566. Carney vs. Trump and Alastair’s Advice for Burnham’s First PMQs

22:48And also, I'm going to, despite my deep, profound dislike of pedultery, I'm going to allow one final plug for your event with a young chap called Lewis Goodall, who I believe presents a podcast. Is it political currency or erectile dysfunction? I can't remember which one it is. You and Lewis Goodall are going to be at the Dominion Theatre in London on September the 13th. And to get tickets for that, you go to feign.co.uk.

23:17Rory Stewart:Thank you, Alesside. That's very kind of you. I'd like to say I heard very good things about Grace's show at the Edinburgh Fringe. I also went to see a lovely show yesterday at the Fringe with Will Adamsdale called AI AIO, which if you have a chance ever to see it when it, I hope, comes to London, is really funny and you would really relate to. What is it? Is it anti-AI? In the end, yeah. It's a hilarious story about somebody trying to develop a relationship with an AI bot and how it all goes wrong. And actually, he's on stage with the AI, speaking to him, teasing him and things. So that'd be lovely.

23:50Rory Stewart:But yes, if anyone would like to come, And there's still tickets available. Louis Goodall and I, 13th September. And I think it'll be great. Audience questions, big engagement with huge issues of our time and a good way of getting back into global and British politics. The start of the autumn. Thank you all. Take a break and then we'll come back and talk about elections in Palestine and Israel. A BetterHelp ad. One of the hardest parts about starting therapy? Not knowing what to expect. Instead of listening to an ad, hear from the people who've actually been there. Visit BetterHelp.com slash reviews to explore real client reviews updated daily.

24:23With an average live therapy session rating of 4.9 out of 5, based on more than 1.7 million client session reviews, the feedback speaks for itself. Visit BetterHelp.com slash restpolitics. Hey parents, how do you make smarter choices for your kids' college today? That's where Sally can help. With Sally, you can find scholarships, funding options, tools, and guidance all in one place. And if you need a loan, Sally has options for different families and different situations. College is only worth it if you do it right. So don't just help your kid go. Help them go smarter. sally.com slash go parents.

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25:38welcome back to the rest is politics question time with me alistair campbell and with me

25:43Rory Stewart:rory stewart question from alex why after 20 years of avoiding elections in palestine has mahmoud abbas finally concluded that holding an election is less dangerous than avoiding one well the honest answer is i don't know haven't talked to him i've talked to lots of people in his orbit, I think the honest answer is direct pressure. I think he's been put under a lot of pressure by the European Union. I think he's been put under pressure by the US. And I think he's been put under pressure by some of the powers in the region as well. And by your friend, your friend, the French, the French were very much putting pressure on him about this.

26:17Rory Stewart:Absolutely. Yeah. Look, if it happens, if this election happens, and I think it's a big if, for all sorts of reasons, which we'll come on to. But if it happens, it is an opportunity to try to see whether some of the old amenities can be sorted out on the Palestinian side, and also to see whether they can get some kind of new energy into the political process amongst Palestinians. Because I think that, I'm sure he's got lots of talent, but it seems to me the biggest talent he's got has been one for his own personal survival. Am I right that he's actually 90 now? I mean, we think Trump and Biden are old.

26:50Rory Stewart:And he has let people down so much and so consistently. I don't know whether people remember that he promised that he was going to effectively march on Gaza. And then everyone's like, oh, at last he's doing something and he didn't ever do anything. Meanwhile, it is so corrupt, so useless. And it completely plays into the hands of extremists in Israel who say you can't have a Palestinian state because look at how useless the Palestinian Authority is. They're not capable of governing themselves. So there is a real chicken and egg here. I mean, yes, Israel's making it impossible for them. They're basically smart riches, finance ministers, cut off all their sources of revenue.

