186. Question Time: Nigel Farage’s plan to become Tory leader

Will Nigel Farage’s prophecy of becoming the next Conservative leader come true? Should we accept the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan? How much of a problem is the size of the British Armed Forces? Join Alastair and Rory as they answer all these questions and more on this week’s Question Time. 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

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

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

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

• 1:05Speaker 02

  I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  Botox on a botulinum toxin A prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton Syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 2:06Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks. Made with whole fruit and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks. Now made with no artificial dyes.

• 2:43Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me Rory Stewart.

• 2:46Alastair Campbell?

  And me Alastair Campbell.

• 2:48Rory Stewart?

  I wanted to start with a question from Senkai, who I think is a young student friend of mine. 24th of October this year marks the fifth anniversary of the retirement of Jeremy Hayward as the Cabinet Secretary. I was wondering if Rory and Alistair could reflect on the role of the Cabinet Secretary at shaping government policy and share any recollections they have of Lord Hayward's impact on public service. So let me start with that. Tell us a bit about Jeremy Hayward.

• 3:11Alastair Campbell?

  Well, Jeremy was somebody I first was aware of when he was Norman Lamont's private secretary. Norman Lamont, Chancellor of the Exchequer under John Major, Black Wednesday and all that. And Jeremy was this rather skeletal figure that I used to see the whole time.

• 3:26Rory Stewart?

  Skeletal because he was quite skinny.

• 3:27Alastair Campbell?

  Very skinny.

• 3:28Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 3:28Alastair Campbell?

  And I used to see him.

• 3:29Rory Stewart?

  Skinnier than me.

• 3:30Alastair Campbell?

  He's definitely skinnier than you.

• 3:31Rory Stewart?

  Oh, wow.

• 3:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was always there. He always looked, he looked incredibly young. He looked very calm. And then when we won the election in 1997, I think he would have been at the Treasury then, but he was kind of, he was always somebody, absolutely seen as a civil service high flyer and did various roles.

• 3:51Rory Stewart?

  And let's just sort of dig into that. So what makes, from the perception of you or the new Labour government coming, what is the civil service high flyer? What are the characteristics? If you were to try to tick off two or three characteristics of a civil service high flyer.

• 4:03Alastair Campbell?

  I'd say with Jeremy, phenomenal work rate and intellect.

• 4:06Rory Stewart?

  So they're very clever, they work very hard.

• 4:08Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And also, we were aware that he'd done this job for the Conservatives. And yet, the minute that we came in, he was absolutely there for us as a government, delivering on the government agenda.

• 4:22Rory Stewart?

  Now, one of the things that I've been grumbling about with the current Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, who's this very unusual person who got the job very young historically, having not really had the traditional career that led up to that.

• 4:33Alastair Campbell?

  Dominic Cummings' appointment, it said.

• 4:35Rory Stewart?

  I didn't know that. Interesting. So one of my grumbles about him is that he hasn't been conducting himself, as you can see from the WhatsApps during the Covid inquiry, with the kind of formality and dignity that I would have associated with the great Cabinet Secretary's deposit. Just to remind people, Cabinet Secretary, the most senior civil servant of the British government, runs the whole civil service. And because it's not the United States, we have very few political appointees. Ninety nine point nine percent of government is run by the Cabinet Secretary. But the great people, you know, my father worshipped a man called Sir Burke Trend, Sir Robert Armstrong, who was Mrs Thatcher's.

• 5:08Alastair Campbell?

  He was the economical with the truth man.

• 5:09Rory Stewart?

  That's right.

• 5:10Alastair Campbell?

  He became defined by that, sadly, for him.

• 5:12Rory Stewart?

  I guess those people were quite sort of intimidating, quite formal figures. You can't really imagine them sending cheeky texts under the table, making jokes about the Prime Minister's wife.

• 5:23Alastair Campbell?

  No, Jeremy was not that sort of person. But he was somebody who, I mean, Jeremy would just as likely be on top of the budget and what was happening in the budget process, but was also very good at spotting some of the difficult personal stuff that was coming down the track as well. I mean, you know, particularly in the modern age, where you get so much about the wives, the kids, all that sort of. Jeremy was just a, he was across everything, very straightforward to deal with, very honest, would always give a frank opinion. But ultimately, this is why, you know, when we talked to Theresa May for leading, and she said she never had a sense of the civil service trying to block. Jeremy Hayward saw his job as trying to help the government deliver on its agenda. So a great guy. And

• 6:07Alastair Campbell?

  by the way, his, um, his widow, Suzanne, I'm going to shout out to her and her book. She's written this amazing book called Wave Walker about her childhood, where her parents just decided one day that they were going to, the kids were going to grow up on a boat. Travelling around the world, constantly sort of, you know, going to terrible storms and capsizing and all sorts of terrible stuff.

