73. COP, Gavin Williamson, and US midterms

Join Alastair and Rory as they discuss Gavin Williamson, COP, Johnson's resignation honours list, Scholz in China, the latest from the war in Ukraine, and much, much more. Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, enjoy ad-free listening, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

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

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

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

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

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

• 1:43Rory Stewart?

  Hello. Welcome to Restless Politics with me, Rory Stewart.

• 1:46Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Alastair Campbell. Very pleased that Rory's got his voice back.

• 1:49Rory Stewart?

  Thank you very much. So, Alistair, before we start, I know we discussed Matt Hancock going on "I'm a Celebrity" last week. But I believe there's something you elected not to tell our readers about a certain offer that you had.

• 2:01Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it's not that I neglected to reveal anything, it's I completely forgot until my daughter Grace did a very funny Instagram post in which she reminded me and indeed informed her followers that she and I had been asked to go on as a father-daughter couple. And the reason, they've been trying to get me on every year and I've said no every year. And I think they've realised that Grace kind of manages to get me around her little finger on most things. So they invited her, but on condition that I went, maybe that would persuade me. And much to her chagrin, it did not.

• 2:42Rory Stewart?

  Do you think there's something changing about, I mean, obviously Anthony Eden or Clement Attlee would not have gone on I'm a Celebrity. But, but, but do you think the, the world is changing in which people are getting a bit more relaxed? I mean, after all, Ed Balls went on Strictly Come Dancing, didn't he?

• 2:58Alastair Campbell?

  He did, but it was after, it was after he left. I mean, the thing about Matt Hancock, no, I wouldn't do Strictly either, I just think these programmes, I think they're slightly, I think they take you to a place that you can't come back from. I could be wrong. I mean, Nadine Dorries went on it and ended up in the cabinet, but only because Boris Johnson was the Prime Minister. I mean, no, but you know, Eden or Attlee would never have considered such a person. No, I think it's definitely changed. I think this fusion of entertainment and politics. I can remember, I think I told you this before, I can remember having a really strong argument with Tessa Jau. We were staying at her place once down in, in, in Oxfordshire. And we were, Warwickshire, sorry. And we were watching one of these programmes, it was, it was X Factor, I think.

• 3:40Alastair Campbell?

  And Tessa was endlessly voting for this bloody, this guy who was a singer, he was a postman, I think, and he was singing, "Oh, I love him, I love him, I'm going to vote for him again." And I was, and I was thinking, all this does is say to people, this is what voting is about. And it takes away from, so I think, look, I've not met a single person who hasn't agreed with my assessment last week. That Matt Hancock is a bit of a T W A T.

• 4:05Rory Stewart?

  It's a funny thing though, isn't it? I mean, it's interesting. I mean, the Queen made, I think, the correct decision to do a couple of gags, one with James Bond for the Olympics and one with Paddington Bear for the Jubilee, which I guess probably her dad or grandfather wouldn't have done. I mean, I think it's a sense that the world is becoming slightly more relaxed about public figures and, you know, there she interacted with Hollywood or a kind of cartoon bear.

• 4:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, but listen, what the Queen did in both of those is she remained the Queen. What Matt Hancock does in going to I'm a Celebrity is he takes himself to the level of the lowest common denominator who's already been there. And I see that Dom is getting, our producer's getting very excited. What about Tony Blair doing a skit with Catherine Tate? One, it was for comic relief. Two, again, I think it was, it was, it wasn't what he was there for. It was something that was, that showed a side of his character that is real, that he's got a sense of humour. But I do think this thing with Hancock is just, I just think it's demeaning for politics, for politicians.

• 5:15Rory Stewart?

  It's interesting that in the US, I can't think of a serving senator or representative who's gone on those kind of shows.

• 5:22Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, hold on a minute. Donald Trump became famous by presenting one of them.

• 5:25Rory Stewart?

  But, but of course, he wasn't a serving senator or congressman. He came the other direction. He was a famous celebrity who came into politics.

• 5:31Alastair Campbell?

  That's what I mean. But that fusion, that sort of fusion of infotainment is.

• 5:35Rory Stewart?

  One hundred percent. But, but I think it's, it would be difficult to imagine, you know, John Kerry or Al Gore thinking that what they needed to do was go on the X Factor.

• 5:43Alastair Campbell?

  I can't imagine it. But then, you know, Al Gore, you mentioned Al Gore. Al Gore went from active frontline politics to being somebody who was both a businessman making a lot of money and a public presenter in a different way to the way that he'd done it before. I mean, what I thought, what really stuck in my throat about, about Hancock was him pretending it was about a dyslexia campaign. I mean, stop treating, you treated people like idiots when you were Health Secretary during Covid. Please don't treat them like idiots now.

• 6:12Rory Stewart?

  It's essentially about, I mean, essentially, I think that the main driver, I mean, there'll probably be two drivers, won't there? There'll be some people who think that the way to make it in politics today is to become a celebrity. So there'll be people who say, well, Donald Trump or Boris Johnson, who established himself with Have I Got News For You and Top Gear and stuff. But the second thing, I guess, is money. I mean, he has gone through a divorce, he's lost his job in the cabinet, and people are talking about £400,000, is that right?

• 6:40Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about another ludicrous Conservative MP that's been much in the news, and that's Gavin Williamson.

• 6:47Rory Stewart?

  Sir Gavin Williamson.

• 6:48Alastair Campbell?