27:31Rory Stewart:They can't get hold of customs revenue. It looks like they're going to be debanked entirely. So they can't get any money at all. But boy, they're not helping themselves. I mean, the net popularity ratings, I think, now of Fatah and the governing authorities is down. It's always down to single digits. There's a lot of interesting things going on, though. So there was a meeting in, I think it was in Cairo, between a guy, this guy, Mohamed Dalan, who is the head of a breakaway faction from Fatah, who met with the leader of Hamas. And they talked about the need for unity of the national position. That was Dalan's Democratic Reform Party speaking.

28:09And then, of course, the other question that I think any pending election, particularly a presidential election, is bound to provoke is discussion about Marwan Barghouti. Because whereas in our system, the UK, prisoners can't vote, in the Palestinian system, they can be candidates for prison. And I think there's a big, big decision for Barghouti and his supporters, which are many. I mean, he's still by some distance the most popular Palestinian political figure, even though he's been in jail for some time. But the question that I think his team are having to struggle with is, does he join one of these existing lists?

28:50Does he try to sort of be part of that national unity? Or are the risks of being associated with something like Hamas just too great? His background is very much fatter. Or does he create a whole new list? Or does he wait and then go for the presidential election when that comes along? Yeah.

29:07Rory Stewart:And the Dachlan thing is really interesting. So we've been covering a lot, the splits that are now happening in the Gulf. And the big split is the United Arab Emirates. So Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed is now well off in an increasingly different world from Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait, because it's so pro-Israel, so pro-Trump, and is taking sides against its Gulf states, particularly against Saudi and Saudi Arabia. places like Yemen, where it's literally ended up with Saudi blowing up Emirati boats in ports. And Mohammed Darlan has traditionally been the UAE candidate. He actually lived in Abu Dhabi for a very long time.

29:49Rory Stewart:He's close to Mohammed bin Zayed. And UAE's big identity, along with showing loyalty in the case of Sudan to a genocidal warlord, but showing loyalty around the world to people who they see as fighting the Muslim Brotherhood, they see the big threat as being Islamists. So the traditional split would have been UAE behind Dakhlan and Qatar and people more sympathetic towards Muslim Brotherhood, providing funding for Hamas. Those two forces coming together is really interesting and remarkable. Yeah. Because it's happening at a moment at which relationships between UAE, Saudi and Qatar are at an all time low.

30:31Rory Stewart:I mean, for the first time you have social media accounts, as you pointed out, associated with the leaders, openly attacking each other, trying to humiliate and embarrass their rivals. So I find it very difficult to believe that can be pulled off. But it's a really interesting story. And the whole question of what you do, I mean, again, to remind people, the reason why there haven't been elections for 22 years is basically that Hamas won the elections when they had them last time. And despite our great commitment to democracy and elections, as soon as Hamas won, of course, we basically disallowed the elections.

31:04Rory Stewart:And Dahlian, who was born in Han Yunus in Gaza, was the Fatah strongman leading the civil war fight against Hamas. So, you know, that's a huge move, which I still can't quite believe. No, and I think it is a potential game changer. It makes me worry that those who worry about where that might lead to something quite powerful won't necessarily want the election to happen. I was talking to somebody who said that the Israelis are making it very, very difficult to get just the infrastructure for an election put in place. And also, might Abbas at some point think, oh, well, the pressure's off me a bit now, I can maybe postpone them.

31:51Might he actually think having two elections at different times in such a complicated, dangerous time, bring both together? that have the parliamentary elections, presidential elections at the same time.

32:02Rory Stewart:If you were trying to stop this election happening, let's say that you were part of an Israeli movement that really believes that these elections are not helpful for Israel, an obvious thing to do is to draw attention to what we say about Ukraine, you know, what you and I said about Ukraine in the last episode, which is we're saying, oh, no, we can't have elections in Ukraine because there's a war going on and because all these people have been displaced from their homes and there are refugees and it's very difficult to do election monitoring, etc. And I think they would quickly say, oh, well, if you think that about Ukraine, why are we having elections in Palestine?