• 6:27Rory Stewart?

  And and so it's it's not a sort of a romantic story.

• 6:29Alastair Campbell?

  No, not at all.

• 6:30Rory Stewart?

  Not a wonderfully positive story, because I always fantasize about putting my kids on a boat or something like that.

• 6:34Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I if you do, I wouldn't do it like this. And I've got to be honest, I think that Susanna's come through it to become an incredibly successful person in her own right, with the childhood that she had, it's a pretty amazing story. Now, Rory, talking of people becoming, you know, very, very successful, to the point that they get invited, as I was a couple of years ago, into important television programmes, Stuart Prebble, is that a name that rings a bell at all?

• 6:58Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah, that's a better name, yeah.

• 6:59Alastair Campbell?

  TV guy?

• 7:00Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 7:00Alastair Campbell?

  You might be amused to know, he tells me, that Rory is a sitter in next Wednesday's episode of Portrait Artist of the Year on Sky Arts. He is only the second sitter in ten years, who has chosen to stand for the entire four hours that he was being painted. The only other one was the rugby player Gavin Henson. Now Rory, first of all, who is Gavin Henson?

• 7:28Rory Stewart?

  Not Gavin Henderson, Gavin Henson.

• 7:29Alastair Campbell?

  Gavin Henson?

• 7:30Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 7:31Alastair Campbell?

  Do you know who he is?

• 7:32Rory Stewart?

  No.

• 7:33Alastair Campbell?

  You obviously didn't follow the British and Irish Lions tour that I was on in two thousand and five closely enough.

• 7:37Rory Stewart?

  You obviously weren't promoting it well enough.

• 7:39Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that is not the case, because I got into a lot of trouble for over promoting Gavin Henson, which if you Google Alastair Campbell Gavin Henson photograph storm, you will read all about that.

• 7:50Rory Stewart?

  And and and.

• 7:51Alastair Campbell?

  He was a rugby player.

• 7:52Rory Stewart?

  And are he and I similar people?

• 7:54Alastair Campbell?

  You're very, very, very different.

• 7:56Rory Stewart?

  Apart from this thing about standing?

• 7:57Alastair Campbell?

  Apart from the standing thing. I don't know if he's still together, but he was married to Charlotte Church.

• 8:03Rory Stewart?

  Hmm.

• 8:03Alastair Campbell?

  So what was this, what was the standing, what was that about?

• 8:06Rory Stewart?

  Well, I I do love standing, I don't like sitting. But it did turn out to be a mistake, because once you start standing, you can't move, because you've got three painters.

• 8:13Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 8:14Rory Stewart?

  In front of you, and you have to hold the same position. And I began to realise as we entered the fourth hour.

• 8:19Alastair Campbell?

  You were tired.

• 8:20Rory Stewart?

  Rocking back and forward on my feet.

• 8:22Alastair Campbell?

  And how were the paintings?

• 8:23Rory Stewart?

  They were extraordinary. It's incredibly unfair to portrait painters.

• 8:27Alastair Campbell?

  I know, because you have to stand there and judge them.

• 8:29Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, and also, and also, they may. Make them do them in four hours. I mean, I think to do it properly, they would have wanted days. One of them was a woman who essentially produced a sort of caricature of me. It was a kind of slightly grotesque, a slightly combative caricature. There was another rather nice portrait, which was of me full length. Only one of them actually attempted to paint me full length, I discovered at the end, having stood up all the way through, two of them just painted my face.

• 8:50Alastair Campbell?

  So that was a total waste of time.

• 8:52Rory Stewart?

  Total waste of time. But anyway, she painted me full length. And then the third one that I selected was very impressive, but a bit embarrassing. It was an enormous canvas, sort of.

• 9:01Alastair Campbell?

  Just a head.

• 9:01Rory Stewart?

  Six feet by, yeah, five feet and just my head.

• 9:04Alastair Campbell?

  Wow.

• 9:05Rory Stewart?

  And it was painted by Scott, who'd read my books, was very excited to be painting me, felt that we had a great connection with mountains and walking. But I'm struggling to work out where to hang it because you can't really stick up in your own house. A sort of six foot picture of your own head.

• 9:20Alastair Campbell?

  No, you can't do that. I've had a lot of, quite a lot of portraits done and sent to me. And one of the many reasons I was upset at my mum's death was the fact that my mum was the only one who really wanted them.

• 9:30Rory Stewart?