  I beg your pardon, Sir Gavin Williamson, because just as Johnson is about to put Nadine Dorries and some 27-year-old spad, who will become the youngest live peer in history, and make several million pounds during the course, quite a good pension that for three years' work. He also knighted Gavin Williamson. Now, I think the question, we won't talk about it on the Q and A, we'll do it now. We've got, I think we've got more questions about Gavin Williamson than anybody else this week, because I think, and what was driving them was people saying, what does he have on these people? And is it as simple as that? Because, look, I don't know the guy, but any time I've seen him on television, being interviewed, I think he is so, he's not even second rate, he's third rate as a communicator. His one sort of significant contribution as a politician was when he

• 7:31Alastair Campbell?

  completely screwed up the exam system as Education Secretary. He was a hopeless Defence Secretary. He talked to anybody in the Ministry of Defence about what it was like having Williamson there. It literally was like having, what's his name, Pike from Dad's Army wandering around the place. So why does, why do they all feel that he has to be in the Cabinet?

• 7:50Rory Stewart?

  Let me give a stab at this. So Gavin Williamson came into Parliament with me, so I know him quite well. We joined in the same 2010 intake as.

• 7:57Alastair Campbell?

  Did you feel, did you feel he was distinguished on the first meeting or not?

• 8:00Rory Stewart?

  No, he's, he's a very, very interesting type of MP. His career was really made by David Cameron, who made him his Principal Private Secretary, his PPS, which is a sort of combination between a kind of bag carrier and liaison with MPs. Who were Tony Blair's PPSs? Who did he use in those roles?

• 8:22Alastair Campbell?

  Bruce Crocock, by the way, it's Parliamentary Private Secretary, not Principal Private Secretary. Parliamentary is the one that liaises with the MPs. Bruce Crocock, who was absolutely brilliant now in the House of Lords.

• 8:33Rory Stewart?

  Just remind us of what the job was and what made him brilliant.

• 8:36Alastair Campbell?

  One thing that was brilliant about Bruce, he was very, very different to Tony. His politics were very different. Bruce is a real kind of, Bruce is much closer to, to sort of Prescott than he is to Tony in terms of ideology. Bruce was, for example, Bruce would, he railed against us going to see Rupert Murdoch in, in Australia. He was not big on the choice agenda in public services. But what Tony valued him for was, was his ability, Bruce's ability to go around the PLP and to know everybody, to know what they were thinking, to feed it back and, and also to trust him to feed back what really mattered and what didn't. And then at one, one point we had David, we had David Hanson for a while.

• 9:17Alastair Campbell?

  But no, Tony, I'd say Bruce was the guy that sort of set the tone of what, what the PPS does.

• 9:23Rory Stewart?

  So Gavin Williamson came in and he came in after two other PPSs that David Cameron had had. He, he, he replaced Sam, Sam Gima, who you remember, he was, he left the Conservative Party over the EU referendum. And David Cameron adored Gavin Williamson and Gavin Williamson was very, very popular, particularly with a new group of MPs, many of whom had been councillors and northern seats who came in. He had good relationships with them. And David Cameron, very unusually, and this is the beginning of this whole story of Gavin Williamson, gave him a CBE, which is a really big medal that you would give to a very senior civil servant right at the very end of their career.

• 10:04Alastair Campbell?

  So why, why, why, why did he do that?

• 10:07Rory Stewart?

  So he must have felt, David Cameron must have felt that this was the ideal combination of a sort of palace whisperer who knew everything that was going on, who had the contact, the MPs, who gave him the gossip. So he established himself first for David Cameron and then for Theresa May as her chief whip. He developed this reputation of being, he was called the baby faced assassin. And he took, so he built a reputation as a kind of...

• 10:36Rory Stewart?

  Inside player, not somebody who'd ever been at the dispatch box, not somebody who'd ever run a department, but he had developed a reputation, kind of master of the dark arts, who knew all the MPs really well, knew where their buttons were and how to push them. And it became slightly comical. By the time he was Theresa May's chief whip, he'd got a tarantula, this spider on his desk as chief whip, which was part of trying to work up this baby-faced assassin reputation. And he had a bull whip as well. The whole thing was slightly improbable, because of course, as you can see. Weird is the word you're looking for. Well, when you see Gavin Williamson, he's not exactly kind of a big kind of bruiser. So this sort of persona of being this kind of master of the dark arts, threatening guy,

• 11:21Rory Stewart?

  sat slightly oddly with the fact that he's quite a sort of slight diminutive individual. Anyway, it clearly worked for David Cameron, clearly worked for Theresa May, because not only did she make him her chief whip, she then put him straight in as Defence Secretary when he'd never been a junior minister. The first time he appeared at a dispatch box in the House of Commons was already as Defence Secretary. He then played a very, very major part in bringing down. So he led Theresa May's election campaign, and then he flipped to Boris Johnson, turned against her. She fired him because she accused him of leaking from the National Security Council. So he immediately joined Boris Johnson, got right into the centre of Boris Johnson's campaign, ran his books for him, ran his MPs for him,

• 12:04Rory Stewart?

  got Boris Johnson in and was rewarded with being made Education Secretary. And the ridiculous knighthood. And then when Boris Johnson finally fired him as Education Secretary, because he wasn't performing as Education Secretary, as you said with that example, Debak, he negotiated with Boris Johnson to get an honour leaving. He wanted to get into the House of Lords, but he couldn't persuade Boris Johnson to put him in the House of Lords, so he got Boris Johnson to give him a knighthood. Now, how that works... Must be something to do with the fact that for all those three prime ministers, he must have been doing something behind the scenes which felt essential to him. He must have been selling himself as the kind of master of the dark arts. And then again, he managed to get himself into the centre of Rishi Sunak's leadership

• 12:46Rory Stewart?

  campaign and be rewarded again by Rishi Sunak, this time not with a major department. He's, I think, a junior officer and a junior minister in the Cabinet Office, but again, attending the Cabinet. And so I think it's a totally different career path and it suggests something very, very interesting about this man, which I've never been able to work out. I've never, in 10 years of working alongside him, I never really understood how this reputation of this baby-faced assassin had emerged, but certainly four prime ministers believed it.

