14. Charisma, Portugal, and gun control

Rory going viral, Alastair's trip to Portugal, Labour's Brexit position, Olaf Scholz, the UEFA Champions League Final, the 1922 Committee, charisma, Nelson Mandela, teaching politics in school, US gun control, and ABBA. Tune in to today's pod to hear all this and more! ANNOUNCEMENT: Make sure you come back tomorrow for our first episode of 'TRIP: Question Time' (in the same podcast feed), where Alastair and Rory will devote a whole show to answering more listener questions and recounting some incredible stories from their time in politics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producers: Tony Pastor & Jack Davenport The Week: theweek.co.uk/rest 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 Creef. 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?

  Well, hello. Welcome to another episode, number 14 of The Rest is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 1:48Rory Stewart?

  And me, Rory Stewart.

• 1:49Alastair Campbell?

  Today, we're going to be talking charisma in politics. We're going to be talking what Keir Starmer and Labour could learn from little old Portugal. And how on earth Rory Stewart, no less, was trending on Twitter for two days straight during his brief trip back to the UK last week. So Rory, is this the new sort of Stewart tactic? You head down in Jordan, fly back to the UK, take aim at Boris Johnson on Good Morning Britain, trend for a bit, then fly home.

• 2:17Rory Stewart?

  That's it. Seems to be the model.

• 2:20Alastair Campbell?

  You did sort of give him both barrels because of course you were here the day after the Sue Gray report came out and his rather astonishing response.

• 2:29Rory Stewart?

  Well, one of the problems, Alice, about it is that I'm beginning to feel that as it goes on, it's a bit like you used to feel when you went to the United States during Trump's time, you'd open the New York Times. And every time I remember opening the New York Times for about three years, there'd be another article saying they'd found another scandal and that Donald Trump was going to have to resign because what he'd done was so disgusting and outrageous. And of course, as the days and weeks go on, you begin to feel the New York Times is getting hysterical. You begin to feel, well, Donald Trump's not going to resign. What is it this time? They're turning a, you know, they're making a molehill into a mountain. And the whole thing is exactly the way in which we're now going to get trapped by Boris

• 3:11Rory Stewart?

  Johnson, which is that, you've talked about this before, it's a deliberate technique. But if he does this every day, we end up feeling hysterical and people begin to think that we're sort of obsessive. And he gets into that weird world where sort of philandering partners say, well, you know, if you trusted me a bit more, I wouldn't cheat on you so much.

• 3:33Alastair Campbell?

  But this is why, on the day he did the ministerial code thing, which did make my blood boil, I mean, basically saying that I know I'm going to get done on honesty, openness, objectivity, selfless integrity, accountability and leadership, therefore I'll just get rid of the rawest qualifications for the job. And I, because I do these mad rants on Instagram from time to time, less frequently since we've been doing our podcast. And I was getting all these people on Instagram saying, do a rant, do a rant, do a rant. And I was thinking, no, do you know what? I'm just going to chill out because I think actually he's toast and it's a question of when, not if. And if he does what Trump does and drags it out to an election in a bizarre sort of way, lots of our listeners are saying this, it might be. Better for Labour. But listen, Roy, before we get kicked off, one of the things you did when

• 4:18Alastair Campbell?

  you did come back to the country, you and I did our first live shows, which were very good fun, two back to back. And I thought those who couldn't be there might be interested in some of the feedback that we got when we did fairly regular show of hands. First off, although there were some Tories in the audience, we discovered that. But when it came to a show of hands on whether Boris Johnson should resign, it was 800 to nil. On the question of whether our podcasts were too long or too short, it was considered too short. In other words, we should talk even more by about 80%. You surprised me by winning in the vote about whether the time we devote to answers to specific questions,

• 5:02Alastair Campbell?

  I want to roll through them, you want to give them a bit of time. You won on that one, it was about 80. Now, the very important one, Roy, the very important one, was the overwhelming view that you must not call him Boris. That was overwhelming. And the other one where maybe you won, I asked whether I bang on about eating too much. The seven o'clock audience felt that I did bang on about eating too much. The nine o'clock audience felt I banged on about eating okay. So that may just indicate a link between alcohol and class war.

• 5:36Rory Stewart?

  And then I thought the most interesting vote of all was, and this was basically obviously a self-selecting audience, which is why we should pay no attention to them whatsoever on saying that our podcasts should be longer. But I think the bigger issue, which was interesting, is it's broadly speaking, a, I think, a sort of centre-left friendly audience. Everybody wanted Boris Johnson to go. But when we asked whether anybody had any clear idea of what Labour's economic policy was, almost everyone having said they'd consider voting Labour. The seven o'clock, I think there wasn't a hand up. And at nine o'clock, there were just three or four hands.

