268. The Tories' 'taxtopia' attack, Macron's gamble, and the politics of football

How worried should Labour be about voter apathy? What is 'taxtopia'? Why is Liz Truss being brought up in the French election? Join Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell for the latest episode of The Rest Is Politics, where they answer all these questions and more. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. TRIP UK TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Assistant Producer: Fiona Douglas Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Crete. And of course, the thing flashed up, saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. 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/restorspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

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• 2:28Alastair Campbell?

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

• 2:30Rory Stewart?

  And me, Rory Stewart.

• 2:32Alastair Campbell?

  And just to remind you all, on election night, July 4th, if you hadn't heard, we will be part of the Channel 4 team presenting general election coverage, fronted by Christian Guernamurty and Emily Maitlis and Gary Gibbon alongside us, the esteemed, splendid political editor of Channel 4.

• 2:50Rory Stewart?

  And it's going to be great because we're going to have with us an incredible array of leading figures from all the major parties. We're going to be up right through the night, Alistair trying to resist hitting the coffees. And I think it's going to be amazing. I haven't seen such a great line up for a long time. So join us, please, on election night on Channel 4.

• 3:06Alastair Campbell?

  You've also forgotten, Rory, the people from your favourite programme. I know you're an absolute avid viewer.

• 3:11Rory Stewart?

  Gogglebox. Gogglebox is going to be with us. You've got it.

• 3:13Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. So with all that and more, we are going to be giving you the best election night analysis on Channel 4. Now, this week, what are we talking about? We're going to talk about Labour. Well, when I say Labour, definitely my real worries about turnout and apathy. What the Tory attack strategy now is in relation to our election. Now, lots of people are saying our election is a bit boring. One election that is really not boring is the one that's currently going on in France. And so we're going to talk about that. And as I've been doing a lot of research for The Rest is Politics at the European Football Championships, I think we should have a little chat about football and and politics as well. But let's kick off with Home Matters, Rory. How is the election going from the Tory perspective, do you think?

• 3:56Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think that the big headline is that in most of the polls at the moment, the Conservatives are in the most unbelievable trouble. There's really nothing like this on record. I think if we just sort of step back for a second. In 1997, when you, Alistair, and Tony Blair ran against the Conservatives and won this thumping victory, the Conservatives were reduced to about 165 seats and about 30% of the vote. And I remember talking to Conservative MPs who remember 97. It felt for them as though somebody had just dropped a bomb on their house. Everybody wiped out, the party in total disarray, lurching from left to right as it tries to work out what's going on.

• 4:37Rory Stewart?

  But this time, if the polls are to be believed, it looks like they're on track for something in a completely different order of magnitude. Looks like they could be down, if you look at the latest Restless Politics, J L Partners poll, could be down to about 23% of the vote. And that means they could be hovering around 100 seats. Now, this is something that hasn't been seen really for well over 100 years. I mean, kind of worst results back in 1905 for the Conservatives were at about 130 seats. So this is something beyond imagining. You're gonna, I'm sure, want to go on and say, listen, we shouldn't be too complacent, and that in some ways, these kinds of polls might end up in strange results. And you're absolutely right there, but I think, let's just make sure that everybody understands

• 5:22Rory Stewart?

  that's the basic underlying story. When people are talking about Labour having a 17-point lead, what we're really talking about is polls suggesting at the moment that the Conservatives could be wiped out on a scale that basically hasn't been seen in British political history.

• 5:35Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. The reason why I'm worried about that, for two reasons. One, I don't believe that that's going to happen, just because I think that a lot of people who, they won't necessarily be telling pollsters, they might not even be telling their best friends that they're going to vote Tory, but I think some of them will. The second thing is that I really, really worry that we're almost three weeks away from the actual election, and most of the debate is focused on what happens afterwards as though the election has already taken place. And I think that will lead to a lot of people, I mean, turnout and apathy. I sent you a thing this morning about something like 50% of people regularly avoiding the news, and partly because of, you know, Covid, partly because of all the war in the Middle

• 6:17Alastair Campbell?

  East, but mainly because a lot of people are just fed up of hearing about politics, so not necessarily engaging. I also think, I was really disturbed the other day, I bumped into a couple of students who said, you know, they're really, really excited about the change of government, getting into the Tories, but they're voting green. And I said, why then, if you're so excited about winning the Tories? And he said, well, I think because Labour have already won, we can lodge a protest vote. Oh my God. And then we had this, when we were coming out of, I went to the Scotland game, which we don't need to dwell too much on that in Munich. And then I came out to Berlin and went to the Spain Croatia game. And on the way out, on the train into back into the city centre, met these four English lads who'd been watching the game. And it's very, very interesting because

• 7:00Alastair Campbell?

  they were working class blokes. One of them was really trying to wind me up, telling me Farage was his hero. No, actually, forget that. Marine Le Pen is my hero. And really trying to get me going. But what was interesting was there was one guy there, he said, ignore him, he's just talking shit, he always does. But who was basically quite a thoughtful, working class bloke. And even he was saying to me, listen, why are you worrying? Because I was trying to persuade this Reform guy not to vote Reform. And he said, why are you worrying? You're going to walk this election. And I said, well, what are you going to vote? And he said, well, I would vote Labour if I voted, but I'm not sure there's any need. You're going to win. And I said to him, if everybody thinks that Labour has already won. So I really worry about that. And also, if you look at, if the Tories

• 7:41Alastair Campbell?

  do, by the way, I think they're wrong in the strategy they're pursuing with Reform, and I'll come on to that in a minute. But if the Tories do manage to squeeze Reform, at the moment, essentially, you've got the Labour bloc in these polls. But if you do add Reform and the Tories together, you back neck and neck. So, you know, I think it's, I just worry that the media narrative is working to Labour's disadvantage. That may sound a bit odd.

• 8:04Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. Well, there's another thing which connects what you're saying, which is in this Restless Politics JL Partners poll, which is, we're beginning to see that polling itself is having more of an effect on people's views than in almost any previous election. So people notice the polls more than the manifesto.

• 8:22Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 8:24Rory Stewart?

  And one of the reasons that Nigel Farage is doing better, and he's doing considerably better, and we'll get, we'll get on to that, there is a big Farage phenomenon going on, which really irritates you because you tend to think that he's a bit of a paper tiger. But one of the things also that's helping him is that there was a poll suggesting briefly that they'd pulled ahead of the Tories.

• 8:43Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 8:44Rory Stewart?

