Pod Insights The Rest Is Politics 318. Question Time: Does America really care about the ‘special relationship’? About this episode Why has Turkey decided to join BRICS? Is New York Mayor, Eric Adams, in trouble? And what happens when the mics are turned off?
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0:04 Rory Stewart? This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
0:06 Alastair 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.
0:19 Rory Stewart? I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creve and of course the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. And 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.
0:42 Alastair 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?
0:49 Rory Stewart? I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/rustispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rustispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.
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1:58 Alastair Campbell? Welcome to the Rest is Politics question time with me, Alastair Campbell.
2:01 Rory Stewart? And with me, Rory Stewart. And Alistair, we're going to start with a question from me to you. Well, so actually from Caitlin Razzle to you via me. Can you explain a bit about the special relationship between the UK and the US? Who first articulated in those terms? Does it still hold any relevance today? And there's actually Patrick, similar question, can Kier Sama maintain the special relationship if Trump wins? And is the publicly warm relationship with Biden and between Lamy and Blinken a potential liability if the Republicans win? And funny, Sharon Else, if Trump succeeds, how should Kier Sama deal with him? As I see it, the British Prime Minister has to be friendly to the US President for obvious reasons. But most of the British public perceived Trump to be barking and now meowing mad. Over to you.
2:45 Alastair Campbell? Sharon Else's question there at the end reminds me of when George W. Bush followed Bill Clinton. Tony Blair's very, very, very first telephone conversation with Bush as incoming president happened when Tony was doing a visit to Warwick University with Bill Clinton. So, and it was just one of those amazing moments where you realise of power moving away and Bill Clinton being conscious of it. Because we had to explain to Clinton's people that, you know, Bush's people had come through and said, could they do a phone call with Tony Blair? And this is the sort of time slot that's that he's free. And the only one that we could do is when we were at Warwick University.
3:27 Rory Stewart? Oh no.
3:28 Alastair Campbell? With Bill Clinton. Of course, Clinton being an absolute pro, he said, listen, you've got to take that call. And off he went. And I guess what the lesson from that is that during that election, and obviously things are so difficult with the current election, I'll come on to say why. But everybody knew that Tony Blair had a close relationship with Bill Clinton. But he stayed out of the election campaign and he made sure, not least by taking that phone call, that, you know, he would develop a good relationship with George W. Bush as well. On who first articulated this phrase, the special relationship, it was Churchill. Churchill made a speech in Fulton, Missouri, I think it was.
4:08 Rory Stewart? I think that's his iron curtain speech, isn't it? The iron curtain coming down speech, yeah.
4:12 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, but he talked about that. That's where I think he first articulated the special relationship. And I don't think, given that the iron curtain, that was what he, as it were, wanted to be the main thing. I think special relationship was probably just one of those phrases that he sort of tossed out there. But it sort of has taken on a life of its own. And I think it means a lot more to Brits than it does to Americans. And it's true, though, that last week, I mean, Joe Biden did roll out the red carpet. And the point about if Trump does win, when we were in Chicago, and we met quite a lot of people from the embassy, and they were working away, they were the people, it was somebody from the embassy who introduced me to that guy, David Urban, the Trump person. And I think the part of their thinking would be, that would make an interesting interview for your
4:56 Alastair Campbell? podcast. But also, they might be thinking, I'm showing the Trump people that we're, you know, we're balanced about this. We're not just going around the place saying that we like Kamala Harris, we're dealing with Trump as well. So if Trump does become president, God forbid, I'm sure Keir Starmer will put in place people and try himself to make sure there is as positive a relationship as possible.
