The Rest Is Politics: 165: Question Time: Populism in Portugal, texting David Cameron, and a challenger to Trump?

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

And me, Alistair Campbell, and Rory, I want to start with an apology to our listeners.

When we get things wrong, we always admit it, and I don't know why I said this, because

I knew even after I said it that it was wrong, but anyway, this is from somebody called Ann

Onimus. Ann Onimus? Oh, Anonymous, I see. Very, very funny. Ann Onimus says, you were

very poorly informed about the police service Northern Ireland data breach. The release

of the data was in response to a freedom of information request. It was not due to a cyber

attack. It reportedly went through five separate checks before being posted. It should not

have been so easy, as you suggest. It may not have been an accident. Ann Onimus also

goes on to point out, it's Catholic members of the PSNI who are at risk of a result of

this breach, as they're considered by some on the far right nationalist side as treacherous

for having joined the force previously infamous as the RUC. Second part of that question,

fairly loaded, Ann. What's really strange, Rory, after we recorded it, I realized I'd

said that, and I knew it was absolute bollocks, but I forgot to phone the production and tell

them. So there we are. It went through.

Just on this one. So I mean, the BUCs reported on this. So essentially, there were two breaches.

The first breach happened when data was made public in error in response to an FOI request

and appeared online for three hours last Tuesday. And then a second data breach involving the

theft of a spreadsheet with the names of 200 officers and staff emerged the following day.

And that, as she says, is not a cyber breach. That was actually the theft of a police issue

laptop and radio from a private vehicle. But it's somebody, a second person, just been

arrested by an online police. So taking it very seriously. But it's a reminder to all

of us, because if you read too quickly these stories that says a major data breach, one's

a major assumption is that it's a cyber attack, not that somebody's releasing it in response

to a freedom of information.

No, but I knew because I remember thinking at the time, who on earth would have released

that as an FOI? So anyway, slapped risk for me and I'm blaming the heat. Now, the next

one is you. Populism in Portugal. Tommy Ribeiro-Homes. Rory teases with the Portuguese exception

to the populist way, but you ended up not going into it on the podcast. The populist

shaga party has grown rapidly over its short existence. And indeed it has Rory. It's now

the third political force. I sort of knew that when you said it. And I thought maybe

he knows more than I do here. But, you know, they're going into the European elections

and they're currently at 13.2%, which isn't bad for a, you know, smaller party. They've

got 12 seats in parliament. And even though they've got none in the European parliament,

on that voting, they gained three or four seats of Portugal's share in the European

parliament. And they are pretty right-wing. I mean, they've got similar rights to premises

slightly neo-Nazi groups.

It's definitely true. They do have this party, but Portugal has had a different history to

other European countries. And I don't want to overdo it, but I think that you can make

a case that Portugal's been a really remarkable example of moderation. You presumably are

cheered up by the fact that the two main parties are the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic

Party.

Absolutely. As far as it's done pretty well, I mean, you know, so yeah, they're a rare

success story on the more progressive side.

It's worth looking at them. Maybe you should look at them a bit more. So obviously Guterres,

who's the UN Secretary General was, was their leader, Antonio Costa and now. But people

often sort of think about them as though they're just a sort of subset of Spain. But in fact,

their historical experience is a bit different. Yes, like Spain, they were under a dictatorship

to the early 70s, but it wasn't a dictatorship that like Franco's, it wasn't one that tried

to crush kind of national identities. It didn't have quite the extreme brutality of Franco.

They had a much more dramatic transition out of dictatorship. Spain, there were a lot of

issues that weren't dealt with in the 70s that continue to haunt and you see this through

moving Franco's body and stuff. Unlike Spain, they didn't grow into this huge housing bubble.

And Spain, of course, has massive automobile industry, wind manufacturing, tourism on one

of the largest scales in the world. Whereas Portugal is still very much doing things like

manufacturing cork, manufacturing shoes. They're also different because traditionally,

a bit like Ireland, which I guess is maybe a comparable economy in terms of size and

scale until it started to grow so quickly. The problem in Portugal wasn't immigration.

