506. Trump Attacks Iran: What Happens Now?

20:28Rory Stewart:Domestic law is Congress, you get Congress voted. Internationally, you're going to get the UN to vote for this. And what are your grounds? So you can only do this stuff in international law if there's an imminent threat to you. I suppose this is a stupid analogy, but I suppose you're only really allowed to punch someone in the face in a bar if they're actually picking up a bottle to swing it at you. You can't say, I think he might in the future pick up a bottle, so I'm going to smack him in the face.

20:54Alastair Campbell:But interestingly, in his State of the Union address the other day, Trump said Iran was about to develop ballistic missiles that could hit the United States, whereas the Defense Intelligence Agency's own assessment, the last one, says that's not true. So I wonder whether he was actually trying to sort of generate the sense that we are about to get hit.

21:17Rory Stewart:Trying to set that stuff up, yeah. Well, so there was the legal argument. But I think probably the two stronger arguments why people didn't do it in the past were firstly that they were very worried about Iran's proxies, this very powerful Hezbollah force in Lebanon, which had about 100 ,000 missiles targeted at Iran and the Houthis and the Shia militia. And secondly, that they were very worried about the potential response from Iran itself, its own missiles, the way it would accelerate its own nuclear program, the way in which you would unleash war in the Middle East. And what's changed over the last two years is that Israel began to be much, much more aggressive and take much more risk.

21:59Rory Stewart:So we first started covering this when they attacked an Iranian consulate and killed Iranian diplomats in Syria, which was a change because actually the Iran-Israel conflict really since 2019 was a sort of shadow war. There were cyber attacks, there were a few assassinations, there were attacks on ships, but there wasn't anything absolutely open. Then there was the Israeli attack which wiped out the whole of the top of Hezbollah. People remember, this was the pages and the radio attacks where 1 ,500 of the top people of these Iranian proxies in Lebanon were killed. Then there has been the change in Syria.

22:37Rory Stewart:So Ahmad al-Sharah, who we interviewed, is very much part of the anti-Iranian force. Iran was backing Bashar al-Assad the old ruler in Syria. And the whole infrastructure of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Syria has collapsed as Ahmad al-Shahar has taken it over. So Iran suddenly finds itself without its proxies. And then the next thing that's happened is that the Israeli strikes against Iran, of which this is the third major sequence, have revealed a real weakness at the heart of the Iranian system. It turns out that the anti-missile defences that Iran has simply weren't good enough. A huge amount of the satellite and interception infrastructure, in other words, Iran's abilities to scan the sky, see these missiles coming in, has been taken out.

23:37Rory Stewart:The nuclear program has been set back a long way, and Iran did not actually react very powerfully the last two times, and the Iron Dome, which protects Israel, held. So the big change, to finish this long speech, is that Iran, which was seen as a very dangerous power that could cause mayhem if it was attacked, as recently as two years ago, is now perceived, at least by US and Israeli policymakers as being a sort of paper tiger, militarily very weak, a regime about to collapse, and therefore they don't think that they're taking too much risk in attacking Iran.

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26:52Rory Stewart:And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EBCLIS, Librikizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe.

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27:42Alastair Campbell:Rory, what do you know about Channel 12 in Israel?

27:47Rory Stewart:No, tell me about Channel 12.

27:48Alastair Campbell:Well, I don't know anything about Channel 12. Somebody just sent me a social media post quoting Israel's Channel 12, reporting Israeli officials believe that Khamenei, his advisors and those responsible for the nuclear program, have been assassinated. I have no idea if that is true or not.

28:11Rory Stewart:Well, let's stop on that for a second. I mean, this is worth doing given we're doing this live and you've just heard this live, okay? So let's take that seriously. We don't know whether it's true or not because in the past we've heard people have been assassinated who've turned out not to be and sometimes it is true. But let's say it were true. That is an immense change. How many has essentially run Iran now for decades upon decades. The first phase that you remember of Khomeini really came to an end in 1989. And everything we know of Iran, the second Islamic Republic since 1989, has been under the control of Khomeini.