• 6:14Alastair Campbell?

  Well, actually, that wasn't the question you asked. The question was whether they were aware of any of Labour's key policies. And I agree with you, I thought that was

• 6:23Alastair Campbell?

  Alarming, because as you say, there were a very sympathetic audience, mainly desperate to vote Labour. We're going to talk about the Portuguese Prime Minister in a moment, because I do think Keir Starmer should go and see him. But before I do, Rory, do you remember the discussion we had about slogans?

• 6:37Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Alastair Campbell?

  Now, would you like to tell our listeners what you suggested as a Get Johnson Out slogan?

• 6:42Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so let me just give a little preface that one of the main problems in politics, obviously, is we're always trying to produce three, four-word slogans, and I am really bad at slogans, just like I'm really bad at book titles.

• 6:52Alastair Campbell?

  As you're about to prove.

• 6:53Rory Stewart?

  As I'm about to prove. So I thought we could campaign on enough is enough.

• 6:57Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Rory, in Portugal, first the good news. I arrived at this conference on Covid in Portugal, and the second person I met was a young man called João Gachpar, who works for the Dos Santos Foundation. And he came up to me and said in flawless English that I was his hero. So I was to him what Nick Clegg is to you. And he then said, I love your podcast. So there you are, we're dead big in Portugal. But he then gave me a wonderful briefing about the state of Portuguese politics. And do you know the only party that really, the Socialists won the election convincingly, but the other good party that did well was a new populist party. And do you know what it's called, Rory?

• 7:41Rory Stewart?

  No, go on.

• 7:42Alastair Campbell?

  It's called Chenga. And do you know what Chenga means in Portuguese?

• 7:45Rory Stewart?

  Oh, does it mean enough?

• 7:47Alastair Campbell?

  It means enough.

• 7:47Rory Stewart?

  Oh, fantastic.

• 7:49Alastair Campbell?

  So you are basically a Portuguese populist. That's really what you are.

• 7:53Rory Stewart?

  I think enough is enough. It's basically a good recipe of populist.

• 7:57Alastair Campbell?

  It is. My slogan was in the area of we can be better, be better, let's be better, let's do better, we can be better, let's be better than this.

• 8:05Rory Stewart?

  I think it's really important. And actually, I was on a very, very interesting series of calls recently with Labour voters talking about Europe. And I came out of it with a slightly different view to you, because I know that you've slightly thought that Labour has abandoned the Europe position, and they've been too quiet about it. But what I really thought through the issues and thought through the options facing Labour. And as you can imagine, there would have been some people on the call who supported a single market, some people supported a customs union, some people who are rejoiners, second referendum people. I suddenly thought it would be a complete nightmare for Labour to try to lay out a Brexit position because it would split the party, just as we discovered actually when we were

• 8:49Rory Stewart?

  trying to campaign against a hard Brexit, that there were six different versions of alternatives which would tear the country to pieces. And I thought maybe they would be better not talking about Europe at all, but just talking about integrity and Johnson and running the election on that.

• 9:03Alastair Campbell?

  Um, I just think that, look, integrity definitely is right on the ballot paper and I'm, I take a little bit of self-satisfied pride. And I think I was the first person to really start banging on about the Nolan principles because I've always thought they would do for Johnson. And integrity, absolutely. Starmer against Johnson, that's got to go to the heart of it. But I think on the economy, if you don't have, and I'm not saying revisit Brexit, as in have another referendum, but if you don't have an argument for how you're going to grow the economy in part by improving our trade relations with the European Union. And if integrity also means grown up serious politics, that's the other reason why I think it has to be done.

• 9:41Rory Stewart?

  Maybe the answer is to actually attack what the bungled version of Brexit that Boris Johnson is delivering, rather than getting into the specifics of whether you're going for a customs union or a new trade relationship. Just say, look what you're doing to the automobile industry, look what you're doing to farms. I'm just thinking here, if you were a Labour tactician.

• 10:01Alastair Campbell?

  I, I think, I think if you were to say that, um, whether you voted Brexit or you didn't vote for Brexit, I don't think even its most hardened supporters would admit that it is not going according to plan, it is not delivering as promised, and we're going to have to develop new and better trading arrangements with our European partners because that's fundamental to our economy.

• 10:22Rory Stewart?

  Would you agree with me that if Labour came out and said, for example, they were in favour of a customs union, that would be an amazing gift to Boris Johnson and he'd absolutely love that and he'd do his best to make hay with that?

• 10:31Alastair Campbell?

