138. Question Time: The Bullingdon Club, democracy vs. capitalism, and overcoming foot-and-mouth

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0:50So welcome to the Restus Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. Where do you want to start? Well, let's just start on this because it develops a theme that we explored in the podcast yesterday, but I think it makes it a bit sharper. It's from Roger Wade, given Kier's Starmer's recent interview where he categorically rules out the return to the European Union or single market. Do you believe the Brexit issue is bigger than the Labour Party? And it is time to support the Liberal Democrats at the next election. And would you and Rory consider switching allegiances?

1:25Well, you haven't come out for the Labour Party. I don't, but I get very angry with the Liberal Democrats as well. I don't feel that they're sort of really making, and I'm by the way, even though I think leaving the European Union was a total catastrophe for our country, I'm not saying either of them should go into the next election, saying let's rejoin. I am saying that I think that they should be calling out the damage that it's doing and making clear that a new government has to fix the damage, but you can't be open about how you're going to fix the damage unless you're open and honest about the scale of the damage.

1:59And when you read as I did the other day, in fact, Chris Patten, I don't even saw Chris Patten on question time, but there was a clip that went viral of him just going through why it had been such a disaster. But one factoid that sort of leapt out of me is when he said the poorest 20 % in Poland are now better off than the poorest 20 % in the UK. That's very interesting. And that's partly weirdly because, I mean, with all the horrors of what that party has been doing in Poland, they've introduced something called the Family 500 Plus, which has been giving much more generous benefits to the poor.

2:35This is Marewietski, the Prime Minister, who's a very weird figure. I mean, a lot of these people in the Law and Justice Party are people who are sort of university professors and talk in this very academic language. Marewietski edited a book on European Union law. So you have this very sinister thing, which is a bit reminiscent of, well, I guess it's a point, isn't it, that often these regimes are facilitated by smooth talking intellectuals despite their very kind of sinister underpinnings. But the one good thing, I suppose they've done is they've had a they've set up much, much more generous welfare payments.

3:07And that's one of the reasons why they're so quite popular. Yeah. Now the producer having told us that the main podcast was quite heavy. Let's try and keep this one light. You went straight back to one of the heavier subjects in yesterday's podcast. Oh, well, okay, here's a way of moving us on. Ready? Okay, I'm going to transition us on. Ready? Go on. Go on. Okay. So Jeff Chambers is written me a letter, actually, long letter. You promised to do it, I just just equipped with it. You promised to do an episode a month on happy news, which you so far have not done. Did we do that? The world is full of bad news, but this is an active choice.

3:38I challenge you to present just one episode per month that is nothing but happy and positive. So now tell us as somebody who is a veteran journalist, why is it that the newspapers tend not to report happy news? First of all, though, did we make that promise? Because that was a very silly promise to make. Was that just you? No, I think we both sort of did. I think we must have been in an amiable mood. I think you did. Well, the thing is though that the class of definition of news is something that somebody somewhere doesn't want published. That's the classic definition of news. And also one person's happiness is another person's sadness.

4:14If we were to, let's just imagine there was a label and slide. Okay. That would be happy news as far as I'm concerned, but it's very sad news if you're an active conservative. My mother points out that Bloomberg does happy news. So they get news like this girl was born in jail, but just got accepted to Harvard University, or she just sent me a whole list of these. Yeah, but you get that. They're the sort of and finally things on news at 10, aren't they? But also, remember Martin Lewis, the BBC guy, he tried to set something going where it's sort of much more positive. I think the reason is that look, I actually think I'll meet you get a way off balance.

4:51I think people want something. They understand that if you've got a sort of rail crash in India, then that's genuinely newsworthy. And people want to know about it. You've got a war going on in Ukraine. You've got the economy going wrong. These are really important things. But I think within that, people do yearn for something maybe a little bit more positive, a little less alarming. Well, here's a nice story then, just on this, that there's a man who stopped a bank robbery with a hug, declares love overcomes all. Oh, I'm really worried though that my mother actually has sent this. Oh, my, oh, I'm very worried.

5:27My mother sent it to me claiming it was from Bloomberg. It's not at all. Was it from the Daily Star? It's terrifying. It's from Breitbart, which is that terrifying right wing, Trumpian thing. Oh, that's extremely disturbing. So for the first time ever, we have quoted, thanks to your mother, we have quoted Breitbart. All right. All right. I'm so sorry. Never mind. Never mind. Now listen, here's one. I'm definitely for you, this one. Okay. I've got two here. We haven't been into this sort of, you know, we haven't been into your background much of late. I've stopped banging on about you. Tom Hansen was Rory actually invited to join the Bullington Club at Oxford.