28:51Rory Stewart:And this man, 86 years old, is a true believer. He's not somebody that was likely to flee to Russia or head off with his loot. He's somebody who, to the end, believed strongly in the nation-state of Iran, in the sacred resistance, the fight against the US and Israel. And he is the absolute linchpin of that part of the regime. Now, there are other things underneath him. There is a huge Revolutionary Guard infrastructure, there is a Basich militia, which is set up throughout all the villages and towns of Iran, and then there's the military. But removing the supreme leader right at the top is essentially like removing Putin or removing Saddam Hussein or removing Gaddafi.

29:39Rory Stewart:I mean, you're removing the person who has been personally responsible for running this autocratic regime. Now, what does that then mean?

29:49Alastair Campbell:Now, the only thing I'd say about that, I think that's right. But I think the comparison with Putin is not necessarily accurate. I think Putin is an absolute dictator. I think Khamenei is the supreme leader. But I read somewhere recently, somebody said it's less a pyramid structure and more a series of pillars that's sort of going in different directions. And I think a lot will depend. And let's assume for the moment that this is true. And, Alas, I hate talking like this because we're talking about sort of hugely consequential global event that we're getting from one person on a trade on his way to a football match telling me his scene on Twitter.

30:29Alastair Campbell:But that you've then got the Revolutionary Guard that is, as we said the last time we talked about this, the RGRC, the last time we talked about them, we talked about they basically control the economy as well as the politics of this. So the question then would be, if he were to be wiped out, does that then lead to a power struggle to replace him, which cements those kind of pillars and their power structures, or does it lead to real change? Now, and this is going to be so complicated. When we were in Munich at the Security Conference, Roy, I was talking to this European diplomat, and we were actually talking about all sorts of different things.

31:12Alastair Campbell:And along came our friend Justin Forsyth, who later introduced my friend to Reza Pakhalavi, the son of the Shah.

31:19Rory Stewart:Who I also spoke to in Munich. That's why I spoke directly to the son of the Shah.

31:24Alastair Campbell:So we were both chatting to him, and he was saying that he was feeling more confident. They've had these massive rallies around Europe and he's been out on social media today saying that the time to return to the streets may be approaching. Military there to defend the people, not the regime. Pleading with Trump to avoid civilian death and pleading with people to stay safe but be ready is essentially saying that the regime is crumbling. May or may not be true. But interestingly, the diplomat who was just, I think quite pleased to suddenly be meeting the Shah's son as we were just having a chat about this and the other.

31:59Alastair Campbell:He sent me a message this morning. I'd love to know your reaction to this. He said, and so it begins. You recall my concern that starting a war is easy, controlling it, ending it much harder, if at all possible. The Iranian regime is evil, yet I'm taken aback about the hubris and ease of the decision to attack. The world is becoming unshackled and our most atavistic instincts unleashed, all the while backed by unprecedented technological ability. I fear we're entering an age of impunity and suffering with no one in control. How long will it take to temper the human condition once again, and who is going to do it?

32:38Alastair Campbell:And I kind of feel there's a lot in that, that, you know, when this happens, Trump, he stands up there with his USA baseball cap, and he kind of, you know, just talks as though he literally owns the world, and he's carrying it on his own shoulders. and he doesn't really know what's going to happen. Bizarrely, when the news broke this morning, this was happening, I'd been in bed wallowing in self-pity with man flu. And as you do in bed, Rory, I was reading the latest edition of Foreign Affairs magazine and I was actually reading a piece by this guy about Iran. He was called Benham Ben-Taleblu and he's a senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which I think opposed the JCPOA.