  Well, he might do, but Boris Johnson, if he's still there, which I don't think he will be, but if he's still there, Boris Johnson's going to accuse Labour of wanting to rejoin the European Union, whatever. So it doesn't really matter. What matters is that they have a position that the public will believe and let Johnson do all this kind of lying and propaganda. The reason why the way, by the way, why I think it'd be very good for, and he may already know Antonio Costa, I don't know, but Costa is a very, very interesting guy.

• 10:54Rory Stewart?

  This is the Portuguese Prime Minister.

• 10:56Alastair Campbell?

  He's the Portuguese Prime Minister. He's in his third term. But he's only recently, just a few months ago, actually won his first election with a majority. His first election in 2015, he won, he came second, but he put together, it wasn't even a coalition, it was an agreement with communists, with the hard left, and he formed a government, and that lasted for four years. And then there was another election, and pretty much the same outcome with an even looser arrangement. And then the communists and the left parties, they provoked a budget crisis, the president called a general election, which was held earlier this year, and he's won his first majority. And so he's now a third term prime minister with his first majority government.

• 11:40Alastair Campbell?

  Now, if you think of how hard it's going to be for Labour to make the leap from where they were in 2019 to where they need to be for a majority, I'm just thinking, if you're Keir Starmer, and maybe your route to a majority is a minority, I don't know, I actually think it's all up to play for at the moment, but I just think Costa, everybody you talk to there, including this guy, Gashpar, they will all say he's a very, very wily operator, very, very political, and he rooted his messaging in, he's left of centre, but he was very much on the centre bit rather than left when it came to the campaign. And he also virtually destroyed the social democrats who are, it's weird terminology there, but basically they are the Tory party, the social democrats is the Tory party.

• 12:24Rory Stewart?

  So one of the things that I think is fascinating about Portugal is, of course, the most famous Portuguese politician, ex-prime minister, is Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, who was a Portuguese socialist, prime minister from 95 to 2002. And it's interesting, the way in which Portugal seems to be developing a reputation for producing sort of quite dignified, interesting figures, like Guterres, who go on to occupy international positions, or am I stretching that a bit?

• 12:52Alastair Campbell?

  No, I don't think you are. I really don't think you are. In fact, I think I would not be at all surprised if Costa goes down that same route. In fact, I quoted Guterres in my speech at this Covid conference, because he said that the United Nations had failed in relation to Covid, but that's something that we've talked about before. No, I think that, the other thing that Costa did very, very well... He was deputy to Socrates when Socrates was prime minister. Of course, Socrates is now, you know, in the middle of a pretty heavy corruption trial. And yet Costa managed to insulate himself from that and seems to me to have an awful lot of respect from the public. So no, I, I think you're right. I do think the other thing that's really interesting about Portugal, they, you know, we've talked about the media in Germany and being more

• 13:35Alastair Campbell?

  serious and the Portuguese media is the same. It's very, very serious. And I think it does produce more, they have a more serious debate. No, I think, I think it's a very, very good point. I think Portugal is one of those countries that, that, that is producing very, very high quality politicians. I must tell you a story. I met one of them, the former foreign minister, Jaime Gama. And he was, he was at this dinner that I was at, and I was sitting next to him, but he said, I've always wanted to ask you, is it true that you said to Robin Cook, who was my opposite number when I was foreign minister, that you said to him, Robin, you have to choose between

• 14:17Alastair Campbell?

  your wife and your mistress? And it just sort of did my head because they are a bit Portugal. I go to these places partly to get away from stuff and nonsense here. And of course, that is one of those kind of myths that has followed me around.

• 14:30Rory Stewart?

  Amazing, amazing that it goes. Listen, can we just do one second before we move on? Your, your subject, Germany, Scholz and Ukraine.

• 14:37Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 14:38Rory Stewart?

  So there's been a lot of reporting in the British newspapers, Times, Red Leader, I think, today, really emphasizing the way in which he pledged support to Ukraine that he didn't really deliver, pledged armored vehicles and marched and didn't deliver, that different types of armored vehicles haven't turned up yet, and that this is somehow associated with his declining popularity in Germany. Have you got an insight into that?

• 14:58Alastair Campbell?

  Well, the first of all, I think to say in Scholz's defence, they have done a huge amount on the humanitarian, huge. I mean, we talk about the refugees that we've taken, they are taking, taking tens of thousands more. I do think that the, the so-called Saiten vendor, when he was saying this is a turning point. When he made all the pledges, that was seen as a very, very big moment. But since then, there does seem to have been this divide that has developed between him, Foreign Minister Baerbock, who is much more kind of maybe closer to what our position might be. But I also, I do think that Zelensky upset the Germans maybe more than he realised when he,

• 15:40Alastair Campbell?

  when he decided that he didn't want Steinmeier, the president, to make a visit there. So I think it's got a little bit complicated. I also think, in fact, one of the questions we got today was from Jeff Spink, pointing out that there seemed to be a bit of a divide opening between the French and the Germans. You know, we've talked about this before. Putin believes he can sit tight, whereas the democracies, it's harder to keep, if you like, these hard lines running.

