and by the way, there's some dispute over the million figure, isn't it? Isn't it sort of reckoned to be a little bit south of that? I know that's the official government figure.

• 9:55Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, maybe it's eight, maybe it's eight hundred thousand.

• 9:57Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but it was a hell of a lot of people and the horror. I mean, we look at the stuff that's happening in Ukraine now, we talk about horror, but I can remember when the civil war was raging in Rwanda, and it genuinely was one of those situations where you just thought, why can't the world do more to stop this? And I can remember, do you remember the, the radio station? I forgot what it was called now, it had a French name, but it was nickname was Machete Radio.

• 10:26Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, Milcolin means Thousand Hills, and, and that's where all this, this cockroach stuff came.

• 10:31Alastair Campbell?

  That's right, the radio, radio Thousand Hills, that's it.

• 10:34Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 10:35Alastair Campbell?

  And, and it was nicknamed Machete Radio because basically what the presenters did was they told them where to go and who was there and who to kill with the machetes. And basically they also gave the message, if you don't kill, by the way, you're going to get killed. It's, it's not a sort of, you know, choice this. And that sense of, I don't know how a country comes back for that. And especially, you mentioned Kagame. You know, he was an active player on the, if you like, on the side that was being hit. And then for him to come back and to rebuild a country, it's an incredible thing to do. And actually, I don't know your sense of it being there, but they've not done that bad a job considering where they came from.

• 11:17Rory Stewart?

  Oh, it's incredible. I mean, in terms of just, if you're just looking at economic development, it's amazing. They've generated nearly eight percent growth a year consistently for thirty years. They've taken a lot of people out of poverty. And it is, you know, it's, there's a lot of very good things. The road system is very impressive, it's incredibly clean, but it's a very authoritarian state. He's very influenced by Singapore. One Sunday, I think every month still, you're only allowed to go out on the streets if you're engaged in cleaning up litter. So everything closes, all the bars close, all the coffee shops close, all the restaurants close. And you can only be outside if you're clearing up litter.

• 12:00Alastair Campbell?

  I wouldn't mind a bit of that in the UK, to be absolutely frank. If you live in London, you would not mind a bit of, you know, Sunday litter clearing.

• 12:10Rory Stewart?

  Well, there's two ways of approaching it. The guy I was talking to said, some people just go out and party very hard on Saturday night and then spend the whole of Sunday at home so they don't have to go out and litter clear. But you're not allowed out of your house.

• 12:21Alastair Campbell?

  And what's your sense of what's happening over the border in Congo? Because, of course, there was a spillover into the Congo when essentially the people who were responsible for the genocide fled. And the people that were the victims of it chased them down. And that led to two wars in the Congo, which I think led to another couple of million deaths.

• 12:40Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it was one of the great, unreported and most horrible wars. So Congo, very, very, very worrying. And it's an enormous country. I mean, you look at Democratic Republic Congo on a map and it stretches right across Africa. It's probably the most exciting country I think I've ever visited in my life. Partly because of the variation, you go all the way from the volcanoes and the gorillas in eastern Congo. And then you get out to the west and there's an amazing jazz scene. They're the most extraordinary, extraordinary place. I mean, the Congo River is this, it's obviously in our culture because of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. But it is this mesmerizing great river running through a country. There's incredible fashion in Congo.

• 13:25Rory Stewart?

  But as you say, the instability right throughout this region is very disturbing. Congo, Central African Republic, the Horn of Africa, of course, the Sahel. And one of the challenges is that, and this is something that we're feeling at the moment with this new Cold War that's emerging with Ukraine and Russia, is the new generation of African leaders are not necessarily stepping up to get involved in these regional issues. So if you look at Somalia at the moment, where traditionally you would have had Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia involved in peacekeeping and in the peace process, three out of those

• 14:07Rory Stewart?

  four have dropped away for different reasons, some of them because of civil war. And we really need to care about this. 10% of the population of the world by 2050 will be born in Nigeria.

• 14:18Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. I mean, we've mentioned it pretty much every episode we've done, but the utter folly of the abolition of the Department for International Development is just every week gets worse. I remember, by the way, talking to Clinton about Rwanda, and he saw it as one of, I think, his big regrets, that America did not get more engaged. And I remember him saying, he doesn't know whether they could have made much of a difference, but he feels very, very regretful that they didn't really even try. And I think that the overhang there, you mentioned Somalia, I think it was because it's had such a sort of detrimental impact on the American psyche to have those Americans,

• 15:03Alastair Campbell?

  remember the Americans who were sort of dragged through the streets of Mogadishu?

• 15:05Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, the Black Hawk Down, yeah.

• 15:07Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. And that sort of just, you know, and I think we're, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about Rwanda, well, two questions really. The first is, I haven't asked you yet what you do there. And the second is, which I think has a little bit of a, reaches over to Ukraine as well. The other thing I remember being briefed about in relation to Rwanda was the use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war.

• 15:30Rory Stewart?

  And I think this was true. I mean, I think we've got to be very thoughtful about this because I think it was true for a long time in European war. And I think it's very important to just understand that this is nothing specific to Rwanda or Africa that... That humans can be unbelievably brutal to each other. And then when it passes, you can barely acknowledge it. I mean, I think you feel it. You go to Cambodia, where obviously in the killing fields, a lot of people were killed. Germany, where of course a lot of people were killed. Rwanda, where a lot of people were killed. And of course, what you see is incredibly kind, polite, generous people living decent, normal lives.

• 16:15Rory Stewart?

  And it's so difficult reconciling these moments that happen to a country.