33:24Alastair Campbell:So he's probably, you know, very, very anti-Iranian. But he set out, it was a really interesting, thoughtful piece, and it was setting out how America, with the support of the Iranian people, could bring down the regime, okay? But as I read through it, I thought, God, this is bloody complicated. This could go any which way on the route from A to B. Yeah, yeah.

33:43Rory Stewart:So let's, I think this is the key. you are essentially, when you're doing this, you are stepping into a completely black room with no idea whether there's a step underneath you or whether you're going to plummet 100 feet down. You may get away with it. You may not, right? So what's the most optimistic scenario which Israeli and US planners will have? Their most optimistic scenario will be the Iranian people are completely fed up with this regime, that when Khomeini and the top leadership falls, the Revolutionary Guard and Basij will be unable to hang on to power. The army will maybe be a more neutral force, more sympathetic to the calls from Reza Pahlavi.

34:33Rory Stewart:I mean, he himself might even want to feel that the military has some residual loyalty to the old Shah. But in any case, this is the optimistic story. Iran has a very strange, strong, and long tradition of parliamentary engagement going back to the beginning of the 20th century. And that there are this highly educated, progressive population, particularly in cities, and that what will happen is that it will be like 1989. The old leaders will be kicked out. And this is the very optimistic scenario, elections follow and sanity returns. On the other end is, well, let's lay out some different scenarios.

35:21Rory Stewart:Number one, top leadership maybe is taken out, but a new form of top leadership takes over, which could either be a new strong man taking over, head of the Rotary Rishi Guard, or could be just a military coup, a military general taking over. And then the Iranian people are going to be very, very angry because tens of thousands of people have been killed by those figures. And they're not going to be content with a Venezuela situation where you just remove the top person and leave the rest of the regime in place, in which case you have continual killing in the streets. Or you have, let's craft another possibility, you have an anti-regime government takeover, so maybe a technocratic US-backed government takeover, in which case you might have the former regime elements, the people who were lined up with the old regime, starting their own insurgency.

36:14Rory Stewart:That's the Iraq problem, right? The Ba 'athists are kicked out and then you have all the former Sudan loyalists mounting a 10-year insurgency against the government. As with many of these countries, you could also imagine a scenario of big divisions which are ethnic and sectarian. So the Kurds, Western Iran, very, very badly disposed towards the regime, completely different political views, heavily prosecuted now for 40 years, and very, very interested in separatism. The Baluch down in the southeast on the Pakistani border, again, could kick off. Now, somebody listening to this is going to say, oh, well, this is typical.

36:52Rory Stewart:And certainly Boris Johnson listening to me would be like, well, this is the normal rubbish that you get from these kind of Foreign Office Arabists. When are you going to just call out the fact the regime is evil? Fine. I honestly do think that anybody who thinks they can predict which path this is going to go is confusing themselves. We know so little about Iran. We've got so many of these countries wrong. We've got Afghanistan wrong. We've got Iraq wrong. We've got Libya wrong. we've got Yemen wrong repeatedly. So they may be lucky, but even if somehow by some miracle, Trump and Israel triumph and Boris Johnson writes the article he wants to write saying, yet again, that doomsayer liberal bedwetter was wrong and it's all worked out beautifully, it will be in a sense because they were lucky.

37:40Rory Stewart:Anyone who thinks they can predict the directions, they're taking risk, huge risk.

37:44Alastair Campbell:Well, on prediction, while we'd be talking, you, Rory, are hardworking, dragging them out of bed early in the morning to set up a live podcast team. I'd be doing a bit of polling of our listeners and viewers. Will Trump be successful in establishing regime change in Iran? Our viewers and listeners think no, 80%. Yes, 20%. Will there be a full-blown war? Yes, 55. No, 45. Will Keir Starmer join the US in Iran? No, 84. yes 16 will the iranian people rise up against the regime regime in the week of these strides yes 41 no 59 on the coup point rory when you were speaking there i was i was sort of trying to think what would a venezuelan equivalent be so venezuela he goes in and takes out maduro and we all think this is going to be the unleashing of sort of you know great democracy uprising in venezuela because he's got no interest in democracy he actually wants to be a dictator himself so delcio rodriguez does a deal, stays there, carries on.

