15. Question Time: Hong Kong handover, human rights, and Tintin

Welcome to the first ever episode of 'TRIP: Question Time'! During our Question Time pods, Rory and Alastair will attempt to answer even more of the fantastic listener questions we get each week. While the Wednesday pod will still dig into the main issues of the day, TRIP QT allows Alastair and Rory to debate wide-ranging topics and recount stories from their lives in politics and beyond. This week the pod covers prisons, how to talk to totalitarian leaders about human rights, Alastair's memories of the Hong Kong handover, how Tintin inspired Rory, Alastair's most right wing view, Rory's most left wing view, and how your upbringing can shape your political outlook. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] 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.

• 0:04Rory 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/rustispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rustispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  A BetterHelp ad. Imagine carrying a backpack every day. Every conversation, every mistake, every expectation. You probably wouldn't notice how heavy it was until someone asked if you wanted to put it down. Sometimes feeling better starts exactly like that. Better isn't one size fits all. Better is personal. It's therapy tailored to you to help lighten what you've been carrying. Match with a therapist who truly gets you. Visit betterhelp.com/rustpolitics.

• 1:43Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Hello. Welcome to the first in a brand new series of weekly shows with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 1:48Rory Stewart?

  And me, Rory Stewart.

• 1:50Alastair Campbell?

  This is the Rest is Politics Question Time. Each week, as well as the regular Wednesday episode, We're going to record an extra show with the purpose of being questioned, grilled, held to account by you, our wonderful listeners. And over the course of about half an hour or so, we'll try and answer as many questions as we can, and they can be about anything that you like. So Rory, first question, you fire off.

• 2:13Rory Stewart?

  Okay, well, I think we've just, we've got an amazing range of questions. Let's just sort of begin by paying tribute to the fact that sometimes we're getting 700 questions and they are just phenomenal. And it's really good of people to keep sending them in. You and I briefly been talking about Jonathan's question about American gun laws and Helen's question about Brexit. But here's a question from Sam. Do you think you would still have the same political beliefs if you'd had your co-host's upbringing and background? How much do you think your upbringing and background affected your political beliefs?

• 2:43Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, you first.

• 2:46Rory Stewart?

  I think a lot. I think a lot. I think it is, it is an issue. And of course, it's an issue for a lot of voters traditionally. Many people vote the same way their parents do. It's, it's, it's not as true now as it necessarily was in the past, but it's a big determinant of the way you vote. I think it has it. And it might be that you're rebelling against your parents, or it might be that you're agreeing with them, but that has a huge formative influence. And I, yeah, I grew up in a family where my father was born in 1922.

• 3:16Alastair Campbell?

  So was mine.

• 3:17Rory Stewart?

  There we are, yeah, same age and would have had a different kind of experience, I guess. And they would have come from different places with different visions of the world and that would have formed it. In the case of my father, I think, very formed by being in the army, missed the army after the war and had been, actually, he'd been a British colonial officer during the British Empire since 1957 until Malaya went independent. And that probably had a very, very big shaping influence. Although he voted Labour, interestingly, he voted Labour in 45. So he voted against Churchill in 45. That was the last time he voted Labour.

• 3:50Alastair Campbell?

  My, my parents will have voted Tory and Labour at different points. I wasn't raised in a very political household, but I'd say I was raised in a very values oriented family, both my immediate family and the extended family.

• 4:06Alastair Campbell?

  Um. On both sides, actually, my dad, who was a son of a crofter, my mother, who was a farmer's daughter. But both sides were very kind of community, very values based, very kind of right and wrong, very, all that stuff.

• 4:19Rory Stewart?

  And was, is that, do you have sort of Presbyterian Scottish background there?

• 4:21Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:23Rory Stewart?

  And that's quite, that's quite, quite moralistic, isn't it?

• 4:25Alastair Campbell?

  Yes, it is. But also, I think that often takes some people to the right. I actually think, if I think back to my childhood, I, we, I, I was born in Keithley in Yorkshire. And I had to walk to get to school through this area that was, that was very, very Asian. And I really liked the people and I used to stop and talk to them and, and I couldn't, and I've never understood, uh, this may sound incredibly naive. I've never really understood racism. And I think as I then grew up, I realised that most racists were on the right.