• 16:03Rory Stewart?

  So one of the big questions I think comes out of this is the extent to which Ukraine does or doesn't matter for domestic political opinion. So clearly, one of the things that many of Boris Johnson's supporters say is, we can't topple the prime minister when there's a war going on with Ukraine. So in, in that particular narrative used within the Conservative Party, Ukraine seems to matter. But in the United States, Biden, who's done an incredible amount on Ukraine, I mean, I think, as I said before, has put in 10 times as much as any other country, twice as much as all the other countries combined in support of Ukraine, gets basically no credit for it at all. And yet in Germany, it looks like Schulz is being damaged by his Ukraine position. So

• 16:48Rory Stewart?

  it's, it is interesting because one of the things that you're also known for is not just your, your comments about wives and mistresses, but this idea that, that in the end, foreign policy doesn't really matter in terms of your, your votes.

• 16:59Alastair Campbell?

  I should just say for the record, I did not say to Robin Cook, choose between your wife and your mistress. I said that the newspaper was about to do him over. It was for him to decide what he was going to do, but all I would say is my advice would be that he should opt for clarity. That's what I said. Anyway, that's, that's by the by. And no, I do think leadership matters. And I think there are, there is a political sport to be built in having a reputation as a leader in the world, no doubt about that. Why do you think, even though it's complete nonsense and a total myth, and there's not a newspaper or commentator outside Britain that's ever said Boris Johnson is leading the international coalition, but why do you think they're saying

• 17:41Alastair Campbell?

  it all the time? Because they know that actually that can, that can build support. So I, I think it is important, but I think the, I think the German position is just very, very complicated and interesting. I mean, it is a big shift for them to get to a position where they're seen, if you like, as a, as a warring nation. And Scholz's personality is, I mean, this word is, this word sargent, which means it's a bit like John Major, when John Major, where the word dithering was attached to Major, it's a bit like that. And it's been used all the time at the moment. And that, you know, that can, that can damage leaders, and particularly as he's so kind of, so kind of young in his presidency, in his chancellorship.

• 18:21Rory Stewart?

  It's also interesting, the dynamic between a leader's character, their reputation, their government and their foreign policy, and the way those different things come together. Not, not to keep going on our favourite subject, but I'm quite struck by the problem that the British Foreign Office now finds itself in. I'm, I'm travelling a lot at the moment. So I meet diplomats, British diplomats, diplomats from other countries all the time. And one of the problems, I think, which goes to the heart of the British Foreign Office, is that people who join, like me, I joined the Foreign Office in 1995, felt that they were able, quite comfortably, we were trying to feel we could go into meetings, hold our head up high, lead with the Union Jack, and talk about rule of law, democracy. And there was a sort of sense that we were projecting

• 19:06Rory Stewart?

  ourselves a kind of quiet, moderate, orderly country. The problem now is that it's very, very difficult. It's not just that our international position has faded, it has, obviously countries like China are now much, much wealthier than Britain. But it's also that. It doesn't sound convincing. So even if the British Foreign Secretary says the right thing about Ukraine.

• 19:29Alastair Campbell?

  Well, she doesn't.

• 19:30Rory Stewart?

  But even if she says the right thing, right, the words are not going to come across because people will think, wait a sec, this is a government that has a reputation for lies, or this is a government that is talking about international law, but we know that you're perfectly prepared to break international law. And I think that does become problematic.

• 19:51Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think there's a very, there's a very good example of that today, which is in some ways an unusual one. You had the Champions League final at the weekend, Liverpool against Real Madrid in Paris. Something obviously went very, very badly wrong with the policing. Because of the history of Hillsborough and Liverpool fans at Heysel and all that, there's all that stuff that gets churned out. But if you listened, I, I watched a very good report on Sky Sports News by a guy who just watched it all unfolding. And it's clear that the policing just was not very good. They were bottlenecking thousands of supporters through this tiny gap. They were tear gassing and pepper gassing, people who were literally

• 20:30Alastair Campbell?

  just in a queue. And there's a, there's a French minister today saying, which, I don't know, it sounds extraordinary to me, that, that about 70% of the fans are arriving with fake tickets. Now, that, I reckon is not true. Okay. I don't know, but I'm guessing that's not true. But it's very hard for the government to come out and say, well, why are they lying about this? When every single person in Europe, I mean, everybody I spoke to in Portugal, politicians, business people, media people, campaign people, charity people, if Boris Johnson's name came up, it was either a pained look or a smirk, or a sort of, you know, what the hell is your country doing?

