22. Tony Blair on the UK's relegation battle

Tony Blair joins Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell to discuss his fears that Britain may soon be relegated from the Premiership of nations. Also discussed, his views on the future of the NHS, technology and how Labour can recover from the Corbyn years. Plus Ukraine, Russia, China, Scotland, and how to handle Alastair Campbell. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport The New European Offer: theneweuropean.co.uk/trip 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

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• 1:43Alastair Campbell?

  Hi there. Welcome to the 18th episode of The Rest is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 1:48Rory Stewart?

  And me, Rory Stewart.

• 1:50Alastair Campbell?

  And many thanks again for the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questions after another pretty extraordinary week in British politics and indeed, American politics, what with Roe Wade and lots happening in the world. And we're going to answer as many of them as we can in tomorrow's Question time episode, so do make sure you join us for that. And Rory, how are you? Where are you? What have you been up to?

• 2:10Rory Stewart?

  So I'm in Oman and I'm at a conference on trying to bring up principles for inclusive peace and we'd love to talk more about that later.

• 2:18Alastair Campbell?

  Excellent. Well, we've had lots of people in the past, both online and on Twitter and elsewhere, asking us if we're planning to have guests to come on the podcast. And we are going to have guests from time to time. You have to be, at the very least, the number one prime minister of modern times. And that's who we've got. Better than Thatcher, better than Major, better than Cameron, better than May. And Rory, do you think there's a serious person on the planet who thinks that the current prime minister is even in the same league as our first ever guest?

• 2:52Rory Stewart?

  No, absolutely not. I think Tony Blair is in a much better league than Boris Johnson. On the other hand, I would say that is a pretty low bar.

• 2:59Alastair Campbell?

  It is indeed. And we've, you've given it away, haven't you? I mean, how could anybody have guessed that that's who I was talking about? So Tony Blair, thank you very, very much for being here. I've probably had more conversations with Tony than anybody else outside my own family. So Rory, I'm going to give the first question to you.

• 3:15Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Well, listen, can we start on this conference that you're doing, a Britain project? I remember in the discussion we had last week, we had a brief call and you were talking about three things that you thought we really needed to focus on. And I remember those as Brexit and climate and technology. But what struck me is how much has changed in the last 130 days with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what that suggests for the global order and the way in which perhaps many of the things that you and Bill Clinton and others imagined in the world that you tried to create from

• 3:56Rory Stewart?

  the late 90s onwards have, in a sense, been shattered, our assumptions about global security and global economics. And maybe I was going to start with challenging whether those three things you were focused on are now not feeling more fragile in the face of the Russian-Ukraine situation?

• 4:12Speaker 03

  I don't think that they're more fragile in themselves, but I think you're absolutely right that you need to, as I think you put to me when we talked about it, you need to add a fourth. Issue, which is which is post Ukraine. What does that mean for the West? What does that mean for alliances? What does that mean for democracy? Because we thought that the era of big power conflict was over and it turns out it's not. So that is, yes, absolutely, it's upended our assumptions. Now, I still think those three things that we we have put at the forefront of what we're doing on Thursday, which is really an ideas conference, saying you've got these three major changes that are happening, two that are happening

• 4:53Speaker 03

  to all developed countries, technology revolution, climate ambition, one that is specifically related to Britain, which is Brexit. But all of them mean you've got to have a plan for the future, you've got to have a clear policy direction. And the purpose of the conference is to provide a certainly a body of policy direction and some clear policy ideas about the future. But you're 100% right. Ukraine is a is a game changer for geopolitics.

• 5:19Alastair Campbell?

  You after you spoke to Tony, you said to me that you couldn't quite get just how sort of completely still engaged Tony was and still enthusiastic. And can I just ask you why you're doing this conference?

• 5:32Speaker 03

  I think the country is at an inflection point where, you know, if you care about the country and you don't become prime minister and be prime minister for 10 years unless you you do. I think that it isn't at an inflection point. I think we are at serious risk of being relegated, as it were, from the premiership group of nations unless we take strong action. And the problem at the moment is that we are living through this enormous period of change and we're not in good shape. And we've got to get in good shape. We've still got fantastic advantages and assets, but we need a clear plan with a clear set of policies for the future. So it's an ideas conference. And I want to, you know, my institute, which is a not for profit institute, it's now grown significantly

• 6:17Speaker 03

  in size. We work around the world, but as we tried to demonstrate during COVID, we also work in this country. And I want us to be a kind of ideas factory for what a modern Britain looks like.

• 6:28Alastair Campbell?

  But isn't the fact that you're even having to do it, an indication of the failings of politics in the UK?

• 6:35Speaker 03

  Well, I think politics in the UK went through a very difficult period, it still is, but it's gone to the fringes. You know, Jeremy Corbyn took over the Labour Party, the Tory Party became a Brexit Party. The consequence of that is that the strong centre ground that you need to drive policy in the 21st century, in my view, because it's really about understanding the world and then practical solutions. And you can be radical and practical, you don't have to be radical and extreme. That is, in the end, you know, that's the challenge for Britain. And because of the way our politics has been over these last years, there's been a gaping great hole where ideas should be.

• 7:13Rory Stewart?

  And just to try to understand, given Boris is such a catastrophe, I mean, that's something-

• 7:19Speaker 03

  Boris Johnson.

• 7:20Rory Stewart?

  Boris Johnson, as I keep being reminded. I'm going to have to call you Tony Blair all the way through this interview in deference to that. No, given that Boris Johnson is such a catastrophe, and that's something Alistair and I, and obviously half the world, agree on very strongly, why does it seem to have been so difficult to actually really land blows on him? Why are the opposition not further ahead?

• 7:40Speaker 03

  Because I think the Labour Party as an opposition went through a really difficult period ourselves. You know, we went to an extreme position, you know, far left position. I don't think it was ever credible that Jeremy Corbyn could be put forward as a candidate to be Prime Minister. And when you do something like that, you can't just kind of say, oh, well, you know, that didn't work out so well, now we just move on. And look, I support strongly what Keir Starmer is trying to do with the Labour Party today. I think he's moved it significantly and the by-election shows that that is having an effect. But I still think the central question in British politics, doesn't matter whether it's for Labour or for anyone else, is what are the ideas that are going to stop this

• 8:23Speaker 03

  relegation of the country and put it on an upward and more optimistic path?