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 9:31Alastair Campbell?

  But now I, the one that I chose as the best was actually quite a small one, which we do have at home. And then there was another one, which was kind of slightly David Hockney-esque.

• 9:40Rory Stewart?

  But you've also got three children. Can you not shelve them off? No, they don't want huge portraits of their dad either.

• 9:44Alastair Campbell?

  Maybe when I'm dead. I don't think right now they do, no, no. Perhaps the Rest Is Politics office should just have our portraits up.

• 9:52Rory Stewart?

  Very good idea, isn't it?

• 9:53Alastair Campbell?

  I think they'd like that.

• 9:54Rory Stewart?

  The Spotify studio could be brilliant for that.

• 9:56Alastair Campbell?

  Now, here's a question for you. William Dobson, we talked a lot about the Middle East on the main podcast, but did anyone else notice the irony, says William Dobson, of Rishi Sunak within the context of a governmental position to decry all forms of terrorism, meeting his Israeli counterparts at the King David Hotel? Now, for that, we need to tell the story of the King David Hotel.

• 10:16Rory Stewart?

  So just to remind people, so this was in 1946 and it was an attack by Jewish terrorists, Jewish terrorists approved by Haganah. This is when Britain was the occupying power in Palestine. And they went into this hotel, which was where a lot of the British military was based, set off a bomb that killed 94 people, including women, and was a devastating moment for Britain. Because particularly people like Churchill, who'd been strong supporters of the Zionist movement, State of Israel, were having to get up in the House of Commons and work out what to say about an attack, in this case, not by Arab terrorists, but by Jewish terrorists that had killed 94 British people.

• 10:55Alastair Campbell?

  But you don't think Sunak should not have gone to the hotel because of that?

• 10:58Rory Stewart?

  No, I don't think so, but. We we definitely had meetings in the King David Hotel. It is a reminder of the complexity of this and people maybe don't remember that history. Yeah. Um. Question for you, which I know you'll like, Celia Richardson. Hmm. I know Celia Richardson. I know where this one's going. Yeah, that's it. I've actually I've met her too. One of the authors of the book The War Against the BBC, How An Unprecedented Combination Of Hostile Forces Is Destroying Britain's Greatest Cultural Institution And Why You Should Care. Very long subtitle. Is now looking into attacks on the National Trust. Do Alison Rory think they are parallels? Are they members of the National Trust? Have they voted yet? Voting really matters. Members have until the third of November. So. I have voted. You have voted. I'm a member of the National Trust. I've voted for what you might call the anti restore trust ticket.

• 11:41Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. So we keep coming back to this largely because I think you're a friend of Celia Richardson and there is a very interesting standoff happening in the National Trust. And actually, of all the polarizing issues in British politics, this is perhaps the most polarizing and my. Who's who's doing the polarizing? My attempt to try to do an explainer here is going to get me in trouble. It certainly is. Because Alistair is very clearly on one side of this. So the argument of restore trust, and they have candidates, including Lord Sumption, who was the Supreme Court justice. He was my lawyer at the Hutton Inquiry. Right. So Jonathan Sumption. Very, very well, but I think he's a bit off the pace on this one.

• 12:15Rory Stewart?

  Right, okay. Anyway, he's their candidate for this and the argument of the restored trust people is that they feel that the National Trust is moving away from the interests of its members for a couple of reasons. One of them is that they feel that the National Trust is increasingly putting more and more focus on landscape and nature. National Trust owns hundreds of thousands of acres of British countryside. For example, it owns the place where the Sycamore Gap, where the Sycamore tree was cut down, owns a lot of Hedges Wall. And probably the most exciting thing that the National Trust has is it owns an enormous amount of Britain's coastline, had this incredible thing called Project Neptune, where it put together a lot of Britain's coastline.

• 12:55Rory Stewart?

  But the argument for the restored trust people would be that another very fundamental dimension of the National Trust is its historic houses and collections. And they feel that the staff of the National Trust have often become, they think, embarrassed about the historic houses and collections, too apologetic for them. Liable not really to present them in the way that the people who donated these houses to trust would have liked them presented. And to try to hit a balanced line on this, English Heritage, which I talked to a bit. Would say that maybe some of the things National Trust did presenting some of these houses five, 10 years ago is not the way English Heritage would have dealt with those issues.

• 13:34Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I was also speaking to somebody from English Heritage recently, and I was asking them to explain to me what they thought was going on with this Restore Trust thing. The person I was talking to took a very different line. They basically said they felt this was yet another part of the kind of so-called anti-woke cultural right, trying to find another cause to get people excited about. I do think there's something really strange going on in our politics at the moment. This BBC is a classic example. You know, I think you and I both would agree that we might sometimes criticise the BBC on individual stories and individual decisions. I'm not sure it's very wise for Tim Davy to be going to the 1922 Committee, for example, unless he's also doing the same for the PLP.

