21. Question Time: The Queen's toilet, Carole Cadwalladr, and climate crisis

Find out which historical world leaders Rory and Alastair would be like to work alongside, what they would say if they had the world's attention for 30 seconds, their thoughts on the 'Tory power stance' and body language coaching in politics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Editor: James Hodgson Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

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

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

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

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• 1:43Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to the fourth episode of the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.

• 1:48Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Alastair Campbell.

• 1:49Rory Stewart?

  Which has landed in your podcast feeds on the sixth anniversary of the Brexit referendum. What are you doing to celebrate the occasion, Alistair?

• 1:57Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I am reading The New European, whose front page lists all the Brexit benefits in full. It's a blank, white page. And then reading the six pages inside about all the things that have gone wrong. What about you?

• 2:12Rory Stewart?

  Well, one of the things I keep thinking about, obviously obsessively, is that there were options for a better Brexit. I mean, I think that a customs union solution, even the kind of backstop solution that Theresa May proposed, would have been much, much easier for British businesses dealing with Europe, and most importantly of all, would have avoided the problems that we're now facing around borders in the Irish Sea and the Irish border, because by keeping us in a single customs territory, there wouldn't have been need for those customs checks. There might have had to be some checks, and the stuff that we need to talk about, phytosanitary checks, which I think is an important thing to try to get right.

• 2:52Alastair Campbell?

  Let me say something to make you happy, okay? If I had felt back in the day that the choice was not between a second referendum and whatever Theresa May was proposing, but was between what Theresa May was proposing and what we now have, I would happily have backed what Theresa May was proposing. Does that make you happy?

• 3:13Rory Stewart?

  It definitely makes me very happy. It raises the question, though, because it's an interesting point, because one of the things that obviously people like me were trying to do then is to say to people who were trashing Theresa May's deal and pushing for a second referendum, I was trying to say, you're not going to get a second referendum. What you're going to do is you're going to give power to the ERG and end up with a much harder Brexit and Boris Johnson in power. But I never managed to convince anyone of that. Have you got any sense on why I couldn't convince them? Was it that our messaging was wrong, or people just weren't ready to hear that message?

• 3:46Alastair Campbell?

  I think that, well, let me just take something out of myself. I genuinely believed that it was a democratic thing to do, to allow people to have a vote on the final say. I didn't buy the line it was anti-democratic. It happened in plenty of other countries where people sort of say, well, here's the general principle, now we've got the detail, let's take a proper look. And I genuinely believed, and I never made any bones about this, that that was the best way to stop Brexit. But, so I think, maybe we're back to the point we've talked about lots, is that people were in very, very fixed in transpositions. And let's just leave Brexit now, because people are going to talk so much about this. I want to ask you, Rory, a very, very personal question.

• 4:27Alastair Campbell?

  And this is a question that's come from Ruth Smith. Rory mentions in two of his books his sister Fiona, who I've met, who has Down syndrome. I'd love to know how his sister influenced him and his politics and what changes in society he would like to see to improve the lives of people with Down syndrome.

• 4:42Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think that the first thing is it had a obviously a huge influence on me. Fiona's just four years younger than me. She's my only full sister. I've got two older half sisters, but they're much older than me from my father's first marriage. So I grew up with Fiona. We shared a bunk bed. We shared a bedroom. And it's it. She is the most wonderful, loving sister to have, but she has Down syndrome. She, her life has changed dramatically and part of that actually is a tribute to to all kinds of governments and what they've introduced. For example, she really learnt to write properly in her thirties.

• 5:20Rory Stewart?

  And that's something that people didn't predict would happen. There's been huge transformations in in life expectancy also with people with Down syndrome. I remember one of the most terrifying things when I was eight or nine is a very unpleasant boy at school trying to tell me that, you know, my sister wasn't going to live very long, which I think was true, that the life expectancy was was bad in those days. I I'd also, having lived in other countries, say that there are so many things horribly wrong in Britain.

