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Monday 07 October 2024

Review: The Rest Is Politics Featuring Alistair Campbell & Rory Stewart @ The Brighton Centre

The strapline for Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart's The Rest is Politics podcast is 'disagreeing agreeably' but, despite Campbell being a lifelong Labour supporter and Stewart a lifelong Conservative and previous runner for the leader of the Tory party, there is little they seem to disagree on; the only exceptions perhaps being the Iraq war and the Royal Family.
Credit Simon Turner

Despite being from different parties and backgrounds they are both pretty much centrists. 

Alastair Campbell was kicked out of the Labour Party when he voted for the Liberal Democrats due to Corbyn's leadership, and Stewart left the Tory Party due to their ineptitude in government and Boris Johnson's Brexit (all fascinatingly detailed in his recent Book 'Politics on the Edge').

A quick bio of the two men.

Alastair Campbell, ex-political editor of the Daily Mirror and then Today came to prominence as Tony Blair's campaign manager and New Labour's Director of Communications. Malcolm Tucker in 'The Thick of It' is supposed to be based on him. 

He's a New Labour man through and through, dislikes the Tories immensely and has well documented issues with depression and alcoholism

He is also a mental health and young persons activist, runs a lot, wild swims and plays the bagpipes. During the show it struck me that at sixty-seven years-of-age he still has no grey hairs.

Roderick James Nugent Stewart OBE FRSGS FRSL (yup!), known as Rory Stewart, is a British academic, broadcaster, writer and former diplomat and politician. 

He is a former MP for Penrith and the border and was educated at Eton and Oxford. 

He's worked as a diplomat in many posts, was briefly the secretary of state for international development under Theresa May, and spent two years walking across Afghanistan. His father was in the military and he supports the Royal Family. He is about as 'Tory establishment' as you can get.

The Rest is Politics is the UK's most popular political podcast. Started in March 2022 when Tom Holland, host of Gary Lineker's Goalhanger Production's The Rest is History, suggested Campbell started a political podcast along the same lines. 

Campbell suggested and auditioned hosts and asked the audience who they wanted him to choose. They wanted Rory Steward. And so The Rest is Politics was born.

Both men are very accomplished and incredibly busy, so for the majority of the podcasts the two men are not in the same studio. Often Rory seems to be at an airport. 

They release two episodes of TRIP a week, the first usually consisting of a discussion and exchange of views of the week's events both in the UK and worldwide. The second is a question and answer session with posts supplied to the duo by the audience, mostly via Twitter (now Musk's X) which both men use.

In the 2.5 years since its inception the podcast has become hugely popular, the most popular political podcast in the UK, and by a very long way. It is making the two men a very good living. 

Much of its popularity might be put down to the two men's natures and their relationship. They obviously like each other a lot.... and they rib each other... Campbell, an avid supporter of Burnley FC often takes the micky out of Stewart for his complete lack of knowledge about football.

The podcast also works because of the huge knowledge and experience the two have of UK politics. Their insightful views are peppered with touching anecdotes and interesting stories. 

In many ways the podcast stands out for what it does not have, all the things that make politics and political discussion so depressing and unwholesome nowadays; no modern social media related hatred, no side, conspiracy theories and negativity, evasive politicians and interviewers continually interrupting whilst aiming for the 'gotcha moments'. It is truly refreshing, an amiable political space to be in.

Which at last brings me to a review of the evening.. which is pretty easy, as it's basically the podcast on stage, and that's almost it. But first... the tour through a number of UK cities is sold out... it's that popular!

Like the podcast it was split into two halves, the first a forty-five minutes discussion, with anecdotes, stories and political insights - then the second a forty minutes Q&A session with questions that the audience had sent via Twitter earlier. 

There were many moments of hilarity, especially when Campbell showed his 'home made' videos, one of hand and eyebrow movements largely featuring Rory. Campbell's shout of 'lights up' would see the two asking the audience to vote on various questions posed by the two. 

The results were often interesting and clearly demonstrated a breadth of political views amongst the audience. As ever, the discussion was illuminating and interesting, captivating even

The Q&A session dealt with mainly inconsequential and trivia questions. It was no surprise that my own 'What is it that has fuelled the rise of the right in the UK and throughout the world?''was not chosen.

The end was good fun but I'm not going to spoil it for any future event goers.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the £30 tee-shirts featuring the visages of the two men... I can't say we were tempted.

All in all it was a very enjoyable and relaxed evening in great company.

Before I went I'd have never thought of paying over £50 to see something like this.... £50 for a band, a theatre production or some ballet or dance yes, but two blokes on a stage in the Brighton Centre discussing politics? Nah. 

But I really should be more open minded.. Both me and my partner had a great evening and laughed out loud more times than we can remember.

If you'd like to catch up on Rory and Alistair find The Rest is Politics podcast on any podcast app you like (including Spotify and Youtube). Be sure to try out their Rest is Politics Leading too. This is where the two jocks interview people of note. When they are good they are very good. 

Look out for interviews with Angela Rayner, John Major, Fiona Hill, Robert Sapolsky, Andy Burnham and Andy Street (two mayors), Kwasi Kwateng, Gus O'Donnell, various foreign ex-PM's (Danish, Australian, New Zealand, Greek) and Brexiteer David Davis (which does the man little service but is interesting for the cognitive dissonance he displays). 

All are illuminating in their own ways and this is largely due to the non-combative interviewing techniques, easy style and lack of deadlines (interviews can sometimes stretch over two episodes).

I also have to mention The Rest Is Politics US podcast hosted by Republican Andrew Scaramucci (aka 'The Mooch' who, for ten days, served as Trump's White House Director of Communications) and US based British journalist Katty Kay, and especially their series 'How Trump Won the White House: The Day That Changed America'.

And of course Alistair is editor at large of The New European newspaper and both of them have written more books than I can mention here, with Alistair Campbell's diaries of the New Labour Years being one of the most widely read,

Highly recommended.

The Rest Is Politics is touring until Tuesday 15th October 2024. To see dates and for tickets prices CLICK HERE.

by: Simon Turner




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Credit: Mark Sellger

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