• 13:17Alastair Campbell?

  What's really interesting about what you said there, I'd forgotten about the CBE. It's so obvious to me that this is somebody who cares more about these kind of establishment baubles. He would have got the CBE because he was begging David Cameron to give it to him.

• 13:32Rory Stewart?

  Yes.

• 13:33Alastair Campbell?

  You know, and he got the, he got the knighthood from Johnson because he was saying, look, if you do have to get rid of me, at least give me a knighthood. And this row with Wendy Morton, the former chief whip, and who he's accused of bullying and intimidating, it's all about him not going to the Queen's funeral. He cares more, and I think people would have a little bit of respect for him. I think people quite like people who know the dark arts. I think that, you know, Peter Mandelson and I have a reputation for knowing about the dark arts. I think that's sort of, I think that fits what we try to do with our politics. But if I felt, if I felt that he was using the dark arts because he actually really worried that Rishi Sunak didn't care enough about the future of the planet, or he really worried that head teachers in his Yorkshire constituency were worried about whether

• 14:16Alastair Campbell?

  they're going to have to sack teachers to pay off the, to pay down the energy bills, I'd have some respect for him, but it's all about, can I get a CBE? Can I get a knighthood? Am I being respected for being a Privy councillor? I mean, how pathetic is it to say to the chief whip, you're disrespecting the Privy council by not letting me go to the Queen's funeral? It's pathetic, Rory.

• 14:39Rory Stewart?

  He's also, strangely, I must say, is popular with MPs. People like him. Many, many, many MPs like him and I can kind of relate to that. He's, even though he was completely against me, he's, you know, he obviously ran Boris Johnson's campaign and was part of a lot of these funny leakings to newspapers with stories against me and stuff. He was also very, very good after the event about reaching out and saying, you know, how are you? And sending his best wishes through various other people.

• 15:08Alastair Campbell?

  Well, that's, Corey, that's big two-faced story. For God's sake, wise up, man, wise up. So basically, if you had ever been Prime Minister, he'd have been on to, do you remember that time when I phoned you and I said this, and, you know, could you possibly put me in the House of Lords? I'd like to be ambassador to Paris or Berlin or Washington, Rory. I mean, honestly, Rory, the guy's clearly a complete snake. And obviously, can you explain this to me? Because I'm, I just, I think the honour system is one of the things that's most ridiculous about our country. But that's my view. And I know that I'm in a minority on that. Okay, most people like it. But what is it that motivates these people? And now we have Johnson, there's Johnson. Well, let's talk, let's, let's sort of segue into COP,

• 15:50Alastair Campbell?

  via Boris Johnson and the honour system. There's a story in The Times this morning that his list, his resignation honour list is now complete. Now, as you know, I don't think you should have one. I think if you're a Prime Minister who resigns in disgrace, you should be, all these baubles should be taken away from you. So he's going to put Nadine Dorries in the House of Lords, ridiculous. And two spads, for God's sake, one of whom is 27 years old.

• 16:11Rory Stewart?

  Well, this is something that also was started by David Cameron, putting in a lot of spads, some of whom were quite young. David Cameron started this system. In fact, there was a big complaints about it from the House of Lords in 2016 of using it as a way of rewarding his inner circle of aides and advisers by putting them, putting them into the House of Lords. And you're right, Boris Johnson's taken it to a different degree. I mean, he's put his brother in the House of Lords, of course, he put Jay Johnson in the House of Lords.

• 16:39Alastair Campbell?

  But Rory, what is the motivation here? I just don't understand it on any level.

• 16:43Rory Stewart?

  What's the motivation for why people want to be in the House of Lords?

• 16:45Alastair Campbell?

  Or why, or why it matters so much that they have CBE, KBE? Why does it matter so much?

• 16:53Rory Stewart?

  I think the reason it matters so much is that...

• 16:55Alastair Campbell?

  They do know we don't have an empire anymore, don't they? They do know that.

• 16:59Rory Stewart?

  You're living from the sort of reflection of the fact that some people get it for doing worthwhile things. So obviously, there are, you know, leading astrophysicists, Nobel Prize winners, people who run amazing charities, extraordinary sports people who get these same awards. And I think a politician sort of hopes that somebody might mistake them for one of them. So obviously, if you're, if you, you know, given that other people who are called Sir Lord might be an amazing sportsman, an incredible actor, an extraordinary philanthropist, you might hope, you know, maybe you hope that they might think you're one of them. I mean, I experienced this myself. I, you know, one of the reasons obviously

• 17:44Rory Stewart?

  I'm a bit chippy about Gavin Williamson's CBE is I got an OBE in Iraq, when my compound was under siege and people were lobbing rockets. And so I was a bit kind of bitter that this guy spends a couple of years sitting in, sitting in number 10, and he gets a kind of bigger, bigger medal than me.