32:35I'm surprised Bibi hasn't tried to pull that one in, why are we having elections in Israel? Because that's the other big election that's coming up quite soon. Just on the polling, Roy, I mean, I don't know how easy it is to do polls in the occupied territories, but there's a poll that was sent to me, Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, and two really interesting things. The first thing, let me give you this one first, and you can come back to me when I've given you the rest of it. Support for peace negotiations has risen to 44%, the highest in four years, while support for armed struggle has fallen to 27%, lowest in four years.

33:1256 % still support a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. 58 % see a two-state solution as impractical given settlement expansion. And in terms of the horse race of the potential future presidents, Mahwan Barghouti in prison, 54%. Khalil al-Hayr, the leader of Hamas, 26 % and 14 % for Abbas. And it goes up in the West Bank to 63%. So he's clearly the person that most Palestinians would like to see. But again, the chances of a government with Ben Gavir in it, who's actually visited Barghouti in prison so he could insult him, letting him out at a time when he's allegedly building gallows to hang Palestinians, I think is small.

34:01It brings us back to the question of how this connects to our stories about Canada and Ukraine and the AFD.

34:11Rory Stewart:And I think we need to talk more about the International Criminal Court. And Europe needs to be much, much stronger in defending the International Criminal Court and defending Japanese judges on the International Criminal Court who are now facing sanctions from the United States, their bank accounts suspended. it. In the end, if this post-war order meant anything, as you keep saying, it's about the rule of law. It's about rules of war. And it needs to be able to do its job. And I cannot understand why the United States would be opposing it. It's not actually that American soldiers are about to be indicted by the ICC.

34:49Rory Stewart:There have only been 60 big indictments. These are cases which have mostly, in fact, being targeted at places like sub-Saharan Africa. But we need to be able to hold to very, very basic principles around law and how you conduct yourself. I mean, let's just take one example, which we covered in April 2025, which was this extraordinary moment where a paramedic convoy, I mean, ambulances, which were clearly ambulances, were attacked by Israeli soldiers. And there's been an extraordinary report done by Forensic Architecture and Earshot that found that 844 gunshots were fired in just five minutes and 30 seconds, fired directly towards the emergency vehicles and aid workers, five shooters firing simultaneously, no obstructions limiting their line of sight.

35:37Rory Stewart:and Israeli soldiers appear to have walked towards the aid workers, continuing to shoot, and executed some of the aid workers at point-blank range as close as one meter away, and then proceeded to immediately start doing earthworks on the site and burying people. I mean, not very carefully, which is why actually one was able to get the mobile phones out of the corpses that had been buried under earth. But if we're talking about the rule of law, and we're talking about Israel as a democracy, the IDF has said there were several, I quote, several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident.

36:14Rory Stewart:But it hasn't called for criminal charges against military units involved. And it concludes that the IDF's code of ethics was not breached. So, you know, as we're going through an investigation into British special forces in Afghanistan for executing people. And we've been through similar things in the US, similar things in Australia. How is it possible for an incident like this, which is documented very unusually? I mean, it has not been possible to document any other incident in Gaza with such precision, because there was so much mobile phone footage and coverage that it's unambiguous. And yet they simply say code of ethics hasn't been breached.

36:56Rory Stewart:some professional standards would appear to. Yes, impunity. It's impunity. What also often happens, particularly when you have forces of the Israeli state supporting the settlers in their violence against the Palestinians, when it gets out of hand, you often have statements saying, you know, there will be a full investigation. The investigation never even happens. At least this investigation happened. Often they just never happen and they move on. And look, I think this theme of impunity is just fundamental to so many of the problems that you and I talk about all the time. Because if you don't have rules, if you don't have norms and values that everybody signs up to, you have chaos.

