The Rest Is Politics - 551. Will Farage’s Trumpian Resignation Stunt Backfire?

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Is Farage's shock by-election gamble a Trumpian trick to bury the scandal over his finances? Why has the Murdoch press finally turned on Britain's most protected politician? Can Andy Burnham beat the media machine that swallowed Keir Starmer? Join Alastair and Mehdi Hasan as they answer all these questions and more in this week's edition of Question Time. __________ Enjoy Rory and Alastair’s interview with Ben Rhodes by searching ‘Leading’ on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube. Go deeper into the world of The Rest Is Politics by signing up for our free newsletter HERE, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis and weekend reads from Alastair and Rory. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus. Start your free trial at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, exclusive newsletters, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Stop overpaying for energy. Switch at fuseenergy.com/politics and get a free TRIP+ subscription.Sponsored by Lloyds. Get the account that offers more. You've earned it. See how Lloyds can help you make the most of your money. Search Lloyds Premier. £15 per month fee refunded when you meet the eligibility criteria. T&Cs apply. UK residents, aged 18+. 🌏 Upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app! Get an exclusive NordVPN deal + 4 months extra here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/yourunique-code. It’s risk free with NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee! __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [e-mail] __________ Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Adam Thornton, James Clayden Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Producer: Evan Green Exec Producer: Chris Sawyer General Manager: Tom Whiter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nigel Farage, who rarely visits Clacton, thinks that what Clacton needs is a by-election. Be set by questions about where all his money comes from, losing his rag with reporters as he returns from the United States. And apparently with some of his own supporters losing faith in him, he clearly thinks he needs a new narrative. Is this a big ball move to show he's the victim of an establishment stitch-up, as he claims? Is it about trying to stop the investigation into his finances in Parliament? Or is it just Nigel Farage, being Nigel Farage, and getting us all talking about him? One thing is for sure. Just as in recent weeks, we're talking all the time about Makerfield, in the coming weeks, it's going to be Clacton.

This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. Right now, Fuse Energy's tariffs are up to £200 below the off-gem price cap. Plus, they've just launched a new referral offer that can bring your bill down even further. What I love is the simplicity of it, if you refer a friend, one of those few people who haven't heard about fuse from us every week. And they switch both their gas and electricity. You each get £50 towards your next bill. So it starts with one conversation. No price draws, no chance, no complicated reward scheme, just the power of one smart recommendation that rewards you both. And remember, energy prices are more volatile than ever, but don't wait for rates to spike again.

Switch to fuse in just three minutes and move to cheaper energy designed to help you and your friends cut bills. So don't just listen to another price cap story, switch to fuse, save up to £200 and get trip plus free with code, politics at fuseenergy.com slash politics. Welcome to the rest of politics question time with me, Alastair Campbell. And me, Maddie Hustle in Washington, D.C. And the reason Medi's here is because Rory, as you know, is on his annual silent retreat. Medi and I are not going to be silent as we talk about all sorts of things. Now, Medi, while we were recording the main episode, we had one,

eye on a television in the background because Nigel Farage was speaking. And the reason we're putting out a question time ahead of the main episode is because, as he expected, he was announcing that he was stepping down, not stepping down as reform UK leader, not stepping down as the man who thinks he can be the next prime minister, but stepping down and sparking a by-election in his own constituency. Let's kick off with that. Question from Matthew, what is Nigel Farage up to? you want me to have the first go of that or do you'll have a go of that? I mean, it's very clear what he's up to. This is classic distraction and deflection.

Nigel Farage worships at the altar of Donald Trump, where I am in Washington, D.C. Trump has mastered the art of distracting from scandals and controversies by making you look over there, by flooding the zone with shit, as Steve Bannon famously put it a few years ago. And this is the classic response. Nigel Farage is facing the worst media he's ever had, which isn't that higher bar, because he's had such soft and good media. year for the last 15 years. It's the first time he's really ever faced any serious sustained scrutiny or criticism of his finances, of his leadership, of his background, of his allies.

Instead of addressing it head on, we first saw him hide from media interviewers during the recent elections. And now, doing this kind of David Davis-esque gimmick, if you remember the shadow home secretary at the time, David Davis resigned, was it Hulton-Preeton? Well done, Medell. Well done, Medi. 2008. I was a British journalist. Yeah, but you've been. away a long time. And he quit over some civil liberties issue and it was a ridiculous thing and he had to kind of, you know, we did a whole by-election. And by-elections cost a lot of money.

This is what Farage is doing. He's not giving the people what they want, which is goodbye, Nigel Farage, go away. He is actually doing this gimmick whereby, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know what happens to his parliamentary investigation into this five million pound donation. Does that get put on hold while this by-election goes on? Do we stop talking about it? Because that's what he wants us to do. We don't have to, nobody can tell us what we talk about and people can talk about it. I don't know about the election because, of course, the minute you do the Chiltern hundreds, as they're called, and you're no longer a member of parliament. So if you're no longer of a member of parliament, are you being investigated? I don't know

is the answer to that. But the parliamentary investigation is not going to go away if he becomes an MP at the end, again, at the end of the by-election process. But the issues of Farage and money are not going to go away. And if anything, even though you're right, this is very Trumpian in saying, you know, let's create another drama over here and you go over there. That's true. But at the same time, it also elevates the scrutiny that people want to give them. And I think you're right, by the way. I've been raging for ages about the extent to which they talk about two-tier care in relation to policing. The only two-tier that we really have in our political culture is in the way that the media have covered historically people on the right of politics,