• 16:23Rory Stewart?

  And and I think, again, you know, this is what Russia and Ukraine is a sort of reminder of that we can so easily get into the mindset of thinking these things are past and are never going to happen again. And they repair, which is why people were so horrified in the Balkans. I mean, of course, if you were, you know, an educated person living in Belgrade or Sarajevo, you would never have imagined for a moment that you were going to be able to suddenly find yourself in a world in which ex gym instructors and karate trainers and poets were literally executing thousands of people. What am I doing in Rwanda?

• 16:57Rory Stewart?

  I am in Rwanda because I'm working with a charity called GiveDirectly. And GiveDirectly is a really radical idea. They are essentially are giving a thousand dollars of cash to very, very poor families and trusting them to spend the money well. And as you can imagine, you tell people this and people's jaws drop. They're like, how do you know they're not going to spend it on alcohol? Or how do you know they're not going to be cheated out of it? But they are incredibly rigorous. They do these amazing tests where they will study very carefully the impact in a hundred villages. And then they will compare it to the impact of much better known charities who are going in, doing training programs or doing health programs or education programs.

• 17:41Rory Stewart?

  And the truth is, time and time again, and there have been 230 studies of this, giving people cash is probably the most effective single intervention that you can do for a very poor family. Because the truth is. In almost every case, they know how to spend the money much better than a foreigner does, and there's an element of dignity here.

• 18:02Alastair Campbell?

  Are you just going around giving people money then? Are you just going around Rwanda giving people money?

• 18:06Rory Stewart?

  That is exactly right, and then seeing what happened with the programs over the last two years, and it's incredible. People are, you suddenly see transformation in their children's health, stunting nutrition, roofs going up on houses, people investing in goats and livestock to create an income. It's really incredible. And it's such a reminder, because of course you're talking about people here in Rwanda who are living on a dollar a day. So they'll be earning three hundred dollars in a year. If you give a family like that a thousand dollars, that would be like giving somebody in Britain three times their annual income. But what is so striking, because this is like discussions about social welfare in Britain, where people say, if you give poor people money, they're going to misuse it, or they're

• 18:50Rory Stewart?

  going to spend it on drink or spend it on drugs. Is it in almost every case, people are spending it responsibly and their lives are being transformed? And the great thing is, all the money's going directly to them. It's not going to foreigners driving around in fancy white Land Cruisers with their kids in fancy accommodation. It's hitting the ground and it's about dignity. So I'm really excited by it and I've become a real apostle for cash transfer.

• 19:19Alastair Campbell?

  Are you a, has that made you a supporter of universal basic income?

• 19:22Rory Stewart?

  Well, this is sort of what it is, and I'm increasingly interested in that. You're absolutely right, this is a UBI model, and I think it's almost more effective in, with very poor families in developing world than maybe it is elsewhere. I know they did studies in Norway where they concluded that if you took someone off welfare and put them on UBI, it didn't seem to make much difference to their lives. But my goodness, the transformation, if you're giving it to people who are living on a dollar a day, is unbelievable. So yes, I think there's a huge argument for universal basic income in the developing world.

• 19:52Alastair Campbell?

  Also, this thing about if you give people money, you don't know where it's going to end up. I mean, I actually had somebody at the tube stop me the other day, because I was, there was this guy begging on the tube, and he was sort of, he was, he was kind of playing music, but not really. He wasn't really a busker, he was just sort of tapping a few things together. So I walked by and I dropped a fiver into his hat, and a woman was behind me on the escalator, and she said, she said, excuse me, I saw that. How do you know he's not just going to spend it on drugs? And I said, well, he might. But he might not. It's like, it's not really up to me. And I, I, I think that, you know, I think if we do give people a sense that they sort of, on balance, most of them, as

• 20:35Alastair Campbell?

  you say, can be trusted. I think that's a better way to come at it from thinking, well, I can't give anybody any money because, you know, I don't know what they're going to do with it.

• 20:43Rory Stewart?

  And, and Alastair, if you think about it, if you had a friend who was in real financial trouble, your instinct probably would be to give them cash, rather than try to guess what's good for them. The problem with a lot of development agencies is that they, let's say there's been a flood or there's been an earthquake, they go in and they say, well, what you need is a bag of wheat, or what you need is a tent, or what you need is medical supplies. But actually, generally, if you give people cash, they can decide what they need, whether they want a tent, whether they're, what they need today is food. And, and I think, you know, if we just extend our instinct on what you would want if you were in a very bad position, it would generally be cash. And I think we should,

• 21:27Rory Stewart?

  we should be confident about that. What do you think about UBI, Alastair, before I move you on to Biden and Zelensky?

• 21:34Alastair Campbell?

  Um, I, well, I'm surprised that you're in favour of it. Uh, I, I, I am broadly in favour of it, but I keep being told by Tony Blair that it's not a very good idea.

• 21:46Alastair Campbell?

  And until I sit down and pick his brains as to why it's not a good idea, I've been told by Ed Miliband that it's an absolutely fantastic idea. Now, I know that Tony Blair won three elections and it's a true, and Ed Miliband didn't. But I do, I, I, I definitely think that where the world is going at the moment, and I hope where Britain is going as well, is an understanding that the systemic inequalities that appear to be getting worse, not better. Um, have got to be addressed. And whether UBI is part of the panoply of that, I think, listen, put it this way. This is a classic cop out answer. I wish there was a deeper debate going on about it.

• 22:26Alastair Campbell?