  Reform even more of us. So we're in a very odd world. I met another example of what you're talking about. I've been travelling around the country doing live shows. So I was in Bath on Saturday. And I asked an audience of very highly motivated people who'd come out to talk about politics, over a thousand people wanting to talk about politics on a sunny Saturday afternoon. How many of them had watched Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer in the debate at Grimsby? And I reckon maybe five or six hands went up out of 1200. Now, I don't know whether Sky is revealing its figures. And of course, almost all those people have been following the commentary around it. You know, they want to come on a Saturday afternoon. They're following the rest of politics. They'll be watching us on Channel 4.

• 9:23Rory Stewart?

  But they're not actually watching the debates itself. So everything is at second hand. It's it's it comes through a podcast or it comes through TikTok or it comes through small clips on social media. But very little patience in engaging with the detailed conversations between these leaders.

• 9:40Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I have spoken to Nigel Farage several times about coming on this podcast and he said that he will. But the nearer we get to an election, the more I get a sense that he doesn't want to do it. And he maybe doesn't like the idea of having an hour where his policies are put to sort of some more rigorous testing than maybe he gets most of the time. But I think the Tories are making a big mistake in relation to reform. I think this line that they're running, a vote for reform is a vote to get Keir Starmer into Downing Street, is the wrong tack with Nigel Farage. They should be attacking reform on what their politics represents. And that's why this debate about whether Farage should be in the Conservative Party, I think is so damaging to their campaign.

• 10:21Alastair Campbell?

  And Rishi Sunak, as ever, can't decide where exactly to pivot to, whether he goes for Farage. And that means going for people like Braverman and Reece Mog who are talking about that's the future of the Tory party. Or whether he stays with the kind of David Camerons of this world, who've been saying it would be a terrible thing to do. He's sort of trapped between the two. So he's ended up with a completely tactical response, which is to say, if you vote for them, it's actually a vote for Labour. There's no engagement on the arguments that are being put. And I think that's a big mistake.

• 10:51Rory Stewart?

  And this is something we've been talking about for some time, which is that the Conservatives made a very big tactical error, which was to abandon the centre ground. They decided very early on that they weren't going to get any votes from centre and moderate voters. So they were going to bet the House on getting votes from the right. So they were stumping up their chat about immigration and all this kind of stuff. It's disastrous. It's disastrous firstly because Nigel Farage has now emerged and he really has made a difference. I mean, again, our polls suggest forty percent of the people voting Reform or saying they'll vote for Reform say that they wouldn't have done so under another leader. So this individual's making a lot of difference.

• 11:27Alastair Campbell?

  It does help, Roy, that he just has to sort of, you know, fart in the bath and the broadcasters will put it on and say, oh, Nigel, how was that fart in the bath for you today? Tell us, tell us what the fart in the bath did for your campaign.

• 11:39Rory Stewart?

  Well, the second thing is that running on immigration is possibly the stupidest thing they could ever do. Because their record on immigration is seven hundred thousand people came in this year, seven hundred thousand people last year.

• 11:51Alastair Campbell?

  Rwanda's a disaster.

• 11:52Rory Stewart?

  Normally we take in a few tens of thousands.

• 11:54Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 11:54Rory Stewart?

  And this means that all Farage has to do is stand up and say, these are a bunch of liars. And he can immediately, and of course, he's right in that. I mean, that's the terrible thing about this kind of type of politics. It's very easy for him. It's not just sitting in the bath. It's he gets to say, the emperor has no clothes, you know, these guys say they're controlling immigration.

• 12:13Alastair Campbell?

  And unlike him, unlike him, who's so well clothed that, you know, the man who, the man who delivered Brexit and who never gets asked about why it's going so badly and his responsibility within it. I think it's interesting that he is now trying to go for Labour as well. And of course, that plays in Farage was the one, I think we talked about this on an earlier podcast. When he did re-enter the race, that he was, part of his strategic positioning was to say, look, let's just stop all this nonsense. Labour have won the election. Keir Starmer is the next Prime Minister. There is no doubt about that. And the question is, who is the opposition? So he has been part of that, sort of the framing of that narrative that I said earlier, I think is quite damaging for Labour. I think what I really hope.

• 12:57Alastair Campbell?

  From Labour, because it, listen, I've been in these campaigns and it's, you know, you think six weeks will fly by and most of the, usually six weeks does fly by, right? But in a campaign, you're having to find new ways to inject momentum all the time. And I would like Labour to take on some of these areas where they've got an issue, they've got problems and really focus on them. So for example, I've been saying to them, I'd like them to do different versions now of the manifesto. So the manifesto, what it means for young people, the manifesto, what it means for climate, the manifesto, what it means when we talk about devolution, really go into these things, but do it from that perspective of going to some of the areas where things are difficult for Labour.

• 13:42Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, I'm genuinely worried, this isn't just me sort of, you know, kind of trying to keep the thing exciting and, and close. I'm genuinely worried how many young people I meet who are basically saying, well, the Greens look nice and, you know, Gaza, I'm really upset with Keir Starmer about Gaza, so I think I'll vote Lib Dem, you know, and, and of course, I just think it's, I think Labour have got to confront that and challenge that and say, it's not all over, it's only over and the Tories are only out if you vote in the alternative government.

• 14:11Rory Stewart?

  And to agree with you violently, one of the reasons why that's true is that the polls show this incredible landslide against the Conservatives, but most of what's driving this is the unpopularity of the Conservatives.

• 14:26Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 14:27Rory Stewart?

  Labour isn't in historical terms, if you compare it to where Tony Blair was in his big election victory in 97, he had much higher net favorability ratings, this kind of jargon term for being popular with the public than Keir Starmer does.

• 14:40Alastair Campbell?

  That's the same, by the way, did you see, I think you posted, I saw it, you posted the picture of all the G7 leaders with a post-it with their favorability ratings. I mean, that is the truth in every democracy in the world.

• 14:51Rory Stewart?

  It's beyond imagining, yeah, just quickly to remind people of that, I mean, this was a picture of the G7 leaders and Rishi Sunak is down on kind of minus 50 net favorability, the German Chancellor's down at minus 50s, the Japanese leader's down in the minus 40s. Macron and Trudeau, who are fantastically unpopular, are still slightly more popular than the German Chancellor and the British Prime Minister and the Japanese Prime Minister.

• 15:16Alastair Campbell?

