The Rest Is Politics: Corbyn and Cummings, Cool Britannia, and Ofsted

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

And me, Alistair Campbell.

Very good. And let's maybe start on Australia, our award. What are your thoughts about the

New South Wales state election on Saturday?

Means the Labour Party now holds power at the federal level and in every mainland state

in Australia. Labour's pledge to scrap the public sector wage cap was instrumental in

delivering the party majority government.

There's something else very interesting about the election in New South Wales, Rory. I wonder

whether both the main parties listen to our podcast because there seemed to be an outbreak

of agreeable disagreement. Australia is amongst the roughest politics in the world when it's

rough. It can be really, really rough. But it seems that the new Premier, Chris Minns,

when he took office, the guy he defeated thanked him for the nice way that he campaigned, urged

all New South Walesians to get behind him. And it just seemed all a bit strange for Australia.

And I just wonder whether it's a sort of belated reaction to the fact that they had

the sort of Morrison populist politics for so long, and maybe they feel that it did a

lot of damage. But it means that all the mainland Australia now is 100% Labour. Tasmania is

the only part of Australia that now has a non-Labor leader at federal or state level.

Very, very interesting, isn't it? And I was struck, I was in Australia about nine weeks

ago now. And I was very struck there by how proud people are at the moment by Australian

politics. I had Australian students when I was teaching at Yale towards the end of the

Trump era. And I remember feeling exactly what you were expressing, which is in Britain

we often had a sort of cliche about Australian politics that it was quite sort of coarse,

almost populist in turn. But my Australian students were incredibly proud of the moves

made, for example, by Howard on banning guns. And certainly in a US context felt very, very

proud of how moderate Australian politics was.

Yeah. Yeah. There was also, it was interesting how within the debate now in Australia, there's

a debate about whether ultimately it helps states that have the same party in power as

they have at the federal level. And there's quite a lot of interesting stuff in history

to suggest that it doesn't always work that way. And I guess you could, you know, I guess

it's a question that at the moment, Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham in Manchester, Steve

Rotherham in Liverpool, the other kind of labor, big labor councils as well, there's

an automatic assumption is going to help. And you understand why? Because they're basically

on the same side. But of course, what it means that they then have to, you know, they just

have to negotiate and they have to deal with the federal government. But at the same time,

they don't necessarily have the ease of being able to blame the federal government if things

don't quite go their way.

Yeah. And we should encourage people who haven't heard it to listen to our Julia Gillard interview,

which had a lot of reflections on misogyny in Australian politics, compulsory voting

and a great deal else. Anyway, over to you on questions.

Yeah. Right. What about with this one for you? Norma Rigg, I want to know why OFCOM

can deny that GB News is a news program. And if there is a higher body than it to whom

we can address the question of why GB News has given license to broadcast if it's not

what it says it is. Are you across this one?

Yeah, it's got to tell us about why we're on the idea that it's not a news program.

Well, because they've said that they can't be treated the same way as say the BBC or

ITV because it doesn't project itself as a news program. But the fact is it calls itself

GB News and it says it wants to be Britain's main news program. And what's more, John Nicholson,

the SNP guy is across this in a big way. I keep seeing him sort of push stuff out about

why he thinks this is a scandal. And I think that I think people should be a bit wary of

this because Labour should definitely be wary of this because what I think GB News is doing,

they've got you had a situation, for example, where Jeremy Hunt, who you know, we both would

accept is, you know, trying to be quotes the grown up in the room. And yet his big pre-budget

interview was on GB News with two Tory MPs. Now, that's a clear breach by the broadcaster

of an Ofcom rule. If Tory MPs, you can't present your own program unless you have a balance

of views across it. And yet Ofcom seem to say, well, it's kind of nothing to do with

us because they're not a news program. I think that's what the question is getting at.

So they sort of classify themselves as an entertainment program. They were able to pull

up Mark Steen for saying wrong stuff about the third vaccine booster claiming it was

causing higher infection hospitalisation and deaths. So Ofcom did an investigation on GB

News on that.

Fair enough. But I mean, I think the Tories are pumping stuff onto GB News because they're

collecting stuff to use for their election broadcasts and, you know, they get all these

ramps so they can pretend it's like a sort of independent commentator on the television.

Well, we should talk us a bit more. I mean, it's a very, very sad thing going on in the

Conservative Party at the moment. They really, I think, basically have given up on winning

the next election. But the big question is really what follows the election. And I'm

increasingly worried that we're going to end up with a right wing leader coming in because

that's what the Conservative Party members want. Remember, they voted in a 58 per cent

for Liz Truss against 42 per cent for Rishi Sunak last time.