  Um, most people, when you say UBI, probably think either of UBS the bank or UB40 the band. It's not really in the public debate yet, is it?

• 22:36Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's sort of geeky. Well, we're going to have to come back. We're going to pin you down on what Blair's arguing against was.

• 22:41Alastair Campbell?

  We should, we should do, we should definitely, we should at a later stage, we should do a whole thing about it. Because I do think it's a very, very interesting idea and I'm very interested that you're in favour of it.

• 22:49Rory Stewart?

  Um, tell us, tell us, we've heard a lot about Zelensky's communication genius. Can you give us a sense of what you think about Biden? He made a big speech in Poland. This was his, his grand speech on, on Russia and Ukraine. And I thought, watching it, I don't know whether you saw it, but there were some very, very strong bits at the beginning of the speech where I thought for once, he really sounded confident. He'd found a really good way of connecting to his own faith to Poland through, through John Paul the second Pope, to the solidarity movement and linking this all into a bigger narrative. But what do you make about Biden as a communicator?

• 23:23Alastair Campbell?

  Well, do you know what was interesting? I was actually, it was the, it was the day before Fiona and I were leaving for, for here in Switzerland. And so I popped round to see Neil Kinnock because it was his 80th birthday. Can you believe, um, the day after we left? So I popped round to give him, uh, a couple of books as a present. One was about Navalny and the other one was about Churchill's views on Europe. And as it happened, uh, I was there, we, I was there when Biden was speaking. So Neil and I watched it together and of course Neil has a very close connection to Biden. Do you remember the favourite speech? Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations? And then Biden popped up saying, why am I the first Biden in a thousand generations?

• 24:05Rory Stewart?

  That's right, that's right.

• 24:06Alastair Campbell?

  And, and they, and they became, they became very friendly as a result of that. And we were both having the same impression that this was a really, really, really powerful speech. And what's more, that it was one of those speeches where you felt that this really could be one of those that goes down in history. As you say, he really found his voice. Um, it, it was very, very well delivered. And then he had this bloody throwaway line at the end. Which does genuinely seem to have been a throwaway line, not in the script where he said, you know, Putin can't stay in power. Now, I don't, I think the hysterical reaction in some parts, I think is overdone and plays Putin's game for him. So we should sort of

• 24:49Alastair Campbell?

  calm down about that. But at the same time, it was, it was, it was annoying. The minute he said it, I thought, oh, that's, you know, that's the line, that's the story. And then I went and checked it against the actual script that the White House had released, and it wasn't there. And I thought they've gone to all that trouble to, to put together a really significant, incredibly powerful speech. And then, as we've seen in the last two or three days, the only thing that people have really taken out of it was what he said about Putin, and was it regime change? And then the White House walked it back, and Blinken walked it back. And then Biden has said, no, it wasn't walked back, that he was just reflecting his rage at what was going on. So it was unfortunate, because I agree with you, I thought it was a terrific speech.

• 25:32Rory Stewart?

  And Biden, it's strange, isn't it? Because he's been doing this for 40 years, hasn't he? He loves these off the cuff things. He loves ripping up his speeches. And somehow, despite it all, he's been an incredibly successful politician.

• 25:47Alastair Campbell?

  Or possibly because of it. Because I think people, I think one of the things that people like about Biden, those who do like him, and I like him a lot, I think one of the things people like about him is that he is the sort of classic, you know, very smart, white toothed, smart suited, professional politician, great at the handshakes, all that stuff. But there's a kind of humanity and an authenticity in there as well. And I think that was, I mean, it was a throwaway remark, wasn't it? You know, he was basically saying, for Christ's sake, this guy cannot be allowed to hang around any longer. That's what he was saying. And he was speaking, I think, to what he really feels, and also what he thinks a lot of the people that, certainly the people that were watching there in Poland would have felt. Now, he is nonetheless the most powerful elected leader in the world.

• 26:31Alastair Campbell?

  We can have a debate about whether that's true, but that's the cliche. And at a moment like that, probably shouldn't have been making throwaway remarks. But I still think it You know, the the the big, the the big, the creator of this disaster is Putin, not Biden. And I think the media need to calm down a little bit. It wasn't that big a deal. It's just that I wish he hadn't said it.

• 26:52Rory Stewart?

  So one of my American friends, who's a a a an ex senator, said that one of the challenges has been making the transition from being a senator. So apparently, American senators, the whole style is making outrageous, unscripted remarks a great deal. And it's just difficult for them to make the transition from that into executive office, where suddenly you're responsible for things. It's a bit different, I think, to the House of Commons, where the relationship between being a member of parliament and a minister is much closer. Because so many of the ministers come out of the House of Commons. But I think there's much more latitude for senators to go out and make big statements and not have to be accountable for them in the same way.

• 27:30Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think once you were the president, and and also, you know, don't forget, we used, we've we've had four years of Trump saying anything that came into his head.

• 27:38Alastair Campbell?

  And and Biden, I think one of the reasons why a lot of people saw Biden as a breath of fresh air is you thought you were back to kind of professional, serious, sensible, grown up politics, which I think we are, I think we are. I mean, can you imagine what the debate in NATO would be like at the moment if Trump was still president? I mean, it would be terrifying what was going on, absolutely terrifying.

• 27:56Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 27:57Alastair Campbell?