6:05And before you answer that one, Russell Grant, I don't think it's the horoscope guy, does Rory still support Fox hunting and why? Goodness gracious. Why there's too length in your mind? Because Fox hunting is a pursuit of the Toff classes, in my opinion, historically. And because the Bullington Club is a really horrible organization that says all that's the worst, the worst things about the Toff class. Right. Okay, well, let me do do both. Bullington Club, I was approached and I went to a meeting. How does that happen? Oh, come on, go on detail here. How does that happen? Are you approached to somebody's side -lup to you?

6:43What do they wear when they side -lup to you? Yeah, I think it's a bit like that. And it was so to explain to listeners who are not in the inside baseball of this weird stuff, this is a dining club at Oxford, an ancient dining club where people wear tail coats. And in the 19th century, it was full of all the kind of aristocrats of Oxford and was the smartest thing to be in. By the time it got round to the sort of early 90s, it was dominated by people like Boris Johnson and David Cameron. George Osborne. And I think Darius Guppey, who later ended up in jail and who was a friend of Boris Johnson's.

7:22I was approached and I found it very, very disturbing. I don't know whether it was a strange meeting, but it seemed to be aggressive, arrogant, drunken, and although I'm sure of the individuals in it were nice individuals, I thought as a group it was extremely unpleasant and seemed to me completely out of keeping with the modern world. Why were you approached? Who approached you and why were you approached? Well, I think I was approached because I was considered to be a general kind of, I don't know, it's a class basis, Alistair, it's the class, it's all about class, isn't it? So it's because of your background and your schooling.

8:03Exactly, that's the kind of stuff. And what was the most unpleasant thing about it that made you think I don't want to go back to this? Well, I don't really remember. I mean, I think I had a memory, not of that thing. I think the one that I went to was fine, but I'd remembered seeing when I'd first arrived in Oxford, seeing one of these guys in his tail coats standing on a table in a pub shouting at everybody around him. And I just was horrified by the whole thing. Well, I must say in first, I did that once at night as well. Well, it stood on a table, shouted at everybody. I did, yeah, usually people from the brilliant club.

8:35I did, I did a refer to it. Do you think you were possibly quite an unpleasant time to graduate? Oh, definitely. At times, I was absolutely horrible. Yeah, I hate to myself. So I used to have a party trick as well of opening doors by headbottling them. Very often. Very often. Maybe lucky that I met you later in life. I think it is, worry, I think it is. And what about the thought something thing? Thought something thing is a cumbrian thing. So in cumbrian, it isn't a thing done by posh people. It's largely local farmers. It's foot packs. People aren't on horses. And it's a very, very strong community tradition in the late district.

9:13But as you never, do you never done fox hunting prior to cumbria? I'd never done fox hunting prior to cumbria. I've never hunted a fox. I never hunted a fox. Even in cumbria, I didn't hunt foxes. Okay. Now, aren't you psyched? This doesn't need an answer. It's just, I think we should just do this because we're nice people. Are A level politics teacher Mr Carpenter as a massive fan recommends your podcast every week? Could you give him a shout out as it's our final couple of weeks and it would make his day? So well done, Mr Carpenter, inspiring your pupils to be interested in politics. That's lovely.

9:44It is one similar theme. Mir Davis should basic politics be part of the curriculum for secondary school, covering national local politics and what each party stands for and what each body covers. My answer to that is definitively yes. I actually think we should teach in primary schools on how to argue. Yeah. Well, and this is your whole thing. It's not called rhetoric, because it's called oracy that you've been permitting. That's the one. Yeah. Oracy. Do you do sporecy? Yeah, I think oracy is a really, really good. Well, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, in a way, one of the reasons why we end up getting dominated by these people who went to private schools is that they're given the confidence through being trained in public speaking.

10:23And actually, I think it's something reason why my father would say that Scots of his generation coming out of small local schools in Scotland often did very well in life, often did well in England when they went south, because they were actually encouraged and trained to learn how to speak clearly. Communicate, clearly. I wrote about it. I mean, the Scottish education system, less so now, I think, but there was a greater understanding, I think, of the role of debating and arguing in the development of people as human beings. Yeah. But it goes all the way back to the Scottish Enlightenment. Indeed.

10:53So there's central to the whole modern world. Now, CJ, you've mentioned there's a lack of ideas and politics right now. Why do you think that is and how can we generate more of them? That's quite a deep question. Go on out and have a go at that one. Well, I think it's because there's a sort of anti -intellectualism, which is partly driven by dumb down media. I think it's partly driven by the sort of politics that we've seen, that we talk about a lot, populism. Populism is kind of, it's the antidote to intellectualism, in that it sort of, you don't think things through, you just think of a snappy slogan and say, let's go and pretend to people that that's going to solve the problem.

