The Rest Is Politics: 125. Question Time: Murdoch mayhem, the politics of nepotism, and Alastair Campbell MP?

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Welcome to The Restless Politics, Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.

And me, Alistair Campbell. And Rory, we should reward somebody by the name of Simon Beale.

Because he has been putting this question in week after week after week after week after week.

And he hasn't given up. And in my new book, which I can now show you, Rory, there is my new book.

And I've invented a word which is Persevilliance. Persevilliance is the combination of perseverance and resilience.

So this guy, Simon, has had the setback of not having his question answered.

But he's persevered, and therefore he's a very Persevilliant character.

And his question is quite a tough one. What role does nepotism play in public life?

Have you ever been the beneficiary of it and or provided it?

Well, I think, certainly in political life, there's much less, I think, than people outside think.

I mean, nepotism, of course, as everyone knows, is about favouring your own family, generally your own kids.

And what actually has changed in British politics is that it was a very, very strong factor, obviously, in the 19th century.

People like Winston Churchill, you know, his father had been Chancellor of the Exchequer.

His grandfather had been in Parliament, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Nowadays, there are MPs who have parents in Parliament on both sides of the house, or Labour MPs who have...

In fact, it's a Labour MP who's both whose parents were in the house and who, I think, is married to a member of Parliament.

Ah, John Crier.

Son of Anne Crier and Bob Crier both former Labour MPs.

And of course, he's married to Ellie Reeves, who's the Labour MP for Lewish and West

and whose sister is Rachel Reeves, the current Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. How about that?

Anyway, on the Conservative side, the people who had parents who were in the House of Commons were people like

Nicholas Soames, who of course was Winston Churchill's grandson, Dominic Grieve.

Andrew Mitchell.

Richard Benyon. Andrew Mitchell, yeah.

And many of these people actually were more on the left of the party.

They were in something called the One Nation Dining Club with me.

And in a sense, it seemed that the fact that they were children of MPs gave them a sort of, I think,

a sort of slightly more left of centre type of conservatism, less strident.

I mean, Dominic Raab, who we've been talking about a great deal, his dad, Peter,

came from the Czech Republic at the age of six on a kinder transport, became a food manager at M&S,

died when Dom was 12.

So definitely, you know, an example of a very different route, which is true of many, many MPs.

I guess what Simon means by the question in relation to nepotism, where maybe it is more apparent,

is that you do see an awful lot of MPs who employ members of their family.

Now, I've spoken to MPs whose wives run their constituency office, and they say, actually,

because it means that they don't have to pay them, and they just kind of run it,

and it's almost like it's part of the marriage.

And then, you know, one of my sons, Callum, he worked for the Labour Party for a while.

And I actually think in a weird sort of way, it can be worse for the child of the person who's well known.

I think Callum used to get really fed up with people saying,

oh, that sounds like Campbell's son.

I think sometimes it can be harder if you're coming from what is perceived as nepotism.

My daughter, Grace, who is, you know, a comedian, she does a whole story about her,

which is a true story, by the way.

She says that once before a Manchester United match, she was in the tunnel as the players were coming out.

She says, because that's how nepotism works.

So, I think that's the only place where I have.

It's actually been the fact that I can get invited to stuff,

and because I'm feeling guilty about not being there when I should be,

I will phone the kids and say, if I can get your tickets for this, I can get your tickets for that.

What do you think?

I guess that's the sort of nepotism maybe I indulged in from time to time.

Good.

John, having recently read Prelude to Power, and enjoyed it very much, by the way,

I was struck by Alice's wavering over whether to leave mainstream journalism

and take the job of the Labour Party.

It made me wonder if either Rory or Alistair have ever regretted a career move.

Well, I regretted, although I regretted the move when I was a journalist,

when I left the Daily Mirror to go and work for Eddie Schaar's Today newspaper,

because I ended up having a nervous breakdown.

