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Just go to the rest is politics calm. That's

0:11

the rest is politics calm Welcome

0:21

to the rest is politics question time with me. I'll

0:23

just Campbell and me Rory Stewart Now

0:25

Rory got a very nice question here from

0:27

Rhiannon. Who's an American? Says

0:30

she loves the rest is politics us with

0:32

Scaramucci and Katty K But

0:35

she feels that because of them she worries

0:37

that we've not been talking as much about

0:39

America as we normally do I

0:41

think that's probably because we've got our own elections going on now, but

0:43

she's got a fair point She wants to know

0:45

what our current take is on the American elections. Okay?

0:48

Well, I'd love to hear from you, but

0:50

very quickly just as a bit of an explainer from me the

0:54

opinion polls in America are Absolutely

0:57

astonishing first thing is that it's

0:59

a knife edge and This

1:01

is the sort of thing that's been happening over

1:03

the last few years in American politics The

1:05

Republicans the Democrats are getting closer

1:07

and closer if you go back in time go back 50 60

1:10

70 years There

1:12

were often periods where one

1:14

party would be have the presidency for

1:18

many terms and you'd often have

1:20

a situation in which They

1:22

would dominate the Senate or

1:24

Congress you get 60 Senate seats 59 Senate seats

1:28

We're now in a world in which particularly

1:31

over the last 30 years The president

1:34

often loses control of the

1:36

Senate and Congress and

1:38

where even if a party wins the

1:40

Senate They're celebrating if they're up at sort

1:42

of 51 to 49 So

1:45

it's an on a knife edge Second

1:48

thing is that Biden is

1:51

presiding over a Democratic Party, which is

1:54

Changing very very dramatically It's

1:57

very much a party of the

1:59

same cities, and

2:01

the Republicans are very much a party

2:03

now outside the metropolitan

2:06

areas, rural areas. Biden

2:09

is also, for the first time,

2:11

unlike any previous Democratic president, doing

2:14

a bit better, holding on

2:16

to certain groups like older

2:19

white men. Now why is that strange? That's

2:21

strange because normally, look at Britain,

2:23

look at Europe, you'd expect older

2:25

white men to be voting right

2:27

wing and to be going

2:29

over towards Trump. In a complete

2:31

inversion of our expectations, Trump is now

2:34

picking up a surprising number of

2:37

Hispanic voters and African

2:39

American voters, and particularly

2:41

picking up young voters. So

2:43

there's a very interesting phenomenon going on, which is

2:45

that Trump has almost certainly taken a lot of

2:48

the seats, a lot of the states in the

2:50

South, all the way

2:52

from Florida across to Arizona, which used to be

2:54

swing states. Now look partly

2:56

from Hispanic voters as though they're going to go over to

2:58

Trump. That means the

3:00

election is going to come down basically

3:03

to Michigan, Pennsylvania,

3:06

Wisconsin, and in

3:08

those three states, the question

3:10

will be turnout. If

3:12

Biden wins comfortably, it

3:14

will be because some of

3:17

these voter groups, for example, young black men

3:20

who say they want to vote Trump will not

3:22

turn out. That will lead to a comfortable Biden

3:24

victory in those states. If

3:26

on the other hand, he can mobilize them, and

3:29

mobilizing them is weird because he doesn't have a

3:31

ground machine. The

3:34

Republicans never had a ground machine for mobilizing young

3:36

black voters in Detroit because traditionally they always voted

3:38

left if they voted at all. And

3:41

anyway, he doesn't build a ground machine. He's doing it all on social

3:43

media. But he is

3:45

by far the best known figure

3:47

in American politics. He's on everybody's

3:49

social media every day. And

3:51

the question is, is that going to lead

3:53

to turnout? Anyway, over to you. Since we

3:55

interviewed Anthony Scaramucci on leading quite a long

3:58

time ago now, I have quoted him. to

4:00

people so many times because he gave that very

4:02

compelling analysis to why he thought Trump couldn't win.