• 21:11Rory Stewart?

  So let's, that brings us to, I guess, the, the thing we keep coming back to, and which is very, very current now, which is, are people going against Boris Johnson? Why might they go against Boris Johnson? Why might they not? And let's just quickly just remind people who aren't geeky followers of this stuff.

• 21:28Alastair Campbell?

  Very well done for saying Boris Johnson there, Rory. Very well done. You listened to our listeners. Well done.

• 21:33Rory Stewart?

  Thank you very much. Thank you, Alastair Campbell, very much for that. The, the key thing is to just quickly, maybe just explain the rules for people who aren't paying complete attention. So there are, there were 360 MPs. Since then, there've been some resignations. But 15% of those. Have got to send a letter into the chairman of the 1922 committee. 1922 committee is a committee of Conservative MPs.

• 21:57Alastair Campbell?

  Which was formed in 1921.

• 21:59Rory Stewart?

  Ah, very good. And so fifteen percent is fifty four letters have got to go in. If the fifty four letters go in, immediately a leadership election is triggered. And you then have to get a majority of the Conservative MPs voting for you in the House of Commons to survive. If you survive, you're not allowed to have another leadership challenge for another 12 months. So this is what happened actually to Theresa May, the end of 2018. December, the letters went in, it was triggered, she won. She didn't win very well, she just got to 200 and her opponents got up to about 120.

• 22:41Rory Stewart?

  But theoretically, she would have been then safe to the end of 2019, off the back of this. And in the past, when this has happened, that sort of narrow margin might lead someone to resign. The thing we know about Boris Johnson is obviously, however narrow the margin is, he's not going to resign.

• 22:56Alastair Campbell?

  It doesn't automatically mean there will be a contest, because what if there are no challengers? Now, we know we're hearing about Hunt and these guys, do you think anybody within the Cabinet will challenge on that basis?

• 23:05Rory Stewart?

  So you don't need a challenger. All there's got to be is a vote of no confidence. So all you're going to be asked to vote on the first time round is, do you have confidence in Boris Johnson? That's what you'll file through.

• 23:15Alastair Campbell?

  Right, and if he passes that, what happens?

• 23:17Rory Stewart?

  If he passes that, there can be nothing for the next 12 months. And if he fails that, then the leadership contest starts. And I think it's going to be very, very difficult to get up to the numbers that are going to be needed to take him down. Because you're going to get up to, you know, over 175 MPs are going to have to vote to get rid of him, which is much more than the 54 he sent the letters in.

• 23:36Alastair Campbell?

  And they don't have to be public, do they? It's a private.

• 23:38Rory Stewart?

  It's a private ballot, so there will be many people we don't know about, who in the privacy of the ballot will come out and vote. And I think that can make a difference. And that affects, I think, one thing that's going on. You often ask in this podcast, why are more Conservative MPs not standing out and criticizing Boris Johnson? And there are many reasons for that. One of the biggest reasons is that if you do that and he survives, you then have a big, big problem as a Conservative MP in the next election. Because your opponents are going to put all over the election literature, this guy said Boris Johnson was a terrible human being, terrible prime minister, complete liar, not fit for the job, and he's campaigning for him.

• 24:18Alastair Campbell?

  But that's why they've got to do it in bigger numbers and with better organisation. What are they all doing? We should talk about charisma and I looked up the dictionary definition of charisma. It says compelling attractiveness and charm that inspires devotion in others. Now, I don't find him attractive or charming, but I can see that he does inspire devotion in some. But who would you say were really, really, by that definition, who would you define as really charismatic modern politicians?

• 24:45Rory Stewart?

  It's very, very difficult to see them in the UK context, partly because of the way in which we relate to them. We see them in the very intimate setting of Parliament where they seem very sort of shabby and ordinary, the press knock into them hard. Whereas in the United States, it's much easier to see with somebody like President Obama.

• 25:03Alastair Campbell?

  Clinton.

• 25:04Rory Stewart?

  Incredible sort of charisma and eloquence, and I guess probably Bill Clinton before.

• 25:08Alastair Campbell?

  All right, why don't we take a break and then we'll come back and talk a bit more about who has it and who doesn't have it? And whether you think Boris Johnson still has a bit of it.

• 25:16Rory Stewart?

  Brilliant, let's do that.

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• 27:21Alastair Campbell?