Now, I don't actually regret the overall experience,

but I definitely made the wrong decision in doing that.

And I do regret not having stood as an MP myself.

I do regret that.

And I can explain why at every stage of the last 20-odd years or 30-odd years, whatever it is,

I've not done it, and I can explain why I don't want to do it now.

But that is something that sort of nags away at me.

What about you?

Alistair, I want to strongly encourage you to run to be an MP in the next election.

It's not far away.

It's a good opportunity.

Anyway, my biggest regret is I was running a charity in Afghanistan called Turquoise Mountain.

We were restoring the centre of the old city of Kabul, which is back in 2008.

And I was absolutely loving it, working with a few hundred people,

bringing water supply, sanitation, we built a clinic.

And I built the whole thing from scratch.

I'd started with one employee who was my driver, who I called my logistics manager.

And we were really making a daily difference out on the ground in Kabul,

living there for two, three years.

And I then was approached by Harvard University to take a chair,

professorial chair at Harvard University and be the director of a centre.

And I was flattered into doing it.

It just appealed to my ego.

That's what happened with me, but that's exactly what happened with me.

I was flattered into believing that I had it in me to be the youngest news editor in Fleet Street.

I was going to be a news editor at 28, and it was a stupid decision.

That's exactly right with me.

So I thought, this is amazing.

I guess I was older than that.

I guess I was in my mid-thirties, but full Harvard professor in my mid-thirties.

And actually, it didn't suit me at all.

I would have been, I much, much more enjoyed managing two, three hundred people on the ground in Afghanistan

than I did trying to run an academic centre.

Jean Guy Côté, and he is, I'm guessing from that name, French-Canadian,

because his question is, and he posted an opinion poll suggesting that the Canadians

seemed reluctant to have Charles as king.

And he says, do you think we could see a surge of republicanism in the Commonwealth in the next few years?

So he posted a poll that showed a minority in favour of continuing the monarchy.

I think it's always a live issue.

I think republicanism of all sorts has been a live political issue for many, many years.

And in some ways, Britain is unusual still having a monarchy when most countries around the world lost.

And there was that famous joke of the king of Egypt,

that in the end, there were going to be only five kings left.

The king of hearts, the king of clubs, the king of diamonds, the king of spades, and the king of England.

But I think, and I would say this, but I do think that King Charles has approached the job very well.

I think Prince William has a good reputation.

And I think it's, the British monarchy is in quite a strong position.

I don't think there's anything at the moment which makes me think that people are able to push.

But there are Commonwealth countries, of course.

I mean, King Charles, when he was Prince of Wales, one of the things he had to do last year, I think,

was to go out to the Caribbean to visit a country that had decided they didn't want the Royal Family anymore.

I think he dealt with it very, very well.

I know I don't think there's any sort of resentment there.

I think he gave a good speech and engaged well and left with very warm feelings.

But one thing that's changed.

I mean, the Queen, remember when she took over, went on a, I think, seven-month tour around all these different places.

And I think, increasingly, the Royal Family maybe spend less time or have maybe spent less time in other places.

And I think that the pressures of distance are significant.

I've just found the poll while you were talking.

And it's 60% say they don't want Charles as king.

Right.

It's quite high.

Yeah.

Well, but interestingly, these things go up and down, don't they?

There was a moment in Australia 20, 30 years ago where people really thought that that was going to be the case.

And then that seems to turn around again.

And I do think, even Fiona, who is, you know, not exactly, she's not on exactly the same page as you when it comes to monarchy.

But she did say the other day, she's, God, could you imagine if somebody like Boris Johnson became an elected president?

I think that's a good line.

I think it's, I think that's right.

I think you would hope that Tony Blair would become the elected president, but it could be Boris Johnson at which point you do worry a bit.

Right.

Next question from Discord.

So encourage people to go on Discord.

Discord is our stream where it's happening.

And it's from somebody who calls themselves not a PhD.