• 8:28Rory Stewart?

  And I don't want to keep throwing questions when I'd love to bring Alistair in, but is there something about, I don't know whether we call it populism or the style of politics that Boris Johnson is pursuing, which is maybe characteristic of our age around the world and makes it quite difficult for the centre ground. In other words, maybe there's something in social media, in populism, in polarisation, which actually makes it increasingly difficult to make these kinds of centrist documents that you're interested in.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think this is a really important and a great question, something you've got to delve into in it, because it really is at the heart of it. You see, I think for someone like Boris Johnson, he's a showman, he's a character, he's interesting to people. You can see how he kind of sucks the political energy in a way out of the debate.

• 9:20Alastair Campbell?

  Like Trump did.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  Exactly. On the other hand, he did fight and win an election against Jeremy Corbyn. My issue, and I study this a lot because I think it's a really fascinating question. My view is that centre ground problem, by which I don't mean splitting the difference between the two parties, I mean in a sort of post ideological, practically based, you know, clear values but applying them to the modern world, that type of, that type of approach. I think it's basically a supply side problem, not a demand problem.

• 9:49Alastair Campbell?

  So you're saying that that programme has not been put?

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Well, it wasn't at the last election, for sure.

• 9:56Alastair Campbell?

  So was it in France, for example? Was Macron doing that?

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Yes, Macron was doing that.

• 9:59Alastair Campbell?

  He's struggling a bit now as well.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Well, he's struggling, but you've got to, you've got to put that against the fact that he won again. I think he was the first president in the modern republic to win when he held the Legislative Assembly as well as the presidency. That's a pretty big achievement. And yes, it's true that you've got a strong party to the left and a strong party, Le Pen's party on the right.

• 10:23Alastair Campbell?

  Both populist.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Both populist, but he's still got the largest number of votes. And yeah, he will, he will find it tough to put together the right coalition, but he was re-elected. If you look at Schulz in Germany, he was effectively, I think, elected as the successor to Merkel. I would say Joe Biden probably won in the US because he appeared to be the one Democrat that people thought was was going to occupy the centre ground. So my views, I'm not saying because I think the point Rory's making is absolutely right and you've got a stronger fringe. In fact, it's no longer right to call it fringe. Let me correct myself. I would say the far left in most Western democracies today are not a fringe anymore. There's a

• 11:08Speaker 03

  significant number of people, but they're still a minority and they can't win.

• 11:12Alastair Campbell?

  And likewise the far right.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  And likewise the far right. But if you think in my day as Prime Minister, Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn were fringe figures. If you'd said to me either of them would effectively take over a significant part of British politics, one the Conservative Party, one the Labour Party, I would have said, and if you'd asked me in 2007, I would have said, well, that's just not going to happen. Now, I think there are reasons for that because one other thing that I'm absolutely convinced of is that populism exploits grievances, but it doesn't invent them.

• 11:43Alastair Campbell?

  That's how Brexit happened.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Exactly, because the people did feel a real sense of grievance.

• 11:47Alastair Campbell?

  And they were exploited.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  However, the fact is, it wasn't the right way to deal with the grievances.

• 11:52Alastair Campbell?

  So one of your three challenges, Brexit, just very briefly, if you were the government now, and you had a sane, sensible Prime Minister and a sort of moderately competent cabinet, and we have neither of those things, but never mind, if you had that, what should the government be doing on Brexit now? And if you were the opposition, what should the opposition be doing on Brexit now?

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Well, for the government, you've got to fix the problems. You've got to fix the Northern Ireland Protocol. I mean, my institute recently put out a paper saying how you'd do that.

• 12:17Alastair Campbell?

  We talked about that.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  You've got to fix the trade relationship.

• 12:20Alastair Campbell?

  Rory's laughing because we had a big argument about it.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah, I saw this. We made up. Well, it's not why he's in another country doing the podcast now, is it? And I think then you need to build pillars of cooperation.

• 12:38Alastair Campbell?

  But they're not even beginning to do that.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  No, they're not. But you asked me what I would do if I was there.

• 12:44Alastair Campbell?

  Right. So what about the opposition? What should the opposition be saying on Brexit?

• 12:46Speaker 03

  What the opposition should say is you can't reverse the decision. It's done. For this generation, it's a settled argument, but you've got to fix the problem. And I would.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  If I was them, I would go after Tories quite strongly on it because when you think of the promises that were made, you know, we were told this Northern Ireland deal, by the way, was an excellent deal that solved the problem. What we now know is that not merely is it not an excellent deal, but actually at the time, they knew perfectly well it wasn't. We were told we had a quick and easy trade deal with the US. I mean, we don't even have the outlines of one now. We were told it was Project Fear that you were going to have a big drop in GDP. I mean, the figures are all there. So now, I think what is important for the Labour Party, I understand it's difficult and it's challenging, is it's got to be clear, even though some people might want it, that you can't change and go back on the decision

• 13:41Speaker 03

  now that it's been made. It will take, it will put it like this, if Britain is ever to go back in, it's got to go in from a position of strength and not, you know, on its knees as a supplicant. Of that, I'm absolutely convinced. So in the short term, you've got to fix the problems and focus on that.

• 14:00Rory Stewart?

  Tony, can I, can I challenge you on, on something there? So one of the things that, I, I was a big champion for Theresa May's deal, for a customs union solution for the backstop. And one of the reasons I was grumpy with you at the time is you came straight out when the withdrawal agreement was announced and said that you were going into an unholy alliance with Boris Johnson. And so for me, as somebody trying to advocate what seemed a more sensible, pragmatic deal that had a much better solution to the Northern Ireland problem, I felt I was under attack both from Boris and the ERG and from you. And I wonder whether that was something you regretted.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  I do regret in this sense, actually, that I think the unholy alliance turned out to be too unholy. Gone and the devil. But I, but I, to be absolutely blunt about it, Rory, I don't think you could ever have done the Theresa May compromise. The one thing, it's, it's like when people say, well, we should rejoin the single market now. What I don't think you, you will ever manage to get British people to accept is that you should be a rule taker and not a rule maker. And therefore, and I, let me give you the reason I did that at the time, was I still thought there was a possibility we could get a fresh referendum and allow people to judge whether it was.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Really, you know, once they started to see what the deal was, whether they really wanted it. But, you know, I mean, it's, no, at the time, it was, it was uncomfortable to have people like yourself and myself on the other side of the line, as it were. But it's, that's the reason.