37:35And of course, why does Trump not want to support something like the ICC? It's because he fancies every now and then breaking international law. And he doesn't want to be held accountable for it. Same as Putin. Same as, you know, we could go on and list them. The trouble is at the moment, they're more powerful and there are more of them than there have been historically during our lifetime. So that's the issue. And then the worst thing that happens is when the people who are trying to sort of stay on the straight and narrow, trying to abide by the rule of law, reach a point of thinking, well, actually, maybe, you know, maybe they do better by pushing the rules by not being so sort of hidebound as they would see it.

38:16Rory Stewart:Just on this, because we get so gloomy on this, and we keep getting stuck in the horror of what's happening. And we did an interview on leading, which if people haven't listened to, I'd really recommend because it's about hope and optimism. And it's about Israel and Palestine. And it's an Israeli and a Palestinian talking about peace, unflinchingly talking about peace. the Israeli has managed to have both his parents were burnt to death, killed in the October 7th attack and the day after that attack he was already calling for peace the Palestinian, his brother was tortured in an Israeli prison and then died he's also calling for peace so the Aziz and Maoz interview I thought was absolutely brilliant there's another really good thing that's been done actually by Justin Cohen who helped support a really interesting project on Quranic commentary on the Torah, where he's brought together a Muslim and Jewish scholar looking at the incredible overlaps between Islam and Judaism and their common reflections on the Old Testament.

39:21Rory Stewart:Anyway, people are doing this stuff, but I'd really like to direct you to begin with to that leading interview. Over to you. Right, Roy, I'm now going to put you in charge of the Andy Burnham team. Oh, yeah. To answer Lex's question, if you were preparing Andy Burnham for his first PMQs, what would you focus on? So, Rory, I'm sure that question was directed at you, not me, obviously. Totally, totally. So the first thing I would do is I would say to him, get in Alastair Campbell. If you want somebody piously and boringly banging on about the rules-based international order, you can have me. But if you want someone who really understands how to think about taking the fight to the opposition and doing QT, get in Alastair.

40:01Rory Stewart:So Alastair, come on, what would you say? Well, do you know what? I think I've said a couple of times that it's going to be very interesting when he gets back into Parliament, when Parliament gets back, to see whether he can keep up this sense that he gives of being nice, being calm, and not attacking his opponents too much. It'd be very, very interesting. It really will be interesting to see whether he can do it. So this is really high stakes stuff. Presumably, the real risk is that a guy who has been brilliant, really brilliant on social media and done very well as mayor of Manchester, suddenly finds himself in the very unfamiliar environment of Parliament.

40:43Rory Stewart:And then you have the kind of things that happened, I guess, to Theresa May and maybe to Rishi Sunak and others, which is maybe even Gordon Brown. I don't know how good he was at PMQs. Maybe I don't want to pull you on that because he's your mate. So I'll leave that. Let that go. Mate-ish. Let that go. Or maybe the Kemi Baden-Ock lesson is that actually you can learn to do it. That even if you're not that great initially, it's something that you can learn to do. But anyway, risky, no? Yeah, but don't forget, by the way, he's an experienced parliamentarian. He was in parliament and as a cabinet minister for some time.

41:14Rory Stewart:So was Ian Duncan Smith, but he didn't do so great at the dispatch box. The quiet man is turning up the volume. But I think PMQs is of a different order to anything he's done before. I can honestly say that from the first day he did it to the last day, 10 years later, Tony Blair was, it's the one thing that used to make him a bit nervous. Because yes, you might know, you can usually guess what's coming. You can usually work out the line that the main opposition leader is going to take. Not always, but usually. But the stuff they can get you is when you're not 100 % sure of your ground, you're not 100 % sure of the facts, and somebody, and it might be a backbencher, it might be the frontbencher, but somebody just sort of catches you out.