particularly Farage. Very interesting to me, for example, one of the reasons he's losing the plot at the moment is because it was the Sunday Times that did this big thing at the weekend about so-called post-George, this guy, George Cottrell, who's a kind of very weird, flamboyant, colourful gambling character, even when he got done for fraud in the United States, and I think was even with Farage, who was out there when he was, when he was, when he was nicked. A bit like Mark Rutter with Donald Trump, he says that Nigel Farage is like a father to him. Farage and he are very, very close. There's a picture, which frankly, again, with a sort of

serious grown-up media landscape, this picture would be as well known as any other picture of modern times. It's Farage and Posh George, and who's between them in the background? Nathan Gill, currently in jail for essentially being a Russian plant in the European Parliament. So the issue is not going go away, but we're going to talk, as you say, about something different. There's going to be a race. There's going to be a by-election. And the media reverts to form. You know, Alist, the media loves a good horse race. So a lot of the political journalists who just recently, finally, started asking tough questions of Farage may go back to just talking about, is this a test for Andy Burnham? How will Labor do in the by-election? What about Zach Polanski in the Greens? So it's very useful for Farage in that way.

And I can't say the statistic enough times. Nigel Farage has been on question time 38 times. The only person who's been on as many or more times than Nigel fraud is Michael Heseltine, who first appeared on question time in the late 1970s, right? In those 38 times he was on question time. How many times was he asked about his finances? When I was complaining, as I have done before, about the question time issue, I think I was told that Shirley Williams might have topped the lot of them. Oh, really?

I thought it was Heseltine versus Froe. Either way, he's in the top two or three. He's definitely right. Having not been an MP until very recently. And my bigger question is, does he ever get, asked these questions. Why did it take so long? He was an MEP in 1999 in the European Parliament. He became famous in 2009 when UKIP did really well in those Euro elections. I remember it vividly. He did Brexit in 2016. He's been on the public scene for 15 years minimum, if not longer.

Why is it taken so long to ask these very basic questions about who funds him? Who are his allies? Who does he hang out with? Well, but again, partly Trumpian, they hide in plain sight. The bad boys of Brexit. Aaron Banks. I mean, Aaron Banks. I mean, Aaron Bans, Banks was sort of scrutinized, at least to some extent. The Russian connections were being talked about. But I think what's so interesting about the post-George story is that it is the Sunday times. Because the truth is that that says to me that the Murdoch press, maybe, is tiring of Nigel Farage. One hears that Christopher Harbourn, the guy who's central to this story, because he's the guy who gave five million pounds to Farage that Farage said was just a little gift, nothing to see here. then it was for security, then it was a reward for Brexit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But you hear, I hear from people, I don't know that many people in Farage's circle, but I know some, that he's getting really fed up, that all this money is going into reform and into Farage, but actually it's not delivering a greater likelihood of Farage being Prime Minister, because they worry that they peaked. Because yes, in a polarised, in a broken up political system, you don't need what you used to need to get a majority, but it doesn't look like Farage is going to be there. And then, of course, we'll talk about Andy Burnham later on,

but Andy Burnham showing that you can beat reform in their own backyard, which is why Andy Burnham's about to become Labour leader and Prime Minister. That's an added pressure. But I see, I watched, I'm sure lots of our listeners and viewers saw, Nigel Farage, coming back from America where like every good patriotic British person, he went to America to pay homage. Him and Rupert Lowe. Him and Rupert Lowe.

They went to America to pay homage to the American. for breaking free from the British King and taking back control rather better than they took back control with Brexit. And he comes back to Britain and he's doorstepped, as anybody in politics, who's high profile often is, by a guy with a camera who's asked a very straightforward question, do you regret not declaring blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he lost his shit. He completely lost the plot. And he looked. I wondered when he announced he was doing this, announcement today, I wondered whether it was going to be to sort of talk about, and I know he talked a little bit about the harassment he comes under. And honestly, the whinging attached to that, I'm going to

repeat this. I said it last week, but for this guy to say he's the most attacked politician in modern British history, when two MPs, one of them during the referendum, have literally been assassinated. You can fuck off with that, Farage. You know where he gets that line from, right? I mean, Donald Trump says the same thing. Absolutely. Trump says exactly. the same thing. That I'm the most hated. I'm the most attacked. No one's had it worse than me, even Lincoln, who was assassinated and killed. So it is very Trumpy, and he's not used to being doorstepped, as you say. One thing I would say about a by-election is it will give journalists an opportunity to spend more time with him out and about because he has to go out and shake hands

and kiss babies and knock on doors. So we'll be able to hide from the media in the same way he has. You say that. His announcement was covered wall-to-wall across all our TV, channels. Okay. Now, I've got a vague feeling from my days in government, unless the BBC sort of guidelines have changed, you can't take the live feed from a political party. You know, for example, when you're doing a party conference, and quite often before the leader's speech, you'll have a big video pumping up the crowd, whatever. The BBC, and I think Sky is well, they go to something else because you don't cover feeds that are provided by a political party. They took, a feed from reform with no media in the room able to ask questions. So you say that a by-election