• 17:58Alastair Campbell?

  This is the problem with hierarchy. And it's like, it's like, you know, the, the, the MBE is the gateway drug. So he gets his CBE from Cameron, but it's not enough because he's looking at Sir Roger Gale, he's looking at all these Sir backbenchers who've been got it for being there for 20 years or for-

• 18:15Rory Stewart?

  There's something even more fundamental, isn't there, which is that behind it of the idea of knighthood is this extraordinary 1,000 year story of knights in shining armour, the honour of the knight.

• 18:28Alastair Campbell?

  It's all bollocks. Rory, it's all bollocks. Honestly.

• 18:35Rory Stewart?

  So that's what they're selling. They're selling knights in shining armour. I think the hope is that we can all feel when we become a knight that maybe we really are at the Battle of Ashencourt.

• 18:43Alastair Campbell?

  As opposed to we get subsidised meals for life in the House of Lords. I mean, it's utterly absurd. It's utterly absurd. Now, look, Rory, before we started this podcast, you said, I quote, "I think we should deal very quickly with Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson. We've spent far too much time on them." I just want to say, I thought Johnson looked ridiculous at COP, and he made a ridiculous speech. I think he's completely lost the plot in terms of how his shtick- Now makes people feel utterly revolted. Now, what did you make of Sunak's performance at COP?

• 19:15Rory Stewart?

  I thought he did well. And actually, interestingly, you may have picked up that he was almost the only world leader that the New York Times quoted. And they really liked the fact that he said Putin's war, the energy crisis, not a reason to go slow on the energy transition, but we should go faster on renewable energy was a real defining moment. And it was a very cheering moment because remember, we were in a situation with Liz Truss, where they were absolutely seemed with Liz Truss and Quasi Corten to be going full fracking, full move away from green agenda. And I thought it was very encouraging, whatever the reason, I mean, it might be political. I'm pleased that he at least thinks the politics should mean that he should be leaning into climate. I think that's good.

• 19:56Alastair Campbell?

  I thought that if you go to Caroline Lucas's Twitter feed, she was pretty scathing about about Sunak in terms of his record as Chancellor. And also, I think it's, although where he's in a very strong position at the moment, potentially a very strong position, although he's not really getting much of a boost in the polls for not being Liz Truss. His big strength is not being Boris Johnson and not being Liz Truss. And that means that, you know, saying things like, for example, we're not going to do the Royal Yacht, we are not going to have a sort of Volfass on fracking. These are, these are pretty easy wins for him. But I think that in really, I do think he damaged himself by indicating initially that he didn't want to go to COP, that he didn't think it was

• 20:40Alastair Campbell?

  as important as, as everybody else was saying. I think it's a good thing that he went. I thought his speech was okay. It didn't really get any, I'm surprised the New York Times saw it as being that newsworthy. I thought compared to Gutierrez's speech and some of the others, I thought it was pretty, pretty tepid, to be honest.

• 20:58Rory Stewart?

  Gutierrez, Gutierrez had the greatest line of Aldini. He said, we're on a highway to climate hell with one foot on the accelerator.

• 21:04Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, yeah. And the Daily Mail, by the way, seems to think that Ed Miliband is the cause of all our problems at the moment, which is quite a, quite a strange take.

• 21:12Rory Stewart?

  Till of course, it seemed as though the Conservative government then endorsed Ed Miliband's comments.

• 21:16Alastair Campbell?

  They did. It was funny. That was hilarious. They, they had a screaming front page about Red Ed wants to help out the poorest countries. And then Rishi Sunak, of course, echoed this, this thing. Actually, I want to talk a little bit about that, Rory. I do think the, one of the most interesting developments at COP is the fact that the, the, these very, some of them very, very small countries. Are getting traction in this debate about whether the big polluting nations should actually be offering, it's called loss and damage, but compensation and support to those who are literally facing existential threat. And I wonder whether, I think one of the things that that may have turned this debate is the fact that I sometimes lie

• 22:00Alastair Campbell?

  awake at night thinking about this single, this thing. One third of the entirety of Pakistan is currently under floodwater, a third of Pakistan. And so you've got these countries, Vanuatu is at the lead of this, you've got 16 countries who've come together and they're tabling a draft resolution at the the assembly in December, requesting that the International Court of Justice gives an advisory opinion on the rights and obligations of big states, the polluting states, in relation to the effect of climate change on the smaller ones. And even though it's only going to be symbolic and it won't be binding, I think it does show the debate moving in that direction.

• 22:41Rory Stewart?

  No, you're completely right. It's a huge issue, isn't it? I mean, obviously 50%, more than 50% of the emissions since 1850 have come from the wealthy countries of the world. And when you get down to small island nations like Vanuatu, remember, we actually promised that we have to talk more about Vanuatu on this show.

• 22:56Alastair Campbell?

  Wasn't it Tuvalu?

• 22:58Rory Stewart?

  It was Tuvalu, wasn't it? It's embarrassing, God.

• 23:00Alastair Campbell?

  Quite near, they're quite near to each other, but they're both at risk, both at risk.

• 23:03Rory Stewart?