• 5:50Rory Stewart?

  I think we've talked about prisons. We've talked about the lack of support for people with addiction issues. We've talked about the scandal of our probation services. The scandal of the way we treat poor elderly people, but I do think that Britain has got much, much better in the way that it treats people like Fiona and the support that we've received. Genuinely, we is extraordinary and she has been helped to get a job and supported very well into that, and that gives her immense pride. She works in an old people's home as

• 6:25Rory Stewart?

  as a waitress. And I think it is wonderful. I think I'm really proud of what comes to.

• 6:30Alastair Campbell?

  What what when you when we came to your house to do the one face to face episode we've recorded? And Fiona was around and very, very kind of much part of everything that was going on and big character and so forth. Of course, your mother's there. You know, I don't predict the demise of your mother, but how much of a worry is that when, when I sense that Fiona is very, not dependent on your mother, but that's an incredibly important relationship?

• 7:00Rory Stewart?

  It's a very, very important relationship, as it was with my father. And I think that that is something to think about, and I think we'll find a way of, of including Fiona in our own family.

• 7:09Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 7:10Rory Stewart?

  But she, she is, as you say, she's, she's extraordinary. And, and in some ways, she's also been helped by modern technology. She, she loves social media, although I sometimes worry a little bit about the kind of social media she's going on. She loves, obviously, television. She loves music, as well as other things. I mean, she also loves animals and nature. One of the controversies, though, which, which has been something that we've had to go through, which is a policy question, is that in the past, when she was going for jobs, she could go for jobs and she could go in below the minimum wage.

• 7:47Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 7:48Rory Stewart?

  And in the early days, I think the Scottish government made up the difference between the salaries. But now, for, for good reasons, equality campaigners campaigned very hard to make sure that she gets the same wage as other people. But I do sometimes worry about that, because it does mean that it's, it's difficult. She's not quite as quick as other people working in the kitchen. She's not, and therefore I do worry sometimes that that may be an example, and I'm going to get in trouble saying this, but, but having been trying to look for a job for her recently, she lost the job recently. That, that it is, it is a bit of a challenge convincing particularly small businesses to take on somebody if they could get somebody who's much quicker for the, for the same wage.

• 8:29Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I really enjoyed meeting her. I thought she was absolutely fantastic, and you should be very, very proud of her. Ian Petricelli, Rory, if you could be number two to any world leader over the ages, who might that be?

• 8:42Rory Stewart?

  In my case, definitely Alexander the Great, which gives me a chance to give it back to you.

• 8:46Alastair Campbell?

  I would say Lincoln.

• 8:48Rory Stewart?

  Lincoln. Now, what would it be like working for Lincoln? What's your sense of him as a man?

• 8:52Alastair Campbell?

  I probably wouldn't be that good because, of course, he's a massive depressive and I'm a massive depressive. Well, I think that's one of the reasons I really like him is that he achieved so much. I think his depression was way worse than mine. Everything I read about him, there was a wonderful quote from his law partner, William Harndon. I think I told you this before. He wrote a book about Lincoln the lawyer. And he started it with the words melancholy dripped from him with every step he took. But I just think to have achieved as much as he did in such difficult circumstances and to have managed so many curious and difficult relationships. See, I'd love to have watched him. Of all the people that we don't have film of, he's the one that I think.

• 9:36Rory Stewart?

  He is extraordinary, isn't he? And he's the one politician that it's very, very difficult not to admire in every way. Because he's admirable, yes, because in the end what he did was morally extraordinary. Which is, essentially, he emancipated millions upon millions of people. But of course, he was also somebody who had to deal with a very difficult political context in which he changed his position on slavery. He had to manage a whole party, had to manage people through a bloody war. He did so with oratory integrity. I mean, if you're looking for somebody to teach the ideal politician, it's so difficult to think of anyone better, isn't it?

• 10:17Alastair Campbell?