It was immigration. Portuguese leaving to go to other countries, the way that people do from

places like Romania or Albania. So there wasn't the same underlying stuff. And finally, I think in

the financial crisis, Spain ended up with nearly 50% youth unemployment. And I think their general

unemployment rate shot up to nearly twice that of Portugal's. So maybe there haven't been quite

the same drivers in Portugal in terms of the 2008 financial crisis, immigration and other

things. I mean, they still obviously inherit the problems with social media. They did go through

a brutal situation, the financial crisis, their debt. But maybe that's part of the reason why

they've tended to be more moderate and more centrist in their politics since the 70s.

Costa is now in his third term, which is pretty rare for any leader these days. But there have been

quite a lot of scandals and resignations in recent months in his third term. I think he's lost

double figures now. He's lost ministers and secretaries of state, which is almost Boris

Johnson level, and partly to do with some issues of corruption and also past conducts.

But I think that you're broadly right that we're talking about a pretty successful progressive

government. We should thank our eagle ear to Portuguese listener for pointing out that we

didn't go back to something that we said we were going to. So thanks for that.

Very good. Okay, next question coming in from Siddhartha Kare. What are your predictions for

the Republican primaries? Any thoughts on the Reagan-oriented Vivek Ramaswamy?

Is this the guy that everybody's talking about with the big money coming behind?

Yeah, so Vivek Ramaswamy is very, very young. I think he's in his late 30s. He is famously kind

of fast, eloquent talker. He is an extreme isolationist. He seems to want to have America

to have almost nothing to do with the world at all. He's, I think, said that if America manages to

get independent with semiconductors, then there's no point in defending Taiwan at all.

And as Rhonda Santis loses some of his momentum and energy,

people are beginning to focus more on Vivek Ramaswamy.

Well, I don't know much about him at all. So I'm buying to your superior knowledge on that.

And look, I feel that unless these legal cases against Trump really do him,

I think he's going to be the candidate. It's not that long ago. People were talking about

Rhonda Santis as being the great white hope. As you said yesterday, he's virtually vanished.

I see Trump's not turning up for the first debate. Chris Christie had a wonderful,

wonderful put down on him about that, basically saying that he was both useless and a coward.

So there are some sort of voices coming out telling the truth about Trump.

Very good.

James Thompson, in light of GCSE and A-level results, in your well-traveled and worldly opinions,

which education systems from which country is the most fit for purpose and effective?

How should we measure success in schools? We had quite a lot of questions about education

this week. Jack Harris, seeing as the education secretary has admitted that A-levels about

extension exams are pointless in the long term, I was wondering if you could define the point

of education. I don't think she was quite saying that. She did say something, I think, rather odd

for an education secretary on the day that exams were coming out. She said in 10 years time,

nobody will care. I think that is a very odd message for an education secretary put out there.

Well, I'd defend her for a second, because I think one of our questions that she defended

didn't they? It is true that by the time you're 10 years into the workplace,

people don't pay any attention to what your A-levels were.

Yeah, but is that the sensible thing to say on the day that kids are sweating over their exams?

I just thought it was a very, very odd thing to say.

Okay, even though it's true.

Well, it's true in some regards, but you still have to go in, particularly in the modern world,

people having to reply for jobs for most of their lives. So I think it does matter.

So it's partially true, but I thought it was a very glib and silly thing to say on the day that,

everybody's getting the exams. On the main point, let me just say, the countries which

overwhelmingly top virtually every big global education survey you see are Canada, Finland,

South Korea, and I'll tell you the one that's coming up big time on the rails is Estonia.

And they're all different. But if I can think of three things that I think they really drive

through their system. One is no segregation, whether that's by class, whether that's by

private public, whether that's by grammar, they all tend to want to go to the same schools.

The second thing, which I think is the most important is that they really value teachers.

And that is not just reflected in pay. And the other thing is that those teachers are not on a

totally constant treadmill of exams and inspection. And the third thing is the some strong system of

local oversight. And I think they're things that we weakened. Tell us about the local oversight.

So it's not all done from the center. It's more devolved down to the local authority.

Yeah, the local authorities have real power. They're properly funded from the center. But

then there's real local oversight of schools. And I think that we have got our system much more

centralized than it used to be. But I think this point about teachers is fundamental.

You know, we do seem to have had over the last few years in particular, a sense of government

and the educational sort of authorities being at war with teachers. And I just think it's not

the way to go. Teachers have got to be valued in a way that at the moment they're not. So I think

that's the answer to James's question. Those countries which value their teachers make everybody

feel ownership of the schools that they go to. I think Canada and Finland in particular, I don't

know about South Korea, but Canada and Finland, there is virtually no private education market

at all, because they know that they can go to good schools. Everybody knows they can go to good

state schools. So there's no point paying a lot of money if you can get a good education anyway.