  So I think we should still count our blessings that that Joe's there. And I think you mentioned Zelensky. It's interesting, this last few days, I've had so many calls from, well, it's, I guess it was because it started with Bloomberg and Reuters, and they, of course, get seen by all the media. But getting calls about what I thought of of Zelensky's communications. And do you know what I I think is really interesting? I don't think he, I don't think he would have done all these Zoom speeches to all the national assemblies around the world pre-COVID. I think it's a consequence of COVID this, that parliaments think it's okay. Can you imagine the British Parliament when you were there, if they thought, oh, we can't possibly have a foreign leader addressing us by Zoom?

• 28:36Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Alastair Campbell?

  You know, the all the all the sort of suits that have got very, very upset at the idea, wouldn't be taking parliament seriously. But now, of course, he's got this ability to sit at a laptop. And tailor these speeches to very, very specific audiences. And he's done them pretty well, I have to say.

• 28:51Rory Stewart?

  And I guess, although probably people are going to be cursing me because of the dodgy internet connection, it's probably true that you and I wouldn't have been able to do a podcast so comfortably with me in Rwanda, you in Switzerland, before the days of Zoom. Shall we move for a break now? And as we come back from the break, I'd love to bring you into some of the new questions we just got.

• 29:11Alastair Campbell?

  Fine, let's do that.

• 29:33Speaker 02

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

• 29:39Speaker 03

  Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

• 29:41Speaker 04

  They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.

• 29:44Speaker 05

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

• 29:57Speaker 06

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 29:59Speaker 05

  All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today and disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO.

• 30:08Speaker 07

  A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia?

• 30:13Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 30:15Speaker 03

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• 30:19Speaker 08

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• 30:42Speaker 03

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• 31:02Rory Stewart?

  Alistair, we seem to be getting completely inundated with questions and they're getting more and more interesting. I mean, they're stretching all over the world, but I think we've got about 100 of them to get through. We'll try to get through as many as possible. I wanted to start with Olivia from Twitter. She said, "Alistair, would you vote for Rory as PM?"

• 31:24Alastair Campbell?

  I beg your pardon?

• 31:28Alastair Campbell?

  I'd vote for Rory Campbell, my son, as PM. I think he'd be very good, but he's not an MP and he's not in Parliament. I might have voted for you had I been a Tory MP with a vote in the leadership election, but I'm not going to vote for you as Prime Minister if you're still a Tory. So unless you're telling me that, unless Olivia knows that Rory, you're going to join the Labour Party and one day may become Labour leader, no, I'm not going to vote for you as Prime Minister.

• 32:00Rory Stewart?

  And Alistair, can I pull you in on something which I've been fascinated by? You're very, very good at teasing me, at grumbling about my colleagues. So I think I've had a go at Alan Duncan, I've had a go at George Osborne, I had a go at Rishi Sunak. But whenever I try to tempt you backwards to make cheeky comments about Tony Blair or Gordon Brown or anyone, I'm slightly struggling. Is that because, do you think at some level, even though I think you're not a member of the Labour Party anymore, but do you think there is some sort of really deep, deep tribal loyalty going back to your childhood here, which makes it very difficult for you to criticize?

• 32:41Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, look, I am a very tribal person. I'm sitting here, wearing my kilt because I'm going to go to play the bagpipes at this wedding that I'm at, and I feel very, very tribally Campbell. I feel very tribally Burnley football. I feel very tribally Scotland football and all other sports. And, you know, to be honest, uh, uh, somebody was having a little bit of a pop at you in a restaurant the other day. I was, so someone came with, yeah, I'm quite enjoying your podcast, but I'm not sure about that Rory Stewart. And I found myself defending you Rory, because I'm, I'm now very tribally podcast, you see. So I'm, I'm, I'm very loyal in that way.

• 33:23Alastair Campbell?

  Um, and yeah, I guess my Labour tribalism, despite being expelled for the party, runs incredibly deep. I guess it does. Yeah. It doesn't mean I don't criticize them.

• 33:31Rory Stewart?

  Was this something that came from your father? Were your, were your parents very strong Labour?

• 33:36Alastair Campbell?

  No, not really. No. Um, Fiona's parents, my, my partner's parents, they, they, they were a very, very Labour family. Uh, but no, my parents were, they voted everything at different times. Um, and it wasn't that political, political household. Funny, if I mentioned Neil Kinnock earlier, I think, I think getting into politics via journalism at a time when I got very friendly with Neil, I think that definitely sort of fuelled my tribalism. Um, but look, I can, I, I, I think it's a fair point that I, that I probably hold back a little bit. But, you know, for example, I'm very, very, very pissed off at the way that the Labour Party has got this kind of a murder on Brexit. Doesn't want to call out how badly it's going, even though it's going terribly. I was

• 34:18Alastair Campbell?

  listening to, um, on the, on the drive down through France, we were listening to a book called Butler to the World by a guy, guy called Oliver Buller. But how do you spell, how do you pronounce B U double L O U G S? Anyway, that's his name. It sounded like

• 34:32Rory Stewart?

  Buller, Buller.

• 34:33Alastair Campbell?

  Buller, Buller, right. Buller. Isn't that a sport that you lot played at Eton?

• 34:38Alastair Campbell?

  And that was Bullingdon, Buller. Um, but the thing is that in that book, which is an extraordinary book, by the way, it's about how Britain has basically sold itself as the butler to the world, and hence we have all these oligarchs here, and hence all the corruption. It's a, it's a terrifyingly uh, good book. But he wrote a lot about the, the Labour government and gambling, uh, uh, liberal, liberal, liberalisation of the, of the gambling laws. And I, I, I was and remain Of the view that that was a bad thing to do. I don't think we should have done that. And I criticised it when I, when we were doing it and I criticise it now. Likewise, I'm not that big a fan of the, of the 24 hour licensing that we brought in.

