Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart provide Cardiff with a fun evening of political anecdotes and jokes, with some serious conversations along the way. Campbell and Stewart started The Rest is Politics podcast in March 2022, having both left their respective political parties (Stewart Conservative and Campbell Labour), in the hope they would be able to provide some level-headedness to the often feisty and rampant political debates. They do this by trying to “disagree agreeably”, releasing two episodes a week.
The podcast has gone on to become one of the most popular in the UK, with a reported 650,000 listeners per episode, it has been the UK’s number one political podcast since its launch, beating competitors such as The Newsagents and The Telegraph’s The Daily T. It is a testament not only to the podcast’s stature, but also to the hosts, that they have been able to launch a series of sold out shows across the country. The tour began in Brighton, then moved to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow before its penultimate stop in Cardiff.
The tour concluded with a sold-out show at London’s O2 arena. The first of the show followed the same format as their podcast episodes. The pair discussed the Conservative leadership debate— both were bemused that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are the party’s final two candidates.
Backed up by polling the audience, they agreed James Cleverly could have had a chance of winning in the final two. Of course, they also concluded, that Rory Stewart would make a better leader than either of the remaining candidates, with Stewart unsuccessfully running for Conservative leader in 2019. Then the topic then moved on the new Labour government.
While Alastair was obviously more favourable towards the government, the pair agreed it had been a difficult time. When the audience was asked whether they thought Labour was doing better than expected in government, only one percent of people agreed, with most people saying they were either doing worse or as expected. This was largely due to the government’s cut to the winter fuel allowance.
An interesting take from Campbell was that the government only seems overtly unpopular because of the extraordinary length of time between the election and the upcoming budget. When Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveils her budget this week, it will be 3 months and 26 days since the election. This has allowed for a lot of media speculation regarding the potential raising of taxes, especially whether the government will choose to raise certain taxes they promised not to in the campaign.
He also noted that following previous elections that resulted in change of governments, the time until the budget was much shorter. Following the interval, in which merchandise such as T-shirts with the pairs’ faces on could be bought (I am not sure who really wants that), Campbell and Stewart brought out their American counterparts Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci to discuss American politics and the upcoming presidential election. This was followed by a lighthearted Q&A, where the hosts used their swathes of experience to provide an insight into current affairs as well as poke fun at each other.
Overall, the show was greatly interesting if you are interested in politics. Was it worth the £44 price tag? Probably not, as you would likely hear the same opinions by listening to their podcasts.
But the fact Campbell and Stewart can fill arenas across with a variety of demographics shows that, despite not being active in politics any more, their centrist opinions are very much valued.