Honestly, I can't believe how many times the question of what happened, why isn't the US the harboring of democracy anymore can be asked on this podcast.

And at no point do people wonder, oh, wait, maybe it never was.

Maybe the country didn't magically go from sponsoring coup after coup in the 60s, 70s and 80s to magically being the world force for democracy in the 90s.

What do you make of that?

I think that is a PhD.

Not a PhD.

Not a PhD.

I think there's a great PhD question there.

Now, there's a very, very fair point in that, partly because American, less so on the Trump, but most American presidents, they talk so much about America as the leader of the free world, as the great democratic force.

But actually, there is, there is something in that about their, about their, you know, we've talked about this a lot.

We talked about it with Hillary Clinton.

There's a mixed picture about America's, America's role in the world.

And also, this is another chance to plug my favorite book, Norman Mailer's Harlot's Ghost, which is all about the CIA sponsoring these coups at exactly that period.

And actually is a very, essentially making this point, which not a PhD is making, which is, in a sense, the dark, troubling heart of American democracy is the weird connection between these, these authoritarian special operations and its claim to be democracy.

Here's a question for you.

Varen, is Rupert Murdoch losing it, paying out $787.5 million and firing Tucker Carlson, the jeweler in the Fox News crown?

Is he losing it?

Well, he's into his 90s.

He's getting on for sure.

The Fox News settlement was, must have been a very, very, very difficult moment for him, but thoroughly deserved because Fox News entire business model is founded on the exploitation of the three things that we talk about the whole time, populism,

Tucker Carlson is, you know, the question that calls him the jewel in the Fox News crown.

Tucker Carlson is the, is an absolute populist polarizing post truth.

And the reason why this became such a, their settlement with the people who'd done the election.

Dominion voting machines.

Dominion voting machines.

Yeah.

The reason that's been so damaging is because the, the reality was exposed between what they were saying on air, presenting themselves as arbiters of, you know, as they call it, fair and balanced news, bullshit.

And at the same time, what they were privately thinking, which is, you know, this is absolute nonsense.

Now, Tucker Carlson became the, the guy who was kind of leading that on air as it were, but he wasn't the only one.

And the truth is within that organization, they all knew that that's the game.

And by the way, it was the game from the word go.

And it's why I think all the GB news is seen as a bit of a joke by a lot of people.

It's why we have to be very, very careful.

Once you establish that it's normal for a country's main television channel, Fox News, which is watch more now than CNN, when it's accepted that lying and to feed your base to be, to be, to be nice to your viewers to make them hear what they want to hear.

And that is very, very dangerous.

And I think we've got to be very, very careful.

We don't get the same thing here.

You've interviewed Brian Cox on our leading podcast.

And I believe that in the settlement case with Jerry Hall, there was a clause put in saying that she couldn't give any information to the producers of succession.

One of the interesting things also, I thought we were talking about earlier about speaking truths to power.

And I thought were interesting revelation on Murdoch came out of the end of the trial.

So at the end of the trial, the general counsel of Fox, which, you know, that senior lawyer said to Murdoch that he'd done well.

He said, I'm just going to say it.

They didn't lay a finger on you.

And Murdoch has the self-knowledge to disagree.

And he pointed a finger at the lawyer who'd questioned him for dominion.

And he said, I think he would strongly disagree with that.

And Nelson, who was the man who was doing the questioning, said, indeed, I do.

And I thought that was interesting with all his weaknesses in his 90s.

He's not totally blown up with his own legend.

If one of his staff is flattering him when he knows he's screwed up, he can still call it out in public.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, I look, I did.

I don't know.

I don't like doing those interviews.

You know, you do.

I'm sure you get asked to do lots as well.

We do interviews for broadcasters who are preparing obituaries.

I don't like doing them.

But I did do one the other day for Murdoch.

And they're asking everybody at the end, Murdoch, force for good or force for bad over his lifetime.

And I'm afraid I was very much forced for bad.