42:03Rory Stewart:Give us an example of that, because obviously the impression Tony Blair gave was that he was a real master of this stuff, and he was unbelievably good at digesting a brief and being on top of his facts and figures. but can you remember any moments where Blair was slightly thrown off balance by questions that he wasn't expecting? I don't know if I've told you this one before. The one that pops into my mind was when, I think it was in our first year, we had this idea of doing an annual report, okay? Like he's the CEO of the country, we do an annual report we set out all the great things that the government has achieved in the first year i think it might have been an idea that peter mandelson floated when he was sort of in charge during the summer uh he'll he'll never forgive me for saying that but anyway so we did we had this annual report and we started it with an event in the garden we had all the military in there and the top civil servants and all sorts of people then of course he goes to parliament meanwhile the annual report has been published.

43:05And people are thinking this is just a glossy piece of bullshit. This is just not very significant to why we're having a statement in Parliament. And Peter Brook, the Tory, former cabinet minister, who was then on the back benches, he stood up and he said, can the Prime Minister explain the significance within his annual report of the picture on page 47 okay and then sat down and tony of course has to scrabble to find page 47 that it's a picture of a packet of contraceptive pills which of course was in a thing about sexually transmitted diseases and what have you and of course everybody had the annual report everybody got to page 47 at the same time and the whole place captain left including tony and that was the last time we ever had an annual report

44:02Rory Stewart:genius genius before we get on to burnham um can we just go i suppose on a sort of your know your enemy what would you be thinking that kemi badenock might do what might she think her attack line could be to really unsettle him at his first pmqs well i think after a very shaky start she has developed a sense of real confidence and pretty brutal attack okay so i think she'll want to do that i think she'll start by being nice and welcoming all that blah blah blah blah i think the line that the tories seem most comfortable with at the moment i don't think this will work by the way but i think it's what they're trying at the moment is that it's all a bit showy it's all a bit vibes-y.

44:49So if I were her, I'd go on some really big, probably stuff that you can't answer, related to the budget coming up. So I'd go in the economy, you've got the budget coming up, and factual questions, really hard factual questions. They're the ones I used to dread at briefings, by the way, is a factual question that you should know the answer to.

45:09Rory Stewart:And so a factual question would be something like, I noticed that you've talked about building this number of houses, how much it would cost? Or you've talked about this tax change, exactly how much revenue will it... What is the modelling the Treasury has produced on the revenue implications? So what most MPs like to do is to display their own knowledge when they ask the question. The Prime Minister will be aware, as I am, that 0.8 % of this has done this to that. Actually, just to stand up and say, the Prime Minister has inherited the pledge of his predecessor to build 1.5 million homes over the period of this parliament.

45:45Can the prime minister tell me exactly how far down that track we are, how much that has cost so far, cost the exchequer, and whether he's da-da-da? So you just give him a factual question. You could even, you know, I think sometimes...

46:01Rory Stewart:Can I pause on that one? So let's imagine you're at that dispatch box and somebody does that to you. How the hell do you get out of that? Do you have to have all those figures at your fingertips? Is that the only way to survive that? It's better if you do. And one of the most important people in Tony Blair's time at Primus's Questions was a woman who now still works for Tony, actually, called Catherine Rimmer, who built the most incredible sort of database of fact and then was thinned down. Tony Blair had a thin version of the facts and he had a thick version of the facts. That would probably be in the thicker version.

46:35It might not be, actually, because, you know, you've got to work out. What the team does is try to work out every possible question that might come and then make sure he has the factual answers.

46:44Rory Stewart:One of the things when I was sitting on the front bench, I'd sometimes do with Theresa May, who I adored, is try to lean over. And if it was something to do with something I knew about, give the answer. So with that, possibly the housing minister leans over and says, you know, we spent 23 billion. We've built this number of houses. This is our projection. No. Or maybe that puts off the poor man as he's about to get to his feet. Well, it might do. And also it looks a little bit weak. I think you can only do it if you're literally sitting next to them. Right. Sometimes you can see people prodding them from behind.