will expose into more media, it might well not. It might well not. Yeah, that's a good point. Because what you do, this is Trumpian. You create yourself as the center of the story so much that the media is desperate just to get anything from you. Yes. No, it's a very fair point. And when Donald Trump, you announced his war in Iran on February 28th, Alistair, most presidents, I think all presidents, taking American forces to war, have done live address from the Oval Office, they've done a press conference. He did a pre-taped announcement from Mara Lago in a baseball cap. So there is, again, yeah, hiding from the media when tough questions need to be asked. But I'm saying if he is out and about, and reporters are in the vicinity,

will they continue to ask about these donations or will they let it go? That is the fundamental question right now. My big critique of journalists on both sides of Atlantic is when there's a big story, when there's a big scandal, you must focus on it. You must ask follow-up questions. You must persist. You must not allow yourself to be deflected, diverted, distracted. You must keep going. And I think that's my number one criticism of interviewers right now. Yeah. Just to remind people of what happened in the Clacton election. So Farage was elected with 46.2% of the vote. Not a majority. Not a majority. Well, not. He didn't. He won the election and quite substantially, he got 21,000, 2225 votes. Jars Wattling, the Tory, he got 12.

thousand, nearly 13,000. Labor came third, seven, seven thousand five hundred. And then so it went on. And I wonder whether there is a kind of, a sort of public interest service to be done. Say, listen, mate, you've caused this by-election. We're not going to waste loads of money on it. Maybe, maybe put up one candidate to take it on. Or maybe we asked Christopher Harbourn to pay for the by-election, not the British taxpayers, because it costs a lot to run a by-election. Well, in a way, he's caused it, hasn't he? I just, I just googled it while you were talking. David Davis in 2008, when he quit to run for this by-election, this ridiculous egonautical by-election,

the Culture Secretary at the time said he should pay for himself. And the Culture Secretary of time was Andy Burnham, just randomly. Oh, 80,000 pounds. 80,000 pounds it cost to run that. That was 2008. I have no idea how much it cost to run a by-election in 2026. Yeah, and you're talking there not the parties. You're talking about the public purse.

Yeah, I'm talking about, yeah, the public cost of a by-election. Yeah, yeah. So there we are. I think the point I was. making about the doorstep he did with with sky is he really looked on the edge he really really did look on the edge for the first time yeah and and so and i wonder whether what sort of driving him there is he's thinking well if the you know if if you've got the murdock lot lining up against him you know he knows the troyes are against him he knows labor against him etc i agree with you i think ferrard

has had one of the easiest rides of any major political figure in modern times he doesn't get asked difficult questions he basically gets treated by the media more as a commentator than as a politician. Yes. Sorry to keep banging the DC Trump drum, but it's exactly the same here. The interviews with Trump, the press conferences, he's treated like a pundit. He's asked his opinion. I always say to American journalists, stop asking Trump opinion questions. Stop asking, Mr. President, do you agree with this or that? What's your take on what just happened? Ask him actual accountability questions. Did you do X? Why did you do X? There's evidence you did X.

And I think that is a fundamental problem with the White House press score, the Downing Street Press Corps, Sunday morning show hosts in the U.S., whatever it is BBC hosts there. Obviously, you guys still do better interviews than the US. The U.S. interview scene is horrifically bad. But with Farage, for some reason, as you say, this kind of affable, I'm the bloke down the pub, it's treating him as a question time panelist who gives his take on the stories of the day. And the defense always was, well, he's not a member of parliament. Well, he's now, he has been for a while, and he's now triggered this major by-election. He's seen as the next Prime Minister, according to some polls, ask him the hard questions. Be embarrassed that it took so long to ask about where his money's coming from. I just saw, I think, Gary Gibbons, Channel 4 News report the other night, and they had footage from the Reform HQ of... Posh George. Posh George, Cottrell, wandering round, just taking phone calls. He's there. He was present. Why did it take so long to ask questions about this guy? Why did it require Sunday Times Insight investigation now? Well, the answer is that most of people on the right have wanted, they wanted Brexit. it. The newspapers on the right wanted Brexit, and Farage was a big part of that. They wanted him

in Parliament. They wanted to drag the Tory party further to the right. They've done that. They've now dragged it so far, the centre of gravity in the right wing of our politics so far to the right that now even Nigel Farage is not right wing enough, and Rupert Lowe comes along even further to the right. So listen, it's so funny, I'm getting so many people messaging me about what they think about this. I've got one person whose judgment I inquire is basically saying, think this is a really smart move. Other people saying, this is the next step. This is the next nail in his coffin. So this is what he does. He makes us all talk about him, think about him. But I think there's some big questions here for the Tories. The Tories, I don't think, are yet settled on

the strategy of whether they try to compete with Farage by being more like Farage or whether they go for Farage. There's some clearly you're right that people will say that, because right in the middle of this at some point, Andy Burnham is going to become the prime minister and this will be sort of you know part of the backdrop of that as well so look it's it's an interesting move i think it's a move born of desperation i think it's a move born of his of his inability to withstand pretty limited gentle scrutiny by media that up to now has been far too tame with him but i think he might get away with it in clacton we did this when we did this mini series with cat nielan from the observer about who funds reform which i recommend to those who haven't listened to you