• 4:59Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 4:59Alastair Campbell?

  And I think, I, I think that, that was a lot of the fault. And my parents hated racism as well.

• 5:04Rory Stewart?

  I grew up, uh, as a child in Malaysia, which was incredibly multi-ethnic community when I was six, seven. Which isn't true in Malaysia now. Muslim friends of mine would go to Hindu festivals, go to Chinese festivals. We'd go to everybody's festivals. People would come to Christmas with us. We'd go to Deepwali. We'd celebrate Eid together. And that, very sadly, actually, in Malaysia is now falling apart. But I agree with you. I, I didn't, I think one of the reasons that, and one of the other questions actually we've got is, is whether we've, and I'm going to get you on this. Whether what your most right-wing view is, what my left, most left-wing view is. But I've definitely never really felt, um, emotionally, the problem that some of my colleagues feel with immigration. That, that's never been part of my political complexion.

• 5:45Alastair Campbell?

  Go on then, what's your, what's your most left-wing view?

• 5:48Rory Stewart?

  Well, the thing I got in most trouble for was my views on prisons. For example, I wanted to get rid of short sentences in prisons. I wanted to make sure that nobody could be sent to prison for minor crimes. And I, in fact, I should get, I should get a hold of the copy of the paper. It's probably my greatest achievement as a junior minister, was I managed two big front pages. This is a question from Will, actually, about political beliefs, saying, Minister gives green light to criminals. I also remember Skecher writer coming in to see me performing in the House of Commons. And he said that hearing me speak as a Conservative Secretary of State to my backbenchers was like that show The Producers. Do you remember when people set out to try to produce?

• 6:33Alastair Campbell?

  Mel Brooks.

• 6:34Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, the worst possible musical that could ever be put on. They come up with something called Springtime for Hitler.

• 6:39Alastair Campbell?

  If you if you look behind me, Rory, you can see on that far, there's a picture of me, edvict to my agent, Alan Yentob and Mel Brooks. And we did a show to raise money for a cancer charity. So there you are.

• 6:51Rory Stewart?

  So there we are. So Quentin Letts said, watching me speak to the Conservative backbenchers.

• 6:56Alastair Campbell?

  I refuse to allow the name Quentin Letts to appear on this podcast. I'm sorry, I can't have that.

• 7:00Rory Stewart?

  He said it was like watching a show of The Producers, that I literally said everything wrong. So David Amis, who was a lovely man, but was very much a strong Brexiteer and a great optimist, said to me, could you please tell us what the great trade advantage is we will be able to get after leaving the European Union? And according to Quentin Letts, I put on my most po-faced and pedantic expressions, that I would want the honourable member to think very carefully about the very difficult tariff and quota regulations leaving. And then the next person stood up and said something essentially trying to encourage me to do the kind of projects that Quentin Letts said Conservatives favourite, such as explaining the laws of cricket to pygmies, he said, was the kind of international

• 7:44Rory Stewart?

  development project. Which point I said, I would like to double the spend on climate and the environment. And he described the total silence in the Conservative benches and sort of cheers going up from Labour and Lib Dem opposite me. Anyway, let me put Will's question to you. What's your most, what's your most right wing view?

• 8:03Alastair Campbell?

  Before you do, another question on prisons. Winona Ingle, will we ever see a rehabilitative criminal justice system like we have in Norway? And I'm going to give another plug to Angela Kirwin's book called Criminal, which calls for exactly that. And you and I agree with that. So there's, there's no point. I don't know what my, a right wing view. I mean, look, put it this way, in the days when Labour was in favour of unilateral disarmament, I wasn't. I've always been somebody who really, really believes in strong defence. I no longer consider that to be a right wing position, but traditionally through my life it has been. I actually think there's a lot of shredding defence, but I'd say that is probably where traditionally, maybe I'd have felt more right wing than most of the Labour Party.

• 8:47Rory Stewart?

  Is that partly, your brother was a soldier? Was that something your parents would have shared? Kind of sort of patriotically?

• 8:53Alastair Campbell?