47:18I think that's always a bad look. Yeah. And particularly ones who sort of sit there with, you know, fiddling with their papers. But I think Kemi's strategy will be to welcome him and then go for what she works out to be his weak spot, which I think at the moment they think is, you know, it's all a bit vibey rather than real substance. And then get into the budget, pre-budget um i think his strategy will be to will be to try to show a kind of new style but also i think he'll use it to remind people of a lot of the things that he's done since taking over if i were him i'd be thinking on the day of having something pretty big to announce that day that takes over i would do that and you'd announce it in the

48:01Rory Stewart:morning before parliament met and to have the ire of the speaker or you'd or you'd announce it in a statement before pmqs or or you'd maybe even drop it in pmqs ah based on a question that you that you know is coming very good oh very good something absolutely huge that gets everybody thrown off the balance absolutely huge not absolutely huge because often the first question comes from your own back benches doesn't it before the opposition leader gets their feet yeah you know we talked to when we talked to johnny mercer on leading and he said that we were both angry when he had the first question to johnson when he was on the ropes and he asked him something about you know quite supportive but yeah and one of the most infuriating things the whips find is when question number one is your own side yeah but they don't but they don't want to play so uh i think then the other thing you have the other thing i think you'll work out is you do have different strategies for the different parties tony was always even though he had a good relationship with paddy ashtown he was always probably more dismissive of the Lib Dems.

49:02He always used to have taken, they're not the serious party. So, and I think what will be interesting, where I think Andy will find him most tested, this nice guy thing tested, is with reform, you know, because Farage is still, although I think he's peaked and his parties are, you know, I think he's still a threat. And so anyway, he's going to be interesting, be interesting.

49:21Rory Stewart:So listen, just as we end this section on PMQs, Alasdair, you've done a great mini series on Andy Burnham. So anybody who's serious about understanding our new prime minister, it's with steve rotherham and actually it's one of the mini series that gets better and better as you keep going so push on through episode two and three lots of new stuff coming and do sign up at the rest of politics.com for our newsletter which is becoming a more and more high quality product yeah well i think one or two of our listeners and viewers thought i was so i was a bit sort of you know a bit too pro-labor that me and steve rotherham were a bit were a bit too pro-labor yeah what shocked i'm shocked by that no no no way absolutely shocked to listen to the series become a member at the rest of politics.com and that's what will also let you listen to the miniseries that i'm about to bring out um on existential threats and many other things that we produce right rory here's um you know how i love to help you plug your own projects and your books here's one from joe has rory ever considered turning politics on the edge into a tv series well Well, the answer is yes, absolutely.

50:23Rory Stewart:And in fact, the TV rights were bought and I was working with a really brilliant writer and producer. One thing, of course, is to make a, he wanted to make a drama, not like a sort of biography. It's really interesting developing that. We had to develop a Labour candidate to parallel the Conservative candidate, sort of in inverted commas, Rory, and then work out how to weave them in and each other through six episodes. and as she shoots up through the Labour Party and I collapse within the Conservative Party and how these different things play out. It's been interesting also talking to commissioning editors.

50:58Rory Stewart:I mean, you would have been through this a lot on trying to get these things made on whether they think there's much appetite for a miniseries on UK politics. You know, even with, you know, we had a very, very glamorous female lead as our Labour MP who was going to be the key thing here and whether people feel things like Brexit are just so exhausting and depressing, they can't bear to watch it again. But yeah, I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed putting it together. Have you done sort of fictional drama miniseries stuff? I've been involved in several. I was involved in the TV production of Chris Mullins' books about, was it Harold Perkins?

51:39What was the prime minister? Yeah. The fictional prime minister. And then when you said those were bought the TV rights, that I had a bit of a kind of, you know, stab to the heart because one of the best moments of my life was when Jimmy McGovern, the great TV dramatist and film writer and so forth, he phoned me up and he said, he'd read my first novel, All in the Mind.