  So, welcome back to The Rest Is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell. And me, Rory Stewart. And just before we get back to the issues of the day, home and abroad, a little piece of you, some of you may know it already, we have been genuinely staggered by the number of questions you've been sending in to Rory and me, sort of averaging between 600 and 800 a week, and we're conscious that we've not been answering nearly enough of them. So, from this week, we are adding a second podcast, which will be used solely for the purpose of answering as many of your questions as we can. You ask us anything you like, we try to respond, and we're calling it "How original is this going to be? The Rest Is Politics: Question Time." It'll be in the same podcast feed, but just on a Thursday morning.

• 28:04Alastair Campbell?

  So that's Wednesday for the regular show, which we're doing now, Thursday for Question Time, all in the same place, wherever you get your podcasts. So Rory, during the break... I'm sure all sorts of names popped into your head, charisma, who's got it?

• 28:19Rory Stewart?

  And so I was, I was obviously banging on about Obama. I think it's very important to, to, to, to understand that we think about charisma in two different ways, don't we? The traditional way, I think, in which people thought about it was as something almost divine, magical, God given, was the kind of early, early understanding when the Greeks.

• 28:36Alastair Campbell?

  That's the other definition in the dictionary, divinely conferred power or talent.

• 28:40Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, and then, then charisma becomes something almost magical and imbued with values and, and that's a pretty rare sort of thing. Often today, when we talk about charisma, we talk about somebody being charming, actually comes from the same root, charisma and charm comes from the same root. And, and that's, I guess, about the idea that somebody who's charming can talk us into accepting something that somebody else that lacked that charm would not be able to do. So if we look at Boris Johnson in that lens, I think he completely fails on the first one. He's not some guy who's going to divinely inspire loyalty. He's not somebody with sort of God given grace.

• 29:24Rory Stewart?

  But what he does seem to have is an extraordinary ability to kind of get away with things. And that's to do with techniques he's developed over 35 years to bluff, to evade, to sort of do strange kinds of apologies. He's very kind of cunning in the ways in which he is able to, to sort of apologize without ever quite acknowledging what he's done wrong. But so those would be bits of, I suppose, yeah, his charm, but it's probably not what we mean by charisma.

• 29:52Alastair Campbell?

  No, and I think, I think, I remember when Kim Darak, who was the ambassador in Washington and Trump dumped on him and then Johnson's Foreign Secretary refused to defend him. But I remember Kim Darak saying that when he first met Johnson, when Johnson was starting to see Trump. All he was really interested in was how Trump communicated and how Trump operated. He wasn't really interested in foreign policy, he wasn't really interested in this great trade deal that he's never going to get. He was interested in how Trump did what Trump does. And I guess, you know, you'd have to say on your, on, on part of your definition, persuading people to do things. I mean, he persuaded people to vote for Brexit, he persuaded people to vote for him.

• 30:32Rory Stewart?

  I'm sure, I think it's, given that it was a pretty tight vote, fifty two, forty eight, I think there's a very strong case to be made. That he made history, that if it hadn't been for Boris Johnson, it might not have gone in that direction.

• 30:43Alastair Campbell?

  The name that popped into my head when you were saying it's about the charm, but it's also about the values and so forth. I think was probably Nelson Mandela. Now Nelson Mandela had enormous charisma. And it was sometimes, he was the only person, I think I've said to you before, the only person apart from Jago and Maradona, who made the hair on my neck stand up when I was in his presence. I just felt something. And the other, the other story I want to tell you about Mandela, and this, this relates actually to some of the partygate stuff. Do you know the stuff that really offended me in that report? Well, lots offended me, but the thing about how rude everybody was to the cleaners and the messengers and the

• 31:18Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:19Alastair Campbell?

  Custodians, because they are some of the best people in the government. I was, honestly, there's so many occasions when I was really under the cosh. And you get the lift from, there was a guy called Bill, who was a messenger, who always used to come in and just say, basically, don't let the bastards get you down, you're a better man than they are. He'd always sort of say something like that. There were lots of them. And there was a lovely woman called Monica, who loved Mandela so much. And she, Monica still sends me a birthday card every year. And she, she, she asked me to get Mandela's autograph on her book. And it's the only time I ever took any of those things on a trip, because, you know, everybody wants to get Nelson Mandela to sign their book, but I did it, I did it for Monica.

• 32:03Alastair Campbell?

  And Mandela just had this sort of, you can think how irritating that is for him, but he just had a charm, he had a magnetism. He had a beautiful voice. And I'll never forget the first time that he came to a Labour Party conference and it just like, you know, Tony was there and Mandela was just in a different league. And I can remember Tony once saying, I think I've said to you this before, they were having an argument about Libya. And Tony said to him, God Nelson, the trouble is, you can come out with any old crap, but the truth is, nobody dares challenge you because you're basically a saint.