I think ultimately what Murdoch's impact upon politics and media around the world,

there have been amazing things that he's done.

There's no doubt about that.

But I think particularly the impact of Fox News on America and some of his journalistic habits here,

ultimately have been a force for bad.

Yeah.

There's a very nice message from a guy called Theo Davis Lewis, who, amongst other things,

he's politically active down in Wales, but he also writes the spectator.

And he asks, he wants to talk about something which has also been raised by,

I'm going to have to say this in Welsh because the name of the person is clearly something in Welsh.

But I don't know what it means.

It's Ferch Sinnes.

I hope that is sort of vaguely.

Anyway, the question is this, there is so much huffing and puffing about the official adoption of the native

banau bricheniog.

Do you know about this one, Roy?

Yeah.

You can still call them the Breckin Beacons.

It's okay.

Very little coverage of the main project for dramatic change in policy to combat climate change

and tourist pollution damage.

That should be the story.

And Theo Davis Lewis has written a piece in the spectator about this.

So basically the Breckin Beacons have been renamed in Welsh.

Okay.

So the official name is, now the truth is, according to Theo Davis Lewis, it always was.

And yet it's become the latest sort of woke thing.

Nigel Farage is saying, this is absolutely awful.

And what on earth are we doing?

We can't call them the Breckin Beacons anymore.

You can call them the Breckin Beacons, but it is actually part of Wales.

And they are calling it this because then they're making it part of a bigger thing about tourist pollution damage.

And I think it's a very, very sensible thing to do.

And what I think this is actually is a bit of a kind of anti-Welshness and also anti-Welsh language.

We talked about the language recently.

Welsh is one of the top 50 most influential languages in the world, according to the latest edition, the World Language Barometer.

So let's hear it for the Welsh language, Rory.

Very good.

That maybe was not your best question ever, given that you began answering it from the moment you got to the end of it,

having introduced it as a question to me.

But we'll move on to a next question.

You can still answer.

You can still answer.

I think you did a good job.

You did a good job there.

Reaction to Biden visit.

Brian Walsh, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as to the coverage afforded by the British press

with respect to the presidential visit to Ireland, north and south.

Some has been borderline racists perpetuating 19th century tropes

and possibly revealing more about the individual author's worldview,

as much as providing any insight for commentary.

Is this representative of the state of Anglo-Irish and Anglo-American relations?

Well, we touched on this when we were in Belfast.

I think there is an element of, I think it's more about actually us feeling very unsure in our own identity

at a time when the Irish actually feel pretty confident,

not least because they're projecting 6% growth and we're sort of limping on along with Russia.

So I thought the coverage, some of the coverage in the UK media of Biden's visit was utterly ridiculous.

I really do.

I know you think he was a bit rude to the UK,

but I just think he was wearing his Irishness on his sleeve.

He was welcomed there perhaps more than he had been in Belfast.

And I just think the sort of, you know, the Andrew Niels and the GBB's people

just threw their toys out the pram.

I was talking to somebody in Belfast while we were there just when I was out on the streets.

And he felt, for what it's worth, a real sense of hurt that Biden hadn't engaged more.

He very much felt that the US had been absolutely vital to the Good Friday Agreement,

as you very much say, very much acknowledge.

And he was very sad that he felt that Biden wasn't leaning in harder,

spending more time in Northern Ireland, getting directly involved.

And I think that that was striking that he seems to have sort of,

instead of doing what I think would have been more Clinton style,

which is to wrote his sleeves up and say, okay, I'll get involved.

He seemed to be more saying, sort yourselves out, or if you don't,

I'm not going to make a proper visit.

Well, I think he'd done, he would argue, I think, that he'd done the sleeves rolling in Washington

when he met the parties and tried at the number 10s behest to try and get them over the line

because he's told that's what it required.

And then when that didn't happen...

Why not spend a day or two using his immense political capital and influence

on the ground in Belfast at that critical time?