• 14:15Alastair Campbell?

  But the BBC is a massively important institution and we should defend it and promote it. And I think the National Trust is in the same place. And I do see a parallel in that these are good institutions being undermined because they don't fit this very narrow worldview.

• 14:31Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, well, I think something that I also think, though, that you can have incredible, wonderful institutions, and the BBC is a fantastic example of that. But, you know, I've just been re-watching W1A, the amazing comedy about BBC. And of course, there is a truth in all these bureaucracies, that they can

• 14:49Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:49Rory Stewart?

  get a bit peculiar and a bit absurd. So you also need to be able to say, all these things can be improved, all these things can be reformed.

• 14:56Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I agree with that.

• 14:57Rory Stewart?

  You don't want to get into a sort of knee-jerk defence. And I think, you know, that there are some really interesting questions around the National Trust. So for example, on their landscape management, how they get the balance between protecting small farmers. So Bittrix Potter, I hit this in Cumbria, basically gave her land in Cumbria as somebody who really believed in small family farms and rare breeds and sheep farming. And the National Trust has increasingly emphasised rewilding, which is making a lot of those tenant farmers very unhappy. So there are issues to get into there. I think there are issues around The place of volunteers in the National Trust. I think a lot of the volunteers who gave a lot of time and life to National Trust felt that they were increasingly seen as a bit embarrassing and a bit marginal and the whole organisation was professionalising

• 15:41Rory Stewart?

  and it wasn't giving enough space to volunteers. So there's stuff that can be done and I think it's a pity if you have to be either in the form of abolish the BBC or in the form of everything the BBC does is wonderful and there's no bureaucratic nonsense.

• 15:54Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, okay. James O'Leary, will Nigel Farage's prophecy that he'll be Tory Party leader by 2026 come true? If he does, what does this say about Conservative politics and the direction it's going?

• 16:07Rory Stewart?

  Well, what do you think?

• 16:08Alastair Campbell?

  No, I said on the podcast, and I think you were a little bit taken aback, I think Nigel Farage does have his eyes on the Conservative Party. It was really interesting at the party conference that he and Liz Truss and Suella Braverman were the ones who were getting all the love from the crowds and he was a Conservative. He's a game player. You talk about a political entrepreneur. He's somebody who moves effortlessly from one campaign to another. He's just a campaigner. I mean, Nigel Farage would be utterly hopeless as a minister, utterly hopeless as in a position of government, I think. But if the Conservative Party loses the next election, I think it will move substantially to the right. Suella Braverman is probably the favourite to take over as leader. I think she will very quickly become horrendously unpopular with the public.

• 16:54Alastair Campbell?

  And I think Nigel Farage by then might well be back inside the Tory Party and want to take it on. Do you disagree?

• 16:59Rory Stewart?

  Well, boy. I mean, I hope we're a long way from that. I mean, I do agree with you that the most likely betting is that when the Conservative Party loses the next election.

• 17:09Alastair Campbell?

  And you'll definitely win now.

• 17:10Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I think it's it's almost impossible for me to see Rishi Sunak winning the next election. The latest by-elections just totally confirm that. And I think we also enter in a politics where even if there hadn't been the catastrophes of Liz Truss's economic management and the catastrophes of Boris Johnson's premiership, people want to change. People don't like incumbents. It's not not climate suits incumbents.

• 17:32Rory Stewart?

  And I think there is a lot of anger from the right of the Conservative Party against people like Rishi Sunak because they feel he betrayed their great hero Boris Johnson. And they've learned all the wrong lessons. They think that the reason they're not more popular is they weren't right wing enough. You know, you've got Liz Truss signing her budget and saying, you know, we should have gone even further, cut taxes more. We've got other people saying we should have done an even harder Brexit. And this is what the Conservative Party did under Ian Duncan Smith. When it lost to Tony Blair, it went to the right, but eventually, of course.

• 18:04Alastair Campbell?

  And it's what Labour do historically has done when we've lost.

• 18:07Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, with Michael Foot and Jeremy Corbyn. Yeah, yeah.

• 18:09Alastair Campbell?

  Go to the left.

• 18:09Rory Stewart?

  But in the end, of course, these parties come back, if and when they come back, because the party members begin to want to win again. And then they move back to the centre ground. And that's what happened with David Cameron. They finally got fed up with being this sort of extreme fringe party and they wanted to win again and they moved back to the centre ground.