  And also, Alistair the Great, if Boris Johnson's listening to our podcast, he'll assume that you're talking about him because that's his real name.

• 10:25Rory Stewart?

  I wish to put on the record that he is really not like Alistair the Great. And Alistair the Great would be really depressed and appalled if he encountered him. Okay, question two from Lewis. My question is to both Alistair and Rory. If you each had the whole world's attention for 30 seconds, what would you say, Alistair?

• 10:43Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, my God, 30 seconds. Right, I would say.

• 10:48Alastair Campbell?

  The world is a remarkable place that we've got so many massive, great, wonderful things happening for us, but we're kind of screwing it up. And I think part of the problem is our politics and populism. And I actually want young people to rise up against the older generations, sweep them away and take control. That's what I'd say.

• 11:13Rory Stewart?

  It's beautiful. And that was in the side 30 seconds. Blimey. All I can think of, I was terrified by this question. All I was going to offer if I had the world's attention for 30 seconds is that if you've lost something, it's almost always where you thought it was.

• 11:27Alastair Campbell?

  That is really good. So where do I think my aspirin inhaler was? Because I can't find it.

• 11:38Rory Stewart?

  The answer, I think this is absolutely, this is my greatest philosophical insight. You've always got to go back and search really carefully in the place you've already searched, but didn't look carefully enough. So often what we do is we start by thinking, okay, I know where it is. We look there, but we don't quite look carefully enough. And then we move on too quickly.

• 11:56Alastair Campbell?

  I think mine was a little bit more elevated than yours.

• 11:58Rory Stewart?

  Here's one. Another one. Another one. Wait, I've got one more for 30 seconds, right? If someone's got the hiccups, if you if you bet them 50 quid, if they hiccup again, they stop hiccuping.

• 12:11Alastair Campbell?

  No, I don't buy that.

• 12:14Rory Stewart?

  You don't buy that? Well, I'm going to try that on you.

• 12:17Alastair Campbell?

  Let me try, let me try, let me try one on you. It's a grammatical thing. Is it correct to say the yolk of the egg is white? Or is it the yolk of the egg are white?

• 12:30Rory Stewart?

  Well, the yolk of the egg is yellow.

• 12:33Alastair Campbell?

  Well done.

• 12:34Rory Stewart?

  Thank you. Very good.

• 12:36Alastair Campbell?

  Most people fall for it. Now, listen, I want one. You've asked two in a row. Nigel Inglebrow, I want your thoughts on the banks Carol Cadwalladr case and why wasn't the more coverage of all the the meetings with Russians and the influence on Brexit, et cetera?

• 12:50Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think the first thing is, my aunt, I haven't been following the case closely, but she has been exonerated, hasn't she?

• 12:56Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 12:56Rory Stewart?

  Which is a great tribute to an investigative journalist who took a huge risk and put an immense amount of energy into following this up. Is this something you've been following more closely? Tell us a little bit about it.

• 13:06Alastair Campbell?

  I've been following it very, very closely because my Fiona, the Fiona in my life, her brother Gavin was Carol Cadwalladr's QC.

• 13:14Alastair Campbell?

  And so, and I've not been able to talk to him because Gavin, unlike Boris Johnson's Swella Braverman, the worst attorney general in history. And I've got a story about her, by the way, but don't let me go without telling you it. But so Gavin is very, very proper. So he doesn't talk to anybody outside, you know, the case. So I've been just sort of following it like an ordinary member of the public, trying, offering sort of any moral support I can to Carol Cadwalladr. And there was so much kind of, I mean, they, you know, not to put too fine a point on her, they, they pretty much set out utterly to destroy her as an individual. Not the papers she was writing for, but as an individual. And I'm very, very, very, very, very pleased that she won.

• 13:56Rory Stewart?

  I, I wanted to say one quick thing, which I owe you. You, you teased me last week's question time about the fact that you think I've been being chippy about your friend Tony Blair. And I must say, since that I've met him and I, I was, I saw him twice last week and I was incredibly charmed.