4:05

I noticed this week on the Rest of

4:07

His Politics US, I sensed a bit of

4:09

doubt in him for the first time. He

4:12

was still saying, ah, I think Joel did in the end, but

4:15

he sounded more doubtful. I think he was worried

4:17

about the way that the debate was

4:19

going. And I wonder if this question from William Hogg might

4:22

be behind some of the reasoning. William Hogg, I'm

4:24

no fan of Trump. I think the man lacks

4:26

a moral compass. Why is it that you both

4:28

don't seem to give enough attention to

4:31

Biden's physical state? It's striking that he often

4:33

resembles my late grandfather in the latter part

4:36

of his life when he was suffering

4:38

from Alzheimer's. Often seems unaware of

4:40

his surroundings, what's going on around him. There was a

4:42

clip of Maloney at the G7

4:44

where Biden did look like he was

4:46

just wandering off and below he grabbed

4:49

his arm and pulled him back. I

4:51

think Biden, look, he is old. There's

4:53

no doubt about that. I've told

4:55

you before about this thing with the way that he walks

4:57

is actually an old kind of knee injury as much as,

4:59

you know, the unsteadiness on his feet.

5:03

But you've said, to be

5:05

fair to you, you've said for a long time,

5:07

you thought that this age thing for Biden and

5:09

energy was going to become a big deal. But

5:11

if you just think about last week, he

5:13

had to be in America governing,

5:16

doing some pretty big things and all

5:18

sorts of different issues. He then had

5:20

to go overseas. He then went back

5:22

to and Cathy Kay and Scaram,

5:25

which he talked about this other rather

5:27

movingly, go back to kind of be

5:29

with his son Hunter when he was in

5:31

trouble in court, then get back on the plane

5:33

and go to the G7. We're

5:35

actually notwithstanding the moment where he walked away.

5:37

I thought he looked OK,

5:40

but there's no doubt the age is

5:43

an issue that you're right that the Democrats have

5:45

always been pretty good at the get out the

5:47

vote mobilization. I suspect the Republicans

5:49

will have a better operation on the ground this

5:51

time than they did last time. Trump fought it.

5:53

Trump has set up surprisingly few campaign headquarters. I

5:55

mean, it is very, very weird how little ground

5:58

operation he has and how little ground operation. he

6:00

had when he won in

6:02

2016. The biggest issue

6:04

though that seems to matter for

6:07

Trump voters at the

6:09

margins, so the key swing voters that they need.

6:12

In the background, of course, are all these big

6:14

kind of cultural things, the culture war going on

6:16

between the two sides on many issues. So

6:19

a very large number of Trump voters

6:21

when you ask them say that they

6:24

feel that the world is basically prejudiced

6:26

against white men. So they feel that

6:28

there's racism against white people, they feel

6:30

that there's sexism against men. So there's

6:32

a lot of that in the background.

6:35

And of course, on the democratic side, a lot of

6:37

people voting because they're very, very angry about the Supreme

6:39

Court's decision on abortion. Yeah,

6:41

but the people that are going to make the

6:44

difference at the moment look like they're people who

6:46

are voting on cost of living. And

6:48

that's where you can see in focus groups, young

6:51

black men saying, look,

6:54

I don't like Trump. I agree.

6:56

He's a racist. I agree. He treats women badly.

6:59

But to be honest, I felt better off in my

7:01

pocket when he was in office than

7:03

I do now. And this is

7:05

a couple of things that's very difficult. Obviously, you

7:08

and I are passionately anti Donald Trump, you know,

7:10

we're not open on this. But

7:12

we also have an obligation to try to

7:15

be open about problems here. And I

7:17

often get attacked for this by my friends in

7:19

the US who say, how dare you say that

7:21

people are feeling cost of living pain? How

7:24

dare you say Biden's too old, because that's

7:26

playing into Trump's hands. But

7:28

the truth is, it cannot make

7:30

sense for the Democrats to now think

7:32

that they can campaign on the economy.

