Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell share secret to 'disagreeing agreeably' ahead of Rest is Politics UK tour

The Rest is Politics co-hosts Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart have certainly reached new heights with their podcast since it was launched in early 2022 – not only by embarking on their “biggest tour to date”, but by speaking to indy100 at the top of London's O2 Arena, in which their show will happen ‘in the round’ next month.

Our conversation takes place under the flight path of planes departing from London City Airport on a slightly windy (but sunny) Friday morning, which is far from ideal for an audio recording. It also, in terms of the political arena, comes on the same day that Commons leader Lucy Powell, chair of the newly established modernisation committee, said the group of MPs should consider “what advantages, if any, outside paid engagements such as media appearances, journalism and speeches furnish to the public” – something many outlets suggest could pose problems for GB News hosts such as Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson.

The first question asked of Campbell and Stewart – the former taking a more laid-back posture by leaning against the metal barrier behind him, and the latter standing upright with his hands in his large black coat – taps into the changing landscape of political communication in the UK. High-profile politicians have their own shows on TV channels, social media campaigns have had varying levels of success, and people are happy to dedicate around an hour a week to listening to the two former politicians discuss current affairs.

Political communication has certainly changed over time, but how so, and what is it about a podcast which makes it so appealing in this space?

“Wow, a great question,” says Stewart, grinning. “I think part of the problem is that there is an increasing disintegration of trust, and I think social media contributes to that. We don't know what to believe. We've lost the kind of authoritative news anchors and newspapers guiding the conversation, it's all become a mess. I think in a world in which you don't trust anyone, one of the advantages of a podcast like we have is the fact that we're disagreeing is quite reassuring for the audience, because it means that we're getting away from the idea that there is just one truth. There's a limit to how much we can spin because we can question and tease each other if we head off down some nutty obsession.”

Campbell agrees with his co-host. “The landscape has just completely changed. As you said in your question, it’s totally different. And the question as to why - in your judgment - most politicians don't quite get it: some do, I think, get parts of it. Some people are very, very good at some parts of communication. Whether you like him or you hate him - and I am definitely much in the latter camp - Donald Trump, in his own way, is an extraordinary modern communicator. It’s definitely arguable as to whether he could ever become president had he not been such a good user of social media, had he not been such an original speaker. The way that he speaks is so original.”

Indeed, following the second presidential debate earlier this week, one of the biggest talking points to come out of the Republican candidate’s contributions is his baseless and debunked assertion that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are “eating the pets of the people that live there”. While some have relished the opportunity to share memes and musical parodies around the remarks, others have argued it only further amplifies harmful, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Campbell also mentions Kamala Harris’s campaign, one which has already hopped on the virality of Charli XCX’s album brat to get the vice president’s messages across.

“I doubt she'll even be looking at the social media stuff that's going out in her name, but it's very, very good because it fits within the broader campaign,” the former Downing Street director of communications explains. “So I think as long as the politicians understand that their job is still to do the top-level stuff, the big strategy, the big picture, the decisions, and then have teams around them who are so plugged into that that they know how to take that out into different media, I think that's a good thing.”

He goes on to reveal that he’s been trying to persuade UK politicians to use multiple channels and outlets to communicate with the electorate: “I think politicians have to understand that the important thing is still the strategy, the message that they're pursuing and that they're trying to take forward, but all these different channels, they have to use all of them in different ways and you just have to accept that the landscapes change, but the need for clear, consistent strategy is not.”

I pick up on Stewart’s comments about a “universal truth”, and ask whether in the ongoing age of “post-truth politics”, we’ll ever get back to a communally agreed definition of what the truth is exactly.

“I think it's very difficult to do,” says the former international development secretary. “I mean, partly because a lot of this is simply driven by the algorithms of the way that Google works, the way that Facebook works, particularly the way they sell advertising, and it's, in the end, just about grabbing people's attention. There's no algorithm that's driving towards the truth.

“The advantage, though, that I think Alistair and I have is that people are asking themselves, when somebody says something, when a politician says something, when a media personality says something, what's in it for them? What's their hidden agenda here? What party are they promoting,” he adds. “The advantage of having two people from two different political parties who clearly come from kind of different generations, different world views, is that at least the audience gets a sense of things being contested, debated, teased out. So I do think there's something very powerful in having more than one voice if you're trying to get towards the truth. I think argument matters.”

Campbell’s handed the mic, and he says co-hosting the podcast has definitely changed the way he talks about politics.