• 35:21Alastair Campbell?

  So I, there are things that I will criticise. I, I regularly, every time I see Ed Miliband, I criticise him for the fact that he didn't defend the Labour record. And I'm, and I am, as I say, although I want Keir Starmer to win. I, there's lots of things I will say about the way that they're, they're approaching the campaign against Johnson. I think they've been far too soft on Covid. I think they've been far too soft on Brexit. Um, and, and, and I want them to be, you know, bigger, bolder, louder, more radical. How's that?

• 35:49Rory Stewart?

  But, but, but that's very good. I think I'm very pleased to see that. But, but it does seem, just, just to push one more time, that you're very, um, that those are quite policy oriented. And one of the things that I, I think is striking in the diaries and talking to you is when you think about Gordon Brown or, or Peter Mandelson, who, who incidentally I just saw in Qatar. I just saw Peter Mandelson, Jonathan Powell in, in Qatar, just, just now on Sunday. Both who made the same comment about you, about how, how loyal you are. I get the sense that you like playing the man, not the ball, when it comes to Tory MPs. But when it comes to Labour, you very much play the ball, not the man.

• 36:30Rory Stewart?

  So you'll, you'll have a good go at Boris Johnson being a sociopath, I think was your, your take this time. But whatever your private reservations might be about Gordon Brown, we, we don't get much of a sense of his tics, his mannerisms, his personality. Is that fair?

• 36:48Alastair Campbell?

  I think you do in the diaries. Um, no, listen, I, I, I, I don't think I do. Look, I do play the man. Um, but I play a man, I play the man as a way of playing the ball. I mean, you're on record, not least on this podcast, as saying you think Johnson is a terrible human being, doing a terrible job as Prime Minister. That is why he has to be, you know, that's why it is partly about him and his personality. But I, but I will always take it to the policy, you know, it is, it is partly.

• 37:15Rory Stewart?

  Would you, would you ever, would you ever, for example, sorry, and this is mean to you, but would you ever, for example, contemplate the possibility that Keir Starmer can be a little bit boring?

• 37:25Alastair Campbell?

  I could, but I wouldn't. But what I'd say is that, maybe this is the spin doctor bit now, I'd say, do you know what, I think the world is, I think Britain is ready for a serious, stable Merkel Schultz-type leader, rather than the sort of, you know, idiotically plaything Johnson-type thing. Yeah, I can, I think he, people say about Keir that he lacks charisma. I don't, you see, the thing is, when I talk to Keir, I don't find him boring, I think he's quite interesting. But I think he's a little bit, there's another question that came through about politicians who aren't always as they appear when, when, when they're trying to get their message across, which, here is, Mark Dealy, Twitter, which politician had the potential to be remembered as great but had difficulty getting

• 38:10Alastair Campbell?

  the message across? I often think of Gordon like that. I remember my mum once saying that Gordon was a, would have been the best possible politician to have in the radio era, because he sometimes looked uncomfortable on television. No, I think, I think Gordon does, did and does have an element of greatness about him, but he's struggled with some of the kind of modern parts of politics. And maybe Keir's a little bit, a little bit like that as well.

• 38:33Rory Stewart?

  It's very weird, I mean, you almost get the sense of British politics, I think we've talked about this before, that we lurch from one to the other. You go from the sort of glossy Tony Blair to the slightly grim Gordon Brown, you go from the glossy David Cameron to the slightly more sort of earnest, understated, introverted Theresa May, then to the other extreme with Boris Johnson, and then potentially onto Keir Starmer. It's as though we're all sort of introvert extrovert.

• 38:55Alastair Campbell?

  So who follows Johnson?

• 38:57Rory Stewart?

  Well, that would suggest the next one's going to be a slightly boring introvert, isn't it?

• 39:00Alastair Campbell?

  Ben Wallace.

• 39:01Rory Stewart?

  If that's the way British politics works. Who could it be? Who could it be? I don't know, actually, I sometimes accuse my colleagues of being boring introverts. But the, actually, often the people that impressed me most around the cabinet table were people that it was difficult to sell to the public. So the person I thought was the, by far the best politician I ever dealt with was David Gork. I thought he was extraordinary. Thought he was wise, he was funny, he's really come out, I mean, you can see now, when his, his writing and his stuff on Twitter, how funny and observant he can be. But as a secretary of state, he was incredible. He was the only person who genuinely listened to civil servants, could genuinely make a decision quickly.

• 39:44Rory Stewart?

  But selling him to colleagues during the leadership race, I started by trying to say, we've got to have this guy as Prime Minister, was difficult because somehow the conventions of British politics are looking for something else, and I can't quite work out what that is.

• 40:00Alastair Campbell?

  I think, I do think it is this, the, this kind of interact, inter, interaction between our political culture and our media culture. And I think we have probably suffered from it more than any other country. And I've just been reading the German newspapers this morning, and there's, there's Scholz. He's really not the most charismatic character, nor was Angela Merkel. But Scholz is just, you know, the, the, the social democrats have just won this massive election in Saarland. I mean, huge. And that is partly, I think, a reflection of people thinking, actually, you know, maybe we're the country who picked the right guy. And he's not charismatic. I, I wish we could get away from it. And I

• 40:39Alastair Campbell?

  speak as somebody who, you know, helped Tony Blair to project himself as a figure of charisma and as somebody who had this sort of amazing ability to communicate and so forth. But I really do think one of the problems right across the world is that our politicians aren't serious enough. They're just not serious. And that's a, it's just, it's horrific. I mean, the, the fact that the Tory party hasn't got a place for you, David Gork, Ken Clark, Dominic Grieve, Anna Subrie, it's ridiculous, when you think about it. But that's because they've got now, the Boris Johnson culture is what drives the Conservative Party, and is what drives a lot of our media. Grim.