You do have to become a member to listen to it. But what was interesting when Kat and I did a Q&A about it, which is available to all who listen wherever you get your podcasts. But she'd spent a lot of time in Clacton. And she was basically saying that people didn't like this stuff about the money, but it wasn't necessarily shifting them. Now, that's the thing that we'll have to see. A bit like in America, I can't believe that Trump making $2.2 billion doesn't make everybody think,

why did I vote for this crook, right? But it doesn't seem to be happening at the pace that you and I might think that it should. You would hope that the UK is not the US still on these issues and that shame still matters and that decency still matters and the anti-corruption still matters. Obviously Farage doesn't have the Donald Trump, I'm a businessman, excuse that Trump and his sons have wheeled out for their crypto fortunes. Farage is slightly different, right? Anastay, he's not doing he's not getting his money as a result of investments. He's getting his money as gifts or what he claims are gifts. He's getting money from all sorts of places. I mean, look, as somebody somebody says, you know, if you were willing to do a cameo saying up for the Rar for 80 quid,

what might you do for 5 million? I mean, he's got all sorts of money. You know, he's got this bullion company that he promotes. He's... Alistair, I'm just looking at the numbers. He got 46.2% of the vote in 2024. If he gets less than that, is that bad? Is that going to be seen as a defeat? If his vote share goes down? Because you've got the Greens now as a force that they weren't in 2024? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Because in the end, this is the great thing about by-election. This is why, you know, Makerfield was suddenly being talked about around the world. I mean, I literally was getting vocals from Australian television. Could I come on to talk about what Makerfield is like? John Oliver did a whole segment on it on HBO here at the US.

He did, yeah, exactly. So, and now, the people of Clacton will now, their views will matter. So do they want a by-election? I'll tell you the thing that, Katz, said was really, really interesting. And this will go to the heart of the by-election. This is where the other parties really should go for. There were a lot of people saying to Cat Neeland that the guy's never here. He spends more time in America than Clacton. That was damaging more than he's in the, you know, he's a puppet of Putin or, you know, he's too close to Trump or whatever. I think the Trump thing's a problem, by the way. I do think that his, and it's interesting, you know, why did he go to America? Why did he go to America with the independence when he's got all this

stuff going on around him. Answer, because that's where he feels happier. Yes. That's the politics that he believes in. Alist, when he says, you know, he does his indivis, I don't want to be prime minister. I've never plotted it from Oxbridge like Boris Johnson and others. I actually kind of believe him. I don't think he has massive ambitions to be prime minister. Well, in the sense of obviously he wants power, but I think he'd be just as comfortable doing a Fox News prime time show, making a ton of money and hanging out with people who are sycophants as being prime minister. It's like when Donald Trump won the presidency. He didn't really want it in 2016. He was running in 2016 because he wanted to build a TV network. He wanted the attention. He didn't expect to beat Hillary Clinton. Now, obviously, it's a very

different situation. Ten years later, he's a professional politician and loves it. But I think these people, as you say, they are very happy in these other scenes, in these other walks of life. Look, I've watched him doing this shtick. You know, I never wanted to be prime minister. I came into politics to make a difference. He's not to be prime minister. Oh, yeah, that's bullshit. Yeah, it's bullshit. Yeah, it's bullshit. He might not have come in. politics to be prime minister. But now that it sort of looks like it could happen, I think he's absolutely gagging for it. And I think saying that is part of the schick. Yes. They get some there. But I think so I think the Clacton thing will be interesting. I think if, I don't know how

the other parties are going to handle this. I wonder whether it is worth Labor just saying, look, Tories came second last time around. This is, this is basically about the policy, the psychodrama on the politics of the right. Let them all just fight it out. I don't know. It's going to be very, very interesting. But it's, I do think this is born of weakness rather than strength, and that is never a good place to start a campaign, but we'll see how it goes. I mentioned Andy Byrne. We've got loads of questions this week about Kirstama.

He's off to, I mean, I can't help feeling sorry for Kirstarba. He put out a video yesterday. He put out a video visiting the motorbike riders who give the Prime Minister there, and he was there thanking them for looking after him for the last two years. He's now off to, he's now gone to Turkey. for what will clearly be his last NATO summit. So that's going on. And Andy Burnham, there's now been so much sort of focus on what Andy Burnham think.

So let's just get a few questions of this. Izzy, back to the media. How much was Stama defeated by a media landscape he didn't understand or perform well in? And can Burnham get his messaging right and keep the press at bay? How much do you think here Starrmas' downfall was due to media, communication, all this other stuff that we talked about? Before I answer that question, let me agree disagreeably with you. You're disagreeing agreeably? Yeah, that would be weird if I agreed in a disagreeable way.

That would just be contrary. I totally agree with you, you bastard. I totally agree with you, you bastard. Yes, you're right. I know you're right. On Starma, you know, there's a lot of these political obits being written, a decent man brought down by media. I want to talk about the media in a moment.