Yeah, I agree with you. So what did politics teach you about yourself? Amy Gandon, what did you most

learn about your own character during your time in politics? What positive and what negative

traits did it bring out in you? Oh, Lord. And any more of one than the other?

It definitely brought out my obsessiveness. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think

there were times where it was good and there were times where it was bad. I think it definitely

played into my sense of tribalism. Although you would argue I still have a lot of that,

I can tell you I have a lot less that I used to. I think it made me quite intolerant at times.

I think it made me, I often, and I still have this, I often will analyse something and see a

problem so clearly that I just cannot understand why other people don't see it the same way.

And that is always a mistake in politics. What about you?

So I found politics very, very damaging, very damaging for my kind of body, mind and soul.

I think it's a world that doesn't really encourage stepping back and having the

space for critical thinking. But I also learnt the flip side of that, which is I learnt my weakness,

which is too much of a tendency to get into the details of things. I became a better minister

when I was able to really boil down my thinking to a simple position, a clear simple position.

And initially, I sort of slightly despised that. But I realised that actually it was moments when

I was able to say, for example in prisons, I will resign unless I bring violence down in a year.

A simple statement like that really gave me the kind of entry point into doing the kind of things

that I wanted. So it's a very, very strange profession though. I think it's not just social

media. I think the whole emphasis on campaigning, the whole style of political argument pushes

against what we need, which is careful, thoughtful policy analysis. So I found it very, very difficult.

But in a way, you're saying that that was because that is your character and your character didn't

change. And that's why you found it difficult. That's maybe not a bad thing.

No, I think parts of my character probably did change. I probably became a bit more fragile,

a bit more insecure, a bit more needy. I mean, after five years on the back benches, I began to

notice to my eternal shame that I was sending kind of creepy texts to David Cameron,

congratulating him on his latest speech in the hope that he might promote me.

Oh, right. Okay, I see. Okay. So that is not you?

Yeah, that I did not think was me. No, I went in thinking I was a pretty kind of independent,

secure figure. And I sort of stood up to Cameron and I disagreed and I rebelled,

you know, big vote about the Hasselords. And I tried to chart my own course. And then,

as the years rolled on, and I found myself stuck in the horror of the back benches,

I began to discover this more creepy ambition emerging, which made me pretty ashamed of myself.

My book has been about trying to get people involved in politics. I hope you don't sort of

go around the country. This is Willy Wilde, I used to say, stirring up apathy.

He used to say that was, he used to say that was his job was to go around the country stirring

up apathy. My great theory is that the way to change is to make people stare really hard

at the problem, be brutally honest in their analysis of the problem. And that's actually

the way to make things improve. Yeah, well, I hope you're right. Here we are. This is also really

about politics and how is Edward Gauchier, I've just reread, obviously, a Tory rereads books,

Marie Laconte's great book about gossip at Westminster. To what extent do you think gossip is

a good or bad part of Westminster? How much should it factor into your daily roles there?

I mean, the place was just full of gossip. It was really, really disturbing.

One of the things that made me sad is highly intelligent colleagues. And you know, whatever

you thought of them, people like quasi-quoting had a big brain, but it was impossible to get

them to be serious. It was impossible to get them to sit down and talk in detail about policy. The

whole culture of the thing was about offhand jokes, gossip, sitting in the tea rooms, looking at the

newspapers, seeing which scandal had hit another colleague, gossiping about who was being promoted

and who was going down there. And the culture of the journalists too, the lobby, was basically not

really about taking ideas seriously or the integrity of individual seriously. It was all about

who's up and who's down. What was your experience? I absolutely hate gossip. I don't really see that

as gossip. What I hate, and there's a lot of it in politics, is when stories develop about people

and nobody knows whether they're true or not, but nobody really cares because it's just gossip.