5:18 Rory Stewart? It's fascinating, just in terms of communication language, how extraordinary Churchill was at producing these phrases. I mean, that single speech, after he was no longer prime minister, generated the phrase, the iron curtain and the special relationship. I also discovered he'd produced the phrase in the House of Commons from the cradle to the grave as a way of talking about the NHS, etc. The thing that you notice, though, being in the US, I'm talking to you now from Yale, and we've got, obviously, as you can imagine, at our school here, a huge variety of students from around the world. And I noticed in one of our classes, that
5:54 Rory Stewart? An Israeli believes that the US special relationship was with Israel. A Canadian believed it was with Canada. And we've also had the French believe that the US has a special relationship with them going back deeply in history to do with their cooperation in the revolution, the Japanese, et cetera. So the US is quite profligate with its use of the phrase special relationship.
6:17 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, of course it is.
6:18 Rory Stewart? It goes around the world. Makes one wonder how special it is if we're just one of nine.
6:23 Alastair Campbell? There's also a generational thing going on because the Association of Marshall Scholars, which is very fixated upon the US, UK special relationship, they have done a survey.
6:33 Rory Stewart? Which is a very good thing, isn't it? And you and I went to see the Marshall Scholars, do you remember last year?
6:36 Alastair Campbell? We did, yeah, we did. We met lots of interesting, again, we met some Trump people there. Interestingly, they've done this survey of Americans. Respondents over the age of 30 still perceive the United Kingdom as the United States' most important ally and strategic partner, but younger respondents, I'm afraid, have a very, very different view.
6:56 Rory Stewart? Oh, what do they think?
6:57 Alastair Campbell? Thirty-six percent of US residents under the age of 30 rank China as America's most valuable strategic partner.
7:06 Rory Stewart? Oh.
7:07 Alastair Campbell? And this compares with 4% of respondents over the age of 70. Twenty-seven percent of the young ones see the UK as the most important, whereas it's more than double that for those over 70. So that suggests there's a bit of a generational divide going on there.
7:22 Rory Stewart? And but also fascinating because given that there's cross-party bipartisan support for a confrontational policy towards China.
7:29 Alastair Campbell? Exactly, exactly.
7:30 Rory Stewart? That implies that younger people in the US want a much friendlier relationship.
7:34 Alastair Campbell? Well, I wonder, I hate to give such praise to the technological advances of China. I wonder whether TikTok is a big part of that. Because the thing that most young people associate with China is not Taiwan, and it's not tariffs, and it's not all the sort of big stuff that we talk about, is TikTok. So there we go. Now, let's stick in America, Rory. Seb Landsman.
7:54 Alastair Campbell? Can you tell us what is going on with the New York mayor Eric Adams and his team? Do we know why his chief counsel stepped down? It's not just his chief counsel, by the way. He seems to be facing a lot of scrutiny, but where does this all originate?
8:07 Rory Stewart? Well, so this, like a lot of US corruption scandals, is complicated by many different factors. I mean, his friends will say that Eric Adams, who is the very, very colourful mayor of New York, just keeps unfortunate company and maybe has a failure of judgment. So he was very close, for example, to a Rolls Royce driving bishop that's just been put in prison for fraud. He appointed one of his top aides, a friend who'd been implicated in corruption. High ranking officials in his administration, their homes have been raided, his own telephones have been taken away. He's just lost the New York Police Commissioner, who's just resigned and probably resigned
8:48 Rory Stewart? in connection with the fact that somebody who ran a cafe in Brooklyn has claimed that one of the aides in City Hall said that if he paid a bribe to the Police Commissioner's twin brother, all his problems would go away. And as you say, the chief lawyer. It's something we touch on a little bit, but we don't talk about maybe enough, which is how strange American city politics is. I mean, in so many ways, America sort of leads the world, but when people are talking about how shocked they are about Trump facing felony charges, I'm here in Connecticut talking to you, right next to the city of Bridgeport, and the mayor of Bridgeport faced 16 counts of racketeering, extortion, bribery tax, all of which he was convicted on, spent
9:32 Rory Stewart? nearly 10 years in prison, came out again, stood again for election, tried to rig the election and was successfully re-elected in 2015 and 2019.