  So Maloney was the only one who was kind of-

• 15:18Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, Maloney is sort of, you know, Maloney is leading, and Maloney is a far-right populist, which leads me to another issue which we haven't talked about much, but I think is maybe the most fundamentally interesting thing about Britain. So I was in Bologna on Friday, talking to a lot of Italians who are very worried about Maloney and the possibility of a return of a form of fascism in Italy, and of course, very worried about the German and French results, and trying to talk through what's happening in Britain. And what I realised talking to Europeans is how strange an outlier Britain feels at the moment, and how dangerous it may be, that there may be a huge opportunity for the populist right in Britain in the future, because Labour is running on a platform which nobody else in Europe and the US are

• 16:02Rory Stewart?

  really running on. They're running on what I would call a socially liberal, fiscally conservative platform, which is the sort of platform associated with Tony Blair, sort of platform associated with the early days of David Cameron. Just to remind listeners and viewers, they are being so careful with the money that they've basically said they're not going to borrow anymore, they're not going to tax anymore, they've ruled out most of the taxes, and they've effectively signed up to nearly 18 billion pounds of Conservative spending reductions in order to be so fiscally responsible. Now, I think that's trouble in the long run, because it's not a quadrant of the voters which there's much of. There's

• 16:44Rory Stewart?

  very little support, actually, in the public for that. The support for sort of socially conservative, right-wing economic, there's support for left-wing social, left-wing economic, there's even a bit of support for left-wing economic and right-wing on social values. But where Labour's going, it may be very responsible, it may be a good way of getting through this election, but in the long run, it doesn't feel like a very stable electoral pact.

• 17:10Alastair Campbell?

  That was one of the points I put to Bridget Philipsen, who's our latest interviewee on Leading, which is out now. But one thing I did put to you, if you remember, this is another concern I have, that unless this Labour government succeeds in delivering on the things that it's promising in the manifesto, and more by the way, then there is a danger that you and I and François Hollande, thinking that we had passed our peak populism, there is a danger that it revives. And I think that's an important part of this. Now Rory, you're very good with words. What is Taxtopia?

• 17:42Rory Stewart?

  I've no idea what is tax.

• 17:44Alastair Campbell?

  And will it add to the, will it add to the lexical of political language? It's this, it's this word that the Tories have started to use about Labour, Taxtopia.

• 17:52Rory Stewart?

  What's it implying? What are they trying to say?

• 17:54Alastair Campbell?

  I think what they're trying.

• 17:55Rory Stewart?

  Honestly, if you've got a word that I literally don't understand, it doesn't sound to me like political communication genius.

• 18:01Alastair Campbell?

  Well, you sometimes can make new words like perseverance.

• 18:04Rory Stewart?

  Alastair Campbell TM, perseverance.

• 18:06Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly, exactly. But I, I, I think what they're, what they're trying to do, and again, going to your friend James Johnson's polls, they're having some success at making Labour and tax one of the themes of the campaign and, and also that some people are unsettled by it. But I think there's something a bit weird about the way that since the manifesto, the Labour's manifesto, where they ruled out income tax rises, ruled out VAT, ruled out national insurance rises. And then there's this thing, ah, well, but you haven't ruled out putting a tax on this. And I think this is what they mean is that Taxtopia is like, you know, they're only telling you about the ones they won't put tax on, but they're going to put tax on everything else.

• 18:47Alastair Campbell?

  And by the way, here's another phrase I hate in politics, that is in their DNA. So I think that's what they're trying to do.

• 18:54Rory Stewart?

  I think that's right. And it really doesn't work because the taxes that Labour's ruled out are 85% of the tax revenue in the country. I mean, the kind of taxes now that the Conservatives are trying to focus on are tiny.

• 19:08Alastair Campbell?

  Couple gains.

• 19:09Rory Stewart?

  Taxes that, you know, bring in a few hundred million. Labour have ruled out the sort of tens of billions of pounds income tax rises. And as we interview Bridget Phillips and Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer and all these people we've had on, on leading over the, over the last few weeks and months, it seems very clear that they are very serious about this. In fact, I think Labour's problem is the opposite. And that's why I think the Conservative tack line is very strange. I don't think the risk with Labour is that they're going to raise taxes. I think the risk with Labour is that they've boxed themselves into what is basically an austerity budget at a time when, I mean, take my mother, my mother, you know, classic Conservative voter. She is really worried. She thinks we need huge investment in our infrastructure.

• 19:53Rory Stewart?

  She thinks everything's creaking. I mean, she's in Scotland, so the view on the NHS is different. But so she actually thinks the problem is that these parties have to confront the fact that the country desperately needs investment and spending. And that what Labour's done is it's been so careful with balancing the budget and running the money, that they're going to take us into an austerity period, which will be really uncomfortable.

• 20:15Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, the other place, of course, where they box themselves in, where Ken, you and I think are going to violently agree, is on Brexit. Both you and my Fiona regularly say that you think sometimes I sort of am a bit too soft on Labour. If you get my new European column this week, Rory, I'm pretty critical on the way that they have just, they're not allowing this elephant into the room. I love Angela Rayner, as you know, I think she's a great politician, I think she's really good. But in the TV debate, the second ITV debate with the seven of them, her and Penny Morden and Farage and Stephen Flynn, et cetera, they did, despite the criticism ITV rightly got for the 45 second limit on answers, Julie Ettingham gave them all a yes or no answer.

• 20:59Alastair Campbell?

  Yes or no, one word only answers, will you ever advocate a return to the European Union or the single market? And Angela Rayner just said no. And if I'd have been her, I would have said, Julie, you should have learnt your lesson from the 45 seconds thing. The future of the country is more serious than this. We are not going back into the European Union. We have made that clear. It's spelt in our manifesto. But we are going to have to fix the damage that Brexit's done. And I think that would have been a far better position.

• 21:26Rory Stewart?

  So on that one, again, I mean, I don't know why I keep putting my mother on Channel Four and the podcast, but she was a Brexit-voting Conservative. But when I asked her for what her top three issues were, one of them was, she wants a party that's going to bring us closer to the European Union. So she's an exact example of somebody who isn't saying she rejects Brexit, but is very interested in looking at single market, customs union, getting close to the European Union. And oddly, even amongst Reform voters in our JL Partners poll, that there are even some Reform voters, I, you know, the old Brexit UK. Party right wing voters who also wants us to get close to the European Union. And and I think final thing that these polls are showing that what really matters is character and leadership.

• 22:09Rory Stewart?

  That's almost more important than the individual policies. A lot of these policies are just not cutting through, so you don't need to box yourself in. There was a bizarre thing again in in the J L Partners poll, which is that if you look at, you know, cutting national insurance by two percent, which the Tories thought was going to be this sort of big election winner, barely a quarter of people sort of registered or care about it.

• 22:33Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 22:33Rory Stewart?