Now, I fell victim to some of those. I remember this story went, I think I've

talked to this story about a story went around that I was having this affair with the Tory MP's

secretary. And it went, it was like everywhere. It was like, you know, and I sort of started to see

people looking at me differently and all that sort of stuff. And it was like, and I saw it. So,

do I say anything or don't I? And, you know, it was completely untrue. Now, I didn't, I had loads

of stuff thrown at me all the time. So it didn't really bother me that much. But it bothered the

woman a lot. And she, I think, found it very, very difficult to deal with it. And then there's

other sorts of gossip. I often think about Leon Britton, the stories that went around about him,

that were just truly horrible. And used to hear people say, well, you know, no smoke without

fire, no smoke without fire. But it was gossip. No, no, it's completely horrible. So I had the

same. So I had a story that was put in the newspapers and was reported in the newspapers

from a spreadsheet put out on the sexual misdemeanors of Conservative MPs. And my name was listed with

the name of my parliamentary assistant. So it said, Rory Stewart, and then the name of the

parliamentary assistant, I'll repeat her name on this, but Rory Stewart asked his assistant to do

odd things. Literally, I have no idea what this was. I mean, maybe she had complained to someone

in the canteen that I'd asked her to go and get sushi or something. But the implication was clearly

some kind of weird sexual activity. And of course, I was, you know, I was a married man,

I had kids, and for her, unbelievably shaming and embarrassing to have her name out. And I was

being attacked at the same time at she's Dominic Raab. And I said to the Conservatives that time,

I'm going to go out and challenge this. I'm going to go straight in the media and say this is

complete nonsense. I'm going to put out a Twitter statement. And I was under huge pressure from

the media operation number 10 to do nothing. I can see that. Why? Well, because, because what

happens is that if you do it, then everybody else will be expected to do it. And of course,

they can only do it if it's not true. That would be the thing. That would be the thing. So the

ones that said, you know, so and so and so and so, you know, you can't walk by and without

impinging your arse. And I remember the document, by the way, you'll be pleased to know that I

don't remember you begin it because they were far worse offenders. And I guess even I at something

like that would would look at that and think I'd immediately see political advantage. And that's

again something that's wrong with politics as opposed to oh, shit, this could happen to us.

So the fascinating thing is how disingenuous the press team were. They didn't say to me what I'm

sure is true, that that was the reason they were doing it. They said, oh, no, no, no, you'll cause

yourself more trouble if you put out a statement. It'll just, it'll just make more of a story.

I put out a statement. I completely ignored them, put out a statement on my website, put out a

statement on Twitter, killed the story instantly. Nobody mentioned me again. Everybody else continued

to be in a morass of problems and allegations because some of these allegations you say were

true. But it was a real kind of reminder of the weirdness of completely unfair humiliating gossip.

And then your own party preventing you from getting out and clearing up. And I completely

agree with you. Everybody reading that would have been like, well, no smoke without a fire.

I mean, really would you say that about Rory if he hadn't done something weird? It can't actually

be that he's asking the guy and get sushi. And it's named her name. So she had to put out a

statement as well saying, Rory, I promise, did not do anything weird to me. But did I pressure her

to put out that statement? I mean, once you start it, where does it end?

The thing about gossip, the guy is so corrosive. And of course, it's so tempting in politics.

If you can get a rumor going that somebody's up to no good or you get a rumor going that

your nose is going to affect them psychologically or affect their private life, affect their home

life or whatever is so tempting to do. Now, I think I'm, you know, I was pretty good because

I do hate it. I really do hate it. But I've got to be honest, there were probably were times when

if there was a rumor flying around, you sort of let it fly, I guess, but it's pretty horrible.

It is horrible. It is. It's horrible stuff. Right, Rory, let's have a quick break.

Now, here we are, Rory. Question for Rory. This is from Holly and the EV. Can you envisage yourself

being part of a One Nation Tory revival following a conservative loss in next year's general election?

Question for both of us is a One Nation Tory revival even possible in today's Conservative Party?

This is something I think about every day. If I felt that a One Nation revival was possible

in the Conservative Party, I would be standing for election at the next election. But honestly,

I don't. I don't recognize my own party at the moment. I fear that when they come out of the

next election, they will be taken over by Suella Braverman or someone on the right and that if

somebody like me were to stand again and try to lead the Conservative Party back to the centre

ground, I would find myself in a very weird, isolated position. I'd feel like Mitt Romney

trying to challenge the Republican Party or Liz Cheney, that actually the party is now

seized by Conservative Party members who are very, very far to the right of people like me

and are deeply suspicious, see us as traitors, see us as remainers.