9:41 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
9:41 Rory Stewart? And part of this sadly is sometimes the Democratic Party machines. I mean, once the police unions behind you, once the Democratic Party machines behind you, once the church leaders are behind you from African American churches, sometimes you have a pretty powerful voting bloc. Final thing, just in case people are interested in this, the best film on this is this amazing film, Street Fight, about Cory Booker running in. In Newark against Sharp James before Sharp James was put in prison for corruption charges. But I don't know, I mean, Eric Adams's followers would say I'm being unfair here and that this is slanders from his opponents and it's because he's an African American.
10:17 Alastair Campbell? You're not the only one being unfair, if you are being unfair, because, I mean, Eric Adams is, he's quite a big figure, mayor of New York, a big name in the Democratic Party. And, you know, I think that, if, I don't know if you remember Rory, in fact, you may have left, I can't remember. Do you remember at the Chicago, at the convention, there was that big CNN sort of party house thing?
10:37 Rory Stewart? Yeah, we somehow managed to get an invitation.
10:39 Alastair Campbell? We inveigled our way in most days. You'd left Chicago Rory, and I was about to do an interview with that guy David Urban, the Trump guy. And there was a sort of little gaggle of journalists hanging around and they're obviously waiting for somebody. So we said, you know, you're waiting for, they were waiting for Eric Adams. Oh, we said, what's he done? He says, oh, well, we've just heard he's not got a speaking slot. So along he comes, looking quite cool, he had his shades on and he's, you know, a couple of bodyguards around him, what have you. And they were sort of firing questions at him and he just sort of went through them. But I wonder whether the reason he didn't have a speaking slot was because all this stuff was sort of bubbling away. And I was reading a thing on Politico, which just listed all of the different people. The headline was Eric Adams shady inner circle comes back to bite him. It's just a list of all the
11:23 Alastair Campbell? people that he's hired, including people who've got all sorts of records before he hired them. So I think the lesson of this story is, you know, be very, very careful who you hire when you're in a big public job.
11:35 Rory Stewart? He's got a couple of great lines. He's got, one of his strap lines during the campaign was, I think, I'm dyslexic, I was arrested, I was rejected, now I'm elected. And then he's got, and then he's got another one that he runs at the moment, which he says, if people question him about these dodgy associates, he says, I'm perfectly imperfect, and this is a city made up of perfectly imperfect people.
11:59 Alastair Campbell? I think that's better than the first one.
12:03 Alastair Campbell? Marginally, marginally. Now, what about this, Roy? Delia Dunlop, what is the significance of Turkey deciding to join the BRICS? That's Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. What does it mean for his accession into the EU? And what does this say about multipolarism more broadly?
12:18 Rory Stewart? So BRICS formed in 2006. Brazil, Russia, India, China, with South Africa joining in 2010. And we've covered this, it's expanded recently further. So Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and UAE have joined. Saudi Arabia, instead, it's considering joining. And Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied. Quite a symbol of a shifting world because in the 1970s, when the G7 was formed, which the kind of Western big economies, they formed about 70% of the world economy. Now, in purchasing power parity terms, the BRICS are about the same size as the G7. Over to you on analysis on Turkey.
12:55 Alastair Campbell? Well, I think this is really interesting and I'm surprised it hasn't had that much attention. Look, I think a lot of this is about different powers and different regions trying to shape a new world order. China, most obviously, India as well, Russia, obviously. But I think that what, I mean, it is incredible how many of these big foreign policy situations that we talk about, how Turkey sort of pops up in some form or another. So here's Turkey that has for some time sort of wanted, leaning into the idea that it wants to become a member of the European Union. If you remember during the Brexit debate, one of the most powerful arguments for Brexit was Michael Gove lying about last chance to stop Turkey joining the EU.
13:36 Alastair Campbell? But I think this is about them signalling that they're in nobody's camp. They're going to do their own thing, they're going to forge their own path. There was a vote in the UN, I think it was last December, and there was a resolution calling for a new international economic order. And 123 member states, which were mainly African, Asian, Latin American countries, voted in favour, 50 voted against, the only abstainer was Turkey.