Yeah, I don't know the answer to that, but there was all this talk about

there was going to be a state dinner and King Charles was going to go and all that kind of stuff.

I don't know the answer, but he was always going to do that trip to Ireland.

And I think that, you know, the truth is, he's the president of America.

He probably gets asked to go to every country in the world every day of the week.

He has to make judgments about how he uses time.

The other thing, the optics, I think, they may have thought that the optics of him being around

a good Friday agreement at a time when Bill Clinton was there,

Hillary Clinton was there, George Mitchell was there.

There is an argument that he would look like he was trying to insert himself

into something that was actually about something else.

I don't know.

Here's a good one, Troy, for you.

You can definitely answer this one.

I will just be quiet.

Gibson Fender, is Tony Blair still the best politician in the UK?

Unpopular opinion for sure.

But who, since he left, has been better?

Come on.

I remain extremely grumpy, like many of us, about the Iraq war

and think that revealed something troubling about him.

At the same time, obviously spending more time with you and seeing a bit of him,

I have been very, very struck by his energy, his intelligence,

his skill at communication, his commitment.

So I think you mount a very, very powerful defensive.

Is the question, who's the best politician or the best ex-prime minister?

The question is, who, since he left, has been better?

It's very difficult to compare people who've not been prime ministers to

people who've been prime ministers, haven't they?

Would you say any of the prime ministers have been better?

No, I'm probably not as an effect of prime minister,

although I would say that I have a much profound affection for Theresa May.

I know you do.

I like her very much as a person.

I think she's a wonderful kind of, I love her valleys.

I will say as well, for Theresa May, when you couldn't say to do Mary Macalese,

but Mary Macalese was very, very nice about Theresa May.

Alison, lots of questions asked, including some quite serious ones.

We're going to get to them too.

So let's just take a quick break.

Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.

And me, Alistair Campbell.

Charlie O'Neill.

Yep.

As you've both done many, many TV and radio interviews over your careers,

what would you say are your favorite and least favorite TV or radio shows to go on and why?

Well, I don't particularly like the comedy shows.

So I did things like have I got news for you,

but I feel a bit weird as a politician going on to what's fundamentally a comedy show.

Yeah, I played my bagpipes on that one.

Well, there we are.

I see it's a good decision, good decision, always good decision.

If only I'd stuck to the piping a bit more and been a bit more serious,

I would have been much more successful.

I think I always enjoy the Today Program, love doing the Today Program.

Happy doing Newsnight, love hard talk.

Question time I quite enjoy.

How about you?

I like the ones that I really, really like the Late Late Show in Dublin.

Always enjoyed doing that.

I do like the longer form ones.

I know what you mean about the comedy things,

but I like the ones where you can kind of not be true.

The trouble with Newsnight and the Today Program, those programs,

I think people just go into a mode.

The interviewers are in a mode.

The interviewees are in a mode.

I do remember when my first book came out,

and of course I'd had a lot of trouble with the Today Program over the whole Andrew Gilligan

that led to the Hutton Inquiry, David Kelly's death, et cetera.

So when my first volume of diaries came out,

I was like the 810 interviewee on the Today Program with John Humphries.

And I think I'm right in saying it's the only time they ever went through the news and the sport.

They just kept going.

I think John Humphries was determined just to keep going until I either lamped him

or I got my rag or whatever.

So I like it when you do have a bit of, that's why I enjoy this podcast.

I like it when you've got a little bit of time to explain, to explore.

But I think the Late Late Show is, I would put down as one of my favorites.

Talking about bagpipes, talking about bagpipes, Rory, Aileen Pierce.

Where have you most enjoyed playing the pipes?

Either because of the location, the audience, or the occasion.

And Aileen says, you will find that the correct answer is Hillsborough Castle Throne Room.

This was where I played the lament that I wrote for the departed peacemakers,

for Mo Molem and David Chamberlain, et cetera.