• 18:25Alastair Campbell?

  There's a related question from Tom. Is reform a strategic advantage or disadvantage to Tories in the coming election? What might the implication for future elections be? And Richard Tice, the leader, he did an interview at the weekend where he was very absolutely vicious about the Tories. Now, Farage used to be vicious about the Tories and then did the deal with them that helped them win the last election. But Tice was basically saying there is no way, they're going all out to try and destroy the Tories. They didn't do that well in the by-election, but you know, given they'd had a pretty low profile, they, you know, they didn't lose their deposits.

• 18:56Rory Stewart?

  No, it can be a big problem. I mean, one of the reasons why David Cameron agreed to the Brexit referendum is that in the local council elections, the European elections, Nigel Farage's party was taking an enormous number of votes from the Tories. They were getting up towards their 20, 25% margin. And he really believed that it would be almost impossible for the Conservatives to secure a majority without promising a referendum. And by doing so, he actually did huge damage to the country, right? But what he was able to do is to put that threat from the right to bed. So I think it could be a real issue.

• 19:27Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, Rory, lots more questions. Let's take a quick break.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  I get so many headaches every month.

• 19:33Speaker 05

  It could be chronic migraine, fifteen or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have fourteen or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, Myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 20:24Speaker 05

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 20:32Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.

• 21:00Speaker 06

  Payday Bars have a bone to pick with the other candy bars. Enough with the toppings and layers and stuff, kay? Payday Bars are just salty, crunchy peanuts and sweet caramel. Delicious! Payday Peanut Caramel Bar.

• 21:20Rory Stewart?

  Question from Joe Rooks. I'm currently on a maternity ward, waiting for my third born to arrive. My wife and I have yet to choose a boy's name. Have you ever noticed a pattern of impressive people with a shared name? Any suggestions you can offer? My wife has already vetoed Alastair and Rory. Ah, that's very sad, isn't it?

• 21:38Alastair Campbell?

  Perhaps it's a girl. Oh, it's a boy's name.

• 21:41Rory Stewart?

  A boy's name.

• 21:41Alastair Campbell?

  Um, I read something in one of the magazines at the weekend that it's now big business in America of advising people about their names.

• 21:48Rory Stewart?

  God, can we get into that?

• 21:49Alastair Campbell?

  What, get them to sponsor the podcast?

• 21:51Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:51Alastair Campbell?

  But somebody was making like a fortune. Giving people.

• 21:54Rory Stewart?

  Advice on what their names should be.

• 21:56Alastair Campbell?

  You know, where where the vibe of a certain name fits with the siblings' names, fits with the.

• 22:00Rory Stewart?

  Brilliant.

• 22:00Alastair Campbell?

  I the whole thing sounded.

• 22:01Rory Stewart?

  You don't think A I could do that even more quickly?

• 22:03Alastair Campbell?

  Probably could do that, yeah, absolutely. And I saw a picture of Elon Musk with one of his children.

• 22:09Rory Stewart?

  I wouldn't recommend Elon.

• 22:10Alastair Campbell?

  I'm not recommending Elon. I'm I'm very down on Elon at the moment in lots of ways. But his child has this mathematical formula. And what are you supposed to do? Go along and say my name is A squared minus M C two.

• 22:21Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, the artist formerly known as.

• 22:23Alastair Campbell?

  What we're gonna what we're gonna say to Joe, though.

• 22:24Rory Stewart?

  Well, so I I I'm.

• 22:25Alastair Campbell?

  Why were you called Rory?

• 22:27Rory Stewart?

  Um, I think I'm called Rory because my mother had a friend at university who she adored and thought was the most glamorous man in the world. Called Rory McPherson, who was the kind of perfect Scot. He was an incredible.

• 22:38Alastair Campbell?

  You christened Rory?

• 22:39Rory Stewart?

  No, because the priest in Hong Kong, I was christened in Hong Kong, refused to christen me Rory, said it wasn't a proper Christian name. So I was christened Rodrick.

• 22:45Alastair Campbell?

  So you're Rodrick on your birth certificate?

• 22:47Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, because the priest said, I can't christen you Rory because it's not a proper saint's name.

• 22:52Alastair Campbell?

  So you've got a Saint Rodrick, but not a Saint Rory?

• 22:54Rory Stewart?

  Apparently, yes.

• 22:55Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I wonder if you become sanctified, would that would that solve the problem?

• 22:59Rory Stewart?

  But the problem is I'd still be Saint Rodrick, wouldn't I?

• 23:02Alastair Campbell?