14:04 Rory Stewart? This is part of a theme, Alistair, that you raised with us last week when you were talking about China welcoming African countries. I mean, essentially what we're talking about here is the balance between the Old West, the US and its allies, and the rest of the world. And There are a couple of things come out of that. Is the world becoming, as it were, a standoff between the US and China? Or is it disintegrating into a world with lots and lots of middle powers? So we've talked in Sudan and Somalia about how half a dozen countries are getting involved, smaller countries, Turkey being one of them. I mean, Turkey has been very influential in the chaos in Libya. It's been influential in the Israel Hamas standoff. It's been influential in Sudan. It's been influential in Somalia.
14:47 Rory Stewart? In fact, I remember visiting Somalia and getting a sort of crusty lecture from a British Colonel about all the wonderful stuff Britain was doing in supporting Somalia. But then when I talked to the head of the Somali Intelligence Service, it was Turkey he talked about most of the time in terms of support they were receiving. Turkey and the CIA. So there's that. And I think you're probably right that what Turkey's doing, a bit like Saudi UAE, is not really throwing its weight in behind China and Russia, but keeping its options open and deciding it doesn't need to be just in one camp or another, and it can be a bit more a la carte on the menu.
15:19 Alastair Campbell? And I think probably Erdogan will be reading the politics of the European Union very, very carefully and probably saying to himself, look, you know, I can bleat on all I want about the European Union, but as things stand, they're not ready to accept as a member, and the politics make it harder for them. So I will make sure they understand that I've got other options. And, you know, of course, people remember Turkey's also a member of NATO. They were very, very recalcitrant and slow in backing Sweden and Finland from being allowed into NATO. I think he's just a little bit like Modi. He likes people to be aware of his power and his strengths. And of course, you know, Turkey is, I think I'm right, that Turkey's population is greater than Germany.
16:03 Alastair Campbell? If it did join the European Union, it'd be the biggest country. They're basically saying, we're not East, we're not West, we're not Europe, we're not Asia, we are kind of whatever we need to be at the time, which in a way is a little bit like China used to sort of do their foreign policy when they were not the China of today.
16:20 Rory Stewart? It's the biggest story, isn't it, in some ways, of the last 25 years? Or one of the big stories, Turkey? Because if you were being super optimistic when you guys were in office, and I guess you would have discussed this, there would have been a story that Turkey becoming a democracy, moving away from military rule, getting this, you know, working class effective mayor of Istanbul Erdogan elected.
16:45 Rory Stewart? Could have been the beginning of a democratic state potentially joining the European Union right on the edge of the Middle East. And suddenly you're reaching out. Turkey has borders with Iran. Turkey has borders with Syria, right? So suddenly you could be in a situation in which you have a democratic, pro-Western European Union member state pushing that kind of Western model out into the Middle East. That, of course, isn't quite how it went. What happened is that Erdogan, after early promise, became more and more autocratic. The European Union slightly turned against. And all those developments, the Middle East, that people were looking for, didn't really happen. But I think if we're telling the story
17:27 Rory Stewart? of what happened to some of the dreams of the 90s and early 2000s, when we really thought Francis Fukuyama was right, history was ended, the whole world was going to become, follow a Western model, Turkey's a really interesting case study of what didn't quite happen.
17:41 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, absolutely. Now Rory, guess which subject we have the most questions on this week, and it's not the first time.
17:47 Rory Stewart? It's long Covid, isn't it, Asa?
17:49 Alastair Campbell? It is.
17:50 Rory Stewart? A lot of people want us to do more on long Covid.
17:52 Alastair Campbell? There's obviously something going on at the Covid Inquiry that we're not aware of because there's just been very little coverage of it. Lots of people saying that the reporting on the Covid Inquiry has just sort of gone away. Lots of people saying that long Covid is ruining lots of people's lives. So what I think we should do is, rather than answer them now, is we should go away and perhaps come back next week and have a proper discussion about long Covid.