  Thank you for picking me up on that. That's terrible. My listener from Tuvalu's going to be, our listener from Tuvalu's going to be horrified. But it's even more extreme when you get to Somalia, because Somalia is an example of somewhere four years now of consecutive drought, one of the poorest countries in the world. It emits nothing. You know, these countries do not remotely contribute to global warming, and yet they are the most extreme victims of it. And one of the things sadly at the heart of this is that we've been talking over 12 years since Paris about this mythical 100 billion that the world's supposed to be bringing together for climate. And of course, there's been a lot of focus on the fact we haven't got to 100 yet, maybe 85, 90. But much more

• 23:46Rory Stewart?

  important isn't that we haven't made it to 100, it's the fact that that 85 or 90 isn't really being spent in a way that remotely benefits the poorest countries on earth. Far too much of it actually is in the form of loans, not grants. It's very, very opaque. A loss of it is When it's even going into poor countries like Pakistan, it's going into things like transit systems. And what it isn't doing is doing the adaptation piece. So there's this kind of, for people who aren't following this every day, there's the kind of split between the mitigation piece, which is the energy transition, and the adaptation, which is developing the resilience and the response from these poorer countries. And that's really what we need to focus on. There's been a lot of talk about that. There's been

• 24:28Rory Stewart?

  commitment to getting together 40 billion by 2025, but there's not much sign of it happening yet. And it's heartbreaking because everything we've been talking about over the last few weeks, particularly when I've been recently in drought-affected areas of Kenya, where, as I say, you can see livestock dead, you can see maize crops being wiped out, you can see these extraordinary intense impacts, you know, one place wiped out by droughts and two miles away, another place doing better. There are things we could be doing for those communities very easily. Obviously, I would say we could do a lot more with cash, but there's many other things we could be doing for poor communities. And the money is simply not being made available.

• 25:08Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think you've mentioned several times in recent weeks in your African travels, travels around various parts of Africa, that it really is sort of taking a big hit of all the problems. Here's a quiz question for you, Rory. What percentage of emissions does the entire continent of Africa emit?

• 25:27Rory Stewart?

  Ooh, 2%?

• 25:29Alastair Campbell?

  Bang on, just over 2%. So just over 2% comes from Africa, which is taking, I know you can't quantify this, but a very, very large share. So that's the argument that is going to be at the heart of this loss and damage. And when you look at, I'm just looking now at a map of, I was actually trying to check how far Tuvalu and

• 25:49Rory Stewart?

  You're trying to Google, I thought you didn't do Google.

• 25:53Alastair Campbell?

  I'm looking at a map on the conversation. And if you look at, so there's Australia, and then you look across there, Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, French Polynesia, Tuvalu. I mean, you're talking about countries, and I was watching, I know you're a massive rugby league fan, Rory, and you'd be watching the quarterfinal between Samoa and Tonga, which is probably the match of the tournament. But Samoa and Tonga, which are in this kind of part of the world that we're talking about. The combined population is just over 300,000. You're talking about dozens of islands, with the most, many of which are populated by quite small populations.

• 26:32Alastair Campbell?

  Now, for them to have the political clout that they're going to require to be saved, I think is very, it's a very, very big call unless you've got the big countries with you. And of course, what was, I don't, you know, what was really disappointing about Boris Johnson's, the comments he did make at COP, he was basically going down the kind of, you know, inward looking nationalist line. You can't expect the rich countries to bail out the poor was essentially his message. And the worry I have about Sunak is that I am very, very, very alarmed about this situation in relation to your old beat of international aid and development. I don't know if you've been following this debate, but the extent to which the, the shrunken

• 27:12Alastair Campbell?

  budget for aid and development is now going actually on projects that are inside the UK. It's an accounting trick that is allowing him to talk the talk on development, but actually not walk the walk.

• 27:26Rory Stewart?

  Well, it, no, I agree. And maybe when we come back from our break, we could do a little bit on that.

• 27:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And I, I think for this reason though, Rory, I'm putting, I've still got Braverman as my favorite in the list for the first resignation, but I think Williams is kind of up there. Williamson's up there with her now. I think Penny Mordaunt's on my list, but I think Andrew Mitchell's going to have to enter my list quite soon because I don't think Andrew will be able to take the sort of con that I think number 10 in the Treasury are trying to pull on us about aid and development.

• 27:57Rory Stewart?

  Time for a break.

• 28:45Speaker 02

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• 28:58Speaker 03

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• 30:00Rory Stewart?

  So, welcome back to The Rest is Politics with me, Rory Stewart.

• 30:03Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Alastair Campbell. And I think we're going to go international now. Let's stay international. Let's try not to mention any of these political-

• 30:11Rory Stewart?

  Horrible things. Well, on the international, here's something that I think we haven't maybe talked about as much maybe as we could. We've talked about the incredible impact of climate on smaller island nations and on Sub-Saharan Africa. But of course, the two biggest polluters of all, China and the United States, are now suffering from very, very extreme drought. China's experienced the worst drought since records began, right the way along the Yangtze River Basin. If people are interested, there's a very, very moving, disturbing BBC clip, which you can watch, of kind of parched, eviscerated soil, bridges in rivers that no longer exist, temples and lakes that no longer exist. And of course, in the United States, California seems to be on track to experience-

• 30:57Rory Stewart?

  What seems to be the longest prolonged drought in 1,200 years. They can get very, very accurate information from tree rings on moisture content in the soil. And what seems to have happened is it's not so much about the precipitation, about the rainfall. It's about the rise in mean temperature, which means that even when it does rain. So 2005, there was a rain event. It didn't replenish the aquifers in the way that people hoped. And even now, this year's been a tiny bit better than last year, but the reservoirs are still a very long way down. And people are assuming November to March, we're going to go into another year of drought. And that wipes out all the way from Colorado to California, something like 20, 30% of the fruit and vegetables in the United States.