Well, I've got to say by historical standards, I'd say Rishi Sunak is pretty right wing.

Yeah. But boy, oh boy, if you look at the Conservative home polls, the people who are

now seem to be leading amongst the members are Soella Braverman, Kemi Badenok, and not

amongst the cabinet, Jake Riesmog, pretty pretty popular. So I think that one of the

big fights really is, I think, and for the good of British democracy, I think we should

both want a Conservative Party that was led by a more moderate figure. Otherwise, you

end up in these very divisive cultural wars as the polarization increases. I know there's

a, you might think there's a short term benefit for Labour for having a lunatic right wing

leader in for the Conservatives, but I think it'd be very, very bad for our democracy.

Well, it might not be bad for our democracy if it went literally the way of, you know,

wipeout. It might not be bad if something else new emerged, but you're saying that the

right will never be a rump now. The right is now where the real Conservative Party lies.

Well, I would almost want to explore whether one could convince people to start joining

the Conservative Party simply to vote for more moderate candidates to stop this lurch

to the right.

Somebody just sent me a list of the Tory MPs. This relates to your point about the Tories

thinking they can't win. Now, I being the eternal pessimist from the Labour perspective,

I am always convinced that the Tories can win. And I imagine that Rishi Sunak has to get

out of bed in the morning, has to think that he can win. But when you see this list, Mark

Porsi, Sajid Javid, Douglas Ross, Deanna Davison, who's only 29, William Ragh 34, Chloe Smith

40, Chris Skidmore 41, Andrew Percy 45, Charles Walker, Nigel Adams, Adam Afri, Crispin Blunt,

Mike Penning, Gary Streeter, these are all people, Matt Hancock 44, Edward Timson 49,

Joe Gideon, Nadine Dorries, Paul Beresford, Stephen MacParlane, Robin Walker 44, Graham

Brady 55, he's obviously going to join the board in career, Pauline Latham 75, Nicola

Richards 28, Stuart Anderson 46, that's a long list of people, many of whom are young.

And from every side of the party, I think that is partly, and there's actually a number

of Labour MPs leaving as well, despite the fact that it's almost certain that Labour

will come into government. I do think that this is partly the phenomenon that we've seen

with Nicola Sturgeon and that we saw with Jacinta Arden, which is that modern politics

is becoming increasingly brutal. And whereas people in their late 30s, early 40s would

have been proud to have a political career, would have fought tooth and nail to cling

on to it, it's increasingly becoming something where many of those people, people who joined

with me in 2010, are feeling after 13, 14 years that they just can't bear to do it anymore

in terms of the impact on their lives, the impact on their families. And it's from every

part of the Conservative spectrum, there are people there who were, people I was very fond

of, who on the left of the party, there are a lot of people from the right of the party.

But it's very striking because many of those people are in very safe seats that it'd be

very unlikely that they would lose, even if Labour did very well in the next election

and they're still leaving. Where's the excitement? Erica Maas, I remember the 1997 election

and the elation many felt, not unlike 1966, the prospect for Labour government turning

over New Leaf, feeling that things were really getting better. So my question is, why am

I not feeling the same level of anticipation and excitement about the hopefully next Labour

government? Is it age? Is it they haven't chosen the campaign music yet? Is it because

they're just not a very exciting party anymore?

I feel quite excited at the thought of a Labour government coming back. But I don't feel there

yet. And I think that's a good feeling to hold on to because I don't agree with you

that it's a done deal. I don't agree with you that it's a foregone conclusion. And I

think Labour has to maintain that. I think the reason why Erica is not feeling the excitement

is twofold. I think one, there is such a powerful feeling now, you get it everywhere, that even

if Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunter are trying to be better than Johnson and Trust, which

isn't hard, but even if you set that, just the feeling that they've been around too

long, the election ought to come sooner rather than later, we've got to get rid of them.

That's a very, very powerful feeling in our politics and our country at the moment. But

at the same time, Labour are pursuing a strategy that I think is directed to the point of ending,

the point of the election itself. So they're not coming out with the detailed policy that

maybe people want, not least because as we saw the Tories try to do on childcare, we

talked about this last week, there's a danger that the Tories kind of nick it. And secondly,

I think the fact is that people, there's a dichotomy going on here in that people constantly

say, you need charisma in politics, you have to sort of have a bit of pizzazz and all that

stuff. But actually, I think what Keir Starmer may be doing is suggesting something different.

We've had enough of that. We've had enough of Johnson, we've had enough of Trump, we've

had enough of that style of politics. And I'm going to be, I am going to genuinely be

the serious guy in the room.