7:35

Because it doesn't work to say

7:37

to people, this is Rishi Sunak's mistake to to say

7:39

to people, you may feel worse

7:41

off. But let me point to some macroeconomic

7:44

indicator that shows that inflation is down or

7:46

the economy is growing or employment's up. It

7:48

doesn't work. I mean, if you feel you're

7:51

paying more for your groceries, you're paying more for

7:53

gas doesn't matter the politician. But Biden does have

7:55

a pretty powerful economic storage hotel. I don't think

7:57

he should give up on that. But I think

7:59

where you're right is that he needs perhaps to

8:01

be speaking more to the actual

8:03

reality of people's feelings about the state of

8:05

their life. And that's definitely true of Sounac.

8:08

I mean, that's the thing he doesn't get

8:10

at all. Well, so my question, I guess,

8:12

asked a few is, should he not, given

8:14

that most of the polls suggest that if

8:17

you ask people who's better on the economy, Trump

8:19

wins by quite a long margin, he

8:22

needs to move the argument on to

8:24

why Trump is a fundamental threat to

8:26

democracy? Well, well, and also

8:28

and also because of that, a

8:30

fundamental threat to American

8:32

standard of living, Americans place in the world,

8:34

etc. Now, I think there's something in that

8:37

similar question. Lord Bird, I didn't know

8:39

that John Bird was in the House of Lords, founder

8:41

of the big issue. I'm sure you're a regular reader.

8:43

I am as founder of the

8:45

big issue. I wanted to ask with

8:47

50% of people who have cardiac illnesses

8:49

suffering from food poverty, according to the

8:51

BMA, do you think here

8:53

some will make his dismantling of poverty central

8:56

to his administration? Well, I hope so.

8:58

But I've

9:01

said before that I don't think that poverty

9:03

is central to the debate at the

9:05

moment as it should be. You know, if

9:08

you go back to the the manifesto

9:10

launch, and you and I both read

9:12

the manifesto in full, you

9:14

would definitely know that Labour wants to tackle

9:16

poverty. But I don't think you can say

9:18

that it was central to the way that

9:20

they were projecting the manifesto. It's

9:22

not. And I think it's a great pity. And

9:24

there was an interview which I'm which West Streeting

9:26

gave, which, you know, got a

9:28

bit of play on social media, where he was

9:31

asked, you know, why he was being supportive of

9:33

pensioners and not young people in poverty. And he

9:36

gave what sounded maybe

9:38

he regrets it, but like a pretty right wing answer. What

9:40

did he say? He said, I if I was

9:42

I'd go out and get a job. And it was a

9:45

little bit like when I was interviewing him and

9:47

trying to talk about prisoners,

9:51

and I think I raised the homeless. He

9:55

said that he would prefer the

9:57

money going into education and health.

10:00

And I can understand that,

10:02

but I think Labour's missing a

10:05

huge opportunity to be

10:08

a party that represents better values,

10:10

hope, and that they could do

10:12

it in a way that didn't damage them in the

10:14

election might even help them. Let's

10:16

imagine you're appealing to somebody like me,

10:18

who's the kind of old sort

10:21

of centre-left conservative. I

10:23

would want to feel that I was voting

10:26

for a party that said it's

10:28

disgraceful and disgusting that there are people

10:30

living in such extreme poverty in Britain,

10:32

that there are this number

10:34

of homes that prisoners are treated in such a

10:37

horrible way. These are things which are quite cheap

10:39

to address. And

10:41

an incoming Labour administration should

10:44

be able to put that at the centre of

10:46

its moral mission and project.

10:48

It wouldn't cost that much money. And I think

10:50

it would sit very well with traditional Labour values.

10:53

I think some of those things would cost a

10:55

lot of money, but I agree with you. And

10:57

also, when we talked to Bridget Phillips on Leading

10:59

This Week, she rightly pointed out

11:01

that Surestar, which I think was one of our

11:04

most successful policies, I'd forgotten

11:06

this, but she was right. We proposed

11:08

that and implemented it in government, not

11:10

as a kind of... So we said

11:12

vaguely in the manifesto, we will try

11:14

to tackle child poverty, and

11:16

then the programme followed. But I just feel that

11:18

it goes back to the point I made on

11:21

the main podcast about apathy as well and turnout.