  That the only thing actually that broke through really was the national service, which is unpopular, and a triple lock plus on pensions, which was pretty popular with about half of people. But most of the other policy staff people ignore. What they care about is leadership and the right leader, Keir Starmer, with the right momentum, the right credibility, and he's doing much better than any of the other people.

• 22:53Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Rory Stewart?

  Or to be able to lead us back towards a much closer relationship with Europe, and they shouldn't rule that out.

• 22:59Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I I I see in some of the media this morning that Rachel Reeves is going to be centre stage this week in Labour's campaign. That shows they're putting the economy right at the heart of it. But I also see that she's talking about the need to have a closer relationship with the European Union. I hope that goes beyond what's in the manifesto, because I found the manifesto quite kind of timid on that. I don't think you can get the growth that they're talking about unless there is a fundamental reassessment of what's happened with Brexit. I really don't think you can do that. And the other thing is, I think we've got to be very, very careful. We're going to talk about football later and, you know, one of the, I I I spent some time at one of the matches with a European Commission,

• 23:38Alastair Campbell?

  a European Commissioner, and was just saying, you know, how people, how people in your neck of the woods viewing the our election. And he basically said, well, you know, there's way more interest in what's happening in France right now. Obviously, people think that Labour are going to win and in the in the round that's going to be welcomed. But it's just not as big a deal as it was for us, and that's the truth. It's not as big a deal for them now.

• 24:01Rory Stewart?

  But there is also a real sense that Europe would like Britain involved in the conversation around security in Ukraine.

• 24:09Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, for sure, hundred percent. That's sorry, I beg your pardon, that is the other thing you said, defence and security.

• 24:13Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 24:13Alastair Campbell?

  Britain has got to be, and and Labour did say in the manifesto, a new relationship.

• 24:16Rory Stewart?

  And we're not talking enough about that in this election. I mean, you often talk about defence spending, but from the European point of view, if you are in Baltic or you're Finland or you're Poland. You were just saying we are being very naive about Vladimir Putin. We're being very naive about Ukraine. This is the biggest serious threat. You know, for them, it feels almost like the 1930s again.

• 24:36Alastair Campbell?

  The other thing I've I've passed on Rory and you know, these occasional, as I'm wandering around Hampstead Heath when I'm not in Berlin or France.

• 24:43Rory Stewart?

  This is you and Keir Starmer.

• 24:45Alastair Campbell?

  Bumping into Keir Starmer.

• 24:46Rory Stewart?

  Covering up to the Labour leader.

• 24:47Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. I also really hope he does a couple of big speeches on foreign policy. And I also think he should do more in Northern Ireland because I think he's got a, it's something he knows about, it's something he cares about, it's something he's got experience of. And I always feel sorry for Northern Ireland in our general elections because the people just ignore them because they don't have Labour and Tory fighting there. But it's a very, very important part of the country. And it's actually, given the impact that Brexit again has had on Northern Ireland, I think it's important that he addresses that. Now, Rory, before we go to break, you said on a recent podcast that no, you can't, you can't possibly cast your vote in a way that helps put Rishi Sunak back in Downey Street. And yet my spies in Cumbria have sent me some local media coverage. You've endorsed the

• 25:32Alastair Campbell?

  bloody Tory.

• 25:33Rory Stewart?

  I've endorsed my friend John Stevenson. I've endorsed a number of what I would call the last fragments of the moderate centre bits of the Conservative Party around the country. So Alex Chalk in Cheltenham, I'm strongly behind.

• 25:45Alastair Campbell?

  Who's coming up on leading soon?

• 25:47Rory Stewart?

  Victoria Prentice in Banbury.

• 25:48Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, not Victoria Prentice, not Victoria Prentice, no.

• 25:52Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 25:53Alastair Campbell?

  Are you trying to tell me, are you trying to tell me you'd rather have them running the health service than West Street?

• 25:58Rory Stewart?

  No, no, I do, I think the Conservatives need to be out. What I'm trying to argue for is that in local constituencies, the last bits of moderate centre conservatism is a good thing for the country.

• 26:10Alastair Campbell?

  And if you're, let's, let's do this one before we go to the break. If you were in Clacton and you thought that, because I'm worried about Clacton, in a bizarre sort of way, I think that if Farage wins, it's because the Labour and Tory vote is going to, to split because they're both saying that they can win. If, let me say, say on record, at the risk of people expelling me from the Labour Party again, if I saw enough... Enough evidence, data to suggest that the best way to keep Farage out would be to vote Tory. I'd be very tempted to do that. Would you vote Labour?

• 26:43Rory Stewart?

  I'd do the same. I mean, I'm very much looking at this election local by locals. So for example, in South West Norfolk, I'm backing the independent candidate, James Bag against Liz Truss, against the Conservative candidate.

• 26:54Alastair Campbell?

  You and Annie Robinson.

• 26:55Rory Stewart?

  There we are. So just to summarise where we are. I mean, volatility, a pretentious word, but basically what we're seeing in the polls, whether it's right or wrong, is extraordinary. 2019 was the worst result for Labour in terms of seats since the 1930s, and that was only five years ago. We're about to go from the worst result for Labour in the last election to the worst, possibly the worst result for the Conservatives in 150 years. And that is really interesting. British politics is just lurching from one side to the other.

• 27:29Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 27:30Rory Stewart?

  One, one quick point, which I think both of us are passionate about. People listening to this on the podcast, if you haven't registered to vote, register today. If you're listening to this on Channel 4, you need to actually stop listening to us and go and register straight away. The registration deadline is midnight on Tuesday. If you haven't registered, go and register immediately.

• 27:49Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, 100%, 100%. Well, listen, talking of volatility, after the break, France and the French election.

• 27:56Rory Stewart?

  See you after the break.

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• 29:49Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to The Rest is Politics with me Rory Stewart.

• 29:52Alastair Campbell?

  And me Alasdair Campbell.

• 29:53Rory Stewart?

  So Alasdair, you are talking to us in Germany, but the real story at the moment is France. So tell us a little bit about about your friend Emmanuel.

• 30:02Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I'm actually leaving here as soon as we've recorded this to go back to France. It is absolutely incredible what is happening and it's, you know, people say our election is a bit boring. The French election right now is whatever the mega opposite of boring is, that is what it is.

• 30:18Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it's looking pretty peculiar. So we talked about this last week, this is where I remember, and my take on it was that he has made a massive mistake, that it's a classic thing, that young men feeling trapped suddenly think they need to show that they're strong, take the initiative and do something reckless. And the examples that I came up with was Humza Youssef in Scotland, Rishi Sunak, I hope you agree with me that Rishi Sunak made the most catastrophic decision.