  No, I don't. I think, I just think, I just think we need to have strong defence. And I, you know, you look at what's happening now, I never bought that idea that if we all sat around the table and held hands and sang Kumbaya, that we'd all sort of have a great peaceful world. There was always going to be a Putin coming down the block.

• 9:10Rory Stewart?

  And I had the privilege of talking to your friend Neil Kinnock recently briefly. And I noticed that he often talks about patriotism, about the Labour Party being the party of patriotism. And that's really important, isn't it, to the history of the Labour Party? And actually, part of the problems that people have with Jeremy Corbyn.

• 9:29Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely, absolutely. It's funny how much Neil comes up on this podcast. And he also, he sends, he listens regularly, Rory, and he sends regular assessments, as he does of my new European column. And he did say at the end of his assessment this week, I really think you need to take Rory to a Burnley game. So I hope we can do that at some point. I'll explain the rules, I'll explain what's going on. I've got to say, my favourite question this week, Rory, was actually somebody said, ask Rory if he knows anything about rugby league.

• 9:57Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I don't know anything about rugby league. Do you know a lot about rugby league?

• 10:00Alastair Campbell?

  I know a lot about rugby league. I love rugby league. My favourite question this week, I've got one really serious, and one quite funny. The really serious one, and I think it's the name George Orwell that made it my favourite question. Sharon Dakin, my father-in-law was called Henry Dakin. He was Eric Blair, George Orwell's nephew. He saved George Orwell from drowning in a whirlpool off Jura. He died during Covid. We were not able to give him a proper send-off. I've written to my MP, they just tell me to move on. What more can I do?

• 10:32Rory Stewart?

  That's very sad.

• 10:33Alastair Campbell?

  That's horrific, isn't it? And that's, I think, why this party thing is really, really still cutting through to people. The less...

• 10:44Alastair Campbell?

  Serious. David Edmont said he really liked your observation that Parliament is French for talking shop.

• 10:51Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 10:51Alastair Campbell?

  And could we, as we're both linguists, could we give more examples of things like that? So I want to give you a little question, quiz question, Rory. Why, when you go to the tennis?

• 11:00Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 11:01Alastair Campbell?

  Do they say fifteen love?

• 11:04Rory Stewart?

  Oh, my Lord. I've never thought about that at all. I've got no idea.

• 11:07Alastair Campbell?

  The reason they do that is back in the day, when all the posh public school boys were out playing their fancy tennis game and they all liked to speak French. And in French tennis, the score for zero was luff, egg, because zero is shaped like egg.

• 11:26Rory Stewart?

  Wow.

• 11:26Alastair Campbell?

  Luff. So they're actually saying fifteen luff.

• 11:30Rory Stewart?

  Wow.

• 11:31Alastair Campbell?

  There you go.

• 11:33Rory Stewart?

  That's a very, that's a very good one. Okay, here's one I'm going to put you on the back foot on. So James has written it, saying Rory, asking his son to turn the pages more quietly while reading Treasure Island a few weeks back, got me thinking, what were your favourite books when you were children? I have a two-year-old and a newborn, so I'm curious and open to suggestions.

• 11:51Alastair Campbell?

  I think I have to differentiate between the books I remember as a parent, in which case I've got to go for Shirley Hughes and the Alfie series, because all of my children love that. I've got to be honest, as a child, the books that I remember the most growing up were the ones that my auntie Nan sent to us every Christmas, which was The Broods and Ullwally.

• 12:12Rory Stewart?

  Ullwally. That's very good. I think Ullwally's still going. Um, I loved reading Tintin and Asterix growing up. And I, I wonder what it sort of did to me, but I think it had a really profound impact on me because it gave me this idea of this kind of adventurous, Tintin, this sort of adventurous Belgian journalist. But I didn't think I really understood he was Belgian, with Captain Haddock going around, adventures around the world. In terms of new stuff that's come out, um, and that we're reading to kids, I think one thing I would say that's worth doing, which wasn't maybe as easy when Alistair and I were young, is how easy is it to get a book on tape on your phone or on iPhone and have

• 12:55Rory Stewart?

  someone like Stephen Fry reading something really beautifully? I suddenly realised my. Four-year-old, I had basically memorized the whole of Winnie the Pooh. He'd heard it so often that you could set him off on a sentence and off he'd go. He'd be able to do Eeyore.