Would you get selected in Penrith?

It's an interesting question. I don't know. I didn't stand. So, Alex, you said,

why do we never do good news? And you've found good news in Guatemala where an anti-corruption

candidate is one. But he's an interesting case as somebody who got, I think, 11% of the vote in

the first round, made it through the second round of presidential election one. I think that if I

had run to be mayor of London as an independent this year, I might have had a hope under the old

electoral system because it used to be like the French presidential system. If I could come second

to Citi Khan, first round ahead of the Tory, I'd be able to win possibly in the second round.

But that's been changed back to a first pass to the post system. And one of the problems,

I think, of our current system is that our parties have quite a sclerotic grip. And I feel

that it would be pretty difficult, difficult to win as an independent anywhere. Maybe Penrith

would have been different, but pretty difficult in most places to win any kind of conservative

association. But if you say, right, so let's take this guy in Guatemala, Bernardo Arrivalo.

So, as you say, he starts from a low base and he ends up winning. And he does it on an absolutely,

on an anti-corruption state of politics. Look at the hell of us. We've got to clean this up.

And he wins. So what you're doing in a way is you're saying, okay, the Tories are going to lose,

you think, somebody likes to have a braverment is going to come in. Therefore, there's no place

for me. Okay. And for your sort of politics. But what that means is that the Conservative

party just keeps going in the same direction. Is there not a case for people like you, David

Gork, et cetera, trying to get back in so that eventually the penny drops and the Conservative

party goes back to being something more sane and sensible or moves into something completely

different? There's a total case for it. But if you put it in an American example, it would be,

it feels to me a bit like saying to a Republican, why don't you get in and try to turn the Republican

party away from Trump? And when you put it in those terms, it seems kind of absurd. It doesn't

seem credible that Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney are going to turn that machine around. And I don't get

how you do it. I mean, David Gork and I tried. I obviously ran for the leadership trying to

imagine a different type of Conservative party and we ended up just being thrown out of the party,

thrown out of Parliament. So I think it's pretty tough. I think it's possible that if they

go through an experience like they did in 97, where they lurched to the right eventually

under Ian Duncan Smith and came back towards the centre, then somebody like me could re-engage

and maybe be part of a broader movement with a team that could try to make the case for one

nation conservatism again. But it feels pretty bleak. And to be honest, I'm not getting very

friendly signals. I'm not in a world in which number 10 is reaching out to people like me.

No, I can see that. Now, can I ask you a question where you have to defend me?

Yes, delighted to do that.

Are you going to defend me whatever I do?

Yeah, whatever you've done, I'll always defend you.

Sean Dexter says this, I'm just getting over seeing Red Mist during Alistair's dogmatic rant

during the small boats discussion. Well, no, it wasn't a discussion at all, was it?

Rory was trying to explore a new idea for addressing the problem,

and Alistair bumping his gums was not really adding value. Sure, I do love the phrase bumping

his gums. I wasn't unreasonable, was I?

No, I think you had a very, very passionate case you wanted to make. And you wanted to keep the

focus on your central point, which is that you thought the government was being outrageous on

this issue, and you want to land a point that you thought I wasn't accepting or listening to,

which is you wanted me to acknowledge that Rishi Sunak and his government are turning the small

boats issue purely into political weaponization. So we were disagreeing agreeably.

And you thought that I was trying to change the subject onto the rights and wrongs of

immigration and asylum policy. And in fact, actually, there was an interesting email

from one of your defenders that you forwarded to me, who took exactly the opposite view.

Obviously, I'm extremely pleased by the man with the bumping the gums because,

although I signed up to defend you, I'm obviously more on my side than yours. But

here's the other side of the argument. Finally, some feeling even anger from Alistair on small

boats. Of course, it ended in an agreeable disagreement, because that is the nature of

the trip beast, albeit highly enjoyable, sometimes education, occasionally even riveting.

Rory just doesn't seem able to not defend the government at the same time as castigating them.

Excellent.

Incidentally, some thoughts on very good. Am I the only one who finds it intensely irritating

every time the words are spoken? So I conclude it's to do with the fact that Rory's found

aware of stopping the conversation every time his small sea conservative argument is on the

threshold of being ripped to shreds. It doesn't help my mood. This is clearly straight out of the

Etonian debating society playbook tactic, which Alistair seems to fall for each time.