11:24

I think that if people feel they're not central

11:26

to the election debate that they hear and follow,

11:28

and bearing in mind, as we said yesterday, that

11:30

lots of people are just ducking out of the

11:32

debate completely, then it makes them less likely to

11:34

go out and vote. And so I think

11:36

that people who are living in poverty have

11:38

to be given some hope that

11:40

the next government is going to put them centre

11:42

stage in terms of its priorities. It's interesting. It's

11:45

an argument that would appeal to the right as

11:47

well as the left. When we interviewed Alex Chalk,

11:49

who's the Conservative Justice Secretary on

11:51

Leading, he produced something which

11:54

I think he called the visiting French minister

11:56

test, which is, would I be

11:58

proud to show... visiting

12:00

French minister and the answer is you would

12:02

not be proud to show them the homelessness

12:04

on the streets of London. You

12:06

would not be proud to show them the type of

12:08

poverty people are living in. I mean part of being

12:10

a serious economy, a serious

12:12

country, a beacon to the world, an example

12:15

of what a democracy should be, is about

12:18

looking after the most vulnerable, marginalize the

12:20

poorest, best. Alison, a question

12:22

from Joe Woldook. You both told us what your

12:24

fathers did for a living but the question was

12:27

about parents. So what about your mothers?

12:29

And before I get onto that, I noticed that in

12:31

a tribute to your father, maybe because it was Father's

12:33

Day yesterday, you finally decided

12:35

to put on your northern vet shirt,

12:38

which we don't often see. In fact,

12:40

you're often you're mocking me. I'm wearing a sort of version

12:43

of the same thing. What is it,

12:45

Alison, that finally has led you to embrace

12:47

your father's dress sense on the rest of

12:49

his politics? Well, you're right. It is definitely

12:51

a northern vet shirt. I'll tell you what

12:53

it is. I, as you know, whenever I

12:55

travel, I never, ever, ever, ever put luggage

12:57

in the hold. Yes. I went to Australia

12:59

for several weeks with a suit carrier and

13:01

a wheelie, a short small wheelie bag. So

13:04

what I do with shirts, if I'm going away for

13:06

more than a few days, I

13:08

wear, I take shirts that are less

13:10

likely to crease in a suit carrier

13:12

that's going on. So this material is

13:15

just better for not, but

13:17

I'm glad that you saw some deep paternal. Can I

13:19

just push the deep paternal one more time? I know

13:21

I'm not your therapist, but when

13:24

we were talking about it, just offline,

13:26

not being in for you, but just chatting, you

13:28

said you remembered your father being sort of spattered

13:30

with cow poo and coming in and his check

13:33

shirt. And you have haven't

13:36

decided to live a life as a

13:38

rural vet handling large animals. You've chosen

13:40

to live a life more absorbed with

13:43

ideas and newspapers, and you live in

13:45

a city. Tell me about

13:47

that. Why did having a father who was

13:50

there struggling with unwieldy cows and getting spattered with

13:52

cow poo not lead you to think what I

13:54

want to do is embrace

13:56

the remote rural existence. Well,

13:59

I do notice Roy. And I think our feminist

14:01

listeners will notice, you've taken a question

14:03

about mothers to

14:05

talk about fathers. I'll answer this before we

14:07

then talk about my mother and what

14:09

she did with her life. I think

14:12

the answer is that I was absolutely useless at science.

14:14

I was always, I used to love going out with

14:16

my dad in his rounds, I did. I used to

14:18

love that, particularly when we lived in Yorkshire, because it

14:20

was so beautiful. And he was a big farm animal.

14:22

He was Harvey Smith's vet, you know, the famous show

14:24

jumper. We used to love going to see

14:26

him. And he

14:29

liked being out on the big farms. And

14:31

I worked on a farm most of the, every summer holiday

14:33

I worked on my own farm. And you liked it in?