• 32:36Rory Stewart?

  It is amazing that. I always think one of the problems, actually, when we talk about politics, is that because in school, understandably, people study Nelson Mandela, they study Gandhi, they study Martin Luther King. A lot of children get the impression that politics is going to be at that sort of heroic saintly level. And that therefore they feel incredibly disappointed when they discover firstly, the nature of our political system, the fact that often the things we're talking about seem very, very trivial and small by comparison. Because of course, those guys that you're studying, that inspire you, the great politicians, are fighting to end apartheid, or they're fighting to throw the British Empire out of India, or they're

• 33:21Rory Stewart?

  fighting to turn over civil rights. And you get yourself into, you know, what are the big debates in British politics? They will be things like, do we or do we not put a windfall tax on energy companies? Which is something which unfortunately, incredibly important though it is, isn't going to, in five, 10 years' time, be something that's going to excite.

• 33:42Alastair Campbell?

  Or is it, or is do we have recycling targets? Or do we have cycle lanes? Or there's actually a question this week, where Jeremy Lane, should politics and democracy be taught in schools? I've always been in favour of that, including primary schools.

• 33:56Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely, including even private schools. But one of the

• 33:59Alastair Campbell?

  No, primary, I said. You obsess with private schools. Get away from this private school obsession of yours.

• 34:06Rory Stewart?

  No, I think, I think it's really important. But the problem that I face, I obviously went to every primary school in my constituency, and every secondary school. So I would go around, I guess that would be dozens of schools. And I'd often go around every year, see them repeatedly. But it is important, of course, to understand that the teachers' teaching often have a very idealistic, unrealistic idea of what a politician's role is. And so when I talk to primary school children and try to get them to understand what they thought the MP for Penrith and the border would do. One of the main things is they didn't really understand that I'd go to London. They thought that the MP for Penrith and the border should stay all the time in Cumbria. Actually, Gavin Barwell's got a lovely, lovely comment about this.

• 34:48Rory Stewart?

  He says when he would go to schools, he'd say, looking at me, what kind of MP do you think I am? Do you think I'm an MP who has come from a working class background, represents Croydon, has lived in Croydon all his life? Or do you think I'm somebody who got a scholarship to a private school and then got a top degree from Oxbridge? Right? And then hands would go up in both directions. And his kicker would be, he'd say, both. And what you don't understand is that politicians are spinning you with their personal narratives all the time. They choose which side of you they want to show you. I love that. I love that. And I'd love to see more MPs taking the risk of exposing some of this strangeness to people. So it's not just all about Mandela. It's really making people understand a bit of the weirdness of politics.

• 35:33Alastair Campbell?

  There was another question, which I can't find to give the name of the person who asked him. He was called Philip. He was not a fan of the SNP. Said that there was a booklet that's being studied in Scotland, which is sort of full of pictures of Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Cabinet. And this is their way of explaining how politics works and so forth. Now, I've not seen it, so I don't know whether the criticism's fair. But I guess there is always that risk when you talk about teaching politics in school. I mean, can you imagine what would be teaching politics in school if Michael Gove had been the person in charge?

• 36:02Rory Stewart?

  Here's another thing that struck me as interesting. We've been talking, obviously, a little bit about this horrifying tragedy in Texas and gun control in the United States. Here's a question. It's a bit unfair question to you, but what do you think the latest, most reliable research suggests American public opinion is on gun control?

• 36:21Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I don't know how you define reliable, but every survey I have seen or seen quoted shows overwhelming favorability for gun control.

• 36:31Rory Stewart?

  I agree with you. That's what I was seeing. And then I decided to dig into it. I couldn't agree more. I've been going around telling everyone that 70% of Americans are favorable.

• 36:38Alastair Campbell?

  Is it not true?

• 36:39Rory Stewart?

  It's not true at all. I've spent the day looking into this. It's basically absolutely 50/50. At the moment, there's about 52% that want more control, 48% against. And interestingly, it's actually declined. In 1992, 78% of Americans wanted more control on guns, and it's dropped to 52%. And if you look at, you know, people say that it's just the NRA, but only 12% of Republicans want more gun control. 88% of Democrats want more gun control, and 45% of independents. It was a revelation for me because it made me misunderstand the politics of this. Basically, the truth is that if you're a Republican politician,

• 37:23Rory Stewart?

  it's not true that actually there is any obvious route through.

• 37:26Alastair Campbell?