But before then, he did a lot of things that suggest he was not a decent man. October 11th, 2023, a lot of us will not forget that LBC interview where he was asked us, Israel have the right to block power, water, food going into Gaza. He said Israel does have that right. He later walked that back, but not after they didn't spend 24, 48 hours defending the line. He then obviously did support Israel during this genocide. He did crack down on vickers and old ladies, women and children peacefully protesting the genocide, rounded them up en masse. I don't think that was a decent thing to do. He did lie in order to become Labour leader. I'm sorry, there's been multiple U-turns, things he promised to do and didn't do. So I'm not sure I buy this line that he was

just some decent dude who, you know, fell a foul of a horrible right-wing media. Having said that, clearly any Labour leader is up against a Murdoch press, a right-wing press, and now these tech giants, let's not forget Elon Musk's role in British politics, a big role, I think any leader, wherever they are on the political spectrum, if they are Labour leader, if they are Prime Minister of the UK right now, and Andy Burnham will feel it very, very quickly if he isn't already, is up against this kind of transnational, hard-right coalition of tech bosses and action. And activists and media organizations and online pundits. And even there was that Russian politician who was like, we did this. We brought down Starmar. And that's it. Yeah. Mertz is next.

We do live in this age where social media and the algorithms are able to foment a lot of division. A lot of people, look, I can state the reasons why I don't like Kirstama. But I bet there's a lot of people who can't state those reasons and they don't quite know why they're supposed to hate Stama. And I think that might be a lot to do with the social media and media diet that they get. And clearly he was his own worst enemy. I don't know how he was director of public prosecutions, how he was a top barrister, because he's one of the worst speakers I've ever seen in modern British public life. Like no charisma, wooden speaking habit, no humor, no ability to engage or persuade.

You don't all have to be Tony Blair in your delivery, but you have to be someone who can engage with the public and go over the heads of the media. Use the bully pulpit, as they call it here in the United States. And he didn't do that at all. There's a very, very interesting analysis. but you're slightly provoked by something where you, I think, slightly misunderstanders of what I was saying. I felt sorry for him that he has to go on this kind of farewell tour to say thank you to all of these people. I did miss that. And that then has to go and be the Prime Minister to Summit when everybody else is sitting there thinking,

you're not going to be here next time and therefore it doesn't matter. But even then I don't feel sorry for him. Have a little bit of humiliation. Have a little bit of humiliation. I have no problem with that. Okay, okay. And also I do think he's a much more likable guy than his public image. Oh, that's true. That's true. That's the media. There's definitely a media role.

And I think Andy Burnham is supposed to be this great northern white knight, talks like a normal person, is a, you know, is a community. I think that's all going to change very quickly. You watch the media narrative about Burnham will change very fast. That's why I think the question relates to is whether, you see, I think you, you know, I know, I know we've discussed this before. You think we went too far back in the day and taming the murder. Press, trying to get the right-wing papers to be less vile than... Sucking up to the Murdoch Press, Alist, I would say. That's what you would call it, I know, but we were taming a beast and keeping a very nasty animal in the corner of the room.

Sorry, Alistair, I've got a no, sorry. If that was the case, if that was the case, I have one very simple question. Why, after leaving office, did your old boss carry on sucking up to those people? If it was just a political move? Well, I stopped working for my old boss and being his spokesman long. time we go, buddy. And he's not here to defend himself, is he? I think the listeners can work out the answer there very clearly.

Look, I do still defend my boss for all sorts of things, but I think sometimes he does have a fondness for these people that are well to the right of him, well to the right of me. And, you know, he likes being around with very, very powerful people. As do a lot of politicians, unfortunately. You saw the recent Spectator Summer Party, were all the Labour politicians, always turn up to kind of, you know, kiss the rings of the people. about having Stama went again.

And I just find that all very, even when I worked in the British press corps, when I was worked in the lobby, I always found that very distasteful. Yeah, yeah. Well, I wasn't invited this year, which may be something to do with the way we interviewed Michael Gove.

I don't know. On the point about Andy Burnham, though, where you're absolutely right is that it's going to go. You what, Geelon Musk will forget who Kier-Starmer is in no time at all. He will direct his kind of algorithmic hate towards Andy Burnham,

Friedrich Meertz, whoever stands up against Le Pen or Badella, in the French election, that's what's going to happen. 100%. So the question then, the question then is what's the best way to deal with it? Before you sort of, you know, attacked my integrity and impugned my entire career in the way that you did by saying, we call it sucking up, strategic management of a difficult enemy is how I would frame it.

But there we are. I thought you were a plain speaker, Alice. I went for the simpler description. Okay, okay. And I understand why you say it. I understand why you say it. But the point is we were trying to tame an enemy. By the way, I'm not saying you weren't.

I'm just saying it was also a seconder. Yeah, yeah. And we did it in the way that we did it. Okay. Now, the landscape that Andy Burnham is going to inherit is even more complicated than the one that we had. So here's a question for you. For example, we talk a lot about Musk.

We all talk, we understand this kind of the way that his mind works. I think he's a fascist. The algorithm, the way that it works. Some of the other people around him that are vile. Social media, Starma wants to ban it for under 16-year-olds. therefore they hate him even more. Yes. I thought it was interesting last week,

the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandi, came off X, finally. Do you think that maybe Andy Berlom should instruct the entire government just to say, we can't support and be part of something that is so divisive, vile, neo-fascistic?

I'm surprised, Alistair, that you're offering such a tame solution. No, no, I'm going one by one. But I just think it's so ridiculous, us that Lisa Nandy pulling off of X. It's like, oh, you know, I've got to leave this platform because it's become so toxic. Well, you're the culture secretary. Do something about it.