52:00Rory Stewart:Yeah. And he said, has any of you bought the rights to this yet? I said, no, not as far as I'm aware. And he said, well, I want to. Oh my God. Jimmy McGovern wants to turn All in the Mind into a TV series. And I was so excited about it. and then about and he really did work at it and after about six months he came back and he's such a perfectionist i just can't quite make it work in the way that i want and so i'd love it if he came back and changed his mind on that um now i've done loads of stuff like that and i but mainly as a kind of advisor consultant and then of course i was in that thing recently about the phone hacking thing where i had one line with david tenon who was playing nick davis the guardian journalist and oh my god i don't know how these actors do it so many takes for my one line yeah to get it exactly as you want my um my biggest moment was um long before i became a politician uh brad pitt bought uh the my life rights for my afghan book and i had orlando bloom came up to stay with me here in scotland actually we went climbing up um the smar gland together and he He brought his dad along, weirdly.

53:08Rory Stewart:There was an amazing thing. We had a supper at home, and suddenly there was a lady very kindly cooking for us. But she suddenly turned up with like nine additional unpaid waitresses who just wanted to peer at Orlando Bloom, giving the impression that I lived in a kind of country house with like 10 staff. Are you sure they didn't want to see you? Are you sure? I'm pretty sure they are. I'm pretty sure they are. Well, you know, do you remember a few weeks ago we talked about the book North Stream Conspiracy? Oh, yes. Yeah. And I said, this has got to be made into a film, right? Now, I'm not saying this is the reason, but it's now being made into a film called Snake Island starring Adrian Brody and Sean Penn.

53:52Oh, brilliant.

53:54Rory Stewart:Yeah. Oh, brilliant. And Sean Penn is one of the divers, presumably. Well, I don't know, because also, if you remember, the person who actually planted the bomb was a woman. a former exotic model as they call it. So we need to know who's playing her. I mean that's the great role isn't it? That's going to be the big role as far as I'm concerned. I think she's called Frankie. Anyway that's good news. So there we are. Yeah well we're not going to ask you who you're going to cast because that could be quite creepy as you take us through all your favourite actresses. Yeah that would not be good. Isabel Huppert.

54:28Rory Stewart:And the family question time. I've also got to tell you Roy even though I'm not going to tell you any more detail now but I know you think I work too hard and Fiona has actually complained several times on this holiday about my unhealthy relationship with work. She was particularly pissed off when we had to delay our departure for somewhere because Sanna Marin had kept us waiting for 40 minutes before an interview. But there we go. That's what life as a podcaster can sometimes be. A little plug for that though, coming out on Leading, interview with the extraordinary, extraordinary previous Prime Minister of Finland.

54:59Rory Stewart:But yes, she was 45 minutes late and oddly didn't apologise. And you like people to be on time. The production team and I are very aware of that. I'm not sure listeners are quite as aware as this. What's your George Bush thing that you keep reminding yourself? Bill Clinton and George Bush never kept me waiting. Never kept you waiting. Exactly. No, George Bush doesn't allow people into the room if they're late. And I was going on to say that with my unhealthy relationship with work, I have actually now finished my next book. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. It's out in October. What is the book? Go on, then.

55:31Rory Stewart:No, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. You're going to wait? you'll wait to do this well congratulations blimey i mean i i am embarrassed to say that i can just about do podcasting bit of teaching i am not making progress the book you know and my editor listening to this will be immediately now sending me an email saying can we please have a call what on earth's going on the the publisher actually said there's a really big market for short books about simple themes um and that's what it is you'll be the first to know rory good well i'm looking forward to it very much but short book simple themes sounds like a real winner that does sound like yeah i hope so i hope so yeah so it's yeah we've even got a publication date i'm looking at covers later today so this has been a great great holiday fiona's absolutely loved it so no but you've now assured fiona that you will now be taking time off and not signing up for another book immediately.

56:25Absolutely. I'm going to go to an 11-day retreat. I'm going to sit cross-legged. I'm not going to do any work on the podcast. And I'm not doing any speeches. I'm not doing any campaigning. Nothing.