38:46Alastair Campbell:I guess the closest example parallel to that, is this too harsh on Delcey Rodriguez, might be if actually they take out Khamenei and some of the top dudes, and then actually a version of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps just takes over. Yeah.

39:02Rory Stewart:Well, I think there would be a, I mean, the one Trump narrative we've seen before, which could definitely play well here, is a military general takes over who says, we made a mistake having a nuclear program. We're going to get rid of our ballistic missiles, but I'm going to run a military dictatorship. I'm going to open up oil for American oil exploration companies. And Trump will say, tick, tick. What does Trump care about? He wants to be able to say no nuclear weapons, no threat to Israel and great commercial opportunities for the US. And as you say, he seems to think that it's easier to deal with old fashioned dictatorships them with democracies that might, in an annoying way, vote in governments that might be opposed to the United States.

39:43Rory Stewart:So I would have thought there would be a strong temptation from the kind of hard realist edge of the Trump administration to say, we don't have any views on whether or not Iran has a democracy. All we care about is that it's not threatening our ally Israel and that it gives us commercial opportunities. Now, the problem with that, of course, is that that is not remotely acceptable for the Iranian people who've just seen tens of thousands of their citizens machine-gunned in the streets over the last few weeks. They are not signing up for a world in which a new military dictator takes over. And so I think the level of rage and antagonism in Iran towards the United States, towards Israel, and of course towards their new government is something we're massively underestimating.

40:28Rory Stewart:So I don't think that's an easy thing to pull off.

40:31Alastair Campbell:Yeah, yeah. Well, there we are, Rory. We're both looking for a quiet weekend. I was looking to get rid of this post-Ukraine, whatever it is. And you seem to have a skiing injury. Raise your hand again. You've got to – what have you done, Stuart?

40:45Rory Stewart:Not very interesting. I was ski touring. And as people know, what you have to do is you have to click around the back of your bindings. And I managed to cover the snow and blood trying to flip it around. Now, let's just quickly just go through some of these comments. Oh, more comments.

41:01Alastair Campbell:I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. So we've got –

41:03Rory Stewart:Oh, great. I like this. leftist idiot switching off Keir Starmer voters stop supporting Ukrainian Nazis all you two care about is finding a way to smear the motives of Trump all our friends are out then so that's yeah there's a lot of comments there's thousands of comments my god so I think let's just take that on for a second um how would you if you were i don't know keir starmer for example make a speech to the people there who say we're just a bunch of useless lefties who aren't condemning the iranian regime enough and we just want to smear trump i think what you have to say is listen the iranian regime is a horrifying horrendous regime that's machine gunned tens of thousands of people in the streets i i would say to this person challenging me have spent i guess much more time in Iran than they have.

42:00Rory Stewart:And my experience being detained by the Basich militia and the Revolutionary Guard was extremely unpleasant. I got a sense of a totalitarian regime, people living under fear, massive underdevelopment, a very, very angry population. And this is going back even 20, 25 years. It's a regime that's been in place nearly 50. And it's also true that this is a regime that has destabilized the region, fired missiles around, And so I would be incredibly happy if this regime was toppled and a liberal democratic government emerged in Iran and all the incredible potential of this educated, vibrant, huge civilization was released and stabilized the world.

42:42Rory Stewart:But Trump does not have a good track record on doing these things carefully and responsibly. There is no sense at all that he's answering the question of what happens the day after. You know, what is the nation building? How do you get the government going? how do you get the economy going? And secondly, the risk is here is not being properly analysed. Let's talk through the risk. What would it mean if there was civil war? What would it mean if there was a military coup? What would it mean if another Iranian Revolutionary Guard takes over? What does it mean if Iran starts not just firing ballistic missiles at the Gulf, but starts doing much nastier terrorist attacks around the world in revenge?