• 30:47Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, yeah, sure. No, I always thought that, right. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. This is not going well, to put it mildly. And let me just explain, there's been some amazingly deep analysis in a lot of the French media. And by the way, Rory, you talked about polls in relation to the UK. France is obsessed with opinion polls and they really have an impact during the campaign.

• 31:06Rory Stewart?

  And Alasdair, just before you take us deep, just remind us what it is that Emmanuel Macron has done for people who've not been focused too much on it. Just give us the basics.

• 31:15Alastair Campbell?

  The French system, you have the president at the top. You have the National Assembly that is elected separately and from the National Assembly emerges a government. Because Macron's party did so badly in the European elections and the National Front, the Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen's party, did so well, getting over thirty percent, he decided the country has to face up to this choice, get serious, and he has called a general election for the National Assembly. So he is still going, he's going to be there till the rest of the term, three more years, that's not in doubt, but there will be a new National Assembly.

• 31:50Rory Stewart?

  And this is happening almost exactly the same terms of British elections.

• 31:52Alastair Campbell?

  Absolutely. There are two rounds, I'll explain the system in a minute, but there are two rounds, and they go either side of the UK general elections. The first round is the thirtieth of June, the second round is July the seventh. There are five hundred and seventy-seven constituencies, and it's a curious system where lots of candidates will stand in each constituency. If you go into the election and you get over fifty percent of the vote, which hardly ever happens, you've won, okay? If, on the other hand, which happens in most constituencies, the winner gets, say, thirty-eight, and then the next one gets thirty-two, they will go through to the next round. If any of the other candidates get twelve point five percent or above, which doesn't happen as often as you might think, but they will also go through, and then they have a runoff.

• 32:37Rory Stewart?

  Just, again, to explain the logic to listeners, the point about this is that it means that you need to have a reasonable bit of the vote to make it through. You need twelve point five percent, and that's a way, I think, when it was designed probably of excluding very small extremist parties that might just be picking up three, four percent of the vote.

• 32:55Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly. And now what's happened is that the small extremist parties have become big extremist parties, and they are going to be in most of the runoffs. And the figures on this are absolutely remarkable. When you drill down into the results in the European elections, the far-right RN, Le Pen's party, they won in ninety-three percent of French communes.

• 33:18Rory Stewart?

  Just trying to understand, what do you mean they won in ninety-three percent of French communes? Is that, what's a commune?

• 33:22Alastair Campbell?

  A commune is like, I guess, a dist, we would call it a district. So it's not a constituency, it's a district. But they, when you go through, so most parts of France, in most parts of France, the Le Pen party won.

• 33:34Rory Stewart?

  Just again, the difference between that and Britain is that often, for example, Farage's party will do very well in certain parts of the country, but not others, maybe very well in places like Clacton, less well in London, whereas what you're saying about the RN.

• 33:49Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, exactly. But so, based on this analysis, you've now got essentially three blocks, because what's happened is you've got the far right, which is made up of National Rassemblement National, and this other smaller far-right party called Reconquête, Reconquête. On the left side of things, four parties have come together to form a popular front. And they go from absolute out-and-out Communist Party, very, very hard-left, to the kind of old Socialist Party, Social Democrats, what have you, with Greens and all that. And then in the middle, you've got Macron's alliance, which is really struggling. Based on some modelling, which Le Figaro newspaper did, when we get to the the second round, they believe that in 536 of these constituencies,

• 34:34Alastair Campbell?

  the runoff is going to be between the hard right and the hard left. Macron's alliance would, on the current analysis, make just 41 constituencies. Les Républicains, which is the old Tory party, would make three. And we should say about, we said when you said straight away, you thought this was a terrible disaster. I said what I thought he was trying to do was to sort of really shake things up and see how things fell. On the right of the party, you've had two amazing things have happened. Les Républicains, like I say, the old Tory party, as it were, the closest to that. Their leader, Chioti, immediately announced, well, the country's clearly moving right, we should move right with it. Let's do a deal, we're going to do a deal with Le Pen. The rest of his party went absolutely nuts, literally stormed his office.

• 35:19Alastair Campbell?

  He locked himself inside the office, they were banging on the door. And then, once his critics have managed to get hold of either Twitter or Facebook, one or the other, he still has control of one, they have control of the others. You've got this social media thing.

• 35:33Rory Stewart?

  The party's social media accounts.

• 35:34Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly. So there's this thing going on where one social media account is saying, He's gone, he's no longer the leader. And then the other one is saying, oh, yes, I am. I'm still here in my office.

• 35:43Rory Stewart?

  Just to pause on this for a second, because it's an amazing story. There's so many amazing stories in France, but step back for a moment. The background to this is that France was dominated, like most other countries in the world, by two big parties, a sort of centre-right party and a centre-left party. And these parties were shattered, and we can come back to this, by this phenomenon which Macron has part of. So what happened in France is that as he burst through in the centre, you ended up, instead of having a left-wing party and a right-wing party, you end up with a centre party and then a pretty far right and a pretty far left. And the old parties that used to run France, as you say, the equivalents of Tories and Labour, collapsed. It's a bit more complicated than that. We can talk about something coming back.

• 36:25Rory Stewart?

  But this party that we're talking about now, Les Républicains, was the party of General de Gaulle. This was like one of the really big established parties, and it's been totally shattered. I mean, as you say, in the current polling, they might end up with four seats, they could end up with, you know, 6.5% of the vote. And one of the problems that they face, and this is why, you know, maybe British listeners might be interested in this, American listeners might be interested in this. As they've got squeezed, they're trying to work out whether they're going to have to lurch further to the right and make a pact with Marine Le Pen and the far right in order to get seats, or whether they tack back to the centre. And this is partly about geography. Chiotti, who's their leader, represents Les Républicains in the south.

• 37:10Rory Stewart?

  And the south, a place like Nice, tend to be more far-right, more populist. But there's another bunch of his party members and MPs who represent sort of prosperous suburbs around Paris. So I suppose a little bit more like, in the British context, Tory voters in the home counties who tend to be more centrist, and they're horrified.

• 37:27Alastair Campbell?

  It's like Braverman v Hunt, is that sort of?

• 37:30Rory Stewart?

  Exactly. And Chiotti's decided he's going to go

• 37:33Alastair Campbell?

  Braverman.

• 37:34Rory Stewart?

  become Braverman and head off towards Le Pen, and the other lot are storming. Okay, back to you.

• 37:38Alastair Campbell?