• 15:38Alastair Campbell?

  On technology. So one of the things I think when we were in government is that I always felt on globalization, you kind of saw it as a really big upside and not so much saw the downsides. And technology is one of your big things at this conference. Is there not a danger that you're looking at technology through slightly rose-tinted glasses as well, that actually there are a lot of real dangers to the world in the, some of the advances that we see? I've really think today about China, using, way ahead of most other countries in the world now, but using technology to sort of cement dictatorship and authoritarianism in a way that I think a lot of people are going to find quite scary.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, look, globalization, by the way, I think is in the end driven by people and not by politicians. And I don't think, I think politicians can get in the way of certain aspects of it. You can be reducing free trade, you can be trying to decouple, say, from China somewhat. But in the end, the big forces that are driving globalization are technology, travel, migration, and I don't think those things are going to stop. Now, it was never our case that you just let globalization happen. You have to try and ensure that the people that are going to be adversely affected are protected and helped.

• 16:57Alastair Campbell?

  But that hasn't happened.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  Well, it did happen under.

• 16:59Alastair Campbell?

  No, but generally across the world.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  But that's, that's, that's the point. If you, if you come to globalization and technology, technology is just an instrument. Now, it's an instrument that if you harness it properly, can do good. If you don't harness it properly, or you harness it improperly, it can do harm. My point is very simple, though. It is a technology revolution we're living through. Everything's going to get changed. And the problem that you have at the moment is you've got the policymakers in one room and the change makers in another. And you need to put them together.

• 17:28Alastair Campbell?

  Is that what you're trying to do at this conference?

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Yes, in part, yes. And we've got a whole work program that's all around trying to get policymakers and change makers to interact with each other.

• 17:38Alastair Campbell?

  So what's the, what's the progressive? Line on technology and how can technology be harnessed as a positive progressive force?

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Well, the progressive line on technology is if you use technology properly, for example, you can transform your healthcare system because you're able to do diagnostics differently and screen people differently, you're able to change a whole lot of the way the health service works, data gives you a whole new, you know, you can accumulate and analyze data in a much bigger way to help your healthcare system, you can educate people completely differently. And one of the things we work on as an institute is helping developing countries circumvent and leapfrog legacy systems in the West that are outdated by the use of technology. Technology can help you with transport, technology is the only answer to climate change. So technology can do great things, but of course, as you can

• 18:30Speaker 03

  see from, you know, you could, you could use it to control your population in a way that's authoritarian and wrong. You can see all the problems of social media in the terms of its destructive impact on bits of politics, but that's the challenge. My point is not to say everything about technology is good, it's to say it's like the 19th century industrial revolution. It's going to change everything. So whether you like it, you don't like it, you've got to know about it, you've got to understand it, and then you try and harness it.

• 18:58Rory Stewart?

  So Tony, one of the criticisms that would come, but particularly actually from where I am now, the Middle East, about you and I, and I put myself with you in this, I'm also a great advocate for the centre ground and trying to find a way of expressing it as something exciting and radical, not just grey and boring. But of course, the strong pushback that you would get from a lot of young people in the Middle East and Africa is to say, wait a second, a loss of the polarisation, a lot of the populism we're seeing is actually the fault of the centrists, that the West let people down. They will talk about, of course, the Iraq War, they'll talk about the 2008 financial crisis, they'll talk about rising inequality across the West, and they will say that, in essence,

• 19:42Rory Stewart?

  this liberal democratic Western project from, let's say, 89 to 2005, basically failed people, and that one of the reasons we're seeing this polarisation is because that model no longer appeals.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, but unsurprisingly, I would push back on that. Look, you can completely disagree with what we did post 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on. I don't think frankly that's a big concern in Africa. In the Middle East it is, though I think for most people in the Middle East today, I mean, we should maybe spend a moment on this, the big challenge for the Middle East today is how do you get to religiously tolerant societies and rule-based economies? And that's what the young people want. In fact, we've actually got, our institute's got a major poll coming out the next two weeks, based in the Middle East. And in brief, what it will show is, young people in the Middle East, they want to be connected to the world, right? They don't want to be separated.

• 20:39Rory Stewart?

  But Tony, sadly not, sorry, it's a fascinating area we're going down, but down that question, oddly, a lot of the recent polling suggesting a declining support for democracy and an increasing popularity in the Middle East from Tunisia through for authoritarian models.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, but here's the thing. The reason for that is because after the Arab Spring, they felt these experiments in democracy did not deliver for the people. Now, the one thing, this is a basic precept to mine in politics, if you don't deliver, it doesn't matter whether you're a democracy, autocracy, whatever you are, in the end you'll fail. But I, I think ultimately, you, you know, it may take some time, for example, like for a society like Tunisia to be able to handle its democracy, to be able to, to make progress, but ultimately, they would prefer to be a democracy. And I think it's interesting, we talk about China and Russia, but one argument for democracy in the context of what's been

• 21:39Speaker 03

  happening there recently, if Russia were a proper functioning democracy, Ukraine would never have happened. And it's a catastrophe for Russia, quite apart from for the Ukrainians in the world. And secondly,

• 21:52Speaker 03

  The Covid policy of China, okay, zero Covid in the face of the highly contagious Omicron variant, is not going to work, hasn't worked, and is causing massive disruption across China and indeed to the supply chains of the world. That would never have happened with a democracy because that policy would come under challenge.

• 22:12Alastair Campbell?

  But they're not democracies and they feel that democracies are in decline and they're in the ascendancy. That's what they feel.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  Yes, but I think-

• 22:20Alastair Campbell?