Don't just quit the platform. Okay. You know, this whole thing of, you know, that meme, we're all trying to find the person who did this. You're the regulator. You're the British government. Pulling off of X is just a weird thing to do. The thing to do is actually exercise your muscle.

Instead of going after pro-Palestine protesters in the streets and rounding up little old ladies and vickers, why don't you go after the world's richest man? Why don't you have him open up his algorithm? Why don't you hold him to account for some of the stuff that they're putting out there? There's many tools in the British government toolbox. They'd rather use them against pro-Palestine protesters than this right-wing billionaire oligarch. Okay. And while I was doing, Medi, was going through a series of proposals I was going to put you.

That was the first one. Would you, if you were Andy Burnham coming in, say that the development of GB News to the place in the media landscape it now has is a reflection on the utter failure of often. Ofcom and therefore Offcom has to be put up for a complete recalibration. Okay, we agree on that. And would you revisit Leveson

2? Yes. So, okay, so we agreed and that's where we look at the relation between the press and the police. I say this all the time. I can't say enough. I'll say on every appearance you have me on,

which is you have to fight fire with fire. You cannot just sit back and play defence. You must go on the offence. You must change some of the structures of power in this country if you're going to be a centre left or a left wing or even a centrist prime minister. You cannot accept the status quo as it is currently structured when it comes to politics, when it comes to the media.

I mean, just, again, look at what the right does. Donald Trump comes into office, appoints his underling, his sycophant, Brendan Carr, as head of the FCC. The guy wears like a gold Trump badge on his lapel. He's supposed to be an independent regulator in media. And he promptly goes after all of Donald Trump's media enemies, right? So that is what the right does. You don't have to go that far.

But the idea that you wouldn't look again at offcom or Leverson or Twitter X, whatever you want to call it. I think it would be absurd. You need to understand who your enemies are. And I think Labour leaders and centre-left leaders more broadly, Joe Biden, have never quite understood who their enemies are. You need to identify your enemy, your opponent, and you need to be able to take what steps unnecessary to defeat that opponent. Learn some lessons from the right, please. Well, we've ended up violently agreeing. Agreeing. Agreeing. We're agreeing, agreeably. No, we're agreeing agreeably now. We were disagreeable in times, but we're mainly agreeing agreeably. But no, I felt this for some time. I do think that for all the legitimate criticism

people can make of Kirstama and mistakes and lack of planning and preparation, all that other stuff and charisma that can say all that. But the truth is, I think he did walk into an economic landscape that was genuinely much tougher than he thought, a geopolitical landscape that was much tougher certainly than we were in power, but also a media landscape which you can only thriving if you are actually dominant within it. And I'm afraid that is where you don't just fight fire with fire. You have to learn a little bit from the way that Trump has managed to do that in the way that he's done it in the States. And can I just say on the policy front, because we often talk about politics just as messaging and communications. Obviously, I'm a journalist. You were

a very famous director of communications. It is more than that, right? It is also what you stand for, what is your vision, what are you offering people? The problem is people couldn't really identify what Stama stood for. I see the Downing Street and the late body publishing lots of lists of everything he did, all these good things. He did do good things. No one's denying he did some good things. But that's not how politics works. You can't still have a list of things. You need to actually have a clear very vision. Define yourself before your opponents define you. Have very clear big policies that are going to change people's lives. We're hearing briefings about he's going to bring capital gains tax in line with income tax. We're hearing things about

public control of utilities. That's fine. But, you know, halfway houses will not work. We need to actually hear from Burnham as to what he's actually going to do. And on the geopolitical scene, let's not forget, Labor of hemorrhage votes to the Greens because of Gaza. Let's not dance around that. A lot of the obits of Keir Stama in the BBC, even in The Guardian, I think, just didn't mention Gaza absurdly. That was a huge issue for Labour voters and people who ditched his party. A lot of polling has shown that a lot of people have gone to the Greens and Lib Dems because of Gaza. What's Andy Burnham going to do on that front? We haven't really heard much. So I think we're going to have to address some of these big issues very early on,

because people will make up their minds very quickly. They will. They will. And the first big moves will be incredibly important. And thus far, he's handled himself pretty well. He's shown a real ruthlessness. I think people on the left are a little worried about the James Pennell Chief of Staff appointment. We'll see how that pans out. Honestly, I think that is, I don't think that's a big deal at all. I think that is real inside the Beltway stuff. I really do. Could be wrong.

Just to be devil's advocate, people might have said that about Morgan McSweeney. And it turned out not to be a beltway issue. turned up the international issue. That's true. That's true. That's true. But anyway, look, the point I was going to make about Andy Burnham is that the first impressions are incredibly important. And I mean first impressions at every stage, like the first PMQs, the first big speech, the first big conference, the first big foreign visit. They're all very, very important. And thus far, I think he's handled himself pretty well. I think it's quite an achievement, by the way, to become leader and prime minister through an act of pretty profound ruthlessness. And yet,

Part of the imaging and part of the sort of chatter is he's a really nice bloke. He's much more personable than Kirstava. That's pretty, you've got to have. You've got to raise your hat a little bit to that. If only Gordon Brown had those eyelashes and a black t-shirt, he could have had a much better job of defenestrating your old boss. Well, I once went, was once, back in my journalist days, this is imagining Gordon Brown in a vest black t-shirt situation.