My anxiety is that it's not exciting in part because it's not specific enough. I'm all

for serious. But it's the lack of content. I mean, we did see this in the playdium again.

We did our classic questions to the audience.

Yeah, we did. We did. Yeah.

What was it? Sort of two and a half thousand people and everybody agreed. Remind us of

the three stages of Keir Starmer again.

No, I was very struck by this as well. And you're absolutely right. I'd forgotten about

this. The first question we asked the audience was of the three stages of labor strategy

for this election, the first phase was decontaminated the labor brand. Do you think they've been

successful? Yes or no? It was virtually 100% for yes. Tick. Second stage, show that the

Tories are unfit to govern. Do you think they've been successful? And it wasn't far

off the same 90%, I'd guess. And the third stage, setting out a bold, compelling alternative

agenda for the country. And I don't know, what was a third, if you're lucky?

Oh, less, less, less. I mean, it was very quarter. Yeah. I mean, it was very striking

that certainly that audience, which I would imagine is basically a center left audience.

Yeah. Don't feel they've got a clear, exciting agenda out of labor yet.

No, but that was why that was I actually went out. I thought it was a great night and we

enjoyed it and all that. But I actually went home feeling a little bit down because I thought,

God, if a very sizable chunk of that audience that is clearly interested in politics, otherwise

why they're listening to us, clearly engaged in politics, otherwise, why are they coming

and paying decent money to hear people talk about politics? But they don't get really

what the Labor Party is saying. So that's the bit that has to be filled. And I think

that's where you're right. I think that's where the excitement needs to come from.

My point, the point I was making is the excitement is not going to be about campaign songs or

razzmatazz. The excitement has got to be about people feeling changes coming and this is

what it is. Okay, Rory, loads of more questions to get through. So let's take a quick break.

Right. Here's one for you, Rory. If you were to add two more regular guests to the podcast,

one to the political left of Alistair, or one to the right of Rory, with whom you could

still disagree agreeably, who would they be and why?

Well, we've had a bit of a go at this because any one of the things we talk about is shortly

before I came on this podcast, I was approached by somebody suggesting that I do a podcast

with Jeremy Corbyn. And I believe you were also thinking about doing a podcast with Dominic

Cummings. Is that right?

No, I wasn't thinking about it. But the goal hanger, the Gaffer, Gary Lenaker, his people

were thinking about it. I did talk to Dominic Cummings about it. I think we both agreed

it wouldn't be a good idea.

What do you think would have happened if we'd ended up me and Corbyn?

Well, one would he have done it? I don't, I'm not sure he would. I think he'd still

see you as a sort of bit of an out and out rancatory. You might do it. Do you want to

get rid of me and get Jeremy in?

No, I like you. I like you. Although we do have a question gone as a segue. Why is Stammer

blocking Corbyn, Aliellis? What's to be gained by Stammer blocking Corbyn from standing at

next election? I'm not a Corbynista, but this does seem petty unnecessary and likely to

alienate his significant number of Labour votes. Why is he doing this?

Well, I guess he, I mean, from the strategic point of view, it goes back to what we'd said

about the first question at the Palladium, decontaminating the brand. So, getting him

kicked out of the party because of the feeling that he hadn't dealt properly with anti-Semitism

and didn't accept the findings of the, you know, of the inquiry into that, that is a,

you know, he did that. And if you've kicked somebody out of the party, it means they can't

stand as as a candidate. And it's, it's what I think if soon I get any sense would happen

to Boris Johnson. So, that's the kind of, that's the sort of specific explanation. And

I guess strategically, it confirms that. Then the risk, I suppose, is, well, if Jeremy Corbyn

does stand as an independent, how well does he do in his LinkedIn? And I guess the calculation

is that he doesn't win. And the election, by the election, it doesn't become about Jeremy

Corbyn. Added to which, I guess, I don't know why there's always keep banging this drum

about, you know, one minute you served in his shadow cabinet, now you're, you know, it underlines

the fact that the Labour Party has changed. So, I guess that's why it's doing it.

Offsted. Daniel Woodruff. Following the tragic suicide of headteacher, Ruth Perry, after

an offsted inspection that downgraded her school from outstanding to inadequate. Do

you think offsted should have paused inspections? Is it fit for purpose? And what changes to

the inspection process would you make?

But I think to have paused the entire offsted process because of one absolute tragedy would

have, other than maybe if you were doing it literally as a tribute to somebody who died,

I can't see that that would have actually achieved much. But I do think the final point

in the question, what changes to the inspection process would you make? And I think this is

part of a broader assessment of how we educate our kids and what we expect from our teachers.