• 14:14Alastair Campbell?

  You were speaking, you were speaking at his conference, aren't you?

• 14:16Rory Stewart?

  Speaking, speaking at his conference, incredibly, incredibly charmed. And one of the things that struck me about him, despite all my grumbles about him, and I've still got a lot, lot of anger about this, him teaming up with Boris Johnson against Theresa May's deal.

• 14:28Alastair Campbell?

  He didn't team up, he didn't team up. Carry on.

• 14:30Rory Stewart?

  He did, he said this speech in which he said, I'm going to form, I'm going to form an unholy alliance with Boris Johnson. Anyway, I'm still angry about that. Anyway. The good thing, I was trying to get to the positive thing, is that unlike almost any other politician I've met, he remains much, much better at listening. So he'd said to me that there are three great revolutions we've got to come to terms with, environmental revolution, technological revolution, Brexit. And I said, I think there's a fourth thing which has actually changed with the invasion of Ukraine, which is the collapse of the global trading system. And unlike almost any other politician I met, he took the idea, he played with it, he made it more interesting. He reconceptualised it, he threw it back at me and I thought he was quite a class act.

• 15:13Rory Stewart?

  And also he, I don't know whether he listens to the podcast, obviously he'd picked up on the fact that you and I have been rowing on this podcast.

• 15:19Alastair Campbell?

  That's because I sent him Vasco's film and he phoned me up and he said, he said, what are you doing? He said, I told, I told Rory that forget that whole calm, nice, polite thing. When he goes, he goes.

• 15:32Rory Stewart?

  So honestly, you'd been defending him very, very strongly, but he very sweetly also sympathised with me despite the fact that you were defending him so well.

• 15:39Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I just wanted to return to Suella Braverman. When I was in Dublin last week, I bumped into, on the way back, I bumped into a QC who does a lot of, and we talked about the Treasury Devil, who does the A-list cases for the government. Suella Braverman, when she was a lawyer, before she became a sort of, you know, wholly politicised, the worst Attorney General in history, she was a C-list lawyer for the Attorney General. She was on the Attorney General's C-list, which meant she got the kind of lower order cases. And he said to me, she was hired twice by two separate departments, and she was never hired again by either. So there's Suella. I want to give a shout out to Nicholas Webb, because he was the guy who asked the question that I answered prematurely yesterday about

• 16:24Alastair Campbell?

  the Welsh elections. But then I want, here's a good one for you, Rory, because you're sort of more into the agreeable disagreeing and all that stuff. Bernadette Traynor, she said, I've just been watching a video of you, i.e. me, arguing, debating with Nigel Farage in 2019, and you actually seem quite amenable disposed towards each other. Is it possible to separate out the personal and the political?

• 16:51Rory Stewart?

  I think it's, it depends whether you think that somebody is fundamentally decent. I think if you think that somebody, in the end, you can see the moral energy and force of them, I think you can separate it out. If you can't, if the politics becomes, and I think this is often the problem that I felt when I was a Conservative MP debating with the left, is that, as I think you've said it before, that often the people I was debating with assumed that I was fundamentally evil. And in that case, you can't do it. Right, we'll take a quick break now and see you in a second.

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• 19:13Rory Stewart?

  So, welcome back to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Austin Campbell. Right, I'm beginning with a very grand question by Abby Innes. How does non-utopian politics win against utopian politics? Does even a party with an abundance of common sense, morality, and social purpose lose against an ethically unhinged politics that promises the moon and abides by no rules?

• 19:41Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it doesn't have to. It doesn't have to. When was the last Utopian? What's she trying to get at there?

• 19:48Rory Stewart?

  I think she's basically saying that, that I think maybe Utopian's the wrong framing of it. I think that promising the moon is one of the central.

• 19:58Alastair Campbell?

  But does she mean Boris Johnson or does she mean?