14:35

In Scotland. I loved it, I loved it. The only thing

14:38

that really did put me off is that I

14:40

got then and I still get terrible hay fever.

14:42

The hay season is absolutely horrific. But no, I

14:44

loved it, I absolutely loved it. And I would

14:47

love to have been a vet in

14:49

some ways, but I just, you know, I

14:51

was very, very good at school, apart from

14:53

at physics, chemistry and biology,

14:55

the three things that you need. Now

14:58

on my mother, I don't know about your mother, but my mother,

15:00

when she got married to my dad,

15:02

and when my brother Donald came along, she

15:04

just decided that was going to be her

15:07

role in life. She did what the

15:09

Paul Dakers of this world thinks that all

15:11

women should do, is she basically

15:13

became a full-time wife and mother.

15:15

And we're hopefully all the better for that.

15:17

But in terms of what she had done,

15:20

she grew up on a farm, my

15:23

uncle's farm, where I used to work, she was born

15:25

in that farm. This is a

15:27

remote part of Scotland, is that right? It's in Ayrshire,

15:29

a place called Moscow, near

15:31

Colmarnock. And with

15:34

this little river, this little stream going through,

15:36

which they call the River Volga. And

15:39

so she was born there, grew up there,

15:41

worked on the farm quite a lot. Only

15:44

time that she ever kind of left there was

15:46

to go and work, she worked in London

15:49

Hotel, kind of, you know, cleaning and all

15:51

that sort of stuff, and

15:53

what have you. And then when she got married to my

15:55

dad, you know, and also being

15:57

a vet's wife, there is a part

15:59

of it. part of you that has to be kind of

16:02

working on the practice as well. So that was

16:04

my mum. What was your mum? So my mother

16:07

was a GP's daughter. Her

16:09

father was a doctor. She went

16:11

to Oxford in the 1950s. My

16:14

mother's down staying in London at the moment. She is, I

16:17

hope she is now old enough to not be embarrassed to

16:19

hear. She's now 88 years old. We

16:21

walked probably about three miles yesterday through the

16:23

streets of London with my 88 year old

16:25

mother and my two little mum.

16:28

So thank goodness, touching wood all over the

16:30

place. She's in very good form. But she

16:33

went to Oxford. She worked for Television

16:35

Wales. She jumped in a Land Rover

16:37

and drove from London to Kuala Lumpur

16:40

in the late 1950s. For Television

16:43

Wales? Yeah, worked for Television

16:45

Wales. What was she

16:47

doing with Television Wales? She was a producer and the

16:50

way she describes it is those were the glory

16:52

days of television. She was travelling first class on

16:54

the train up and down to Wales. She loved

16:56

the Welsh producers. Very interested in

16:58

Welsh language. Anyway, then she moved to Kuala Lumpur. She

17:01

became an advertising executive

17:03

in Malaysia. And

17:06

then she taught at the University of

17:08

Malaya, taught agricultural economics, relating almost to

17:10

your dad. Met

17:13

my father, came back to

17:15

London. And then we

17:17

moved back to Malaysia and then Hong Kong,

17:19

where again, she was different forms of academics.

17:21

She ended up being the head

17:24

of Hong Kong University Business School. Blimey, she's

17:26

got a much longer adult

17:28

CV than my mum. Yeah, in a

17:30

way you wouldn't really believe it if

17:32

you mess her. She's also incredibly

17:34

interested in clothes and shoes. She's very

17:36

laid back. She loves doing her tapestry

17:38

and reading trashy novels on the

17:41

sofa. And she's also somebody, I don't know, she's

17:43

a sort of counterexample to the way that we're

17:45

told to live our lives. She's

17:47

somebody who took absolutely no exercise at

17:49

any point in her entire existence. And

17:52

consequently, age of 88 is really

17:54

fit and well. No, she's amazingly fit

17:57

for 88. No doubt about that. And I think

17:59

her arguments as she... She didn't wear her knees

18:01

out, unlike Joe Biden, by doing whatever he was

18:03

doing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay,

18:05

quick break and then we'll have more questions. Now

18:11

here's a question. I

18:16

love this question. Thank you, Louis Hoskin.

