323. Question Time: How it feels to become “the story”

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1:35Welcome to the Restus Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, I was to Campbell. And Rory, I'm going to start with Liam Moran. Did anyone pick up on the fact that Rory did not say that he was rereading Alistair's Diaries last week? Now, as you know, conservatives never read books. They reread books. But you just say you were reading. So is that the first time you looked at my diary? No, it's not. I've mentioned them as a citrus list. The podcast will have picked up. I mentioned your diary is quite a lot. I think that I should use them more. I think they're really fascinating because they're a wonderful way of getting comparisons with new governments coming in.

2:11It's exactly what allows me to say, wait a second, this is where you were at the stage of the government. I'm thinking that when we open our tour, the Restus Politics Tour, which the first event is going to be in Brighton, I wonder whether we shouldn't get you to read out the bit where Peter Mangles and I get into a punch -up over whether Todey should wear a tie. It's one of the most embarrassing, but I'm all for the embarrassing bits being read out. Paul James just connecting with what you just said. I'm looking forward to attending the Restus Politics Live at Birmingham a couple of weeks' time.

2:48However, I'm a little disappointed that Anthony Scaremuchin, Cady Kay, are not going to be at the Birmingham, but my question to Ruan Alster, have they considered having Anthony and Catti attenders' holograms akin to the abba voyage live shows joking aside, really looking forward to the show? We could also, of course, famous to get Norendra Modi turning up as a hologram. Yeah, because that was his holograms, doesn't he? Well, that was when I first was aware of the hologram as a political device. I think I'm writing saying that the overall cost of the abba voyage is when you take into account all the technology and all the bits that go with it, it's something like a million pounds a minute, something like that.

3:23I mean, oh, wow, I could be way off. So I don't know how much you're hoping to make from this tour, but that's one very good way of making through your millions of million pounds a minute. And by the way, I think I'm writing saying that Birmingham is the only one of these venues where, you know, there's still quite a few tickets to go. So, Cady Kay, which makes it incredibly bitter because we went to Birmingham, because every from Birmingham said we had a company. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, maybe, maybe all those Tories are at the conference in Birmingham now. Now, Ruan, let me ask you this one, George and Mallory.

3:55If I was a Tory brackets, I'm not. Who should I vote for in the Tory leadership election? Well, we're going to do a lot more about this on live tours as he continued to plug and reassuring people that actually there's a lot of exclusive fun when you see us sitting there like boxes in the ring of the O2. So we will do a lot more on the Tory leadership and keep quite a lot of that exclusive. I guess I'm between Tom Tuggenhardt and James Clevverley. And inevitably being me, it looks like neither of them might make it through to the last. I think there's quite a lot of making away through. I watched, called me sad Roy, but I watched Trevor Phillips show yesterday because I knew that all the four candidates were going to be on.

4:38If I had to give a very brief summary, I thought James Clevverley, I'm afraid, was a bit lame. He came over as a sort of commentator than a politician. I thought Tom Tuggenhardt, who I've gone off because of his ridiculous stance on the ECHR, I nonetheless thought he spoke very, very well and he had a sort of sense of a message. I think the thing about Kimmy Badenock is she's very good at creating noise and headlines and drama, but I didn't leave it any clear about what she really fundamentally stood for. And then, Generick, I just find, Ian Dale Fondley -Loves was on the panel and he said up towards he and Katie Balls and Undy Street, they were all basically saying that they didn't know whether this journey that Generick had been on from being a sort of Cameroonian to this sort of subfar harsh figure that he's trying to become.

5:28They couldn't quite work out where the real Generick was. So, all in all, pretty uninspiring, I have to say, we will get into that, we'll get into that, and we'll talk about Tory leadership, fantastic. Right, Rory, your friend Eric Adams, the new, your mayor has got himself into more trouble, more headlines, and we've got a question from Linda Johnson. Eric Adams has told the public to withhold judgment until he's made his defence, pretty not guilty. I'd like to hear your views. Eric Adams, this is a big story, and probably something worth spending a little bit of time on. So, this is the mayor of New York, and we discussed that a couple of weeks ago when the beginnings of allegations were coming, police commissioners resigning allegations against friends and aides of him, but now finally we've had the big case and he's going to be arraigned.