43:20Rory Stewart:So somehow we have to find a way of saying, I totally condemn the Iranian regime, but what Trump is doing is reckless, stupid, ill-planned, and has a very, very high probability of going wrong. And even if he gets away with it, it'll be through fluke, not judgment.

43:39Alastair Campbell:I don't think Keir Starmer can say the last bit of that. I think he can say a lot of the first bit about Iran and what we think about that. But I think maybe the way to phrase it is that, look, Iran is an issue and a country that has bedeviled presidents and other world leaders for decades now. And it is probably only if we do have some kind of joint cooperative approach to this that we can make real progress. I mean, the truth is that the deal that was done was a very it was a pretty good deal. Trump hated it because it was done by Obama. um but you know i i just think that that that is part of the problem we're dealing with somebody who feels that everything has to be about him and rory i've been we're getting hundreds of comments in here but you read out some of the negative ones about the from you know people i suspect there's quite a lot of bots going on here but here's one from fam giza australia netanyahu is only interested to stay out of jail what which means he has to continue in the state to the war conflict.

44:39Alastair Campbell:Same for Trump. The Epstein scandal continues. Distraction helps. Somebody else, Paul Ingram, Operation Nantes Distraction. So there's a lot. It's all very, very mixed. But I think that, look, I think one of the, I was thinking about this when I was thinking about the by-election yesterday and all the sort of, all the kind of, the relentless commentary that flows from this. You get so many people saying so much stuff about anything that happens in the world. And I think that when something like this happens, it really is important that world leaders kind of do step back a bit and actually, I think, say what they really think.

45:17Alastair Campbell:I'd love to hear, you mentioned Albanese, when you first mentioned Albanese, oh God, no, surely he's not going to come out and say, yeah, we totally support this and blank check. And I don't think that's what you're saying he's done. But I'd really like some kind of honest calling out of this by all of the world leaders really because we're entering a world at the moment. We are we took you know that friend of mine from The Diplomat talked about impunity. We are entering a world where you know leaders can do what they want and then if they have the base and they have the media control that they have they then just create a new narrative if it goes wrong.

45:51Rory Stewart:Yeah well so honestly I mean I think this is one of the most worrying things of the whole thing, which is the way in which the engines of the way that populism works, the way that social media works, the way that this kind of post-truth works, all increases the chance of conflict. Because if you are Trump or you're Netanyahu and you're effectively running a sort of reality TV show where what you're trying to do is unsettle your opponents, throw everybody off balance by creating a new headline every day. Bombing another country is almost the best headline you could ever get. I mean, you've pointed this out when you've said, you know, this ends with people dropping nuclear bombs around.

46:36Rory Stewart:Because the mechanism of politics isn't anymore, it's not Cameron against Blair or Gordon Brown, right? This is not people talking about whether we're going with sure start programs for early education or whether we're going to be reducing spending on policing or invest more in devolution. This is a type of politics which is all about the big radical play. We're sending ICE into Minnesota, we're dropping bombs on Iran, we're challenging the constitution. And so I think that you and the people who are responding who are talking about the fact that you've got to look at wag the dog, you've got to look at distraction, you've got to look at court cases.

47:24Rory Stewart:And the reason why that's problematic is the Iranian people are the victims here, right? It's not really about Iran. It's not even really about the threat that Iran poses because in fact, actually paradoxically, the reason this is happening is because it turns out Iraq is much weaker and less threatening than people claimed two years ago. In fact, the only way in which you'll - Iran, sorry, Iran is much weaker and that was two years ago. In fact, the only way in which Iran is going to damage anybody is going to be in response to these attacks, right? It's not that Iran was on the verge of launching these attacks unilaterally.