• 13:11Alastair Campbell?

  Right, we'll have a quick break and then we're going to get through more questions. Lots of them.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  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.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us out. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 13:32Speaker 05

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

• 13:36Speaker 04

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 13:39Speaker 05

  I'm not the first then.

• 13:41Speaker 04

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

• 13:46Speaker 06

  How about a latte?

• 13:47Speaker 07

  Maybe dark roast?

• 13:48Speaker 06

  Vanilla?

• 13:49Speaker 07

  Caramel?

• 13:50Speaker 06

  Blueberry?

• 13:51Speaker 07

  You could get them to agree on one flavor or give everyone what they want. With Keurig, there's over 500 K-Cup Pod varieties of fresh, flavorful coffee. No effort, no grind, no settling. Great coffee without the grind. Keurig.

• 14:13Speaker 08

  Espolone Tequila. Balanced, delicious. 100% Acai, 0% Ego. Just add ice, lime, and your mouth. For a real margarita, ride the rooster. Espolone Tequila, 40% alcohol by volume, 80% proof. Copyright 2026, Campagna America, New York, New York. Drink responsibly.

• 14:28Speaker 09

  For the moments that matter, choose Keurig Naturals. Infused with aloe vera and vitamin E, Keurig Naturals Bandages protect your unexpected scrapes, cuts, and burns while also moisturizing your skin. Find deeper relief with natural ingredients you can trust to start the healing. When life surprises call for the best, choose Keurig: A Deeper Level of Care. Shop the full collection on Amazon or visit keurig.com to learn more.

• 15:06Alastair Campbell?

  So, welcome back, part two of The Rest Is Politics Question Time. Right, let's have a bit of a serious one. We've got lots of young readers. Maria, I'm 16. I'm doing my GCSEs this summer, which has been very stressful. I saw Lord Baker, that's Ken Baker, the former Secretary of State for Education, or Good Morning Britain, a few weeks ago, speaking about how GCSEs should be scrapped for various reasons, but mainly because we don't leave school at 16 anymore. Now, I'm a big fan of the baccalaureate, Rory, what about you?

• 15:35Rory Stewart?

  I think there's a lot to be said for it. So, for those of you who don't follow this stuff, basically what it means is that you have a much, much broader education in places like France, instead of specialising in the way that, you know, you and I would have done maybe three A-levels. Nowadays, I guess people do more, but you get a much, much broader education much later. I actually love the American university system too. They have this majoring system, which allows you to do, even as an undergraduate, you can do courses in astrophysics and do Greek and do your German. I was talking to a man who, today, he's a friend of mine, who managed to do a major in maths and Latin, which wouldn't be possible in Britain.

• 16:16Alastair Campbell?

  No, absolutely. No, and I do think we're so sort of hung up on the kind of, and I do think this is part of Gove's legacy. I think Gove was trying to relive his own education through today's children and did massive damage. And so I would, you know, you have assessment, you have vocational, but I think the baccalaureate is the answer. Now Rory, at uttering idle words, which I guess is kind of what we do for a living now, which cabinet position is currently held by the worst person who has ever held that position in our lifetime? Now, uttering idle words, the names Boris Johnson, Priti Patel, Nadine Dorries, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whose name is momentarily escaping me.

• 17:01Alastair Campbell?

  That's alarming, they're all women, aren't they?

• 17:03Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, that's pretty offensive, isn't it?

• 17:04Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but let's try, so I'd add to that, but then I'd also add Rob, worst ever.

• 17:08Rory Stewart?

  Well, I want to defend Dominic Raab for a second, actually. I've been thinking about him. Obviously, he came from a completely different part of the Conservative Party to me, but as a colleague, he was very, very straight. And I've been thinking about him because I was thinking during the Brexit debate, he was one of the only, actually genuinely honest people. I remember challenging him during the leaders debate. And he was straight out saying the only way we'll get out of Europe by thirty first of October is by parroting parliament. Everybody else was denying they'd do it. Get elected and then they do it. And he was completely honest. And I think it's very, very odd that he's sort of remembered now as though he is. Because of what happened in Afghanistan, he was on vacation when the Afghanistan evacuation happened.

• 17:52Rory Stewart?