  They feel they can get away with whatever they do.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I think these two things I've just told you are an indication of why, in the end, democracy, democracy because it's got a system of challenge in it, is actually a better system. Now, you're right in saying there are people, for example, I come across this in Africa a lot, people say, look, the problem with democracy is the societies aren't mature enough, the institutions aren't mature enough, it doesn't work in the way that it needs to. Yeah, I mean, the one thing's for sure, whether it's a democracy or not, you've got to be able to deliver. But to just go back to where we started with this, and you know Rory's point about globalization, most of the countries that I'm working in

• 23:05Speaker 03

  at the moment, they want to get connected globally. And what they want is the transport links and the internet links and they want to make sure that their people can can actually see the benefits of being part of the global economy. They don't want to be separate from it.

• 23:20Alastair Campbell?

  Just to bring it back to Britain, because your conference is about Britain in the main, although some of the themes are going to be much, have global sort of resonance. And you talked about polling. The polling I saw that you've done in advance of the conference, if I can sum it up, people in Britain feel that Britain is in decline. They really, really worry that nobody's putting forward a plan for the future. They're desperate for politics to change, but feel powerless about how that change is coming. So it's all very well for you and me and Rory, we've got, you know, voices and all that. If you're somebody who really cares about that and feels powerless, what what do you advise them to do? How do people actually get involved in the process of change?

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Well, we all try and deal with this in our own way.

• 24:03Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but you're in for a prime minister who can always get a platform. What if you're?

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, but the point I'm making is our purpose in providing a platform is for people to come and to input into it and to get involved. And one of the reasons for having the conference is precisely to say to people, look, you may come from the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, Lib Dem, no political party, but here's a body of ideas to debate and discuss. And then after the conference will have a whole set of work streams that arise from that. But I agree with you, it's difficult. It's it's it's very difficult at the moment because the two main political parties, as we were saying earlier, have just been through this problem of of you know, fringe politics becoming mainstream. But you've got to try and pull it back and and we've all got to do our our bit for that.

• 24:48Alastair Campbell?

  I was I was at Bradford University yesterday. And at the end, these students came up and I'd been saying a thing about the thing that gave me hope was young people, da da da da. And they said, I'm, you know, really fed up of being told that we're the future because we don't know how to do it. We just don't know what how to do it. We don't know how to engage. We feel completely shut out from politics as it is. So I guess I'm asking whether you actually think a political system that you kind of mastered for quite a long time, whether actually is bust.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  I think it is bust unless there's a complete change of attitude in the two.

• 25:19Alastair Campbell?

  But is it attitude or system?

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Well, I don't know about system. Because in the end, you can have whatever electoral system, for example, you want. In any event, to change an electoral system, you've got to you've got to win. I think you can create a movement in Britain that says, we want you guys to work on a practical plan for the country. We understand all these changes are happening. We've got a huge cost of living crisis. We want you, whatever your differences, at least to work together, meeting these specific challenges.

• 25:50Alastair Campbell?

  So do you intend to produce policy that you hope the parties, whichever parties, think, hmm, that's interesting, we can run with that? Is that what you hope from this?

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Absolutely. So, I mean, you know, I hope the Labour Party runs with it because what the Labour Party needs, the next stage of change in the Labour Party is to get a policy agenda. It's good, people got to know what it stands for. What are you working on? But I think the policy agenda that does work is is one that can bring in people from other political parties as well, and that's a good thing, it's not a bad thing.

• 26:20Rory Stewart?

  Tony, I'm very aware that one thing we haven't talked about enough is climate, and that does connect sadly to Russia-Ukraine, because we've really seen over the last 130 days what happens when energy prices go up. We've seen the incredible cost on low-income families of doubling fuel bills, and we haven't begun to see what will happen if we try to go to carbon neutral by 2050. And I don't see anybody producing any serious thinking about how on earth that gets funded. Do you, for example, think that in Britain, let's focus on Britain, governments are going to have to borrow much more, because I can't see us remotely paying for it off our fuel bills?

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Well, governments are going to have to invest, yeah, for sure, in renewables and in the transition. I think, though, one of the things we'll do at the conferences, try and show how that will return, pay a return on investment in reasonably fast time. You know, we'll have to increase more than double electricity production in the UK, but you can do that. I mean, look, look at what we've done on renewable energy in the past 15, 20 years, it's been extraordinary. And I think you can do that, you can go across some of the technologies and achieve the same thing if you build the right incentive into it. And so, for example, one of the things we're doing is putting forward a

• 27:41Speaker 03

  plan as to how you make this transition from gas boilers to electric. And, you know, with energy policy, you've got to take a long-term view.

• 27:51Rory Stewart?

  And think about globalization, too. I mean, that's another reason I get a bit depressed, because of course, if China made a move against Taiwan, we would of course be drawn into the same pattern of sanctions and counter sanctions that we have with Russia. And of course, most of the component parts and a lot of our renewable energy come from China, and 50% of the world's semiconductor chips come out of Taiwan. So making this transition, this climate transition in a world of great power conflict is going to get even more difficult, no?

• 28:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it's, it's, you see, I think what is important, and this is, this impacts the argument on globalization.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  There are vulnerabilities that we can identify within our system that we should correct, and we should have corrected. I argue, for example, after Crimea, we should have, Europe should have freed itself from reliance on Russian oil and gas. We could have done it, and we should have done it. I think today, what you say about the semiconductor chips is absolutely right. You've got other vulnerabilities around rare earths, for example. You've got to prepare and deal with that now. Now, I hope, I personally don't think the Chinese will take any lesson of comfort in respect of Taiwan from what's happened in Ukraine.

• 29:05Alastair Campbell?

  Are you sure about that?

• 29:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Chinese, China is not Russia, and the Chinese system is a very, is actually quite a sophisticated system. And they're not going to go into a confrontation with the West, except at a time of their choosing and in a different set of circumstances from today. Now, you can always be wrong, but that's...

• 29:25Alastair Campbell?

  But Xi is pretty clear through his entire career that that, his rule is not complete until that's happened. And I worry that he's looking on at the West's reaction to Ukraine and actually thinking, you know, they've been pretty weak.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  I don't think he can count on that in respect for Taiwan. Look, let us hope it doesn't happen.