Who was this wonderful person?

You forwarded onto me.

Yes, I know, but we have to give this person the name.

Steve Tall, 53.

Good old Steve.

Let's be honest, you do do that with very good, don't you?

Very good.

You do?

Very good.

Whenever I'm really getting steamed out, you just go very good and move on.

Very good. So let's move on.

All right, boy, this one. James Ferguson.

Do Rory and Alistair think outdoor residential learning should be part of our curriculum for

young people? And is there a chance of it happening with the emergence of outdoor education

bills by Liz Smith, who I think is a Tory in Scotland?

Wonderful Tory in Scotland. I've actually often seen her climbing Mon Rose.

Sam Rowlands in Wales and Tim Farron in Westminster.

Tim Farron, my neighbour in Cumbria, who's a great fell runner.

Have we got three outdoor education bills coming forward in the

Welsh, Scottish and UK parlance? I think outdoor residential learning is bloody brilliant.

There's actually quite a good system that's been set up for this with some cross-party support,

which it'd be interesting to see whether governments will continue to support,

which is national citizen service, at the core of which is basically outward bound.

And it's targeted particularly at getting mixed groups of people, many of them from deprived

backgrounds. It's an option to go out and spend a few weeks learning personal life skills.

Good for the economy, the Lake District, because it often seems to happen around places like

Oleswater. But of course, it is expensive. And I think the challenge for anyone running

an education policy is how do you balance the very, very good things? I mean, it's amazing

what people get from that experience. If you've not done it before, it's genuinely life-changing.

But of course, it can cost hundreds of millions of pounds a year to fund it properly.

And there's so many other demands in education.

Yeah, but they found millions and millions and millions and millions to give to their mates

on COVID, didn't they? That's right. All they got to do is shake that money tree a bit more.

Come on, here's a question for you. You'll like this one because it won't make you remotely

defensive. There's no way at all this question will irritate you at all.

Here we go. Okay, yeah.

May Song Gladys, how much damage is the perception that Peter Mandelson is heavily

influencing Starman's strategy doing to Labour's election prospects?

Well, not at all defensively. In my experience, when people talk about a perception, they're

talking about something that has been created by enemies who can't quite find the truth for

themselves. In other words, May Song Gladys doesn't know that Peter Mandelson is influencing

Starman's strategy or not. May occasionally read it in newspapers, probably quite hostile to

Keir Starmer. So that's my answer to that question.

Very good.

Not at all defensive.

No, that was good. That was calm. That was cool.

Yeah.

My question is from Phil Davis.

As you are both exceptional linguists, Flattery will get you everywhere, Phil,

would you ever consider learning Welsh? I actually speak a bit of Welsh, you know.

Do you go and give us a bit of Welsh?

Well, I speak what I call traffic Welsh.

Go on, give us a bit of traffic Welsh then.

Well, Araf. Do you know what Araf means?

No, what is Araf?

I'll give you a clue. Just before you're going round a bend, you'll often see the word Araf

written on the road. What do you think it means?

Slow down. Slow down.

Slow, slow.

Hedlu. I don't know what pronunciation is like, but Hedlu, do you know Hedlu?

No, what's that?

You see Hedlu a lot. That's police.

Gwasanethau.

Gwasanethau.

Go on then.

Service station.

Service, the services.

I'd love to learn more Welsh. I mean, it's important to me because it was the language of Cumbria.

I mean, obviously the word Cumbria is Cumbria. It's for the Welsh nation.

And one of the things that really offends me about signage in southern Scotland at the moment

is it's in Gaelic. It says Feltigw Alba, which is completely bizarre because nobody in southern

Scotland ever spoke Irish-Scottish Gaelic. It's complete historical nonsense.

What they spoke was Welsh Gaelic. So in fact, the sign should say Criso i Cumbru.

Or you could have both. Rory, I think you slightly missing the point here.

What am I missing a point about?

Well, because very few people speak Gaelic in southern Scotland, in the borders.

Historically, nobody ever did. It was not a Gaelic-speaking part of the country.

There are a few schools there now. But anyway, what is doing is, and bit like the Welsh do,

they want to be proud of having their own language. I think you're making it quite a small part of a

history. Now, there may be a massive outcry against me saying that.

Yeah, there will be a huge outcry because people will point out Ihenogled, the Old North,

was this enormous Welsh civilisation dominating southern Scotland and northern England.