56:40Rory Stewart:Well, I'm sadly coming to the end of the most amazing five weeks in Creaf here in Scotland. Rain going on outside in school. And I'm off next week to Silicon Valley, where I'm going to be doing that terrifying flight at California where I'm going to be sitting talking about AI again. So I feel, you know, a beautiful five weeks coming to an end. Well, we've had a great, I mean, I honestly don't feel I've had a holiday, nor does Fiona, because we actually drove to Split. Was that a mistake by any chance? No, it wasn't a mistake. It was just because we have the dog that Fiona won't go away without the dog.

57:17So the only way I could get Fiona to come was to get the dog to come. So we stopped off at various different places, and then we got to Split. We have actually a really good time, but I'd be lying if I said either of us felt fully rested. Split was three days full on socializing, award ceremonies, football matches.

57:36Rory Stewart:And you also had to play an entire football match. And you're not, I don't want to be rude, but you're not the same age as some of those other footballers. I mean, that must have been pretty tiring. You know, it might have been. But the truth is, I mean, both Nemanja Vidic and Marcel Desailly said to me, because we had rolling substitutes. You should come on and off, right? And I was looking at them saying, come on. No, no, no, you stay, you stay. So when I finally came off and I was trying to push them on and they said, no, no, no, I don't want to get injured. I don't want to get injured. You've got to remember, these guys have had so many operations on their knees and their hips and their backs.

58:11Rory Stewart:But does that mean when you tackle them, you have to be pretty careful because you don't want to be the guy who actually injures one of them? Rory, you're talking to me. I don't care if they get injured. A tackle is a tackle. There was actually one moment, which I'm afraid was filmed, where I pushed this 14-year-old into the crowd. Anyway, it was a tight game. We'll get that on film. Definitely. Listen, youth sport games. My final point, Rory, because I'm determined over time to convert you to sport. yeah hannes hahn who is a former european commissioner and also an ambassador to the games he actually said that the youth sport games should be nominated and he plans to intends to nominate him for a nobel peace prize they've had they had half a million children took part this year in this thing right from this country these this region and and and if and if they don't get the nobel peace prize if infantino's listening maybe a fifa peace prize or are you going to give it to donald trump every single year brilliant i also want to give a shout out roy to a gentleman by the name of avon perryman who most people in boxing know is a big big figure in boxing and our listeners and viewers may have heard us read out his question last week unfortunately it wasn't his question he actually asked the question about boxing which maybe will answer some other time.

59:40But it was one of those, I think we call it a producer's cut and paste issues that got a bit wrong. But Avon, thank you for your question. Thank you for listening.

59:49Rory Stewart:Yeah, and you don't want to be on the wrong side of one of the great legends of boxing. No, yeah. Don't, don't. I think legend might overstate it, but, you know, involved in boxing. But Avon, in Rory's eyes, you're a legend. Okay, Rory, see you next week. See you next week. Bye-bye.

1:00:10Hello, everybody.

1:00:11Rory Stewart:We've got some exciting news to share with you. We do, indeed. As you all know, The Rest is Politics Plus members get early access to question time, they get ad-free listing, they get exclusive series and a host of other benefits. And probably for me, the most exciting thing is these exclusive mini-series we're doing. And right now, we're holding a summer sale. So you can get an extra 20 % off on an annual membership from now until the end of August. If that sounds good, head to therestispolitics.com and use the code SUMMER26 when you purchase an annual plan. Make the most of this deal and join us for a busy summer ahead.

1:00:43Rory Stewart:We've got some brilliant new series coming your way. So new stuff coming, for example, on existential threats. And then there's all the stuff. So what are some of the mini-series that you've enjoyed you think people should be listening to? I've enjoyed them all, to be honest. I really liked the Gen Z series that Vicky Spratt did. I've enjoyed the recent one on the funding of reform. I've been very proud of some of the stuff we've been doing on AI. We now have a really good package for listeners going deep into AI around the world. So sign up now and start catching up with our special Summer 26 code purchase on therestispolitics.com.