“I am somebody who is instinctively very tribal, likes a good argument, doesn’t step back from a fight, and it’s just been very interesting to sort of try a different way and realise that actually there's a market for that,” he says. “And I don't mean market commercial, I just mean that there are people who want to hear that sort of conversation and are probably just sick to death of the whole, ‘you've got 20 seconds to make your point, I'm right, you're wrong.”

Soundbites? “You’re always going to need soundbites, you’re always going to need tweets, you’re always going to need to be able to sort of put things into a headline, but I think what we do, we can say what the headline is at the top of the show. We'll say we're talking about this, talking about this, talking about this, and that's just a few words, but then we can explore issues.”

I get a sense for Campbell’s interest in data and statistics with his next point. “One, we have a lot of young listeners. Two, they listen to the end, which is really interesting. I mean, you watch people read newspapers, they tend to just flick through and, you know, I do the same,” he says. “They want to lock on to something where - whether they're left-wing, right-wing, centrist, or aren't quite sure, they think they're going to get a perspective, part of which is going to help them try to understand what's going on, and I just think that's a different way of doing things.”

Data comes up again when I ask them both about how their working relationship has changed over the more than two years since they first started The Rest is Politics, and mention that I listened back to the first two episodes to get a sense of its humble beginnings. I’m immediately drawn to Stewart’s joke in an advert that Campbell will do his “famous imitation of Oasis” at the afterparty, so if you didn’t get tickets to their reunion, you could at least see Tony Blair’s former spokesman do his version of the real deal next month – tickets are still available for their UK tour, at least.

“Well, it’s funny, I’ve not listened back. I tend to sort of move on,” says Campbell, which gets a knowing smile and a nod from Stewart. “But somebody else said to me the other day they just got into the podcast and they thought, ‘I really enjoyed this, I'll go back to the beginning’. And she said to me that actually it's very, very different at the start. It sort of feels like we're trying something, we're not quite sure about it.

“So I think it has developed,” he continues. “I do think we've got, we've got better in terms of what we do, but I also think there are, we are very different people, and there have been times when I’ve thought, ‘why am I spending so much time with this posh guy from the Tory party?’ I think it's just developed into a place where we feel very, very comfortable with each other's views and instincts.

“I think the other thing, we did some data on this, a lot of people say that what they enjoy about the podcast is this sense of listening to a relationship that is rooted in things that they're interested about,” says Campbell. “So actually, we get loads of messages, ‘you haven't talked about X for a while, why haven't you talked about Y’, because they know that Rory is particularly interested in, I don't know, Afghanistan, I'm particularly interested in German politics, whatever it might be. So that they get that sense of the relationships - it's definitely evolved.”

So what’s the secret to “disagreeing agreeably”, to adopt a phrase used in the podcast’s promotional material? “I think it’s about listening,” replies Campbell. “I think that one of the things that we both do quite a lot. We've got a team that does a bit of research, we both do a lot of research ourselves. We will have a discussion about what we're going to talk about, then we'll spend a few hours, on our own, looking into stuff, we never discuss what we're going to say.

“What that means is that we come to it with our perspectives, always trying to give people the facts about on which we're basing an argument, but then listen to what the other person's saying,” he explains, “and I think that's the key to it. I think it's actually listening, and then responding to what that person says where, again, I think a lot of interviews that you see, I think what you tend to get is people not listening, because both the journalist and the politician are constantly in transmit mode, as opposed to trying to listen and then have a conversation. So I think the key to disagreeing agreeably is actually to listen, and try to understand why they're saying what they're saying.”

Stewart lists some more answers. “I also think empathy, uncertainty, thinking, being able to admit when you’re not sure about something, when you don’t fully know something,” he says. “I mean, hopefully, Alistair and I, when it's working well, are talking about it like normal human beings. We're able to accept what we know more about, what we know less about, where our instincts come in and be a little bit more open. I mean, the problem with a lot of political communication is that it's very, very artificial. It gives this very, completely weird impression that politicians are omniscient geniuses who have the answer to everything. So I think, yeah, I think it's partly - as Alastair says - listening, but listening is part of allowing a more human side to emerge.”

And of course, people can listen to The Rest is Politics on all major podcast platforms, and in person when the show goes on the road in October – with their US counterparts Katty Kay (special correspondent for the BBC in America) and Anthony Scaramucci (who had a, to quote Stewart, “astonishingly short” time as Trump’s director of communications) joining them on select dates.

More information can be found on the podcast’s official website.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.