18:19

Why do political journalists think

18:21

that Vox Pops are useful?

18:24

They nearly always interview people in a

18:26

high street in the middle of the

18:28

day, inevitably leads to a completely unrepresentative

18:30

sample, mostly old people who bang on

18:33

about immigrants. Why do they do it?

18:37

I love hearing the voice of the people when I'm out

18:39

and about, but I hate Vox

18:41

Pops on the television. I absolutely

18:43

hate them. Presumably, I said they're anxious

18:45

that too much of the commentary sounds

18:47

like it's a bunch of fancy

18:50

people living in a little bubble in

18:52

London, sharing their kind of

18:54

liberal views and they're hoping somehow that

18:56

they're going to get another voice into

18:58

the conversation. Let's be honest, the media

19:00

analysis of this campaign so far, Nigel

19:02

Farage has been the third most covered

19:04

political figure. This is the

19:06

leader of a party with zero MPs.

19:11

My beef with Vox Pops is that essentially

19:14

they present them as the other will say, we

19:16

went to Stafford to find out what you think.

19:18

Well, three people on

19:20

a high street doesn't represent you,

19:22

which is the totality of the

19:24

country, right? And they're right.

19:26

They say, and listen, they go and they

19:28

probably talk to 20 people and

19:30

they have to get one person who says

19:32

this and one person who says that. It's

19:35

utterly formulaic, it's absolutely pointless and I wish

19:37

they'd stop them. Getting people

19:39

in a studio or covering a focus

19:41

group different, but Vox Pops, 20 seconds

19:44

to say, I think Rishi Suna, it's a twat.

19:46

I think they're all the same. I'm not voting

19:48

for any of them. It's utterly pointless. Please,

19:51

please stop it. Very

19:54

good. I like the idea of the focus group. Listen,

19:56

just to help you use focus groups when

19:58

you were in... good

24:00

spirit and I think you've won me over. I

24:02

think I've got labour. But I guess the point

24:05

that you were getting to is it isn't just

24:07

about, the point of it isn't you convincing four

24:09

people, it's what you learn through the practice of

24:11

trying to convince them about what arguments resonate and

24:13

what don't. Right, so what I learned from that

24:16

and fed back to friends that I know is

24:18

that... The man beginning with Keir

24:20

who goes for a war with the historical party. There

24:23

is an issue, there is a real issue

24:25

here and I think this is something, reading

24:28

between the lines of the way

24:30

that the campaign's been written up at the moment.

24:32

I think this is an issue that Morgan McSweeney

24:34

is definitely aware of. That

24:36

too many people are either saying,

24:39

not going to bother because there's no point, don't

24:41

hate Keir Starmer, don't rage Rishi. By the

24:44

way, I should tell you, every single one of them was utterly

24:47

dismissive of Rishi Sunak. I mean,

24:49

almost in like a kind of, the guy's

24:51

ridiculous. So I did another little focus groupie

24:54

type thing. I mean, in the sense that

24:56

I sat round a table with 12 people

24:58

in London on Wednesday and had a very long three

25:01

hour conversation. Admittedly, these were a group

25:04

of lawyers from pretty diverse backgrounds,

25:06

but I guess that particular slice

25:08

of society. What was interesting to

25:10

me is that they started by

25:12

saying, well, the problem is that

25:14

politicians are no good. If only

25:16

we got really highly qualified, highly

25:19

intelligent people, paid them properly, made

25:21

them politicians, things would be fine. And I said,

25:23

well, wait a sec, Rishi Sunak,

25:26

I mean, presumably he would be like a

25:28

successful banker. You could imagine him as a

25:30

lawyer in one of your law firms. And

25:32

they said, oh yeah, I suppose that's true.