48:01Rory Stewart:But there's another point, just to give you another thing to chew on. Krista Hegsund says millions of refugees coming to Europe because of Trump. So remember, when the civil war broke out in Syria, smaller, much smaller place than Iran, I guess, probably about a quarter of the size in terms of population. You end up with 3 million refugees going to Turkey, a million to Lebanon, a million to Jordan. Ukraine, I can't remember what statistic you gave us when you were in Kiev this week, but 6, 7 million.

48:33Alastair Campbell:4.7 million in Europe, yeah.

48:34Rory Stewart:Okay. Now, Iran is a gigantic population, right? It's a bigger population than Britain. you really could end up if this thing goes wrong with tens of millions of refugees on the move

48:47Alastair Campbell:and this despite the fact this is in the comments from d mulcahy this was trump in june 2025 i can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success iran's nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated uh so we'll get a version of that tomorrow, today or sometime tomorrow. Anyway, we'll be talking about this again on Tuesday when we record the main podcast. We'll probably talk about the by-election as well. But there we are, bloody hell, what a world, what a day, what a world.

49:24Rory Stewart:Yeah, yeah. Well, I think we just keep coming back to your point about politics. I mean, there's a guy called Time Lord Jenkins who sort of echoes your anxiety. He's on the other side to you, but this is what you're dealing with. He says, I'm not a fan of Trump, but at least he's someone who's actually doing something rather than sitting in constant conferences saying a lot and doing nothing. It's this very odd world that you want to say rationally, but what's he doing? I mean, the mere fact that you're doing something rather than sitting in a conference is not great if what you're doing is causing chaos.

50:00Rory Stewart:I used to hear this a lot with Boris Johnson. At least he's not sitting around, at least he's taking risks, doing something. But if the risks are reckless and the actions are profoundly damaging, you know, and someone else has just said, what does it matter if there's a civil war? Well, matters if there's a civil war if he turns up with tens of millions of refugees, apart from the incredible suffering of the Iranian people themselves.

50:19Alastair Campbell:There's another thread in the comments, Roy. C.J. Kill, C.G.K.I.L. I wonder if this is linked to the rumored executive order to bring in wartime powers on voting. Jim G6458, Trump will use the war as a distraction and as an excuse to stall halt elections. And there is something odd, given that he made such a big thing about the forever wars and his constant bleating to get the Nobel Peace Prize. He clearly loves standing up there and saying, I've launched a military attack. It's very weird.

50:56Rory Stewart:It's very weird. I was looking at the notes that I was taking in October when he was running against Kamala Harris, and all the number of times he said, these were stupid wars, he was going to stay out of war, he wasn't going to launch any wars. I actually took a note saying, question mark, I was just looking, I have these stupid books, I take the notes, which you remember, question mark, will this mean that he won't strike Iran? Because a lot of the language then was very much, I'm not the guy that does that kind of thing. We're now in a very different world where this guy's moving for the toast.

51:26Rory Stewart:And you can see this breaking the mega coalition. You can see Tucker Carlson and people coming out saying, what on earth is going on? I thought you were meant to be this kind of isolationist who didn't want to get into wars. Well, the last time - Why exactly are you picking these fights?

51:37Alastair Campbell:The last poll I saw on some of the last poll I saw was 20 % support for military action against Iran. That's amongst Americans.

51:54Alastair Campbell:Somebody's pointed out that he called it, I should have clocked this, he called it a major combat operation. That's got a ring of the special

52:01Rory Stewart:military operation of Vladimir in Ukraine. Sorry, final, final thing, just before I let you get back to your sickbed. We've talked about how as the old rules and the old order collapses, conflict becomes more likely. But one of the things that's quite difficult to explain to people is that you can't necessarily predict region by region exactly where that conflict's going to break out. What you can say is that the trend is clearly for the last few years, every year you end up with more conflict, more refugees, more internally displaced people. But we are not yet talking about Ethiopian troops massing on the Eritrean border.