  I would say in his defence that that was very, very out of character. In fact, probably the criticism people had from him is that he was one of the most conscientious, hardworking foreign secretaries that anyone had ever had. He was a micromanager and he was very, very tough, but he was very serious and dedicated to his job. And I think oddly, he is a figure where the gap between the public perception of him and the private perception is quite bright. I have a kind of fondness for him, which I think doesn't come across.

• 18:21Alastair Campbell?

  Interesting. I, I, I, I think it's very hard to call any of the current cabinet honest because I think they're all dishonest in the way that they defend Boris Johnson and what he's done. And I don't have any respect for any of them until they're called it out.

• 18:32Rory Stewart?

  So one of the reasons why there isn't, and this is the, the reason why it's so unfair, that list of women, is that Boris Johnson has, not all of them, but many of the people he's put in the cabinet are put there not because they're talented, but because they're loyal. And in fact, he deliberately has promoted people who can't be a challenge to him. Because traditionally in the, and this is one of the reasons why we haven't seen the letters going in and the leadership challenge being triggered yet. Traditionally, conservative leaders come out of the cabinet. In fact, almost all of them are people who've been Foreign Secretary or Chancellor before they become leader. And he's deliberately created a cabinet where it's very difficult to see somebody who's going to win an election there.

• 19:16Rory Stewart?

  That's the basic problem that the Conservative MPs feel. There are many on the back benches who could do it. And there are many very talented women in the Conservative Party. I'd, for example, say Victoria Prentice, Gillian Keegan, really impressive people.

• 19:30Rory Stewart?

  And one of the problems for actually getting rid of Boris Johnson is that he's very deliberately filled his cabinet with people that it's difficult to think of winning an election.

• 19:38Alastair Campbell?

  Talking, talking of one of his cabinet, Tom has asked this question. I recently met Michael Gove through work. I knew he was coming and I was tempted to volley him in the nuts if the opportunity arose. On the day, I got on with him really well and had a productive meeting. Have you ever met another person you despise, but then you happen to quite like them?

• 19:58Rory Stewart?

  I think often, unfortunately. Um, and partly it's psychological and it's a bit like going to a movie that you've been told is really good and they're being disappointed or going to a movie you're told is really bad and think it's great. But no, I mean, African leaders, for example, I remember going to see Youssef Kabila, who had run a country for 14 years, which is one of the poorest countries on earth, where five million people are being killed in the civil war. She's got trillions of dollars of mineral wealth being stolen, unbelievable corruption and meeting him and just thinking, goodness gracious me, he's much more intelligent. Much more charming than I was expecting and he completely put me on the back foot because I'd gone in to complain to him about the fact that he wasn't holding an election.

• 20:41Rory Stewart?

  And all he did was mock me for 15 minutes about Brexit.

• 20:45Alastair Campbell?

  I think, um, I think George Bush has got to go into, um, that category as well. I mean, it's, it, no matter, I, I found, no matter how much I felt that my basic political outlook ought to despise George W. Bush. I found him on a personal level incredibly likeable. Amy.

• 21:01Rory Stewart?

  Um, can I quickly, before Amy, just explain, sorry, that was an obscure reference to Youssef Kabila. He's the, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I didn't, I didn't manage to.

• 21:09Alastair Campbell?

  I, I've done the research, Rory, 93.6% of our listeners knew that already. Amy, how do you view the role of news agencies like Reuters, Agence France Presse, Associated Press in the modern media world? Are they underestimated and undervalued? And this is in reference to something you said last week about the decline of foreign correspondents. I would argue, yes, they are. And I think they do an incredibly important job, not least in keeping the world informed of the really bad stuff that's going on at the moment.

• 21:38Rory Stewart?

  I think that they, they do an incredible job, but even them, I'm sad to say, there are fewer and fewer around the world. I mean, I remember when every place I went, there was an AFP correspondent, there was a Reuters correspondent. So something's going wrong with the economics of newspapers. It's not just they're losing their foreign correspondents, but they're losing those guys as well. Here's one question to you from Joe. When ministers talk to international leaders, how do you bring up the question of human rights and other unsavory acts these nations may be doing? No doubt when you're in talks, it's to negotiate good relations, improve trade links. Do you go in hard, bring it up straight away, potentially scupper your main reason for being there? Or do you take a more softly, softly approach, trying not to offend your opposite number? I'm fascinated by that. I met, I think, I'd had fifteen different heads of state talking about human rights.