• 29:44Alastair Campbell?

  But that's what we said about Ukraine.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I think it's, you know, in respect of Ukraine, you had Crimea, Georgia, you had other indications that this could be on the agenda. I don't believe that's to be, to be true of China. I do think, however, that we need to have a strategy in respect of China, which, in my view, should be a combination of strength and engagement. Need to be strong enough to deal with whatever comes out of China, but I don't believe in decoupling from China. I think you've got to remain engaged with them, and you've got to keep lines of dialogue open, because China is not Russia, and it's not the Soviet Union.

• 30:24Alastair Campbell?

  Right, we're going to take a very short break, and then more from Tony, Rory and me afterwards.

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• 32:20Alastair Campbell?

  Right, today's episode of The Rest Is Politics, again, is sponsored by the wonderful newspaper for which I write a column, The New European. They've got a great cover this week. It's about Boris Johnson. Basically, the theme is dead man walking. There's also a really good long read by a woman called Valerie Nataff, who is a very, very well-known journalist in France. And it's about something that has always fascinated me, which is the the power of the Charles de Gaulle legend across French politics. Now, even today. Top politicians have to wrestle with his legacy all the time. Who do you think is in our politics in the same way, Rory?

• 33:00Rory Stewart?

  It's got to be Churchill, hasn't it?

• 33:02Alastair Campbell?

  Not Thatcher with the Tory party?

• 33:03Rory Stewart?

  No, no, no, I think Churchill much more and I think because he's set up as and it's a very, maybe a bit like the point you're making about de Gaulle, sets up actually quite an unrealistic set of expectations for what a politician could be because of course he's primarily was a wartime leader, you know, he had the extraordinary responsibility of fighting Nazi Germany and in a sense that creates in politicians' minds the idea that they can make these great speeches from the House of Commons, that they can be engaged in a great literal, physical world war for justice against the genocidal maniac. And it puts you in a difficult position when what you're actually struggling with is, you know, how you're dealing with potholes.

• 33:47Alastair Campbell?

  Fiona and I, when we were driving down through France, we've been to the Charles de Gaulle Museum at Colombes de la Histoire, which is a fabulous museum, it really is. And one of my favourite books ever was written by, do you remember the guy called Aidan Crawley?

• 34:02Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:04Alastair Campbell?

  He was elected both as a Tory MP and as a Labour MP, he didn't defect, he was elected twice in different parties, but he wrote a book about Charles de Gaulle's relationship with Churchill and is absolutely brilliant and it ought to be made into a film. So Valerie's de Gaulle article, it's what I love about The New European, they write these really long reads about stuff that you just tend not to see in other papers. So if you really want to know what's going on in Europe around the world, then New European. And I've got my usual column, but I've also written, I've got a question this week Rory, from somebody telling me, I talk a lot about mental health but not much about it on this podcast, which is probably true, but I've written this week about a man who, I've got some very sad news that he died and I've written a piece about a guy that I honestly

• 34:49Alastair Campbell?

  credit was saving my life because he is the psychiatrist who When I was arrested in the middle of a psychotic episode in 1986 and ended up in hospital, he was the psychiatrist who gently led me to the view that perhaps it might be a good idea to kick the booze. And something about him, it was successful. So, anyway, Dr Ernest Benny, R I P. So if you want to get a wider perspective on events, you can become a subscriber to the New European for just one pound a week for the entire digital offering, including all six years of the archive. And for an extra pound a week, you can get the award winning newspaper delivered to your door every week. Visit www.the new european.co.uk forward slash T R I P to sign up. And this

• 35:33Alastair Campbell?

  is the best offer out there. Okay, back to the show. Welcome back to The Rest is Politics with me, Rory and Tony.

• 35:44Rory Stewart?

  Tragically, of course, it will be much more difficult to take action against China than against Russia, because Russia is maybe, you know, one percent problem for a European company. But 50% of the profits of European luxury goods companies, automobile companies come out of China. 50% of their growth comes out of China. So the economic damage that would be imposed on the West if it tried to move to take action against the Chinese intervention against Taiwan would be enormous. And the Chinese presumably sense that.

• 36:12Alastair Campbell?

  That's true, Rory, but it would also work the other way around. And the wreckage in the Chinese economy would be vast as well. And remember, China's got, you know, significant problems within several parts of its economy at the moment. And the one, you know, my assessment has always been that the deal between the Communist Party and the people is very much around what we were talking about earlier, which is delivery. The Communist Party has got to deliver rising living standards and an increasing middle class.

• 36:43Rory Stewart?

  They've done a pretty amazing job.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  They have up to now, but the point is, if you end up going into a conflict that puts all that into reverse, you know, that Chinese Communist Party is, it's not the same as the Kremlin. So, look, I agree, you've got to prepare for the worst, but I don't, I don't see our relationship with China being put in this, in the same framework as, as how we have to deal with Putin's Russia.

• 37:09Alastair Campbell?

  Can I just bring you back to the UK? The first paper that you're producing ahead of this conference is about the National Health Service. And you have, as you famously said, scars on your back from attempts to reform the public sector. Just tell us what you're saying about what kind of reform the health service needs and what the politics around that are.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  So essentially, what we're saying is that the technological change that's available, both in terms of life sciences and the treatment of disease, diagnostics and so on, that is going to revolutionize the way healthcare is delivered. You switch much more towards keeping people healthy, rather than simply treating sickness. And in addition, the other technology changes around data, where you actually have the ability through artificial intelligence and through cloud computing, to assemble the healthcare data of a country to be able to know much more clearly what's working, what's not working, how you procure more effectively, how you treat people more effectively. Every single patient, in my

• 38:15Speaker 03

  view, today should have a, an electronic patient record, which is their complete health record, all the different interventions which they should be able to use interchangeably within the health service. And what that allows you to do is it allows you then to give much more power back to the front line. So the government is actually moving towards these integrated care systems, and which I think is the, the right way to go. But we need to. And also with health and social care together. Yes, but we need to make sure that we're giving them much more freedom to operate. We're keeping the basic principle of the health service, which is that it's free at the point of use.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  It's essentially a taxpayer funded service, but we need to be much clearer about what the centre does and what it lets go. So what we're suggesting is there are certain clear things the centre has to do, particularly around, as I say, technology, national public health data infrastructure, electronic personal record, but then you push power down and allow these trusts to operate with, boards to operate with much, much greater freedom because in the end, the question's going to be, as all these new things start happening, you get the ability to run a healthcare system completely differently. How do you encourage innovation? How do you encourage the best service? And if it's too centrally run and too top down, it doesn't work.