11:27And added to which, I think that within the campaign, political infrastructure, I just think the ideas, spaces, has become a little bit diminished. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I think that's right. And I think it's because the dominant model that we had really through the 90s of pragmatically regulated free market, and our particular views on democracy has begun to seem tired and tarnished. Yeah. And it's been obvious now that there's a big chunk of the population and Britain across Europe across the United States that feels, in a very, very precarious situation, feels their children's lives are going to be worse in their own lives.

12:06And we don't have solutions, because we don't really know what an alternative economic system is like. And we don't really have the courage to think about what it would really take to resolve what is obviously an unfair and in many ways, completely unsustainable societies. Well, that's probably a good point at which to plug our next episode of the leading, which is Kate Rayworth, donut economics. Donut economics. Uh, having just done Mary McElise. One of a related question, Rory Martin Coleman. Again, this is a really deep question, which is sort of PhD material, but we'll try and cover it in a minute.

12:43Is capitalism breaking democracy? Well, there we are. Exactly right. That's, that's, I think, collects very, very closely. I think it is. And I think, so do we need a new capitalism or a new democracy to fix it? Or both? Well, I think we probably need both. I mean, I don't want to be sort of pompous about it. But I, I think it's a situation where our economic system isn't delivering. Our democratic system isn't trusted by people. Trust in institutions. We haven't talked about this enough. But one of the things you see in the polls over the last 10 years is trust in institutions really beginning to drop very, very dramatically.

13:17And it's not just, I mean, I think this important week can get very wound up about the awful behavior of politicians in Britain. But it's a pattern across Europe and the United States. And it's partly because more and more people feel the system is unjust. It's just not delivering for them. Mm. Um, and so, Alice, I think maybe time for a quick break.

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14:50And welcome back to the REST This Politics question time with Mirori Stewart. And Mi Alice to Campbell. Right, okay, moving swiftly on with Gus Cassie, foot and mouth disease. I'd be really interested to know what Alice's reflections are on how effectively foot and mouth disease with dealt with. Rory's thoughts as his old constituency right in the middle of it. And are we prepared for a similar instant now? So what's your memories of foot and mouth disease? Oh, absolutely awful. Absolutely awful. First memory is of, and it's funny how I really have a specific memory of somebody coming to a meeting we were having with the Canadian Prime Minister, Kretchen, with a piece of paper and giving it to Tony and saying, there's a outbreak of foot and mouth in Kent.

15:33I don't think we got on top of it quickly enough because at the time, the Ministry of Agriculture were absolutely adamant that it was all under control. Everything was fine. It was going to be okay. And by the time we got back, he sort of had a sense of it being out of control. And I do mean out of control. It felt it was one of those very, very rare periods when we were in government where you sort of felt, oh my god, this is just, this is beyond anything. And it really was only when we literally sort of got the army involved and the whole weight of government was sort of galvanized to say, this is, we've all got to just work out what we need to do and do it that we got on top of it.

16:12But it was absolutely horrible, really horrible. It's a classic thing, isn't it, that you often see with government, which is how long they take to really wake up and respond to a crisis or recognize it as a crisis? I mean, what's your tip in terms of Christmastion for actually getting people to recognize that it's a crisis more quickly because that's often the problem, isn't it, that I found it in everything I did with flooding and things that were often slow. I think that partly this is because we're so used to everything being defined by others as a crisis, particularly the media, that that maybe makes us reluctant sometimes to accept that something might be a crisis.

16:49Added to which, I think this came through in the various sort of inquiries afterwards. Added to which I think there is a sense of a government department because of the silo system or government, you kind of want the government department responsible to be in charge to take control and to run the whole thing. But it's, but actually with these things often they reach a point very, very quickly where that is just, it's beyond their capacity and that's not a criticism. No, but I think that's, I think this is true in businesses too, that often you don't want to micromanage the department head underneath you.

17:21You want to trust them and let them get on with it. But pretty soon you realize that you've got to take it all the way to the top. Well, there's just no way of getting on top of it. There's a brilliant piece. If someone wants a, an amusing read, a really lovely funny piece written July 2020 called Bad Resilience, Good Resilience by Rousey and Britain by, some called Paul Martin and also by Jonathan Evans, who's was the ex head of MI5. And it's a spoof on government management just to give you a glimpse of it. This is rule one. Have a plan and stick to it. And it goes like this, have a big fat plan, not a strategy.

