Rory…what are you wearing?’
As a listener of their podcast, it’s great to see Rory Stewart’s face when Alastair Campbell kicks in, as he so often does on The rest is politicalto rib him. And it won’t be long.
“Are you wearing a kilt?” grins the former New Labor communications director, five seconds after our interview. I see a tired expression on the face of the former Tory leadership hopeful, followed by the trail of a smile.
“I’m wearing a kilt, yes.”
‘Why? Why are you wearing a kilt?’
‘Because I talked to a Scottish school where all the little kids were in kilts. And…’
“Oh, no private school, Rory. Please tell me you haven’t spoken in private schools anymore. What’s the matter with you and private schools?’ A bigger smile. Two bigger smiles, in fact. Three if you count mine.
“They are all big fans. One of them, this little kid, was on his way to Eton, came up to me and said, ‘I’m such a big fan of the podcast. I’d love to hear Alastair…”’
Calling Eton every two minutes?
“Even though Alastair berates Eton all the time. Maybe they’ll fine tune that a bit.’
For the uninitiated, this exchange gives an idea of what we’re listening to The rest is political is like. Ostensibly, yes, it’s a serious podcast: where everything from the current government to the situation in Ukraine to the underreported goings-on in Sri Lanka, or Colombia, or Burundi is discussed and dissected by two incredibly knowledgeable, as-passionate men on both sides of the political divide. But it’s also a lot of fun. You’re never more than a few minutes away from a war story in which Campbell argues with Tony and Cherie Blair over the then Prime Minister’s coat, while an amused Vladimir Putin watches. Or Stewart making his (very good) impression of Boris Johnson when he (not fondly) reminisces about his time at the State Department. Or Campbell remembering the time he met Miley Cyrus, with Johnson, at the behest of their daughters.
Boris Johnson, as you might expect, is quite common. To say the least, neither Campbell nor Stewart, otherwise as different as red chalk and blue cheese, are fans. “If it can be believed,” Stewart says, “I may have a deeper moral problem with him than Alastair. But in a sense, paradoxically, he is also a kind of gift to us.’
This is true. In the same way that Donald Trump made life easier for American newspapers, Johnson’s ubiquity in the political news cycle—Campbell forever berating Stewart for calling the prime minister “Boris”—certainly helps support a show like The Rest is Politics. For example, I wonder if Sir Keir Starmer versus, say, Jeremy Hunt would provide as much material for discussion.
‘Yes. Or if Keir Starmer was in office, because then I find it a bit more difficult,” says Stewart. “Alastair still feels a very, very strong loyalty to the Labor Party and would find it quite difficult to hammer the Labor Prime Minister I think.”
“All I’d like to say about that,” Campbell continues, “is that I think we talk less about Johnson on the podcast than I write about him, say, in my column in The New European. Ukraine is a very good example. I would say that in the early days after the invasion, most of our discussion was, I think, about foreign policy. With some elements of what happened in Britain, of course. And I also think, to be absolutely honest, people like us to rant about Boris Johnson.
“But we don’t just do that,” he concludes. “We talk about a lot of other things and we’re very careful about doing that. I don’t want it to become some sort of diatribe against Johnson every week.’
The rest is political was born when Gary Lineker’s production company, Goalhanger, started podcasting. Campbell had known the man in charge of this new territory for years and years. Because we are both absolute fans of Burnley Football Club.” It was suggested that Campbell team up with a Tory and do a political show.
“Their first idea,” Campbell says, “was me and Dominic Cummings. I did indeed have a conversation with Dominic Cummings and he said no. “I’m too busy getting rid of the cart,” were his words. And then I thought, “Well, Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine, probably the wrong generation.” I thought Anna Soubry, I thought Dominic Grieve, I was just throwing a few names around, and I clearly had Rory on that long list. But then I did an Instagram Live and basically just said, “If I were to do a podcast with a Tory, who do you think I’d do it with?” There were tons of suggestions, but when I went through the whole piece, almost half said Rory Stewart. Very interesting.’
Stewart, who had previously met Campbell in Stephen Kinnock’s garden, “loved the idea” and immediately said yes. And despite the fact that they were and are very rarely in the same place – the only episode they did in the room together took place at Stewart’s house in Scotland – things went really fast thanks to Zoom. Three weeks after their first conversation, the first episode was uploaded: the stated goal was to “pleasantly disagree.” It’s a principle they’ve stuck to for the most part, apart from one discussion of Northern Ireland protocol that dissolved into the kind of shouting you’d expect in a bar, or, you know, the House of Commons room. “It’s about being able to talk to each other with respect, of course, and treat each other as equals,” Stewart says. “And I think we’ve recovered from that, but I think it was an example of what can go wrong.”
Aside from this particular incident, it’s clear, as Campbell puts it, ‘We kind of get along. We have very different backgrounds, very different politics, but we get along.’ I ask them what qualities they see in each other. ‘I think Alastair’s great quality is tremendous clarity and confidence,’ says Stewart. “He has an incredibly clear world view and it’s incredibly refreshing and helpful to have someone who sees the world so confidently and so quickly. I react very well to that because I see his idea very clearly and I agree or disagree with him.’
Of Stewart, Campbell says it’s “the expanse of his curiosity that I really like. He knows a lot about history, he knows a lot about geography, he knows a lot about diplomacy and politics: with a lot of things I think he has a deeper knowledge than I do. But no matter how much he knows, I think he always wants to learn.’
From the start, it was clear that the formula, strange-few-improbable as it may be, worked. Statistics, the couple say, are “not really meant to be spent.” But Campbell does note that downloads for the most recent two episodes were “well in the six figures.” Some weeks, Stewart enthuses, there’s “20 to 30 percent growth.” It has been at the top of the Apple Podcast charts from pretty much day one. “I think we were seven weeks without a break and in total over the 18 weeks” [we’ve aired], it is almost 10 weeks that we are at the top. We’ve never been outside the top five,” Campbell says. “I did message the production team this week. Something called Chatabix was #1 for a few hours. I went, “What the f*** is Chatabix? Why is it #1?”
The best measure of how well The rest is political connects, however, comes from people on the street. “Honestly,” Campbell says, “if you do something like Sky News or BBC Breakfast or Good Morning Britain and then walk around, you might get three or four people saying, ‘Ooh, I just saw you on television,'” or: “Ooh, I just heard you on the radio.” But with this podcast… it’s happening everywhere I go right now, all the time.”
“I find it a little disturbing,” Stewart continues. “I was on the plane that flew over from Jordan and the flight attendant listened and told me. And then the man in the seat behind me told me he was listening. And the man in the chair across the street. Same when I’m standing in line at immigration. And then I got to London, I walked out of my hotel and was chased by a priest on a bicycle, come running up the sidewalk and say, “I just want to tell you…” you know. Alastair, I think, is calmer about it than I am. I think it’s a bit over the top actually. I hope it calms down a bit.’
That, unfortunately for Stewart, seems unlikely. Their most recent episode, with Tony Blair as their very first guest, was their biggest to date. And there are plans for more. Campbell says there is “already in the works” to get a Conservative prime minister. They call Theresa May and David Cameron. But also that they absolutely do not want it to become a weekly interview show. Rightly so. Since it honestly works fine with just those two,