• 20:00Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, she means sort of Boris Johnson. She means.

• 20:02Alastair Campbell?

  Not Jeremy Corbyn?

• 20:03Rory Stewart?

  Or Jeremy Corbyn. I think she means populist grand statements and how difficult it is for the centre ground. I think she's having a go at the idea that maybe the centre ground is always doomed to fail and that people are more attracted by people who promise the moon and abide by no rules.

• 20:18Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think that is a sort of phase that we're definitely in at the moment.

• 20:24Alastair Campbell?

  But I really do believe it will go back and I want the kind of the Schultz's and the Macron's and for all the setbacks, I want them to keep on with that sense of, look, let's try and keep politics serious and keep it rooted in the real world. But it's a tricky one. And I also think, we've talked about Keir Starmer a lot in the last couple of weeks. I mean, I do think he's got to play to strengths. I mean, this thing about, you know, is he boring? Does he like charisma? I mean, you know, he's got to turn to his advantage. I do think people will be sick of this whole showmanship in politics, but I could be wrong. I could be wrong.

• 21:04Rory Stewart?

  I think Craig Brown, in your least favourite newspaper, the Daily Mail, actually made a very, very good argument in favour of Keir Starmer essentially being boring and staying boring and saying that it's quite a welcome distraction. Talking of Twitter and Abby's question, I have also been thinking a little bit about this, the way in which Twitter encourages extremes. I was thinking about it last night because somebody had sent out a tweet, which had been retweeted by lots of people I liked, maybe shared 1,500 times. And the person had said that MPs had just got a £2,000 pay rise on their £80,000 salary. And little wonder there was an inflation when MPs were taking an over 20% pay rise.

• 21:50Rory Stewart?

  And of course, £2,000 and £8,000 is not 20%, right? It's just over 2%, not 20%. And yet it had been shared 1,500 times. And I had that thing which must, I guess a lot of people feel, which is.

• 22:04Rory Stewart?

  Given that this person is broadly speaking on my side, and this is being liked by a lot of people, I like, do I come in now and say, this is fake news, this is crazy, right? You're pointing out, you're claiming that MPs are taking a 20% pay rise.

• 22:16Alastair Campbell?

  It's not true.

• 22:16Rory Stewart?

  When they're not, and it's just not true.

• 22:18Alastair Campbell?

  I think it would be a useful use of two seconds of your time to have done that.

• 22:21Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 22:22Alastair Campbell?

  Here's a great question from Danny Platt. What is the most unknown to the public, but most obvious to insiders thing about Downey Street? I'm going to go with the Queen's toilet.

• 22:34Rory Stewart?

  Go on, tell us about Queen's toilet.

• 22:35Alastair Campbell?

  There is a toilet in Downey Street. The Queen's toilet, because it was put in there for the Queen. And it's called the Queen's toilet. And I have to say, there have been occasions when, in a bit of a rush, I've nipped into the Queen's toilet.

• 22:50Rory Stewart?

  Does it have like gold taps and stuff?

• 22:53Alastair Campbell?

  There is no, there are no gold taps, but it's smarter than the other toilets. Noel Gallagher confessed that he went in there as well, when we gave him a tour number 10.

• 23:03Rory Stewart?

  Where is it? Does it look like a kind of throne?

• 23:05Alastair Campbell?

  Do you know when you, you know, upstairs from the Cabinet room, right? Upstairs from the Cabinet room, there's a very nice pic, I don't know what pictures Johnson's got, but there was a very nice picture there. And there's a little thing when you come out of the Green Room, there's like three steps down.

• 23:17Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 23:17Alastair Campbell?

  And it's, and it's just on the right.

• 23:19Rory Stewart?

  Goodness.

• 23:19Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 23:20Rory Stewart?

  Goodness, and is there a sign up saying, only for Her Majesty the Queen?

• 23:24Alastair Campbell?