I played it to, there was a, after you left on the Thursday,

a really nice event at Hillsborough Castle,

which is the official residence of the king, I guess, in Northern Ireland.

And it was for school children from across the divide, as it were,

from all over Northern Ireland.

And I played it there.

And it actually, for me, is often about the acoustics.

The acoustics in the hall in Belfast were great.

The acoustics in Hillsborough Castle were great.

I go every year to play the bagpipes at Charles Kennedy's Grave.

And I do that partly out of friendship,

because it's one of the most beautiful burial grounds in the world.

And I, maybe this is my depressive character,

but I do have a bit of a, I do love a lament.

I love a good lament.

Where have you most enjoyed playing the pipes?

Well, I think the worst, the worst place I played the pipes was in Hong Kong,

because I found someone, the humidity was really screwing around with my,

my reeds and my drones.

Trying to think what the best place, at home in Scotland's probably the best place.

But unlike you, I'm really, really bad.

I've only played in big pipe bands where my lamentable performance could be disguised

by the noise of the other people around me.

Um, betting markets are giving Kamal Kilic Darulu a 60% chance

of winning the next Turkish presidential election.

So that's the leader of the main opposition party.

Do you think this is a reasonable estimate of his chances?

What happens if he wins?

So very, very interesting turnaround, partly sparked.

I think we, when I was in Southern Turkey in the earthquake zone,

we talked a little bit about the ways in which the response to the earthquake

might have affected everyone's position and popularity thoughts in Turkey.

Well, first of all, I think it, I'm right in saying this is my,

my son Rory speaking to me now, the real Rory,

because he knows a lot about betting markets.

And I think in general, betting markets tend historically,

this is certainly the case in America and Britain,

they tend historically to be more accurate in their predictions of elections than the polls.

That's the first thing I'd say.

Now, I think Turkey's probably a bit different.

I think if that is how the betting markets are looking at it,

then, and the polls are kind of in roughly the same place,

then what that says to me is early one will do absolutely everything he has to do

to try to turn that around.

And I suspect that I wouldn't, I think a 60% chance of winning sounds great.

But I think to oust him, you're going to need more than that at the start of the campaign.

If he wins, that's a massive, massive, massive change.

I mean, in a way, I think that in a way,

the Turkish election may be the most important in the world this year.

Well, just to, just to remind people a little bit about, about what's going on here.

So he's the leader of the CHP, which was the traditional ruling party sees itself back to Kamal Ataturk,

was close to the military and was the ruling party that was basically displaced by Erdogan's party,

which was more of an Islamist party and more of a party that applied,

appealed to people who the poorer, the more religious elements in society.

So, and the CHP was destroyed really by Erdogan and has been rebuilt by Kilic Tarolu,

who is a man who very, very intellectually strong, was a senior civil servant,

has had an extraordinary life as a politician.

He's sort of, we were staying in the Europa Hotel,

which has the record for being the, when we were in Belfast.

You and I have the most attacked hotel in the world,

but he has to be one of the most attacked politicians in the world.

He's been, you know, punched in parliament.

His convoy has been hit by missiles from the PKK.

He was then bombed by the Islamic State.

Somebody tried to lynch him at a soldier's funeral.

So I think he's somebody who has managed to, with a very quiet manner,

unite the six opposition parties behind him

and has made a brand of technocratic cum.

And it will be fascinating to see him come through.

He's a deeply reassuring figure.

Okay, Matthew Hizbund, how do you and Rory feel about government ministers

dressing like this, I'll explain in a minute,

and using this type of rhetoric on social media against disabled and vulnerable people

while the likes of Michel Mone laughs at the gullibility of the country while stealing millions?

That's something I commented at the time.

This is a guy called Tom Persklav, who is a minister in the DWP.

And when Matthew talks about ministers dressing like this,

he's wearing like a police flat jacket.

He's got DWP on it.