25:34

So then I said, so what

25:36

ultimately is the problem with the guy? It's not that he's

25:39

not bright. It's not that he doesn't

25:41

work hard. It's not that he's not

25:44

reasonably competent. He's missing something else, isn't

25:46

he? And that's when we got onto

25:48

leadership, charisma, vision, confidence. Well, interestingly, the

25:51

guy who was winding me up, and

25:54

at one point, his mates were saying to

25:57

him, listen, what are you doing trying to take him? He's going

25:59

to run rings around. maybe,

28:00

or free trades working, people

28:03

just don't feel that government

28:05

is making their lives better. In fact, the

28:08

majority of voters now in polls say

28:10

that they fear their children are going to be worse off

28:12

than they are. It's also true

28:14

that we're going into an election which trust

28:16

in politics is

28:19

very low. I mean, it's now worse

28:21

than it was during the expensive scandal.

28:24

John Curtis, who we talk about, this

28:26

famous pollster at University of

28:29

Strathclyde, says that this

28:31

is really striking how

28:33

bad trust in politics is. So,

28:36

performance, can labor actually

28:40

sort this stuff out and sort it

28:42

out, unfortunately, with very little money, which

28:45

means the big word is reform. If

28:48

you haven't got more money, the only way

28:50

you're going to improve the NHS is

28:52

by very, very radical reform. You're going to have to rethink

28:54

the way the system works. And we had a bit of

28:57

this from West Street when we interviewed him on leading, which

28:59

is about moving from hospitals to

29:01

the front line. But you're

29:03

going to have to challenge unions, you're going

29:05

to have to challenge vested interests, you're going to have

29:07

to really shake the thing up. Otherwise,

29:09

in five years' time, this volatility, the fact that

29:12

we're going to lurch from a massive conservative victory

29:14

in 2019 to what I think will be a

29:16

massive labor victory this time, can

29:19

swing back in another direction and potentially in the

29:21

direction of forage. Listen, let's have this as a

29:23

last question from Ermond. Will the House of Commons

29:25

now switch? You know how we like to educate

29:27

our listeners about how the crazy House of Commons

29:29

works. If labor win the general election, do they

29:31

move across to sit on the benches to the

29:33

right of the speaker? If so,

29:35

why is that? Now, Ermond, you're obviously

29:37

a young person because otherwise

29:40

you'd have maybe remembered from previous elections.

29:43

So, you're a perfect, perfect target for

29:45

my new book out this week, Aleister

29:47

Campbell Talks Politics, which explains why everybody

29:50

is where they are in the House

29:52

of Commons, from the speaker and the

29:54

clerks and everybody else. So,

29:56

when we talk about the bit

29:59

in the middle where the middle is, may sit and the

30:01

dispatch boxes. To the

30:03

right of the speaker, those are the

30:05

government benches. So whoever is

30:08

the government, that is where the government

30:10

goes. So the prime minister and ministers

30:12

when they're at question time, they stand

30:14

at the dispatch box on that side

30:16

and their MPs sit alongside and behind

30:18

them. Opposition benches are the

30:20

other side. So they, yes, they will switch

30:23

and that is the reason why. And it's going

30:25

to be a very strange moment because the conservatives

30:27

have been in so long now that if, as

30:29

we predict, Labour wins, there will

30:31

be very few people left in Parliament who will

30:33

remember having sat on the other side of the

30:35

house. They all will have got used to getting

30:38

into their benches. I'm going to very, very

30:40

wickedly, given you've promoted your book, just say

30:43

that if anybody's interested, I've

30:45

now got my books out as a

30:47

four part series. So you can read all the

30:49

way through Afghanistan, Iraq, Cumbria,

30:52

politics on the edge. It's a beautifully

30:54

bound. Politics on the edge is already

30:56

gone to number one in the paperback

30:58

bestseller list. You don't don't flog it

31:00

like that. I can't believe you're telling

31:02

me not to flog. All right. Well,

31:04

Alison, listen, I just wanted to maybe

31:07

finish with a final jolly question

31:09

for you from Nicole. Alison,

31:12

what are your predictions for the results of the

31:14

Euros? What's going to happen in the football? You're

31:16

right there at the front line. You're talking to

31:18

us from Berlin. You've been watching a lot of

31:21

matches. And above all, what's your honest sense? Not

31:23

not your patriotic sense. What's your honest sense of

31:25

how England's going to perform? Are they going to

31:27

win? Well, as I said on

31:30

the rest is football, where I think my

31:32

punter tree far excelled, Linneke,

31:34

Shearer and Richards. I

31:36

suspect the new match, the match of the day team will

31:39

be thinking wonder if he could take over from Gary. I

31:42

think Germany or France will win it. What's

31:44

about their teams that makes you think that

31:46

ultimately they're going to be stronger than England?