6:15And he's refusing to resign, he's saying he's going to keep doing his job, but he's accused of corruption. And actually it's an interesting type of corruption because it's not a million miles away from some of the stuff that we've had in Britain. Basically, what he seems to have done is he's accepted freebies, he's accepted plane flights and upgrades on planes, and he's accepted hotel rooms. But the problem is that he took those things from Turkish Airlines, partly because there's a big Turkish community in Brooklyn where he was the bar of press before he was mayor. And he then, his phone, which has been seized, they found in text messages that when the Turks wanted to open a 32 -story consulate in time for out of the ones visit to New York, and it had been blocked by the New York Fire Department that said it failed more than a dozen different sort of fire regulations.

7:10Eric Adams was contacted by the Turkish consulate that said, you know, we've done a lot for you in the past, could you please help us with the consulate? And he said, sure, I'll get onto it, sorted it out and put pressure on the fire department. And he then gets a text from the Turkish consulate saying, you are a great friend of Turkey and Eric Adams writes back cheerfully saying, more than that, I'm a great friend of you anytime. Happy to help. It's interesting. I mean, the whole thing amounts to about $100 ,000. So it's not quite some of these American scandals where Senators are sticking gold bars under their beds.

7:44It's more freebies and favors, isn't it? Yeah, I think where I would think you're being a bit harsh and a bit unfair to the laborers is what he's ended up being charged with relates straightforwardly to bribery and and also fraud charges related to the manner in which he solicited some of these. So listen, it's a terrible story for him. He's fighting it. I'm just noting he was pretty, he was pretty Trumpian in his fight against it. And it's not a great look because it means that we have a democratic politician, I don't know if it's a democratic party, who's now been indicted, refusing to step down at the time at which it's a very important part of the Democratic campaign against Trump to say that it's an indicted fellow and then it's convicted fellow and actually in the case of Trump.

8:34So and nobody really knows what happens if he doesn't step down and he actually appears in court because the governor went, the governor could just say, sorry, you got to go. She's reluctant to do it. He's quite a character. He was a big, big party guy and he's also plays a bit fast and loose with the truth. It seems as though he may not have actually lived in New York but instead lived with his partner in New Jersey and sort of faked up an apartment in New York to make it look like he was eligible to stand. And then a New York Times journalist, he'd always talked about the fact that he carried in his wallet, a picture of a, an NYPD police officer, he used to be a police officer who was killed and meant so much to him.

9:14He had it carried in everyone's wallet. And this journalist said, can I see the photograph? So she was invited over to the mayor's office and she was given this photograph from his wallet. But it later turned out that Eric Adams' team had taken it off the internet and then dropped T on it to make it look older to fake it as being in his wallet. So there's, I mean, I don't know. I mean, these are not big things but there's sort of a bit of a bit of a pattern going on here. Yeah, just to show you the understand though, the wire fraud account that he's charged with carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

9:49The soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals, you can get, and he's got two counts of those, they can get five years each, the bribery charge, maximum charge, 10 years, and the conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and receiving campaign contribution by foreign nationals, maximum five years. So you top those up, I'm not suggesting either these guilty because I don't know, or that he's going to go to jail, but in their system, this is also amazing about watching what Trump gets up to. I wonder whether we might not be getting to a stage in the States and in Britain and elsewhere where we just make a very clear rule that you just can't take flights, you can't take upgrades, you can't take anything.

10:31And if you're a government minister, the government can jolly well pay for those things if you want to go and see it. But what about if you're an MP, let's say you're a Rory Stewart style MP, you don't like freebies and just takes things very, very seriously. And let's say that you are the Honours Select Committee and a government office to take you out to take a look at their country. I refuse, I refused. Did you? I refused. My colleagues all did it, but I never did that. I hated it. I mean, conservative friends of Israel would do it, conservative friends of the least would do it. As a by -john would do it.

11:06I mean, they were always paying for MPs to visit their countries, but the problem is that if you take that money, you go on a tour, organized by their government, showing you the most kind of crazy propaganda, no, I think it would be much more straightforward if we just banned it. And then the MPs could start putting pressure on Parliament or the government to say it's important for us to do this. So give us a budget to do it. Or, you know, as education's actually, for some reason, I've got to go to this show. So could the government pay for me to go to the show? Because I just think otherwise you just get an amiss.

11:40But I also think if you think about opposition when you're in opposition, I think one of the, I've just had a meeting today with Chris Hipkins, who we interviewed on leading. It was the former New Zealand Prime Minister now back in opposition. Yeah. And we were just talking about, you know, how in opposition at least you do have a bit of time to think and to travel. And I just, I just think if you have an absolute hard rule, nobody can take anything from anyone. I think there's, I don't know, I think it's true. I just wonder what it might, I know it sounds a bit extreme, but I wonder what it wouldn't drive change.