  We called our son firstborn Rory. We've got no Rorys in the family. But I'd written a novel where the the hero was called Rory, and I think there was something going on with that. It's a nice name, though, Rory. I like Rory.

• 23:13Rory Stewart?

  Not not bad. And I called my eldest son Alexander on the grounds that it gives you a lot of choice. So you can be Sandy.

• 23:20Alastair Campbell?

  Al.

• 23:21Rory Stewart?

  Al, Alex, Alex, Zan, Zan, Xander.

• 23:26Alastair Campbell?

  Sasha.

• 23:27Rory Stewart?

  And he chose to be Sasha.

• 23:28Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, how did that happen?

• 23:29Rory Stewart?

  I don't know. I think we called him as a baby and it's just really stuck with him. He loves it. I his second name is Wolf, and I thought maybe.

• 23:35Alastair Campbell?

  Wolf?

• 23:35Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I thought he might want to be called Wolf Stewart. That might be quite a strong name.

• 23:39Alastair Campbell?

  Wolf with one O or two?

• 23:41Rory Stewart?

  With one L, yeah.

• 23:42Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, how many O's?

• 23:44Rory Stewart?

  One O, one O.

• 23:44Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, so Wolf the animal, not Wolf the name?

• 23:46Rory Stewart?

  No, the animal, yeah.

• 23:48Alastair Campbell?

  Wow.

• 23:48Rory Stewart?

  But he he didn't go with that.

• 23:49Alastair Campbell?

  Joe, I don't know if this is helping you at all. I noticed last week, I mean, Gary Lineker, as you know, is our boss. Somebody sent me something saying that nobody in the United Kingdom was christened Gary last year.

• 23:59Rory Stewart?

  No.

• 23:59Alastair Campbell?

  That can't be true.

• 24:00Rory Stewart?

  That's extraordinary.

• 24:02Alastair Campbell?

  Grace, our daughter's name has become very popular and Callum, our other son, that's becoming popular as well. We chose our names partly because there weren't that many people using them at the time.

• 24:10Rory Stewart?

  Well, when I was called Rory, it was very unusual.

• 24:12Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 24:12Rory Stewart?

  And it was actually very helpful for my political career, as I guess it was for that rather horrible person we don't mention on the podcast, to have an unusual first name.

• 24:19Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, him.

• 24:20Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 24:20Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think Tony Blair was a good name for a politician. Gordon Brown, that was a good name.

• 24:24Rory Stewart?

  Well, I I had this thing of people running on Rory the Tory or I'd go Tory for Rory.

• 24:31Alastair Campbell?

  Right, I get quite a lot of people saying, they say to me in the swimming pool, how is Rory the Tory? They do so they do that.

• 24:39Rory Stewart?

  Good, okay.

• 24:40Alastair Campbell?

  What about size of British Army? Peter Wilson, is the size of the British Armed Forces a problem, given all that's going on in the world right now? Yes.

• 24:46Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I don't know whether that's the Peter Wilson who was the senior advisor in Downing Street and should be our next ambassador to China. I presume not.

• 24:54Alastair Campbell?

  Oh.

• 24:55Rory Stewart?

  The British Army is at one of its smallest level on record. And although we are spending.

• 25:01Alastair Campbell?

  You can fit the entire army into Old Trafford, is that right?

• 25:04Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I mean, it's terrifying. I mean, to put it in context, you know, we talked about China on the pod yesterday. China's got an army of about 2.3 million. We've got an army which, you know, hovers around about 70,000. Taliban future in Afghanistan, Cactus Mark. Afghanistan seems pretty far from being the societal collapse that was routinely being predicted when the Taliban took over. Is it time to accept the Taliban will be the governing power there for the foreseeable future and engage with them? This was the question that got my colleague in enormous trouble. This was Tobias Elwood, the Chair of the Defence Committee, eventually forced to resign from the Defence Committee.

• 25:37Alastair Campbell?

  Because he basically said yes.

• 25:39Rory Stewart?

  Because he basically said yes to this question. I'm aiming to get back to Afghanistan in the next few weeks and maybe we could do a little bit more of a detailed pod when I'm back there. But I think, first thing to say, is security has massively improved. I mean, that's not necessarily credit to Taliban because they were the people setting off the bombs in the first place, but you can for the. First time for twenty two years, travel safely from one end of the country really to the other.

• 26:02Alastair Campbell?

  And and also there is now a culture and a climate of fear.

• 26:06Rory Stewart?

  There is a culture.

• 26:06Alastair Campbell?

  Stops people doing things that they might have done before.