• 31:39Rory Stewart?

  So the US and China are really beginning to experience it now. But of course, Xi Jinping not at the climate conference, Kerry not able to get a meeting with his offset number, Biden not turning up till Friday.

• 31:51Alastair Campbell?

  I think we can excuse Biden to have to be around for the midterms. Of course, the midterm elections, well, you know, by the time this comes out, we'll start to know how they've gone. But the reason why they're so important is for issues like this. I mean, just imagine if the Republicans now get a grip of the, and literally stop anything that Biden tries to do. So Biden's actually done some pretty good stuff on climate, I think, and his infrastructure stuff and his inflation stuff. Right, so he's done all that and they can't necessarily unpick that. But other things that he may try to do, they're just going to block it out of ideological reasons. And likewise with, so on climate, you know, when you have part of, I've never understood it, but part of this kind of radical right is the sort of the climate denying.

• 32:36Alastair Campbell?

  Part of the radical right is why are we bothering about Ukraine? Why are we spending all the money in Ukraine? So these are huge issues that could get tipped into a very dark place very quickly by people that we, most of us will never meet around the United States, basically saying, oh, I don't like Biden, or I do like Trump, or whatever it might be. It's pretty scary stuff.

• 32:56Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so again, for listeners, just to remind people the very basic facts. Obviously, midterms election is happening as we're recording, so we haven't got the results yet. But we're going to the midterms with the Senate 50 50, 50 Republican, 50 Democrat, with the Vice President Kamala Harris with the controlling vote. And the House controlled by the Democrats at the moment. Very interesting. I mean, if you if you look at all the US polls today in the run up to this election, there is simply no consensus at the moment on how it's going to pan out. And it will turn out pretty soon that we will discover either that the Democrats managed to hold on to the Senate, which is going to depend basically on two or three seats,

• 33:38Rory Stewart?

  or we could have a situation with a Republican landslide. And it's very interesting that polling that back in the seventies and eighties seemed to be pretty accurate is now so uncertain of itself. They simply can't tell whether there are a lot of right wing voters who are not speaking out, or whether the turnout is going to be completely different to what they expected.

• 33:56Alastair Campbell?

  I tell you what I find very, very scary is the number of Republicans who are starting to echo the Trump messaging around you can only trust the result if I win.

• 34:07Rory Stewart?

  Pennsylvania and Arizona, which are two of the big battleground seats, along with Georgia and Nevada for the Senate. Those two, Pennsylvania and Arizona, are stop the steal candidates. In other words, people who are absolutely with Trump on the January 6th and who are refusing, as you say, to accept the results of the election in advance.

• 34:26Alastair Campbell?

  Just to go back briefly to China, one of the most, I think, significant and interesting events of recent days was Olaf Scholz's visit to China, for which he's been getting a lot of criticism at home. And this does also relate to Ukraine, because I guess if you boil down the criticism, it is that he is making with Xi Jinping the same mistake, as his opponents would say, that Merkel made with Putin. In other words, that the kind of the trade relationship, the economic partnership is so fundamental to Germany. China has been Germany's biggest trading partner for the last six years, 245 billion

• 35:11Alastair Campbell?

  euros in 2021. But what's interesting is, of course, you've got Xi there as a kind of dictator, with Scholz, a Democrat, and the leader of a three-pronged coalition.

• 35:26Alastair Campbell?

  The other two prongs of which have been very, very critical of this visit and of what he said when he was there. So Baerbock, his foreign minister, essentially saying he's not speaking out enough on human rights, and Lindner, his finance minister, saying we have to have a completely different approach. And the other thing that's going on is Macron had made a suggestion that he and Scholz go together to signal that this was a kind of a European approach and that Europe was the, I mean, Europe, let's be honest, that you've got China and America as the superpowers, as you say, European Union combined is the only one that can get even close. And Scholz was pretty clear that he wanted to go on his own. And although he said that he raised human rights and he raised all these other

• 36:08Alastair Campbell?

  issues, both of his coalition partners were very, very, very antsy.

• 36:13Rory Stewart?

  It's very odd, isn't it? I mean, so he's the first foreign leader to make one of these visits since the pandemic.

• 36:19Alastair Campbell?

  Well, he's the first G7 leader, I think.

• 36:21Rory Stewart?

  And he's turned up, of course Putin's been there. And he turned up with a big business delegation. And it's completely at odds with the direction in which US-China policy and EU-China policy is going, which is to try to provide a bit of separation, provide a little bit of resilience, try to diversify away from China so that we're not repeating with China the problem, as you said, that happened with Russia, which is that if we're so completely dependent on the Chinese economy for everything, from our semiconductor chips to our rare earths and this, that and the other, most of our goods, it's very difficult for us to respond if China starts acting more aggressively around the world. So it makes sense in every way to disentangle from China. So why is he doing it?

• 37:02Alastair Campbell?

  I think it must be primarily because of his worries about the economy. I think the other thing I'd say is that China is more important to Germany than Russia. The German economy needs China, especially now. German business, it's interesting, as you say, that he took some of the biggest German brands with him, some of the car companies, some of the digital companies, he took them with him. They want more China, not less. And the other thing, I think, this is maybe the bit that you can say in his defence, I think we underestimate how worried the Germans are.