18:12 Rory Stewart? Yeah, huge amounts. So this week, a thank you to Anne-Marie and Jay Kennedy, but actually dozens of others.
18:18 Alastair Campbell? There were dozens this week, there really were. It did make me wonder slightly whether we're becoming like, you know, those MPs who suddenly find that they've got 7,000 emails on the same subject. But anyway, they're right. Anne-Marie is right. There is far too little discussion at the moment about Covid and long Covid.
18:33 Rory Stewart? All right, Asa, quick break, then more questions.
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20:25 Alastair Campbell? Andy Ferry. The saddest aspect of Salmon and Sturgeon: A Troubled Union, that was a TV documentary, was that this formidable partnership had been great friends as well, however, they no longer talk. What were the friendships Alistair and Maury regret sacrificing at the altar of political progress? Have you lost friends through politics?
20:44 Rory Stewart? Yeah, I have slightly. I'm afraid Boris Johnson was a bit of a deal-breaker for me when I found people that I liked and admired. Coming out and endorsing Boris Johnson, saying how wonderful he would be and how much integrity he had and how he'd be the most terrific prime minister. Yeah, Rishi Sunak, for example, I can't say we were particularly close friends, but that was really the moment which I just was bewildered and couldn't work out what he was doing. I'm afraid probably I, Robert Jenrick, I probably slightly lost it on there. My PPS, who I was very close to endorsed Boris and I found that very troubling. And I guess Brexit probably did it for lots of us. We found ourselves in very, very awkward relationships over Brexit. But on the salmon, Sturgeon, I mean, the big political partnership in
21:28 Rory Stewart? your life, which again, I always think, maybe you think people talk about too much and you don't want to be in the middle of because they're both your friends. But I always think you hint at, but our listeners don't fully understand. And maybe we can explore in our leading interview with Douglas Sadek, is Blair and Brown.
21:43 Alastair Campbell? Rory, if you read volumes one to eight of my diaries, nobody can say I haven't talked about the Blair Brown. I think it's possibly the fact that I have, one of my recurring dreams that I used to talk to my sadly dearly departed psychiatrist, David Sturgeon, about, I did used to have these, these dreams where I was constantly in the middle of, literally in the middle of fights between Courtney and Tony, sometimes evolving weapons as well. So that's probably why I don't automatically leap into wanting to talk about it. I think I've lost any really close friends. No, I don't think I've lost close friends, but then I've always been quite picky about my, about my close friends.
22:26 Alastair Campbell? But I've definitely, I've definitely found, well, actually another leading interview we did, David Davis. I mean, I was very friendly with David Davis when I was a journalist. And that sort of continued and I might still see him very, very rarely. But again, for me, Brexit was a bit of a deal breaker. And it wasn't just the issue. I knew that he might have those views. It was that sort of, that kind of lack of seriousness about it.
22:49 Rory Stewart? Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I kept friendships with people who voted for Brexit. I've got no problem with that at all. I think it's the way in which people conducted themselves. Particular forms of dishonesty and ruthlessness that really threw me off balance, not the fact itself. We've got a question here on malaria, which has come a number of times and we haven't done, and maybe it's worth just putting up in lights because Malaria No More UK has just released a report showing that cutting malaria can lead to a GDP boost of nearly $127 billion for malaria endemic countries in Africa. And they're leaning into this partly because of what role could international development play in achieving the Labour Government's manifesto aim? What unique assets could the UK bring to the table?
23:33 Rory Stewart? Quick reminder on this, malaria, I mean, obviously is the most devastating disease that kills an incredible number of young people, debilitates adults. Bill Gates, one of the things he's been associated with closely and has done very good work on, there's been huge advances. It looks as though we may be approaching certain forms of malaria, being able to get a vaccine, bed nets have made a big difference. It's not that 100% of bed nets are used as bed nets, some of them may be used for fishing when you give them out, but probably 60, 70% of them are used as bed nets and they're a very cheap way of preventing someone getting malaria. So yeah, let me use that as a segue into, do you expect Labour to talk more about international development or is that very much a Blair Brown, Cameron thing?