And I do wonder whether we don't need to move away from the set. The parents have a right

to know whether schools are good. They want to know everything about the school. And offsted

has been the vehicle for that for some time. And by and large has probably done a reasonably

good job in maintaining standards. But I think particularly now, when you talk to teachers

and headteachers about the pressures that they're working under, about the lack of resources

that they feel about the problems of pay and the problems of retention, I think to add

in the way that offsted operate. I mean, Fiona, my partner has been a chair of governors

of more than one school and has sat on the board of governors of several schools. And

you know, the whole off, the way that offsted done it, it feels like, you know, when, when

they get the call that offsted are coming, it really does sort of send a chill through

schools now. Now, you could argue, well, if they were running the schools properly, then

you know, they wouldn't have to worry because everything would be running perfectly. But

they don't feel that when off said come in, that they're looking at the school as it operates

day to day, they're looking at the school according to tests that they're setting. And

there's a process now that people feel they have to go through to get a good off said

out.

Yeah, it's just it's very difficult, isn't it? Yeah, because I first faced the same as

the prison's minister with the prison inspectors. And prison governors were often prison officers

very, very angry at the reports they got from the prison inspectors. But of course, as

a minister engaged in policy, it is absolutely invaluable to have an independent eye of experienced

inspectors going in and trying to provide an objective judgment, which is almost impossible

to get from within the system. I mean, one obvious reform that offset could make is to

focus exclusively on schools, not get involved in questions such as care become off school

as opposed to off stead. And it's impossibly difficult, particularly at a tragic time when

someone takes their life. And I'm sure that a lot of improvements, but you do desperately

need to have clear independent view coming in. You can't really allow any institution

governments, schools, police, prisons to purely police themselves, you do need outsiders coming

in regularly to check what's going on.

Well, I'd say the one institution where that doesn't really happen is parliament. I mean,

yes, you get people coming in every few years to decide whether they want them to stay on.

But there is something a bit rich, I think about some of these, you know, a succession of absolutely

hopeless ministers who go around sort of parading telling everybody how badly they're running

the public services when, you know, they've delivered a mess in the political management

of our public services. And I do think that the kind of the absolute focus on schools

being about the, you know, exams and the results, the results of the key, I think sometimes

teachers don't understand what they're meant to be teaching, what the quality is meant

to be. And I think that there, for a lot of children, the fund is staying out of education.

I think for the teachers that I speak to, just I think feel absolutely ground down

at the moment. And I've said, so I think thinking, you know, I get what you're saying, but I

think what we actually need is a commitment and understanding of the importance of education

on national life and the sort of support for teachers, which will enable them to teach

well without constantly worrying that they're going to be marked down the whole time. That

doesn't mean you don't have inspections.

It's very difficult, isn't it? And you're in Singapore, where I believe teachers are

often paid well and have, I mean, that's another problem. We don't pay our teachers

enough.

They're also hugely respected.

And hugely respected, yeah. I think, but equally that there is this uncomfortable fact that

we've talked about, which is that since 2010, by putting more focus on literacy and numeracy,

Britain is doing much better in the international tables on literacy and numeracy. It is possible

to drive up standards in schools. And one of the ways in which that happened was by setting

very, very clear targets and holding people accountable to those targets as with any organization.

Well, I'll have to consult with Fiona, but I do remember the last time you mentioned

the piece of the tables, Fiona said, will you tell Rory? It's not all about the piece

of the tables. And then she meant to say something else, which I've forgotten, but I will come

back with the next week.

Now, BBC Chair Change Under Labour, Nick Teague or Tiger, if Labour gets into power, are they

able to change who sits at the top of the BBC immediately? Or do they have to wait for contracts

to expire, et cetera? That's a good question. I don't quite know the answer. I think ultimately

the Prime Minister points to the Chairman. And as we discussed on the leading episode

with Gary Lineker, I think we all agree that's an absurd situation. It was absurd when we

did it and it's absurd that the Tories do it. I can't understand how that guy Richard Sharp

is still there. But I suspect he's not going to go. Soon that's not going to sack him.

I think the only way you can get rid of the BBC doesn't get rid of the Chairman. I think

this is right. I think the government has to get rid of the Chairman.

Yeah. Well, he's been appointed for a four-year term, 6 January 2021. So he'll run through

to 2025 at the current rate. But in practice, whatever the theory is, you cannot remain

as the Chairman of the BBC if you have no confidence from the government. So it's what

has also been discovered for the head of the Metropolitan Police and other organisations

like that. In practice, if a Prime Minister came in in a very determined way and said,

the Chairman of the BBC know that has my confidence, they would be able to get rid of them. The

challenge, of course, is making sure that Labour behaves better than Boris Johnson did

and bring in a figure who will ideally follow what our gaffer said.