  Just on how, there's a couple of very well-known British political figures who are featuring quite large in the French elections. One of whom, in fact, both of whom we've already mentioned. One is David Cameron and the other is Liz Truss. David Cameron's name keeps popping up because the Commentary Act has essentially decided that what Macron has done is the equivalent of Cameron deciding to have a referendum, which he thought would address a problem, which actually made the problem worse. And Liz Truss is featuring because Le Pen will be the presidential candidate, but the guy who will be prime minister if there's a rassemblement national government is this young charismatic guy, Jordan Bardellé, he's only 28. And he is very, very smooth and very handsome, very, very, very good on social media.

• 38:23Alastair Campbell?

  And as in Germany, quite a lot of young people backing him, all the TikTok bollocks and all that usual stuff. But what's interesting about the attack of the Macron people and Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister in particular, on the national front, on the RN party, is actually to say, if you go with these people and their unfunded tax cuts and their unfunded promises, you risk doing to France what Liz Truss did to Britain. And the Truss scenario is becoming part of the French debate. And again, that was one of the things we mentioned that Macron wanted to do, was to try to get more pressure put onto the national front and on the rassemblement agenda.

• 39:04Rory Stewart?

  We'll come back into asking you a little bit more about the detail of both this new left-wing grouping and the centre. But once more, just to go through, there are different figures, but the poll that I saw has the far right, which is this man called Zemmour and Marichal, although she's now left on sort of 4%, and then Le Pen's party, RN, on about 31%. Les Républicains, which is, as you say, the old Tories, shrunk down to 6.5%. Macron, the president, governing party, on about 18%. And then this new Popular Front, which is the left-wing thing, getting up to 28%. So let's just talk about the new Popular Front for a moment.

• 39:44Rory Stewart?

  At the centre of it is a guy called Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who won 22% in the presidential election, but did slightly less well in the European election. Former Trotskyite.

• 39:55Rory Stewart?

  You're a skeptic, pretty pro-Russian, lukewarm in his support of Ukraine. You know, I didn't condemn the October 7th attacks. What is he? Is he a sort of Jeremy Corbyn figure?

• 40:05Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I'd say, I mean, he's certainly somebody who's very, he was very, very vocal in his support of Jeremy Corbyn and his policies, I think, particularly on foreign policy. He's actually, so his, his party, they call it themselves France Unbound. He's a very divisive kind of figure. What I'd love to be a fly on the wall of the meetings that these guys had, because they had to sort of put together, you know, sort of policy proposals. And it goes from very, very hard left. And by the way, he's not the furthest out there. There are others. The, you know, the Communist Party of France is still, you know, it's still sort of banging the drum. You've got him, you've got the Greens. You've got the few other sort of ecological, there's a lot of candidates in this, this election. And then right up to the, you know, the kind of right wing of the old Socialist Party.

• 40:51Alastair Campbell?

  So they're trying to sort of say, right, well, the only way we, we're now in a battle for the soul of the, the future of the country. And it's between us and the hard right. And Macron risks being completely squeezed out. And if that analysis is right, and he ends up, his party ends up only in 41 of the 500, almost 600 constituencies, that is a total disaster.

• 41:12Rory Stewart?

  And even if, even if we went for a more optimistic poll, so there's a more optimistic poll suggests he might get 90 seats. Republika, at our end of far right, might get 220, the left might get 150.

• 41:23Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. So then in that, in that case, the RN then have to make a coalition.

• 41:26Rory Stewart?

  Right. But it's still crushing for Macron.

• 41:29Alastair Campbell?

  No, it means that he's, it means that he's absolutely broken the mould and then had the mould smashed in a decade.

• 41:38Rory Stewart?

  And if we go back to the oddity of the logic of this, I mean, you said because the far right got double the number of votes that he did in the European elections, he decided to trigger an election. When you put it like that, it sounds, it sounds a bit weird, right?

• 41:54Alastair Campbell?

  It's crazy. We're going to talk about football and politics now. I'm in Berlin. I was in Munich for the Scotland game. Been to a few other games. Did the rest is football. Check it out. But we're going to talk about that relationship between politics and football. And, and that will involve actually starting in France because something very interesting is going on with the French squad. In the European Championships last night, Kylian Mbappe, who you may have heard of Rory, he's one of the most famous footballers on the planet. He did a very, very, very impressive, quite emotional appeal au peuple français, to the French people urging them to take this election really, really seriously, to understand that the country was in peril.

• 42:36Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, for those of us who are watching, and those of you, sorry, who aren't watching, Anister is sitting in the most enormous room I've ever seen since I last watched. Who's that guy that used to do Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous on telly?

• 42:48Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I'm actually sitting in a rather splendid apartment, which turned out to be very good value for money.

• 42:55Rory Stewart?

  Oh, all right.

• 42:56Alastair Campbell?

  For the Rest Is Politics and the Rest Is Football team, who are here in Berlin for the Euros. Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer and Micah Richards, you may know, as well as doing the Rest Is Football, they also work for an organisation called the BBC. But this is very much goal hanger territory and it is very, very nice. I could show you the bedrooms, Rory, I could show you the sauna.

• 43:18Rory Stewart?

  Amazing.

• 43:19Alastair Campbell?

  I could show you the lovely roof terrace looking out over the Bundestag.

• 43:23Rory Stewart?

  But before you make us all jealous, though, let's try to sort of flip this around and get us from football and think. One thing that's very striking for me, Anister, is talking to you and getting a chain of WhatsApps every minute. It seems as though half the people who ought to be running their countries in this very difficult economic time, it'd be found in the football stadium with you, watching football. You spend all your time being like, oh, I just spoke to an EU commissioner. And then I saw you chasing with your amazing instrument of war, the Hungarian Prime Minister, around the stands. Tell us a little bit about that.

• 43:53Alastair Campbell?

  I did. So I actually, I should apologise to UEFA because it was a breach of their rules to smuggle the instrument of war into the stadium. But several of us managed to do. I think there were about, I heard about four different sets of bagpipes around the stadium. I got mine in. I said, I was with some friends from Scotland and I said, if Scotland score, I will get the pipes out and I will play them. And the fact that Scotland scored an own goal by a German player whilst losing 4-0, I nonetheless did get the bagpipes out. Therefore, Orban, who was sitting a few rows behind me, was aware of my presence.

• 44:32Alastair Campbell?

  And that broke the ice. So at the end of the game, it was very strange because everybody else sort of went out. He was in the kind of, you know, the V, I was in the V, V I P, but he was V V I P.

• 44:42Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 44:42Alastair Campbell?