24:13 Alastair Campbell? Well, I hope so. If you remember plucking yet another leading interview, when we first spoke to Keir Starmer, he recommitted to the 0.7% of GDP for international development and that sort of slowly got eroded. I don't know where it figures in their priorities right now. If you've followed David Labby since he became, so he's now head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office because Johnson, one of his many acts of vandalism, got rid of DIFID. I really think it's important that the Labour Government does get back into this in a leadership role. If you think about our place in the world, Rory, and where our leadership in the world came from, it is partly As a consequence of the role we had as a leading player in Europe, well, that's gone. It's partly, to go back to the earlier question about a special relationship, because
24:57 Alastair Campbell? we had a very special, we do have a special relationship, but that's been eroded as well because part of what the Americans saw as the importance of the special relationship was of us as something of a bridge into Europe. And then the third thing was was diffid in our role in development. So those sort of big, three big things that I think gave us a bit of kind of extra clout in the world, they've all been diminished. And I was talking to somebody who works one of the big development charities the other day and said it's actually been the biggest tragedy of their career, that the big players they've always seen as America, Japan, us and Germany. And we're no longer there in the same place. So I really, really hope that we do sort of pick this up.
25:38 Rory Stewart? It is heartbreaking, isn't it? Because Britain, one of the things that made diffid really interesting is that it was much more serious about evidence and sometimes very shocking evidence. I mean, it would follow the research. So it was very early into giving cash, which is something obviously I believe in strongly through GiveDirectly. And to plug here, very awkward plug, I've just done a TED Talk, if anybody's interested in TED Talk, where I've tried to explain why I believe that actually we could end global poverty in our lifetimes with half the amount of money we currently spend if we started giving lump sum cash instead of these incredibly complicated wasteful programmes we currently do. And Britain was one of the only countries that you could imagine really taking that
26:21 Rory Stewart? kind of challenge, being really radical, because if it had the independence to do it, it had the kind of staff that were proud to be radical, it was a bit separated from the political process because the 0.7% commitment. So if we're looking for signs that Labour's prepared to lead, not follow, be a bit brave, take a bit of risk, I'd love to see them taking seriously the the cash revolution being done by charities like GiveDirectly. And if people are interested in this debate, because I think we could end global poverty in lifetimes, do please have a look at my TED Talk.
26:50 Alastair Campbell? Now Rory, I think you've just sort of basically said something that somebody on the right or the centre of the Labour Party could have said. Max Bryson, is Rory actually still conservative in any way? I never hear him advocate for smaller government, lower taxes, free speech or personal liberty.
27:08 Rory Stewart? Oh, very good. Okay, okay, let me give a go at that. I'm obviously somewhere in the centre ground, but why am I Conservative? Partly because I don't think that's all conservatism's about. I think for me, being a Conservative is also about other things we talk about on this show. The fact that I love British history, tradition, the monarchy, the landscape, the British Army, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a cultural identity bit of my conservatism, small farmers. But yes, I do agree with a lot of that stuff. I do think that the reason that I didn't go with Labour when I went to politics is not that I disagreed with Labour about international development or poverty. I agree very strongly. Given that we're all talking about the NHS this week, I think that reading back those speeches by Labour in
27:51 Rory Stewart? the 1940s, creating the NHS, just a reminder of how much Labour did for the country, just how horrible and disgusting the situation the poor in Britain was as late as the 1940s. I mean, children malnourished, dying of rickets, men with hernias walking around untreated. I mean, and without Labour, we would never, ever have made that progress. And then the butt is coming. I do think Labour has a history of being a bit centralising, bit too cosy with the unions, a bit impractical and a bit well-meaning and soft. And there are many, many times when I was a minister where I felt being tougher about standards, tougher
28:34 Rory Stewart? about efficiency, demanding more was the way to go. But against my final buts, I swing back to you. I suppose you'd probably say that New Labour and the delivery unit was doing quite a lot of that stuff anyway.