  No, and I don't think the Queen ever used it, because of course, you know, just there in case she needed it. But, you know, the Queen being the Queen, she probably deals with all that stuff before she goes anywhere, doesn't she?

• 23:32Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I suspect so, I suspect so. All right, Judith Naylor, question five. Do top politicians, leaders normally have some expert body language coaching to help get their message across?

• 23:45Alastair Campbell?

  Uh, I think some do. I think they'll look at it. I remember once in opposition, Tony, we did a bit of a thing with him about how to stand, how to, and he didn't really go for it. He just thought this is sort of nonsense. But some do, and I thought, look, but how people, I think this TV programme I'm doing, I was telling them the other day. I may have told you this before, but.

• 24:07Rory Stewart?

  Tell us about the TV programme, we don't know about the TV programme, tell us about.

• 24:10Alastair Campbell?

  It's called, it's called Make Me Prime Minister. And it's, it's Saeda Worsy, who you will know from your Cabinet days, she and I are. Putting twelve members of the public through their paces, they all think they can be prime minister. And it's quite interesting to, I'm not allowed to say too much, but it's very, very interesting. And by the way, they did, we do bring in experts for certain sessions. So if you, the next time you're in the country, if you wanna come and have a look and you can be, you can be an expert. No, I'm serious. We had, we've had all sorts of, some of your friends down there. But it's like, no, I, I think that, I was telling them that there was this experiment in America where they showed two sets of, have I told you this, about two sets of a hundred pictures to a random selection of people?

• 24:53Rory Stewart?

  Haven't told us, no.

• 24:54Alastair Campbell?

  And they basically said, these are two sets, each, each pairing has taken part in an election which has already happened. Who do you think, who do you think won?

• 25:02Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Alastair Campbell?

  They got ninety-two percent right.

• 25:05Rory Stewart?

  Oh, ow. That's terrifying.

• 25:08Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, it is terrifying.

• 25:09Rory Stewart?

  So, so one of the answers, I think, one of the big differences though between UK and US politics is that very few British politicians would do things like body language coaching. We're pretty sort of scruffy and informal. And partly, we don't have the kind of money in our politics to pay for that unless you're a party leader. It's quite expensive.

• 25:26Alastair Campbell?

  But, but Johnson does the reverse, doesn't he? He does this sort of, I'm actually quite smart, I'm going to make myself look really scruffy. What's that about?

• 25:34Rory Stewart?

  Well, I think that's deeply appealing to people. I think people like the sense, I think part of his voters say, well, that's quite nice. You know, I don't really shave, I don't really brush my hair, I'm getting a bit fat, I don't tuck my shirt in, maybe I could be prime minister.

• 25:48Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm, hmm. I tell you, I can spot those politicians who, you know, when you see them sort of suddenly doing jerky hand movements and this like, somebody's told them, you know, pointing is really shows strength and opening your hands shows, there's something in that, but it's gotta look natural. My, the best, Clinton was brilliant, Clinton was brilliant at body language.

• 26:09Rory Stewart?

  I always felt when I took, when I was the Chair of the Defence Committee and when I was in the Foreign Affairs Committee going to Washington, the amazing contrast between American and British politicians. The security guards at Congress and Senate couldn't actually believe we were politicians because all American politicians are like these incredibly tall, they all wear

• 26:29Alastair Campbell?

  Stripy ties.

• 26:30Rory Stewart?

  Red ties, you know, white shirts.

• 26:32Alastair Campbell?

  Quaffed tights.

• 26:33Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. And they all have to be over six foot tall and we all turned up and we basically, you know, we're all sort of five foot six, five foot eight, bit tubby, bit dishevelled. And literally the security guards couldn't be convinced that we could possibly be members of Parliament.

• 26:48Alastair Campbell?

  What, do you remember that period where we kept having Tories? The most dramatic was Sajid Javid, but I think Johnson, Hancock, Robb, all doing that legs apart stance thing. Do you remember?

• 26:59Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, the power stance.