Gordon was being interviewed by Fiona for a magazine, and we went up to spend the weekend with the, them in Scotland and the photographer at one point said to Gordon, do you think you could put something on a bit more casual? And Gordon went through to his bedroom and came back in a different tie. Did you see him in a shirt the other day getting ice cream? Yeah, I did. And the football, yeah, with the best fans in the world. I think Norway are trying to run the Scots fans close, but I think Scotland just about I say. I'm going to be sad to see England defeat Norway on Saturday because I have a soft spot for the Norwegians, but they must lose.

Okay. Well, let's just see how it all pans out, shall we? Surely you want them to lose two, Alistair? What? Why are you asking these difficult questions on me? You don't support England? I've supported Scotland all my life. Come on, you've got to support England this Saturday, Alistair. I was impressed by their win against Mexico. I actually do think this group of players have got some exceptional role models amongst them. I love the fact that Bellingham, here's another Vigio poet, when he was going through the so-called mixed zone. I don't know if you saw this. It was absolutely beautiful.

There was this guy who I think was in a wheelchair. He was Venezuela. He stopped to chat to him in Spanish. And he's shouted out, Belling her mom from Venezuela, and he went and chatted to him in Spanish. I think Harry Kane's an exceptional role model. He slightly went down in my estimation when I heard that he played golf with Donald Trump. Same, save.

I was like, no, no, not you, Harry. No, no. As Donald Trump said, I was thinking, maybe it's not true. That's true. But I interviewed Harry. Kane a while back for, I think it was for the Evening Standard Magazine, and I was actually really impressed by him. And you know, I watched the England's game against D.R. Congo in France. And what was really interesting was the French commentators were talking about Harry Kane in

the way that our commentators talk about Messi and Ronaldo and Mbapé. And I don't think, because of his image, because he's not controversial and he's not glamorous and he doesn't have loads of tattoos and he doesn't sort of, you know, spend his time all over the front pages the Sunday tabloids. I think we underestimate just how good he is in the eyes of the rest of the world. This is all a long-winded way of saying,

I'm still not over Scotland being knocked out in the way that they were. But I wish the English, all the best, all the best. I'll take it, I'll take it. Okay, okay. Let's take a break. Then I want to talk about faith. This episode is brought to you by Lloyd's Premier.

Life for many people is very complex and the political going is on in the world do not make it any easier. Trust in institutions, trust in politics, trust in business. It's hard to find. It's terrifying, isn't it? I mean, if you think about

what could Trump suddenly wake up and do about tariffs, what might suddenly happen with AI, what happens when a new Labour government comes in and potentially changes capital gains tax? There are so many things, if you're investing and trying to think about your pension future, that could be completely terrible. So it is a very good idea. Have a banking partner you can trust. The Lloyd's Premier

current account looks to help their customers through the financial complexity that life throws at us. With its tailored financial coaching, you can get access to experts to help you make the most of your money. Along with benefits, including the Booper Digital Family GP and wellbeing subscription, 1% cashback, up to £10 per month per account on most purchases, and lifestyle benefits you can bank on Lloyd's. Search Lloyd's Premier to find out. out more. 15 pounds per month, fee refunded when you meet the eligibility criteria. TNC supply UK residents aged 18 plus. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for

summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price? Moment. Old Navy's drapy denim wide leg. Before the next track starts, have you ever wondered, who are the people in my old family photos? Or what brought them to Canada?

With ancestry, you can start finding answers. Start with a name and we'll guide you from there. For just 499, try our new 30-day beginners pass and uncover generations of family stories. No experience necessary. You've got questions. We've got ancestors. Offer ends July 22nd, 2026. Visit Ancestry.ca. slash beginners for details.

Terms apply. Welcome back to the rest of points question time with me, Alistair Campbell. And me, Mere D.S.A.S.N. Here's one from Mohammed. How does your faith drive the work you do? I'm assuming that question is directed at you, because famously, as they say, I don't do God. So how does your faith drive the work you do? You're a Muslim.

Well, it's interesting right now. It affects my work in one. very singular way, which is wherever I go, wherever I speak about politics, Trump, the threat to democracy, the rise of fascism, the genocide in the Middle East, I get asked by live audience, I do a lot of live events. And I get asked by audiences, wherever I go in the US, who have deeply depressed, deeply, you know, pessimistic about the future, they say, how do you keep hope alive? How do you stay hope for me? How do you get out of bed in the morning and still fight the good fight? And that is an answer I give based around faith, which is I'm a very pessimistic

person. I'm not an optimist. My wife and kids will tell you I'm negative about everything. I'm like, oh, it's going to be a shitty day. Oh, though it's going to rain. I'm very negative. No, England are going to win. That's different. But optimism is not the same thing as hope. I'm not an optimistic person, but I am a hopeful person because I'm a person of faith. And my faith teaches me that we must stay in the struggle, even when we cannot see light at the end of the tunnel. We must keep fighting to try and see that. There's a great line from Desmond Tutu at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle. Archbishop Tudu, who said, You know, hope is being able to see the light despite all the darkness. It's not the absence