28:45 Alastair Campbell? Absolutely, absolutely Rory. Marvelous government, marvellous government. Listen, let's talk about the current Labour government. Quite a lot of questions this week on the winter fuel payments. Edel Ray, I'm sure this is extremely naive of me to suggest, why doesn't the Treasury keep the winter payments unchanged? But ask all those pensioners who don't need it to return it via their local authority council tax account. Of nothing else, it would be an interesting experiment to gauge how generous and community spirited the better of pensioners are. Paul Rogers, this is a bit more aggressive. Hi guys. With the 100% turnaround by the Labour government in winter fuel and energy prices, is it time to protest against them? I voted for them but feel totally let down. Also imprisoning people for hateful speech on Facebook while letting prisoners free seems wrong.
29:30 Rory Stewart? And so let me frame it in two ways. Let's assume that you and I agree that it's probably correct to change the policy on winter fuel. You shouldn't be getting free winter fuel allowance and my mum shouldn't be getting a free winter fuel allowance. It's ridiculous. It's not investment, it's consumption and it's very poorly targeted. So it's bad government policy. If we agree on that, how could you have done it better? Was the timing right on this announcement? Is the way in which it's framed correct? Could you have done more on doing something clever with different people in different tax brackets? I mean, with the benefit of hindsight, give us three ideas on how Labour could have done the right thing better.
30:10 Alastair Campbell? Well, I would have done it as part of a bigger package of reform. If you remember why Rachel Reeves announced this when she did, it was part of the presentation saying that they found this £22 billion black hole and that meant they had to make some difficult decisions. This is the one that's had all the attention. One of the other decisions, which I think was really bad decision, was this getting rid of this mega supercomputer investment up in Edinburgh, because I think you could argue that is very much investment. The Financial Times today has a letter from some pretty heavyweight economic figures making the point that we were making last week, that the government cannot not invest
30:50 Alastair Campbell? in big projects and big things going forward. And so I get why she wanted to say there are things that we can't do. And I get why this might have been one of them, but I think if it had been part of a much bigger package of reforms that she was announcing in order to signal that we're going to put money where we think it was necessary, increase investment, stop lower spending, but have announced at the time, one of the reforms that you talked about, I don't know about people voluntarily giving money back, the idea of sort of more layers of bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy, but I think on this, what it made it look like was that they're saying, if we can't spend something, the first thing that we're going
31:33 Alastair Campbell? to not spend it on is winter fuel payments, when we know that in this winter, this will become an absolute running sore, which the papers and the Tories are going to run on really, really big. So I hope then the budget will be some sort of tweaking that gets them out of what is, I think, becoming quite a big hole.
31:49 Rory Stewart? I mean, you're much, much better at this stuff than I am, obviously, but even I, I think, would have thought it was politics 101, that you put the whole thing together. So you say, we're doing something nasty in cutting here, but we're making some really exciting, fantastic, positive investment somewhere else. So the whole thing's balanced. So you're giving the impression that you're prudent and careful with your money on the one hand, and you're exciting and imaginative and bold on the other. And I think they'll have to do that with NHS, won't they? I mean, they'll have to, if they're announcing big cuts to hospitals, because they're going to have to do that if they want to push investment through to GPs and community centres, then they're going to need some pretty dramatic, sparkly, positive things that are happening at the same time as hospitals are cut.
32:30 Alastair Campbell? What these guys are arguing for, which is what I was arguing for in the podcast last week, is tweaking the fiscal rule insofar as it relates to debt and GDP, so that she can announce some major investment projects. Because I think that, you know, you talked a minute ago about the 1945 Labour government, that's what they did. They borrowed to invest and they made the investments pay off in terms of the long-term recovery of the country. And that's kind of, I feel, the state that we're in, that we're in right now.