• 37:35Alastair Campbell?

  About Putin and battlefield nuclear weapons. And I think he maybe thinks that the only lever, genuine lever of influence on Putin, if we get to that stage, would be China, as opposed to America, as opposed to the United Nations, it would be China that maybe holds him back a bit. And I also think that maybe Schultz thinks that Merkel ceded too much to Macron as the leader of Europe, and he was reasserting himself in that way as well. But I think it was, and what I think was really interesting, Rory, was that it's always, whenever you have these meetings with China, it's always important, yes, of course, that you can read the German readout of the meeting, but it's always important to go and see what the Chinese have said.

• 38:18Alastair Campbell?

  The Chinese lied on this meeting was, China always regards Europe as a comprehensive strategic partner, supports the European Union's strategic autonomy, hopes to see a stable and prosperous Europe, and insists that China-Europe relations are not targeted at, or subjugated to, or controlled by any third party. In other words, I basically said to him, you lot are too reliant on the United States of America, and you should stop letting them push you around.

• 38:46Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so I think, I think potentially a mistake from Schultz, not something that's played well from domestically, not something that makes a great deal of strategic sense, difficult for European Union unity, breaking with the US, and a slightly uncomfortable initiative to take in the aftermath of Russia-Ukraine.

• 39:04Alastair Campbell?

  Six individual cabinet ministers said in advance of the trip that they were against it. There was huge opposition to this deal that's been done between Germany and Costco, which is China's state-owned shipping company, who have now got a minority stake in one of Hamburg's port terminals. And there was a wonderful quote from the head of German domestic intelligence, he went to a Bundestag committee, Thomas Haldenbank, and he said, if Russia is the storm, China is the climate change. And so he was expressing real concern that Schultz was getting too close.

• 39:46Rory Stewart?

  That's a very good line. On Russia, Ukraine, I don't know whether listeners are interested in just getting back to that for a little bit of an update. So people remember that there were, well, first thing that's incredible to remember is that this is only a story of this year. And it feels to people it's been going on a long time, but it's going on less than, I guess, 300 days. So the big news stories, there were these big advances in the northeast a few weeks ago, where Ukraine very surprisingly took back quite a lot of Russian territory. And at that stage, it was pretending that it was going to move down to Kherson in the southeast, which it's now doing. And Kherson is the only, this is a major city, major district capital, and it's the Russian territory on the west

• 40:31Rory Stewart?

  side of the Dnipro River. And this is going to become the real horrifying battleground of the war in the next few weeks, because most of the population, we don't really know, but probably 80, 90% of the population of Kherson has left, the Russian government has left, the Russian troops have withdrawn to the east bank, and they seem to be trying to draw the Ukrainians into some kind of horrible Stalingrad-style urban warfare in the center of Kherson. Kherson's very, very important, because that's part of that whole strip which connects Crimea back to the rest of Russia. It's that whole strip of territory in southern Ukraine, which the Russians captured. And I suppose the only other thing that's

• 41:13Rory Stewart?

  changed in the last, since we did the pod last, is increasing use by the Russians of these Iranian drones, these kamikaze drones. So these are cheap drones with bombs on cheap, cheap in comparative terms. I think they cost probably $10,000, $20,000 a piece, but compared to a million-dollar cruise missile, cheap. And the Russians are firing them in very large numbers. They're not quite swarms, they're not quite talking to each other, but 20 or 30 at a time will come crashing in. And the biggest threat at the moment to Ukraine is that the electricity can be cut out in Kiev. And if the electricity goes, the sewage goes, the water supply goes, and they would have to evacuate the city of Kiev.

• 41:51Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, your point about it being, you know, still this year, as it were. And, you know, we've talked before in relation to the sort of political churn about how the pace of change now is so fast that we just get used to things so quickly. I do think that one of the things that Putin is banking on is the sense of, obviously he wants the Republicans to get more power in the United States because he thinks that weakens the will that, to be fair to Biden, I think has been there. He wants this division in Europe and we've seen, we've been talking about that in relation to Germany just now, he wants a division in Europe. But we've just become kind of almost immune and anesthetised to what's going on. I was reading the Financial Times at the weekend and you mentioned Kherson there and

• 42:35Alastair Campbell?

  I don't, funny enough, I just cut this out. Very occasionally you read something in a newspaper that sort of takes your breath away. So this is from Christopher Miller, who's reporting from Ukraine. I'll just read the first two paragraphs. Natalia Chona had warned her more outspoken twin sister to be careful after Russian forces occupied their hometown of Skadovsk near Kherson, southern Ukraine in February. Petetiana Mudryenko found it hard to keep her anger about the war to herself. Last month, Mudryenko paid the ultimate penalty for proclaiming Skadovsk Ukrainian territory. She was dragged into the street by the self-appointed pro-Moscow authorities and hanged. "In occupied Skadovsk, you cannot have your own opinion," said Chona, her sister, aged 56.

• 43:20Alastair Campbell?

  I just thought, that's kind of, we know it's happening, but we've sort of forgotten? And it's why I mentioned last week the Spiegel podcast about that 16-year-old boy. I think, I think part of the game of the, when the politics is played out at this top level, the big leader says this to that big leader. And now, of course, the other interesting development this week, Roy, I'm sure this is not new, but it's emerged and the Americans have confirmed that Jake Sullivan, who is one of Biden's most important advisers, National Security Advisor, that they've confirmed that he has been having ongoing discussions with his opposite number, Nikolai Patrochev, and also this guy, Yushkov, who is one of Putin's most important advisers within the

• 44:05Alastair Campbell?