• 41:17Rory Stewart?

  And that brings us to a question from Lindsay on Twitter. She says, can you enlighten us about politicians' relationships with journalists? I'm baffled by leaks, sources, how the news agenda is influenced. So, I mean, this is quite a technical question, but I was struck during the Gavin Williamson knighthood thing, that there was a big article in The Times saying... Number 10 says that they didn't really want to give the knighthood to Gavin Williamson and were embarrassed that it had happened and weren't sure it was justified. What happens when we read in the newspaper something saying number 10 says? What's really behind that? How official is that? How seriously are you supposed to take that?

• 41:53Alastair Campbell?

  It's very, very hard for me to answer that. I mean, look, there are journalists right across the spectrum who make up stories and make up quotes and people may be shocked by that. I don't know whether they're shocked by that or not, but they shouldn't be when they know about the media culture that we saw in the, you know, in the Leveson inquiry and the phone hacking and so forth. But there are a lot of, you know this because you've had stories about you. When, when you're in the papers and you know something to be completely untrue, right? Then there's a little part of your mind that thinks, hmm, they must have just made it up because they wanted it to be true or somebody said it to them and they didn't really want to check it because if they checked it and found it wasn't true, then they'd feel less able to, to run it.

• 42:35Alastair Campbell?

  And I think, look, my golden rule is generally if you see an anonymous quote, dismiss it. Not always, but generally. I can remember once we gave out prizes, the media hated me for this, but it was after a reshuffle and we'd done the cabinet and I gave out prizes for the people in the press who'd given the most different jobs to different cabinet ministers, one of whom, George Robertson, ended up staying where they, where he started. And I think he'd been given 11 different posts in the, in the predictions of what the reshuffle was going to hold. And I think you can get some, look, I mean, that Williamson thing, I think was a case of number 10 having their cake and eating it. John, we talked about this before, Johnson gave him the knighthood, but they don't want the public to think they really want him.

• 43:19Alastair Campbell?

  So just maybe that was true. I think at the moment you're seeing a lot of stuff between number 10 and number 11 with Sunak. Some of it will be true, some of it will be somebody inside number 10 with or without the authority of the prime minister or his communications guy, I don't know, saying something to a journalist and the journalist wanting to write a story based upon it.

• 43:38Rory Stewart?

  And just quickly there on that, how often when you see these things, presumably Some of the time, it is with the authorisation of the minister or the prime minister or the communications person that some of these apparent leaks and sources are quite deliberate. And that's why you end up with very bad relationships between Number 10 and Number 11. Because understandably, the prime minister suspects the chancellor's actually leaking on him and vice versa. And I think there was a bit of that, wasn't there, with the relationship between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair?

• 44:06Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, absolutely. And but all I'd say is that if you if you if you look at the thing that's going on between Johnson and Sunak at the moment, for example, I suspect that, for example, when Sunak has done interviews and said, well, I wouldn't have used those words like he did, in the way that he does, number two, now, that's on the record, he's on television saying that.

• 44:27Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:28Alastair Campbell?

  And, you know, so is that better or worse than reading something that says, you know, Sunak thinks Johnson's a bit of a buffoon, or Johnson thinks Sunak's too ambitious, or whatever? I think what happens is that people chat to each other. And, you know, in answer to Lindsay's question about the political relationship with journalists, the fact is, you're sort of swimming in the same bowls the whole time, you know, journalists can hang around the commons, they can nab politicians as they go to the vote, they can phone. And now, of course, with WhatsApp and texting and so forth, journalists, you know, they can just text somebody in Number 10. Now, what I tried, one of the reasons I tried to run a very tight ship in Number 10 is I wanted, if somebody read Number 10

• 45:13Alastair Campbell?

  or the prime minister, a source close to, I put all my briefings on the record because I wanted them to be able to differentiate between the prime minister's spokesman said and a Number 10 source. And I actually wanted to be in a position, particularly at briefings, to say, look, if you see Number 10 source, I'm sorry, unless it's me, unless it's Tony Blair, then I'm not even going to engage with you. Because and that, I think, is the right way to go about trying to communicate from the centre. But you're never, ever, ever, ever going to stop private conversations. And you're never going to stop journalists elevating them into something that they want their reader or listener to think is incredibly important. You never hear anybody say, I was talking to a very minor official who

• 45:57Alastair Campbell?

  wasn't very close to the prime minister. Well, there are plenty of those in Number 10, right? But they will always be a very senior aide, very close to the prime minister.

• 46:07Rory Stewart?

  So just one more time, Lindsay, I think, is pushing at this question of leaks and how the news agenda is influenced and shaped. Can you give us any concrete examples, maybe not from your own life, but something that you've seen somewhere, so people can actually understand how that might work, because they kind of see it a bit on television, but what's actually going on there? You want to get a story out, but you don't want to take credit for it. Can you give us, put some flesh on the bones?

• 46:33Alastair Campbell?

  Well, if you think of the pandemic, during the pandemic, it was obvious that Johnson didn't particularly want to go into lockdown. And I think that there was a little bit of kind of, you know, preparing the wicket, to use a sort of sporty analogy, that they start to, just to brief, that, you know, the likelihood is that we may have to, we are now looking at these different options. And in a sense, you're shaping opinion, you're basically getting the media to test, I guess, you're putting the possibilities out there, and then you're seeing how parliamentarians react, you're seeing how the media react, you're seeing how the public reacts.