• 22:22Rory Stewart?

  And every time I went in, I had my talking points to talk about human rights. And every time I was really asked the ambassador in the car on the way to the meeting, what do you really want me to do here? Do you actually want me to go in and have a row with him or her on our first meeting? Or do you want me to achieve this thing on the other side of the bit of paper? Where you're trying to ask, you know, President Magathuli in Tanzania not to fine a British company four hundred million, or you're trying to get a British citizen released from jail. What what's your priority here? And the answer is the ambassadors could never answer me.

• 22:56Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I I can tell you an extraordinary story about this. At the time of the Hong Kong handover, which was an extraordinary event, absolutely one of the most extraordinary events I went to. And Chris Patton was virtually in tears, Prince Charles was virtually in tears. It felt like a terrible moment of decline for the British Empire, which of course it was. And we were having a meeting with the the president and we got the word that the meeting would have to be at their venue where they were, because they now saw themselves as the power and we had to go to them. And we get on this boat, it was an incredibly sort of stormy night. And all our press has been interested in the briefing I did before, and will the Prime Minister raise a question of human rights? Will he press him on human rights? Will he press him on, you know, two countries, one system, etcetera?

• 23:42Alastair Campbell?

  Of course, the Prime Minister will raise human rights. The Prime Minister always raises human rights in his discussions with his Chinese counterparts, blah, blah, blah, blah. We get there, whole array of Chinese guys there. And Tony Blair, Robin Cook, John Holmes, Jonathan Powell, me, there's a few of us, right? I'm sitting B two B, next to Robbie Cook and John Holmes, Tony's Foreign Affairs Advisor. And they're chatting away, they're reading each other, they're talking points and all through interpreters and it's all taking a very long time and it's all polite, etcetera. And. I know that Tony doesn't want to do a sort of full on rant about human rights, partly because he knows that the guy's just not going to really listen.

• 24:22Alastair Campbell?

  But equally, he knows I've got to be able to go out and say at least something about what he said about raising human rights. So at one point, Tony sort of at his best diplomatic Tony, there's only Tony Blake, uh, Mr. President, there's just, it's one other thing which I think at this point it might be relevant if I could just possibly just raise this in the spirit that we are trying to develop here of cooperation as we move forward in this very exciting new era for both of our countries. And that's the issue of, and I promise you, as the H on a human was for me, Li Pang, the Prime Minister, took a handkerchief out of his pocket, he went

• 25:00Alastair Campbell?

  and spat into his handkerchief.

• 25:04Alastair Campbell?

  At which point Tony finished raising human rights and off we went.

• 25:08Rory Stewart?

  Very interesting, isn't it? Because of course it's a very serious issue.

• 25:12Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think sometime, I think sometimes you do it and you do it vigorously and you have to do it. But I think other times the truth is, and Boris Johnson would have been doing this, you know, when he was out recently in the Gulf, you do it. You sort of go through motions and both sides know that you're going through motions.

• 25:29Rory Stewart?

  That, that's absolutely right. A lot of the time I'm reading out my stuff on human rights when I was a minister. And I remember doing it to Kagame in Rwanda. And you basically got the impression he's just sitting there. He's heard it from me. He's heard it from the American Foreign Minister. He's heard it from Sweden. He's heard it from the Dane. Here we go again. And we get to the end and on it goes. And I think the real question is what do we really do about it? And that's much more difficult. I turned up in South Sudan, uh, where there's horrible civil war. And my friend Mark Green, who was the American administrator around USAID, had just been in to see Salva Keir, the president. And he'd said to him, this is completely horrifying. If you continue to behave in this way, we are going to cut our development aid.

• 26:10Rory Stewart?

  And Salva Keir turned around and said, that's fine. If you want million people to starve to death, that's fine. I don't care. Take away your billion dollars of development aid. And Mark Green was put in that extraordinary position of having to decide, okay, we're going to keep the development day going, that this man is so evil, so horrifying, but I'm not going to allow him to starve his people so we can make a point. And then the question is, where is the leverage?