  But we have, you know, you've talked a lot about the need for a written constitution. And of course, the Americans have a written constitution. But I would argue that one of the reasons for those figures is that most Americans don't know what their constitution says. And the one they go on about bearing arms, it isn't about everybody having the right to carry a gun and go around killing each other. It's about militias, it's about political militias back in the day being able to defend themselves when they're up against forces of disorder.

• 37:54Rory Stewart?

  That's completely true legally. But it's also, I think, a very, very strong cultural phenomenon. So 40% of Americans live in a household that has a gun. And for about half of the people who are in favor of less gun control, Republican voters predominantly, they say that guns are central to their identity. This is particularly true in rural areas. And 74% of them say that it's essential to their liberty. So it's very difficult, I think, looking at another country. And I'm always struck by this. I'm married to an American I taught in the United States. Yeah, that sense of how alien a culture that can seem so close to us is, it's very, very difficult for us to relate.

• 38:35Alastair Campbell?

  Is your wife in the room with you? You looked up in a defensive manner there.

• 38:39Rory Stewart?

  No, I can assure you, and she is very much a democratic voter, very much in favour of gun control, would not like you to get the impression that she's living in rural Alabama with her guns.

• 38:48Alastair Campbell?

  While we're on American politics, my highlight of last week was going to the ABBA Voyage concert.

• 38:55Rory Stewart?

  Oh, yes. And are you wearing the same shirt? Or do you just have a lot of very colourful shirts?

• 39:00Alastair Campbell?

  Well, the one I had with the ABBA necklace, which I've now given away. That was a photo too far.

• 39:06Rory Stewart?

  And there was amazingly positive reporting in the Daily Mail about your fashion sense.

• 39:10Alastair Campbell?

  I saw that, yeah. Alistair was supporting a Paisley shirt and a smart blazer.

• 39:15Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 39:17Alastair Campbell?

  But Rory, let me tell you, if the next time you're in London, you've got to see it. I've always said, there are two sorts of people in life, people who love ABBA and liars, okay? Everybody loves ABBA, everybody should love ABBA, everybody has a favourite ABBA tune, mine is Thank You For The Music, and I also love the new one, I could have danced with you or something. But the fact is, it is one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen in my life, where we were sitting a few rows from the real ABBA, who were there, with these avatars, and we were sitting behind the body doubles who had recorded all the moves of the bodies that you were seeing moving. And if you went up onto the stage and tried to prod any of these unbelievably realistic four people, there was nothing

• 40:01Alastair Campbell?

  there, it was just artificial intelligence. And it was utterly mind blowing. And I loved every single second of it, but I did wake up the next day thinking, I wonder if Donald Trump has got a team working on avatars of all his possible opponents. I wonder if Boris Johnson might be developing avatars of Keir Starmer eating curries in Durham. It was so realistic, I can't even begin to describe it, what it was like.

• 40:28Rory Stewart?

  I also think there's something incredibly postmodern and weird about what you've just described. So you're sitting there with the real ABBA, who are presumably aging people.

• 40:38Alastair Campbell?

  One of them had a walking stick.

• 40:39Rory Stewart?

  On the stage is a replica of them.

• 40:42Alastair Campbell?

  With backing music being performed today, and with film around it, and lights around it that are being done today. It was mind blowing, it was honestly mind blowing. It was, and you were so, partly because we were sitting behind these four people who were so excited, they were young dancers, they were so excited, they were crying, this was years of work coming to fruition. But on the stage, once you forgot who and what they were, once you forgot that the King of Sweden and his dancing queen were bopping away to your left, once you forgot that Benny and Bjorn were down there, you were just seeing ABBA live in concert. It was, it was, I can't describe it, you've got to go and see it.

• 41:20Rory Stewart?

  So does that mean that, you know, we would be able in 10 years' time to see the six-year-old Mozart playing, playing his piano in front of us on stage?

• 41:28Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that is exactly what I said to my now good friend Bjorn from ABBA. I said, would it not be amazing if we could actually see Mozart and Beethoven and these guys performing? And that may happen, that may happen. And what it also means, I think these guys are all interested in legacy. The Beatles, why have the Beatles been releasing all these films and writing all these books and Paul McCartney's lyrics books and ABBA? It's about legacy. That, that stuff that I saw the other night, you'll be able to watch it in a hundred years.

• 41:57Rory Stewart?

  That's really weird. And pretty soon, I think some creepy person's going to put it on their tombstone. And since we're at tombstones and deaths, we've got to the end of our podcast.

• 42:06Alastair Campbell?

  Pleasure as always, Rory. Glad to see you're in such good form and hope you've enjoyed listening, everybody. And you'll get a second helping. Tomorrow, the rest is politics, question time, all your questions, our answers. See you then.

• 42:22Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye.

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