33:01 Rory Stewart? It brings me back to, I mean, I'm sounding like a broken record here, but I'm just wondering, do they have, does Labour have in its back pocket, some amazingly bold, exciting, secret plans, which they've developed over the last two, three years, which they're just waiting to share with us? And we're suddenly going to wake up and be like, oh my goodness, this is amazing, they're borrowing, you know, I don't know how much they're borrowing, they're borrowing a hundred billion in order to put. Thirty six billion into the NHS to meet what Lord Darcy is asking for and we're going to put, we're going to increase defence spending to 2.5% and we're going to sort out our schools and we're going to take the lead in AI and.
33:42 Alastair Campbell? As I said on the main podcast, the reason why I think that they are right to want to keep reminding the public that they have been given a dreadful, dreadful inheritance. But at the same time, there has to be a sense of the change that's coming. And, you know, it has to be, people have to have a sense of it, even when times are difficult. We've got a very interesting question from, this is just as a comment, Jack Martin. In Torsten Bell's book, Great Britain, Torsten Bell, who ran a think tank, is now an MP. How do we get our future back? Bell outlines an inspiring vision to improve the UK. Yet though he is now a Labour MP, the current government seems to be all doom and gloom. And there's a bit of that, there's a bit of that.
34:23 Rory Stewart? Yeah, and it's going to be interesting, just psychologically, what that's like for Torsten Bell, because I remember coming in to government as a backbench MP, having written stuff on Afghanistan, thinking I had these clear policies and hoping that my government was going to sign up to them and realise that I was totally irrelevant and they had no interest in my ideas at all. So it's going to be very interesting to see whether Torsten Bell gets a bit grumpy. Couple of cheerful questions to end. Tim Northants, it's more of an observation than a question. Trip Live has always sold out ridiculously quickly. With the Fab Four now on UK tour, will larger trip venues be used? So he's suggesting next time around, forget about us sitting on the roof of the O2, he wants us to look at Wembley, Old Trafford and Millennium Stadium for a week each, so that he can get a fighting chance of a ticket.
35:08 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, but also, Tim, not all of the venues have sold out. I think you can still get tickets at the O2, I think you can still get tickets in Birmingham. So check it out, go on the website and be there. And also, I think that Old Trafford would be. Difficult. I think to sell 72,000 tickets would be quite difficult.
35:24 Rory Stewart? I think that would be the moment at which we'd gone mad. I think if we started to try to sell 72,000 tickets, that would be the moment at which people actually had decided that the hubris would set in.
35:34 Alastair Campbell? When Tim talks about the Fab Four, that's because Scaramucci and Katy Kay are joining us at four of our appearances. Here's another one to end on, Rory. This is my fine one. Jeff Sell. "You end your podcast with a friendly but fairly formal goodbye to each other. Is this really what happens, or do you hold a thorough post-mortem of the episode when the microphones are switched off?" The answer is no, we do not. And I think both Rory and I, we're very good leavers. We're not leavers in the Brexit context, but we do like to sort of... You leave very quickly, Rory. You just...
36:08 Rory Stewart? I do, and I'm about to do it because I'm about to go off and teach my class here at Yale. So yeah, what will happen is in about 30 seconds' time, I'll say, "Thank you very much", and then there'll be a squawk from the production team saying, "Leave your laptop open. We haven't, we haven't, we've not uploaded the file yet." And then, I don't know, then you, wait, wait a sec. I often, when I come back 10 minutes later to see my file uploading, I can often find you still having cheerful chats. I'd be interested to know what happens in the 10 minutes of cheerful chats when I'm not there.
36:36 Alastair Campbell? It's usually a broader, bigger strategic discussion about whither the rest is politics, you know. What's the strategy? Where is this all heading?
36:44 Rory Stewart? Is that right? Very good.
36:46 Alastair Campbell? See you soon.
36:47 Rory Stewart? All right. Bye-bye.
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