• 47:18Rory Stewart?

  And also, can you do that, is that sometimes done quite deliberately? So might a communications director actually sit down with the grid and say, okay, why don't we try to float this for two or three days, and then on day four, we could do this, and is it as systematic as that?

• 47:31Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think, well, certainly when I was doing the job, the grid was very much events, it was events that were happening. So it was the launch of a white paper, it was a speech by the prime minister, it was a spring statement by the chancellor, that was the way that we organised the grid. But certainly, I think you'd find situations, and listen, even from the time I was doing it, the world has changed so much in terms of how the media now is. I mean, there's no such thing as a deadline, there's social media, there's more TV channels than ever. But I still think that on this, I think Lindsay, if I were Lindsay, I wouldn't get too hung up on the mechanics of this. And it's usually best to go and look at what is being said on the record. I find you're going to learn more from that than you are from sort of worrying about who said what to whom and where that headline came from.

• 48:17Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Okay, well, over to you. Was there a question that appealed to you?

• 48:21Alastair Campbell?

  There was one here from, now who says it's from Keith, and it talks, and we're on to Rishi Sunak here. He urged firms to stop investing in Russia, and he welcomed commitments by firms to reduce or sell their holdings there. And when he was asked if he was giving advice to others that you're not following in your own home, and this is about his wife, who is apparently richer than the Queen, and is, who is connected with Infosys, which is a massive company in Russia and still investing in Russia, he said, I'm an elected politician, I'm here to talk to you about what I'm responsible for, my wife is not. Now, I'm not sure about that. And I have to say, Rory, if that was a Labour minister, Labour Chancellor, if that had been Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah

• 49:04Alastair Campbell?

  was involved in something like that, or if it was a French or German finance minister, I think our papers would be going absolutely berserk about it, don't you?

• 49:14Rory Stewart?

  Well, I don't know. I mean, the story is a complicated one, isn't it? So, as I understand it, maybe I'm missing a bit of this, but my understanding of it is that she, Rishi Sunak, has married the daughter of the founder of Infosys. So their family own this enormous stake, as you say, she's very wealthy. So they own a enormous number of shares in Infosys, and so she owns some hundreds of millions of pounds worth of shares in her father's company. And her father's company is a big investor in Russia. So I guess the question is, what is it that people are asking? Is it that they're asking that she put pressure on her father to leave Russia? Is it that they're asking her to sell the shares in her father's company unless he pulls out of

• 49:58Rory Stewart?

  Russia? What's your sense of what you think a reasonable thing for Rishi and his wife to be doing in this situation would be?

• 50:06Alastair Campbell?

  I think in this particular situation, where the government is making such a big thing about putting sanctions on Russia and on essentially boycotting the Russian economy, and talking about everybody doing their bit to damage the Russian economy, that is essentially what they're saying, because, you know, we're not having a no-fly zone, et cetera, et cetera. I think what they're saying is that you, Rishi Sunak, Should be able to stand there and say that you, Rishi Sunak, are not benefiting in any way financially from the work, the current workings of the Russian economy. And therefore, does that not mean that sometimes it may be tough on you and your family, but sometimes you actually have to make very, very difficult decisions concerning your family because you are a elected politician.

• 50:51Alastair Campbell?

  And I'm not sure that sort of separation works in these circumstances because of the, because of the politics. And that may seem very, very harsh.

• 50:57Rory Stewart?

  It's, it's interesting, isn't it also, because it also brings you to the question of what's the relationship between a politician and their partner. So what, what happens if your wife turns around and says, well, screw you. Um, thank you very much. This is an Indian, Indian company. This is my father's company. I believe in my father. I'm investing in it. I'm sorry, I got shares in it and I'm supporting my father and I'll have a private conversation with him if I like, but it's none of your business. I'm married to you and I'm not a politician.

• 51:24Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. But in those circumstances, I think Rishi Sunak, the interview that it was on Sky News, it was a brilliant interview by, is it Jane Second? She did a very good interview of Sunak, very low key, very gentle. Um, but if that had been anybody else, if, if, if she'd have said, Chancellor, we've got this company here that's doing this in Russia. What do you think about that? He would say that's a very bad thing. So actually it's another case of having your cake and eating it here. He's actually saying, because she's my wife, she should be entitled, I should be entitled not to have to criticize her.

• 51:57Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:58Alastair Campbell?

  And I think that is, that is tricky.

• 52:00Rory Stewart?

  So maybe, yeah, yeah. So maybe an option would have been to say, actually personally, I really do think that emphasis should not be investing in Russia, but my wife disagrees or whatever. Yeah.

• 52:11Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Or, or, you know, or he, he could be honest enough to say, look, when you're in the position that I'm in, sometimes it does mean, I'm afraid, you have very difficult conversations with your family as well. And she's an individual, she's entitled to do, you know, exactly what she wants within the law, anywhere in the world. Um, you know, she happens to be, be my wife, but I want every single company in the world to have an understanding of its role in trying to bring this ghastly situation in Ukraine to an end. You know, I think there are ways of doing it without getting very, very sniffy and very thin skinned and very sort of churlish, which I think he did.

• 52:43Rory Stewart?

  Um, to finish, Joe from Twitter.

• 52:48Rory Stewart?