• 26:34Alastair Campbell?

  There was a question today, Roy, which I'm desperately trying to find it where I scribbled it down, but I did sort of, somebody just asked the blatant, the blunt question. We had lots of questions about Sue Gray's report, but he basically said, when do we wake up to the fact that we're living in a dictatorship?

• 26:51Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think we're, it's sort of shabbier and weirder than that, isn't it? I mean, obviously, I'm stupefied that having been criticised for breaking the ministerial code and not resigning over the ministerial code, it now looks like he's decided to announce that he's rewriting the ministerial code so that you don't have to resign for breaking the ministerial code. But you can only conclude that this is deliberate, that he does this stuff just to wind us up. I mean, it's so mad.

• 27:17Alastair Campbell?

  The same with imperial measures.

• 27:19Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, why would anyone, three months after they failed to resign over the ministerial code, try to change the ministerial code? It's kind of insane.

• 27:27Alastair Campbell?

  By the way, and on this, just on this imperial measures, Roy, I don't even know what my height is in metric. I am six feet, three inches tall. The idea that you've not been able to go for a pint for the last however many years.

• 27:38Rory Stewart?

  Or our road signs are not in miles.

• 27:40Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, it's just bonkers. Now, Rory, I've got, I've got some great, five questions, which I've picked out, which are all specifically directed at you.

• 27:49Rory Stewart?

  All right, go for it.

• 27:50Alastair Campbell?

  Not me, not both of us, but at you. I want very, very short answers to all of them.

• 27:54Rory Stewart?

  Okay.

• 27:55Alastair Campbell?

  At name already gone, which is a brilliant Twitter handle, would you stand as an independent in Oxbridge? Yes or no?

• 28:00Rory Stewart?

  No.

• 28:02Alastair Campbell?

  LP live tweet, do you regret standing for Change UK, which lacked a big hitter who'd been in government?

• 28:07Rory Stewart?

  Do you regret not standing for Change UK?

• 28:09Alastair Campbell?

  Do you regret not standing?

• 28:10Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I, I, I never saw Change UK going anywhere. And, and I think I wasn't, I, I don't think, it didn't matter how big a hitter you attached to Change UK, it still wasn't going to be going anywhere.

• 28:20Alastair Campbell?

  Richard Cassidy, would you have liked Rory to have served in a Tony Blair cabinet, which had a majority and hope?

• 28:26Rory Stewart?

  Blimey, would I have served in a Tony Blair cabinet, which had majority and hope? I don't think I would have served in a Tony Blair cabinet. Nope.

• 28:33Alastair Campbell?

  Why not? I mean, you wouldn't have been asked, obviously, but why not?

• 28:38Rory Stewart?

  Not least because I would have had you tacking me about my school every day.

• 28:41Alastair Campbell?

  You certainly would. Nella Finway, Brad Pitt bought the rights to your live story, Rory, but then decided not to go with it when you joined the Tories. Is it now back on the cards and who would play you and who would play me? There you go.

• 28:58Rory Stewart?

  So I'm going to be played by Judi Dench and you are going to be played by Danny DeVito.

• 29:04Alastair Campbell?

  Right, well, on Judi Dench and Danny DeVito, we end the first ever, this historic broadcast of the first ever episode of The Rest Is Politics Question Time. Goodbye from me, see you next week twice.

• 29:16Rory Stewart?

  And goodbye from me and see you next week twice too.

• 29:21Speaker 03

  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 keep the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us out. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 29:38Speaker 05

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

• 29:42Speaker 04

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 29:45Speaker 05

  I'm not the first then.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17.9 minutes without parent.

• 29:52Speaker 08

  Espolón Tequila. It arrives in a cloud of feathers with a cry to wake the dead. Espolón Tequila. Balanced, delicious, perfect for nights out, nights in, and people who like to drink tequila. Just add ice, lime, and your mouth. Then hold on tight. 100% agave, 0% ego. Espolón Tequila. For a real margarita. Ride the rooster.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  Espolón Tequila, 40% alcohol by volume, 80 proof. Copyright 2026, Compaia America, New York, New York. Drink responsibly.