31:48

Well, I mean, Germany, I went to the

31:51

Germany-Scotland game. And although Scotland played really quite

31:53

badly, Germany were really, really good. I mean,

31:55

they just look very, very strong. I

31:58

think the French have got some really... got

32:00

some of the best players in the world and Bappy being one of

32:02

them. They sometimes don't gel but

32:05

I think those two should be the favourites.

32:07

But England would definitely be in with a

32:09

shout. They started very, very well in their

32:11

first game against Serbia. First 20 minutes they

32:14

looked really world beating but then

32:16

they sort of faded a bit. Who do you

32:18

think? Do you think Brazil or Argentina?

32:21

Wait a second, is that

32:24

a trick question? I've got to say

32:26

though that there was trouble at the

32:28

Albania-Italy game where Albania scored

32:35

the fastest goal in Euro Championship

32:37

finals history. There was trouble around

32:39

and about

32:41

the England-Serbia game but

32:43

probably less than people were

32:46

predicting. The Scotland fans were amazing

32:48

and the Germans absolutely loved them.

32:50

I think Scotland will still qualify

32:52

because they're going to beat Hungary

32:54

in the third game and I'm

32:56

going to France now to

32:59

check in on the French elections. Then I'm going

33:01

to go to Stuttgart. So the Scotland-Hungary game of

33:03

Stuttgart is your chance to get Victor Orban, the

33:06

leader of Hungary, on the show because he will

33:08

once again hear your bag types, he'll remember you

33:10

and second time lucky. So good luck. Yeah but

33:12

I've now admitted on the

33:15

main podcast that I broke a UEFA rule in

33:17

taking the Instrument of War into the stadium. So

33:19

they're going to be watching out for me now.

33:22

We'll do it Alistair. I have full faith in you. And

33:24

just a final bit of local colour. Please

33:28

say in German, imagine I'm a

33:30

security guard at the gate, explain

33:33

to me why it is you want to get your bag

33:35

pipes into the game and how would you say that in

33:37

German in a way that might charm me into letting you

33:39

through? I'd say I have a very

33:41

strong belief that this is so self-somber, that

33:44

it's not just a It's

34:00

beautiful. It's beautiful for that, wouldn't you? I would. And it's

34:02

one of the reasons we love you. And it's one of

34:04

the reasons that we need to get more language education back

34:06

into schools. Okay. Thank you very much. See you soon. Take

34:09

care. Bye-bye. Hi

34:16

there. It's Alistair Campbell here from the Rest

34:18

is Politics podcast. I co-hosted Rory Stewart. Now,

34:20

if you haven't heard the interview already, I

34:22

went on the Rest is Football to talk

34:25

to Gary, Alan and Micah about the politics

34:27

of football, whether the performance of the football

34:29

team can actually influence an election and what

34:31

it's really like to do something those three

34:33

have never done. That is play alongside J.

34:36

Goh Maradona. Anyway, here's a clip. Little known

34:38

fact, I'm sure you both don't know Alistair

34:40

and I went to school together. No. Really?

34:42

And he was very, very, so you told

34:45

me until I learned, Gary

34:48

was a bit of a topper. No,

34:50

he wasn't. He was like,

34:52

he was, he was like,

34:55

to listen to the full podcast, just search

34:57

for the rest is football. It's the episode

34:59

published on Sunday, 16th of June on Spotify,

35:01

Apple podcasts, and YouTube. Hope you enjoy it.