of darkness. It's being able to see it despite it. And for me, that's what God and faith means to me. So at a time when I'm deeply pessimistic about the state of the world, every day I have to cover this shit show with Trump and with Netanyahu and all these people, that is what keeps me going. Yeah, it's interesting. I find as I was watching the Pope who famously said he didn't want to go to the 250th anniversary celebrations because he was going to do Lampedusa to spend time with immigrants and the poor. And I watched him do that and I felt removed by that. Then I had read about his excommunication of this very kind of right-wing sect within the Catholic Church. I find that very interesting. I think one of the things that's very underwritten about Andy Burnham

thus far, it will at some point come. But Andy's faith, I think, is very, very important. He's a Catholic. and he's a practicing Catholic and I think it is a big part of his politics. Maybe he'll bond with President Vance over it who's a very public Catholic right now. In fact, he converted to Catholicism and now lectures the Pope

on what Catholicism. I know, I know. And he's written this book that he's written about his conversion. Well, he's an interesting figure and you don't think I should read it at all? I mean, you can if you want to, I wouldn't. Yeah, but you're not going to.

No, okay. He's a fraud. He's a fraud. Okay. Right, this is a very, very quick question from Joey. Explain your personal politics in three words or less. Joey, it should be three words or fewer. I'm sorry, I'm a pedant.

So, ladies, your politics in three words or fewer? Justice, always, forever. I think my politics are all about justice. It's all about fighting for fairness. Okay. I think I'm going to say, liberty, fraternity, equality. I'm just going to say left of center.

just be on the left of centre is where I'm going to be. It's a very modest answer there. I know. I agree. And final question from Ali, which is not me, how much do you both enjoy arguing for the sake of it? Do you like a good argument just because you can have it? I love arguing. I wrote a book about arguing. I literally wrote a book called Win Every Argument.

Oh, he's plugging his books out. Yeah, we all didn't read it. Yeah, I'm plugging the book. I'm plugging Zateo UK, which launched last month in the UK. I'm plugging win every argument. I wrote a book about arguing. That's how much I love arguing. It's a real problem for my wife and kids, for friends and family.

Do you argue with them all the time? I do. I mean, I lose arguments for my wife, as is the case. But I do enjoy arguing. It is a problem for me in my personal life because people get fed up with me. But it has helped me in my professional life. I literally got to where I am because I love to argue. All right, Medi, well, as you're in plugging mode.

I'm going to do a plug as well, but not for me. This week, Rory has got another AI deep dive members. On Friday, you'll be able to hear his conversation with Michael Bacher and Al Alex Petropoulos. These are two authors of a pretty astonishing report which sets out what's at stake for a Europe that fails to take the AI race seriously. They are both adamant that Europe will become essentially irrelevant politically and economically if things don't change. As ever, Rory and Matt Clifford are asking them some pretty tough questions. If you want to hear that, sign up at the rest is politics.com. No, I like a good argument. And it's not for the sake of it.

My daughter Grace, who's a comedian, she does a very, very funny sketch based on true stories about times when she's had to drag me away from people because she's worried it's getting close to violence because I do feel things very, very deeply. And when I'm arguing with somebody whose views, I really, really, really profoundly disrespect, I feel this kind of boiling rage inside me. Rory has managed to calm it. Is it true, you stab your hand with a needle during the, was it Hutton inquiry or one of the Iraq Inquiry? Yes. Not normal. No, it wasn't, it wasn't that. It was a select committee. It was a select

committee inquiry. No, it's not, it's perfectly normal. To stick a pin in your hand, to keep your anger under control? No, it wasn't to keep my anger under control. It was to remind myself that my strategy at this select committeery was not, not to let the wind me up. That morning, being a very good father, the aforementioned grace, who was then not a comedian, but a child, a young child, I was, knowing for the night before I was giving her a bath. And she had this little thing called pingu, okay, which had a beak, okay? So I thought, what I'll do? A lawyer had said to me, if you feel you're temporizing, just have something in your hand and squeeze it into the palm of your hand and it will stop. I forgot the bloody pingu, okay? So when I got to the court,

when I got to the inquiry, I put a paper clip in my hand. instead. But because the paper clip gets all squishy, I made it straight and wrapped it around my finger and then I pulled it. And then I did notice suddenly that blood was pouring out my hand. Yeah. I think I mentioned that in my book, in the arguing book. I mean, I think I mentioned that incident with you. Two plugs. Two plugs. Well, but this one involved you. I plugged you being in the book. Okay. There you go. But I do enjoy, look, it's not either or. I do enjoy a good argument, but at the same time, I do believe argument is genuinely the lifeblood of our democracy. Yeah, yeah. And right now, particularly in the United States, but also in other parts of the world,

and dangerously here, I think, if we had a very, very right-wing libertarian-style government, freedom of speech would become freedom to say the things they want you to say, and that's not life-blooded democracy. Well, Medi, it's been great to have you. This is the end of question time, and then tomorrow our listeners and viewers will get the delight of us having this flipped week, where we'll have the main podcast where we're going to be talking about USA 25, 250 years on. We're going to be talking about football and the World Cup because you and I, unlike Rory, our big football fans, but we'll be talking about the politics of football. And we're going to also talk about the media, role of media in democracy with a particular focus

on lots of interesting stuff that's going on in Germany. Thank you. Look forward to it. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if, like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if.

Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.