• 26:08Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely must make it clear that the Taliban continue to be incredibly chauvinistic and aggressive towards women and opposed to female education and a lot of female participation in the workplace. However, and it's always difficult when you have to say however, it is true that the country is secure and stable, which it hasn't been for a long time. So many Afghans will say, look, I don't like the Taliban, but thank goodness I'm not in fear of my life all the time. And there isn't really much of a sense of a credible alternative. Nobody else is emerging soon and sanctioning the Taliban doesn't make any difference to Taliban because they're not people who want to go shopping in Harrods. It tends to just hurt the Afghan people. So I think the idea of engaging responsibly and thoughtfully with limits with the Taliban

• 26:52Rory Stewart?

  has to be the path that we go on because they are a fact. They're going to be there.

• 26:55Alastair Campbell?

  So the Tobias Oldwood situation is very interesting then. So essentially he's he's lost a quite significant position where I think he was doing a very good job. Because he said something that was not far off where we ought to be. And that just underlines that we're in a kind of mad world where you can't actually say what you think.

• 27:12Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, you have to be incredibly careful.

• 27:15Alastair Campbell?

  Now, look, talk about saying the right thing. Joseph Mansell says as follows, I'm twenty seven. I've always been very interested in politics and I'd like to run as a local councillor, brackets Labour. In my stupid, typical younger years, I was a strong Corbyn supporter, along with making some stupid remarks on social media. I'm now slightly left of centre. I've become a more reasonable and mature person. Would this completely ruin any chances I had to get into politics? My answer is I hope not. I think most people.

• 27:45Rory Stewart?

  I think this is quite smart, this question, because the only way that he's going to get out of this.

• 27:48Alastair Campbell?

  To be open about it.

• 27:49Rory Stewart?

  Be totally open about it, get straight out there on the front foot, admit it, go to the UK's top most listened to podcast and reveal the fact that he said stupid things to me, but slightly what he said.

• 27:58Alastair Campbell?

  Name again, Joseph Mansell. Joseph, you don't say where you're from, where you're going to be a local councillor.

• 28:02Rory Stewart?

  It also slightly depends what exactly you did say on social media.

• 28:06Alastair Campbell?

  Some stupid remarks on social media. It does depend what they are. But most of us, Joseph.

• 28:12Rory Stewart?

  Even you occasionally sometimes make remarks.

• 28:14Alastair Campbell?

  I did some terrible things when I was young.

• 28:16Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, that's also true.

• 28:17Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, terrible and things which frankly,

• 28:20Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 28:20Alastair Campbell?

  Had I been running for a serious job in government or let alone.

• 28:24Rory Stewart?

  Could have got you in real trouble.

• 28:25Alastair Campbell?

  I could have, yeah, and should have done, but I was totally open about them.

• 28:28Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 28:28Alastair Campbell?

  I actually at one point sat down with Tony Blair and said, I'm going to go through every single thing I've done in my past that might be embarrassing.

• 28:34Rory Stewart?

  How did he take that?

• 28:35Alastair Campbell?

  He took it reasonably well.

• 28:36Rory Stewart?

  But by you got to the ninth thing, was he sitting there looking at you thinking?

• 28:39Alastair Campbell?

  The twenty fifth thing was the. So, Joseph, I hope, don't be put off, be honest, be open. And I think actually the whole thing about if you think that Keir Starmer's whole shtick about Labour is the Labour Party's changed, if you go to the Labour Party and say, well, I've changed as well with it, then I think that's fine. I hope you make it.

• 28:56Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Okay, well, um, final question. So, Daniel Woodrow, following Gillian Keegan's proposal this week for minimum service levels to be introduced to schools and colleges, should there also be minimum service levels for MPs? And what would you include if you wrote them? You first, then me.

• 29:13Alastair Campbell?

  I don't know what they would be.

• 29:14Rory Stewart?

  You like the Nolan principles, remind us the Nolan principles.

• 29:16Alastair Campbell?

  Honesty, openness, objectivity, selflessness, integrity, accountability and leadership. But they're quite, some of those are quite hard to measure. So the Nolan principles, just to remind people, they were Nolan, Lord Nolan was a person that John Major appointed to put a framework of agreed standards for public life. And by the way, it's not just ministers, it's for people right across the public services. I think every minister and every MP and every public servant should abide by those. I think it's very, very hard to have for MPs. I think that what's Chris Bryant's book, which is concludes that this is the worst parliament and we've had, we've now had another one with Peter Bone now, the latest, and a long line of MPs who's got himself into trouble. And that may be another by-election fairly soon.

• 29:59Alastair Campbell?

  But I think far better is that we have really good people wanting to be MPs and lots and lots and lots of them, so that local parties have a real choice.