• 39:40Rory Stewart?

  Alistair raised social care and I, this is always when I was an MP, struck me as, along with prisons, probably the biggest disgrace in British life. But in my constituency in Cumbria, you know, elderly people would see a carer for 15 minutes, which was barely enough to, to change them, let alone feed them. And it seems to me to be the great unfinished revolution. National Health Service was set up in the mid 40s. We never sorted out care for the poor elderly. And, and I wondered why that wasn't something that you and Alistair were able to do in your time in office.

• 40:14Speaker 03

  We focused a lot on the National Health Service. We didn't focus so much on social care. I think as time has gone on, that problem has become more acute. And as you say, it is a big question for people today. The purpose of moving to these integrated care systems is to allow.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  That those running the local healthcare system take a much broader view of how you fit, you know, care and social care into healthcare provision. And again, you know, there are, I mean, there are masses of changes that we can bring about on how we help people to live lives that are more independent, how we help to to have more people able to carry on living in their own home or in in sheltered accommodation. And you should be able to deal with what is a huge problem for the National Health Service, which is a very large number of people occupying hospital beds who shouldn't be in hospital.

• 41:08Rory Stewart?

  And also dementia. Again, I'm sounding like one of the great apostles for Theresa May, just as just as Alistair is for you.

• 41:14Alastair Campbell?

  You do that every week. You're the last man standing for Theresa.

• 41:18Rory Stewart?

  Exactly. She she tried, I thought, very courageously in her manifesto to try to find a way of funding adult social care through effectively a property tax. So people would continue to be able to live in their homes. But when they died, the state would collect from their homes the the cost of their social care. And it was achieving two things. It's dealing with social care, but it's also dealing with something I've heard you speak about in the past, which is the importance of being able to introduce wealth taxes and the massive inequality between people who own houses and don't.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you you can, you know, there are some things where if you're proposing them in a in a manifesto, you're always going to run into a lot of trouble. I think over time, you need to to work out how you shift the burden of taxation as well. I mean, I think it will, in the end, have to shift more from capital and labour to to to land to and to other external things like taxing pollution and so on. If you're going to deal with dementia, the most important thing is

• 42:24Speaker 03

  To encourage the development of your life science industry that's going in the end to provide you with an answer to it. And one of the other things we suggest in our health paper is we do make on an anonymized basis, you know, having one national healthcare system should allow you to publish on an anonymized basis an extraordinary amount of information that can be used for research. We should be working with other countries to do this around things like genomics, where you can, you can do an enormous amount to work out what are the treatments that are going to work in the future, because in the end dementia should be something we're able to solve finally.

• 43:03Alastair Campbell?

  The other thing you put in your health paper, and can you imagine this, would this cause difficulty for the current Labour Party? These freedoms that you talk about should include the ability to enter into partnership with private or voluntary sector, embrace new methods of treatment and prevention, create the workforce that they believe is best suited to the care they want to provide, raise money locally through social impact bonds, not as a substitute for taxpayer funding, but as a source of better community engagement. Can you see that leading to scars on his back for Keir Starmer?

• 43:30Speaker 03

  Well, as long as you're keeping the principle of free at the point of use. And if you believe in, in, you know, circumstances of devolving power down to the front line, where people have got the freedom to make the decisions they think are in the interests of their people, and where you're able, for example, to take a broader view of the health of your locality. So it's not just about treating sickness, it's about how do you help people, for example, to lead more healthy lifestyles, to, to, you know, take more exercise, eat better, all of the, you know, if you, if you take that broader view of how a healthcare system should operate, you know, the centre doesn't need to be sitting on top of it the whole time, provided your, provided the healthcare is still there, free at the point of use when you need it.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  You know, a bit like we did with the academy programme in schools. I mean, I'm in favour of giving people more freedom to innovate, to experiment. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And I think, in the end, if you're living through a vast period of change, a one-size-fits-all, command-and-control, centrally-run service doesn't make a lot of sense.

• 44:35Alastair Campbell?

  And the broader devolution point, you talk a lot about devolution in relation to the health service. What about devolution more broadly across the political system?

• 44:42Speaker 03

  You mean the constitutional settlement with Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland? Well, I think they're all very different. I think in Northern Ireland, we do, you know, the problem is, has been Brexit. We need to fix that problem. In Scotland, I have always been convinced the single most important thing is you get a revived Labour Party that's capable of winning power. And I think that that would give people a much greater sense of cohesion, because at the moment, I think, a lot of people in Scotland feel isolated from the UK politically.

• 45:14Rory Stewart?

  Or a liberal, proper right-wing liberal unionist party, a centre-right liberal unionist party.

• 45:19Alastair Campbell?

  We've always talked about the Scottish Liberal Unionist Party, Slup, as the proper ... Just before Julie Crowley, your formidable press secretary, rugged me tackles, was out of the room over, saying, "Oh, welcome", as I used to do on your behalf when you carried on sparring, but gave that look that said, "I've had enough of this now, can I go"? We've talked about all these things, right, in half an hour, whatever, which, do you not find it incredibly frustrating, as I do, that you don't really hear these sorts of debates on the mainstream media? And that's not the fault of the mainstream media, it's the fault of the mainstream politicians who aren't really having them.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  Well, I thought your podcast is, didn't you say it was the number-one podcast?

• 46:00Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but that's too, you know, washed-up old has-beens, that, you know, that's not, that's not, you know, these debates aren't happening, and that's, I just get, I'm sensing your conference is an expression of the same sort of frustration.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you see, as I say, I think it's, it's not that people don't want to hear about it and don't want to debate it. It's just, you, you, you're going to have to fight for political change. I mean, the purpose of this conference is to say, "Here are some new ideas, we need new policy". Here's some of what it can be, and we need a new politics to go with it, which is not lost in a 20th century ideological struggle, left and right. It's got no real relevance to the 21st century, where the challenges have got to be understood and the solutions are practical.