52:44Rory Stewart:We're not talking about what's happening between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now, the point is that let's take the Pakistan-Afghan border or the Ethiopian-Eritrean border. These are borders like the Russian-Ukraine border. These are contested borders which were created with people drawing lines on maps at different times, and therefore there are populations on either side of those borders that think they should be in a different country. It's true for all Iran's borders. I talked about the Kurds, the Baluch, make the same comment about people up in Azerbaijan in relation to Iran. right? So what we're seeing in Pakistan and Afghanistan is a huge chunk of the Pakistani population in Qaybhar Pakhtunwala, what used to be Northwest Frontier Province, are Pashtu, who call themselves Afghans.

53:27Rory Stewart:And I remember President Khazai used to be kind of greeted by these tribal chiefs, people waving Afghan flags when he landed in Pakistan, right? So the Pakistanis are now bombing Kabul and Kandahar. What's this about? Well, this is about the collapse of a world order where people said, listen, these borders are borders. Doesn't matter how they were created. Doesn't matter who's on the other side of the border. The safest and most peaceful thing for the world is to say, we're going to leave these borders in place. And that's why Trump allowing Putin to steal chunks of Ukraine, threatening Greenland, refusing to provide security guarantees for NATO, and now getting involved in these illegal strikes, Venezuela, Iran, is so dangerous because we're just seeing the beginnings from Ethiopia to Pakistan of what could bubble into almost every continent in the world.

54:25Alastair Campbell:Yeah, yeah. Well, there we are. It sort of all fits with themes that we've been weighing on about for some time, but it's pretty alarming stuff. We'll see where it goes. And I I suspect he'll be in a very different place even by Tuesday.

54:39Rory Stewart:Okay. We'll speak on Tuesday and hope you get better. Yes, your voice sounds much better.

54:43Alastair Campbell:Yes, I'm getting there. Yesterday, I talked to a friend of mine who's in the military who has been on that train a lot. And he says he never gets ill, but he does the sleeper trade there and back. It's a problem. Anyway, there we are. I'll be fine, Roy. I'm going to be very brave. I'm going to be very, very brave. Okay. See you later. You'd be brave with your finger as well. Yeah, my daughter. What somebody called a cautionary.

55:10Rory Stewart:Listen, somebody also asked, what's this picture in the background? The picture in the background is the mother of my father's Chinese teacher. My father studied Chinese in China before the revolution in 1945. And that's his Chinese teacher who was already 80 in 1945. That's his mother. And she was the wife of a senior Manchu official in the 1860s, 1870s. Wow.

55:33Alastair Campbell:I've got nothing quite as dramatic as that Unless you count, if I just dip down my shoulder this way, you'll be able to see there the boots I wore when I played with Maradona.

55:46Rory Stewart:Oh, my Lord. Listen, Alistair, I didn't want to say this. Signed by Maradona and Pele. Oh, that's amazing. But Maradona, you just provoked me there. Because I saw our mutual friend, Damien Lewis, two days ago. Oh, yeah. Oh, did he tell you about that? He said to me, listen, I love Alistair, but I've got to say, when he was selected as left back and I was right wing, I felt pretty lucky.

56:11Alastair Campbell:Yeah, he was lucky. There's a truly horrible picture of him gliding past me and really looking like I'm old and tired. Anyway, I don't care. I still mention Maradona every day of my life. You've got your dad's Chinese teacher. I've got my Maradona boots. See you soon. Bye-bye. See you soon. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

56:38Rory Stewart:Thought Sweetgreen was just salads? Think again. There's a new way to do Sweetgreen. Wrapped and ready. These handheld wraps pack bold flavor and 40-plus grams of protein into something hearty, satisfying, and built for life on the go. From craveable sauces to satisfying textures, they're designed to keep you going without slowing you down. So put that fork down. Try the new wraps today in app or at order.sweetgreen.com. Available at participating locations only.

57:10Rory Stewart:Rinse knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry. So Rinse will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So, pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting Beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to us. Rinse. It's time to be great.