And he's basically saying, we're going to get you.

If you're cheating your benefits, we're going to get you.

And as somebody said in the media, he's trying to look like Liam Neeson in Taken.

Like a kind of, you know, robot cop out to get people.

And there were two things.

Well, I did think it was tension-seeking unnecessary.

And there is, as Matthew points out, the massive contrast with the lack of action

going against people who've actually ripped off massive sums from the public purse,

not just a few quids here and there and benefits.

But the other thing that really troubled me was that his Twitter handle is at Vote Persklav.

And this video was posted on a DWP government site.

Now, we're in a local election period.

To have your Twitter handle as at Vote and then your name,

even though you're not standing as a candidate,

I'm afraid that to me, we saw Simon Case in Belfast,

somebody in the civil service needs to get a grip of the relentless,

in small ways and large ways, politicization of the resources of the state.

You cannot have a handle of Vote Persklav and have that promoted by your government department,

in my humble opinion.

That seems good.

Okay, final question for me because I think we're coming to the end here.

Grace, I'm expecting my first child and have found that since being pregnant,

I've become utterly obsessed with the news.

I can't stop reading, scrolling, listening to all things news,

which inevitably is more bad than good.

I feel it's the important and responsible thing to do to be up to date on what's going on in the world.

But I'm having dreams about war and the future of the planet, all that fun stuff.

Do you have any tips on avoiding news anxiety?

Did you find becoming parents altered your news consumption or your reactions to world events?

My advice, Grace, is read books, not newspapers, and listen to music, not the news.

And our podcast.

You don't think our podcast is contributing to her anxiety?

I hope not.

I think we've got quite calming voices.

No, I can see that.

But I honestly, I know because you and I try to stay reasonably well informed.

I don't read newspapers.

We don't have a single newspaper delivered to our house.

I feel terrible saying that, having been a journalist, but we don't.

I very rarely watch the news.

I don't feel there's much going on that I don't know about because big stuff you get to hear about.

And I think it's actually deciding what you're interested in

and then kind of trying to explore that in greater detail.

I'm serious about reading books, not newspapers.

I got more.

You've mentioned a couple of books that you read ahead of going to Belfast, for example.

David McCartrick's book on the Troubles and the one you talked about earlier.

And likewise, that book, if I were to say to somebody, right,

you want to try and get inside what's happening in Northern Ireland,

or you want to get inside Europe, there's some amazing sort of books on the history of Europe.

You can learn more than you are by reading some nonsense in a newspaper.

So Grace, books, not newspapers, music, not the news.

And I'll finish with just answering a question from Harrison.

Where do you find the best place to get your news from?

I've been promoting a lot and I like to keep promoting The New York Times on international news.

And always look at Al Jazeera. Always worth looking at Al Jazeera.

They do a surprising amount of serious reporting on places that other people are not reporting.

My final question is from Sarah Kate.

And this allows me to do something which I don't normally do.

You normally do it for me, which is to plug my book,

which I finally got in my hands, the real thing.

And very beautiful, beautiful book.

Yeah, but the thing is, Sarah's question suggests, Roy,

that despite you plugging my book relentlessly on this podcast,

as I promised to return the compliment when yours comes out in September,

I think she slightly misunderstood the book.

She says, you keep talking about engaging young people, which is really important,

but we all need to be engaged in politics and probably loads of people from a mixed range of ages aren't engaged.

Is it still worth them reading about what can I do?

How do we engage everyone? Of course it is.

What can I do? Is all of us?

What can all of us do?

And the answer is we have to do whatever we can do.

Everybody read that book carefully and we'll take some questions on the book.

In fact, we'll question you to make sure you've read it carefully enough.

In the newsletter, both you and I, Roy, are going to do a thing through the rest is politics,

where people can get signed copies.

We will explain in the newsletter how that gets done.

Very good. Okay. Thank you all so much. Bye-bye.

See you soon.

Thank you.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.