  And he, they all went out. He sort of stayed on his own, whether he's looking for the camera or he didn't want to go and talk to people. So I just thought, right, I'll, I'll show Rory Stewart how you get people on the podcast, right? So I went up, I, I, he, he said something about my bagpipes.

• 44:59Rory Stewart?

  And did you know him? Did he know who you were?

• 45:01Alastair Campbell?

  I don't know if he did. I, but, um, he was very, he was actually very warm and welcoming until we got into the sort of depths of the conversation. I just said, look, you know, I used to work for Tony Blair and we did meet once. He may remember, may not. And he sort of nodded and pretended. And I now present the podcast with a former conservative and it's the most popular podcast in the country. And I just think it'd be good for you to explain yourself to an international audience. So I basically said to him, do you think your English is good enough? Uh, and that, that sort of said, well, English is quite good. I could understand what you're saying there. And he says, well, you know, I'm not saying no, I'm not saying yes. I mean, which I took as a no. Uh, he basically said, I'm not big on doing foreign media and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said,

• 45:43Alastair Campbell?

  well, I think you've got some very interesting ideas, which I would really, really like to test.

• 45:48Rory Stewart?

  Well, on this UEFA thing, just very quickly, what's going on with security? I turned up to watch the World Cup in Qatar with my Restless Politics recording equipment with me. So I came straight from the airport and as you know, when we record, we travel around with these little microphones and things. And I was immediately stopped. I wasn't allowed into the game because my little Restless Politics microphone, I guess they were worried, was going to be some sort of sound broadcasting equipment. So how did you manage to get in with your bagpipes?

• 46:13Alastair Campbell?

  Charm.

• 46:14Rory Stewart?

  Charm.

• 46:15Alastair Campbell?

  Uh, there was a guy on the gate and also Rory, speaking the language helps.

• 46:19Rory Stewart?

  Ah.

• 46:20Alastair Campbell?

  I said to him, I know the rules, but listen, you know, this is a once in a lifetime. Scotland never qualify for major tournaments. It's like, come on, have a heart. I'm not going to say which gate it was because then he might get in trouble. He said, I'll join in. In you go. And then I got in and once you're in, you know, you're in. Um, so yeah, I, so I played Scotland, the brave and then I had a wonderful time on the today program because they asked me to play. Them out on the programme and they were expecting me to play Flower of Scotland or something like that and I played Ode to Joy. And I stopped just short of the pips so that Amor Rajan had to come in and sort of explain what the hell was going on.

• 46:52Rory Stewart?

  So just, yeah, more seriously though, in the margins of these things, I hope the justification for this is not just Alastair loves football. But that you're also, in addition to Orban, meeting European commissioners, you're having a chance to hobnob with the great and the good. Give us a sense, is there any sense at all, given this is all happening in Germany, that people are concerned about what's just happened in German elections? We just talked about French elections, German elections, the AFD, which makes, you know, Suella Bravman look moderate. I mean, this is a proper party with proper kind of proto neo Nazis in it.

• 47:26Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 47:27Rory Stewart?

  Has just crushed Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor, the ruling party in the election, particularly in East Germany. Very dramatic in the, all the way down East Germany. What's your sense, given that you're in Germany and given presumably you're reading German newspapers, listening to German news, on how people are reacting to that result?

• 47:44Alastair Campbell?

  Obviously it depends who you talk to, a bit like our reform friend on the train. You do meet people, I had a chat the other day, yesterday in a cafe with this guy who was, you know, former Christian Democrat. Basically, it was the line, he basically said, I think conventional politics has failed us. The Ampel three, you know, the three part coalition has not delivered. And I just think we've got to shake things up. That was his kind of, his kind of line. When, if you talk to most of the people in that sort of, you know, VIP bit, they're all pretty horrified at what's going on. But they understand that the, the concerns that are being expressed are, are real.

• 48:23Rory Stewart?

  Alastair, one, one quick thing on that, which I picked up in, in Italy over the last couple of days, is a strong feeling that Europe is now going to row back from a lot of its green commitments.

• 48:34Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 48:35Rory Stewart?

  The Green Party was crushed, the sort of centre right is probably going to continue to dominate the European Commission, the parliament. But this is going to mean that almost certainly Europe is going to get out of its current commitments to, to electric vehicles. It's going to back out of a loss of the stuff that it's trying to do. On net zero and that's going to matter. It matters immensely for global climate in the world. Matters a lot for European industry, but it's also going to potentially put the Labour Party in Britain in a very interesting position if and when they win the election, which is that they will have to then decide if Europe suddenly starts pushing out its its ideas on electric vehicles and net zero. Is a new government in Britain going to try to hold on to those old commitments?

• 49:19Rory Stewart?

  Or is it going to let them slide as Europe lets them slide?

• 49:22Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I'm sure you and I hope that they do hold on, but I agree. That is a very big part of the debate. I think a lot of this is about Trump. I've been shocked at the extent to which the the far right have been able to weaponize this issue. Again, I think it's actually the very, very wealthy Uber elite who are driving this, but pretending that it's about sort of helping, you know, working class people. The other person I met, Rory, that who I have to say looked pretty splendid in a kilt was John Swinney, the First Minister of Scotland. And he was there and I said, blimey, that's quite a thing, taking a day out of the campaign, in fact, two days because he had to come out the day before.

• 49:57Rory Stewart?

  As you point out, our country doesn't qualify that often.

• 49:59Alastair Campbell?

  Correct. And also, I guess the other thing he said, look in his social media, I mean, he did spend the whole time going around the, you know, the the squares where there were hundreds of, over a hundred thousand Scots were in Munich. And he and he really was kind of working the crowds and going around and talking to people and so forth. I hope he doesn't think I'm speaking out of turn here, but I had a chat with him about, you know, his thoughts of the election. I mean, he wasn't hiding the fact that the SNP's, you know, up against it. He thinks he has managed to stabilize things quite well, but clearly there is going to be an increase in Labour support. But also, it was interesting how he actually, he said, you know, the main thing that's driving everybody in this election is just the

• 50:39Alastair Campbell?

  the desire to see the back of this government. And he was saying that he really, really, really hopes that if there is a Labour government, that one of the consequences will be the ability to have a proper grown up relationship between the UK government and the Scottish government.

• 50:53Rory Stewart?

  And I think, as we said, probably the most interesting thing of the Labour manifesto is around this question of devolution.

• 50:59Alastair Campbell?

  Correct.

• 50:59Rory Stewart?