And that's where the Gdoddon comes from and the famous Welsh lullaby, which is all about

Derwent Water. Oh, God, you can't put this all on. Look, you're talking about a flag and a three

words on a board Rory as you cross the border. You can't have this whole bloody story there.

Here's a question for you. How many letters are there in the Welsh alphabet?

Oh, I don't know. What's the answer to that? 29.

29. What are the letters that we don't have?

Oh, I don't know. And they've got seven vowels.

Oh, gosh. Well, I mean, we should interview another Welsh MP. One of the things I love,

it's a naff thing to say, but I loved walking into the cloakrooms of the House of Commons

and hearing the Welsh MPs talk to each other. Speaking Welsh. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here we are. Anna Currie, do you think the September cabinet reshuffle is still

on? Do you have any predictions? I used to hate reshuffle speculation stories.

We had a couple of ministers who were given dozens of different jobs, depending on which

paper you read. My advice to all of our listeners and any story about reshuffle is don't believe it,

because even if it's true, they probably don't know that it's true.

And is it ambitious MPs leaking out their own names? I mean, is it basically people close

to journalists saying, I, this trust or whoever, are unlikely to be getting a job?

No, I think it's more, there'll be a bit of that, but I think it's more that,

by the way, I think we can rule that out. But I think it's more, we're going back to the point

earlier about the discussion earlier about gossip, is that journalists go out for lunch

with ministers and they all sort of talk up a few people, talk down a few people,

say things like, God almighty, you should see soon eyes rolling every time trees,

coffee opens a mouth. And okay. And I honestly do think some of it is based on stuff as basic

and simple and useless and stupid as that. The worst thing about reshuffle stories,

two things. The first is the ministers think they're real. So when it says, you know, Downing Street

think that so-and-so is actually really useless. Downing Street thinks that so-and-so is absolutely

brilliant. That minister reads it and thinks, oh, that must be true. When nine times out of 10,

it won't be. It will have just been made up or kind of, you know, dressed up, flammed up with

the sort of the touch of the Downing Street bit. And the other thing it does is it really kind of

undermines the effectiveness of a minister inside a department where people sit around

thinking, well, they're not going to be here very long. We don't have to worry about them too much.

So it's not very good for good government.

Well, I was really struck by how good people like Liz Truss and Pretty Patel were in the early

camera mirrors, making sure that they saw a lot of journalists and that their names were always

in the center of these conversations. And weirdly, number 10 responded positively to that. I remember

number 10 saying, well, you know, one of the reasons we're promoting them is they're such

good media performance. And actually, Liz Truss and Pretty Patel are not particularly exceptional

media performers I wouldn't have thought. Well, I'd say Liz Truss is exceptionally bad.

But that was the line. And the line was really created by her proximity to journalists. Right,

last question from you. My last question is from James and it's for you, Rory. What amazing story

do you have regarding governance and sustainability that really brought out the key fundamentals

of governments while maintaining high levels of sustainability? Blimey, that's good. That's,

I hope, a joke question on the fact that I keep grumbling about the words governance and sustainability.

Because I think the point that we're getting out of that is that you can cut that question about

nine different ways because sustainability could mean environmental sustainability,

financial sustainability. I mean, the whole thing is drives me around the root. But

a more serious question is the only thing I ever did in that era, which I was remotely proud of,

was introducing the plastic bag tanks. I put 5p on your plastic bags, which reduced the

number of plastic bags by some billions. Well done. Just on the words thing, though,

are there any words outside politics that you hate? If I were to tell you, for example, that I,

if somebody says the word portion anywhere near me, it's like polystyrene on glass.

It's a weird word, isn't it? It's got a nasty feeling, hasn't it?

I hate it. But are there any words like that that you don't like?

No, but then you're more musical than me. But I can see that's a very unpleasant word,

the P-O-R-T-I-O-N word. I've got quite a lot of words that I don't like being said near me,

but that's probably number one. Portion actually does something physical to me.

Yeah, I can sense that. I can feel that. Right. Well, I'll try to avoid that.

Okay, well, I'm off to learn my Welsh Gaelic so that I can put a bit of graffiti on the

sign as I drive through Scotland. Coming to see you.

Very good. All right, lots of love. All the best.

See you soon. Bye-bye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.