• 27:00Alastair Campbell?

  They all looked ridiculous.

• 27:02Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, that was really weird. That was a very strange. Do you remember what it was? Essentially their legs are far too wide apart. They stand in a weird A shape.

• 27:09Alastair Campbell?

  And I'll tell you the other thing, Johnson does this thing with his tie, sort of down below his groin. Sorry, the talk of Johnson's groin, my airpiece fell out. The tie below his groin and his legs, particularly I've noticed this when he's being interviewed by women, with his legs so far apart, he's like a sumo wrestler.

• 27:29Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:30Alastair Campbell?

  What's that about?

• 27:32Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, I think he must at some point in his youth decided this was somehow attractive, but it's not. Last question. Hugh, this is a pretty serious one, but maybe a good one to finish on. Given the climate crisis is an existential threat to global stability, why do you not talk about it on your podcast?

• 27:50Alastair Campbell?

  Well, we do. We have talked about the climate crisis, but in a sort of, we've talked about it, we talked about it, I guess in relation to the whole, you know, us travelling so much and maybe we haven't addressed it. Maybe we should at a future point do a whole thing on the climate crisis. I do think, by the way, one thing I was going to raise, and I now will raise it because you've raised that question, I was going to raise this yesterday. Are you aware, and I bet most of our listeners aren't, that there was a, there was a meeting of the, of the COP in Bond last week? Now, if you remember when Glasgow happened, every, nobody was talking about anything else and all these great promises were made. And, and the Bond meeting apparently was incredibly bad tempered.

• 28:28Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 28:29Alastair Campbell?

  It was the poor countries telling the rich countries, you're all just words.

• 28:32Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 28:32Alastair Campbell?

  And because of Ukraine and because of all the other stuff happening, it's just vanished. And that is very, very, very worrying.

• 28:39Rory Stewart?

  And it's happening very quickly. So you're completely right. And we're looking at it. So there's horrifying floods in Bangladesh, some of the worst ever. Somalia is going, about to go into its fifth year of drought with millions of people starving. And we're into a very, very complicated world where suddenly people are beginning to sense because of Ukraine, because of the problems on oil and gas, because of the food shortages. They're beginning to see much more directly the kind of sacrifices that will be involved and the politics that will be involved in doing the transition in a way that we didn't probably just, just a year ago. I, I remember when I was running for London mayor, the head of the taxi drivers' union saying to me, I can tell you how you're going, you can win this election, I guarantee it. All you've got to do is go to outer London and point

• 29:23Rory Stewart?

  out to people that Sadiq Khan, if they vote for him, is going to cost them sixty five pounds a week to drive their car because of the congestion charge and you'll win it. Now, of course, I didn't do it because I agreed with him on what he was trying to do on tailpipe emissions and carbon emissions. But it was a sudden reminder that we haven't begun to see the politics of opposition yet because we haven't really begun to take the real costs that will be involved in the transition for 2035, 2040.

• 29:51Alastair Campbell?

  Very quick one on the strikes. Martin Edwards, why did the RMT choose this week of all weeks with the two by-elections to have their strikes? Sure, it just means that, surely it just means that Starmer is caught in double crosshairs. I think it shows actually the trade unions don't necessarily just see themselves as being about the Labour Party. So, so that's that. Can I give a final, final shout out, Rory, to somebody called Robert Goodall?

• 30:15Rory Stewart?

  Go on then.

• 30:15Alastair Campbell?

  He actually, he actually came to the recording of one of these episodes of this TV programme and he says, were you very impressed when I told you that I managed to get into both of your live shows with Rory Stewart? I think we were impressed by that, weren't we?

• 30:28Rory Stewart?

  Very, very, very impressed. Thank you very much.

• 30:31Alastair Campbell?

  Well done, Robert.

• 30:32Rory Stewart?

  Well done. And see everybody again next week.

• 30:35Alastair Campbell?

  Thank you. All the best.

• 30:36Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye.

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