• 46:43Rory Stewart?

  And Tony, we should let you go, and I'm really looking forward to seeing you at the conference and being on that stage on Thursday morning. But final thing for me is tips for dealing with Alastair. I've had an 18, 19 week relationship. And we got a question, we often take questions from somebody called Sahil. And his question was, what is the biggest bollocking that Tony Blair ever gave Alastair? Do you feel up to sharing any tips on Alastair handling?

• 47:11Speaker 03

  I'm an optimist by nature, but there are some challenges that I have found beyond my political skill. And controlling him in any shape or form is one of them. What can I say to you? That you'd be lost without me. He is in the end, I mean, his heart's in the right place. So you can, you can kind of, at a certain point, shame him. But it's, I, I, I think you've shown remarkable stoicism in lasting all this time with him. But it may be that why you're speaking to us from several thousand miles away.

• 47:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, just don't mention the protocol.

• 47:58Rory Stewart?

  Thank you very, very much indeed from here.

• 48:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, thank you for having me on. Great stuff.

• 48:08Alastair Campbell?

  So Roy, what was it like listening to a proper grown up prime minister?

• 48:12Rory Stewart?

  Well, I, I thought it was a fascinating experience. I mean, I, I couldn't quite be sure. I mean, obviously, to some extent, we're going to be accused of giving him too, too much of an easy time. But I thought as an ex politician myself. There was something I thought quite interesting about that style of interview. Because I, you know, definitely when I was a politician, wasn't interviewed like that. I thought it was, and it was good to give him time. And I definitely think he's, he does seem to me much, much more articulate and much more detailed than a lot of what passes to politics today. Has that changed? Was he like that always? Or has he become slightly more like that? Was, would it have been different if you were interviewing when he was Prime Minister?

• 48:53Alastair Campbell?

  No, he's always been utterly obsessed with getting on top of the detail and then drilling. You know, the fact is, he knows that in most modern interviews, you have to be able to make your main point in about 30 seconds. And then if you get the chance to develop it into two minutes, fine. And, but he, he always was obsessed with getting on top of the detail. It's quite interesting. I had, I had the NHS paper in front of me because I read it this morning. And he was sitting there without any paper at all. But actually, when he was talking about it, he was virtually quoting from it.

• 49:22Rory Stewart?

  And he's quite, quite sort of detail, is he quite a details person? I mean, this conference that we're doing together, he, you know, I've spoken to him, I guess, twice about it. And that's quite a lot of detail for, and he's not even on the same panel with me. And he's been going around all the other speakers.

• 49:38Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, yeah, no, he's, he's, he'll be definitely on top of the detail. But I also think that, no, the thing about, the other thing to say to you, Rory, I don't care what people say about the way we talk to people. I think this is our podcast and we get the people on that we want. We talk them in the way that we want to. And the truth is that, I mean, you mentioned Iraq, for example, in the, in the context of the Middle East and how, how he and the liberal democracy is seen there. But the, the other thing I'd say about Tony, and listen, I get this myself because I get asked about him so much and get asked about the downsides of him so much. You go into a mode when those questions come, which I just know, I know when Tony goes into a mode, which is basically, right, I've had this question so many times, I'm sick

• 50:22Alastair Campbell?

  to death, but I'll get into the mode, I'll just get through the next two minutes and then fine. And I find with most journalists, you know, that moment when they say, obviously, I have to ask you about so and so. And what they mean is actually journalists are going to say it's a soft interview unless I ask you about this. And the public is thinking, you know, why are you wasting your time on this? I wouldn't worry about that at all.

• 50:39Rory Stewart?

  One of the things that I've been trying to puzzle that bit, I'm talking to you from Amman, and I've been in this peace conference for the. For the last day and a half, and it's fascinating. People from Burundi, people from Iran. It's called the Principles for Inclusive Peace. And I've been doing this for 18 months. And it's an attempt to try to come up with a new model for doing peace. Because since 2012, I don't know whether you're aware of this, but since 2012, every year we've seen more violent conflict, more people killed. Whereas from the end of the Second World War to 2012, it was the other direction. Almost every year was getting less. And this is about a lot of things.

• 51:23Rory Stewart?

  I mean, obviously, if you're from the left, you might say it's because of the hypocrisy of the global order, the hypocrisy of the West. But it's also, in a way, a sense of what happens when the West stepped away. That actually, the vacuum that's been created as we lost confidence, and for good reason, felt ashamed of what we'd done in Iraq and Afghanistan. That hasn't actually led to a more peaceful world. In fact, it's led to a world that is increasingly fragmented and violent.

• 51:53Alastair Campbell?

  I think, look, I think if we had gone into that with Tony, he would, he would still argue the point that you're making there about the West losing confidence. And actually, I think Tony still thinks that we learnt the wrong lessons.

• 52:04Alastair Campbell?

  One of the lessons we learnt is that, you know, don't take on things that are really, really, really difficult. And I think peace processes, you know, the one that I'm obviously closest to is the one in Northern Ireland, but also Colombia.

• 52:16Alastair Campbell?

  The thing about them is they're incredibly difficult, incredibly hard. I don't know if that's what you, are you talking at your conference about peace processes or about how to address specific problems of conflict at the moment? What's, what's it about?

• 52:29Rory Stewart?

  Well, it's, it's going to sound a bit like the Nolan Principles to you, which you're so good at.

• 52:33Alastair Campbell?

  Honesty, openness, objectivity, selflessness, integrity, accountability and leadership. Yes.

• 52:38Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely fantastic. And, and what did you, and a great, great thing to attach that wonderful image of Boris Johnson getting out of a beautiful Land Rover and running exactly 10 yards for the cameras to his hotel in Rwanda.

• 52:50Alastair Campbell?

  What was that about? Was that because his vanity photographer was the only person meant to be taking the picture?

• 52:55Rory Stewart?