  How do you give more power? So, listen, we're both, you and I, on the side of trying to make democracy work. I mean, as a glimpse of blinding obvious, but making democracy work in a world of kind of authoritarian, strong men and women. So your friend Victor Orban, and remember Maloney in Italy, who's from the far right. An Italian prime minister is not very powerful, but a French president, if Le Pen becomes the French president, really has power in France, really has power in the European Union. I mean, that's a big game changer. So as we fight for democracy, part of the fight is about making democracy work. And partly it's about getting democracy closer to people. So that's, I think, why talking about getting the right relationship with Scotland,

• 51:41Rory Stewart?

  getting the great relationship with directly elected mayors in Britain, giving proper financial power back down to these local areas is going to be part of trying to save democracy. Because at the moment, too many people are saying, well, you know, look at China, look at Saudi. Maybe what we need is a dictatorship to deliver economic growth and investment.

• 51:59Alastair Campbell?

  Look, I think the thing about what I really hope in the first, you know, probably the first few days of a Labour government, that if and when they win, that Keir does sort of reach out to John Swinney, to the leadership in Northern Ireland, to leadership in Wales, and signal that putting that back on a mature footing is an important thing. Do you remember when we interviewed Mark Drakeford?

• 52:18Rory Stewart?

  The former leader in Wales, Labour leader in Wales, yeah.

• 52:20Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And, you know, the stories he was telling us about his inability even to get, not just to get phone calls with Boris Johnson, but like, you know, with with anybody serious and senior in the UK government, because their attitude was, leave it to us. We're big, you're little, go away.

• 52:35Rory Stewart?

  These relationships are very difficult. I remember when I was the Minister for Justice, trying to deal with the Mayor of London's office. And it was really interesting to me, I was trying to come, in this particular case, I'm afraid, I was trying to come in a pretty constructive fashion, saying, we're going to do stuff around electronic tagging so that we don't have to send so many people to prison. And we're going to want to do this stuff on life crime. And I realised that essentially the deputy mayor in Sadiq Khan's administration in London just saw me as a Tory. She did not want to have that kind of constructive conversation. She wanted to sit down with me and say, you've screwed us over, this is austerity. And she was thinking about our meeting as a press release to hit the Tories.

• 53:20Rory Stewart?

  And I think the The challenge often in trying to get this relationship right between central government and devolved government, doesn't matter whether it's Scotland or London, is trying to get people to be a bit less political. This is why people get a chance to listen to our leading interview with the two Andys, Andy Burnham and Andy Street.

• 53:37Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 53:38Rory Stewart?

  What I loved about them is that both of them were quite non-political. They were quite practical, quite good about really thinking about constructive things. And the thing that slightly worries me a bit about the SNP, and I dealt with them quite a lot too, is there were oftentimes where I felt they couldn't quite resist

• 53:54Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 53:54Rory Stewart?

  getting the political jab in, even if you were trying to be constructive and and open.

• 53:58Alastair Campbell?

  Well, all I can say is that next time I bump into Kier on Walking the Dog, I shall, in fact, I'll be honest, I already have passed on that John Swinney is very, very keen for a productive, cooperative relationship that he, Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmon, never felt that they were able to get with the Conservative government. Now Rory, I'm going to, I'm going to put your political judgment to the test. Okay, I'm sure you've got your wall chart at home for the Euros.

• 54:24Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 54:25Alastair Campbell?

  So you've probably worked out already Rory, that England, who are, let me let you in on a secret, are going to qualify for the knockout phase. They will play the quarter final probably on July the 6th. So July the 4th is the election, July the 5th, let's say a new Prime Minister takes office in Downing Street. If you were that new Prime Minister Rory Stewart, would you feel that you should go to that football match on July the 6th in Germany to support England?

• 55:00Rory Stewart?

  It's all about authenticity. It's all about who you are and your interests in the world. So if it's Rory Stewart becoming Prime Minister, who knows, absolutely screw all about football and has made it clear that all he's interested in is the geeky business of trying to get on with running the government.

• 55:13Alastair Campbell?

  And POPS.

• 55:14Rory Stewart?

  No, I wouldn't be there. If only you are Alastair as, as Prime Minister, then I think it would be completely on brand and you could make a great. Great patriotic play.

• 55:24Alastair Campbell?

  I suppose Scotland.

• 55:26Rory Stewart?

  I'm trying to think of a football supporting prime minister.

• 55:29Alastair Campbell?

  What about if you were, what about if you were Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer?

• 55:32Rory Stewart?

  Well, Rishi Sunak, I'd say, don't go because your only hope as Rishi Sunak is to try to sell yourself as the kind of geeky details guy who's rolling his sleeves up and trying to worry about the budget. Maybe if you're Keir Starmer, you've just won an enormous victory, you might say, I'm going to fly over very briefly, show that I'm somebody who can connect, relate, I'm really proud of where England's got. I'll be with them for a short time and then I'll get back to the day job. What do you reckon?

• 55:54Alastair Campbell?

  I can see the argument for that, but I think I would advise against. I think that if you've just won a campaign by saying the country's in a mess, we've got to roll our sleeves up, really work hard, get it done. I'd do what he did last night, which is watch it in a pub with Angela Rayner, allow people to post a few social media pictures. Definitely go to the final if they get to that. I think people would expect that, even if it was Rory Stewart as prime minister, to be absolutely frank. And if they were, if they were playing France, you'd be, you'd be able to, when is the final? I mean, Macron might not be there. I mean, I know Macron will still be there. So you could sit with Macron if it was England, France, or Schultz if it was England, Germany. All right, Rory, well, a pleasure as always. And let's do, we should do a last plug for July the 4th, the night of the election coverage on Channel 4.

• 56:38Rory Stewart?

  You and I up all night.

• 56:40Alastair Campbell?

  Emily Maitlis.

• 56:41Rory Stewart?

  Alistair, as usual, showing his incredible stamina. He will have been up at six in the morning, bathing in freezing water. And then he'll be up right the way through the night. Actually, you'll be really annoyed because it'll be the first time you miss your six in the morning swim because you'll have to be with us till nine o'clock in the morning.

• 56:54Alastair Campbell?

  I've, I've, but the only thing I've got in the rider is no noisy snacks anywhere near me. No crisps, no biscuits, lots of fruit, lots of sparkling water and a Lido in the studio.

• 57:06Rory Stewart?

  A Lido in the studios or just an ice bath that you can put yourself in for 10 minutes.

• 57:11Alastair Campbell?

  Actually, that's a good idea. That is a good idea. Yeah. Good. See you soon.

• 57:16Rory Stewart?

  See you soon. Bye bye.

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