  He says, this presumably you get asked all the time, but it's been thrown in here. So we'll, we'll, we'll, I'm going to throw it at you anytime. So you get it out the way. You don't have to do it on the next podcast. Did you watch Thick of It? And is it in any way realistic compared to real life and politics? And it's the cheeky final question. Are there any real Malcolm Tuckers out there?

• 53:08Alastair Campbell?

  Well, how'd you know that was for me?

• 53:11Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, do you watch The Thick of It?

• 53:13Rory Stewart?

  I, I do, I do, I do, I do. And, you know, many of the, amongst the many reasons I'm intimidated about doing a program with you is because I've watched The Thick of It.

• 53:23Alastair Campbell?

  Um, look, Rory, The Thick of It is a satire and it's an account of a moderately psychotic Scottish spin doctor who's in Downey Street trying to control the politicians and the media. Now, why would I not like that?

• 53:43Alastair Campbell?

  I, I don't know. We, we, we had a, I think we had the first swear word on this podcast came from you. And the, the powers that be will have to cut this out if they think I, it contains too many swear words. But I once bumped into Peter Capaldi, who plays Malcolm Tucker, the legendary Downey Street Scottish spin doctor.

• 54:04Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:05Alastair Campbell?

  And we were doing this, we ended up doing a charity swear off.

• 54:10Alastair Campbell?

  And we had to get as many swear words as we could into, I think it was 90 seconds or something that we had. And I, I went first and I told this story about my uncle, who was a farmer. And he was trying to work a milking machine and the milking machine wouldn't work. And he ended up saying, fuck it, the fucking fucker's fucking fucked and I'm fucking fucked off with it. Now, I thought that was quite a good little sort of, and Peter Capaldi, who is an actor, or he has people to write his scripts for him, et cetera. He looked a little bit worried as he came up to, to the podium. Somebody came up, rushed up to the microphone, stopped Peter Capaldi, getting into the microphone and announced an apology because what I hadn't realised was the whole thing was beamed around

• 54:55Alastair Campbell?

  the entire building, including into the creche.

• 54:57Rory Stewart?

  Oh, no.

• 54:59Alastair Campbell?

  And I thought, that is, that is, so when you say, is it in any way realistic compared to real life in politics, that I felt was a bit of a sort of a thick of it moment. I thought the thick of it was brilliant, by the way.

• 55:13Rory Stewart?

  Just, just while you're here, you're about to go and play the pipes. I also used to play the pipes.

• 55:17Alastair Campbell?

  I know.

• 55:18Rory Stewart?

  Tell me, what, what do you, do you practise a lot? Do your neighbours put up with you practising? You practise on the chanter of the pipes and what are you going to play?

• 55:26Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I'm here in Switzerland, and honestly, I do wish British people could sort of think there are enough wedding venues in Britain, but I'm allowing this one. I'll tell you the story. It's a very, it's quite a moving story, actually. My best friend, when I was a journalist at the Daily Mirror, was a guy called John Merritt, and he died in 1992 of leukaemia in his 30s. And his, his wife, Lindsay, at the time was pregnant. A few years later, his child Ellie also died of leukaemia, aged eight or nine. The child who was Lindsay, his wife, was pregnant with when John died is called Hope,

• 56:11Alastair Campbell?

  and she's the one who's getting married today.

• 56:13Rory Stewart?

  How wonderful.

• 56:14Alastair Campbell?

  So I have written a tune, which I will play this evening. So, yeah, funny enough, since my, I read in one of your books that you'd learnt the chanter at school, I got the feeling you didn't really love it, like I do.

• 56:28Rory Stewart?

  I'm not good enough, I think is the problem. I, I, I'm, I just don't feel that I'm good enough.

• 56:33Alastair Campbell?

  It is a hard instrument to play, but since my dad died and since my brother died, they were both, my brother especially was a really, really good piper. And since they both died, it's, it's interesting. You say that I practise, I probably play three or four times a week now, and I write tunes and I, I love, I love playing the bagpipes. And I think it's that connection, it's back to tribalism, I'm afraid, Rory. And, and I do love the fact that the bagpipe, when I was a student, I was a busker with the bagpipes, and honestly, it's the best busking instrument because you drown out all the others. And what's more, people don't really want to play for that long. Couple of minutes does it for most people. And on the neighbours, the neighbours love it.

• 57:11Rory Stewart?

  So we will let's let's try to get a little little bit of one of your compositions on one of these podcasts. I'd love to hear you composing pipe music. That's something I didn't realise you did at all. And that's

• 57:19Alastair Campbell?

  Listen, I've got them right here by I can play you something now if you want, Rory.

• 57:24Rory Stewart?

  If you're up for it and be amazing to hear what you've composed and I'll try to turn the volume up so people in Rwanda can hear. But it's going to take a second to get your pipes going and let's hear the tune.

• 57:35Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Rory, as my neighbours will testify, you never have to ask me twice to play the back pipe. So I'm very happy to do that. And by the way, this time next week I'll be in La Côte d'Ivoire. So we'll I shall be in Africa as well next week and I'll be taking my back patch with me there as well.

• 57:53Rory Stewart?

  Brilliant.

• 57:54Alastair Campbell?

  To explain the tune, it's a kind of it's a hybrid because I'm going to play the first part. Is about the sadness of her dad not being there. And that's a kind of lament. And then I'm going to go into a bit that's the happiness of her now having her own family, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And therefore it's got that mix and it the full thing is going to be about 10 minutes. I'm just going to give you little highlights.

• 58:22Rory Stewart?

  Brilliant. Thank you, everyone, very much for listening. See you next week and Alastair, take it away.