Or a new process. Yeah, exactly. Exactly what in the leading

pod you can hear Gary Linnick talking about, which is making sure that we move away from

a system in which politicians appoint the Chairman of the BBC.

Yeah. Theodora wants to know, Roy, do you prefer to read fiction or nonfiction, which

is more important? I'm reading David Bedeal's book at the moment, which is nonfiction.

Yeah, I'm love fiction. I think it's nothing is comparable in its ability to open perspectives.

I mean, I feel it's very interesting hearing Gary Linnick talk about his admiration for

Maradona and Messi and his sense that they're in a completely different category to him.

And obviously, I've got no way of judging that in football. But in reading, because

I write, it is that sense of war that I feel with Tolstoy or Henry James or even someone

like Norman Maynard, the sense that their minds are so extraordinary, that sense of

humour, that irony, that eye for detail, that empathy, their moral courage. So I'd sell

novels at the moment. Okay. I, of course, can talk about Maradona,

because I play with them, but I can't talk about Messi. I never played with Messi. So

I think we just have to couple of small suggestions for me on what I'm reading at the moment.

I'm reading a wonderful book called Winters in the World, which is about a journey through

the Anglo-Saxon year. I'm reading an extraordinary novel, a detective novel whose central character

has Tourette's by Jonathan Letham called Motherless Brooklyn. I'm reading Salast's account of

the conspiracy of Catalan. And I'm reading Henry Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy at the moment.

There we are. That's the new section. You're reading all of those books now?

Yeah, because I'm very weird. I move between them. I usually read three or four books a

day. Depending on my mood, I jump from one to the other.

Hold on. You don't read to completion three or four books a day?

No, no, no. I don't read it.

You are reading. You are at the different stages of reading thrift.

Exactly.

Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you the book I picked up at the airport and to read on

the flight home is the Midnight Library by Matt Haig, who's a very good chap on the mental

health agenda. And as I say, my current nonfiction, I always have one novel and one nonfiction

book in my bag and unlike you, I don't have a Kindle. And my nonfiction is currently David

Bedeal, The God Desire, which I don't think is out yet, but he very kindly gave us a copy

when we were interviewing him for leading the other day.

Now, listen, why don't we close on these two related questions, which they're kind of

for me, but I think they can open up an interesting discussion with, with both of us, given we've

talked about the gaffer two or three times, which I guess is about the role of celebrity

in the political debate.

Callum Swanson, Britpop and Cool Britannia, were Labour Tony Blair's attempts to cozy

up to Britpop brands in 97 effective? What was the thinking behind the strategy? More

generally, can endorsements from musicians, actors and sports people actually make a difference?

And related to that question, I want to answer this because I did almost reveal this last

week, but then I stopped. Jeff Lewis is obviously a very, very careful listener.

Alison started a story about Blair meeting David Bowie within the car afterwards in last

week's question time. Please come here the rest of the story, what happened next?

Oh, quickly on celebrity then. I've always been struck in politics that celebrities make

much less difference in a political campaign than you would have thought. Stormsea, for

example, came out and this was a big, big thing for Jeremy Corbyn, but I don't think

it had much impact on his voter turnout. I don't think the celebrities who endorsed the

Democrats in the US or endorsed the Remain campaign during Brexit made much of a difference.

And I think it's partly because people admire, generally, celebrities for what it is they're

good at. They admire them as a musician or a footballer, but they don't necessarily

follow their lead on politics. But what do you think?

I think it helps to mood music. I don't think people necessarily would say, I'll vote such

and such a way because, you know, Dua Lipa told me to. But I think people can be influenced

by that. And I think it helps to kind of the music. So for example, certainly during 1997,

this is maybe goes back to the early question from Erica about excitement, the sense that

people like Oasis and Blur and some of these other bands were clearly indicating that they

quite liked the look of this guy Blair and the look of new labor. I don't think it harmed

us at all. But I agree that I don't think it sort of shifts the dial in a big, big, big,

big way.

The David Bowie story well spotted Jeff because Jeff's obviously spotted that I deliberately

stopped in mid senders because I didn't necessarily want to complete the point. But as he spotted

it, I will complete most of the point. So basically what happened is in the car afterwards,

Tony turned to me and said, God, wouldn't you just love to be a rock star? And then

went on to explain if we had a discussion about the elements of being a rock star that

we would quite enjoy.

I'm sure it was something as clean as throwing televisions out of windows. On that, we're

going to come to an end. Bye-bye, everyone.

See you later.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.