  Kremlin. And I think there's part of the world goes, oh, that's terrible, how can they be talking to each other when they're doing all this? But to be absolutely honest, I'd be very worried if they weren't having those. Kind of contacts.

• 44:15Rory Stewart?

  It's a very longstanding thing, isn't it? I mean, it goes all the way back to the famous telephone on the president's desk, that right back to the Cold War, a very strong notion that even in the depths of a confrontation with Russia, you have to keep those back channels of communication open, particularly if you're worried about an escalation. I think, stepping down the bigger picture, though, I do think that the surprise for Putin will still be how resilient the Western coalition behind Ukraine remains. He massively underestimated, obviously, in the spring, people's willingness to come to support Ukraine. He will have thought that Germany in particular couldn't afford to. He certainly will have felt over the last few months, as he's seen the energy prices

• 44:57Rory Stewart?

  skyrocket and our economies basically tripped into recession because of Ukraine and governments falling because of Ukraine. He will have been expecting all the time that politicians would emerge and they would see the opportunity to say, there's an easy way of sorting out the energy crisis, there's an easy way of sorting out inflation, there's an easy way of getting our economies growing, and that is to open up the gas pipelines with Russia and sell Ukraine out to Russia. And what's so interesting is that that hasn't happened. And we're now going into the winter, and again, many of his intelligence advisers will have been saying, this will be the critical breaking point. We've talked about this with Giorgia Meloni's election in Italy, that a lot of that was

• 45:40Rory Stewart?

  to do with the horrifying costs that Italians are facing as they go into winter. But the truth is, even in Germany and Italy, which are feeling this very, very hard, and of course, we're feeding it in Britain hard, people are remaining together. You know, Macron remains very, very strongly committed, the British government remains very strongly committed, and the Germans, after a bit of wobbling, basically are remaining together. And there's no major politician. Anywhere in Europe at the moment, who's taking Putin's side on this?

• 46:08Alastair Campbell?

  However, this is why the midterms are going to be so important. If the dynamic within the United States changes, then that becomes, that's what Putin's banking on. Putin's sitting there hoping he can sit this out until Trump or a Trump, you know, Trump light is in the White House. And the winter, the winter is going to be such a test of that morale and that support and people's cohesion. But I really do think it's important when we're talking about all this on the sort of geopolitical side. That, that report really kind of hit me between the teeth. Somebody who literally had just been critical, just gone out and expressed their view and, and she was hanging for her troubles.

• 46:45Rory Stewart?

  Being effectively lynched.

• 46:46Alastair Campbell?

  Now, what about, Rory, within your, in your holidaying round, did you get time to listen to my chat with Julia Gillard?

• 46:53Rory Stewart?

  I did, and why don't, why didn't we finish with that? I, I thought that was a really, really lovely interview and I thought she came across incredibly well. She was a sort of interesting example of somebody who, I mean, I do, you know, we, we keep having this conversation. She's part of my general theory that ex politicians are more interesting than serving politicians. Because she's able to stand back and she can talk about some of the damage that politics did. She was very good, I thought, on how difficult it is being a woman in politics, but also the incredible abuse on social media. I mean, it's not just, I mean, it's particularly bad for women, but even for men. It has become a very, very unpleasant profession. I mean, the amount of abuse and hatred that's piled on politicians and how difficult it is to persuade people to stand.

• 47:37Alastair Campbell?

  No, she called it a vile sewer, but at the same time, she was very clear that even though it is a vile sewer, and even though young women will get a lot of abuse if they go into politics, she hopes that that doesn't put them off. I thought she was great and we, the, the response from, from our listeners was, was overwhelming. We've got a lot of messages, by the way, saying Rory, we need to do, if we're going to do more of these interviews, have to get more women. So I can now reveal Rory as, as the non-competitive but absolute leader in the fight to get good interviewees on this podcast. Next up will be Helen Clark, another former-

• 48:10Rory Stewart?

  Well done.

• 48:10Alastair Campbell?

  Prime Minister.

• 48:11Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 48:12Alastair Campbell?

  New Zealand, big, big in the development world, of course, as you know.

• 48:14Rory Stewart?

  That's very good.

• 48:15Alastair Campbell?

  So we'll be doing, so I, I'm, I'm challenging you, I'm challenging you to find me a good female leader.

• 48:21Rory Stewart?

  I'm, I'm going to cheat because I'm going to say to anyone listening to this podcast. Who knows Ellen Johnson-Surleif, the former president of Liberia? Can we please persuade her on?

• 48:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I can, I can get her. Don't worry.

• 48:34Rory Stewart?

  Just in case Alistair doesn't, anyone else listening, please get us Ellen Johnson-Surleif.

• 48:38Alastair Campbell?

  Tony is the root. Tony is the root to that one. But Helen, but anyway, I thought, I thought, I thought Julie was, was terrific and, and I don't know if you saw her yet again, despite these pesky challenges, we had episode one, two and three in the chart.

• 48:54Rory Stewart?

  Pretty strange. I'm not quite sure what's going on there.

• 48:56Alastair Campbell?

  Even with your unsexy voice.

• 48:58Rory Stewart?

  Great to see you. Glad my voice is back. Well done on Julie Gilard and look forward to talking again next week.

• 49:03Alastair Campbell?

  All the best. Bye.

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