  It's, it's possible that cameras were meant to see him jogging in without realising he'd just got out of the car. Somebody else suggested that maybe he was just desperate to go to the loo. Let me, let me, let me try your seven principles on you. Seven principles that we're looking at are. Integrated solutions, pluralism, in other words, making sure that instead of just having fragmented divisive voices, you actually listen to other people's voices. Something that we're struggling with called subsidiarity, which is a horrible word, but I guess is a way of saying that we think-

• 53:26Alastair Campbell?

  Power at the most local level.

• 53:28Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely, most local level, and not just power, but responsibility at the most local level. And then we were looking at dignity, humility, solidarity, and in the middle of it all, legitimacy.

• 53:39Alastair Campbell?

  Wow. Big themes, we're talking big themes. You're not down into the nitty gritty of strand one, strand two, and strand three.

• 53:46Rory Stewart?

  No, we're on the big themes because what we're trying to do is engage with peace actors, for example, in islands in the Philippines. We're trying to shift it away from the idea that someone like you or I come flying in as a great envoy and knock people's heads together towards understanding that women's organisations, local groups are the drivers in this. I mean, is that your sense in Colombia as well? That actually grassroots organisations and what was happening on the ground was very important?

• 54:13Alastair Campbell?

  Definitely, definitely. I think it was, I think, listen, there was top down for sure, but I think that without the bottom up. I think it was the same in Northern Ireland. I think sometimes the, you know, the women's coalition groups, for example, I think some of the smaller parties, their role is sometimes overlooked. So I think you need, you need both, but I'm loving the big themes. It suggests to me that you've probably got a lot of academics there.

• 54:32Rory Stewart?

  Quite a lot of that. We also need a bit of a comms personality, so we need somebody like you to tell us how we're going to communicate this and excite people, get their emotions going.

• 54:40Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, well, let's, let's do that another day. Just tell us very briefly what you're going to be doing at Tony's conference.

• 54:45Rory Stewart?

  So I'm going to be, as usual, being a sort of grumpy voice, slightly disagreeing. I mean, I think that the centre faces a huge problem. I think that it feels drab and technocratic. I don't really think we live in a post ideological age. I disagree with Tony on that. I think that we neglected to our harm the appeal of patriotism, nationalism, the importance of identity in people's lives, that we have to find a way of, as it were, harnessing the extremes. My kind of naff metaphor at the moment is that instead of the centre ground being the middle of a long stick of wood, instead it should be the string that pulls those two ends together like a bow.

• 55:30Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, God.

• 55:31Rory Stewart?

  And that the bow, the maximum force, kind of harnesses those extremes to shoot the arrow.

• 55:36Alastair Campbell?

  I've got to say, I think Tony made more sense when he was talking about this, Rory.

• 55:40Rory Stewart?

  You think I've gone mad again? I probably have. I think I'm mad again.

• 55:43Alastair Campbell?

  Well, listen, lovely to talk to you and we'll be back tomorrow with question and answer.

• 55:50Rory Stewart?

  Thank you. And wait, wait, before you go, before you go, I was really disappointed. I couldn't get him for the top tip on how to handle you. And Sahil asked this question, what was the biggest bollocking you'd ever given you? And obviously the guy is not prepared to tell us that on the podcast. So we want you to tell us, what was the biggest bollocking Tony Blair ever gave Alastair Campbell? And then you can go.

• 56:07Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, he wasn't a big, he's not a big, with me, I would reckon that I, not bolakings, but I think I probably lost it with him more than, more often than he did with me. And I think that's, I think that's part of his strength, that he, he likes to be challenged and he likes to be, you know, if he comes back from doing something, he doesn't want people to say, God, that was marvellous. He doesn't, doesn't mind if you say, that was pretty crap. And here's why. But the only time I can remember what I would call a bollocking, was when he said that I, quotes, went off the reservation. And it was to do with the Bristol flats.

• 56:46Alastair Campbell?

  When I felt, do you remember when Cherie was sort of involved with that Australian con man, Peter Foster?

• 56:54Rory Stewart?

  Oh, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:55Alastair Campbell?

  They bought flats for the kids. And I mean, it was the sort of, quotes, scandal that Boris Johnson wouldn't even consider to be a scandal. I mean, it's just ridiculous that it was such a big thing, but it was, it went on for days and days and days. And I just got so fed up with it because I'd, I just thought, how have we allowed a well-known con man into our midst? And so I, I did, I did go off the reservation. I started basically, I'm normally very, very loyal, very, very tight-lipped, very discreet. But I did go around the place saying, I'm fucked off to the back teeth of this. So I did land, there were a few stories appeared in the press that, that sort of came from me that wouldn't normally have come from me. And that's the only, and it wasn't even a bollocking. He said, listen, if you're going to go off the reservation like that, you've got to tell me.

• 57:40Alastair Campbell?

  You don't just go off on your own like that and do stuff. And, you know, if you've, if you sort of, you know, putting it around. I remember he said to me, he says, the trouble is you've got a very powerful, your moods emanate to other people. And Fiona says that to me a lot as well. I'm not always conscious of it, but my moods emanate a lot of kind of, so when I was feeling really pissed off like that, it's sort of, it dragged down the whole kind of building in a way. And so he said, get back on the reservation or, you know, piss off.

• 58:08Rory Stewart?

  Right. On that, Alasta. Ready? See you tomorrow. Bye-bye.

• 58:12Alastair Campbell?

  See you tomorrow.

• 58:17Speaker 04

  Mr. President, my company foreme of the explosion on our rear on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all keep the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 58:28Speaker 05

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

• 58:34Speaker 06

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

• 58:38Speaker 05

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 58:41Speaker 06

  I'm not the first then.

• 58:42Speaker 05

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17 and under 18 without parent.

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• 58:57Speaker 11

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• 59:03Speaker 12

  This episode is brought to you by EA Sports FC27. Welcome to the world's game. FC27 is introducing The Grounds, where the streets meet the stadium. Connect with friends, go pro, and express yourself, on or off the pitch. Play FC27 with the ultimate edition September 18th. Learn more at EA.com. Rated E for everyone. Includes in-game purchases, including random items. The Grounds is only available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2 versions.