12:11Whether it's really made a hard or then people would provide the budgets. Yeah. Now, Rory, as you know, we have a lot of MPs who listen to us. John Slinger, who is the MP for rugby, Labour MP, do you agree with me that the gambling industry is panicious, given that it targets young people through sports advertising and mobile phone apps? Do you agree that we need to get gambling ads out of football and all sport given the harm caused? Blimey. I mean, I don't know enough about this. My instinct is yes, but, you know, you're much more of a guy who understands sports. I think he's got a real point here.

12:45I mean, just to give you an example, some of the people who present football on sky and sky sport. Listen, I find it very hard to live without sky sport. Okay. It's a very, it's, it's quite a big part of my life, but I think when some of the presenters are also presenting adverts for skies betting business, I just think that is all wrong. And I don't know the numbers now, but if you look at, if you, I asked you to this, Rory, I mean, I don't ask you too much. Just watch one episode of Match of the Day. Okay. And watch an episode where all 20 teams are on there. Yeah. Count for me, how many of the shirts have betting companies on them and how much of the perimeter advertising is gambling.

13:33Now, the point is they will say, oh, well, but people can make a judgment. But the fact is they don't do it other than by knowing that they're getting people into gambling. And it's addictive. So, Alistair, one for you from Donnelly with Su Grey hitting the headlines. So Su Grey is the chief of staff, new chief of staff in Downing Street. What does Alistair remember about when he first became the story and any reflections on the infamous channel for and if you so in context for listens, I reckon almost everybody will know this, but Alistair was Tony Blair's communications director, but very, very rapidly became a very central part of the story and appeared in photographs and cartoons and people raised about him.

14:14Probably more than they wrote about and definitely more than they wrote about many cabinet ministers. How do you think that happened and what's this infamous channel for interview? Ah, so the channel for interview, this was at the height of my rye with the BBC over Iraq. Richard Sandbrook, I think it was, was the disingenuous reply to a complaint that I'd made and I then phoned John Reed, who was one of our absolute safe pair of hands and said, John, are you able to go on the telly and sort of take this nonsense apart and I'll brief you on the way, said, yeah, absolutely no problem. Meanwhile, Channel 4 had asked me to go on.

14:57As you know, didn't do interviews despite being the story. And I just felt that this was the point at which this iraq story had got so the round of the BBC, you got so kind of dominant in the media, so sort of, you know, and I was absolutely central to it. So I thought, you know, maybe I should do it, maybe I should do it myself. So up to that point, you'd not been doing interviews and suddenly you decide to do a channel for interview. Yeah, correct. Now, first of all, I spoke to my boss, Tony Blair, what do you think? I spoke to one or two other people and Tony said, yeah, on balance, yeah, okay, but make sure you stay calm.

15:33Anyway, I recommend that you Google the interview. I actually think it's one of those interviews, when I listened back to it, which I did when I was preparing for the iraq inquiry and also I get lots of students send it to me to sort of say, I'm writing an essay about this and watching and I actually, I stand by every single word that I said. It was slightly unfortunate. Yes, what would a critics say, Alistair? A critics who was less well -disposed towards you say about this interview. Well, Fiona Miller, for example, my partner, she would say there was a ridiculous thing to do. I should have stayed out of it, but I had a pen in my hand and John Stowe was doing so I was doing my hand gestures, but it did look like I was sort of on the point of stabbing him.

16:19So, yeah, I still think it was the right thing to do because I'll tell you why, because there comes a point in some of these stories when you just think, fuck it, I've got to show the public what is going on here and I think actually I exposed it perfectly well. Anyway, that was that. What did you do when you become the story? You probably don't go until it. But how did it happen to me? It was very different to what's happened to Sue Gray because with me, you have to remember, I was seeing the media all the time. They were utterly obsessed with our media operation. This whole spin thing that sort of became.

16:53And where did it come from? Because Margaret Thatred had burned a thing and hadn't she? So, it wasn't a new thing that people had people trying to do. Our rules and our joe hangs and, you know, right? No, what was new, I think, was that they, I don't know really, maybe it was because I was a former journalist. Maybe it was because I'd come from a place of being absolutely clear with the media. I was not going to take a backward step that we were going to, we would determine to set the agenda. And also, I mean, Andrew Rawensley, our Moves to the Moves River on the same time, he says, the trouble is that most of the media finds you more interesting than most of the politicians.