17:56Make sure you have a very long and detailed plan with lots of diagrams and annexes written several years ago by your business continuity specialist or consultant who since moved on. The plan should give precise instructions about what to do in a range of specific situations none of which will apply when the next crisis strikes. If a crisis does arrive, shoe horn it into one of your existing scenarios and stick to the plan. I'm just about to finish. Your persistence and sticking with the wrong plan will reassure your colleagues. It will also reflect the universal psychological predisposition known as sunk cost bias, which is what keeps us digging when we've invested heavily in digging a hole.

18:35Ah, yeah. So what, the former head of our intelligence agency is going around writing spoof government loans. Well, that's what I've shown. At least shows you've got a sense of humor. Now here's one. J. Woodier. When will governments start acting in a way that is commensurate with the level of concern and desire for action on climate change and nature. Perfect timing with great big green wheat starting on Saturday where people across the UK will be taking action and encouraging government to do so. And I want to plug another podcast by the way. I didn't interview on a podcast. What? Well, he'll do sec.

19:04Really? Yes, it's fine. It's fine. As long as I stay as a number one, I didn't, I actually tweeted about it after we had got to number one with both of our podcasts last week. It's called Planet Critical and it's by a young woman called Rachel Donald who's the daughter of somebody I trained as a journalist with many years ago and who came to one of my talks on the book and she sort of basically asked me to be interviewed on her podcast. She got a lot of flak for it because I think a lot of her listeners basically are in the Ken Loach category of CME as a war criminal. But it was interesting because she's absolutely in the sort of, you know, out and out activism, but understands that you do need people who understand government and how it works and power structures and how you change them.

19:47Before actually we're going to be able to get the level of concern that Jake Woody is asking for. I mean, I think that's another opportunity to plug the Kate Routh interview, which was I think a very interesting difficult interview for both of us because she was being incredibly radical. Really saying we have reached the carrying capacity of the planet that effectively gross needs to stop and if anything, our economies need to start shrinking. And when listeners go to that on leading next week, you'll find us both really struggling to work at how on earth. I mean, our systems, unfortunately, are built on growth, but not least because we have aging populations, we're having to pay for pensions and also because health costs in every country go up much more steeply than inflation.

20:29And if the government doesn't bring in more money, we can't even stand still. So we've got to, in a sense, we've run a system that feels it's got a greater standstill and how we balance that with what we're trying to do on the environment and climate, I think it's going to be very, very tough. So political advice, Alex Kiriakou, I am the youngest active member of my local Labour Party 19 year old who joined because of the REST's politics, who was a bit troubling, as it turned out that the REST's politics is just driving everyone to the Labour Party during me. Well done, well done, Alex. Seriously, and I recently met a former MP of my local area, Bill Ramel, and he told me that one of his memories of the Blair years was that when he became a junior minister for the first time, Alistair's only advice for him was, don't fuck up.

21:16We are? That was the only advice you gave to him. Was that your normal advice to junior ministers? Anyway, what's the best but also funniest advice you received during your time at Parliament's Stoke Downing Street over to you and then I've got one? No, go, you go first, what I think about that. Well, my best advice I ever got was I was, it's not actually in Parliament Downing Street, but it's in government. I was down in southern Iraq trying to, I was the acting governor of a province and Andy Bearpuck, who was my boss, came down from Baghdad and there was a civil war going on and I was trying to build these buildings.

21:45I gave these very earnest presentation on my 50 main priorities for the area and he said, Rory, if I can return here in six months time and there's not a civil war and you can serve me ice cream, I'll be happy.

22:00I don't remember saying don't fuck up to Bill Ramel, but you know, I've no reason to dispute you whatsoever. But the piece of advice that I feel helped me both as a journalist and as a communicator and here I am going to be non -tribal, Rory, I'm going to quote a conservative chief whip. Oh goodness. By the name of Alistair Goodlard. Right. Yes, I like Alistair Goodlard, yeah. Well, he once said to me, never use one word where none will do. Oh, very good. And I just see that. And I think that whole point about, you know, communication and valuing the words that you use and being tight in your communication, I think is very, very important.

22:45And on which there's a question, Ingrid, what a name. Ingrid Demershalk, how did politicians communicate before email and WhatsApp? Is there a case to go back to the always to encourage politicians to be more reflective? Absorbed bloody, lutely there is. I mean, I think it's something not just for politics, it's something we all experience in our own life, isn't it? I mean, we're all fighting these inboxes. We're all fighting the WhatsApp's pouring in. I mean, it's a, you presumably your phone's like, my, and every time I, you know, I'll get off this two hour call, I'll have another hundred emails, I have another 15 WhatsApp's.