• 30:08Rory Stewart?

  So one of the things that I felt really disappointing when I came into Parliament is that there was no proper initiation or induction.

• 30:19Rory Stewart?

  I write about this to plug Politics on the Edge, but I try to describe the scene in the book because I arrive and I think.

• 30:26Alastair Campbell?

  Have you got a book out?

• 30:26Rory Stewart?

  I've got a book out.

• 30:27Alastair Campbell?

  Didn't know that.

• 30:28Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, thanks. So I arrive and I think this is going to be an opportunity to really explain to us as MPs what this job is about, what the moral expectations this job are, what we're supposed to achieve. And instead of which, it was the most underwhelming disappointing thing. Essentially, we just sat there with the chief while he said, basically, your job is to shut up, vote with the government, and if you behave and keep your noses clean, you might eventually become junior minister someday. And I, the contrast, I was very briefly in the military. And as you can imagine, Sandhurst is just a massive machine in trying to communicate values, trying to turn people into officers and gentlemen, or whatever the phrase is. Serve to lead was the slogan. I think you should have an induction to become

• 31:13Rory Stewart?

  an MP where you sit down, I don't know how many days or weeks it would be, where you say, this is the most important job imaginable. This is our code of honour. These are the values that we expect. This is how we expect you to conduct yourself. These are the great heroes of the past. These are the models that you should be looking at. This is what virtue in politics feels like. And it's shocking that we don't have that.

• 31:38Alastair Campbell?

  I was at Sandhurst a few months ago because they do this podcast on leadership and I was interviewed for it. And they gave me the book, the updated.

• 31:46Rory Stewart?

  Serve to lead.

• 31:47Alastair Campbell?

  I can't remember what it's called. It's the Army Leadership.

• 31:48Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 31:49Alastair Campbell?

  Handbook. And it's a really good read. It's really, really interesting. And I think you're right. Actually, I think for MPs to sort of have that sense of purpose and leadership. I also, I really, I think Ginny and Key didn't do herself any favours because to, you know, teachers, I go into schools the whole time, teachers are working their balls off, constant fear of Ofsted. Constantly being asked to be social workers and mentors and, you know, some of them just barely finding time to teach. And yet seeing this utter shambles of a government constantly saying that teachers are to blame for what's going wrong in schools.

• 32:23Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I, I, I mean, I think it's that, that's a difficult one. And obviously I'm going to defend Jillian Keegan again.

• 32:27Alastair Campbell?

  Of course you are, you're a friend.

• 32:28Rory Stewart?

  Because, because he's my friend. I did find when I was dealing with prisons, that minimum standards can be a helpful way of thinking about things.

• 32:37Alastair Campbell?

  What would you have as minimum standards for MPs? You've given the sort of big picture thing, but what would you say to an MP? Because for example, lots of people get angry when they don't vote.

• 32:44Rory Stewart?

  You could set, you could set minimum expectations around what you'd expect, how much time you'd expect them to spend in a constituency. You could set minimum expectations on replying to constituents' emails. You could set um minimum expectations on the number of um, I don't know, certain kinds of work, but I think it's difficult.

• 33:04Alastair Campbell?

  Questions?

• 33:05Rory Stewart?

  Well, part of the problem is.

• 33:06Alastair Campbell?

  Appearances in Parliament.

• 33:07Rory Stewart?

  Well, part of the problem is that the whole job is a bit weird because as soon as you become a minister, you're still an MP, but being a minister is a full-time job. So being an MP can't be a full-time job, otherwise you wouldn't have any time. And Tony Blair was an MP when he was Prime Minister. So I'm, I'm sure he loved his constituency and did a good job for them, but his main job, I would hope, was being Prime Minister.

• 33:28Alastair Campbell?

  He was the Prime Minister. Maybe there's a case actually for, as an MP, so people point to people to run their constituencies. But maybe we need, we need MP teams so that you're electing not just the MP, but if you become a minister, you then have a.

• 33:40Rory Stewart?

  A team to.

• 33:41Alastair Campbell?

  Somebody who's, who is a public figure in the constituency.

• 33:44Rory Stewart?

  And be honest about that, because often when I spoke to primary schools in Cumbria, people would say, what are you doing going to Westminster? Why are you not in Cumbria? Just communicating how strange this job is, that you're supposed to be in your constituency all the time, supposed to be in Westminster all the time, voting all the time, and you're supposed to be in your ministerial office all the time, and that you can't do all three.

• 34:01Alastair Campbell?

  Right, well, on that job creation scheme for politics, um, let's uh call it a day and see you next week.

• 34:06Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Thank you.

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