17:30But it was also the fact that I was there in their face every day. So they saw more of me than any of you. You did the lobby briefing. So, I did. Yeah. Number 10. Yeah. And by the way, I started to become the story in opposition. When we won the election, either the first day or the second day, the independent, which, you know, not a paper totally hostile to us, but the front page was a picture of me, Sally Morgan and Jonathan Powell. And it was basically saying, you know, it was essentially saying these are the people in charge now, sort of thing. So I think part of the thing was that people wanted to sort of project Tony as being not wholly in charge and having these other people around it.

18:09And I was this sort of, you know, black arts person, so was Peter Mandelson. But I just think it was a nonsense. But the thing was Sue Gray is different because Sue Gray was a long serving civil servant who absolutely hated being in the public eye at the time of the Boris Johnson. And I think it felt that the government really treated her badly. The Tory government in the same way, Sue Gray is going to decide what's the right some wrongs of this. And remember how we had that wait for Sue, Gray, wait for Sue Gray, wait for Sue Gray. She then goes and decides to leave the civil service going work for Labour.

18:46And is now back in and I think has been, you know, done in by quite a few people, some in the civil service, some maybe in the Labour Party. But at this point about becoming the story, I was at an event the other day, but after with some business people and Sue Gray was mentioned. And I said, well, first of all, let me check with the audience, does anybody hear not know who Sue Gray is? And not a single hand went up? So everybody had heard of her. Everybody had heard of her. I then sort of said, well, as everybody here heard of Morgan McSweeney, quite a lot of hands went up. As anybody here heard of Matthew Doyle, who was the press guy, a lot of hands went up.

19:25So there's no doubt that Sue Gray has become a very, very well -known, probably not recognised. People don't necessarily know what she looks like, because she's talked about rather than she's not on the telly. And of course that is, that is difficult. But I think I've said to you before that with Tony, his view was that even though I was attracting all this stuff, while I was doing it partly as a lightning conductor for him, too, he understood that they were doing it as a way of undermining him. And as long as I had his trust and confidence, there wasn't a problem there. But it's not pleasant.

19:59It's really not pleasant. And I think I was, I was ready for it. I knew that it was going to happen to some extent. The day I was announced in 1994, from day one, there were stories that started to appear. I can remember, I can remember, I told Tony all the skeletons in my cupboard. And I suppose there was the drink, there was about some violence from time to time. There was the whole thing about... You'd been hospitalized. I'd been hospitalized for a breakdown. There was all that stuff. There was stories I'd written, sex magazines, writing for sex magazines. So all this stuff, right? So I remember sitting around after I'd started the job, thinking, right, when, you know, talking to my team and saying, I wonder when they'll do this story, when the story, news of the world did the lot.

20:49First week at it. But I think you'd become the political story when, within the political world, people start to think that you're a problem. Now, some people will defend Sue Gray to the health. Others will say this is difficult or whatever. But it's not pleasant. And it will be particularly unpleasant for her because by background, she's a civil servant. She doesn't want to be in the public eye. Okay, Alice, so quick break and then back for more questions.

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23:27Let's move you on to International. Fatine Sharif. Brands & Burke Election results show that AFD has outperformed remarkably well with 16 to 24 -year -old voters compared to others. There's growing data from around the world that younger voters, men in particular, are voting for these parties without citing immigration as the top is you for their vote. What do you think is happening here? Is this mainly an anti -establishment reaction to the current economic situation? Or is this a never seen before in decades cultural event? Well, I think it's a great question. I think it's very interesting. I said in my last book, what can I do?

24:05I wrote about this survey that had been done. We're in every continent in the world now. The decile of the population most open to the idea of military and authoritarian rule is not the old. It's the young. And it's young men. And we're seeing this in Trump in America where young men, by and large, broadly in favor of Trump, young women, massively in favor of Kamala Harris. I think part of it is this whole thing about masculinity. I think the way that Andrew Tate has become this, you know, quite influential figure for a lot of young men and in schools. I think an older woman said to me recently that she felt, I mean, she's middle in her 80s, but she felt that young men felt that society was becoming more feminized.

24:57That the values, the dominant values of culture were values that she is a woman in her 80s, saw as more feminine values. And she said there were more female teachers in schools, more female doctors, and that increasingly the way men in their late teens behave is seen as being sort of unacceptable and that they didn't really feel they have space to be themselves. But maybe you don't buy into that. Well, I buy into it partly, but only I think is an excuse. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having lots of female teachers. There's nothing wrong with having lots of female doctors. It was interesting.